What do you think about the police?

[Jehanne]

You get what you pay for.  To be a cop, one only needs a high school diploma.  In Iowa, you could get hired immediately without even having to go to the Iowa police academy right away.  One reform that could take place is to do what sheriff departments do and that is to make all police officers deputies; if a sheriff wants to get rid of an officer, all he/she has to do is to not redeputize that person.  Make police chiefs elected officials as local city sheriffs and see what that does.

Your plan would make the whole situation even more of a fuck up than it already is. Rural police in the US are generally worse than urban police, largely because they have absolutely no training.

What the US needs to do is to stop seeing their police as an army of occupation and their criminal code as a means to keep minorities down. Once the police are recivilianised, properly trained and deployed correctly, oversight is made independent and effective and the laws applied equally to all and written for the common good, you'll see a massive improvement in standards.

It would be an interesting study, the abuse of state cops versus city cops versus sheriff deputies versus the federal police (most of whom have advanced degrees).

[TaraJo]

I don't think police are inherently bad, but I can see why people don't like them.  

Yeah, a lot of laws that they enforce aren't just.  I can get past that, somewhat, by chalking it up to the price to live in a society with other people whose values aren't always the same as mine.

But I do think they get away with WAY too much.  If I'm walking down the street, minding my own business, a cop could probably just walk up on me, shoot me dead for no reason and get away with it.  A random stranger couldn't get away with that, but cops will.

Personally, I think, with all the training and equipment and backup cops get, they should be held to a higher standard than the general public, not a lesser standard.  If we're going to accept as justification for killing someone that a cop feared for their life or they panicked, why can't we accept that justification from the general public?  Better question is this: if fearing for your life is justification to kill someone and we've all see cops kill people under questionable circumstances, couldn't you justify killing a cop because you're afraid for your life?  

And that's not even going into the racial differences in how cops treat black people vs white people or the reaction cops have towards violent right wing protests vs peaceful left wing protests.  

Yeah, police are a necessity but they need major reform.

You get what you pay for.  To be a cop, one only needs a high school diploma.  In Iowa, you could get hired immediately without even having to go to the Iowa police academy right away.  One reform that could take place is to do what sheriff departments do and that is to make all police officers deputies; if a sheriff wants to get rid of an officer, all he/she has to do is to not redeputize that person.  Make police chiefs elected officials as local city sheriffs and see what that does.

That's certainly a step in the right direction.  I have a friend who suggests we start paying lawsuits against police out of police pensions, the idea being that cops will start policing each other better if they know they're going to be losing pension money off lawsuits when they get violent.  Me, I prefer to make police get mandatory insurance against lawsuits; if there's a lawsuit for police brutality or unnecessary force or civil rights violation or something, the insurance company pays and the cop responsible pas their premium go up.  One or two minor mistakes and cops can deal with it but if it's a regular pattern, bad officers are going to have premiums that are so high that continuing police work is prohibitively expensive.

[The Grand Nudger]

We get even less than we pay for. Not too long ago we found out that police departments were actively screening -out- applicants that scored too high on their aptitude tests.

[Fireball]

We get even less than we pay for.  Not too long ago we found out that police departments were actively screening -out- applicants that scored too high on their aptitude tests.

That's pretty common, actually. People in that bracket usually move on from the job, is the claim.

[FlatAssembler]

Like I asked my nephews, friend's kids, kid's friends, etc. when they hit that libertarian phase:  have you studied history at all?  Have you looked at the events of the past that lead to laws, regulations, and systems to enforce them?  Is the best solution to fixing a system that only works part of the time to completely do away with it?

And in answering, show your math.

Libertarians, as far as I can tell, tend to be far more knowledgeable about history than other people are. Most people are only vaguely aware of the crimes done by the Nazi regime and are not even vaguely aware of the crimes committed by the communist regimes. How many non-libertarians have heard about Lysenkoism? Yet almost every libertarian has (as a cautionary tale against "following the science"). Granted, many libertarians are ignorant about things such as Bengali famine, but so is almost everybody else.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Like I asked my nephews, friend's kids, kid's friends, etc. when they hit that libertarian phase:  have you studied history at all?  Have you looked at the events of the past that lead to laws, regulations, and systems to enforce them?  Is the best solution to fixing a system that only works part of the time to completely do away with it?

And in answering, show your math.

Libertarians, as far as I can tell, tend to be far more knowledgeable about history than other people are. Most people are only vaguely aware of the crimes done by the Nazi regime and are not even vaguely aware of the crimes committed by the communist regimes. How many non-libertarians have heard about Lysenkoism? Yet almost every libertarian has (as a cautionary tale against "following the science"). Granted, many libertarians are ignorant about things such as Bengali famine, but so is almost everybody else.

Har har HAR dee har har.

Boru

[FlatAssembler]

Libertarians, as far as I can tell, tend to be far more knowledgeable about history than other people are. Most people are only vaguely aware of the crimes done by the Nazi regime and are not even vaguely aware of the crimes committed by the communist regimes. How many non-libertarians have heard about Lysenkoism? Yet almost every libertarian has (as a cautionary tale against "following the science"). Granted, many libertarians are ignorant about things such as Bengali famine, but so is almost everybody else.

Har har HAR dee har har.

Boru

What does that mean?

[Ranjr]

Like I asked my nephews, friend's kids, kid's friends, etc. when they hit that libertarian phase:  have you studied history at all?  Have you looked at the events of the past that lead to laws, regulations, and systems to enforce them?  Is the best solution to fixing a system that only works part of the time to completely do away with it?

And in answering, show your math.

Libertarians, as far as I can tell, tend to be far more knowledgeable about history than other people are. Most people are only vaguely aware of the crimes done by the Nazi regime and are not even vaguely aware of the crimes committed by the communist regimes. How many non-libertarians have heard about Lysenkoism? Yet almost every libertarian has (as a cautionary tale against "following the science"). Granted, many libertarians are ignorant about things such as Bengali famine, but so is almost everybody else.

Thanks for proving my point.

[FlatAssembler]

Libertarians, as far as I can tell, tend to be far more knowledgeable about history than other people are. Most people are only vaguely aware of the crimes done by the Nazi regime and are not even vaguely aware of the crimes committed by the communist regimes. How many non-libertarians have heard about Lysenkoism? Yet almost every libertarian has (as a cautionary tale against "following the science"). Granted, many libertarians are ignorant about things such as Bengali famine, but so is almost everybody else.

Thanks for proving my point.

What do you mean? Do you disagree with me? Do you disagree that most people are completely unaware of all the horrible things governments have done in the 20th century?

[Ranjr]

Thanks for proving my point.

What do you mean? Do you disagree with me? Do you disagree that most people are completely unaware of all the horrible things governments have done in the 20th century?

Yes.  The young people I wrote of in the post you quoted all know more than you about history and wouldn't consider recent history obscure knowledge.  What historical events would be relevant to a discussion of why we have police and what would be the consequences of doing away with them?  Has there ever been a period of history where capitalists operated unregulated?  What was the result of that?