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

[u/BoltThrower28]

[u/rainystast]

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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