Another "I can't breath" death: Police Reform & Protests in the USA

[Machismo]

Identities are not established solely at birth, but are the product of a large confluence of factors, and changing one's personal identity, self image, and world view is not as simple as "well I think I'ma stop being a cop today." There are many people for whom being a cop is nothing more than a job, sometimes even just a side one. Then there are people whose entire self image and world view has been built into wanting to be a cop, and then years to decades of service in law enforcement. That isn't something one can just walk away from on a whim.

Of course they are, and a great deal of is is personal choice.

It's not just about walking away from it, but every single one of those actions was deliberate, and a willing choice.

You don't get to choose to be black, white, or any other color (except for orange).

[Kumorii]

One is judging someone by their actions, the other is not.

Judging someone by their actions of OTHERS... no wonder you are confused since you don't even know what's being talked about.

[Machismo]

No, one is judging by the actions of others... no wonder you are confused since you don't even know what's being talked about.

Plenty of people are...

I judge people by their actions, don't you?

If your concern is guilt by association, then don't associate with bad people (also a willing decision).

[Kumorii]

Plenty of people are...

I judge people by their actions, don't you?

If your concern is guilt by association, then don't associate with bad people (also a willing decision).

ACTIONS OF OTHERS...

Can you stay on-topic? No one has talked about judging someone by THEIR actions is wrong. It's judging them by the actions of OTHERS.

You just try and jump around all over the place and shift the topic because I assume you just want to "win" or have the last word.

Either way, there is a reason I rarely talk to you, and I will go back to just laughing at your post. Good talk.

[Machismo]

ACTIONS OF OTHERS...

Can you stay on-topic? No one has talked about judging someone by THEIR actions is wrong. It's judging them by the actions of OTHERS.

You just try and jump around all over the place and shift the topic because I assume you just want to "win" or have the last word.

Either way, there is a reason I rarely talk to you, and I will go back to just laughing at your post. Good talk.

Once again, if I associate with people who do bad things, and try to rationalize it, I should expect to be judged.

[eschatological]

Something being a choice doesn't make it right to hate on everyone part of that.

If I join the KKK, and say, "I'm a klansman, it's part of my identity," that's a choice. Are you saying I can't be judged for that choice?

[Machismo]

Same absurd thought process as machismo.

Why?

It's a deliberate choice, is it not?

[Aurgjelme]

Identities are not established solely at birth, but are the product of a large confluence of factors, and changing one's personal identity, self image, and world view is not as simple as "well I think I'ma stop being a cop today." There are many people for whom being a cop is nothing more than a job, sometimes even just a side one. Then there are people whose entire self image and world view has been built into wanting to be a cop, and then years to decades of service in law enforcement. That isn't something one can just walk away from on a whim.

It takes a certain mindset to be willing to risk your life for people you have no affiliation with on a daily basis. Same as it takes a certain mindset to be a farmer.
Not everyone can make the cut.

But especially in jobs like policeman, firefighter or paramedic, it takes a certain kind of fortitude to be able to do it, and to do it in a decent way.

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Once again, if I associate with people who do bad things, and try to rationalize it, I should expect to be judged.

I should hate you for being an american? You can easily change your nationality..why dont you do it?

[Machismo]

It takes a certain mindset to be willing to risk your life for people you have no affiliation with on a daily basis. Same as it takes a certain mindset to be a farmer.
Not everyone can make the cut.

But especially in jobs like policeman, firefighter or paramedic, it takes a certain kind of fortitude to be able to do it, and to do it in a decent way.

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I should hate you for being an american? You can easily change your nationality..why dont you do it?

You are free to hate me for that, I certainly don't mind condemning the actions of bad Americans.

Considering your previous posts on the matter, that's exactly what you do.

[Aurgjelme]

You are free to hate me for that, I certainly don't mind condemning the actions of bad Americans.

Considering your previous posts on the matter, that's exactly what you do.

And I am sure there are quite a lot of police officers that would condemn what happened in Minneapolis.
But they are not flawless or superior like you are they? they should just quit their jobs and go dig a hole in a ditch and lay in it right?

[Machismo]

And I am sure there are quite a lot of police officers that would condemn what happened in Minneapolis.
But they are not flawless or superior like you are they? they should just quit their jobs and go dig a hole in a ditch and lay in it right?

As they should (and most did), which is actually an outlier. On the other hand, you have all the other instances where officers are not condemning fellow officers.

I now several officers personally, and I cannot get any of them to condemn the actions of Amber Guyger. Hell, I've literally asked dozens of others, and they don't even want to talk about it.

Then you go to Buffalo, where two officers assaulted a man, and two dozen more did not render aid. A department lied about what happened, and 57 officers resigned their posts, because their buddies bot suspended.

[eschatological]

Same absurd thought process as machismo.

Let's use something then, that most people think is more intrinsic to oneself than one's job then:

If I choose to join the Westboro Baptist Church, and go to military funerals, and hold up signs that say "God Hates Fags" to disrupt a military service....I shouldn't be judged for that? I mean, it's part of my identity.

[Endus]

Let's use something then, that most people think is more intrinsic to oneself than one's job then:

If I choose to join the Westboro Baptist Church, and go to military funerals, and hold up signs that say "God Hates Fags" to disrupt a military service....I shouldn't be judged for that? I mean, it's part of my identity.

I think the more obvious example would be that of a Nazi officer in the SS.

He wears the uniform. He contributes to the atrocities, even if by passively supporting the status quo, even if they find those atrocities personally distasteful; they do not oppose them or try to prevent them. Is he not a Nazi? Should he not be condemned for being a Nazi SS officer? Is being a Nazi "who he is", rather than just a choice he's decided to make?

That's a straight apples-to-apples comparison, one police force to another (which is why I picked the SS, specifically). Are they seriously arguing that it's "bigotry" to condemn a Nazi for . . . being a Nazi?

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And I am sure there are quite a lot of police officers that would condemn what happened in Minneapolis.
But they are not flawless or superior like you are they? they should just quit their jobs and go dig a hole in a ditch and lay in it right?

They should be going to their superiors to turn in their colleagues every single time their colleagues crossed a line. Even if they're not sure a line was crossed.
If those complaints fall on deaf ears, they should be going to the press, to expose that corruption.

Anything short of that is being complicit with the abuses of power.

I've held two different professional designations and memberships (only one currently active and paying dues). If I notice anything unethical among colleagues, I have a duty to report. It's not just a societal expectation, it's a professional responsibility. If a client demands I do something unethical, I would have to refuse, and potentially report that client to their superiors or to authorities, if it crosses certain lines. Not doing so is not only grounds for me to be fired from my job, but to have my license to practice anywhere, ever revoked. And getting that back is nearly impossible, since I'd have to demonstrate somehow that I wouldn't make the same unethical mistake again, that I have fundamentally changed as a person.

This is basic shit, in most professions. Except policing, apparently. Which is the problem; this is a bare-minimum standard of conduct and the cops can't even abide by it.

[Mayhem]

I think the more obvious example would be that of a Nazi officer in the SS.

He wears the uniform. He contributes to the atrocities, even if by passively supporting the status quo, even if they find those atrocities personally distasteful; they do not oppose them or try to prevent them. Is he not a Nazi? Should he not be condemned for being a Nazi SS officer? Is being a Nazi "who he is", rather than just a choice he's decided to make?

That's a straight apples-to-apples comparison, one police force to another (which is why I picked the SS, specifically). Are they seriously arguing that it's "bigotry" to condemn a Nazi for . . . being a Nazi?

Not all Nazis!

yuck

[Egomaniac]

And I am sure there are quite a lot of police officers that would condemn what happened in Minneapolis.
But they are not flawless or superior like you are they? they should just quit their jobs and go dig a hole in a ditch and lay in it right?

It's easy to condemn Derek Chauvin for what he did. But they still rationalize it. "Floyd was a criminal". "Floyd should not have resisted".

But they say nothing about the three officers that stood there and did nothing as they watched Chauvin murder Floyd.
They do nothing about the system that allowed Chauvin to still be a police officer even after 18 complaints were filed against him.
They come to the defense of the Buffalo officers that pushed at 70+ year old man to the ground and walked by as they lay there bleeding from his head.
They defend the officer that murdered Rayshard Brooks.
They lie about what happened to Breonna Taylor.
Every day they see their fellow officers do things they should not do...and they stay silent.

[alchemistnb]

Terrible(( Not all people are really people

[Aurgjelme]

I enjoy the debates at oxford union.
You get a balanced view from both sides of the debate, and I remember seeing this some while back and thought it might be somewhat relevant.
I would like to share them here for others to enjoy.

[Zeth Hawkins]

Being a police officer pretty damn clearly falls under "what they do". They had to choose to enter that profession, they had to choose to continue practicing it despite the massive ethical failures throughout, and they had to steadfastly ignore those failures and thus implicitly support those failures to continue that career.

Your argument here is like saying we're judging someone for "being a literal Nazi, here's a photo of them wearing the uniform and working in the Nazi Reich when they were younger".

This fixation people have on choice is odd. Yes, they chose to be officers. They did not choose the actions of other officers. People can only be individually judged on what they do. Taking a stance of blaming and hating the whole for the actions of some is what racists do.

Not all white people are racist.
Not all black people are thugs.
Not all police are bastards.

Regarding your comparison of current United States police officers to Nazi Germany soldiers:
Check your bigotry at the door.

[Elegiac]

This fixation people have on choice is odd. Yes, they chose to be officers. They did not choose the actions of other officers. People can only be individually judged on what they do. Taking a stance of blaming and hating the whole for the actions of some is what racists do.

The term is "generalization" and no, it's not generalizing because in recognizing that the institution of police as it exists currently is unjust then even "good" cops who voluntarily continue to participate in that system are complicit and thus...not good.

So no, the equivalency is false. ACAB.

[Edge-]

Taking a stance of blaming and hating the whole for the actions of some is what racists do.

No, it's literally not. Not all Nazi's threw people into death camps and murdered them, but all Nazi's were fine with that behavior. I have no problem hating everyone who supports or adheres to the Nazi ideology. Period. No exceptions.

In this instance, the anger stems from how widespread the issues with policing are. This isn't a few officers. This isn't just one or two bad precincts or cities. This is all over the country, at departments large and small. And given that we've seen almost every instance of police brutality over the past month lead to the departments circling the wagons around the officers, and that this behavior too is hardly isolated, it's not remotely far fetched to peg this as a systemic issue within law enforcement drive by the way the institution has been structured and those that it recruits lately. Including quite a few white supremacists, according to federal authorities and video of the officers themselves often having close, friendly relationships with these groups.

Not all white people are racist.
Not all black people are thugs.
Not all police are bastards.

A meaningless statement given that you choose to be a police officer, you don't choose to be white or black.

Regarding your comparison of current United States police officers to Nazi Germany soldiers:
Check your bigotry at the door.

If you read, he wasn't comparing their actions and implying that law enforcement officers are Nazi's. I'm not sure where you got that from.