I honestly don't see the distinction. Enforcing a law is essentially carrying out a standing order to enforce certain things to happen or not happen. I tend to see police officers as soldiers for the courts. They above all care for the rule of law and use aggression, intimidation, and violence to enforce that rule.


That's more an issue of the abuse of power, which is rampant among law enforcement. They are enforcers of the law but are protected from the rule of law by their superiors. We're just starting to see these types of incidents on video because of the proliferation of cameras in cell phones and everywhere else. How long has this type of sickening crap been going on? Cops flat out getting away with murder or a vicious assault.


There are all kinds of 'legally protected' positions that sound absolutely insane to me. I'm a pacifist and I refuse to intentionally harm any living thing. Survival isn't as dependent on violence as we tend to think. Just owning a gun, to me, is an admission of being capable of killing someone and not only that, but willing to do it.


I may be radical in my thinking (I often am) but I see the entire institution of law enforcement to be fundamentally flawed. You cannot give a group of people that much power over others without these kinds of abuses happening. The whole idea we have of police today needs to drastically change. I don't have all the answers; I'm not a social engineer or even very educated in sociology or politics or any of the number of areas of our society that would also have to change to accommodate for some kind of self-policing communities. But I think we do need to discuss these issues and try to work towards some kind of resolution. Body cams are a start, but only if the evidence actually serves to maintain accountability.

There's a lot I want to say but I'm going to keep this short and sweet. The work that I do is centered around issues of poverty, race, gender, and police brutality--and while it's something I'm passionate about, I will admit that after spending my entire day thinking about these issues and painstakingly analyzing them to death, I hardly ever want to come home and spend my free time writing about them.

But let me just say, RAM, that I think a lot of your argument has to do with the circumstances surrounding poverty and actually has less to do with police brutality itself.

I'm very sorry to hear about your family friend, but women get raped all of the time at prestigious universities and it largely goes unnoticed. These kinds of incidents are not exclusive to poor neighborhoods. I saw more hard drugs pass through the hands of White college kids during my brief stint in school than I have seen in all of my accumulative time living in the South Side of Chicago. Poverty =/= crime and any sociologist worth their salt will tell you the same thing.

So why are we seeing poor neighborhoods so heavily policed? And if these neighborhoods are supposedly dangerous, why is police presence so ineffective at curbing crime? Well, take a look at the opportunities available in low-income areas. Look at the public/social services. Look at the state funding put into education. Again using Chicago as an example, there are neighborhoods on the South Side where there are virtually NO institutions offering jobs (aside from convenient stores scattered every few blocks), all of the public schools on the South Side have had their funding cut significantly under the current administration, there is no trauma center (people often die in transit being transported to the trauma center on the wealthy North side of the city), there are very few public mental healthcare facilities, the list could go on...

The problem is not that poor people are inherently criminal--it's that there is absolutely no infrastructure in place to ensure that people can enjoy a decent standard of living. And on top of that, these communities are targeted and policed at significantly higher rates than wealthier communities that experience the same rates of crime. The answer is not police, the answer is investing in our communities to make them better places to live.

Regarding your comment about "higher level criminals"...I have yet to see the police harass any politicians. In fact, and again to use Chicago as an example, the CPD (Chicago Police Department) has been linked to high level drug trafficking many times over--and I'm sure the same can be said for any PD in any major city.

And lastly--no, body cameras are not the answer. We don't need to give the police more tools. For one, body cams have been in use for a few years now by police departments in (I believe) Arizona (I could be wrong about the state) and nothing has come of it. In virtually every case of police brutality that has been documented in areas that already have body-cams in place, the cameras have conveniently "malfunctioned" or the footage has not been released to the public. And keep in mind that the murders of Freddie Gray and countless other victims of police brutality were caught on camera, and look what came of it. We don't need more footage of people being murdered...we know it's happening, we've been seeing it, people have been filming it.

What we need right now is accountability and serious reform (as a first step of course), and ultimately we need to be imaginative in our thinking about ways to deal with harm (because let's be real, people do hurt each other). I personally believe in community based approaches to harm reduction, and this doesn't look the same for every community. But we don't need slave catchers with guns patrolling our streets in the off-chance they catch someone "bad". That kind of scenario is dangerous, as we can clearly see. And if I can be frank it just seems like a stupid idea to begin with...unless, of course, the whole point is not actually to protect people but to...I dunno...catch slaves?

I'm going to (try to) resign from this thread but I look forward to seeing where the conversation goes.

Before you said:



With my proposal of where you would feel physically safer, I was trying to rhetorically reason that obviously you would feel safer walking around Beverly Hills since it is clearly a much safer area. This is because the people are generally richer and have less reason to try to rob you, nor any real motivation to risk assaulting you and going to prison.

I am in fact a very privileged white male, and I am fortunate that the police do not really profile people like me. Except the meter maids, but that's in the past now. Darn meter maids!

I did not mean to insinuate that all people below the poverty line are "scummy." I even said in one of my last posts that there are rich people I know who are garbage and poor people who are great. But being poor and living in these bad areas usually implies a higher chance of someone being undesirable or criminally inclined. Like I said, crime rates are just lower in richer areas. The people there are less likely to physically assault you! And the police arrive rather quickly if there is an incident, which usually helps.

My grandparents were actually way below the poverty line, but they were ok. They lived off a farm anyway but they're still nice people. Their county is rather poor however and there are a lot of undesirable types there. My grandpa complains about them; pedophiles, meth cooks, etc. But in the country people just have guns and don't rely on the sheriff as much because there is a lot of open space. That's a whole separate discussion but by no means do I want to imply that being poor makes one scummy/criminally inclined. There is just a higher occurrence of it in those populations.



Thanks for your perspective!! I am just concerned about the following situation: what would happen if let's say we were to do away with the police and discourage gun ownership, but then someone breaks into your house? What do you do? Someone asks for your wallet then physically attacks you on the street. What do you do? Someone robs your business to buy some addictive substance. What do you do?

Believe me, now that I have identified and have worked through most of my problems involving ideological state apparatuses, my focus is now on repressive ones (ones like the police and courts that can use violence and threats to enforce ideology). As much as I want to be free, we do need to maintain the classic idea of the pursuit of happiness. Anyone can pursue happiness as long as it doesn't involve stepping on others' rights to do so. We need to enforce the second part with laws or else people will be taken advantage of by criminals. So how can we do this? If police and self-regulation aren't feasible, then what is? Robocops?



Praxis your whole post is fascinating, and yes, a lot of what I'm saying does revolve around poverty as opposed to excessive force. Tons of uninvestigated rapes and drug use occurs at universities, but the privileged kids there are less likely to be prosecuted for it than minority/poor folks.

I find it disgusting that some elementary kids in Detroit have to wear jackets to class in the winter because of no heat or have to bring toilet paper from home while we build trillion dollar jet fighters that sit unused. The US definitely does have its priorities screwed up. I can hardly believe what we do before we invest in our own citizens, so I try to use charity to alleviate some issues in my own community (but this has many of its own problems).

For the higher level criminals I was talking about mob bosses and cartel leaders who are aggressively sought after and prosecuted. But many times this goes beyond the scope of police and under the jurisdiction of the DEA and FBI.

I personally feel safer in richer communities, and while I thought everyone shared this view, maybe it's not the truth at all. But we have to ask ourselves, why do people want to live in richer areas? Better infrastructure of course, but also less crime and better policing. The latter could very well arise from the former but it is no surprise that crime rates are higher in poor areas and something has to be done.

Like even you say and I said above, how do we handle actual criminals? We cannot just "do away" with police and expect everything to be ok. But clearly we have a problem with excessive force. So where do we go from here?

I highly recommend watching Mark Passio's talk on natural law.

Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1pkJaNbzLU

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ezz0AeC9vc

Part 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THs8Yx1BXcw

no ........ this is not too bad , its just the way things are

the world these days is run by criminals - between politicians , corporations, drug cartels and the military

the police is not there to stop any real crimes , crimes by politicians , corporations , drug cartels and the military are infact protected by the state

look at the banking system , wars , food and environmental pollution , and the drug problems

the real crimes are always being commited by the state , think nuclear pollution , places like chernobyl and such , crimes against nature itself

the police is mostly there to harass the weak and stop crimes not authorised by the state

what are state authorised crimes ?

banking system - the one that gambles hard earned money of the people away , creating debt and poverty for all , (the bail-out only means more debt for people)

the nuclear approach - creating all round misery for all sentient beings

political crimes - such as policies which are against the welfare of humanity , but always benifit corporations , things like keeping cannabis illegal , making ibogaine illegal and keeping methadone so big pharma can make a buck

drug crimes - major drug movements are always protected by the state, politicians , police , there is money for all here , its only poor individuals that suffer not the cartel leaders

military crimes - there is a whole bunch of documentries and info about this on the web , torture and murder is the least of it

corporate crimes - no doubt the banking system falls under this category , yet there is much more to this , insurance scams , funds , land acquisitions , oil issues and a whole lot of other stuff

well there are a whole lot of other authorised crimes by the state but when the whole state is criminal , what can be expected

the police is not there to protect the people, it there to protect the state from the people , this is the reason why there is heavy security around any institution of the state and almost none around people's houses ,

The most wise post on this thread so far! With a little added emphasis on my part...

Thank you Jin!

RAM I'm sure I'm not alone when i say that some of what your saying I find a bit offensive on the grounds that you are saying you are a privileged white male, cops don't pick on people like me, Id feel safer in a rich neighborhood etc. I find these statements a little racist and classist. All are humans, just born into differing circumstances. Be grateful that you were born into an environment without these challenges, but try to diversify your experience. What your saying is prejudice. Not to mention your view comes from a slightly "sheltered" maybe nieve perspective. I mean you are admitting your worst run in with the cops was meter maids......

Last year my sister younger than me was tased and beat by the cops for being intoxicated in public. She was very drunk and was not cooperating so the goons tased her, beat her, and she ended up being in jail for 2 weeks. 4 fully grown male meathead officers all beat my small sister. She was severely damaged and traumatised by the experience of being in jail, and is just now recovering 2 years later, she had to start therapy and medication after this experience.

I had a warrant for unpaid traffic ticket and recently was picked up walking down an alleyway. I had to do the night in jail. What was most obvious to me was what a money grab this whole system was. No wonder they need to arrest so many people in order to fund their enormous buildings and huge staff including not just cops but booking officers correction officers etc. They depend on this for funding. Not once was I treated as a person while i was there, they just laughed and joked like i wasn't even there or conscious of what they were saying. I also find it relevant that all of these people were very obese, ugly, and sick looking (I'm not saying that to be mean, just an observation. Thats why they do what they do to give them a false sense of assurance that they are good and these guys are bad etc.)

While i was in there, i was roomed with about 20 other strangers in a small area called the bull pen. During intake i was treated as if i was total scum/ not even human. This treatment is reflected in the actual cell, where there is one toilet in each cell, when you need to defecate, you pretty much have to do it no more than 4 feet away from a strangers face as he lies on his bed. Not to mention you are locked in a cage like an animal, and your free will has been taken.

After the night in jail we went to court in the morning, where we were joined also by the women, there was at least 50 people in cuffs waiting for the judge and i was at the last of the alphabet so i heard them all. Out of the entire 50 only 1 person was in there for a violent act, which was domestic abuse. The rest were petty drug offenses including possession of MJ, paraphernalia etc. and of course a few DUI's. Not one of these people deserved to be in there or benefited from the situation.

Truly sad, and i know thats just one night in jail, thats nothing compared to the reality of private for profit prisons, Its a race and class war, designed to persecute and hold back minorities. Its a self-perpetuating system that requires this chain of repression to continue in order for it to sustain. Theres nothing to defend here. If there do need to be cops, which i don't think is necessary, but if it is, the legal system needs to be radically reformed in order to do any real good, and less harm. Cause in my eyes thats all this system does, just harm. Never once have i felt safer because of police, it is police that i fear and damn near get a panic attack whenever I see one. And I'm a very peaceful reasonable individual, not a threat to society in any way at all. Yet the only people I really fear are the police.

And you say if there weren't cops people would be taken advantage of by criminals. but in reality, police respond to crimes after the fact, as someone else is pointed out. The crime has already taken place, even if they make an arrest it does not undo the crime...

This happens when you give uneducated, unconscious, retarded robot a gun and power to use it against anyone.

I have been on all sides of this issue. I have had my butt kicked by police once, and also have been let off easy on several occasions. I've been given tickets unnecessarily and been let off with warnings. I've worked in law enforcement and also worked as an advocate (of sorts) for defendants.

One thing that has served me well over the years is a talk my Dad had with me when I was 15. It went something like this:

"Son, sit down and listen. I'm going to tell you how to deal with Cops. With the kind of things you're into and the kind of friends you have you are definitely going to be needing this advice. Now when a Cop stops you and questions you, you need to assume you are under arrest, because you are under arrest if he wants to arrest you. Your job is to make him not want to arrest you. To make him not want to arrest you, you:"

a) Say "Yes Sir" and "No sir".

b) Answer his questions directly and tell the truth.

c) Don't argue with him and don't kiss his ass. Either one will make him want to arrest you.

d) If he says you're under arrest, say something like "Ok, I wish you wouldn't but I won't give you any trouble"

That advice has gotten me out of several arrests for DUIs and Drug Possession. It has also stopped Cops from looking closer on several other occasions where I could have been busted. The trick is to not make their job difficult.

In my line of work I hear a never ending stream of stories about how and why people say they were arrested. It's amazing to me how many arrests could be avoided if people just dealt rationally with Cops. Cops can be hideous bullies, sure. But if you want a hard time from them, go ahead and give them a hard time. See how that works out. Same goes for Jailers, Judges, Parole Officers, etc.

This post is just about practicalities. I have mixed and contradictory opinions on larger issues regarding Law Enforcement's relationship to society.

Oh, and I'd like to thank my Dad for "The Talk".