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Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

As a black programmer, I remember the cliche about problems and regular expressions in my head as "regular expressions are like calling the cops."

That's unfair to regular expressions, though, because I actually have seen them solve a problem before. Cops improving a situation? Never seen it.

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I really can't stand how often this view is repeated. Of course their power can be abused, but once you know how to avoid the abuse, regular expressions are a great and easy to use tool.

Especially if well-commented thanks to /x or if live-previewed in an editor like IntelliJ (though it still needs additional live-previewing if you ask me). As to the subject at hand... Yeah. I feel like I've woken up to the reality of what it means to talk to cops. I'd call if I had video evidence for insurance or something, but I'm not sure otherwise. I've never had anything turn out right when involving cops. Nothing bad either, but they didn't help as much as I expected. My problem (a theft) meant far more to me than to any detective. So I learned to protect my stuff better, make backups, keep things hidden. The world's a scary enough place without cops adding to it. Then again, maybe part of the problem is how arrests are performed. I'd try to fix it, but I'm worried about attracting attention ;-)

LOL you win the thread. "Unfair to regular expressions", that's comedy gold.

Some citizens, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll call the cops." Now they have many problems.

> "...Cops improving a situation? Never seen it." I suspect that's really just an emotional lashing-out at a pervasive problem. But if it's not, I assure you - I have seen cops improve a situation, and I'm certain that others have too. I might be biased from watching cops running into the chaos of 9/11, while I was running away from it. Or from having my family protected from crazy, violent people while I was busy and oblivious at work. To be clear, I'm no police-state apologist, and I know there are vile sociopaths attracted to positions of power and authority - but I've also met some pretty OK cops who really mean to help people, and often do. I'm just saying.

>I suspect that's really just an emotional lashing-out at a pervasive problem.

It's not. It's my personal experience and was stated that way. I, unambiguously, have never once seen the police improve a situation. I've never even really heard about it happening.

It's good that it's happened to you - it probably makes you feel more secure in the place where you live.

are you black?

He states that he is pretty clearly.

You got thread-confused. jrs99 was asking thotpoizn if he was black. pessimizer is one level up

Cops are in a weird place. People don't like them until they need them. I work with a lot of cops and most of them are good (and yes they can occasionally get overreaching) but that generalization widens the divide between on-duty police officers and civilians. I would say if we treated them like I get treated being part time Military (hand shaken, dinners, etc) that they will be better people. You'll also see less of this.

Humans like positive situations, they like being praised, they like feeling loved and needed. They will defend the things they hold dear.

But I don't think the military should get the worship it does, and cops are supposed to be civilians and neighbors, not soldiers.

People don't hate on EMTs and firemen. You know why? Those people don't shoot your dog, beat you and arrest you when you look at them the wrong way.

Until there is a STANDARD of good cops throwing out bad cops and NOT facing retribution;

Until there is an established, effective and formal method of oversight and accountability for verifiable acts of police brutality and false arrest,

I will not invite any police officer to my home until I've known them for quite some time.

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Final remark, To your comment directly: Officers need to change their behavior first. This isn't going to be resolved by people loving cops in the hopes they'll get in a better mood. 'They' need to remember they are 'us'.

Are there some countries where the daily interaction between police and citizens is not antagonistic?

In the States most of the interaction with that I witness police is negative: get pulled over for speeding, ticketed, etc. Even when they're doing sobriety checkpoints on St. Patrick's day, they're inconveniencing people who are responsible.

If the daily interactions between citizens and cops are like this it'll be very difficult to get people to change behavior.

Hero worship is not the answer and may actually contribute to the problem. The solution is basic accountability ie police do not investigate themselves and a change of culture from "war on crime" to community policing. As someone else commented here, the police training actually turns well meaning future officers against the average citizen. An example re: accountability is the California city that significantly reduced complaints by requiring officers to wear cameras. Small sample size but encouraging.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/business/wearable-video-ca...

I'm pretty sure we all know or have known cops. The ones I've known definitely love praise. They seem upset and angry that people aren't praising them constantly, in my experience. Very high opinions of themselves. </(probably) unfair stereotype and generalization>

People don't like them until they need them.

Then when people need the cops, they call the cops, and their dog gets shot, their door gets broken, their kids get taken away, they get a beat-down, and maybe get to spend a weekend in jail, it goes from "don't like" to "really don't like".

You win at internet.

Brilliant.

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