this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
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No, it's the part where they'll evict you and beat up/down protests, minorities and strikes part.
While that part is much televised, I can't say that I've ever seen an officer do any of that. I HAVE seen police perform a core function of keeping the peace between individuals on more then one occasion.
Sure, any instance of that is a problem, but besides stopping strikes these all seem like things your neighborhood "us vs them" group might do. Or, in the case of eviction, just the regular members of the community. Admittedly, in the eviction case though that's only for delinquency in "rent to own" probably.
Point being, by and large community policing is a standard function of society and I think it's the standard function of police EXCEPT perhaps in large metros where police are enforcers outside their own neighborhoods.
You understand that this is pretty much nothing but anecdotal evidence, right? Maybe ask a minority or precarious workers how they see the cops. The peace police keep is mostly a fiction.
Not if the militia is delegated by the community. The community wont order its' militia by consensus to beat up part of the community.
That's not the role modern police took in a historical context. It has been created to maintain private property relations and that still is its' core function.
I suppose we will have to use our sets of anecdotal evidence and agree to disagree.
I can't argue that police reform is unnecessary because it is. Despite that face I don't think you can say that police aren't also making DUI arrests, responding to neighborhood disturbances, providing safety and first response for incidents on the road, and other non-state enforcing sorts of issues. Public perspective is important, but I think the ACAB crowd would also be inclined to tell you that anarchists are fundamentally dangerous, animal rights protesters are disruptive and misguided, and a bunch of other stuff that is "valid opinion" but is hardly accurate or well considered.
I would contend that ANY policing or militia unit will eventually come to be an enforcer of private "property relations" to a greater or lesser extent for any society that permits the accumulation of wealth or value, but that's not the fault of the rule enforcing groups. Someone has to keep the peace. (Maybe here's your whole political point idk).
The last thing I'll say is
This is bogus. Little towns in middle America do exactly this. Progressivism vs conservativism here near the birthplace of the KKK is not a quiet and harmonious affair as signs, graffiti, and even open displays of aggression show. People are nasty and people are good, but there are both types for sure.
I don't think any of your principles in this thread are wrong per se, but I'm not seeing how they scale beyond a small town.
I'm pretty sure the data on police violence is on my side of the argument.
Maybe. However, I have a high priority on how the capitalist system is not only imprisoning the many to the benefit of the few, but also currently in the process of destroying the habitat of our species. As such, the systemic role of the police in our current liberal capitalistic system is the most vital issue, IMHO. You yourself said that police reform is necessary. Most of the positive examples you listed can be done by public servants without a gun and the state issued monopoly on violence.
I don't really get that point. Firstly, because "the ACAB crowd" probably knows that anarchists are harmless to the vast majority of the population (and considering their political power, also harmless to the rest of the population). Also: what does public opinion have to do with the validity of a political philosophy? Was slavery less wrong in the past due to the racist beliefs of the populance?
Yeah, you kinda got it right there. The whole concept of private property is toxic. Once you believe that, it's a logical conclusion to not be the biggest fan of the people protecting that concept. (It's also about the job both attracting bully-like personalities and fostering those tendencies in the people with those jobs, but that's more of an individualistic critique)
I just find it a very bad-faith argument against council rule by concensus, to argue with a scenario where both society and the state condoned progroms and actively taught racist beliefs.
There are several examples of at least libertarian socialism. While those are not explicitly anarchistic, they sure have elements of what I'm describing. Historical examples are the Paris commune, anarchist Ukraine and 1930's Catalonia with the CNT/FAI. Contemporary libertarian socialist societies exist for example in Rojava and with the Neo-Zapatistas.
So what I'll leave with here is to clarify about public opinion:
You said I should ask high risk workers and minorities what they think about cops. I'm saying you can ask a lot of people what they think about anything and you're inclined to get a broad range of answers that are more or less extreme.
And also about people:
2016 and onward have made it pretty clear there is a plurality of perspectives that may all be toxic to a greater or lesser extent. This isn't just an artifact of the state: people disagree and sometimes in severe ways regardless of community size. It's not bad faith to say that if families can ostracize individuals and neighbor can turn against neighbor that adding a council and consensus doesn't make that go away. 60% vs 40% can still have nasty outcomes in conflict.