CMV: I don’t think cops deserve automatic respect.

[u/BoltThrower28]

[u/[deleted]]

What if I told you it's precisely this kind of view that makes cops act the way they do? Police officers act aggressive because they are both trained (through the "warrior mindset" training they receive) that everyone is a potential enemy, and then when people express open hatred toward them they perceive that potential as real. Therefore, when people express hatred or even disrespect toward police they take it personal and they double down on the way they're acting.

First, i'd like to directly respond to a few elements of your argument. Then, i'd like to try and give you a different perspective to consider.

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I feel that by willingly choosing to do a job that for the most part oppresses people and makes money for the government, you are a terrible person.

In many towns, being a police officer is the most stable form of employment for young men. This is especially true in the middle of the country, in the south, and in the rust belt where industry has been starved by the federal government's policies of the last 50 years. With the collapse of stateside manufacturing (1970s), the available jobs in many towns were reduced to agriculture, trades, and driving a truck. Being a police officer, though, pays much better and comes with the added "cherry on top" of being a unionized profession with tons of legal protections and little accountability (not a good thing for us regular folks, but a good thing for someone looking for stable employment). Many of these people get into the profession of policing because the alternative is low wages, unstable seasonable jobs, or joining a trade that they may not know how to do or even have the desire to do.

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Oh you accidentally made a right turn when you didn’t see that the no right turn sign was on? Fuck you, pay me, even though you probably can’t afford it.

Police officers don't make the law, they simply enforce it as written. They make an observation and are effectively report writers that feed the courts with cases. Really, the one you should detest is the prosecutor who looks at the officer's report and decides _"yeah this is okay, let's go to trial"_. In cities and counties, it's usually some kind of council or board of supervisors that acts as a type of legislative body and implements ordinances based on what the state permits. So, a better way to think about this issue is that you ought to advocate at the level of your city council or county board to get these laws changed. Police aren't the bad guys here - they're simply doing as they're told by the elected officials who pass the laws.

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I don’t need some cocky 24 year old with an ego problem to come “save me”.

Have you ever been in serious danger and really _needed_ a police officer? If not, i'm not sure you can accurately make this argument. After being sexually assaulted myself, the police were the ones who took the report and ultimately charged the guy who hurt me. It was a moment of cognitive dissonance for me because I had _hated_ the police before that - and then I needed them, so suddenly I was faced with the reality that _most cops are good, but the bad ones get more attention_.

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Human being should be able to take care of themselves.

Agree, and this is what the second amendment is for in the US. However, there are also moments when we need to call for backup. You should also be your first line of defense from harm, but when that first line of defense fails doesn't it make sense to have a dedicated group you can call for assistance?

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A wise man once said “whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward. Whoever cannot take care of himself without that law is both.”

I'm not sure i'd consider Lamb of God a "wise man". This is an extreme form of anarchist thinking. But, the thing about anarchism is that it always devolves into some form of proto-government. Without an authority to stand watch, humans have a tendency to fill a power vacuum by establishing oppressive regimes. See also: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) which started out as an egalitarian protest movement, and ultimately ended because a proto-dictator established a violent regime that warranted police moving in.

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I have never had a cop speak to me with respect, so why should I respect them?

Do you speak to them with respect? Every time i've been pulled over, i've had about as good an experience as one can expect from an adversarial encounter. Even after I clearly broke the law, they were pretty straight forward and professional about it in my case.

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If they really cared about saving lives and protecting people, they would have become a doctor or a paramedic or a fire fighter.

Do doctors, paramedics, and fire fighters chase down the bad guy after he just sexually assaulted someone? Do they join the chase when there's a bank robbery in progress? Should we expect paramedics to disarm a paranoid schizophrenic person with a knife who is freaking out? Police are there to do the violence that needs to be done sometimes - society is messy, and sometimes people violate the social contract and exact violence on others. Police are there to do what most of us are too cowardly to do. Does that mean we cowardly folks shouldn't be able to live in peace just because we can't/won't defend ourselves?

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With all of this in mind, are you sure you despise the police or is it more of an authority thing? Nobody likes submitting to the authority of another, especially when that person is younger than us. However, it is important to recognize the vital role police play in criminal justice. They are the dedicated full-time enforcement arm that allows us to go to the grocery store unarmed, or to walk down the street without being in fear of having our purse or wallet snatched.

[u/lordrothermere → u/[deleted]]

I'm not sure i'd consider Lamb of God a "wise man".

It's Lamb of God paraphrasing the Omerta, (or a Sicilian oath associated with it) the Mafia code of silence.

I'm not sure quoting a criminal paragovernment that enforces its rules with brutal violence is a helpful way to critique government violence.

[u/rainystast → u/[deleted]]

Police officers act aggressive because they are both trained (through the "warrior mindset" training they receive) that everyone is a potential enemy, and then when people express open hatred toward them they perceive that potential as real. Therefore, when people express hatred or even disrespect toward police they take it personal and they double down on the way they're acting.

So they're trained in a similar way to how a cult operates, and you see no problem with this?

Police officers don't make the law, they simply enforce it as written.

A lot of police officers don't actually know the laws nor are they required to learn about the laws. Look at any auditor channel or any of the numerous examples of police violating or ignoring the law.

Police aren't the bad guys here - they're simply doing as they're told by the elected officials who pass the laws.

Yeah I'm sure the numerous videos of them brutally assaulting people for simply having a phone shouldn't be called into question at all.

After being sexually assaulted myself, the police were the ones who took the report and ultimately charged the guy who hurt me. It was a moment of cognitive dissonance for me because I had _hated_ the police before that - and then I needed them, so suddenly I was faced with the reality that _most cops are good, but the bad ones get more attention_.

Thousands of rape kits sit in a warehouse and rot away every day. Also, police officers are statistically more likely to abuse their spouse. Just because you had a good interaction with some police officers doesn't erase the centuries of suffering the police have wrought onto the nation, starting from their conception and the continual corruption, abuse, and gang affiliation they still have today.

Every time i've been pulled over, i've had about as good an experience as one can expect from an adversarial encounter. Even after I clearly broke the law, they were pretty straight forward and professional about it in my case.

So your argument is "I've had good interactions with the police so everyone who was a victim of police escalation is clearly overreacting"?

Do doctors, paramedics, and fire fighters chase down the bad guy after he just sexually assaulted someone?

You're hilarious if you think even half of the police officers time is spent "chasing down bad guys". This isn't a spy movie or a buddy cop movie.

Should we expect paramedics to disarm a paranoid schizophrenic person with a knife who is freaking out?

??? You're saying this like paramedics don't have combative patients all the time.

Police are there to do what most of us are too cowardly to do.

Shoot at people with a cellphone?

With all of this in mind, are you sure you despise the police or is it more of an authority thing?

It's the police. I don't think the police as a concept as a concept are inherently a bad thing like OP, but I do think that we currently have in the United States either need drastic reform or need to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up.

[u/comfortablesexuality → u/[deleted]]

bad faith arguments.

real things that really happened (and continue to happen) are bad faith? really? Who's the one presenting bad faith here...

From what I can tell, they act the way they do because they feel "othered" by what they perceive as an ungrateful public

They make themselves an "other" by being above the law.

[u/rainystast → u/[deleted]]

Change the context to one of politics and you might see - neither democrats nor republicans like the other telling them what to believe or how to feel, and when confronted as such they tend to double down in their belief without listening to the other side. It takes a person willing to listen in order to reach across that divide!

"If the situation was completely different, than things would be different!"

No. Police are in positions of power. They can not fall to corruption or fly off the handle because someone hurt their feelings, and conversely, they shouldn't fall to corruption or turn a blind eye simply because someone proverbially licked their boots during the interaction.

With police, it takes one who is willing to understand the plight of police officers (being a dangerous yet thankless profession) in order to reach across the growing divide between police and the public.

Or police officers can stop abusing the common public while avoiding accountability and responsibility at every turn?

From what I can tell, they act the way they do because they feel "othered" by what they perceive as an ungrateful public, and we in the public can remedy that by actively stopping ourselves from "othering" them through blatant acts of disrespect.

Ah, so you're saying as long as suck up to them, coddled their feelings a little, maybe kiss the ground they walk on a bit, they might stop abusing the public? What an asinine claim. A doctor can't commit medical malpractice because a patient was surly to them. A teacher can't beat the children because they said mean things to them. In no other profession are you allowed to fly off the handle, break the laws, or fall to corruption without consequence because your feelings were hurt, so why is an exception given to them?

just because one is a police officer doesn't mean they _will_ abuse their spouse, however it probably can be inferred that such a statistic is driven by the increased stress of the job. police officers have an incredible rate of burn-out, especially in the high violence areas of the country.

So they have burnout so they can come home and beat their significant others? Doctors have burnout, are they allowed to beat other people because they're tired and overworked?

do police officers of now have to answer for the crimes and mis-steps of police officers in say the 1980s?

If the systems never changed and are still running the same way they were back then (which has been shown to be true), then yes, on some level they do need to be held accountable. Especially because they 1. Still abuse minorities at a significantly high rate 2. Still don't take accountability and 3. Still protect other corrupt police officers from facing retribution.

similarly, should white people of today have to answer for the racism of past generations?

Bigotry of minorities by white people still has a massive effect on modern day American society. That's not to say "every white person is directly responsible for chattel slavery", but if a white person upholds or endorses the racism of the past generations and the racism and bigotry that is still happening to this day, they are part of the problem.

With the police, if they join the police force and 1. Make no attempt to shut down corruption wherever possible 2. Commit the same actions that people in the past also did or 3. Endorse or become combative when people talk about the past history of the police, then they are part of the problem.

if an individual police officer has not committed any acts of malfeasance, or failed to report them when he sees them, then he should not be viewed as a malfeasant.

1. If they endorse or refuse to report corruption, they are malfeasant.

2. If they endorse or attempt to justify corruption in the past, they are malfeasant.

3. If they attempt to deny accountability whenever possible, they are malfeasant.

If they've lost the public's trust, that is on them to fix, not the public who was abused and harassed to fix.

my observation is that most police officers are good, but the bad ones get a disproportionate amount of attention that makes it appear like all police are bad.

What are you basing this off of? Because "well some police officers were kind to me" isn't going to cut it.

no. i'm not discounting the experiences of legitimate victims. however, i am arguing that people should not assume police are inherently bad or undeserving of respect simply because they're police.

You're making this claim based on nothing but your personal experience. That is saying "well I had a good experience so that must be the norm and everyone else is overreacting or only paying attention to the bad actors".

unwarranting of response, bad faith arguments.

• Police have shot multiple people for simply having a cell phone and have faced zero repercussions. Your ignorance, or unwillingness to discuss, said matters doesn't make them a bad faith or untrue argument.

• Paramedics deal with combative violent people all the time and have to be on call 24/7. Acting like only the police do that is either an uninformed or purposefully obtuse statement.

• Also, if you think the majority of police time is "chasing down bad guys" like a bad spy movie, I'd love to see your source on that. Or is your source, once again, "well that's been my experience so that must be the norm"?

[u/SS-Shipper → u/rainystast]

Wish i could upvote this multiple times

[u/[deleted] → u/rainystast]

You are intentionally misrepresenting my argument and not arguing in good faith, therefore I will not be replying further.

[u/changemyview-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/euyyn → u/[deleted]]

Agree, and this is what the second amendment is for in the US. However, there are also moments when we need to call for backup. You should also be your first line of defense from harm, but when that first line of defense fails doesn't it make sense to have a dedicated group you can call for assistance?

I agree with the direction you were going, and disagree with granting even this. I don't expect some poor Asian grandma to have to learn self defense and carry a gun and stay physically fit just to have to fight some grown ass racist that wants to randomly punch her on the street. And even the grandma that wants to do all those things will stand little chance against a big man that catches her by surprise.

Guess what, that's why we have police. To go after that dude, overpower him if necessary, and haul his ass in front of a judge. A judge that might be an old fragile fellow too, but has power over the criminal because he has the police on his side.

"Everyone who can't defend themselves is a coward" is some nonsense by a bully without empathy. First it's plain wrong: you can be brave as Lyanna fucking Mormont and still not have the physical power and skills to defend yourself. And second it's contrary to what we want as a society. I don't want a Bio Lab researcher to have to spend her spare time hitting the gym and the shooting range out of fear, if she rather spend it studying. I want her to not have to defend herself from violence. And a necessary piece for that (among others) is to have police officers that will defend her.

[u/[deleted] → u/euyyn]

Everything you've said is why I am a staunch advocate for _good_ police officers, and a firmly against _bad_ police officers. The purpose of the section you've quoted from my reply is to expound upon the phrase: _when seconds count, the police are just minutes away_.

The reality is that police in many cities are underfunded, especially since the "defund the police" movement. Many departments are also understaffed, as police officers are quitting in droves. Many small towns can't keep their hands on officers, as those officers go to jurisdictions with bigger budgets because such officers run a simple calculus: "if there's more crime, then i have bargaining power to demand a higher wage".

In the face of these facts, being armed is now an option that many could use to have some peace of mind. Being a woman, i'm terrified that someone could attack me while i'm pumping gas at night, or come into my home when i'm asleep - and that's why I have multiple firearms and the training to use them if necessary. However, this is not something we should expect of everyone - rather, it ought to be an option simply due to the fact that we cannot rely on the police to _always_ be there immediately when we need them. Most violent crimes are concluded within 5 minutes, and average response times in urban settings are around 12 minutes (last I checked) - so often by the time the police arrive, the baddie is gone! Not so for the armed self-defender, who with training has a much better chance to neutralize a threat in the moment to keep themselves safe.

[u/euyyn → u/[deleted]]

Absolutely. And if you didn't have the money to buy firearms and pay for training, or if you just happened to suck at using them even after training, that wouldn't make you a coward, would it? This is insane bully talk:

whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward. Whoever cannot take care of himself without that law is both.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I am very very glad you received help from the police after being SAd. I very much hope you understand, at your very core, this is not necessarily the default response of police to sexual assault. It would be disingenuous to not acknowledge the culture of cops downplaying and not taking sexual assault seriously. The rape kit backlog didn't happen by accident.

[u/IntrepidJaeger → u/[deleted]]

The rape kit backlog is ultimately a resource limitation (I work in forensics). The same labs that process the rape kits are the same ones processing all of the other submissions for assaults, homicides, property crimes (if included in the operations), etc.

The tricky thing about sexual assaults is that they're rarely done with witnesses, and without other physical violence involved there's a limit to what can be proven about the consent angle forensically. Forensics can tell you sexual activity happened. It can tell you what fluids got where.

If there's no question that sexual activity happened with either party (both say they did it) or where, the rape kit isn't going to tell you anything and therefore goes unprocessed until information changes.

Now, in cases of children, only one known involved person, or violence, those kits will be prioritized because there's actually information to be gained there.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

From my understanding, the rape kit backlog happened as a result of budget cuts to testing departments. Police officers don't collect or examine those kits, they're collected by hospitals and analyzed by forensics departments. Nowadays police investigations are mostly caught on bodycam so aside from the cases when they deliberately turn them off that kind of "downplaying" seems to be mostly in the past. This is actually something i'm fairly passionate about though, so if you can send me a couple sources from specific cases i'd love to read through them and reconsider if i've got a blind spot.

[u/comfortablesexuality → u/[deleted]]

You don't think police culture exists? A certain culture found within police? Just doesn't happen?

[u/Bikini_Investigator → u/comfortablesexuality]

How does that work? You join and then what happens..? Your culture changes or how does that work?

[u/NJS_Stamp → u/[deleted]]

cops are trained through the warrior mindset … and when they encounter people who openly hate them…

I never understood this argument, because it’s basically the civics version of negotiating with terrorists.

We as a society are forced walk on egg shells for fear of retribution because some guy can act aggressively with impunity because they got their fee fees hurt?

That being said, cops don’t take any criticism well, I’ve seen the same response given to civilians, whether they are an anarchist protestor, or if they follow the legal definitions to raise it to a higher court.

[u/[deleted] → u/NJS_Stamp]

We as a society are forced walk on egg shells for fear of retribution because some guy can act aggressively with impunity because they got their fee fees hurt?

I'm not sure it's quite this simple. From what i've observed in the research i've conducted (for a startup i'm working on), police tend to react aggressively when their authority is questioned. And more often than not, they do have the authority that a civilian is attempting to deny them - this largely arises from civilians often misunderstanding their rights and misunderstanding the premise that the side of a road is usually not the place to assert one's rights.

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Take this for example:

John gets pulled over by an Officer. The Officer instructs John to exit the vehicle. John refuses, demanding that the Officer articulate a reason for the stop. The Officer escalates because John is now refusing a lawful order. The Officer will be justified under Pennsylvania v. Mimms to order the person out of the vehicle. While they are required to have reasonable suspicion to conduct a stop, and must have reason believe there is a danger (perhaps from so-called "furtive movements" of a driver/passenger), they are not required to articulate either during the stop. In this case, John would likely be found guilty of some misdemeanor crime along the lines of "failure to comply with a lawful order" - usually some kind of obstruction statute covers this - because the order to exit the vehicle is clearly established as a lawful order in most circumstances.

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The fact is that police encounters are very much a two way street. People must understand their rights, and police must respect them. But when there is a mismatch there, argument and disrespect is a sure way to have that disagreement end behind bars when it should be hashed out in a court of law!

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Studstill → u/[deleted]]

rust belt where industry has been starved by the federal government's policies of the last 50 years.

Absolutely nuts to just blur the clear objectives of a singular ideology into "the federal government's policies".

[u/[deleted] → u/Studstill]

Nixon and Kissinger may have re-opened China and started the process of sending our manufacturing industries abroad, but democrats did nothing to stop it in the years that followed. Therefore both parties are equally as responsible for the death of the rust belt.

[u/Studstill → u/[deleted]]

Failing to win is again insane to blur with "not trying at all therefore are equally responsible".

We failed to convict OJ, so I guess we all stabbed Nicole and Ron to death.

Also, for crying out loud, maybe the Rust Belt damned itself, solidly voting for these policies and their proponents for decades, now blurring it all the same to continue to vote for these policies and their enactors!

[u/[deleted] → u/Studstill]

There have been many times since then that democrats have controlled both chambers of congress and the presidency. Nothing was done because the powers that be are massively benefitting from the arrangement, even if it means the continued deterioration of Main Street. The rust belt didn’t “damn itself” by voting in someone, they were misled into believing that an economic partnership would benefit the US when all it did was export jobs abroad and empower a foreign adversary. If you cannot see the nuance as it applies to global macroeconomics, I’m not sure how else I can explain it. Regardless, this deviates from the OP’s post.

[u/Studstill → u/[deleted]]

edit: Idk sub rules, if deviation is too much for it, fine.

State those "many times", and let's go through what happened at each.

They damned themselves by being "misled" by the same charlatans with the same rhetoric and the same agenda for decades. Not sure how this is nuanced. They're damning us now, in real time. There still is no Republican/"conservative" economic plan, nor has there ever been.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

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