EPT(could replace it with giving people cotton candy, not seriously because it wouldn't be effective [probably not much worse than what we have], but to illustrate it doesn't have to be replaced with police)
@Sr18^
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2389
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22739 Posts
we have an idea of at least the size and scope of what we're replacing based on the best available stats and figures. @Sr18^ | ||
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ChristianS
United States3187 Posts
On June 05 2020 23:42 travis wrote: lol abolish the police, right that way we can really accelerate the crash of society maybe we can build some extra highways across the mexican border, too. then the country can be openly ran by criminals instead of secretly ran by criminals. Oh geez, where to start | ||
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Sr18
Netherlands1141 Posts
On June 05 2020 23:44 GreenHorizons wrote: First, law enforcement and police aren't synonymous, as we see criminal cops literally all over the country right now. I don't understand the questions because they presume a relationship between police, crime, and society that doesn't exist. According to Wikipedia: Law enforcement operates primarily through governmental police agencies. There are 17,985 U.S. police agencies in the United States which include City Police Departments, County Sheriff's Offices, State Police/Highway Patrol and Federal Law Enforcement Agencies. The law-enforcement purposes of these agencies are the investigation of suspected criminal activity, referral of the results of investigations to state or federal prosecutors, and the temporary detention of suspected criminals pending judicial action. Law enforcement agencies, to varying degrees at different levels of government and in different agencies, are also commonly charged with the responsibilities of deterring criminal activity and preventing the successful commission of crimes in progress. Other duties may include the service and enforcement of warrants, writs, and other orders of the courts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_the_United_States If you abolish the police, you remove the part through which law enforcement is primarily operated. So that's why I ask: how do you suppose the law is enforced without a police agency? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22739 Posts
But also it'll probably be useful to ask people if they see distinctions between a parking lot attendant, a bar bouncer, a hall monitor, a sports referee, the people behind the counter at the DMV, etc. and police? Or do people see those all as synonymous with "law enforcement" or "police"? | ||
Falling
Canada11279 Posts
On June 05 2020 22:46 ShoCkeyy wrote: I was subjected to racism and brutality by police starting at 15 years old. The people I know who are cops now were once the bullies in high school. I can easily say as well here in the U.S they’re awful. There’s the rare few I’ve interacted with before that aren’t total shit but I’ve interacted with more shit heads. That's unfortunate. I've known at least three guys that went on to be police- all good, decent guys. Community taking the place of police assumes there is community at all in the big cities. There isn't. Not on the level needed to prevent crime. You need the tight knit communities where a person doesn't travel more than seven miles in any one direction over their lifetime. Everyone knows your name and that you stole twice from the Jensen's in '83 and broke the Abram's window in '71 (And talk of the town says there was more)."Bad gas travels fast in a small town." Ostracization and exile is devastating in that context, so conforming to the social norms is at an absolute high. The shunning. They become verboten. (Although at the cost of non-conformists.) Then every time you scale back the tight knit community, the efficacy of social conformity decreases as well. It's a rapidly decreasing sliding scale. | ||
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Sbrubbles
Brazil5775 Posts
On June 05 2020 23:38 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote: A few words left off at the beginning. "Start Fresh". It's literally a rebranding of what the police do. The Reclaim the Block organization, that this is loosely based around, has on their front page a list of demands and they do not say abolish. They want it defunded and those funds spent on community level interventions. + Show Spoiler + TELL MINNEAPOLIS CITY COUNCIL TO DEFUND THE POLICE In the wake of George Floyd's murder by MPD officer Derek Chauvin, and the Minneapolis Police Department's escalated violence against the city's grieving Black community, Minneapolis is in desperate need of visionary leadership. We have called on the Minneapolis City Council to become these visionary leaders by pledging to defund the Minneapolis Police Department and invest in the resources that really keep us safe and healthy, especially in Black communities, Indigenous communities and communities of color. We have called on them to commit to the following by Saturday, May 30th at 8am: 1. To never again vote to increase police funding or to increase the police department's budget. 2. To propose and vote for a $45 million cut from MPD's budget as the City responds to projected COVID-19 shortfalls. 3. To protect and expand current investment in community-led health and safety strategies, instead of investing in police. 4. To do everything in my power to compel MPD and all law enforcement agencies to immediately cease enacting violence on community members. Our city is on fire, our people are hurting, and Black communities are crying out for health and safety in the midst of pandemic. Now is the time to invest in a safe, liberated future for our city. We can't afford to keep funding MPD's attacks on Black lives. Edit: Maybe you can answer this question then? How would the no law enforcement work, especially when it comes to things like domestic violence and drunk driving? Is there a society functioning without law enforcement right now that we can look at? To be clear, I don't have an answer for you, I think that on some level there needs to be a State-sanctioned entity capable of law enforcement through violent means. I assume that GH agrees with this (hopefully he'll correct me if I'm wrong). I think what I'm trying to understand at this point is what "abolish the police", or even "the police" means to everyone in this thread. | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium4602 Posts
Do you see a distinction? I understand what you're getting at. I still think there are things people do because they have little to no regard for their peers and communities won't be able to restrict those actions. For instance with drunk driving. People probably know themselves that drunk driving isn't ok. They probably already get told by their peers drunk driving isn't ok. They still do it. Who gets to take this person's license to give him a time-out, or who gets to fine him because he's put other people's lives at risk, or what kind of repercussion(s) should this person face in your opinion? | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7814 Posts
On June 05 2020 22:59 GreenHorizons wrote: It's mostly that the people that can't imagine a society without police don't have much imagination other than when it comes to what it is the police in the US do. It's not effectively policing psychos, preventing theft, violent crime, etc. It's overwhelmingly ticketing, responding to collisions, arriving after violent confrontations have concluded, etc. Most people went immediately to "What about the people that want to steal my stuff!?!?" I think I saw a "what about psychos" and of course "you're so naive" from the folks that never bothered to look into whether in the decades people had been working on this stuff it might have come up. You guys just watched pk do this same thing and now we've taken one step away from the immediate "the people you see on TV beating your grandpa bloody are bad" and folks lose the plot again. enlighten us, how does your society with no police works? Saying that we are lazy because "people have been working on it for decades" is a bit easy. Summarize how that functions. And no, cops are not just being mean. They do a shitload of stuff, some of it being deterrence that are absolutely vital for the functioning of a society. You need someone to hold the monopoly of violence in a society unless you just prefer the guy with the biggest club to rule, and that monopoly belongs to the State that in turn represents every citizen. And the police exerces this monopoly. And I know the police is utterly fucked up in the US, like almost everything else. It needs an overhaul, or at least some extremely deep reforms. | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium4602 Posts
On June 06 2020 00:11 Falling wrote: That's unfortunate. I've known at least three guys that went on to be police- all good, decent guys. Community taking the place of police assumes there is community at all in the big cities. There isn't. Not on the level needed to prevent crime. You need the tight knit communities where a person doesn't travel more than seven miles in any one direction over their lifetime. Everyone knows your name and that you stole twice from the Jensen's in '83 and broke the Abram's window in '71 (And talk of the town says there was more)."Bad gas travels fast in a small town." Ostracization and exile is devastating in that context, so conforming to the social norms is at an absolute high. The shunning. They become verboten. (Although at the cost of non-conformists.) Then every time you scale back the tight knit community, the efficacy of social conformity decreases as well. It's a rapidly decreasing sliding scale. But you also get parents keeping the secret that their son has exerted disturbing behavior or the parents that keep their child locked up in a basement for 10+ years without anyone ever knowing about it. The fear of being exiled can make people do crazy things. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23943 Posts
On June 05 2020 23:44 Uldridge wrote: You dismissed psychopathy, but you think either a caring society will be enough to sway them so they won't manipulate/exploit/.. ? You think they will be caught during the act? I agree that many issues stem from the (perceived) differences in wealth in our society, I'm willing to try to make it a truly egalitarian one, but I still think differences will pop up, making random crimes happen. How would you solve an entire community (doesn't need to be a big community mind you) denying crime has even occured where one or a few individuals heavily crossed the line, simply because of them not wanting to lose face towards another community? Every community is supposed to be nice and equal and good to each other after all. The psychopaths are in the police, or at least those with many of those traits. Not all of them obviously, just to make clear. Of course it’s not a dichotomy here, but having psychopaths in institutions that enable or outright encourage their behaviour vs them in the general populace, the former is what I’d be worried about more. This is the US though, people have to have guns for self defence/resist government tyranny while simultaneously it has a heavily militarised police that is out of step with most comparable countries. Seems to lead to a rather endless circle of people need guns for self defence, but people have guns so we need heavily armed police which really doesn’t fit together. Mostly tangential rambling here, I’ll have to do some more reading to refresh what I know already about what would replace the police and whatever new proposals are out there. | ||
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Sr18
Netherlands1141 Posts
On June 06 2020 00:06 GreenHorizons wrote: See top of page Sr18. But also it'll probably be useful to ask people if they see distinctions between a parking lot attendant, a bar bouncer, a hall monitor, a sports referee, the people behind the counter at the DMV, etc. and police? Or do people see those all as synonymous with "law enforcement" or "police"? I'd rather you answer my question, as I'd like to understand what your vision is. In the absence of a police force, how would you ensure that the law is enforced? And if that's too abstract, maybe this example will help. Let's say that persons A and B have a dispute over the ownership of a car. A civil court case is required to settle the matter and in the end the judge decides that the car belongs to A. B however does not want to give up the car. Right now, A can have the police enforce the judges verdict, by force if needed. If you abolish the police, how can A force B to comply to the judges verdict? | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23943 Posts
On June 06 2020 00:14 Uldridge wrote: @GH Do you see a distinction? I understand what you're getting at. I still think there are things people do because they have little to no regard for their peers and communities won't be able to restrict those actions. For instance with drunk driving. People probably know themselves that drunk driving isn't ok. They probably already get told by their peers drunk driving isn't ok. They still do it. Who gets to take this person's license to give him a time-out, or who gets to fine him because he's put other people's lives at risk, or what kind of repercussion(s) should this person face in your opinion? Other people do this, you picked a quite interesting example. Drink driving has hugely declined almost solely due to a prolonged effort to culturally stigmatise it, at least here. It was normal practice, shrugged off with a laugh even as recently as my parent’s last generation. Nowadays very much frowned upon. As to what happens when someone breaks through the stigma net and transgressed, yeah not 100% sure how that would function. It’s one specific sphere so you couldn’t do this for other crimes, really you could install breathalysers in cars just to start the thing. No doubt eventually such features will probably be incorporated. Applying such measures in other areas would be a bit too privacy-invading and totalitarian for my tastes but in this specific example I’d think it a good measure. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22739 Posts
On June 06 2020 00:14 Uldridge wrote: @GH Do you see a distinction? I understand what you're getting at. I still think there are things people do because they have little to no regard for their peers and communities won't be able to restrict those actions. For instance with drunk driving. People probably know themselves that drunk driving isn't ok. They probably already get told by their peers drunk driving isn't ok. They still do it. Who gets to take this person's license to give him a time-out, or who gets to fine him because he's put other people's lives at risk, or what kind of repercussion(s) should this person face in your opinion? Nothing personal, but it's too easy for these discussions to get unwieldy (this one may be lost already). I'm not going to engage in responding to tangential questions like my personal opinions on the appropriate repercussions for drunk driving unless or until we demonstrate we have a common understanding of what "police" do and who "police" are (like do lifeguards count?). Not that I have to agree with someone, but we have to be operating under a common understanding of terms to effectively communicate. At the moment what I'm seeing are emotional arguments (EDIT: and abstract questions that require assumptions we haven't established) that I don't think will be productive at better understanding (myself included) what it means to live without police. | ||
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brian
United States9610 Posts
On June 05 2020 23:46 Wombat_NI wrote: I’m surprised you have struggled to get agreement on that, it seems patently the case. Even if one’s position is ‘and that is the way it should be’. Not that segments of the population in other countries are pro the death penalty or lethal force, but largely they do at least reserve those views for those who are being extremely violent or threatening life. Only in the States do I see people desperately trying to justify lethal force with ‘well the guy got a few parking tickets’ i should clarify i have not previously floated the idea that it is unique to the US, rather the usual push back is that criminals caught in the act SHOULD be shot, always under the guise of self defense. i typically go to an extreme position of saying under almost all circumstances lethal self defense should be life-in-prison illegal. i do get the disagreement before that, though. that’s just where i typically lose people’s interest in the discussion completely  . my prior post had been poorly phrased. | ||
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Sbrubbles
Brazil5775 Posts
On June 06 2020 00:26 Wombat_NI wrote: Other people do this, you picked a quite interesting example. Drink driving has hugely declined almost solely due to a prolonged effort to culturally stigmatise it, at least here. It was normal practice, shrugged off with a laugh even as recently as my parent’s last generation. Nowadays very much frowned upon. As to what happens when someone breaks through the stigma net and transgressed, yeah not 100% sure how that would function. It’s one specific sphere so you couldn’t do this for other crimes, really you could install breathalysers in cars just to start the thing. No doubt eventually such features will probably be incorporated. Applying such measures in other areas would be a bit too privacy-invading and totalitarian for my tastes but in this specific example I’d think it a good measure. With your example in mind, I think "abolish the 'policing' mentality" would be more precise than "abolish the police". It just doesn't sound as spiffy. | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium4602 Posts
On June 06 2020 00:27 GreenHorizons wrote: Nothing personal, ... Okay sure, we can get to the fundamentals first. Police, for me, are a group of people that enforce laws because of conflict between one or more individuals and another one or more individuals resulting in breaking of the laws. Usually, social control prevents from laws being broken (the easy one's like stealing and breaking and entering and vandalizing someon's property) because people kind of know what they're doing is bad and want to be sneaky about it so being seen is a big stopper right there. But how do you stop someone who consistently ignores laws, or doesn't care or forgets (because those people exist too), or how do you stop organized crime like human trafficking rings or pedophile rings? A central organization based on civilians wanting to make sure bad things don't happen or are stopped (which is what police essentially is imo) needs to be there either way. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22739 Posts
On June 06 2020 00:41 Uldridge wrote: A central organization based on civilians wanting to make sure bad things don't happen or are stopped (which is what police essentially is imo) needs to be there either way. One reason I framed the question as I did at the top (which people wanting to engage with me on prison abolition should start with, otherwise I'm unlikely to see value there) is because just in that sentence you make assumptions I disagree with based on historical examples I've already presented on the origins of policing in the US and the current state of affairs in the streets. On June 06 2020 00:59 Uldridge wrote: Okay, then let's carve it up a bit more. Which part of the sentence you quoted should be cut out so you'd agree with it? I'm not sure how I can be any more explicitly clear about the bare minimum I'm willing to accept as good faith engagement on this topic? | ||
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Uldridge
Belgium4602 Posts
Edit: I don't think I'm arguiing in bad faith? I think I'm trying to get to what a mutual agreement on what we could start with to replace police in general. So we need people helping other people at the very least, no? I've given examples on what I think needs significant intervention, but somehow you don't want to see it or reply to it. I can't really generalize "people ignoring laws" or "organized crime" any more though. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11342 Posts
On June 05 2020 23:44 GreenHorizons wrote: First, law enforcement and police aren't synonymous, as we see criminal cops literally all over the country right now. I don't understand the questions because they presume a relationship between police, crime, and society that doesn't exist. Like the "why don't you peacefully protest instead" assumes a relationship between politicians actions and the people protesting that simply doesn't exist. Okay, i think i see where you are coming from, and also why people are really confused. If i understand you correctly, when you say "the police", you mean the organisation which is currently called police in the US, with all its structural problems on so forth. So if you say "abolish the police", you mean to get rid of this organisation, and come up with another organisation without these problems to do law enforcement (but not some of the additional stuff that police in the US tend to do, and especially not the racist and/or overly violent parts) Is that how you use that word? Meanwhile, when people you are discussing with say "police", they mean "a law enforcement agency of some sort". Which leads to lots of confusion, because a society without any law enforcement agency whatsoever sounds like a very utopian concept which doesn't really fit with reality very well. But getting rid of the currently problem-riddled US police organisations and replacing them with something else is not that absurd. | ||
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
anywhere? lol I'd be curious to hear what you have to say what you are currently saying looks like aimless condescension | ||
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