• blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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    16 days ago

    Serious question: What’s the leftists position on police in the ideal but realistic socialist world? What would make ACAB irrelevant?

    • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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      16 days ago

      Socialism removes the fact that Police serve the wealthy, rather than the people, so this inherently means they aren’t class traitors.

      There would be an expansion of social programs and services, better access to housing, and overall fewer crimes of desparation.

      • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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        16 days ago

        Police serve the wealthy, rather than the people

        Are there common every day examples where this happens? I’ll be honest my exposure to the police is extremely limited and from a UK perspective. Do you mean like the police will prioritise responding faster to wealthy people and are more likely to put resources in solving crimes against them than your average person?

        • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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          16 days ago

          No, I mean by upholding Private Property Rights and enforcing racist and anti-poor laws they uphold the brutal status quo.

          • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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            16 days ago

            No, I mean by upholding Private Property Rights

            What does this mean though? Like if someone breaks into my house then they shouldn’t be coming over to investigate?

            enforcing racist and anti-poor laws they uphold the brutal status quo

            Is this not an issue with the laws of the country rather than the police? I feel like it would be an even bigger issue if the police just became a law unto themselves and decided on their own what they should laws they should or shouldn’t enforce.

            • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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              15 days ago

              Ok, for one example, after the 2008 housing market drop, banks bought the debt from other banks intentionally writing bad loans, which they then resold to third parties. This buying up of the debt of the banks that collapsed during this time lead to banks pushing families out of their homes, many of which were paid-up, but the lending institution behind them had failed, in order to resell the property later, when the market prices had recovered, or use the land for other developments. This was enforced by the police. Bankers did not go around forcing people out of their houses, the police did it at their behest.

              Another is laws created specifically to punish people for being homeless. Laws like not being able to camp anywhere near a place they might be able to get themselves out of homelessness, e.g. a place with jobs, and other resources, not some place way out in the forest. These are also only effective because the police use violence to enforce them. Anti-solicitation laws fall into this category. Police often don’t realize that (speaking for my country) they are not constitutional at the federal level. Police departments that know about this tell their cops to do it anyway because it’s not like homeless people will likely be able to sue them.

              A third is the enforcement of petty traffic fines. Things like window tint, or minor violations in situations where the safety concern isn’t present. These fines are, often, the brunt of how they fund themselves. Petty violations, like tint, are also used to go on fishing expeditions, so they can either wrack-up more fines, or make an arrest, even if that means intentionally escalating the situation, lying about what happened, and giving false testimony in court. More arrests, more convictions, equals more money for the police, and the legal industry as a whole. If you work with, or around, police, like I have, you will hear them discuss things like testilying. Bouncing ideas off of each other as to how they can make bad arrests, and use illegal levels of force, while having a technicality to maintain their immunity, e.g. screaming quit resisting, while in a position where they know cameras can’t really see what is happening. This is just the tip of this iceberg, I would need thousands, upon thousands, of words to detail all the shit I have heard police say, and see police do.

              I can go on, but I think I have made my point.

              • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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                2 days ago

                I’m late to reply but thank you for the response, this is the kind of response and examples I was looking for.

      • timmymac@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        Socialism ends up causing all the problems you think it’s gonna solve. Name one time in history that it was successful.

        • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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          16 days ago

          What on Earth are you talking about? This is utterly vibes based.

          Socialism factually does work this way.

                • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                  15 days ago

                  All of those examples were successful in comparison to what came before. The ROC had a life expectancy in the 30’s, and made no effort to address the basic needs of the vast majority of Chinese people. Cuba had a corrupt, authoritarian gangster state under Batista. Vietnam was suffering under brutal colonial rule. Under socialism, life expectancy, literacy, food security, and medical access rose dramatically and greatly improved the lives of the people living in these places.

                  So yes, they are success stories, they objectively solved many of the problems they were trying to solve and improved people’s lives across a wide number of metrics.

        • kaffiene@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          I feel like people who enforce rules are necessary in any society. I note that cops in Scotland or New Zealand manage to do their job without killing lots of citizens. I dont think that being murderous unaccountable over-militarised gang is necessary to do the job.

  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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    16 days ago

    I don’t know in what shithole of a country you guys live to hate cops, but here they are just decent, helpful protectors they ought to be. Never ever met one single piece-of-shit-cop in my life. There surely are rotten apples, but that is due to being human, not being a cop. There is no field of anything where everything’s sunshine and lollipops. Maybe it’s a case of how you treat them? You know, like give respect, earn respect? That thing?

      • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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        14 days ago

        I was talking about real cops in more civilised countries. Not untrained us-american gun-monkeys. For the US my statement surely isn’t valid.

          • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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            14 days ago

            When you grow up some day, you might notice who’s your real enemy. As it surely ain’t the stupid cop who’s just doing another stupid job of all those stupid other jobs in a stupid society of stupid people running after stupid pieces of paper with stupid numbers on it.

              • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
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                13 days ago

                Maybe the billionaires running this planet? Who all just have the best of our future at heart

                • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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                  13 days ago

                  The police were not created to protect and serve the population. They were not created to stop crime, at least not as most people understand it. And they were certainly not created to promote justice. They were created to protect the new form of wage-labor capitalism that emerged in the mid- to late-19th century from the threat posed by that system’s offspring, the working class. source

                  Criminological data has told us for decades that police are irrelevant for public safety. Other data tells us a lot about what does influence safety. British researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in their classic 2009 book The Spirit Level show that a large number of social problems, including violence, correlate strongly with inequality. Their work also shows different options for achieving equality: high wages by private employers (as in Japan) or high taxes and redistribution (as in Northern Europe). In the United States, every option for increased equality has been blocked by the wealthy who have—as Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page make clear in their important 2014 study—captured politics. source

  • neonred@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    I for one am glad we here have the police forces and am honestly terrified by the comments in this thread here. I mean, okay, maybe in your country or local sphere you have more corrupt police forces than, say, over here in the middle of Europe, but I dread the day police would be on strike or get understaffed even more.

    Society even here has gotten so violent and just morally and ethically bad in the last years I perceive the police forces as one of the few stabilizing instances left. Social engagement nowadays only gets you into trouble and I have been mugged more than once in the last years, whereas this never has been occurred before that. On the streets you can see gang-like groups of “young males” roaming the streets, littering everywhere, making especially the women feel unsafe and bad. Society has got a punch and it has become more difficult to strike up a conversation or feel safe or just well when in public. Police? Hell yeah. We definitely need more. And better judges which don’t let illdoers back on the streets. Society is no battlefield. There are rules to obey for the better of everyone.

    • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      I don’t know in what country you live. I live in The Netherlands, one of the richest countries, with police which is very mild compared to other countries. They are ‘trained’ to de-escalate, to use the least amount of violence, to try to talk first. A force they ‘try’ to be inclusive, with a reasonably high percentage of women and different ethnicities, promoting to be open to LGBTQ+.

      I can tell you with certainty, they are biased and racist as fuck, corrupt, abusive, above the law.

      I assume you view the world through (male) white glasses from a rich country within the EU? The cops are there to protect your rich white privilege, you don’t have a clue what it is like for poor people and people of color. Police is not what it is supposed to be in an ideal world. They should be abiding the law, enforcing the law, protect ALL citizens, be unbiased, treat everyone the same whether they are rich, poor, whatever their religion or ethnicity, whatever gender, political view, etc. They fail on all these points. Even in progressive countries like The Netherlands or Germany.

      Next to that, the far right is on the rise. They love to enable and use the police to enforce their will.

      Look at all the protests. The protests by the left are struck down with brute force and loads of arrests. Protests of the right are mostly left alone, with maybe one or two arrests if any. Here in the Netherlands farmers were left alone to lock down the entire infrastructure of the country, for many days, with loads of destruction (including driving a tractor into a municipality building) with barely any arrests or consequences. The cop who opened fire on a tractor which drove at him fast and refused to stop got into trouble, not the guy driving the tractor.

      A hand full of climate activists blocking a single road were beaten and arrested with brute force, after which they got hefty fines.

      So fuck the police.

      • Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        16 days ago

        I was at a peaceful rally a week ago, police showed up and acted as intimidating as possible. We stood around and listened to some very powerful speeches from Palestinians, the police left momentarily so that they could come and assualt the crowd from the side.

        They pepper sprayed children. Fuck every cop who ever did their job.

        • neonred@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          People and parents bringing their children to such a kind of demonstration are willingly endangering them. Why do they bring their kids? It is irresponsible and in bad faith. Maybe because they know they can later pull the “oh noes, they hurt my poor child” card.

          • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
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            16 days ago

            What’s the age limit when a child is allowed to learn from an adult’s example about peaceful activism

              • Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                16 days ago

                Yes, it was completely peaceful as it has been for the past 30 something weeks that these rallies have been held.

                If you’ve ever been to a demonstration you’d understand that all the police do is show up and cause violence. No one needed protecting from us, we walked down a goddamn street. Last time I checked that wasn’t exactly a violent act. But people sure needed protecting from the police…

              • StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world
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                16 days ago

                “If it was peaceful, why did the police show up?”

                “If you were innocent, then why were you arrested?”

                Bad arguments are bad.

  • boatsnhos931@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    Hell yeah brother, no guns no police!! Hold up someone just stole my car and is extorting my family… Someone help plz :(

  • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    Hello, you seem to be referencing an often misquoted statistic. TL:DR; The 40% number is wrong and plain old bad science. In attempt to recreate the numbers, by the same researchers, they received a rate of 24%, but only while considering acts like shouting as violence. Further researchers found rates of 7%, 7.8%, 10%, and 13% with stricter definitions and better research methodology.

    The 40% claim is intentionally misleading and unequivocally inaccurate. Numerous studies over the years report domestic violence rates in police families as low as 7%, with the highest at 40% defining violence to include shouting or a loss of temper. The referenced study where the 40% claim originates is Neidig, P.H…, Russell, H.E. & Seng, A.F. (1992). Interspousal aggression in law enforcement families: A preliminary investigation. It states:

    Survey results revealed that approximately 40% of the participating officers reported marital conflicts involving physical aggression in the previous year.

    There are a number of flaws with the aforementioned study:

    The study includes as ‘violent incidents’ a one time push, shove, shout, loss of temper, or an incidents where a spouse acted out in anger. These do not meet the legal standard for domestic violence. This same study reports that the victims reported a 10% rate of physical domestic violence from their partner. The statement doesn’t indicate who the aggressor is; the officer or the spouse. The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The “domestic violence” acts are not confirmed as actually being violent. The study occurred nearly 30 years ago. This study shows minority and female officers were more likely to commit the DV, and white males were least likely. Additional reference from a Congressional hearing on the study: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951003089863c

    An additional study conducted by the same researcher, which reported rates of 24%, suffer from additional flaws:

    The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The study was not a random sample, and was isolated to high ranking officers at a police conference. This study also occurred nearly 30 years ago.

    More current research, including a larger empirical study with thousands of responses from 2009 notes, ‘Over 87 percent of officers reported never having engaged in physical domestic violence in their lifetime.’ Blumenstein, Lindsey, Domestic violence within law enforcement families: The link between traditional police subculture and domestic violence among police (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1862

    Yet another study “indicated that 10 percent of respondents (148 candidates) admitted to having ever slapped, punched, or otherwise injured a spouse or romantic partner, with 7.2 percent (110 candidates) stating that this had happened once, and 2.1 percent (33 candidates) indicating that this had happened two or three times. Repeated abuse (four or more occurrences) was reported by only five respondents (0.3 percent).” A.H. Ryan JR, Department of Defense, Polygraph Institute “The Prevalence of Domestic Violence in Police Families.” http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/4951188/FID707/Root/New/030PG297.PDF

    Another: In a 1999 study, 7% of Baltimore City police officers admitted to ‘getting physical’ (pushing, shoving, grabbing and/or hitting) with a partner. A 2000 study of seven law enforcement agencies in the Southeast and Midwest United States found 10% of officers reporting that they had slapped, punched, or otherwise injured their partners. L. Goodmark, 2016, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW “Hands up at Home: Militarized Masculinity and Police Officers Who Commit Intimate Partner Abuse “. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2519&context=fac_pubs

    • PotatoKat@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      I’m gonna be that person right now, but i really don’t care if it’s a misleading or misquoted stat. If they get to throw around 13/50 or that trans suicide number without any care to the actual reasons I’m gonna throw around 40% self report to domestic abuse. Just like you can’t stop them, you can’t stop me. Go ahead and down vote internet numbers mean nothing to me

      BTW did you know that 40% of cops abuse their spouse?

      • kaffiene@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        Lying to support your position is how people lose trust in arguments. I’m used to seeing this kind of BS from the RW but it’s disappointing to see it from the left. We need to be better than this or discussion becomes completely useless

        • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          There are few things more frustrating, politics-wise, than seeing someone who you presumably fundamentally agree with on issue X, fuck everything up by exaggerating or fabricating evidence.

          It’s better to get called out by someone who isn’t interested in doing anything but correcting them. Could easily be fuel to completely reject the premise if it was someone else.

        • PotatoKat@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          If people were convinced by facts and logic we wouldn’t have had trump as president and the ADF wouldn’t have any power in Germany. Snappy soundbites are necessary. Why do you think you heard 13/50 everywhere? Because it’s easy to remember and it sounds good. Same thing with 41%. You’ll be hard pressed to find someone that’s willing to do a whole bunch of reading to understand why ACAB unless they are already predisposed to believe you. 40% is a potential gateway in, and when they are along that path and see all the problems with cops, it won’t really matter when they find out that the 40% wasn’t true.

          So go ahead, be disappointed, go ahead downvote, or whatever. But if you think winning only involves playing fair and honest you have another thing coming and it’s very far right from what you want.

          • kaffiene@lemmy.world
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            16 days ago

            I don’t think that all people are convinced by facts. I do think that eventually those who CAN be swayed are swayed by honesty.

      • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        i really don’t care if it’s a misleading or misquoted stat.

        I’m frankly not surprised. Decent, honest people do, though, hence my effort to reveal that it is, in fact, a bogus stat, so that said people will know to disregard both it, and those like you, who continue to spread it in the name of their narrative despite knowing it’s bogus.

        People who care more about maintaining and propagating their biases/prejudices than about being honest and truthful, are abhorrent scum, and don’t belong in civilized society.

        • Alkali@lemmy.ml
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          16 days ago

          The main problem though is this falls into the paradox of tolerance. Essentially, one group has been found to manipulate stats. However, the focus is on the other group’s manipulation rather than accuracy across the board. This ends up working as a form of oppression through bias enforcement of the social contract. Not saying you are going that, just pointing out a possible bases for the other person’s comments.

          • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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            16 days ago

            The main problem though is this falls into the paradox of tolerance.

            lmao, no it fucking doesn’t. If you want to make an assertion, any assertion, and back it up with evidence, that evidence should be, well, not bullshit.

            That’s all there is to it.

            And if your assertion is actually correct, but X amount of attention is taken away from it because you’re spreading bullshit in support of it, that’s your own damn fault. If you’re right, you don’t have to lie to prove it.

  • manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml
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    16 days ago

    mentions IQ

    very cool, very normal. Youre right, cops arent smart, or they wouldnt be cops! On unsmart people are cops, because unsmart people are evil!

    acab includes people policing other peoples intellect

    • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      It’s a thing,

      Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.