It's okay to dislike people for the bad things that they do. It's not okay to dislike people for the circumstances they were born into.

Every cop, at least in the US, made the conscious decision to join a broken system where they would be rewarded for greed and corruption, and be allowed to dehumanize any group they decide they don't like. People who sign up to be cops who try to change any of this end up not being cops anymore, so the tautology holds true.

Bring up the FOP under RICO charges and prevent people with a history of violence and drug abuse from being put into positions of authority, and then we can re-evaluate the situation, but until then, police can not and should not be trusted.

How would you feel about a cop that signed up because they wanted to do better? Should they just not even try? How would things ever get better?

> It's not okay to dislike people for the circumstances they were born into

This seems rather incompatible with:

> Every cop, at least in the US, made the conscious decision to join a broken system

If you believe the system is broken, and if you believe police are necessary at least in some form, how is extending your dislike to every cop not similar structurally to disliking people for the circumstances they were born into? (I'm not making a claim of equivalence in terms of the impact - racism is clearly worse - but of a similarly fallacious generalization).

In other words, if prospective cops could join a different system, they would, but no such system exists. Many join thinking they can influence/change the system, and I don't doubt that they try, but clearly this doesn't work well. This is not the same as joining a system for the purpose of benefiting from its rottenness.

Don't get me wrong: the system is clearly broken. But it seems deeply problematic to throw out all nuance and embrace a binary position here. Categorical statements like "joining automatically means you plan to dehumanize people you don't like and reap the rewards of corruption" does not withstand rational scrutiny.

Without police, do you think things would be less broken? Or more?

True lawlessness is not less oppressive than the current system.

Absolutely not. It's a profession, every cop out there can just... not be a cop.

Comparing that to skin color or someone's ethnicity is absolutely ridiculous.

Technically speaking, all cops can’t be bad, so the phrase is pretty dumb anyways even if one has issues with their country’s policing system.

While it's true that not every cop is actively corrupt, or violent, they have this whole "Blue Code" thing that means that if you ever report a coworker for being corrupt or violent, you're out. The cops who enable bad behavior, and perpetuate the bad system, are just as bad as any other corrupt or violent cop. So yeah, they certainly can all be bad.

The idea behind the phrase is that cops are either bastards or they sit by and let other cops be bastards and are themselves bastards. Any cop who doesn't sit by and let other cops abuse citizens isn't a cop for very long.

> Technically speaking, all cops can’t be bad

What technique are you using? Who was the good concentration camp guard?

Does France have concentration camps manned by police or something? What are you even saying..

> It's a profession, every cop out there can just... not be a cop.

Yeah, and every coal miner can just stop complaining about tough working conditions and decreasing number of jobs in their field, and instead learn how to code. It is that simple[0].

0. https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/47...

Coal miners don't have any sort of authority over you, cops do. And they carry deadly weapons with them, and they overreact. Not all the time, but let's say a noticeable amount of times.

While it may be a profession, it's also a critical community service. Unlike some professions that come and go, or could theoretically disappear tomorrow, we'll likely need police for the foreseeable future in at least some form.

Binary positions like "every cop out there can just...not be a cop" are a form of false choice fallacy and ignore the reality of what this would actually entail.

"Just don't be a cop" is not a solution to the systemic problems, and introduces a whole new set of problems that I think most would argue are just as bad, and likely far worse.

Ultimately all of this distracts from real policy discussion.

No it’s not the same. One of them is an institution conceived through organisation of people, laws, traditions and customs, the existence and membership of which is a choice. The other categories are associations made by accident of birth. I don’t have a horse in the race but it is important to understand that those situations are not the same. When people say stuff like ACAB they are free to criticise the existence of the police as an institution as they please.

They cannot be serious saying that now law enforcement is better than a bad one. The latter you can at least try to change by joining and being a good guideline on how to be.

I know that sounds idealistic... but what are the alternatives? - A "new" police? What should make this better on second try? - No Police? I cannot imagine what would happen with people - A police that plays within the rules? Now i extend my argument on law people involved. They also have many bad actors and again the only chance i see is to be a good actor.

I'd be delighted to hear alternatives.

> The other categories are associations made by accident of birth.

Just because someone says you are a Christian because you were baptized or whatever doesn't make it so. Religion is just as much a choice as an occupation.

No one brought up christianity, they mentioned jews. There's 2 meanings for the word Jewish: those who practice the religion and those who have ancestry from Hebrew/Israelite regions. I've never been to temple in my life, never celebrated Hanukkah. Yet my last name and my looks have gotten me anger and threats from random weirdos.

Christianity is such a large religion that there isn't an ethnic group attached to it.

> Religion is just as much a choice as an occupation.

That is a bit tricky.

Religion is definitely a choice if you're enough willing to make a choice, but most people just keep their parent's religion. People just believe what they were taught as children.

I'm atheist from atheist country so I don't necessarily get it, but it seems to be that way - see ratios of Muslim and Christians in Saudi Arabia versus Europe, for example.

Then there's more tricky cases where religion and ethnicity are heavily correlated or tied in even stronger way (e.g. Jews).

> but most people just keep their parent's religion.

Is that not a choice? Choosing atheism is arguably easier.

> Just because someone says you are a Christian because you were baptized or whatever doesn't make it so. Religion is just as much a choice as an occupation.

Hard disagree here. I didn't choose to be born to parents of a fundamental baptist cult. I didn't choose to be subjected to physical abuse in the name of that religion, or to be sent to seminars ingraining deeply harmful ideas about self and the roles of men/women. I didn't choose to spend my entire adult life in therapy unwinding the bizarre ideas that had been hammered into me as a kid.

Yes, you can "choose" to leave your religion behind, but many cannot choose to avoid the indoctrination, abuse and twisted mental models that can come from the experience.

I left my faith behind around age 18. 20 years later I'm still actively working on getting rid of the rest of the baggage.

Okay but none of what you said refutes my statement. Being subjected to abuse is orthogonal to your religious identity.

Only the one about blacks, no? Jew blanket statements that don't involve memes about noses attack the religion which is a membership to an organisation of people with traditions, laws and customs.

Then let's handle it like we do race: the average cop is a bastard. This is not necessarily true of all individuals, but it's statistically predictive.

If we want to be analytical, what is the definition of bastard? Does the average cop have a net positive or negative impact? How many rude interactions are negated by preventing an auto theft ? How many unjustified beatings are Justified by locking up a serial rapist or killer?

Blanket statements might be bad, but please do not compare people with a specific job to ethnic and religious minorities. Jewish and black people do not stop being who they are ever. Where as a cop is off duty, retired, or fired for misconduct. It's just a job title, but it comes with a lot of authority given on behalf of the state

The police (in the US) have a long history of protecting their own, and punishing anybody who does speak up, even in the face of what would otherwise be compelling evidence of illegal behavior.

ACAB might be a bit hyperbolic, but the sentiment (that policing in the US is fundamentally broken) isn’t off base.

Not getting that sentiment from a slogan that says all cops are bastards. If “policing is fundamentally broken” is the statement then use that

Fair. ACAB is kind of the asshole's version of "Defund the Police" (which is also problematic, as the "pro-police" side jumps straight to "defund and disband all policing", which also isn't what most people mean). Nuance doesn't work very well on Twitter (or online in general).

The statement becomes true when all good cops avoid policing the bad ones, which is the whole point of it.

You know that you _choose_ to be a policeman, right? Is not that you are born a policeman.

I can definitely say all killers are rotten inside, and it's a blanket statement.

what's disgusting is to equate a group of professional thugs to historically marginalised race groups

This is someone who has been fortunate to never need assistance.

It's going to sound crazy, but "The Profession As A Whole Are Bastards But That Doesn't Mean Each Individual Cop Is" rolls off the tongue a little bit less well.

ACAB doesn't mean that your cop neighbor that raises puppies is a bastard, it means that the institution he works with and for is lacking any kind of oversight. And as other said, good luck on stopping being black. I don't think you can send in a resignation letter for that.

> Saying all cops are anything is exactly the same thing as saying all blacks are thieves,

If you think that's true, you don't understand how racism works. People choose to be cops every day. It's irrelevant what black people choose.