Comment by tomp
5 years ago
What is a realistic solution though? Police == violence, we might want to pretend that's not true, but it is. The threat of greater violence (a.k.a. police attacking you, throwing you into jail or even killing you) is what keeps lesser violence (individuals looting, murdering) at bay in civilized, democratic societies.
For the most part, public shame is a bigger driver of everyday behavior than threat of violence. And threatening to shoot people (and conceivably ask questions later) is very different from announcing a policy whose violation will result in arrest and prosecution. It's called due process, and it's what separates a legitimate government from, e.g. rule by organized crime.
Justice and investigation, due process and responsibility to the public. Exactly what 99.9% of the protesters who are not looting are saying.
> Police == violence, we might want to pretend that's not true, but it is.
I disagree, and point to a distinction that I learned from an essay of Christopher Hitchens. He described this as (paraphrasing) the distinction from the worldview of Hobbes versus the worldview of Locke.
Hobbes was of course the author of Leviathan, which viewed strong government as the barrier between an ordered society and a brutal state of nature ("the war of all against all"). Entrust a monarch with very strong authority, because the alternative is civil war at all levels of society.
Locke, writing somewhat later, advocated for separation of powers and constraints on the power of the state in general. In particular, the need for the entire state, including a possible monarch, to follow the law.
So, I would argue that the function of the police is to enforce laws, which are arrived at by a social negotiation, and that equating police with violence is mistaken. The threat of police violence is not what holds people in check. Rather, people are held in check by their recognition of the value of the system of justice and laws.
This viewpoint can explain why people have such a strong reaction to police who break that social contract.
Proper riot control has non lethal methods of force
Correct. And a lot of this violence is a direct result of institutional systemic violence. Violence breeds violence in other words. This is terrible for the economy in general, but capitalists found a way to exploit violence and fear: the weapon industry thrives on violence and fear.
If the threat of violence wasn't there, there would be no police.
The solution is for MPD to do their fucking jobs and arrest the murderer.
This entire thing is happening because they refuse to simply arrest a man that has been caught on camera slowly murdering a man, simply because he is a cop.
Even if they arrested him and let him bond out (which is what would happen to any non-police individual in this scenario) there would have been zero destruction. Zero.
Yeah but think about the cops morale, they would be revoked the carte blanche aka the licence to kill (freely and pretend it was an accident)
Your comment was removed because it's advocating for violence.
Violence != Shooting people
Correct, police = violence. Abolish the police.
Yeah, enforcing the law is the worst. If we just got rid of the police I for one would be much better off because all of your property would become mine.
I pity your lack of imagination.
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Not sure if the story has fully made the rounds, but there was a whole panic during all this rioting about a kidnapping that took place. The police had just fled from the police station, and suddenly the same people who were burning down the station were desperately trying to contact the police to save a kidnapping victim.
We absolutely need to reform the police, but I really can't understand people who think we should abolish them. What is your plan to handle these situations?
This is not a very inteligent conclusion. Police should simply de-escalate violence