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  1. Christ, I hate cops. To plagiarize BoJack Horseman, giving a jerk a gun and telling him it's OK to kill people doesn't make that jerk a hero.

    Thursday, 17-Aug-17 01:03:15 UTC from web
    • @scribus Did cops do something now?

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 01:21:57 UTC in context
    • @nerthos Nothing new.

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:01:36 UTC in context
    • @scribus Well I mean, if you hate them, something must have happened to spark this feeling of yours, since you aren't an anarchist or anything like that.

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:04:16 UTC in context
    • @nerthos Well, "hate" is a strong word, even for the immediate moment, but I've never exactly "liked" cops. I want to. I want to believe that they're the self-sacrificing Good Guys who want to make a positive difference in their communities. At all times I'm as wary of them as I am of anybody else carrying a weapon, but that's beside the point. But, like anything else, really, it's a job, and it's a mixed bag. So that's fine. I still want to like what they represent, except... as of late, they haven't been representing protection of the individual as much as I would like and have been focusing on protecting the status quo (often at the expense of the individual). For all I know, it's always been like that. Again, beside the point. (This is raising flags in my "the good of the many over the good of the few" sectors; but, to calm that, I believe people should choose the greater good, not have it forced on them). Wow, this is getting longwinded... Phew.

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:18:09 UTC in context
    • @nerthos Anyway, on a good day I'm just a hair on the bleaker side of the issue, but today I saw an increased presence on the train, asked if there were reason for concern, and found myself cornered and outnumbered by two guys in uniform acting exactly like street thugs. I don't hate cops, not by default; I just hate the cops we've ended up with, for whatever reasons we've ended up with them. And, another aside, I probably would stand a chance of being a real-deal Anarchist if I were more optimistic. As it stands, I'm kind of a de-facto "leave me alone, don't make me hurt you" almost-anarchy-fan? :p

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:20:58 UTC in context
    • @nerthos Thank you for dragging that out of me. Ordering my thoughts has helped me master my emotions about the incident.

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:21:38 UTC in context
    • @scribus Well, cops are supposed to enforce law rather than anything else. So at the end of the day whether they're a good or bad thing depends on whether the law is good or bad. Again, not sure what happened this time. As far as I see it cops lately don't enforce the law strongly enough to avoid violent outbreaks and that's my main complaint about them, but that's due to generally having orders to avoid involvement. However as you point out, yeah, there's a good number of thugs in an uniform too, and while the police as a body might generally be a force of good, it's often that individuals join not to serve but to feel "well-endowed" with burrowed authority. Those I fully agree are something we should be rid of. A cop should be a public servant, not a thug, and all instances of such behaviour should be reported, investigated, and eventually punished accordingly.

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:27:20 UTC in context
    • @nerthos Yeah. In my usage of ACAB it's more reflective of the state than the nature, I guess.

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:28:54 UTC in context
    • @scribus Don't you guys have a way to report this stuff safely? I'm aware you can't just walk into a police station and say "these two cops abused their authority" as there's a good chance there's someone in the room that is involved or acts as a mole for the bad cops. However some places have a separate way to report such events, for example over here the government released a phone application to semi-anonimously denounce corrupt cops, drug dealers, and other things that would put the witness at risk if denounced directly

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:30:10 UTC in context
    • @nerthos Not to the best of my knowledge. And since nothing came of it, I don't think I really have issue enough to complain.

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:32:45 UTC in context
    • @scribus Well, being harassed constitutes abuse of authority, but considering the state of affairs over there yeah, it likely wouldn't be taken seriously since aside from real people like you there's also the crowd that'd report being stared at as "police brutality"

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:35:45 UTC in context
    • @nerthos I mean, I can see fair to legitimately say it was a "psychological assault," but again, it didn't give me so much as a "mental black eye," you know? I vented my bile, now it's more funny than anything.

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:37:57 UTC in context
    • @scribus I've never considered incompetence a extenuating factor. Intent is what matters. It's just as bad to try to hit someone and fail miserably than it is to succeed.

      Thursday, 17-Aug-17 02:42:17 UTC in context