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At least for me, this comment loses its thrust with this hashtag. It takes a potent observation and adds unnecessary partisanship. It's also connected with the mother of all blowback slogans: defund the police.
That is misguided. We should take care of ourselves and voluntarily help our neighbors.
Edit: I commented before you made your answer more nuanced so I’ve changed mine too.
It's a bad guess.
EDIT: Police in America have a "thin blue line" problem of reflexively defending peers' mistakes. Their cultures look disturbingly similar to gangs, though I don't think that's intentional--they're better described as fraternities with guns. (Which also describes gangs. Convergence.)
That said, new recruits aren't corrupt. And most cops are trying to do the right thing. More fundamentally: most Americans want a police force, and when the police stop working, the most proximate token is torched.
So yes, I get the drive behind the slogan. But it's counterproductive to a ridiculous degree. And it's nowhere proximate to a solution. On HN, I figure we can do better.
As you say, I think a lot of cops do get into it for basically-good reasons, but the (hopefully-small) number who're in it for the power trip or who become dirty over time are fundamentally corruptive to the organization when combined with the "thin blue line" sentiment. If you can't trust any cop to help when you're victimized by another cop, "a few bad apples" will have spoiled the bunch.
Of course, I'll admit that much like "defund the police", it's kind of an umbrella term that gathers a few different views together, and you can't tell whether the person saying it holds the view I expressed above (which I think is the most mainstream position), or whether they think that policing is inherently corruptive and should be removed from society somehow.
Citation needed.
The slogan may be counterproductive to achieving its stated aim, but it's also opening the ol' Overton window to a range of possibilities beyond the usual vague but well-funded "reform". If that's what it takes to get a marketplace of ideas, I'd say it's productive.
Slogans like #ACAB and "defund the police" shut down debate on reform. They're most successful at consolidating the pro-police position with moderates by presenting the entire police-reform spectrum as anti-cop radicals.
First off: this is not about America. Read the title, and stop being self centered for a moment. If you think France hasn't been saying ACAB for decades now, you're sorely mistaken. You know what my experiences are with the police, as a regular white dude ? Not what I see on TV, what I have lived. It's them not intervening when a neighbour in the middle of a psychotic episode stabs a passerby. It's them refusing to take in a deposition for sexual assault. It's them checking my arabic friends for drugs, but leaving me alone when I'm hanging out with them.
So, if you want more nuance: ACAB, and defund _this_ police. A few bad apples spoil the whole bunch, well the basket is rotting at this point.
The only interactions you see with police online are either extremely wholesome or extremely hostile. The mundane and boring interactions with police don't get seen, because they are boring and not at all noteworthy because it is standard.
If the interaction involves criminal behavior, you are now "other" and you get to see the yucky side. My friends who were in law enforcement fell into people who got high on the control, people who got high on the adrenaline (worse), or people who came from legacy law enforcement family or just wanting to make a difference, trying to do the right things but knowing there were rules to follow and a line to maintain and thus got pulled down with the other two.
If I, a solidly middle-class white guy can have that experience, what is the experience like for marginalized kids?
Now, that is VERY anecdotal, I understand that. But why would I ever open myself up to that kind of liability again?
Because the alternative of living in an anarchist society without law would be worse; where anyone can rob, meme, or rape you with impunity.
A real republican would actually hate cops.
Most Americans don't hate cops [1]. There is real desire for police reform [2]; slogans like "defund the police" and #ACAB shut that down.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/10/26/growing-s...
[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/393119/americans-remain-steadfa...
There is a reason racist extremists don’t like the cops. They want to carry out their agenda with impunity, and people use the power of the police to manage their presence in public spaces.
It's the institution, and its functional role in society, that's the structural problem. There are many well-intentioned, conscientious individuals in the police force. It is somewhat similar to the question of the attribution of moral blame for unjust wars. It is almost universally recognized that unjust wars are the fault of the aggressor country's leadership, and not the fault of the soldiers who fight them. Those soldiers tend to be poor, subject to indoctrination, and are often simply trying to dutifully help their country. In the same way that I don't think we should try and prosecute every Russian soldier fighting in Ukraine, or every American soldier to fight in Iraq, as war criminals - except for where they violate jus in bello - I don't think we should charge all police with responsibility for the injustices of the institution for which they work. Going back to where I began, Emma Goldman, one of the things I always found most powerful in the anarchist tradition is their belief in the basic goodness of most ordinary people - even when they are caught up in a fundamentally obscene system. I think I find the phrase ACAB grating for precisely that reason.
That's the issue though, I don't think this is true. Everything I've experienced personally and heard from others has shown me that cops will either 1) treat people like human punching bags or 2) stand by and laugh (or politely look away). Every single account I've seen from cops who've tried to stand up against police brutality has ended with that cop being retaliated against by their peers and fired.
If your premise were correct, then I agree that the slogan would be inappropriate. But I think the reality is that the police, as an institution, are extremely good at either excluding or converting otherwise well-intentioned, conscientious individuals.
I think my biggest pet peeve with this line of thinking is that it's not a reform slogan and it's not productive. If someone actually thinks that, then where do you go from there.
People who believe in ACAB for the most part do not believe the current system can be reformed and are police abolitionists:
All of the proposed alternatives are delusions and fantasy.
It's like jumping off a cliff because you think you can learn how to fly on the way down.
but not all countries have as absurd little police accountability and oversight as the US
The Police watchdog in France (IGPN) has no independence whatsoever and has always been heavily criticized for being a whitewashing institution more than a real watchdog.
The police violence is not as normalized - see riots because they executed a minority race teenager for no reason, something that would be seen as pretty normal in US - but the culture is definitely as messed up.
Comparing that to skin color or someone's ethnicity is absolutely ridiculous.
What technique are you using? Who was the good concentration camp guard?
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...
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.
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.
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).
Is that not a choice? Choosing atheism is arguably easier.
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.
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.
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.
True lawlessness is not less oppressive than the current system.
ACAB might be a bit hyperbolic, but the sentiment (that policing in the US is fundamentally broken) isn’t off base.
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.
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.
I can definitely say all killers are rotten inside, and it's a blanket statement.