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Comment by observr9 | Hacker News Reader

Will this trend lead to fewer and fewer people joining law enforcement, which would further weaken the government?

Regarding whether this constitutes a "failed state", I'd say it depends on how bad this gets.

Similar to the concept of "peaceful transfer of power", there also needs to be a relatively peaceful maintenance of power.

Politicians, judges and law enforcement are the very people who constitute a functional government. If, going forward, a certain threshold of the "good guys" start to opt out of joining their own governing system (in one of those capacities) for fear of having themselves and their families murdered, then the country becomes a failed state.

How can other countries prevent that from happening to them, especially Mexico's neighbors?

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Which kinda reminds me of “defund the police” and “ACAB” movements in the US, promoting that all cops are bad and no good person should join police force.

I don’t think it does any good for future crime rates.

Well, its a problem yeah. But its not a few bad apples. Police abuse people pretty systematically. Its no good having a police force that is basically unaccountable. Which is what we've got now. Also, police are called in to do things that really they shouldn't be, like resolving disputes between spouses, dealing with people having mental health issues, etc. And they carry guns all the time which just means that the chance of them using a gun in a casual encounter goes up massively.

> Which kinda reminds me of “defund the police” and “ACAB” movements in the US, promoting that all cops are bad and no good person should join police force.

This sounds like a huge mischaracterization of the movements to me. From what I've seen it seems the movement mainly has two goals: - Demilitarize the police, i.e. don't let them buy toys that are overpowered for the work they're supposed to do. - Don't make the police do tasks that are better handled by others. Like, don't put all the responsibility of dealing with mentally ill people. Move money from the police to various departments/institutes that can help and treat people with mental illness.

> I don’t think it does any good for future crime rates.

It's much worse to neglect mental health, to remove social security systems, and to let income inequality get out of hand. That's the point of "defund the police". Invest in policies that reduce the need for a militarized police, by treating the illness rather than spending money on dealing with the symptoms.

> promoting that all cops are bad and no good person should join police force.

This is not what defund the police was about. This is misinformed. It was about reducing the amount of things police do and giving those responsibilities to people better trained for it. Also getting rid of things like military equipment.

50% of black Americans agree that MORE police are needed on the street, according to a 2020 study. [1]

To campaign for their reduction is to campaign against the interests of black people. In fact, it sounds incredibly racist to suggest black people can't decide this and their voice needs to be trampled upon.

[1] https://www.vox.com/2020/6/17/21292046/black-people-abolish-...

can you show me where in my post I was talking about black americans or explain why its relevant to my post? Or even the parent post I responded to?

I'm just pointing out the racism of the suggestion. But if you don't support it then it's no problem.

No one is talking about race? All races are affected by over policing.

Why do you think you can decide what black communities need more than the majority of black people? They want more police. You are advocating for them to get less, against their wishes, no?

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