(May 15, 2016 at 2:53 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:(May 15, 2016 at 12:54 pm)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote: Cops are the 1%'ers thugs. There might be twelve good cops on the entire planet.
That's not fair at all. Look, I doubt anyone here has as much justification to lash out at police officers as I do. But I don't, because your assessment is in no way congruent with reality. Just like with bikers (from whence you get that 1%'ers tag), there are a small number of them who are deliberate thugs, bad actors who seek to use their authority to harm others. The other 99% are just Joe Schmoes, trying to make a living and feed their families. Trying to blame the Joes for the actions of the 1% is like saying I'm a biker thug because I've been riding motorcycles all my adult life, live a motorcycling lifestyle, and call myself a biker.
The problem with the police comes in from the pressure that is put on the Joes by the people with vested interests in a corrupt system: prosecutors who "nudge" them to "say the right thing" to attain a conviction, bosses who promote those willing to bend the rules, and as a result of those promotions, a training cadre full of those promoted thugs that encourages in the Joes an ongoing culture of "us versus them" that dehumanizes the suspects being interrogated. Most cops aren't racist, but in practice their actions appear to be because of the way they've been taught to see things, and handle situations.
The more corruption in the leadership and associated apparatus of the police department, the worse results you will get from that department. Unfortunately, the American pursuit of the Drug War and the War on Crime have turned the mindset completely around, until the people we have repressed into economic desperation are seen as The Enemy™. That's what a war is-- an us, and an enemy.
Turning the lower classes against one another and frightening the "Middle Class" (who are often just one bad paycheck away from dropping back down into the lower classes) into supporting the interests of the upper classes simply works too well, here. They have been broadcasting propaganda to suit that agenda for decades, now, and only with the advent of modern, portable videocameras and smartphones that can upload the information without going through a media outlet have we started to see the cracks in the edifice.
Maybe things will change. But blaming the cops who are, to my eyes, victims just as much as the people born into the desperation of inescapable poverty in a country where one's value is equated with their net worth, is not going to solve it. It will only harden the resolve of the people who have been told that the police are heroes, no matter what they're "required to do". Understanding the problems in the system does not require blaming the men and women who fall for it. Just my $0.02 on the matter.
I did say that there might be twelve good cops on the entire planet. The rest are just legal thugs who are easily bribed with a badge, gun, fancy uniform, power to beat people up and even kill them with little or no repercussion, and a steady paycheck and a pension. It's been that way since the first guy paid his buddies to beat up his competition. Even the most corrupt cop might do a good deed once in his life but he's still a corrupt thug. They are the same around the world. Just thugs with badges.
