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We had an election not long ago where I live and I voted against my interests again. I’m an affluent homeowner but I voted for greater flexibility for new housing construction projects rather than be a fucking NIMBY and worry about my property value. I also voted down a sales tax because it’s regressive and hurts people poorer than me the most, even though I know the county will seek that money via property or business taxes next, which I will pay.
As I did all this I thought about how we lambaste Trumpers for voting against their own interests. I still haven’t thought the issue through enough but I understood at least that people are sometimes willing to vote for a principle which will come at a price for them personally. So we can’t just categorically dismiss this behavior as always dumb.
I did it to help other people and Trumpers tend to do it to hurt other people, so it’s very different, but still an interesting topic.
Like if police accept people who can think for themselves lol
Australia has a department of defence. The biggest threat to Australia is climate change. The department of defence should be defending us from climate change.
I suspect that intelligence and education are no longer prerequisites for law enforcement work as they were (more so, at least) in the late 20th century. The police unions of the 21st century seem to prefer officers who shoot first and think later.
Intelligence has never been a prerequisite for police work. Police departments openly reject applicants who score too high on intelligence tests.
In the 1970s, some departments prized their detectives and investigators, and there was more of an interest in using forensic science that was sound to identify and convict a culprit. That sentiment had certainly waned by the 1990s.
There are still places that ‘value’ those things, it’s just all bunk. I know of a local department that requires applicants to have a college degree. It’s just that (some) college(s) has both become a degree mill, and there are plenty of places ‘captured’ by conservative thought/material.
You could still be a fool, and a bigoted asshole, and graduate no problem. Even just going by intelligence, it’s not like being intelligent carries with it concern for your fellow man. There are brilliant individuals who are every bit evil.
I think that the overall push for why police are the way they are is that only certain types want to be a cop in the first place, much more so than intelligence, education, or desire to find truth in scientific ways.
Intelligent people don’t join such professions and even if they tried these institutions intentionally filter them out. They need idiots who would jump into a meat grinder for someone else’s greed, just so they can feel powerful over someone for 5 mins
I’d like to see a breakdown of statistics for cops in the last 20 years
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Former military who want that thrill again
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Peaked in high school C-student athletes/bullies who want to keep being an asshole
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Ties to white supremacy
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The 3% who genuinely wanted to keep their cities safe.
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That’s not it either.
It’s people made desperate by hyper-individualistic vulture capitalism. People in desperate need of health care for their ailing family members. People desperate to put food in their children mouths. People desperate to pay of their school loans.
I’ve done ICE watch, lived in a city with a heavy police presence, and been in the military. Sure, there are idiots, abusers, and fascists. But the majority are people from marginalized communities looking for their come up in capitalism, or “doing what they gotta do for them and theirs”. The sad reality is the machinery of capitalism turns by the force of the dispossessed more so than any other group. They don’t call it a system of contradictions for nothin’.
You should be thankful to have the privilege of not having to throw your body against the machinery of capitalism, and use that to build networks of mutual aid that provide the means to circumvent this awful system. Until we can provide that, the machinery will continue to turn.
Intelligent people don’t join such professions and even if they tried these institutions intentionally filter them out.
That’s not it either.
It might not be just that, but it is literally that too.
Or their kid’s lives, or their friends and family. No one. No one in this country gives a shit.
Thats like… THE thing of the army, shut up, follow orders of your superiors without question
No no, you don’t understand, it makes you A MAN. And a sub. A manly sub, which is very good.
Manly sub
My manwich! — Hermes
Can I get a tuna sub?
American soldiers are taught to be thinkers, and reject unlawful orders!!!
-some patriot somewhere at sometime in some comment area
They ain’t called jarheads for nothing
Solid take
