F The Police, and then what? A police/justice abolition thread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > F The Police, and then what? A police/justice abolition thread

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

enki42 posted:

Is it fair to say that a better way to think about "abolish the police" is "find things where the police are unnecessary or not the best solution", which right now could very easily be:

- getting police out of schools
- having police not be first responders for mental emergencies
- having police not be first responders for DV issues
- treat drugs as a health issue rather than a criminal one
- many many more things before anyone gets around to guillotining homicide detectives

It's "conditionally abolish the police where it makes sense right now, and continue doing that until there's no police." I don't know if I agree with the "no police" part, but for like 99% of what the police do and for anything that an abolition movement could accomplish in the foreseeable future, the above is probably what you're looking at, and I think you said in the USPol thread that all of those sort of things are things you're down for CelestialScribe.

Man, the posters in this thread use the term 'abolish' in a pretty weird way. IMO it is a little sophistic. They should call it Police Reduction, if they want to emphasize that they have different ideas from the more common kinds of police reform.

If instead we were talking about abolishing the death penalty, I don't think the posters in this thread would accept the same kind of weaseling about the term 'abolish' that has been going on in this thread.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2020 21:43

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 20:50

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

cheetah7071 posted:

Yeah I think most of the abolish crowd is okay with having government employee bodyguards for social workers

a.k.a. police

# ¿ Jun 8, 2020 20:57

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

cheetah7071 posted:

if they aren't patrolling the streets, aren't the person doing the active response, and don't have the power to decide to arrest, it's so unrecognizable that calling them police by another name is disingenuous

Haha so the social worker is a cop then, since they can arrest and detain people (just not directly, I guess, they have their 'armed bodyguards' do it) for breaking laws.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2020 21:24

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

Vahakyla posted:

I do have to say that where I disagree with the more recent messaging is the "Police are only a couple hundred year old institution". Yeah well no poo poo, it wans't that long ago where the affairs of the rich and famous were not the business of anyone. The City Guard made sure poor people don't fight on the streets, but they couldn't do poo poo about rich dude fighting poor people, for example. Even more so, the mere idea that some public service is INVESTIGATING the affairs of the rich, or their crimes, was outright preposterous and almost unspeakable. For all its ill, modern law enforcement will prevent a mass shooter who is rich, and will at least most of the time investigate child porn or serial killers, even if they are the society's cream. That's why the modern concept of Police is pretty fresh.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to roll the dice on being reincarnated as a random person > 200 years ago. The fact that there were no cops in a time period where life was even more brutal and unfair than it is now doesn't really help the literal 'abolish the police' argument. It would be smarter for them to just not bring that up, IMO.

silence_kit fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jun 8, 2020

# ¿ Jun 8, 2020 21:42

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

flashman posted:

Here lies the disconnect for me, I do not believe that society is made up of those who, without a credible form of coercion, (in the current system a series of increasing fines backed by the threat of incarceration for non compliance) will comply with community oriented desires. I don't see how you can look at the insane polarization of America and think that suddenly it will be kumbaya between the chuds and the sane people in the country.

Yeah, this is totally puzzling to me.

flashman posted:

I'd suggest that the abolish viewpoint and reform are talking past each other as well and imprecise use of language the reason.

This is partially true--a lot of people are using the word 'abolish' in a very misleading way. It is not 100% true--I think there are posters in this thread who really believe that we could live in a society with zero people employed by the state to enforce laws.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2020 19:09

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

adhuin posted:

On counterpoint, if the law enforcement is non-existant, then landlords and other rich probably can afford armed thugs to enforce their will and collect their debts.

Yeah, and those security guards who work for the rich would have very little accountability to the public.

This expands to other things as well. I feel like having zero ability to enforce laws greatly limits the effectiveness of government.

Outside of the topic of this thread, popular political opinion on this forum is that a good way to improve the welfare of the general public is to expand government functions and scope. But that is undermined if you provide the government zero ability to enforce its laws. Literal 'abolish the police' seems to be at odds with other progressive policies, IMO.

silence_kit fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jun 11, 2020

# ¿ Jun 11, 2020 20:22

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

I feel like a lot of the anti-cop arguments in this thread and elsewhere are basically: 'there is rampant corruption in the police force--they are not acting in the public interest, and they cannot be trusted'. Which I agree with, maybe not to the same degree as some, who right now are pretty much attributing 100% of the problems in society to corruption in the police force. But I do think it is very true.

But then a surprisingly popular response is to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and to propose that we totally eliminate the role of government-employed law enforcer, because the corruption is intrinsic to the position. It is inevitable. Well yeah, power corrupts.

But can't you expand this kind of argument to entire concept of governance in general? The progressive response to other kinds of government corruption is to propose that we reform that area of government, not to eliminate it or to privatize it. Why is it so different for law enforcement?

edit: I guess you could claim that law enforcement isn't a needed government function. But I think that is a paradoxical belief, and undermines the idea of expanding the government to improve people's lives. If we lived in a world where we didn't need laws, then we really wouldn't need a government either.

silence_kit fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Jun 11, 2020

# ¿ Jun 11, 2020 20:56

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

Yuzenn posted:

Purpose.

The reason for having police is explicit and i'd argue that there isn't any "corruption", it's working exactly the way it's intended as an agent of the state. The rest of government doesn't have that same issue because (mostly) it's centralized design isn't oppression and terrorism against black people. Mostly.

OwlFancier posted:

But you don't have to go that far to suggest that the problem isn't the police are working badly, the problem is that they are working well. They are doing the job they are best suited to, which is using force on behalf of the government and capital, on people who have very little say in how they are governed and very little money. And that's as designed.

Again as I said, the cops are the strong arm of landlords looking to evict or immiserate those who cannot afford property, of cities trying to "solve" their homeless problem by getting rid of the homeless, of prisons looking to keep their populations up, of politicians looking to be "tough on crime", of themselves looking for ways to get their arrest rates up by instigating hostilities and then arresting people for it. And none of this is "corruption", this is all entirely within the legal and social function of the police

If what police departments are doing now is not government corruption, but is instead government working as intended, doesn't that undermine the entire idea of using the government to improve the lives of people? If the only use of law enforcement that you could ever imagine is to brutalize the weak, and not to enforce justice, then why would you ever want to expand the power of government? Why aren't you both hardcore libertarians? (Maybe you are, and I'm just projecting normal progressive beliefs onto you?)

silence_kit fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Jun 11, 2020

# ¿ Jun 11, 2020 21:26

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

karthun posted:

Ultimately you are looking at demands to reduce if not eliminate the police power of the state and they believe that police power is not needed to improve the lives of people.

Maybe I'm making a hair-splitting argument. I agree that reducing power of police departments is a good idea. Reducing it to 0% (literal 'abolish the police') undermines the functioning of the rest of the government though.

Also the entire idea that 'law enforcement could only ever be used to brutalize the weak' really doesn't seem too different of an idea from 'laws are only passed to benefit the strong at the expense of the weak' or 'government power could only ever be used to brutalize the weak'. It reveals a deep distrust of government. Government reform is impossible.

silence_kit fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jun 11, 2020

# ¿ Jun 11, 2020 21:35

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

Jaxyon posted:

I mean what's likely to happen is they should be reduced heavily at the network level without involving the government but CS has now moved his goalposts from disagreeing to semantics.

Well, it and other kinds of 'bans' would need to happen that way if the government were to have no law enforcement arm.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 02:32

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

CelestialScribe posted:

So, what are you suggesting then? That television networks can't broadcast it? That it can't be sold? That people can't have it? You need to be more specific with the word "ban" and not rely on people to understand the particular nuance of what you mean.

It seems a little paradoxical to me to say that law enforcement is not a necessary government function and then in the same breath call for unpopular bans.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 02:38

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

Jaxyon posted:

Who's arguing against law enforcement in this thread?

lmao

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 02:40

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

Jaxyon posted:

Sounds like somebody confused "abolish police" with "end any enforcement of laws" because they watched enough copaganda that they can only conceptualize law enforcement through our current model.

Oh, so you when you and others in this thread say that you want to abolish law enforcement, you really mean that you want to reform law enforcement. Ok, well that is a billion times more reasonable position

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 02:48

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

E-Tank posted:

I genuinely don't understand why people keep acting like this is some sort of gotcha. We recognize that something that nominally, should uphold communal defense and ensure people aren't getting hurt, but the modern concept of policing as we know it should be abolished because *holy* gently caress, they are murdering so many people for no loving reason.

This is like going up to someone who is protesting Donald Trump and is suggesting that he should be removed, so a new leader could be elected, and saying they're not for impeaching the president, they're for reforming him.

No it isn't like your analogy at all. Words have meaning. Impeaching the president is not the same thing as abolishing the presidency. Abolishing the presidency would mean to get rid of the office of President of the United States.

E.g. when people say they want to abolish the death penalty, they don't weasel about the word abolish like what has been going in this thread. They mean that they don't want the government to sentence people to death as punishment for their crimes, period. Not, oh, they want to change how they sentence people to death, or oh, they want to reform the appeal process, or oh, they want to change the execution methods to ones which are less cruel, etc. etc.

Multiple people have gone into this thread and have gotten confused about what posters have been posting about because they are using the word 'abolish' to not mean 'abolish'. This is not to mention that there are posters (maybe they are common here, maybe they aren't--it is hard to tell because some people in this thread post in an abstruse way) who are using the word 'abolish' to mean 'abolish' and actually think that we do not need people employed by the government to enforce laws and who also believe that the US could be run in the same way as a socialist commune of 500 people in the middle of nowhere.

silence_kit fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Jun 18, 2020

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 12:52

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

Pustulio posted:

Maybe they should actually read the thread then? It isn't that long and we clarify what we mean by abolish on virtually every page?

But what else do you want to call it? Many of us are arguing that the police needs to be torn out root and branch and replaced entirely with something that only bears a superficial resemblance if that to what came before, what is that if not abolishing the police? You can get pedantic and say abolish an replace I guess, but abolish is still in there.

This sounds like law enforcement reform to me. I understand that you and others don't want to call it that so you can distinguish yourselves from people who propose milder reforms, but this is just reform. It certainly isn't abolishing law enforcement.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2020 17:18

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

I wonder how the CHOP government? is going to handle the aftermath of the shooting

# ¿ Jun 21, 2020 22:19

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 20:50

silence_kit: Jul 14, 2011; by the sex ghost

Nurge posted:

I'm not crazy, right?

You're not crazy.

The literal 'abolish the police' position--this is to be contrasted with the non-literal 'abolish the police' position where 'abolish' doesn't mean 'abolish' but really means 'reform'--is so heavily dependent on many other radical changes happening to society (which might even be impossible because they ignore the nature of man and maybe fundamental challenges when creating/operating/running human organizations) that getting rid of law enforcement is like the least interesting and least substantive part of the position.

silence_kit fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Jun 23, 2020

# ¿ Jun 23, 2020 12:37

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > F The Police, and then what? A police/justice abolition thread