Personally, I believe that A CAB. Yes, all cops are bastards, no exceptions. Yet I have met people who think that cops in socialist countries aren’t bastards.

My reasoning is that it is a position of power over your fellow citizens/countrymen/people and only bastards would be attracted to such positions. While a person may go in with “good intentions”, invariably they will be at some point in their career be expected to do something “not good”: cover up for a colleague, arrest someone for law they don’t agree with, beat somebody up, and so on. If they do it and remain a cop, well they are a bastard, no matter how many old ladies they help cross the street or whatever.

Let’s also not pretend that a full communist utopia where every single law/regulation/rule is fair is possible in our lifetimes (or at all likely), there’ll always be people who will want to abuse their power and take control, cops are an easily bought section of society that makes it possible for them. Historically, cops have always sided with the aristocracy/bourgeoisie/land-owners/those with money.

Your thoughts?

  • ghost_of_faso2@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    5 months ago

    That view ignores the history from which the police was born out of (not just a slogan). Police were bastards long before the US war on drugs in the 1970s. From their inception the police was a violent, mercenary group that did the bidding of the landed elite. The police crushed workers’ protests in the 19th century, long before the war on drugs.

    It doesnt ignore this, again we’re focusing on the american conception of the police. Of course a state born out of slavery and genocide will continue to evolve its police based on its own ideological conception. Other countries dont have this same relationship; the chinese police where not born out of a slave state, they where born out of a socialist revolution.

    No, it is not. A people’s militia could do the same, or the army/national guard, citizen-soldiers, a people’s army, whatever you want to label it.

    That would ulimtiately just be a ‘police’, renaming it something different doesnt make it different.

    Sure. Police have been historically counter-revolutionary

    Where have socialist police ever been counter-revolutionary?

    Wjhat about it? Do you think the police prevents domestic abuse? LMAO. To stop domestic abuse you have to remove conditions which enable it: patriarchal capitalist society and its culture of “household breadwinner”. There’s also drug and alcohol abuse. These are all problems that the police can’t fix. Police can however make them worse. Also, police officers are some of the worst domestic abusers, so I really don’t know what your point is.

    Again, yes in a capitalist system they often make things worse. Im asking how you would deal with issues like domestic abuse in a hypothetical that we just deleted the police from existance, some form of sanctioned violence needs to be weilded in the function of a government, its idealist to think otherwise.

    No, the vulnerable are the victims of police violence. You are the one who want to believe the police can be a force for good. I’m saying that “the police” as in “people who’s job is to police/control people and effectively rule the streets” are inherently negative and cannot be reformed, they have to be abolished

    And replaced with what? Im fine considering your ideas, but you need to consider what comes after, otherwise a vaccum emerges and the people who rely on others to exist (the disabled, the vunerable) will be easy pickings for people with bad intentions.

    • multitotal@lemmygrad.mlOP
      0·
      5 months ago

      we’re focusing on the american conception of the police

      You are. Cops were present in 17th century Britain, they served the aristocracy, the landed elite and the rich. They were tasked to round up “vagrants”, poor people, etc.

      That would ulimtiately just be a ‘police’, renaming it something different doesnt make it different.

      Nope. Because the difference is the scope of their powers and where they are recruited from. A “police offcer” shouldn’t have any authority outside of their neighbourhood/village, for example.

      Where have socialist police ever been counter-revolutionary?

      Every socialist country where the revolution was crushedt: Yugoslavia, Soviet Union, Burkina Faso, … in each of those countries the police was instrumental in taking power away from the people and giving them to the capitalists/imperialists. There’s a reason why historically the communists have allied with the army and not the police.

      Im asking how you would deal with issues like domestic abuse in a hypothetical that we just deleted the police

      Pretty sure I answered that. By having a society where people give a shit about one another. If a neighbour hears/sees domestic abuse going on, they should do something. The other solution is to remove the causes of domestic violence, like I already wrote.

      And replaced with what?

      A neighbourhood watch. The problem is the scope of powers. Have a police, but have the police officer only have authority inside of his neighbourhood or a demarcated, small area. Why should a cop have city-wide powers. Do we expect the police officer to be familiar with every neighbourhood and people in a city of 200-300k people? There’s just no way. And that’s part of the problem why the police behave the way they do, they are effectively ruling over strangers, and not people they have to see/meet every time they go to the grocery store.

      • ghost_of_faso2@lemmygrad.ml
        0·
        5 months ago

        A neighbourhood watch. The problem is the scope of powers. Have a police, but have the police officer only have authority inside of his neighbourhood or a demarcated, small area. Why should a cop have city-wide powers. Do we expect the police officer to be familiar with every neighbourhood and people in a city of 200-300k people? There’s just no way. And that’s part of the problem why the police behave the way they do, they are effectively ruling over strangers, and not people they have to see/meet every time they go to the grocery store.

        So your solution is to have thousands of indiependant police cells in countries that have billions of people and expect it to just work out without any centralization of methodology or ideology and accountability to any central power? I can think of 100 ways this falls flat due to abuses of power…

        Pretty sure I answered that. By having a society where people give a shit about one another. If a neighbour hears/sees domestic abuse going on, they should do something. The other solution is to remove the causes of domestic violence, like I already wrote.

        Ah yes, lets just rely on our neighbours to violently de-escelate something, better hope your neighbour isnt a 70 year old women, il be moving into the bloc of MMA fighters and body builders to ensure my safety.

        Every socialist country where the revolution was crushedt: Yugoslavia, Soviet Union, Burkina Faso, … in each of those countries the police was instrumental in taking power away from the people and giving them to the capitalists/imperialists. There’s a reason why historically the communists have allied with the army and not the police.

        The police in the USSR didnt crush the revolution, america did that economically, they also didnt act as houndogs for landlords.

        I think we agree in parts though, the best way for a socialist country to get rid of cops is to eliminate all the conditions that require them, thats what i was getting at with ‘contradictions leading to solutions’, total abolishment is shock therapy.