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We truly live in interesting times. And not in a good way.

On the one hand, there’s no limit to what most of us want government to do. More money for health care; more money for college education; more grants for “green” businesses; more money for free cell phones, food stamps, on and on and on. Big Government and massive government spending (for everything but defense) has never been more fashionable. The price tag ($20 trillion debt and counting) has never been higher.

On the other hand, we don’t like police. We’re becoming libertarians to the point of anarchists when it comes to police. Particularly when a police officer is white, we have to take it for granted that officer is in the wrong. Our president supports Black Lives Matter, an organization who singles out law enforcement people by race and treats them as villains. It’s the Ku Klux Klan, only in reverse. It’s just as wrong.

What happened in Dallas last night—the slaughter of five police officers—represents the attitude of our president and the majority of Americans taken to a logical extreme. If you start making race the central factor, then this is what you get.

“We’re hurting,” said Dallas Police Chief David Brown in a Friday morning news conference. “Our profession is hurting. Dallas officers are hurting. We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city. All I know is this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens.”

Who fosters the divisiveness between police and citizens? Racists like Black Lives Matter and Barack Obama. The civil rights establishment, who makes a living at stirring up divisiveness between whites and blacks, police and citizens.

I heard a caller on a radio show say this morning, “Imagine if the NRA came out for the murder of black police officers, or began to complain that all black or Hispanic police officers had it in for white people?” The rage would be deafening, and Attorney General Lynch would probably send in the FBI to shut the NRA down. I’m not proposing we do that with Black Lives Matter when they’re speaking. But why won’t anyone call these racists what they are? And why does the president of the United States endorse such thugs?

I am the first one to say government must operate only at the consent of the governed. The police are not absolute. But in many ways, the police are just the messengers. If we don’t like the things police are doing, we have to take a look at the laws which we are asking the police to enforce – laws against victimless crimes like drug use or drug trade, for example. Police should not be involved in these matters. Their tasks should be limited to catching purse snatchers, rapists and murderers. Stop blaming the police for the fact we have asked our government—federal and local—to do all kinds of things it has no business doing!

The trends in America are not good. We keep demanding that government does more and more. On the other hand, the police—the most basic and front-line supporters innocent people have against real threats like murder, theft, rape and the initiation of violence—are the ones under the greatest moral and physical attack today. It’s truly madness.

What’s wrong with you, America? Black Lives Matter may represent the violent, extreme fringe. But fringes set the course for the rest of government and society. Everything, right now, is pointed in exactly the wrong direction.

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16 hours ago, Michael J. Hurd Ph.D. said:

Stop blaming the police for the fact we have asked our government—federal and local—to do all kinds of things it has no business doing!

This is bizarre. No one asked any police to be irresponsible and shoot non-threatening people. That's no one's fault but apparently pathetic training or terribly poor standards. You better believe the blame is squarely on police. I don't care if it's not all cops - the institution of law enforcement is itself problematic in its current state. By law enforcement, I mean specifically the police. Some law enforcement end up killing improperly while enforcing laws they as law enforcement normally have business doing! We're not talking drug busts.

Hurd's posts on psychology are fine. Anything else... He's wayyyy out of his element.

Edited by Eiuol
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It's always funny to me when someone who has never been in a fight, let alone one where your life is being threatened, presumes to know how cops should be acting in the heat of the moment.

And then there's this childish expectation that the two million cops in the US should all be given special forces training, to make sure they're calm and collected under pressure. Never mind the fact that the military has a 90%+ fail rate in its special forces programs, and spends millions on each successful attempt to train a SEAL. Where exactly would you get two million cops who can do that from?

There's nothing wrong with American cops' training. They're probably better trained than cops in most nations. Cops aren't supposed to be trained for a war zone. They're supposed to be investigating crimes, settling disputes among neighbors, and handing out fines for noise disturbances. Not patrolling hostile neighborhoods like it's downtown Fallujah.

The problem is the people creating those war zones in American cities. That's what's out of place in a civilized nation, not the cops who don't know how to handle it properly. It's not the cops who need to be trained to handle themselves in a war zone, it's the culture that creates these war zones that needs to end.

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8 hours ago, Eiuol said:

This is bizarre. No one asked any police to be irresponsible and shoot non-threatening people. That's no one's fault but apparently pathetic training or terribly poor standards. You better believe the blame is squarely on police. I don't care if it's not all cops - the institution of law enforcement is itself problematic in its current state. By law enforcement, I mean specifically the police. Some law enforcement end up killing improperly while enforcing laws they as law enforcement normally have business doing! We're not talking drug busts.

Hurd's posts on psychology are fine. Anything else... He's wayyyy out of his element.

Agreed... Standard Republican sounding echo chamber nonsense. Yawn... One wonders if Hurd would call Bastiat a "fringe left wing thug" for condemning police as instruments of plunder and violence and pointing out their social role in upholding state oppression, a standard viewpoint among many classical liberals.

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38 minutes ago, 2046 said:

Agreed... Standard Republican sounding echo chamber nonsense. Yawn... One wonders if Hurd would call Bastiat a "fringe left wing thug" for condemning police as instruments of plunder and violence and pointing out their social role in upholding state oppression, a standard viewpoint among many classical liberals.

I suppose it's also standard echo chamber nonsense to point out that cops are the basic barrier between you and a ghetto motherfucker who wants to steal your car/money/things and has no problem stabbing or shooting you to do it... Unless you'd rather go around dodging street fights all day every day.

"Police as instruments of plunder and violence" is a generalization that condones what happened in Dallas.

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1 hour ago, 2046 said:

Agreed... Standard Republican sounding echo chamber nonsense. Yawn.

Yes, reality is a little more boring than the fantasy world Liberals and Anarchists live in. Still, like JASKN pointed out, the Police are the only ones standing between you and the people who's declared goal is to kill you on principle, simply because of your race.

Edited by Nicky
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10 hours ago, Eiuol said:

This is bizarre. No one asked any police to be irresponsible and shoot non-threatening people. That's no one's fault but apparently pathetic training or terribly poor standards. You better believe the blame is squarely on police. I don't care if it's not all cops - the institution of law enforcement is itself problematic in its current state. By law enforcement, I mean specifically the police. Some law enforcement end up killing improperly while enforcing laws they as law enforcement normally have business doing! We're not talking drug busts.

Hurd's posts on psychology are fine. Anything else... He's wayyyy out of his element.

How do you know it's the quality of the training and not simply bad cops acting badly?  Also, keep in mind how the media reports on these incidents.  They are not always honest or objective.   

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7 hours ago, Nicky said:

And then there's this childish expectation that the two million cops in the US should all be given special forces training, to make sure they're calm and collected under pressure.

That's the bare minimum I expect. A cop -needs- to be calm and collected under pressure. Whatever training that requires, so be it. If that requires further limiting which cops can use firearms, so be it. It seems much too easy for a cop to make judgments without extensive enough training. I don't know precisely how anyone should act if their life is threatened, the point is that most publicized cases I know of, no cop's life was actually threatened. It was just a cop apparently freaking out which would not happen if they were properly trained. Some cops may be properly trained, but I am unaware of any standardized training across all law enforcement in the US to make sure every cop is properly trained.

I mean, my thinking isn't that law enforcement is inherently oppressive or only used by oppressive governments. But as long as law enforcement acts inappropriately at all, even if there are a large portion of good cops, law enforcement will be a tool of oppression to that extent. "A little bit" of rights violations are too much already. The hammer of the law needs to come down harder on law enforcement. Or, there needs to be greater accountability. Law enforcement is pretty fragmented as it is.

Of course bad cops acting badly is at fault, but that is preventable through proper training. I'm not saying to make it impossible for there to be a rare bad cop. The proper use of force by the people who are supposed to keep me safe requires extensive self-control and psychological understanding. There have been enough developments in psychology to be able to create reliable training programs.

 

 

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10 hours ago, JASKN said:

I suppose it's also standard echo chamber nonsense to point out that cops are the basic barrier between you and a ghetto motherfucker who wants to steal your car/money/things and has no problem stabbing or shooting you to do it... Unless you'd rather go around dodging street fights all day every day.

"Police as instruments of plunder and violence" is a generalization that condones what happened in Dallas.

Objectivists are supposed to support radical changes from many societal institutions and question the foundations of many institutions deemed "necessary" for life in a peaceful, prosperous society. But now we are supposed to assume unquestionably that our choice is between supporting modern policing and getting robbed by "ghetto motherfuckers"? (What about white collar motherfuckers? Or the state itself?)

A long way from "check your premises" indeed. Instead of the conservative response of emotivist-nationalist support for "our heroic first responders," one would excpect a bold, radical investigation into the institution and history of policing itself to be the favored response of the intellectual inheritors of such as Rand. One would expect that false dichotomies such as "accept this institution as axiomatic or get robbed by criminals!" would not be the first reaction. 

In fact and in logic, one who opposes modern policing does not also oppose crime prevention, that would be just silly. 

Modern policing was not the default way to go about preventing crime for the vast majority of human history, and in fact the classical liberals of the industrial revolution heroically opposed merchantilist and socialist attempts to create modern police departments. They knew it was not necessary for crime prevention and they knew that its main function was to protect the state and enforce its laws, not protecting you. 

Edited by 2046
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And before the "you're condoning Dallas" starts, which I guess it already has, and which I certainly do not, one would expect an Objectivist response would include somber minded philosophical question of fundamental ethical issues, something like "Is it ever legitimate, from a point of view of Randian ethics, to kill agents of government?" Surely the creator of Dagny Taggart would answer "yes" and proceed to outline reasons or situations that might be applicable according to her principles. So that might be a more interesting topic to explore than Hurd and his article.

Edited by 2046
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1 hour ago, 2046 said:

And before the "you're condoning Dallas" starts, which I guess it already has, and which I certainly do not, one would expect an Objectivist response would include somber minded philosophical question of fundamental ethical issues, something like "Is it ever legitimate, from a point of view of Randian ethics, to kill agents of government?" Surely the creator of Dagny Taggart would answer "yes" and proceed to outline reasons or situations that might be applicable according to her principles. So that might be a more interesting topic to explore than Hurd and his article.

I agree. My posts here in this thread were to get at questioning law enforcement, as opposed to a quick impulse to go "pro-police" and end up straw-manning the whole problem. I mean, modern police departments are wildly more militarized than the good ol' days of Andy Griffin. It becomes necessary to question how it is law gets enforced and how it is you can determine if a person will use force properly.

As to the broader topic of "is it ever legitimate to kill government agents", I made a related thread here: http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?/topic/29720-objectivism-and-political-action/

I ask there more about what actions may be proper to enact political change, particularly radical action. Is Dallas an example of a "good action"? Probably not (and definitely not for the reported reasons, I only -heard- that the shooter wanted to kill white people). It depends on how the Dallas department is connected to other police departments or their relation to a problematic system.

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7 hours ago, 2046 said:

Objectivists are supposed to support radical changes from many societal institutions and question the foundations of many institutions deemed "necessary" for life in a peaceful, prosperous society.

That is NOT the Objectivist position.

Ayn Rand was a firm believer in the founding principles of the American Republic, and the institutions that defend those principles. She fully supported those institutions throughout her life, and was consistently opposed to attempts to compromise law and order in order to cater to radical leftist organizations. If anything, she supported harsher measures to crack down on leftist agitators.

You are an anarchist. Anarchists are habitual rebels. Objectivists aren't. So stop confusing the two.

Edited by Nicky
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7 hours ago, 2046 said:

Modern policing was not the default way to go about preventing crime for the vast majority of human history, and in fact the classical liberals of the industrial revolution heroically opposed merchantilist and socialist attempts to create modern police departments. They knew it was not necessary for crime prevention and they knew that its main function was to protect the state and enforce its laws, not protecting you. 

1. Modern policing was not "the default way to go" because there's no such thing as a "default way to go". It's a nonsense phrase. It doesn't mean anything. It's just something that you thought sounded clever.

2. The goal of the justice system in a capitalist society (a capitalist society as described by Ayn Rand) isn't crime prevention, it's justice. The Police is part of that justice system.

3. At the start of your post you claimed to be describing the Objectivist position on the issue. Are you seriously claiming that this is the Objectivist position on this matter? Are you seriously claiming that Ayn Rand agreed with what you just wrote?

Edited by Nicky
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There are questions about Objectivism, and the intersection between its ethical theory and political science, which I have not yet worked out for myself. Questions about policing strike at the heart of my own ambivalence, though I am increasingly of a mind. Or at least I am torn between competing passions, which surge one way or another depending on the events of the day.

On the one hand, Objectivism is strongly for government and the rule of law. It is on this basis, I believe, that we support the police generally.

Yet the terms of proper government and objective law are laid out clearly in Rand's writings, and the current government of the US fails to live up to those standards with equal clarity. If Rand is to be believed that there does not exist the "right" to violate the rights of any other, then the US Government does not have the right to do what it does today to "its citizens." Nor do those people who enforce these unjust and barbarous dictates (whether they issue from a monarch or a mob seems a meaningless distinction; but if any believe that the number of people intent on robbing you makes a difference as to the morality of the deed, then by all means, make your case). The idea that the police somehow have the "right" to violate your rights or mine is absolutely antithetical to Objectivism. Their actions are the initiation of the use of force as surely as were the actions of those who carried out the dictates of Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany.

I have seen arguments made over this forum (again and again) that, in a time of war, a "citizen" is forfeit in that he is not "innocent," in that people who suffer a tyrannical government to exist in their presence, in their name, get what is coming to them. And there is the train scene in Atlas Shrugged, which seems to reflect a kind of poetic justice, when people who are perhaps otherwise free of direct "guilt" yet meet the fates that their blinkered thinking have nonetheless produced for them. Yet we are supposed to feel sympathy -- or even outrage -- for those who willingly take up arms to prosecute innocent civilians, and find that their initiation of force is sometimes met with force in response?

In point of fact, I do feel sorry for them, just as I do the passengers in the train, and civilians caught up in war. I feel deeply for the man who joins the police, believing himself to be a hero (and there is profound heroism in fighting true crime), whose reality is that he is binding himself to act as a brute, to enact force and violence against those who do not deserve it in the name of "following orders," as though that excuses anything, or ever has. In a way, the police are just as much victims of unjust systems like the War on Drugs as any of the "criminals" caught up in it. Yet that does not excuse the individual choice to actively participate in such oppression -- to lend one's own mind and muscle to its execution, and the destruction of innocent lives. Nor does it excuse those who apologize for this immoral and inexcusable behavior, and assert that this is somehow righteous, because it wears a badge and pronounces itself "authority."

Edited by DonAthos
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37 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

On the one hand, Objectivism is strongly for government and the rule of law. It is on this basis, I believe, that we support the police generally.

There is no Objectivist principle that suggests that police departments as they exist must exist in their current form. Law enforcement is a necessary arm of the law, but it doesn't follow that cops ought to patrol, or that all cops should have guns, or that cops should be able to make judgments about arrests or force on their own. It is unfortunate that a major reaction to my or other's questioning of the system the US uses is defensiveness or something. 2046 does indeed have an anarchist take, distinct from the Oist position in -that- regard, but at least we're still all getting at how law ought to be enforced. Perhaps police departments ought to be abolished, but that doesn't mean abolishing law enforcement. It may mean transforming it into some radically different.

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2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

There is no Objectivist principle that suggests that police departments as they exist must exist in their current form. Law enforcement is a necessary arm of the law, but it doesn't follow that cops ought to patrol, or that all cops should have guns, or that cops should be able to make judgments about arrests or force on their own.

Completely agreed.

2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

2046 does indeed have an anarchist take, distinct from the Oist position in -that- regard...

I've had many discussions with 2046, some where we have agreed and others where we have not. It has long been my contention (though I know that he disagrees, and is as welcome as always to clarify or take issue) that he is not, in fact, an "anarchist," despite that being his self-description. Or at least, I believe that he is not an "anarchist" in the Objectivist sense of that term (though his views may coincide with others who have been historically described as "anarchist," which is why I think he takes on the label and is reticent to abandon it).

From all I can tell, he believes in the rule of law and in the elimination of force from society (by restricting the legitimate use of force to retaliatory force alone). But this is government, however or to whatever degree we then proceed to organize our efforts to accomplish those ends.

Rather, I have seen 2046 propose exactly what you express above: that government does not necessarily have to exist as it exists in its current form. Or perhaps, even, that a proper government cannot exist as our government is currently formulated. In my opinion, this is routinely misidentified as "anarchism."

There are people who conflate the status quo with "government," as such. Being labelled an "anarchist" by opposing the status quo, even while arguing on behalf of the rule of law and the elimination of the initiation of force from society, is merely the flipside to the same rotten package deal.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/9/2016 at 1:27 AM, Nicky said:

It's always funny to me when someone who has never been in a fight, let alone one where your life is being threatened, presumes to know how cops should be acting in the heat of the moment.

And then there's this childish expectation that the two million cops in the US should all be given special forces training, to make sure they're calm and collected under pressure.

So Nicky (and presumably JASKN and dream_weaver, who "liked" his post) don't expect the police to be able to handle themselves in any particularly "calm and collected" way in the "heat of the moment," because their lives are being threatened, and we can't give them all "special forces training," right?

Yet the expectation for civilians is that when the police approach you, sometimes (apparently) with guns drawn, and bark orders (often for things which are not crimes in reason), that we must keep our heads and do and say all of the right things, in the name of morality. And if we do not, if we react in the smallest way to defend ourselves (as is arguably a matter of instinct, and equally arguably a matter of right), then any and all actions in response are automatically justified, including execution in the streets.

If acting coolly in the heat of the moment is impossible for the police, despite any suggested training, then how can we expect it of wholly untrained civilians? And if acting to defend yourself against potential assailants is reasonable and defensible for a police officer in the heat of the moment, in a confrontation where his life is potentially at stake, then how is that not also so for a civilian facing the police?

Today's headline, of course, involves the shooting of an unarmed black man, lying in the streets with his hands raised. The circumstances are nearly as predictable as when we hear about the next bombing in France, coming to find out that the attacker is Muslim. But while we can connect the dots when it comes to Islamic terrorism (as we must, in the name of our own lives), how is it that we cannot relate this rash of controversial police shootings, and other similar instances, to any common underlying deficiency in training or tactics or culture? Why can we see a pattern in one and not the other? Why do we feel compelled to take action to address the one, but not the other?

Edited by DonAthos
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34 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

Yet the expectation for civilians is that when the police approach you, sometimes (apparently) with guns drawn, and bark orders (often for things which are not crimes in reason), that we must keep our heads and do and say all of the right things, in the name of morality. And if we do not, if we react in the smallest way to defend ourselves (as is arguably a matter of instinct, and equally arguably a matter of right), then any and all actions in response are automatically justified, including execution in the streets.

Whose expectation? Not mine.

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1 hour ago, JASKN said:

Whose expectation? Not mine.

Fair enough.

In signalling your agreement with Nicky's post, however, it seems like you don't think that there's any deficit in training for police... or any reasonable expectation that they should be able to keep their cool in these sorts of trying circumstances. So if you also don't have any expectation that it is the civilian who should keep his head (as in complying with vocalized orders unfailingly -- which is often the recommendation within the black community -- yet even then sometimes winding up shot in the process), then how do you propose we address the problem of unarmed "suspects" (who sometimes are not even suspects of any crime; and even when they are, the "crime" is sometimes not even a crime, in reason) being shot up in the streets by our agents of "law and order"?

Someone has to keep his cool, surely, to avoid these kinds of tragic results? What is your recommendation?

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8 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

[...]it seems like you don't think that there's any deficit in training for police... or any reasonable expectation that they should be able to keep their cool in these sorts of trying circumstances.

This is the same error as before, in accepting the present situation as OK, or something we should figure out. In our present situation, I think Nicky is right that the real fix is to eliminate laws which overburden the police force and put them in impossible situations. The solution is not to "raise" the surveillance/enforcement/retaliation to the necessary level these laws require, even if it could be done. It's like saying that the fix for inept, negligent, and dishonest FDA regulations is to train the FDA to better spot violations of their own rules.

Edited by JASKN
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53 minutes ago, JASKN said:

In our present situation, I think Nicky is right that the real fix is to eliminate laws which overburden the police force and put them in impossible situations. The solution is not to "raise" the surveillance/enforcement/retaliation to the necessary level these laws require, even if it could be done.

Certainly we should strive to eliminate unjust laws. We should work towards the best possible government we can in all cases. But in the meantime, I don't think it's a poor idea to work within the system as it is -- and as it will be for the foreseeable future -- to try to minimize things like unnecessary police shootings (and the consequent retaliation that this sort of thing seems to inspire, as in Dallas).

It's like, suppose that there were rats in some of our public schools, biting our children. Yes, the "real fix" is to eliminate public schooling, sure. But while we work to change the culture, to promote reason generally, to spread Objectivist ideology to the point where "the elimination of public schooling" is a plausible political option, why not call the exterminator and try to spare some of our kids rat bites?

And about "impossible situations," I don't think it is quite "impossible," exactly, to expect police officers not to use chokeholds (specifically forbidden to them) to subdue men who are selling cigarettes, or to expect them not to drive recklessly with unsecured, handcuffed suspects in the back of their vans, or to expect them not to shoot at men with their backs turned, or with their hands raised in the air, and then write reports misrepresenting the situation (only to be later undone because -- yes -- now sometimes these encounters are filmed). Where police officers go beyond their rights and their duties, where they step beyond the bounds we set for them, I don't think it's impossible to expect them to be held accountable for their actions.

Even if all of the laws were as they ought to be, to the extent that we have a police force enforcing them, they must be trained to do it well, and I think that there is ample (and growing) evidence that we currently fall well short of that standard.

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Most of the nation's police are decent people who do a decent enough job, especially given the system in which they're forced to operate. Much of the "we need to fix" talk implies otherwise. Yes, it's unjust and grotesque when law enforcement is abused, but there's a lot of injustice in the world, affecting more people, and wasting lives just the same. The anti-police talk -- and that's really what it is -- so obviously leads to a situation like Dallas, it pains me when Objectivist-types rail on about the police force instead of the worse injustices.

No one here thinks police should abuse their power. I would guess that what you see as brushing off "police brutality" (language which again skews the truth -- as Nicky said, American police are probably still some of the best in the world, in net), is actually seeing the forrest instead of the trees.

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2 minutes ago, JASKN said:

No one here thinks police should abuse their power. I would guess that what you see as brushing off "police brutality" (language which again skews the truth -- as Nicky said, American police are probably still some of the best in the world, in net), is actually seeing the forrest instead of the trees.

Abusing power would be police brutality, doesn't matter if it's not remotely as bad as East Germany years ago. You seem to be saying that, though, that the system (however we define it) isn't perfect but works good enough. But at what point do you say it's not just a few outliers, and rather, a subset of police are abusing power due to the system itself? It doesn't take a majority of police to be bad for the law enforcement system to be in need of changes. 1 case of abuse is bad enough, it's worth thinking about how to find an ideal system.

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I am not saying that there is any level of acceptable police abuse with respect to a free society. But for proponents of freedom and rights-protecting law, I don't think it serves your purpose to negatively paint police officers -- people just like you and me, who are forced to work within this same system -- as some kind of evil meta-force that "we need to do something about." It's riding right along with the #blacklivesmatter crowd. The broadest possible context should instead be considered.

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50 minutes ago, JASKN said:

The anti-police talk -- and that's really what it is -- so obviously leads to a situation like Dallas, it pains me when Objectivist-types rail on about the police force instead of the worse injustices.

"Anti-police talk?" You think it's "anti-police talk" to say that shooting an unarmed man, lying on the ground with his hands in the air, is an injustice? You think it's "anti-police talk" to look at that situation, and similar situations which have occurred recently, and take them together to say that there is potentially a larger problem here -- one that possibly needs corrective action?

It's only conceivably "anti-police" when viewed from some perspective which holds that the police must be defended at all cost -- even when they are in the wrong. But in reason, one may be (or must be) anti-police brutality without being "anti-police."

But let's have some true "anti-police talk," then, to try to cut through what I think is otherwise a bizarrely rose-tinted vision of the police in modern-day America...

50 minutes ago, JASKN said:

Most of the nation's police are decent people who do a decent enough job, especially given the system in which they're forced to operate.

Do you think so? They're decent people? (Or most of them, at least...)

In that post of Nicky's which you'd liked, he said, "The problem is the people creating those war zones in American cities. That's what's out of place in a civilized nation, not the cops who don't know how to handle it properly."

It's the people creating "war zones in American cities" which are "out of place in a civilized nation," yes? Because (I presume) our oppressive laws make criminals out of those who would not otherwise be; the War on Drugs (among many other things) has materialized into an actual war with combatants and casualties on all sides. It is the American voter who is ultimately to blame for this -- right?

Yet the police, as individuals, are not exempted from "the people" or "the American voter." As far as I can tell, the police are as likely to be those who vote for and defend the present system -- creating those war zones -- as anybody else. Or perhaps we can view them as doing more than anyone else, because they are the ones who take up arms and swear themselves to enforcing these hostile and tyrannical policies. They lend their hands to run the machine.

And no, they are not "forced" to operate in the system to the extent that they do. I understand why you use that language, though (even if unconsciously): it doesn't help your cause to understand a police officer as a person who chooses to enforce laws which ought never be enforced by anyone. In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand famously wrote her train wreck scene, and we are supposed (I think?) to relish the poetic justice of the deaths of otherwise ordinary people who have sown their own demise by supporting ideas and practices which inevitably lead to destruction. So how does this not apply to the police officer caught up in the "war zones" which he has, himself, conspired to create through his willing support of that very system? And not just via the willing support of the voter (though he may be guilty of that, too, and almost certainly is), but the additional zeal required to draw weapons against those who are, in reality, innocent. To be willing to personally and forcefully carry out the violation of other citizens' rights. What kind of mentality does that take, do you think? (Even if you support some of the police as being idealistic -- which I don't doubt some are initially -- what kind of deep ignorance or evasion would it require to continue in that job after it is made clear that some good percentage of their work is utterly contrary to morality?) Is that sort of moral compromise and compartmentalization your idea of "decency"?

But also remember* that directly before the train wreck scene, Ayn Rand presented a character running the trains who opted not to send this one through, and resigned his post in protest. So much for the idea of someone "forced" to operate within the system. The police are not "forced" to be brutes, or to act brutishly, but the ones who do pick it out for themselves from a vast array of potential pursuits.

_________________________________

* Though admittedly the details of this scene are currently somewhat hazy to my memory; so if need be, I invite correction on this point.

50 minutes ago, JASKN said:

Much of the "we need to fix" talk implies otherwise.

Yes, we need to fix what does not currently work in our system. If that implies something else to you, then it does, but the suggestion that we should not talk about the problems with out current policing system because you do not like whatever implications, is your own problem.

It's rather like the idea that we should not describe Islamic terrorism as Islamic terrorism, because that carries some sort of implication for the peaceful Muslim population. I'm sorry for the peaceful Muslim population -- and unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe we should treat them all the same, or deprive them of their rights en masse -- but yes, we must be able to recognize that there is a problem within Islam, and one that needs fixing, even if some find "unfortunate implication" in that truth.

50 minutes ago, JASKN said:

Yes, it's unjust and grotesque when law enforcement is abused...

Yes, it is. And it ought to be rectified.

50 minutes ago, JASKN said:

...but there's a lot of injustice in the world, affecting more people, and wasting lives just the same.

Yes, there is a lot of injustice in the world. And we should try to correct that, insofar as it is in our power and in our interest to do so. If we were discussing Boko Haram, for instance, I would say that Boko Haram should be wiped off the face of the planet. Maybe we currently have more pressing issues than destroying Boko Haram -- I grant that's possible -- but that's no defense of Boko Haram, as such.

I mean, perhaps the cultural problems in America's police force -- to the extent that we can agree any exist -- are not large? I don't honestly know. But at the same time, is it possible that I would see these problems as bigger, or in more urgent need of address, if I were living in a place, and among a population, which has to deal with them more directly and more routinely?

Come to it, the War on Drugs doesn't affect me much, personally (apart from taxes and associated issues). I'm close to "straight-edge" with respect to drug use, and I live in white suburbia, which (though I'm certain is rife with drugs) has not yet been transformed into a "war zone." But I'm able to understand that other people have other experiences, and through the magic of empathy I can sometimes relate to those experiences. For instance, someone rotting in jail for years for buying or selling drugs probably has a different experiential understanding of the War on Drugs than I do. What may perhaps seem like a "just system on the whole" to someone like me conceivably looks a lot different from behind bars, or to the family of someone caught in the system, or lying in the grave, as a direct consequence of those policies.

50 minutes ago, JASKN said:

The anti-police talk -- and that's really what it is -- so obviously leads to a situation like Dallas, it pains me when Objectivist-types rail on about the police force instead of the worse injustices.

Which "worse injustices" do you have in mind for "Objectivist-types" to rail on about? Do you mean, like, giving speeches to libertarian bookstores? Reading a scene in The Fountainhead as a scene of rape? Advocating "tolerance" as a virtue? Those sorts of injustices? (Fear not! "Objectivist-types" have you amply covered!)

But "Objectivist-types" should not address the ongoing cultural crisis of police brutality in America -- why? Because you think that such discussion leads to situations like Dallas? I'm pretty sure that the anger and insanity manifesting in situations like Dallas exists without respect to "Objectivist-types," and are not attributable to them, just as I don't lay the blame for police brutality on the doorstep of other "Objectivist-types" who seemingly defend the police past the point of reason.

Rather, I lay the blame for police brutality on the police who employ such tactics, and Dallas on the Dallas shooter.

50 minutes ago, JASKN said:

No one here thinks police should abuse their power. I would guess that what you see as brushing off "police brutality" (language which again skews the truth -- as Nicky said, American police are probably still some of the best in the world, in net), is actually seeing the forrest instead of the trees.

You think that the language "police brutality" skews the truth, because "American police are probably still some of the best in the world, in net"?

That's not how it works. Justice or injustice takes place on an individual level. It doesn't help the person who is brutalized (which is a fine word to use, when accurate) to know that "in net," things are fine. When we seem to have many such individuals -- as we seem to do currently -- then it is further possible that we have a systemic problem that needs to be addressed. And though "in net" we might be doing better than any number of other countries (though I don't know how I would assess that at present; I know very little about the... Danish police, for instance), that doesn't mean that we cannot, or should not, do even better, if it is in our power to do so.

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