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Comment by paublyrne | Hacker News Reader

I despise the police, I really do. The very idea of police is repulsive and disturbing, in my opinion.

You mean this in an idealistic sense? I was just remembering this morning an old friend who regularly used the word 'pigs' to describe police, and how I found it ridiculous.

And I still do.

How would a world without police be better than the one we have? It wouldn't. It would be a horrendous place where the strong, the violent, the aggressive, triumph over the vulnerable. I honestly can't understand your attitude.

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strong, the violent, the aggressive, triumph over the vulnerable

At their worst, the police can do this.

Police following the Peel principles are a great improvement to society. Many of the US's fragmented matrix of police forces have forgotten them and succumbed to lazy racism and target-driven enforcement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_Principles

The sad thing is that the deterioration of professionalism among police forces has led to the world that paublyrne described. I mean... in practice... for a large number of Americans... it already IS a world where "strong, the violent, the aggressive, triumph over the vulnerable". It's just that the "strong, violent and aggressive" are police, or gangs, or your occasional supremacist. I feel bad for certain demographics in the US... but don't really have any sort of realistic solution for their issues. I just wish it wasn't this way.

It is fixable, once people want to fix it. But that generally only happens once the status quo is seen as really unacceptable. Whenever police violence is brought up, at the moment there are plenty of people willing to say "well she deserved it" or "it didn't happen that way". Enough of them need to be brought round or embarrased into silence.

The UK equivalent would be the rebuilding of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to stop it being explicitly sectarian.

The solution is to aggressively and systematically break the blue code of silence by offering massive incentives for cops to rat out their fellow officers for misbehavior.

Science thrives on peer review and making sure members of the community keep each other in check; let's give the police incentives to do that.

Also, break the police unions. Make it a felony for police officers to unionize.

"It would be a horrendous place where the strong, the violent, the aggressive, triumph over the vulnerable."

Only if there WERE violent and aggressive people who take advantage of the vulnerable. You could argue that it would be nice if everybody was nice to each other.

Trivially satisfied by all the ghost towns.

As opposed to this one, where only strong, violent, aggressive cops triumph over the vulnerable?

Your point is taken, but I feel like it's fundamentally flawed.

I've had this conversation a hundred times, it ends the same way each time. (He won't get it)

I know you don't understand. I don't call police names just like I don't call any other group of people names. They're still human beings.

People should be smart enough to defend themselves and their physical safety. Weak people who call the cops over a bump in the night are digging their grave, handing over their security to the state.

You think that the world would be ruled by the violent? Open your eyes, guy. It already is. I'm talking about equalizing the playing field. The weak won't get stronger unless someone is there to show them how to be strong.

> People should be smart enough to defend themselves and their physical safety.

Any third world country there are areas where government can't reach. People fend for themselves there.

I don't think that's something we should be striving for. You can visit those places if defending your physical safety is something you like.

Just a bit of warring. It's a full time job.

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