It's rhetoric like this that makes cops feel obligated to protect each other from other citizens. If you're accused of a crime, you deserve maximum legal effort applied for your defense.
> It's rhetoric like this that makes cops feel obligated to protect each other from other citizens.
Heh. First off, it's cops killing people, and then being squeamish about it (very contrary to how they'd deal with a civilian guilty of the same thing) that make people use these words.
Secondly, there are of course many factors that go into stuff like this; many benign like simple solidarity, some potentially sinister, like being involved in things you'd be shunned for by most of society - such as killing unarmed people and then lying about it - which is an incredibly powerful bonding agent.
> maximum legal effort
But here too, this means very different things on both sides of the "blue line", doesn't it.
Don't try and blame police corruption on people complaining about police corruption and hating corrupt police, its obviously neither the cause nor a contributing factor. Just deflecting blame to the victims.
When are police accounts ever questioned "on the news"? If anything, comparing the different media treatments of the two groups emphasizes the lack of accountability for police.
> Wait, what? If citizen's lied for each other in investigations, they'd be prosecuted.
What, the Internal Affairs division just doesn't exist? Does it not have enough power? Is that what's really being argued here?
Or is this just feel-good we're-the-good-guys they're-the-bad-guys rhetoric intended to undermine what capabilities they have, cause them to feel threatened and insecure in the midst of the citizenry they're supposed to be protecting, and motivating them to develop a similar and responsive antagonistic attitude that is precisely the seed of a police state?
Is the argument "they started it"? Is that the level of discourse that a mature, educated citizenry ought to engage in?
Fuck people like sneak. All they're good for is exacerbating problems that exist, making it that much harder to fix, fulfilling their own prophecies of doom and gloom, to no useful end other than making themselves feel self-important. It's like discovering database corruption and going, "Hell, let's run DELETE in with random WHERE clauses and see what happens. Because my job title says VP of Marketing."
> What, the Internal Affairs division just doesn't exist?
In fact yes. Many police departments do not have "Internal Affairs". Where they nominally exist, they are rarely staffed by a separate group of people, rather "internal affairs" work is handled by the same people as everything else. The same people behind the same silent blue wall...
Hollywood depictions of "Internal Affairs" are largely a "Hollywood thing".
I can support a campaign to increase staffing for more of such divisions so that they're independent and capable of successfully prosecuting cops who lie to protect cops.
Maybe you should avoid letting your temper get the best of you with such emotional outbursts as: "fuck people like sneak," on Hacker News.
If you can't control your temper, why are you even participating in the discussion here?
Personal attacks like that aren't acceptable here, and I'd think you would know that by now after three plus years. It's disgusting to see that level of discourse here.
Seriously, if you want to whine about the level of discourse, then you're welcome to start with the person I originally responded to. But you won't, will you? Because you agree with him, so his emotional outburst is okay.
> cause them to feel threatened and insecure in the midst of the citizenry they're supposed to be protecting, and motivating them to develop a similar and responsive antagonistic attitude
Are we still railing against rhetoric? The argument isn't they started it, it's "they have been granted tremendous power, so they need to accept accountability."
Argument that was actually made: "It's shit like this that flies in the face of all those "but most cops are not bad guys" arguments.
If an organization fights to protect bad guys, I don't care how much good they do: they are complicit in furthering criminal behavior. And they're in a position of trust, at that!
It's an open secret that cops lie to protect other cops.
Why do we allow this? Any other person in a special position of trust and responsibility that contravenes their duty gets _extra_ punishment.
Lon Horiuchi was an FBI sniper that shot Vicki Weaver in the back while holding her infant daughter in her arms: case dismissed. That cop that pepper sprayed those protesting kids at UC Davis, John Pike, was never even charged for "lack of evidence" (nevermind that video of him doing so was on every news show in the country that week). The FBI and BATFE set the Branch Davidians' home on fire, burning up the children inside.
Instead of meaningful outrage, we simply let cops get away with murder, literally.
Fuck the police."
What you read: "Fuck the police."
Is it really any wonder that you are having problems with this conversation? There is a lot of content in that comment; you appear to have ingested none of it.
