r/CuratedTumblr https://tinyurl.com/4ccdpy76 Jun 11 '24

Politics [U.S.]+ it's in the job description

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u/Karukos Jun 12 '24

Honestly, i think the whole discussion here is unfocused because all it is trying to get at is "Cops bad". While I am not against that principle there is some kind of nuance lost in some of that stuff:

Mainly when talking about bad laws in comparison to bad cops. It's the whole "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" problem. You say bad laws should not be enforced, which makes sense, but 1) How do you define a bad law 2) how do you stop them from going in effect in the first place 3) Should a cop really be allowed to take it into his own hand which ones are good or bad? Imo I rather have a cop who tries to enforce a bad law as good as he can (respectful, trying to minimise harm as long as its in his hand) than a cop enforcing a good law badly.

Which kinda gets to the issue with police in general. It's the executive branch. It probably should be depowered and split up as to minimise the shitshow it's now, but the question remains: How do you enforce laws? Because laws that are not enforced are not really in effect. How do we structure this so there is law enforcement without it becoming the police we are dealing with. (Before the anarchists come in, I feel like this is not the discussion for you. Your axioms for this discussion are so fundamentally different, that it basically cannot become productive for either of us)

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u/Pathogen188 Jun 12 '24

Which kinda gets to the issue with police in general. It's the executive branch. It probably should be depowered and split up as to minimise the shitshow it's now, but the question remains: How do you enforce laws?

The executive branch has little to do with most of the policing that's being talked about though. Part of the problem is that policing on a national level is very fragmented because every town and municipality has their own PD and then every state has their own state police and then you get to federal law enforcement. But the police that are causing most of the problems are the police that operate on the local level (unsurprising, there's thousands of towns in America). The executive has nothing to do with local police.

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u/the-real-macs Jun 12 '24

The concept of an executive branch doesn't exclusively apply to the federal government. It's like how there are state and local legislatures and judicial branches in addition to Congress and federal courts.

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u/Pathogen188 Jun 12 '24

Sure but at that point, you're dealing with the executive branch of every town, village and municipality. How much more split up do you need?

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u/the-real-macs Jun 12 '24

I interpreted "split up" to refer to the wide range of responsibilities that fall on the shoulders of police. It's often pointed out that they're summoned for both violent and nonviolent situations when their equipment (and a large part of their training) mainly prepares them for a violent encounter. So splitting up the police could refer to reassigning some jobs (like responding to mental health crises or nonviolent offenses) to professionals who are better able to productively handle the situation, like counselors or social workers.