(no subject)

[ineffabelle]

This:

me: the cops are already a predatory class
no one knows if they're going to rape, beat, electrocute or kill you in any encounter
and get away with it.

Comments

[sammhain.livejournal.com]

Seriously.

I wish people took the time to educate themselves on the history of the modern police force. They were invented to keep people in their place, whether it was poor factory workers in the north or free blacks in the south.

It has nothing to do with good or bad apples.

I wonder if there are statistics on whether a person is more likely to suffer violence at the hands of a cop or say a street gang member.

[ineffabelle]

At least with the street gang member there is the possibility of eventual justice.
Until people start burning down the houses of abusive cops, and the like, there is no such possibility with them.

[sammhain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's some sentiment I've seen in some anarchist circles to remember that cops are people too. I'm quite aware they're people too, that's why they're so fucking dangerous. When your job is to quash dissent and protect an inherently unjust social order, and on top of that you think doing so makes you a hero, the only thing I need to keep in mind is to keep a safe distance unless I've got 3 to 1 odds.

[maineshark.livejournal.com]

"I wonder if there are statistics on whether a person is more likely to suffer violence at the hands of a cop or say a street gang member."

In the last century, governments murdered a quarter of a billion men, women, and children. They maimed, tortured, raped, abused, starved, enslaved, and oppressed billions more.

Amateur thugs couldn't even possibly keep up with a record like that...

[mlfoley.livejournal.com]

Damn right.

[blackestdarkness]

Very true.

Joseph Conrad

[tdaschel.livejournal.com]

.. pretty much nails it, over a century ago, in The Secret Agent. one character explains the police as ... protecting those who Have against those who don't.

.. but, sheesh, an amazing/stunning novel in every respect, 'specially in this madly obfuscated post.9/11 world with its increasingly laughable Victorian assumptions of "progress."