The problem is that power corrupts.

Same issue with nearly every place people have power. It feels particularly acute in the US because of reverent attitudes to police force.

But doctors, nurses, teachers, priests... Good people will do bad things given half a chance.

> It feels particularly acute in the US because of reverent attitudes to police force.

From what I can tell from the outside, people always accuse American police of being terrible. I don't see much of a reverent attitude.

It’s a big country with wildly divergent opinions and political tribalism run amok. In rural areas “back the blue” yard signs supporting the police are widespread.

From the outside you can't see all the Thin Blue Line flag bumper stickers or Back the Blue yard signs during BLM protests. The Republican Party hates government, but seems to love cops for some reason. Republicans don't trust the government, but they trust cops. Republicans generally think the government is wholly incompetent, but want them to practice the death penalty and immediately trust the police account of fatal shootings. If Republican distrust of government was consistent, we would be able to address the systemic issues found in many police and sheriff departments around the country. Since our legislature requires a super majority to pass bills, there is no opportunity to address this is in a way that will really make a difference. Instead, each locality has to find a way to influence their police departments individually with very little success.

There is a consistency in Republican attitudes towards government: they trust the parts of government they feel they control and wish to destroy the parts they fear they do not control. Lionize the police and the military. Kill the EPA , NOAA, HUD, the IRS, and the FDA. The only time they hate law enforcement is when it is used to enforce a law against them, see Waco, Ruby Ridge, the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, etc. And then boy do they hate it, because they see this as disloyalty, as treason.

This attitude goes way back. It is characterological. See the Fugitive Slave Act versus states' rights.

Note that the Democrat views mirror the Republican ones, trusting those institutions they control and distrusting the others.

There I think you need to distinguish Democrat from liberals/leftists/progressives. There are differences of opinions among the latter group. I would say the majority distrust the police and the military but see them as necessary institutions that should be reformed. The Democrats, which is to say the people who have some claim to speak for the party, profess their love for law enforcement and the military, whatever their private reservations. This is not how Republicans, the politicians, behave towards the EPA and the rest.

Also, the Democrats have never had a politician of any stature, let alone a president of their party, say "Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem." That was Ronald Reagan.

In other words, you are right, the left does distrust those portions of the government it does not control, but there is an enormous difference of degree in how the two sides behave towards these portions of the government.

That's a gross mischaracterization. Democrats trust government as an institution but that does not mean democrats trust all government, it just means they think government can solve problems, as opposed to the republican projected view (though not actual view of their voters IMO) that government is inherently broken as a concept and should be reduced to absolute minimal size.

There's no inconsistency in trusting a democratic process to do mostly democratic things but thinking the lack of accountability in policing has had negative outcomes. The vast majority of democratic voters in america do not support "abolish the police' in entirety, but rather that reforms are needed.

That’s because you don’t consume U.S.-based right-wing media. The reverence/disgust for police splits right down party lines. Team red supports the “boys in blue” but hates team blue. What a weird situation!

More generally, if you don’t/haven’t lived in the United States (or have only ever visited/lived in a large city,) and only consume “mainstream” US-based news, like the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, etc., you’ll get a center-left-slanted view of the United States.

The first problem with that, from the perspective of forming an accurate view of the populace, is that, as a whole, the US leans ever-so-slightly center-right[0].

The second problem is that much of our political news is a circus whereby both political parties attempt to paint a picture that the “majority” of the country is behind more extreme interpretations of their platforms — that the country leans more heavily to the left or the right than it really does. The Republican Party has been doing this for more than a generation; its a more recent phenomenon with the Democrats.

0 - https://news.gallup.com/poll/275792/remained-center-right-id...

…unless the police are investigating Team Red, in which case they are part of the vast left wing conspiracy.

…and except when Team Red needs to justify owning military grade weapons, in which case it’s all about deterring tyranny by being prepared to shoot cops and soldiers.

It’s a very… situational reverence. Like, as long as the situation is the police attacking the correct demographics.

It's hilarious when conservatives and cops get really uppity about the 2nd amendment. Who the fuck do they think they would be shooting at if the state ever came for their guns? Or you can look at how they view the ATF, completely ignoring that every other LEO organization in the country is very very similar in structure.

>The reverence/disgust for police splits right down party lines. Team red supports the “boys in blue” but hates team blue. What a weird situation!

I think that's starting to break down. Conservatives are not happy with the ATF's self evaluation of congressional law right now and they are certainly an armed police force with arresting power. Also, poor people who are conservative are also on the receiving end of police violence quite frequently as well.

There are plenty of police abuse videos out there, against citizens of all colors and they're all over YouTube. The more people watch them, the more that support will break down.

Of course the other irony is some of the worst police departments are in cities run by the Democratic Party. New York, LA, Chicago, Louisville, New Orleans. The abuses aren't limited to a single party, so it's difficult to politicize.

What you see online is very unrepresentative. Both of people's views (which often breaks along party lines) and the actual dangerousness of USA cops (which varies wildly depending on location and department).

Power does corrupt but systems can overcome it. A lot of good research out there about mistakes in hospitals arising from the power dynamic between doctors and nurses. How nurses would be afraid to challenge doctors when they make mistakes.

And how changing the systems and culture can fix it. Think the book checklists discusses this in detail .

Checklist Manifesto By Atul Gawande (MD), if anyone is interested to lookup the book.

You're confusing a person's job title with thier morality.

Rather, it's like firing the whole development team because they retaliate against stakeholders.

These are not comparable situations. Ideally everyone should do a good job, sure, but cops are in an entirely different position in terms of power and responsibility. as part of the executive arm of government they are tasked with holding the monopoly on violence and egregious mistakes in doing so are a fundamental violation of basic rights and the peaceful order of society. When they screw up it's not a bad product being delivered, it's trust in society being eroded, lives being destroyed and the door to tyranny being opened just a little further. severe deterrence against misbehavior, loosing a job honestly seeming VERY weak compared to the scale of responsibility at play here, should simply be par for the course in this context.

As part of the executive arm of government, they are under the responsibility of the government. When they screw up it reflects on the ability of the government to organize, regulate and fund that executive arm, and also the trust that people have put into those politicians.

If people no longer trust that executive arm of government, then hold those in power responsible for it. Start at the top and replace those politicians. An elected politician can only remain in office if they continue to receive support by voters.

Sure, replace the politicians at the top who aren't willing to cull and replace dysfunctional and corrupt members of the police force. And if it's systemic, the entire police force, which is what's being suggested.

Sure politicians should also be held accountable for policy failures but I don't think it absolves the people enacting an injustice from responsibility. "just following orders" is not a valid excuse and "just vote different" is not a valid way to hold people accountable (in all cases). When everything works in the spirit of the law and the output is still bad it makes sense to just vote for different laws/people to make new legislation, sure, but when rights are being violated there need to be harsh consequences.

It is important that those responsible for the police force can not just simply wash themselves clean of the problem by firing the lowest level employees. I do not disagree that individuals need to be held responsible for their own actions, through most blames should lie on those who hold power to create real change in the organization. As an generalization, a good model is one where blames travels upward and praise travel downward.

Just voting differently is naturally not the only way a government can be held responsible. Political assigned jobs is a job description based on trust, and there should be mechanism to remove individuals who do not fulfill that trust. Governments should also be liable to their citizens, so when injustice occurs people should have the option to demand compensation from the government. This in turn put pressure on politicians to avoid injustice caused by the police.

A police force that protects citizens rights should be viewed as an asset to local government, and the opposite should be a harsh liability that local governments can feel.

True, but how does firing the whole department solve the problems? I don't think just firing the bad apples is a good long term solution. Mainly because these types of mistakes continually happen in multiple departments in multiple counties and countries. Whenever things keep happening over and over again, it is likely the system itself that causes the problems. Perhaps we should look at countries with the lowest police mistakes and emulate them.

I try to solve problems from a systems perspective. For example the common automobile stop and warrantless search allows officers to more easily abuse power and escalate situations quickly as cops no longer required a warrant from a judge. This was by design by the Supreme Court who ruled in 1925 to allow this exception in times of prohibition when an individual ran away from police with alcohol and they didn't have time to go get a warrant. Stop and frisk was an extension of this case law.

Your comparison is poor.

A more accurate comparison would be firing the whole team for inserting intentional backdoors and collecting fractional pennies from each transaction and depositing them in personal accounts.

Accidents happen to everyone. We often make trade offs. In the cases we're talking about, these weren't accidents or appropriate judgement calls.