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100% of american cops who have managed to keep their job for more than a year are bad people, there I said it.
Any cop who is a good person would have arrested dozen of their fellow cops by now for abuse of their position and likely gotten themselves fired long before a year had passed.
So when people say "not all cops are bad" my first instinct is, unless you were just hired a week ago, bullshit, your as bad as the rest of them.
@freemo This assumes all police precincts are corrupt.
@realcaseyrollins No, it asserts, correctly, that all precincts are corrupt. It isnt an assumption :)
@realcaseyrollins Proof of a negative (lack of good guys) beyond simple reasoning is always going to be pretty hard to do.
Usually these arguments would need to be argued the other way. If a "good" precinct exists where bad cops are routinely arrested by their peers and the vast majority of cops are good, you'd have to show that as a counter example to disprove the underlying point. If such a precinct existed it would be much easier to prove than the corollary where such a precinct does not exist and one would have to prove a lack of such existance.
Do you know of a precicnt where it can be shown objectively they have no or very few bad cops?
@freemo IDK where I would find this; apparently, nobody makes articles or reports saying "yo, check it out, this precinct doesn't have any corruption!"
But you're not even going about this correctly; you cannot prove all police precincts are corrupt if you can't demonstrate whether one is not corrupt. This is an Argument from Ignorance fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance)
It can be your opinion, perhaps, but it is not fact until you can prove it.
@freemo Ugh...yet another fallacy, this time the Fallacy of Composition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition).
Perhaps in the places you lived, that was your experience, but that does not make your experience representative of the entire nation.
@realcaseyrollins As I stated it isnt limited to my expiernce just in the places I have lived. It is an opinion drawn from the composite expiernces of anyone I've ever known who has explained to me situations where they have been antagonistic to police though within their rights.
So in the end it is an opinion drawn covering a huge percentage of the places in america I'd say.
@realcaseyrollins No I wouldnt have to. But I certainly have spoken about this issue with thousands of people over the years from all across the country. That covers a huge swatch of america.
Like i said maybe there is one really exceptional mystical land hidden within a wardrobe somewhere within the USA I havent covered with this approach. But i doubt that is very likely.
> thousands of people
There are like 330 million people in the #USA, IDK why you're pretending that knowing a small fraction of them means you know everything about all police departments.
If you've never heard of a single positive interaction with law enforcement, IDK what to tell you man. You're rare, I guess.
The number of people arent really relevant. A thousand people spread out over a thousand different precincts covers a **huge** swatch of america.
I didnt say I never heard of a single positive interaction with law enforcement. Read what I said again, my words were very specific. I have never heard of someone being antagonistic with police, disobeying their wishes, but being withint their rights without police abusing their power as a response.
I have no doubt there are plenty of positive interactions with police. I know a few rapists who are nice people sometimes too, doesnt mean I'm going to give them a pass.
> disobeying their wishes
What wishes? Citizens need to comply with officers' requests, generally speaking (assuming of course they are lawful). It's kind of a big thing here.
> police abusing their power
In what way?
@realcaseyrollins No citizens are not required to listen to all of an officers request.
As I specifically stated I am talking about people who do not obey police but are within their rights.
A prime example (and one of the most common) would be someone videotaping an officer during their job, being told (and often lied to) that they are not allowed to do that, or other tactics to get them to stop, the person continues anyway, and is often threatened by the cops or even acted upon.
@freemo That's a fine example, but again it doesn't make it true that all precincts are corrupt. I won't believe that all precincts are corrupt until you can prove it.
@realcaseyrollins I only state what is true, I dont garuntee I can convince others of the truth :)
@freemo you can't prove it's true either, apparently :)
@realcaseyrollins No i cant prove its true (as I said at the get go).. Sadly the vast majority of true things cant be proven.
Its called "Gödel's incompleteness theorems", not all things that are true are provable :)
@freemo I guess that's true.
But I can be forgiven for not believing something you can't prove, right? Like it's reasonable to ask for proof before believing something.
@realcaseyrollins I have no expectation of people believing things that are provable, let alone things that are not.
Most of the time I have no expectation people will even believe the earth is round at this point. so pretty sure I can give you a pass on this one too :)
@realcaseyrollins
I'm not a statistician, but the argument seems odd to me. I'm normally quite impressed by freemo's statical perspective.
I can't think there's a lot of situations where would pass as a solid truth claim: I have personal experience and I heard others who agree with me, therefore the only only way I can be wrong is if there's a magical fairy land. Disagreement with my assertion is believing in magical fairly lands. *mic drop*
This isnt a statistical perspective, it isnt science. As was stated it isnt something I can prove, but it is something that is obvious.
I never said disagreeing with my assertion was beleiving in magical fairy lands. In case it wasnt obvious I was being flippant and dismissive partly because it amused me. Obviously there is nothing here I can prove beyond "I see it everywhere all the time and in excess and hear the same, so seems obvious" thats not proof but it does seem obvious.
Everything else I said was mostly me being half-serious, flippant, and amusing myself.
Apparently no one is picking up on that. Perhaps my humor is too subtle.
@freemo
Fair enough. I'd venture to say that a lot of what seems obvious is often mistaken. Or no one would ever be surprised by what statistical analysis really does show. As you said, you can't expect people to believe what is provable, nevermind what isn't. I bet whatever they believe in contrast is simply obvious to them.
I think if global police corruption is true, and we have no data so we need to just rely on me assertion, then it means that all politicians and members of the media are just as bad, just as complicit, or that would have brought this to light as well, as they may be the only ones able to. Give me a few minutes, maybe we can get all mastodon admins and users lumped in as well.. (my subtle humor, not going to link you on with police corruption. Yet.)
Off to play in magical fairly land. Have a great day.
No doubt. People are often surprised that the truth contradicts what they felt certain was truth, but was not.
If you show me a greater proof thant he anecdotal evidence I have right now I would be happy to change my mind.
But right now all I have is anecdotal evidence and it is so overwhelmingly consistent that I adopt it as truth, I will consider it as truth until I have a greater evidence otherwise.
I would agree that most members of the political and media community are also just as bad. But the term "all" (though its a lot) doesnt really apply there due to the initial logic. With cops if there were one good apple he would go around arresting the bad ones until he gets arrested, thus wouldnt be able to exist as a cop. With the media, however, someone who is "good in the media and reporting on unpopular facts isnt going to necessarily get fired, they may just work for a publication no one wants to read and as such will never really get ahead, but otherwise can still be a journalist. so the rules are a bit different and I'm less likely to use the term "all" and in that case would just say "vast majority"
@SecondJon
Prepare yourself.
Michael Parenti lays out the systemic issues well.
http://invidio.us/watch?v=GEzOgpMWnVs
There's more where that came from. Many historians have covered where and why things went awry.
@realcaseyrollins @freemo
I'm not at this point arguing that you're wrong about corruption. Just about the basis for the claim. Maybe I'm misreading. I tend to believe that my personal experience and those of others I know is a very small sample size that I interpret largely through confirmation bias and the availability heuristic, so try to not make global truth claims based on it.
Again your just missing the flippant and half-serious nature of my replies. I admitted from the beginning that my claim cant be proven. Most of what I said was flippant though not untrue entierly. I have zero expectation of anyone showing a single precinct filled with good cops, though if you find one and can prove it I will change my opinion.
When one has a lack of proof or deal with an unprovable (or hard to prove) idea we use common sense.
For most of history no one knew what the sun was or the phsyics behind it. But everyone they ever spoke to from anywhere in the world all noticed that the sun moved across the sky in a circle every day. No one could prove the sun would move across the sky in a circle tomorrow either, but it was a reasonable assumption that it was truth that it would all the same.
@realcaseyrollins
I dont claim to be able to make a scientific white paper proving my case that can pass peer review.
But having lived in the USA most my life, I have seen it to be true first hand. I have never once witnessed a cop behaving morally when faced with a person who was being antagonistic (though non-violent and non-criminal) with them.
In literally 100% of the cases I've seen when someone isnt "respecting" an officer but well within their rights the officer invariable abuses their power to some extent.
I have seen it dozens of times in my life personally and have heard it from every single person who has ever done the same.
So is there maybe some hidden away fantasy land where police officers are good people... maybe I guess. But in all my years I've never heard of such a place within the USA.
As for if its my opinion.. well yes it is. But an opinion doesnt become fact when you can prove it. A fact is a fact and always has been one even if you dont **know** its a fact. so it is more appropriate to say that I have an opinion that this is fact.. which it is, because my opinion is right :)