ACAB doesn't mean every single cop on an individual level is a morally bankrupt shithead.
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oh god i am afraid to go to sleep after posting this, i feel like some holy war is gonna start in the replies lmao
you all better not do shit while i am on my beauty nap
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you all better not do shit while i am on my beauty nap
@mynameistillian I won't (since those are very valid points). I might read later with popcorn. Though I hope it does not come to that.
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ACAB doesn't mean every single cop on an individual level is a morally bankrupt shithead. (a lot of them are, but that's beside the point).
even if you are the kindest samaritan cop in the world who never hurt a fly, being a cop means that you are a part of the system that is designed for violence, for oppression and inequality and has a long bigoted history that spans to this day. you choose to associate with it, even if you don't realize the implications.
@mynameistillian They're all morally bankrupt bastards and the proof is in the lack of whistleblower data.
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@mynameistillian They're all morally bankrupt bastards and the proof is in the lack of whistleblower data.
@old_angry_queer yeah. those who aren't are either dead or they leave
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ACAB doesn't mean every single cop on an individual level is a morally bankrupt shithead. (a lot of them are, but that's beside the point).
even if you are the kindest samaritan cop in the world who never hurt a fly, being a cop means that you are a part of the system that is designed for violence, for oppression and inequality and has a long bigoted history that spans to this day. you choose to associate with it, even if you don't realize the implications.
@mynameistillian@plush.city I had the opportunity to tell a cop that they could spend their entire career saving kittens from trees and rescuing people from rivers or genuinely stopping assaults
and the police are just going to use their positive actions as pro-cop propaganda and as a shield for the fucking bastard cops. -
@mynameistillian@plush.city I had the opportunity to tell a cop that they could spend their entire career saving kittens from trees and rescuing people from rivers or genuinely stopping assaults
and the police are just going to use their positive actions as pro-cop propaganda and as a shield for the fucking bastard cops.@mynameistillian@plush.city (I then went on to say that if they genuinely cared about people and wanted to make an impact, they should get into something like social work or anything else...)
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@old_angry_queer yeah. those who aren't are either dead or they leave
@mynameistillian people are going to point at the Philly pig chief that talked tough about ICE. I suspect that could become the new version of "cops bending a knee" like in 2020. Liberal pleasing words without action. What's the data about her dept say? I bet $100 it's still: overrepresented minorities, excessive use of force without consequences, "community policing" racist bullshit, zero actual war on ICE.
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ACAB doesn't mean every single cop on an individual level is a morally bankrupt shithead. (a lot of them are, but that's beside the point).
even if you are the kindest samaritan cop in the world who never hurt a fly, being a cop means that you are a part of the system that is designed for violence, for oppression and inequality and has a long bigoted history that spans to this day. you choose to associate with it, even if you don't realize the implications.
it's also important to know that it goes far beyond bigotry. most police forces in the world are in some way based on one of Britain's original colonial police forces, the Ulster constabulary of Ireland. the Roman Catholic Church's Doctrine of Discovery mandated this kind of behaviour, and that which led to the colonising of Turtle Island.
the RCMP in Canada, formerly the North West Mounted Police, were originally established on the model of the Ulster constabulary, and they were tasked with separation of Indigenous families. those who would not give up their children to a death camp, aka "residential school", were threatened with starvation. the role of the RCMP today is still enforcing colonialism by other means, including brutal enforcement of land theft by resource extractors and over-incarceration of Indigenous people.
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@hosford42 i think it highly depends on how much change we're speaking of here and how many and how much people are involved.
i find the law enforcement as a structure that has been built to support hierarchy and inequality, because it rests on backing up the will of the ruling class by violence against the citizens. also it doesn't address the causes of crime. to make this system different one would have to transform it until it is no longer recognizable.
it's also inherently a white supremacist institution. there is no "change from the inside". you will be chewed up and cast out, or become part of that system. that's what the "thin blue line" means.
the worm who tries to change the chicken from the inside becomes part of the chicken.
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@hosford42 i admire it when people try to change things from within, but there's only so much leeway you can get to change things when a system that necessitated said things to happen is still in place. the rich and the government benefit from having the police, from being able to arrest protesters and throw them in jail, spy on its citizens and so on and so forth.
they don't just benefit from it, it's their entire purpose. cops are the enforcers of private property and a monopoly on violence to defend it. white supremacy doesn't work very well without theft of the commons.
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@hosford42 like at which point the consequences of someone's active participation in an unjust system become outweighed by the change they made? i hardly feel like one person can do this even if they're really sincere about it. and should they really be a part of said system to be able to change it?
there's no coming back from participating in the massive harm that white supremacy does. it's not something anyone can just apologise for.
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They resign because the systems are so fundamentally broken and enables such egregious levels of corruption that it's way too much for one person to fight it and it's just easier to resign.
Having been in public safety before, I have witnessed firsthand as well as been on the receiving end of such egregious levels of corruption. The level of stress was severe enough to cause me PTSD.
@someguy @hosford42 @mynameistillian
the cops aren't broken, they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do, and that's what's wrong with them.
there was never a time when cops were not violent class traitors and colonisers.
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it's also important to know that it goes far beyond bigotry. most police forces in the world are in some way based on one of Britain's original colonial police forces, the Ulster constabulary of Ireland. the Roman Catholic Church's Doctrine of Discovery mandated this kind of behaviour, and that which led to the colonising of Turtle Island.
the RCMP in Canada, formerly the North West Mounted Police, were originally established on the model of the Ulster constabulary, and they were tasked with separation of Indigenous families. those who would not give up their children to a death camp, aka "residential school", were threatened with starvation. the role of the RCMP today is still enforcing colonialism by other means, including brutal enforcement of land theft by resource extractors and over-incarceration of Indigenous people.
@burnitdown @mynameistillian This somehow unlocked a memory from decades ago, the first and only piece of Canadian copaganda i encountered was Due South, that i've seen briefly in the 90s among other media of that time that flooded the post-ussr TV broadcast.
Kinda one of the "cool looking cop protag with crystal clear morals" type show, the usual, and the completely unusual uniform added a bit too to the "cool factor".Was kinda "funny" learning much much later about how much heinous shit RCMP did and still do.
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ACAB doesn't mean every single cop on an individual level is a morally bankrupt shithead. (a lot of them are, but that's beside the point).
even if you are the kindest samaritan cop in the world who never hurt a fly, being a cop means that you are a part of the system that is designed for violence, for oppression and inequality and has a long bigoted history that spans to this day. you choose to associate with it, even if you don't realize the implications.
@mynameistillian working as a cop makes you a bastard though, even if you go into with "good intentions". intentions don't really matter. the job is gonna turn your into a bastard if you don't go into it as one.
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@mynameistillian I have a genuine question: What about those who would seek change from within? When I see officials resigning because of something awful, I always wonder why they don't stay on and fight against it, instead of handing the reins to someone who is blatantly malevolent. It's the same sort of deal here, from my perspective.
@hosford42 @mynameistillian The idea of "creating change from within" is mostly predicated on the unspoken assumption that the system or organization is fundamentally benevolent, and is being distorted or corrupted from the inside by elements which can be removed.
The problem with that assumption, unfortunately, is that things don't really work that way - any organization or institution will, given enough time, reshape itself to those which participate in it, their beliefs, their value systems, and their power dynamics. So even if an organization started benevolently, if the rot inside has been left unaddressed for long enough, it becomes part of the structure of the organization.
Is it possible to reverse this process, sit out the process of reshaping, and reshape it back towards something benevolent? On paper, yes. But the problem with that is that benevolence requires moral integrity, and moral integrity is expensive, in both time and energy - but malevolent actors have no such cost to their actions, they can pretty much do whatever is the easiest, no matter the cost to others.
The result is that every organization that's "interesting" (read: holds some amount of power and becomes a target of those who wish to wield it for their gain), will slowly trend towards malevolence as time goes on, with the benevolent participants always being at a disadvantage, and much more easily burning out. It's a war that can never really be won, only slowed down. And that war comes 'for free' with every institution of power.
So when officials resign, it's not necessarily because they don't have a spine, or because they give up easily - usually, it means that they have spent long enough 'in the trenches' to recognize this dynamic, and (correctly) concluded that it is an unwinnable war. At which point they'll usually either give up entirely, or switch to more radical strategies that aim to reduce or remove that power, since that's ultimately at the root of this dynamic - centralized power.
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@mynameistillian @livinghell crap joke about the old meaning of bastard.
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ACAB doesn't mean every single cop on an individual level is a morally bankrupt shithead. (a lot of them are, but that's beside the point).
even if you are the kindest samaritan cop in the world who never hurt a fly, being a cop means that you are a part of the system that is designed for violence, for oppression and inequality and has a long bigoted history that spans to this day. you choose to associate with it, even if you don't realize the implications.
@mynameistillian in other words: being a cop makes you a bastard.
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ACAB doesn't mean every single cop on an individual level is a morally bankrupt shithead. (a lot of them are, but that's beside the point).
even if you are the kindest samaritan cop in the world who never hurt a fly, being a cop means that you are a part of the system that is designed for violence, for oppression and inequality and has a long bigoted history that spans to this day. you choose to associate with it, even if you don't realize the implications.
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@someguy @hosford42 @mynameistillian
the cops aren't broken, they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do, and that's what's wrong with them.
there was never a time when cops were not violent class traitors and colonisers.
@burnitdown @hosford42 @mynameistillian
The system is working as intended.
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ACAB doesn't mean every single cop on an individual level is a morally bankrupt shithead. (a lot of them are, but that's beside the point).
even if you are the kindest samaritan cop in the world who never hurt a fly, being a cop means that you are a part of the system that is designed for violence, for oppression and inequality and has a long bigoted history that spans to this day. you choose to associate with it, even if you don't realize the implications.
@mynameistillian@plush.city
I think part of what it means is that a truly good cop will eventually get fired (or become bad).