Comment on From the archive
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 days ago99.9% of law enforcement doesn’t require the kind of police forces we have. Why are armed goons used to hand out traffic tickets? In decades of issuing building code citations, I’ve never needed to carry a gun. And my fees are WAY higher. If I can walk up to an unidentified guy with a running chainsaw and give him a $200,000 fee for clear-cutting a lot without being in danger, you should be fine writing a speeding ticket.
But the problem is you have an institutional attitude of cowardice. You’re like chihuahas who pretend not to be scared by being super aggressive, which makes people afraid of you, which makes them hate you, which makes everyone less safe.
Why should anybody respect institutions made of violent, scared little bitches?
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world 2 days ago
So you dialed in the last slice of my comment to argue the one point you wanted to pounce on because you sensed you weren’t winning the original argument. That’s interesting, but not surprising.
I’m not particularly violent, scared, little, or a bitch, but if you’re going to stake the entire rationale and funding behind the equipment and training modern law enforcement has on one guy who had zero say in even one agency, I think that’s pretty funny and also pretty typical of ACABers.
I think I wrote maybe one speeding ticket every two years or so? That was an extremely tiny slice of my job, but again, it is pretty typical ACAB perspective to have no idea what law enforcement does; that’s a fundamental building block of that kind of person - having no idea what you’re talking about but being enraged about it.
The funny part is you kinda answer your own perceived mystery on that bit. Yes, the gun is useless in 99.9% of police contacts (or more); that’s not what it’s for.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Police firearms are used far more often as a threat to force compliance thannthey are to defend life. By disarming most on-duty officers like a civilized country we’d have a more peaceful society because the police wouldn’t feel as empowered to escalate conflicts.
Being a police officer isn’t a particularly dangerous job. Police have, on average, about the same odds as any random citizen of being killed feloniously. Yet they’re armed to the teeth and are given less-strict rules of engagement than soldiers sent into actual combat zones against enemy soldiers who are explicitly trying to kill them. I’ve seen my share of police encounters, and police make the situation worse 90% of the time. That last 10% doesn’t justify what they do.
I understand that police are individuals. Being a cop doesn’t make you a bad person. There are lots of bad people in this world, and most of them aren’t cops. But anybody who looks at the state of policing in this country and decides they want to be a cop cannot be a good person. It’s like saying someone’s a good Nazi or Klansman. Being a bad person is a prerequisite to becoming a police officer in the US.
I have several cops in my family. I know them as individuals. And they’re all bad people for whom I have no respect. But they think I like them because I’m polite to them. I’ll even laugh and tell jokes around them, because part of living in a society is not starting fights. But they’re still scum.
I’m sure there are people in your life who joke and laugh around you, too. How many do you think quietly hate you? I guarantee it’s an uncomfortably high number.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world 1 day ago
True, but you’re still almost certainly vastly overestimating either use.
It’s possible, but in the interim there’d be a lot of deaths. The “civilized countries” you’re referring to don’t have the Second Amendment, a culture of violence, or (usually) as much distrust of government as Americans do.
I never said it was.
Honestly I’m not going to bother reading the rest of your comment because you are repeatedly jerking the wheel into a conversation that you prefer to have rather than the conversation we were having and I’m getting bored of it.