There is a very specific point, in the collapse of a democracy into an autocracy, where the “irregular police” that are loyal to the leader, and the civilian police who have to obey rules and restrictions and are answerable to a more-or-less-democratic system, merge and intermingle, and they both become in practice subject to the leader.
We’re right on the inflection point right now, on a knife edge. A lot of cops are Trump “supporters,” in a general kind of way. Then there are a handful of sheriffs and other leadership people who clearly think they should be obedient to Trump instead of to the law. There are also a whole lot, though, who aren’t. The people who are downvoting you are apparently ignorant of this whole distinction, and how vital and lucky we are that Trump and his people have decided to gratuitously pick a fight with the civilian police. That’s a gift. It doesn’t mean that the brownshirts won’t overmaster and combine with the police in the end. But it’s a rare gift in times like these for any obstacles come to the table that might make it less likely to happen. Let’s not take it lightly just because of the fun and emotional satisfaction of screaming ‘ACAB shut the fuck up’ in the face of anyone who tries to have this type of conversation.
All good points. I hope you are wrong that these two factions are going to merge but I definitely can’t say it’s impossible. But my point was more that people have been saying they’re one and the same for decades and it’s just a bad analysis.
By the way, I still agree with the ACAB people that police are a harmful institution. But they’re a different harmful faction than fascists and it’s important to understand that. The fact that these factions sometimes fight is very important and useful to people who oppose both of them.
Oh, I wasn’t saying they’re going to. Just that it’s one possibility and there are definitely some police in leadership positions who are itching for it to happen so they can start banging up Hispanics and protestors whenever they want to. I mean… more so than now. You get what I mean hopefully.
And yeah, I feel like we may not see eye to eye vis-a-vis police completely, but civilian police who are abusive to whatever degree are a totally different animal than deputized Proud Boys stomping people in the street because they looked funny, and then taking them away to a farm-labor camp because they weren’t loyal to the leader.
Well… yeah I guess we don’t see eye to eye on this completely because I think there are certainly similar elements, but there are also important differences. Police are more accountable to the existing powers and institutions of society (and therefore less accountable to Dear Leader), which can be both good and bad in different contexts. But in some situations, like for racialized people in rural areas the difference is only minor, and what you described can more or less happen with maybe a few more bureaucratic bumps along the way.
I’ve been wanting to make a post somewhere about how ACAB is just a bad analysis and bad politics even if you are anti-police as an institution… but I feel like I’ll just get downvoted and shouted down so I’m not sure it would be worthwhile. I often find myself trying to find the nuance between the more liberal and leftist lemmings and their conflicting ideas, but it doesn’t seem like there are many people who value this perspective or effort.
Yeah, agreed. To me the key factor is this: Nobody’s got all the answers. Whatever ideology it is, it can be gangbusters in some situations, but then there are going to be places and times and situations where it isn’t true or doesn’t work. As soon as people get themselves wrapped up into this thing where such-and-such is always the answer, and it’s universal, for all police departments in and outside the US for example, and in all cities, and across all modern time periods, as long as the situation is “police” then the answer and judgement of the situation is: (blank)… as soon as people start thinking that way I feel like they start making basic mistakes because nothing in the world works like that.
There are principles that hold true pretty widely, and some models are better than others, but as soon as it’s like “this is my way, and it is ALWAYS right, shut up so I can tell you about it,” I feel like the productive conversation and thinking just stops. And unfortunately that’s how a whole lot of people tend to look at issues in the world, like they just have to pick the right ideology and then go HAM with it applying it to all situations, and then it’ll all be simple and clear.
Very true. And this is why I would like to see a more pluralistic world. Although I have very strong opinions about what kind of politics is best (I usually identify as anarchist or libertarian socialist), I also acknowledge that I can’t necessarily see my own blind spots, and the only way to sort through the miasma of political disagreements is through empirical experimentation. If we can find a way to live and let live and allow different communities to follow their own ideas more free from top-down interference, we can learn a lot more about what works and what doesn’t than we do in the present world.
A funny alignment for me is that despite disagreeing on almost everything else I absolutely loved Marjorie Taylor Green’s suggestion of a national divorce… let the right devolve into some kind of insane dystopia if they want to, as long as they don’t impose it on anyone else. And the rest of us with more sane politics can try out our ideas too, and hopefully make a lot more progress than the current divided and paralyzed system we have had for the past few decades.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I feel like that was the original idea of each state doing its own thing, and the federal government basically only being around for refereeing and standardizing stuff between the states, or organizing things when we had to fight a war. And other than that it was just your state.
I feel like a national divorce between two sides, which is what it would be, would mean war, and also we’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of being one massive unified economic and military force instead of a little Europe-style bunch of little ones. But also that kind of ruined us, spiritually and karmically, so maybe you’re right. During Covid it somewhat collapsed back down to state governors in charge of a lot of things, and I feel like maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. And it might happen, like it or not, or it might be the only alternative to a unified fascism.
It’s hard to predict. Frankly I’m not sure whether staying with the current federal tug of war or some kind of separation is more likely to lead to war. If I knew better then that would strongly influence my thinking because that is perhaps the worst possible outcome aside from maybe some kind of systematic mass-murder like under the USSR or Nazi Germany. Terrifying that these do not seem impossible anymore.
To be clear I don’t think it’s a good idea for blue states to unilaterally secede. I think it has to be some kind of compromise where both sides take their ball and go home. I’m not sure Trump would allow this though so I don’t see it happening immediately. In the current context secession would likely lead to a war and one we might lose since Trump would have a stronger grip on the military.
There is a very specific point, in the collapse of a democracy into an autocracy, where the “irregular police” that are loyal to the leader, and the civilian police who have to obey rules and restrictions and are answerable to a more-or-less-democratic system, merge and intermingle, and they both become in practice subject to the leader.
We’re right on the inflection point right now, on a knife edge. A lot of cops are Trump “supporters,” in a general kind of way. Then there are a handful of sheriffs and other leadership people who clearly think they should be obedient to Trump instead of to the law. There are also a whole lot, though, who aren’t. The people who are downvoting you are apparently ignorant of this whole distinction, and how vital and lucky we are that Trump and his people have decided to gratuitously pick a fight with the civilian police. That’s a gift. It doesn’t mean that the brownshirts won’t overmaster and combine with the police in the end. But it’s a rare gift in times like these for any obstacles come to the table that might make it less likely to happen. Let’s not take it lightly just because of the fun and emotional satisfaction of screaming ‘ACAB shut the fuck up’ in the face of anyone who tries to have this type of conversation.
All good points. I hope you are wrong that these two factions are going to merge but I definitely can’t say it’s impossible. But my point was more that people have been saying they’re one and the same for decades and it’s just a bad analysis.
By the way, I still agree with the ACAB people that police are a harmful institution. But they’re a different harmful faction than fascists and it’s important to understand that. The fact that these factions sometimes fight is very important and useful to people who oppose both of them.
Oh, I wasn’t saying they’re going to. Just that it’s one possibility and there are definitely some police in leadership positions who are itching for it to happen so they can start banging up Hispanics and protestors whenever they want to. I mean… more so than now. You get what I mean hopefully.
And yeah, I feel like we may not see eye to eye vis-a-vis police completely, but civilian police who are abusive to whatever degree are a totally different animal than deputized Proud Boys stomping people in the street because they looked funny, and then taking them away to a farm-labor camp because they weren’t loyal to the leader.
Well… yeah I guess we don’t see eye to eye on this completely because I think there are certainly similar elements, but there are also important differences. Police are more accountable to the existing powers and institutions of society (and therefore less accountable to Dear Leader), which can be both good and bad in different contexts. But in some situations, like for racialized people in rural areas the difference is only minor, and what you described can more or less happen with maybe a few more bureaucratic bumps along the way.
I’ve been wanting to make a post somewhere about how ACAB is just a bad analysis and bad politics even if you are anti-police as an institution… but I feel like I’ll just get downvoted and shouted down so I’m not sure it would be worthwhile. I often find myself trying to find the nuance between the more liberal and leftist lemmings and their conflicting ideas, but it doesn’t seem like there are many people who value this perspective or effort.
Yeah, agreed. To me the key factor is this: Nobody’s got all the answers. Whatever ideology it is, it can be gangbusters in some situations, but then there are going to be places and times and situations where it isn’t true or doesn’t work. As soon as people get themselves wrapped up into this thing where such-and-such is always the answer, and it’s universal, for all police departments in and outside the US for example, and in all cities, and across all modern time periods, as long as the situation is “police” then the answer and judgement of the situation is: (blank)… as soon as people start thinking that way I feel like they start making basic mistakes because nothing in the world works like that.
There are principles that hold true pretty widely, and some models are better than others, but as soon as it’s like “this is my way, and it is ALWAYS right, shut up so I can tell you about it,” I feel like the productive conversation and thinking just stops. And unfortunately that’s how a whole lot of people tend to look at issues in the world, like they just have to pick the right ideology and then go HAM with it applying it to all situations, and then it’ll all be simple and clear.
Very true. And this is why I would like to see a more pluralistic world. Although I have very strong opinions about what kind of politics is best (I usually identify as anarchist or libertarian socialist), I also acknowledge that I can’t necessarily see my own blind spots, and the only way to sort through the miasma of political disagreements is through empirical experimentation. If we can find a way to live and let live and allow different communities to follow their own ideas more free from top-down interference, we can learn a lot more about what works and what doesn’t than we do in the present world.
A funny alignment for me is that despite disagreeing on almost everything else I absolutely loved Marjorie Taylor Green’s suggestion of a national divorce… let the right devolve into some kind of insane dystopia if they want to, as long as they don’t impose it on anyone else. And the rest of us with more sane politics can try out our ideas too, and hopefully make a lot more progress than the current divided and paralyzed system we have had for the past few decades.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I feel like that was the original idea of each state doing its own thing, and the federal government basically only being around for refereeing and standardizing stuff between the states, or organizing things when we had to fight a war. And other than that it was just your state.
I feel like a national divorce between two sides, which is what it would be, would mean war, and also we’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of being one massive unified economic and military force instead of a little Europe-style bunch of little ones. But also that kind of ruined us, spiritually and karmically, so maybe you’re right. During Covid it somewhat collapsed back down to state governors in charge of a lot of things, and I feel like maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. And it might happen, like it or not, or it might be the only alternative to a unified fascism.
As Trump likes to say, we’ll see what happens.
It’s hard to predict. Frankly I’m not sure whether staying with the current federal tug of war or some kind of separation is more likely to lead to war. If I knew better then that would strongly influence my thinking because that is perhaps the worst possible outcome aside from maybe some kind of systematic mass-murder like under the USSR or Nazi Germany. Terrifying that these do not seem impossible anymore.
To be clear I don’t think it’s a good idea for blue states to unilaterally secede. I think it has to be some kind of compromise where both sides take their ball and go home. I’m not sure Trump would allow this though so I don’t see it happening immediately. In the current context secession would likely lead to a war and one we might lose since Trump would have a stronger grip on the military.