Mike German, an ex-FBI agent, said immigration agents hiding their identities ‘highlights the illegitimacy of actions’
Some wear balaclavas. Some wear neck gators, sunglasses and hats. Some wear masks and casual clothes.
Across the country, armed federal immigration officers have increasingly hidden their identities while carrying out immigration raids, arresting protesters and roughing up prominent Democratic critics.
It’s a trend that has sparked alarm among civil rights and law enforcement experts alike.
Mike German, a former FBI agent, said officers’ widespread use of masks was unprecedented in US law enforcement and a sign of a rapidly eroding democracy. “Masking symbolizes the drift of law enforcement away from democratic controls,” he said.
At this point, my first reaction to seeing anyone in law enforcement at any level is they are a criminal thugs that cannot be trusted, should be undermined at every opportunity, insulted relentlessly, and if necessary, worse. I know there are some good cops, and not everything they do is bad, but goddamn they do they suck in general.
I heard this one recently: Take 100 gallons of dirty sewage water and add 1 gallon of clean water. What do you have? It’s not 101 clean gallons of water or even 100 gallons dirty and 1 clean anymore…
You now have 101 gallons of dirty fucking sewage water.
ACAB (and soon to be ACAN ~ All Cops Are Nazis)
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The challenge today is that their legal job may now require them to do things that are constitutionally questionable and ethically repugnant. So even if they’re good people and upstanding citizens, they may be required to, at any point in their day, to choose between doing the right thing and losing their job.
They only have to choose wrong once to no longer be the “good cop”.
Now, because of the way policing works in the US, it may be possible to have an intrinsically good police department. At least until a state or federal agency rolls into town and demands they do something they wouldn’t otherwise do; then they become complicit.
After all… in any other organized gang, there can be good people, but they’re still going to be found guilty of gang activity due to supporting the others.
Works the other way too.
If I take 100 Gallons of clean water and dump a gallon of sewage into it, would you pour yourself a glass?
One bad apple spoils the bunch. Good point!
excuse me, but that is shit logic.
people are indivisible, which makes them different from a gallon of water.
You put a good person in a shit department and they leave or become shit themselves ; either way, they whole group is still shit.
Humans aren’t a gallon of water, but you’re naive if you think we’re not influence-able just the same.
As human beings, our interests, philosophies, politics, etc, yes.
As workers in a job, not so much. The analogy works in that scenario. We all conform, to varying degrees, to the groups that we join. Especially when that group is your full time employ, where you spend most of your time and gain most of your money.
There’s a HBO show called The Wire that is amazing, and I would recommend to anyone to watch, but particularly to yourself because “Simon has said that despite its framing as a crime drama, the show is “really about the American city, and about how we live together. It’s about how institutions have an effect on individuals. Whether one is a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, all are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution to which they are committed.”[5]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire
Trailer: https://youtu.be/1S5khOZ1wBs
Warning: it is slow paced, it’s more like reading a book on your screen than watching a traditional TV show, but it’s worth it
Doesn’t matter all cops are bad. Yes there might be a “good” cool but since they can’t or won’t do anything about the bad one they’re bad. And the shitty thing is if someone tries to eat out a bad cop they are the ones who get take the shit. So yes all cops are bad.
Analogies aren’t perfect, but they usually get the point across. Maybe the “one bad apples spoils the bunch” sits better? Apples are indivisible like people.
If I buy a bunch of apples and one is bad, then I simply don’t eat the one apple and throw it away. Similarly, if there’s one bad cop I just imprison it based on their illegal actions.
The thing with the US police force is that enough of them are bastards, and nothing is done against their behavior, that you always have to assume that any one of them is a bastard. If it was only rare single bad cops and they would be immediately removed on first infraction, I’m sure there would not be a problem with the police.
This is the rational truth and I think it was very simply expressed, without needing to say “All cops” nor “one bad cop makes everything terrible”. There is theoretically no need for generalizations in intelligent discussion. The problem is that many people are too stupid or not interested in intelligent discussion, at which point these generalizations might become necessary simply because of practical limitations. But we should strive to use the more accurate statement if possible.
You’re missing a critical part of the apples analogy. When apples start to rot, they release ethylene gas which is a plant hormone that accelerates aging in nearby fruits.
So by the time you found the rotten apple, it has already spoiled the bunch.
I’m not really missing it. It’s just an unfitting analogy. People don’t have to work like rotting apples.
If one single person is being stupid we punish them/cast them out. The problem with people is that a large amount are being bad.
They are all bad. Cause the good ones can’t or don’t do anything about the bad ones. And if they do they usually hurt themselves for some reason. So since the good cop can’t or won’t do anything about the bad one it makes them bad.
Yeah obviously at this point that is true. I’m just talking about the general system, saying it doesn’t need to be all bad absolutely. At this point, if we’re talking about the US, they’d need a complete reform.
Would you think the same in another country? In Canada? Or in The Netherlands?
I don’t have experience with either of those places but when I was in Rome, Italy it was plainly obvious that the 5 or 6 different kinds of cops, none of whom were helping people, are useless thugs and goons just like the Americans.