US Politics Mega-thread - Page 152

On April 29 2018 22:54 micronesia wrote:
You've criticized me but not addressed my concern that I don't understand how the new system will deal with issues like the ones I've described (recognizing we can't address every possible issue in this thread, but some would be nice). I'm not saying nobody has good answers for how to do that under a new system, but I don't currently understand it. It's easy to describe this elite group of saints to address violent situations and handwave away everything else, but I still don't see what a citizen's life would look like, outside of administrative enforcement under a new system sans current police.

On April 29 2018 22:54 micronesia wrote:
You've criticized me but not addressed my concern that I don't understand how the new system will deal with issues like the ones I've described (recognizing we can't address every possible issue in this thread, but some would be nice). I'm not saying nobody has good answers for how to do that under a new system, but I don't currently understand it. It's easy to describe this elite group of saints to address violent situations and handwave away everything else, but I still don't see what a citizen's life would look like, outside of administrative enforcement under a new system sans current police.

On April 29 2018 23:00 Gorsameth wrote:

How does the rest of the world deal with police violence? (which is probably the biggest issue with US police). Proper sane guidelines for the use of force and an independent body to investigate and enforce the police.

The current threshold for lethal force for example seems to be "the officer feels threatened" which is insane and utterly unenforceable since its based on a vague feeling.

@GH
Military police could be an option but I wonder if they have the numbers for regional replacement of police. Google sadly did not give me an idea of their number. Outside police is imo not an option because of , again, numbers. Everyone seems to already have a shortage of police. They can't spare thousands to take over months, let alone years (Police training in the Netherlands is 3 years for example)

Other then that I guess we just fundamentally disagree how much work police actually do or how crucial their existence is.

On April 29 2018 23:36 micronesia wrote:
GH it's not so much that I don't understand how the proposed new system would be better as I don't understand how it would work at all. Reading your recent posts what I've gleamed is that we will replace the police with teams of people who won't be corrupt. That isn't enough detail to satisfy me. Going back to my previous questions:

If a crime, punishable by jail time, is committed (e.g., murder, rape, theft), who will investigate these crimes? Currently, the police investigates these crimes in order to try to determine who is responsible (or federal agencies which as I understand it are not on the chopping block right now).

Who will arrest these suspects once sufficient evidence convinces a judge that a warrant is appropriate? Currently, (I think) suspects that are being brought into custody either turn themselves in to the police, or are arrested by the police (in their own homes or while on the run). Who will 'capture' a suspect who needs to be tried in courts and isn't turning himself or herself in?

When the witnesses refuse to show up to court, who will enforce bringing them in? (I think) Uniformed police officers will retrieve you if you refuse to report to court when ordered by a judge.

If I see a shootout between ten gang members in the street outside my home, who should I call? What will the folks I call be able to do about the problem?

---

I won't try to argue that the police handle all of these situations well currently. I do believe the police doing these tasks is better than nobody doing them, so I would want to understand who will do these tasks better, and how, before agreeing that the plan to abolish and replace the police is well founded.

On April 29 2018 19:40 GreenHorizons wrote:...
So your argument is that the US would look comparable to Egypt amidst a revolution, if we were without police?

I think you at least answered my first question, that you genuinely believe that US police by way of existing and their performance (by what measure no one knows) are effectively staving off anarchic chaos comparable to Egypt during a revolution.

Besides thinking that sounds completely absurd on it's face, I'm curious, why do you think people would be motivated to enact such a society full of chaos were it not for police as we know them in the US?

Surely police aren't why you're not part of a roving gang of evil anarchists?

On April 29 2018 23:00 Gorsameth wrote:

How does the rest of the world deal with police violence? (which is probably the biggest issue with US police). Proper sane guidelines for the use of force and an independent body to investigate and enforce the police.

The current threshold for lethal force for example seems to be "the officer feels threatened" which is insane and utterly unenforceable since its based on a vague feeling.

On April 30 2018 00:42 Aquanim wrote:

History suggests a drastic uptick in crime, verging on anarchy, is a not unlikely consequence of taking police off the streets, even for a short period of time. Here is an Australian example. This is a more recent example from Brazil. I can find links to other examples if necessary.

Saying that "deterrence punishments don't reduce crime" is a nearly completely unrelated statement in my view.

On April 30 2018 00:46 Simberto wrote:
GH, I think a big problem that you have here is the communication. What you said now sounds pretty solid to me. You think your current police force sucks, and you wish to replace them with (one or more) forces which have better oversight, are bound to better rules and so on. You also maybe do not wish to call those groups "police" because you feel that this term is tainted at this point. I don't think that what you call stuff is the most important problem, so i don't particularly care about the last point. The previous ideas sound reasonable. Maybe some of it is problematic, and the implementation is definitively complicated, but as an end goal, i don't think it is bad. Especially splitting off minor stuff like parking ticket from the police to a different group is very reasonable. I personally do not think that the best way to that goal is to fire everyone currently in the police, but through a more gradual process of reform and oversight. The main problem is that currently there is no political will to do anything whatsoever, and a lot of people don't even see a problem.

However, with the way that you are communicating, you are losing the people that would probably agree with you. When you say "abolish the police" people don't hear "...and replace them with something that does the same things, but better, they hear "...and don't replace them at all".

On April 30 2018 01:02 iamthedave wrote:


The issue arises, though, because the US Police can't be held to accountability, due to their political power. Anyone who tries to force through actual major legislation that would change things will be pilloried and face lockstep political opposition every step of the way. Bodycams were supposed to make things better, but I'd say at best they've allowed us to get a better view of the depth of the problem, because we're now seeing how blatantly some officers are disregarding their role as servants of the people and how rarely they're actually punished for it.

While it's fine to discuss the holes in GH's plan, the plan itself arises from the simple fear that the situation is a) unfixable because of the issues I mentioned and b) very likely to keep getting worse, because what impetus is there for things getting better?

Sure, GH's plan sounds a little pie in the sky... but does accountability actually sound any more realistic? I've never heard a solid plan for how that would be achieved, either, that doesn't end with 'it'll never pass/never be brought to the floor/never pushed by a DA because it would end their career'.

It's the choice between 'do nothing in a situation that if not untenable today could become so tomorrow' and 'do something, even if its drastic, in the hope of a better tomorrow'.

On April 30 2018 01:06 Gorsameth wrote:
If accountability is politically unfeasible then so is replacement. Even more so in fact.

if this is your position (which may well be right, tho the slow appearance of body cams would seem to indicate otherwise) then there is simply no point in ever discussing the police, or its replacement, at all.

On April 30 2018 01:02 iamthedave wrote:


The issue arises, though, because the US Police can't be held to accountability, due to their political power. Anyone who tries to force through actual major legislation that would change things will be pilloried and face lockstep political opposition every step of the way. Bodycams were supposed to make things better, but I'd say at best they've allowed us to get a better view of the depth of the problem, because we're now seeing how blatantly some officers are disregarding their role as servants of the people and how rarely they're actually punished for it.

While it's fine to discuss the holes in GH's plan, the plan itself arises from the simple fear that the situation is a) unfixable because of the issues I mentioned and b) very likely to keep getting worse, because what impetus is there for things getting better?

Sure, GH's plan sounds a little pie in the sky... but does accountability actually sound any more realistic? I've never heard a solid plan for how that would be achieved, either, that doesn't end with 'it'll never pass/never be brought to the floor/never pushed by a DA because it would end their career'.

It's the choice between 'do nothing in a situation that if not untenable today could become so tomorrow' and 'do something, even if its drastic, in the hope of a better tomorrow'.

On April 30 2018 01:03 GreenHorizons wrote:
...We are in no way talking about suddenly and without replacement removing half or all police from the streets. The characterization portrays either a failure to understand or an intentional misconstruction of my argument.

On April 30 2018 01:15 GreenHorizons wrote:


And in your world I'm to consign myself to the reality that my rights may be violated egregiously, my freedom, or even my life taken altogether by this immovable force+ Show Spoiler + that simply can't be held accountable

It's been more than a decade since major newspapers ran several headlines about how Police won't even just tell us how many people they kill, who , and under what circumstances.

Wrap your mind around that for a second. More than a decade it's been well known by every major news outlet that the police won't even just tell anyone, federal or independent organization, how many people they kill. We still haven't even come close to fixing that.

You've given me nothing to hope for and no ability to hold Democrats accountable, as I have to vote for them and be thankful they aren't holding police recruiting seminars at KKK rallies. And hope that maybe one day they'll get an honest body count from the police.

That isn't acceptable to me, point blank period. I'd sooner die crying for revolution than consign myself to such a miserable existence.

On April 30 2018 01:21 Aquanim wrote:

As far as I can tell your conversation with Gorsameth on the previous page or two was based on this characterisation, so I'm a bit irritated by your insinuation of "intentional misconstruction".

On April 30 2018 01:24 Gorsameth wrote:
Welcome to reality, life isn't fair. Your fucked with little hope because birth roulette placed you in America.

Have you considered immigrating to a better country?

I mean, it sounds stupid and trolling but there are a ton of things in life that you have no realistic influence over. To enact real change you need a critical mass of public opinion and enough will behind it to force political change. America does not have that right now for police reform (or a ton of other stuff) so yes, there is nothing you can do about it but hope that the tide eventually changes.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't campaign for such reform but for god sake keep it realistic. Your complaining that no one is in for your fairy tale that has 0 chance of ever happening instead of spending your energy trying for actual changes that come in small steps.

On April 30 2018 01:24 GreenHorizons wrote:


If you read it then you should see I said the same thing about it to him and best I can tell conceded the point eventually. It's frequent where someone will mischaracterize someones argument and then someone will assume it's accurate and build their post on that assumption regardless of whether it's been retracted or disposed of otherwise.

Happens to all of us sometimes, no need to let it bother you now that you know.



Tell me how this realistic campaign for reform is different and better than what I'm advocating specifically?

On April 30 2018 01:30 Gorsameth wrote:
As I (and others) have repeatedly said. Using the word Abolish brings certain expectations and connotations with it which instantly turn people off your argument when instead you mean large scale reforms.

And no GH, I don't concede the point as I pointed out we have a fundamental difference of opinion on the impact of police existing on society and that there is no point in continuing that line of discussion further.

On April 30 2018 01:34 Gorsameth wrote:
it has a chance of happening in slow and gradual steps (as frustrating as that is), see body cams starting to pop up, even if those measures are still doing little because they get turned off. Its a the tiniest of small improvements.

Which is infinity more then shouting 'Abolish the police" until your voice gives out will ever do.

On April 30 2018 02:17 Slaughter wrote:
The whole abolish vs reform debate seems like to me that if you had the political will to actually go with an abolish plan you would have already long had enough to do the effective "real" reform that GH deems impossible to do.

The problem isn't reform v abolish. It is more about working towards building motivation amd will to actually do it, which there isn't much atm. Persuasion and rallying people to your cauae to get things done seems to be more important then the method of changing the police.

Because GH is right. The police have a lot of leverage amd power because they are embedded within our system like a tick and the lack of oversight has led to large and disturbing behavior that developed with the unchecked power.