> copaganda

Massive eyeroll.

So given that enforcing security is impossible to make completely pristine (you DO understand that that is a given, correct?), would you rather have flawed (but more accountable) taxpayer-funded police, or flawed (but arguably less accountable and only loyal to their employer) private police?

You cannot have your dream world of "perfect cops enforcing justice perfectly," because humans are all flawed. Pursuing this unachievable ideal at all costs is not going to get us anywhere but somewhere worse off.

So take your effing pick, and then quit complaining about it, because this "always complaining no matter what solution presents itself to solve a problem that isn't going to go away" noise is really getting incredibly irritating.

> copaganda

Police budgets are higher than they've ever been in history and they're spending millions on social media and "strategic communication"

https://therealnews.com/police-departments-are-spending-mill...

Maybe because some moron on Twitter can have people calling for the head of cops who shoot people trying to stab other people. And maybe they need to pay police more because no cop wants to make life and death decisions and have uninformed people asking why they couldn't shoot the knife out of their hands. Couple this with DAs unwilling to prosecute crimes and reclassifing crimes to hide how bad things are, also having no cash bail, why would a cop stick around for what used to be a decent salary?

The average cop in the San Jose PD makes $131k and has great benefits compared to other jobs you can get without a degree

IMO less cops is a good thing. We put too much on them. They shouldn't be the ones responding to mental health crises, cats stuck in trees, and suicide attempts, muggings, car accidents, etc all at once.

Many cities are already experimenting with mental health first responders and similar things. This definitely seems like the right direction and will also alleviate concerns about less people wanting to become cops. It'll also mean people with more expertise can focus on specific needs of a specific situation.

Police already have some of the most powerful unions and are able to use taxpayer money to fund their own lobbying (to be funneled more taxpayer money, sigh). Many departments already have tanks, drones, and other military equipment that they only got because some "defense" contractor managed to convince a politician to subsidize them. Departments like NYPD also include fines and ticket fees into their budget expectations creating a strong incentive to be overly punitive. All of these are signs of an institution that's grown far too strong and desperately needs to be broken apart

Certainly not to protect the children, else Ulvalde wouldn't have happened.

I dislike the binary of "completely pristine" and the current state of police. One of the professions more likely to be a victim of violent criminals are delivery drivers. Still, if heavily armed delivery drivers started killing innocent people one would be allowed to critique that without being labeled "anti-pizza". That statistic is one of a number of things that are disallowed in conversations before being offered my "effing pick" between accepting no accountability for the actions of the state or no laws ever.

> heavily armed delivery drivers

Protagonist from Snow Crash!

You're putting in a lot of words in my mouth and it's a bit weird how aggressive you're coming off here.

There's nothing I'm proposing here at all. I'm only critical of the obvious pro-private militarized police force, which every American should be. And this article is blatant propaganda for that agenda. The author herself works at The Federalist Society, a far-right conservative magazine.

I didn't see much particularly pro- about it, other than the fact that they seem more focused on treating people like people and not like case numbers. Was that part not true?

I think they were referring to how the article seemed to be one-sided. It didn't mention any of the controversy around the link provided by the (currently) top rated comment in this discussion [0], which talked about how poorly trained these security people are, how they have broken the law, beat up and shot people, how the local prosecutors are not happy with the situation, etc.

It would have been a more fair article if they mentioned this other stuff, but they didn't, it only painted them in the best light possible. Call that a lie of omission. Some people are more sensitive to being manipulated.

[0] https://www.opb.org/article/2021/12/02/part-two-police-prose...

That's fair. And balanced. Too bad our media seems to have given up on that.

You’re right - whether being oppressed by people with the veneer of accountability or by a private military force without any, we should just shut up and accept it all as-is because there can’t possibly be any other way to have security.

Compare the track record of US police to the police in nearly every other country, and then get back to me.

I'm not sure what you mean. This suggests that the per capita rate of police killing people is much higher than in the rest of the developed democratic world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...