Who Are You Going to Call When You've Got Trouble?
So, you want to criticize a service that you are forced to pay for?
Well, what are you going to do when the time comes that you need such a service, and the organization tasked with providing it is one that you aren't happy to receive service from. What then? It would be nice to take your business elsewhere, but we don't have such freedom when it comes to policing services.
That's an unfortunate position to be in, isn't it?
They've made mistakes, they've killed the wrong people, they've arrested and detained people unjustly.
You have to hope that the odds are in your favor, when you are subject to the boot, that the boot is going to be efficient, and not corrupt and overreaching.
People have been terrorized for victimless crimes on the regular, for decades around the United States and elsewhere for that matter. But the same organization tasked with doing that also helps to tackle true threats that our communities face, and so it's a mixed up bag of reviews when considering the overall service that gets provided.
So yeah, who are you going to call and how many options do you have?
Security services are a valuable service that needs to be provided, because there are many disputes that need to be resolved and threats that need to be addressed and diminished.
Basically we should just shut up and swallow whatever tyranny we get served. That's freedom, freedom that we should regularly wave a flag and be thankful for, right? Stop criticizing the bad actors, stop talking about taking one penny away, and go back to your regular work schedule.
No problem to see here.
Higher Standards Required
The service that the police provide could be argued to be one of the most valuable that every community needs to deal with, dispute resolution and protection services, and because of that they need to be held to an incredibly high standard.
They shouldn't be immune from being held responsible for their unjust and corrupt actions when those actions endanger communities. And if the thought of being held accountable for their actions makes them not want to pursue a career in that field then good, because those are exactly the sort of people that you probably don't want to give a gun and badge to.
There is a very clear and present overpolicing problem that has been present in the United States for years.
They have been making billions off of people who are innocent and never charged with any crimes.
And no it isn't because so many people in the USA are armed, or because they deserve it and need to be more heavily policed as a result of the threat they pose. Again, many who get extorted are innocent and the justice system itself is rife with mistakes and abuse. The answer isn't to look the other way, stop talking about the problems, or keep throwing more money at those problems.
Ghostbusters? Sorry, @doitvoluntarily, I couldn‘t resist…
Ideal
The problem with police officers is that what we want them to do is 10% of what they do. 90% of the time they are doing things we don't want them to do, like writing tickets, harassing good people, and jailing stoners.
Further, all the large scale crime happens with their consent.
There is no way that a semi-truck load of blow rolls into a large city every day without the police being in on it.
At the bottom of every large scale crime you will find the po-po.
Lastly, there are too many times when calling the cops is the worst thing you can do.
Imagine if your wife has gone insane and is attacking you, throwing thing at you and breaking everything in the house. Well, if you call the cops, in most states, the man will be removed from the house. (and the children will be left with her)
Also imagine your friend is ODing and having a bad trip... what do you do? Call the police and go to jail, or let your friend die?
Or call the police about a break in and be shot and killed.
50% of homicides aren't even investigated.
The stark reality is that policing is utterly contrary to human rights, and simply cannot coexist with a free society. When it began to be imposed in the USA starting after the Civil War, crime began to rise dramatically, because people formerly necessarily taking responsibility for their security fell into lacksadaisacal dependence on the 'professionals'. Since police can only respond after a crime, the fact is that police do not actually protect people from criminals.
Combined with the expectation that they do, this leaves uncomprehending folks utterly defenseless, which promotes agitation to take away their ability to defend themselves further, and encourages ever greater criminal activity because the pool of defenseless victims grows.
My solution is simple, and results from my youth where police services were minimal and folks necessarily secured their persons and possessions in a world that was the far greater threat than criminal acts. Alaska is a tough place, and only where cities avail the seductive illusion of police does crime ever rise to modern levels, in places like Anchorage and Juneau.
Villages mostly just automatically handle their business, and kids tend to grow up that way. There's not much worse insult where I grew up than copcaller.
I don't call the cops. I surround myself with functional community, and that's pretty much the end of the matter, except for petty crime or the occasional case of dementia/alcoholic blackout. Lesser sanctions imposed by the community tend to discourage the petty, generally youthful and misparented, criminals, and competent defense the deranged and violent.
Cops cause crime. Despite the threat of sophisticated gangs funded by banksters, I remain convinced that free society can only exist when it's members provide themselves their security, as that absolutely precludes the oppression and tyranny that necessarily comes with 'professional' police.
Fortunately, the psychopaths that obsessively accumulate money to the exclusion of all other interests are therefore incompetent to undertake their derangement effectively against free society. As decentralization of means of production proceed at the cutting edge of technological advance going forward, the flow of parasitized wealth to that ilk will decrease at an ever increasing rate, and we'll eventually reduce the parasites to irrelevance and equality economically with we normally socialized folks they view as cattle.
Dump cops, and replace centralized vectors empowering overlords with distributed means of production, and professional criminals will be obsolete. Freedom is the cure, and prosperity is the fruit of freedom. Let that be the legacy we leave for our posterity, so they can gain the stars themselves as their possession.
Let my people go!
Nicely laid out argument.
And you didn't even bring up the statistics of what cops actually do, such as
You can criticise the cops all you like; but who are you going to call when you need somebody to arrive a few hours after a crime and shoot your dog?
careful, don't want to rustle too many flakes