User Panel
Posted: 3/27/2015 4:42:27 PM EDT
I dunno, let's ask Claire... TLDR: I'm white, female and privileged (but I acknowledge and am currently working on this) AND I live harmoniously in a bad neighborhood. We don't need the police and society can take care of itself. Also, cops cause crime. One minute she says police "bar the people from liberation by maintaining the capitalist social order", the next "they do this while safely insulated from competition, market feedback, the price mechanism, and the profit-loss system". She's that good! http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/purple-wisconsin/297587211.html?ipad=y Whether we call them because of a dispute between neighbors or a robbery, a shooting or sexual violence, the police rarely meet our needs. They don’t help us heal. And they don’t prevent future harm. Rather than serve as advocates for true justice, they use their nearly limitless power to reinforce the oppressive status quo. They threaten us with violence and incarceration and target the most oppressed and vulnerable people in our society. By blaming “crime” and “criminals” instead of systemic oppression for society’s ills, the police exacerbate societal problems, harm citizens, and bar the people from liberation by maintaining the capitalist social order. For certain, the negative effects of policing outweigh the benefits. In times of falling violent and property crimes, increased spending on police (ergo increased arrests, especially for petty crimes and drug offenses and especially in communities of color) has a host of negative impacts on individuals and communities, with little to no social benefit. Within the communities most affected, police hamper economic mobility, fragment families, and usurp taxpayer dollars which could otherwise be spent on the meaningful work happening to make those same communities safer and healthier. What’s perhaps worse is the fact that, because the police do not keep us safe, their predominant role in society is maintaining a social order that enables people in power to operate with the least amount of disruption possible and thus continue to exploit and oppress the already disenfranchised. By targeting low-income individuals and people of color, the police maintain a racial and economic system of social stratification that is profitable and beneficial only for the ruling class. And unlike basically every other institution in our country, they do this while safely insulated from competition, market feedback, the price mechanism, and the profit-loss system. As a result, there is virtually no system of accountability of police to their "clients" or the public, and any complaints against police are passed off as having been made by "criminals". Even in a state like ours, where investigations of police must be conducted by outside entities, those entities are often mostly made up of former police, and so perpetrating officers are almost never indicted nor face any criminal charges when they commit even the gravest of violent transgressions against the citizens they have vowed to serve and protect. Plainly stated, police departments function as monopolies and come with incentives to overspend, overcharge, under-produce, and generally work in opposition to their clients’ interests and in favor of their own and of those of the ruling class. The police represent a nearly all-powerful, irreprehensible institution whose sole purpose is to keep poor and black folks oppressed so wealthy whites can prosper. It is for this reason that the abolition of the police must be a key component of the work to establish a more just, free, and equitable world. So, what does it mean to imagine a world free of police? And what do viable alternatives to policing look like? The answer may be more intuitive than you think. As Luis Fernandez, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University, puts it, “Most of our communities already exist without policing. Most of our human interactions are already outside of the purview of police officers…Most social relationships between people do not require police intervention.” Indeed, the absence of police might actually mean the chance to connect to one another more as people, on a human level. By eliminating the involvement of the state in social conflicts, we increase our opportunity to practice methods of conflict resolution like mediation, dialogue, and reconciliation - and we replace the racist, militaristic penalism which characterizes policing in this country and which proves so costly to our communities in so many ways. It may take years before enough Americans recognize this, though. In the meantime, we have the power to reduce the role of the police in our own individual lives. This year I made a New Year’s resolution not to call the police. By participating in efforts in my neighborhood to reduce the presence and role of the police in our interactions, I’m also taking part in ensuring there is an organized, collectively-responsible immediate community with viable, humane and self-empowering alternatives to calling the police. Additionally, I know I can rely on resources like friends, help hotlines, restorative justice practices, crisis centers and so on should I find myself in a jam. Whatever our chosen alternatives to calling the police, we all deserve a conflict-resolution and crisis management process that is democratic, accountable, transparent, and over which our communities have the ultimate control. Our humanity, our justice, and our freedom depend on it. View Quote |
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I imagine it would get a bit rapey and cactus-swingy right quick.
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A world without police would get pretty crappy real fast especially in the cities!!!
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I would call this woman a dumb cunt, but she has neither the warmth or the depth for that particular noun to apply.
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......they use their nearly limitless power.... View Quote View Quote |
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it WOULD be mad max...then warlords...and then some one would invent police again. Look at what LA and NO was like in the riots/storm. All that chaos from just a couple days where the five-oh was disrupted....not gone completely, just discombobulated. I don't think 99% of the population has any idea how savage things would get and how quick.
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Someone would just fill the power vacuum. The problem isn't the police, it's humanity. Give a person a position of authority with limited oversight and a public image that must be maintained and it doesn't surprise me at all how many of the police act. It's simply human nature. Same with the poor and the rich.
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I had a friend that lived in a very bad neighborhood of Philly, but she rented from a a guy that was an old time Pagan... He liked her, sort of as if she was his daughter. No one would bother her... Fear, with a real threat of violence kept her safe
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Screen name? View Quote I didn't write it I swear! The conclusion was reached for entirely the opposite of my reasoning. People relying on the police to do "something" is why no one can do their own conflict resolution, security, or even parenting in some cases. Take away their dial-a-daddy, and they will either perish or grow the fuck up and figure out how to do it without wanting a government agent to solve the damn problem. |
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Pick any African shit hole where Warlords rule. That's what the world would be like.
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First thing I do is pile up sand bags on the roof and establish a 1000 yard "no soliciting/no loitering" zone around my house
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There will always be police in some form even in a voluntaryist utopia. Maybe there does need to be market competition, but there kind of already is. Just most police seem to have a territorial monopoly. Overlapping jurisdictions might mitigate some bad parts of a monopoly. Maybe you could eventually buy your preferred police service like you buy insurance... or at least used to.
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Indeed, the absence of police might actually mean the chance to connect to one another more as people, on a human level. By eliminating the involvement of the state in social conflicts, we increase our opportunity to practice methods of conflict resolution like mediation, dialogue, and reconciliation - and we replace the racist, militaristic penalism which characterizes policing in this country and which proves so costly to our communities in so many ways. View Quote She has some of the best drugs available. |
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In remote areas like Alaska, about the same.
In rural areas, about the same. In urban areas, folks with the most fullauto weapons win. |
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We would die of predation from the then unchecked dog population.
Seriously, I imagine it would get pretty mad maxish pretty quick. |
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yeah, but who would haul all of the dead criminals from my yard if there was no police? My conflict resolution in times of anarchy would be shoot, then ask them if they want to do Social conflict resolution.
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Like most liberal BS. Sounds nice if you're so disconnected from reality to believe all the crap that's proposed in the article without really bad consequences. Try "mediation," with some SOB who's trying to kill you or your loved ones. Without police society would unravel, evil people would prey on the weak and the defenseless, and we'd be like a third world country at it's worst.
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A long damn time ago I worked at a residential treatment facility for crazy ass kids in Longmont, CO. We had it all, from tatted up 13 year old gangbangers to 250 pound 15 year old thugs to dead-eyed suburban sociopaths. I remember we got a new therapist. He came from Naropa with a masters degree in Transpersonal something or other. He drove a pretty new Audi wagon and looked lik e a damn troll. Anyway one day he was all excited. Turns out that day, him and his partner (hot as hell, figures) had just bought a trailer in a (duh, mostly poor Latino) trailer park in Boulder. He went on and on about his perfect little rainbow community and how everyone could just get along. Hell, even the bangers all respected one another. When his nice road bike disappeared off the porch, of course, someone was just "borrowing" it. |
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The irony is that this pile of stupid can only come from the mind of someone who has never been the victim of a crime. A society that offers that to people is kept safe by police. Your outlook on the general nature of people and the value of the police changes a whole lot when someone is bashing your head against a telephone pole and you're struggling for consciousness. I know this from personal experience.
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So, in this utopia where there's no arm to enforce the laws how are they going to enforce massive taxes on us, confiscate our guns, or keep us from polluting mother earth?
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So, in this utopia where there's no arm to enforce the laws how are they going to enforce massive taxes on us, confiscate our guns, or keep us from polluting mother earth? View Quote According to her people will just naturally go along with it once you give them alternatives like mediation, and self empowerment. Cuz, you know, like people are all good and it is the evil police causing all the problems. |
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Holy COW~! you have the avatar.... you should go post in the rate avatar thread.... http://graemeshimmin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Spies-Like-Us-Featured-Image.jpg View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
Holy COW~! you have the avatar.... you should go post in the rate avatar thread.... http://graemeshimmin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Spies-Like-Us-Featured-Image.jpg Quoted:
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we don't need another hero.....thunderdome She inhabited my dreams as a young and horny teenager! |
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She contradicts herself so many times in so many ways its silly. The only part I was glad to read was that she won't call the police anymore, to their great relief.
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