this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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To combat institutionalized racism, this briefly worked in California, is to encourage POC communities to arm themselves with rifles to protect their communities without relying on racist law enforcement. This empowers them with agency to threaten the status quo with strong demands for positive change using the specter of violence.
This was the Black Panthers, and Reagan used strict gun control regulation written and leveraged by the Republican Party with money from the NRA to disarm black people.
My dude, the last the the US needs rn is even more guns going around. You're looking at this from the wrong angle. Police reform is the answer. If law enforcement officers aren't exhibiting racist behavior, the communities won't need to defend themselves in lieu of proper protection from the police they're paying taxes for.
Hiring good cops is the solution. Not giving scared people more firearms.
LEOs exist as an enforcement arm of the state, one which universaly will always hold power over others, which can attract the wrong type of individuals to the profession. Furthermore, their interests are not your intrests.
Reform will not change that, cops and corruption are a trope as old as they've existed for.
Alternatively, you are armed and advocating for your own interests, its not that you will use the tool at your disposal, but a matter of having it.
"good cops" lol
Yes. Good cops it's called a reform for a reason.
Reforming a police force still implies the existence of a militarized group of people whose job is to uphold the power of the state at the expense of the people. Law enforcement's job is to enforce laws, right? Laws are the will of the state, and enforcement is making people obey those laws with the threat or act of violence. That is what a police force is.
That's why people, why I, don't think reforming police is the answer, because by definition police are the violent arm of the state.
Abolishing the state's monopoly on "lawful" violence is, in my view, the only way to reduce institutional abuse of power against marginalized groups. Having people whose job it is to de-escalate heated situations, deal with unsafe conditions, and direct people away from harm is a necessary job, but that doesn't require violence. That doesn't require "Police".
I do think there are people who join the police with the intent of doing good, helping people, and keeping people from harm. I just think that should be a separate and distinct job from enforcing the law.
PS I love your username. X)
I think I see where you're coming from with this, but abolishing the states ability to enforce the laws of the land will throw things into anarchy with frontier justice being the only option. There has to be people to enforce laws when people decide they're above them.
Can the scope of work police are required to handle be split between other professionals trained to handle different types of situations? Absolutely. But getting rid of Police entirely simply cannot be the answer in a country with laws.
Ah, see, I think a world in anarchy would be ideal. Not in the hyperbolic common use sense where anarchy means the purge and chaos and zero government that most media portray it to be, but the actual definition of anarchy, a world without hierarchy. A world where no person, group, or government has the right to use violence or the threat thereof to coerce anyone into doing anything against their will.
There are so very many ways these ideals could be debated and edge cases brought up. So many people, with much more detailed and complete knowledge than I, have written many books on the subject. I don't have the answers to it all. Mostly I don't think people require a State, which is to say a sovereign government that has the authority to enforce a system of rules over the people living inside it's jurisdiction, to live in peaceful coexistence.
Police are definitely necessary if the goal is to uphold the laws of the state. I just don't think we need a state and, by extension, I don't think we need the police that enforce it's laws.
I'm aware I'm an idealist, I just can't bring myself to aim for a worse world because what I want seems too hard to get. A perfect world can't exist but I'll be damned if I don't try anyway.
Anywho, I'll relinquish the soap box now, thanks for listening and being open to hearing my point of view.
Ideally everyone living together in perfect non-state regulated harmony would be very easy to achieve for a lot of people. My concern are the people who are then going to realize they have nothing stopping them from killing you in your sleep and walking out with everything you own. I'm not a sketchy type human, but I've definitely known a couple that would, in a world without police or laws, take a savagely terrible advantage of their fellow man.
I really wished this fantasy of yours would come true, but the only kinds of people who desire to be cops are racists and power abusing morons. The ones who are legitimately benevolent leave because the pay and stress are not worth the long hours, high risks, and lack of respect from the public.
Sounds like part of the reform would have to be a way to incentivise people of a higher caliber to stay.
Giving a small group of people guns and putting that group in charge of enforcing a set of rules (that they’re not even required to know) for everyone else seems like an approach that totally lacks common sense in the first place imo.
Part of this reform I mention would have to include a rework of their training.
Can’t hire good cops if they don’t exist. We need police education
“police education” will never be a thing, and everywhere it’s been implemented, they managed to turn it into “how to not get caught by telling a dead body to stop resisting”. they will be slave catchers forever
That's almost literally what I just said homie.