politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I really love when people use the phrase "bad apple" to refer to bad cops. As in "oh that's just a bad apple, we're not all like that"
Except the full phrase is "a few bad apples spoils the bunch"
Guys, the bunch is spoiled. Throw it away. Get a new bunch
The barrel itself is rotten. Replace all the apples with good ones, they'll rot too. We need to build a new barrel, with significantly more accountability.
The apple was the cop before he became a cop. The "bad" is the police force
Take any good fruit and throw it into mold and bacteria. Guess what happens?
And our president, who campaigned on a BLM platform, has called for even more police militarization.
He did no such thing!
As I recall when asked by a black person what he would do for black people he literally said they weren't black...
After a quick bit of googling I don't even think he ever said anything positive about BLM and after being elected had one meeting with it's representative that disappointed BLM... So yeah.
Some leftists believe in complete police abolition, but unless they're an Anarchist or something (and not to be taken seriously) the goal is the re-foundation of a more ethical police system. Burn it down and rebuild it from the ground up, with some important stipulations:
De-militarization. Police do not need armored vehicles, or "riot gear" for that matter.
Liberalization. Police should be required to go through a values test to weed out those with fascistic tendencies.
Mandatory local recruitment. Police need to actually live in the neighborhoods they police. Just owning/renting some property there is not enough.
Dependent funding. Police should not get to keep income from fines and seizures, so they are not incentivized to give out as many fines and confiscate as much property as possible.
This is a great reply.
I would strongly recomend listening to 99% invisible Freedom House episode. This has happened before. In the past we didnt have ambulances services and cops would often throw a dying person in a paddy wagon and then take them to the hospital...hopefully i don't have to explain why this is bad. When the first ambulance service was being organized the cops through a fucking fit about their "jobs being stolen". There have been a number of programs trying to take off like the Denver Star program that do similar things. They take on wellfare cases. There have also been things proposed for other types of issues that cops do. A exercise is to start thinking of cops as "murder squad". Do you need the murder squad to take care of X? Do you need them for tickets? Hell sometimes if the answer may seem yes, but the way they do things as reckless and bloody as possible has shown that it is often not effective. High speed chases down packed streets? Shoot outs they start in heavily crowded areas? A kid who shoplifted candy and surrendered and got murdered anyway? (Know one of those). We have got to deprogram ourselves in thinking we know what police do, because what we were sold is no where centered in reality.
That's what defund the police is all about, it's not to take money away to punish the police, that would be stupid, it's to move that money to other departments that would be better trained to handle mental health or domestic issues
No, but it's a silly demand to say that you can't point out something wrong without having a solution.
In my opinion, we need to start over and rethink the whole thing. We can have people that do this job, but they don't need to be trained the way they're trained, or be allowed to get away with what they get away with. Other countries have much different police forces - we can start by looking there.
But we can't just shut this discussion down. It needs to be had.
Federal and standardised education. Minimum three years, and a bachelor's degree
Solution to what? What are the irreplaceable functions of police, in your opinion?
Spending money on addressing criminogenic conditions instead of policing. It will be much less expensive in the long run, though you'll probably still need a minimal police force. Getting there is tricky though, since there's a significant time lag between implementing the change and reductions in crime. Although, a lot of current police budgets don't really go towards helping anyone so maybe you could safely redirect money to long-term solutions without sacrificing short term security.
why downvotes? can we not use downvoting as dislikes here? the responses to this question have been fantastic