• Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Socialism removes the fact that Police serve the wealthy, rather than the people, so this inherently means they aren’t class traitors.

    There would be an expansion of social programs and services, better access to housing, and overall fewer crimes of desparation.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        Nope, it’s an economic structure that gets rid of the largest sources of poverty in Capitalist society, and poverty is the largest factor for crime.

    • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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      5 months ago

      Police serve the wealthy, rather than the people

      Are there common every day examples where this happens? I’ll be honest my exposure to the police is extremely limited and from a UK perspective. Do you mean like the police will prioritise responding faster to wealthy people and are more likely to put resources in solving crimes against them than your average person?

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        No, I mean by upholding Private Property Rights and enforcing racist and anti-poor laws they uphold the brutal status quo.

        • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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          5 months ago

          No, I mean by upholding Private Property Rights

          What does this mean though? Like if someone breaks into my house then they shouldn’t be coming over to investigate?

          enforcing racist and anti-poor laws they uphold the brutal status quo

          Is this not an issue with the laws of the country rather than the police? I feel like it would be an even bigger issue if the police just became a law unto themselves and decided on their own what they should laws they should or shouldn’t enforce.

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            No, that’s not what I mean. I am not referring to personal home ownership, but the system of Capitalism.

            The anti-poor laws and racist laws exist because of class dynamics, not vibes. The issue is Capitalism itself.

            I am not arguing that police should just do whatever.

            • rekorse@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I honestly can’t figure out what point you are making. I see a lot of buzz-words like anti-poor, racist, private property rights, status quo, etc. but I don’t understand how you think this plays out practically. The person you are replying to was asking for real-world examples of the cops defending rich white people in instances they wouldnt support poor non-white people.

              I’m not even saying I disagree necessarily, just that you haven’t answered the initial question.

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                There are systemic issues core to how Capitalist systems are set up, and the violent arm that upholds these is the police.

                Does that make sense?

                • duffman@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  Your comment speaks to high level concepts but you didn’t provide an the example to ground it to reality.

                  Like others have mentioned they aren’t seeing these examples of core issues having impacts on their day to day lives/communities. I’m not either. When it comes down to it, laws written to apply to everyone are generally enforced for everyone.

                  Catching violent perpetrators pretty much always takes priority over non-violent theft. When we see acts of violence get immediate police attention it feels like the image you are trying to portay is inaccurate.

                  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                    5 months ago

                    I am not referring to unequal application of the law, but the law itself and the police as its enforcers.

          • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Ok, for one example, after the 2008 housing market drop, banks bought the debt from other banks intentionally writing bad loans, which they then resold to third parties. This buying up of the debt of the banks that collapsed during this time lead to banks pushing families out of their homes, many of which were paid-up, but the lending institution behind them had failed, in order to resell the property later, when the market prices had recovered, or use the land for other developments. This was enforced by the police. Bankers did not go around forcing people out of their houses, the police did it at their behest.

            Another is laws created specifically to punish people for being homeless. Laws like not being able to camp anywhere near a place they might be able to get themselves out of homelessness, e.g. a place with jobs, and other resources, not some place way out in the forest. These are also only effective because the police use violence to enforce them. Anti-solicitation laws fall into this category. Police often don’t realize that (speaking for my country) they are not constitutional at the federal level. Police departments that know about this tell their cops to do it anyway because it’s not like homeless people will likely be able to sue them.

            A third is the enforcement of petty traffic fines. Things like window tint, or minor violations in situations where the safety concern isn’t present. These fines are, often, the brunt of how they fund themselves. Petty violations, like tint, are also used to go on fishing expeditions, so they can either wrack-up more fines, or make an arrest, even if that means intentionally escalating the situation, lying about what happened, and giving false testimony in court. More arrests, more convictions, equals more money for the police, and the legal industry as a whole. If you work with, or around, police, like I have, you will hear them discuss things like testilying. Bouncing ideas off of each other as to how they can make bad arrests, and use illegal levels of force, while having a technicality to maintain their immunity, e.g. screaming quit resisting, while in a position where they know cameras can’t really see what is happening. This is just the tip of this iceberg, I would need thousands, upon thousands, of words to detail all the shit I have heard police say, and see police do.

            I can go on, but I think I have made my point.

            • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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              4 months ago

              I’m late to reply but thank you for the response, this is the kind of response and examples I was looking for.

    • timmymac@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Socialism ends up causing all the problems you think it’s gonna solve. Name one time in history that it was successful.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        What on Earth are you talking about? This is utterly vibes based.

        Socialism factually does work this way.

        • Unruffled [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
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          5 months ago

          I completely agree with you on ACAB in capitalist countries, for the same reasons you mentioned, but cops in “actually existing socialist” countries like Russian and China are no better. They still use authoritarian violence to oppress anyone who steps out of line with the will of the State. There are many, many historic and more contemporary examples of socialist countries using the [secret] police and/or troops to quell dissent from unions, anarchists, and other leftist groups, because anyone who protests the actions of the State, no matter how legitimately, is considered to be an enemy of the State, whether that State is capitalist or not.

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            Russia the Russian Federation, or Russia the USSR? Very different deal there.

            Either way, I feel like this is vibes based analysis. Committing crime is illegal, yes. Even Anarchists like in Revolutionary Catalonia punished criminals, even putting them in labor camps. Would ACAB apply to Anarchists? No, I would argue not, just like I would say ACAB wouldn’t directly apply to a Socialist State.

            The difference between Capitalism and Socialism is stark, a Socialist State is run by the Workers, rather than a Capitalist State run by the bourgeoisie. An analysis of Capitalism, it’s accumulation-based nature, and how this impacts the state, is necessary analysis.

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                It does not, because it contains within itself the necessity of its decline due to factors like the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                All of those examples were successful in comparison to what came before. The ROC had a life expectancy in the 30’s, and made no effort to address the basic needs of the vast majority of Chinese people. Cuba had a corrupt, authoritarian gangster state under Batista. Vietnam was suffering under brutal colonial rule. Under socialism, life expectancy, literacy, food security, and medical access rose dramatically and greatly improved the lives of the people living in these places.

                So yes, they are success stories, they objectively solved many of the problems they were trying to solve and improved people’s lives across a wide number of metrics.

                  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                    5 months ago

                    The Western world got a headstart through centuries of colonialism and slavery, while China, Cuba, and Vietnam were all victims of that exploitation. Of course somewhere like Vietnam, that was subject to extreme exploitation and then bombed to smithereens, with Agent Orange dropped everywhere, is going to have some challenges developing, especially when they then face economic sanctions from powerful nations afterwards. Yet, as I said, all of those nations performed remarkably well despite that serious adversity. When the communists first came to power in China, life expectancy was about 35, while it was nearly double that in the US, now, their life expectancy has even exceeded ours.

                    Western nations remain wealthier due to continued exploitation of the third world, and I’m afraid I don’t have the means to immigrate. I am grateful for your highly intelligent and informed response to my points, though.