Cops are just gangsters most people trust sadly. They are a protection racket that steals from you (taxes) and is actually not required to protect you at all.
What do you call taking someone’s money without their consent, using force/threat of violence?
Listen, I hate cops too, but if you’re taking part in and benefitting from modern society, you’re gonna have to chip in for that convenience. If you don’t like it, live off the grid.
Taxes pays my education and healthcare, it funds the military that makes russia think twice before invading my country, it builds and maintains all the roads and bridges I use every day to move around, it pays food and housing for the people that can’t afford that themselves.
I’m gladly paying taxes as long as it’s not all going to the pockets of corrupt politicans.
If they were required to protect you, it would be better (not perfect, but better).
Alass, they have no duty to protect the people; Police Have No Duty to Protect the Public
Who I am, what I’ve said, what I’m in support of and not in support of, that stuff isn’t information I want shared willy nilly with the rest of the world. I like choosing who gets to know me.
In case you didn’t know: Fuck the police. It’s not that I don’t like them, i fucking hate them…
I really think it is the system. It is a system that gives positive feedback for negative human behavior. And I have no solution for it. But I believe that regardless who becomes police it will break their humanity. And that seems like a bad system to me.
thanks for coming to my ted talk.
There’s a large number of people in the US that fetishize the police. They honestly believe that if a cop shoots someone, they must have had a good reason and will 💯 support the cop without hearing any details. These people view the world as a struggle between good and evil. The cops and themselves are on the side of good, and if they don’t take aggressive action to keep evil at bay, evil will win and destroy us all. This is why Conservatism, Nationalism, and Christian fanaticism go together so well; they all share the same fundamental outlook on the world. The right wing has weaponized this in the US and we’re paying the price for it.
ACAB.
Yes, Ballentine, even you, you fluffy little snitch.
This demonstrates why no government agency should be self-funding. If fees are collected they should be refunded to taxpayers. If a budget is needed it should go through the normal budget process and be given a budget directly from incoming taxes. So everything’s aboveboard and transparent.
As soon as an organization is self-funding it’s open to both regulatory capture and corruption. We need to remove the incentives for bad actors, not just trying to catch bad actors after the fact.
This would have a huge impact on small police departments who self-fund through tickets in the community exploitation. Police should not be tax farmers. Police should be for the people and buy the people, tax farmers are exploitive by their very nature. They should not be the same person.
At the very least no fine or enforcement mechanism. I’m ok with for example a postal service charging for some service. But involuntary charges going towards funding the institution charging it is just rife with perverse incentives.
I see your point. But I still think the perverse incentives exist. Once you have customers, you deviate from your mission. Right now the US postal service is largest customer is bulk mail, spam. They’re basically stuck in regulatory capture now. They can’t do things to reduce unwanted spam, they can’t offer services to people to not deliver bulk mail. Because their largest customer is bulk mailers. The people receiving the mail aren’t their customers anymore. They’re the product.
I forget the name of the company exactly I think it was inbox, they were working in San Francisco, they would go to the post office and receive the mail for individuals then scan the mail and send it to people digitally. Basically it was the postal service but no physical delivery. They had a pilot program going, but then the bulk mailers got wind of it, and used pressure to shut it down. So innovation that’s available I think in Finland or Sweden is not a possible in the US due to regulatory capture.
That’s an known issue with any customer driven org too. Prioritizing existing markets and customers vs up and coming ones.
The postal service almost was set up to do small time banking and email services but got cut down by Congress. So they had tried to push for providing more services to meet existing demand, but we’re hamstrung on their efforts.
The push towards privitazation at all cost has really hurt the effectiveness and efficiency of government ran orgs in the United States.
