this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
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It doesn't, though.
The problem is the institution, not the nice people that think being a cop is a good way to make societies better.
There's shitty cops, and the command chain that does nothing about it. That's the problem.
Antagonising common peoples dads, and the people trying to be nice cops,and failing, is not the way.
We have to point at the right problem. And if you point at the corrupt chain of command nice cops will back you up.
Sir, this is the internet. There is no room for this kind of thinking. I'll kindly ask you to pick up your pitchfork and join the back on the line.
We can do it, we can create our own Internet, I mean Lemmy, without pitchforks and torches! At least until Lemmy gets relevant. Well, as "relevant" as reddit used to be.
Yeah, but we have to go after the systems heads, not for its fangs, or claws. These can be used against them.
Every "good cop" is one that looks the other way when the bad cops do bad cop things. Or they are actively in the process of being harassed out of the department for "making trouble".
Though it should also be said that the modem anti-cop movement comes from the correct understanding that their primary purpose is to protect private property interests, not your safety. Even the theoretical "nice" cop is spending their time, effort, and focus on store break-ins and broken windows and harassing homeless people that a business owner calls an "eyesore" or worse. But again, if they don't carry water for the rest of their gang members that "nice" cop is getting kicked out of the department.
Well, I get it. There's better places to spend ones time than being a nice cop.
Either they comply of they're out. But... You know. People are pressured to pay for housing, and food, and health. Maybe they're paying for someone's cancer treatment in their family. And cop work pays well.
People don't have much of a choice. We're all fucked. But individuals are not the problem here. The system is. The chain of command is. Capitalism is.
Fuck the police, as the repression apparatus for the bonjoursie state. Care for the people.
Everyone has the choice to not consciously oppress other people.
Cops have both individual and systemic roles in oppression.
If you do work irl the cops will eventually use their violence on you.
They're also seems to be a lot of issues with policy that they're expected to follow. And when they do unconstitutional stuff, they get defended for doing it.
That's, again, an institutional problem. Yes, down with those institutions!
"the problem is the institution, not the people actively participating in the institution in exchange for money and power" what
If money wasn't needed. If people had access to dignified work to pay for housing, food and health, they would have a choice.
Cop work is always available, on a very low entry bar, paying generally better than equivalent positions elsewhere. And shitty people get to vent their violence unchecked.
Nice cops "just" have to sell their should a bit. Some people get desperate and are willing to pay the consciousness price.
In my opinion these positions shouldn't even be available, the whole chain of command should be replaced by people representing the oppressed classes, committed to ending oppression.
I'm not defending police, I just think the criticism has to focus on the institution problem, not at the individual problem. Individuals are insignificant in the grand scheme of things, systems are everything.
Totally honest question: do you feel this way too about Russian soldiers in Ukraine, or IDF soldiers in Gaza?
I think it's fair to say that "nice cops" see themselves as civilians, and representatives of the population, trying to improve things.
Soldiers are military, and a very different category. But! I read many US military personnel go in there because superior education is not really accessible anywhere else. So, maybe there's a gray zone, there? Cannon fodder soldiers from poor strata die first, in any war. Most don't want to be there.
I have particular views about IDF being an genocidal maniacal occupation force for a colonising state that commits innumerable crimes against humanity. That you're probably not interested about.
And I have particular views about NATO using disguised Nazi Ideology in puppet states to seize and control it, that I also wouldn't think you wouldn't be particularly interested about.
Sure, like any other wildly unethical job there's a spectrum of different people's privilege and ability to easily cut out to a less cartoonishly evil job – I would hold Person A with a background in cybersecurity and no dependants a lot more responsible for every day they remain a cop than Person B who joined police academy straight out of high school and is supporting 5 children etc.
But saying that Person B should be excluded from "fuck cops" – that is, that there should be an exception to the general cultural work of making it socially unacceptable to be part of a murderous, racist, unjust, reactionary paid army – is supporting the institution that you're claiming to be against. Waiting until a complete societal transformation before campaigning for people to not take blood money (your euphemistic "consciousness price") is valuing Person B's economic solvency over the lives of the people they (or, being generous, just their colleagues) will harass, target, frame, and even kill.