NEVER CALL THE COPS

[Friday]

Hey, it just occurred to me that maybe I should do something constructive and practical with a realization I came to some time ago instead of just venting my intense hatred for cops in the other thread whenever anyone posts in it

So as some of you may know, a friend of mine had a paranoid break recently and was ranting and raving etc. I'll spare you the details of what happened (they're wild, you should get me to tell you the whole story sometime) but my friends were afraid and didn't know what to do and said "we should call the cops" and I had to gently remind them that under no circumstances would I allow anyone to call the murder boys on my friend.

So.

Later I was thinking about it, and I thought "wait, shit. When DO I, me, Friday, call the cops?"

So I thought about it and I actually came to a practical and moral conclusion. I'll share that now.

So the conclusion I came to is to treat "calling the cops" on someone as the same as holding the gun, in your hand, personally, and shooting that person in the head, killing them.

WHOA NOW, you might say. I DON'T WANT TO KILL ANYONE.

Neither do I, but there are actually situations in which it is, according to my own morals, warranted. I'll give you some examples.

1. A person is threatening lethal or serious bodily harm to yourself or others. This can range from "has a weapon and is actively attacking others" to "an active shooter at a Wal-Mart."

2. A person is raping you or others.

3. etc

Now, the "etc" is going to depend on your own morals. What you personally think warrants death in order to prevent harm is going to vary from person to person. Some of you may even be Hard Pacifists. That's cool. I personally think actual Hard Pacifism is immoral and also really fucking stupid, because you will stand there and watch helplessly as someone rapes and kills your entire family or whatever, but you do you.

The point I'm making is you should consider "calling the police" as the exact same thing as using lethal force against that person. Because it is. Quintuple so against blacks and other minorities. But let's not forget that they will execute whites as well.

Also, I should note that this advice only applies to Americans. I don't know what the stats are on British Cops or Canadian Cops or Australian Cops or Irish Cops or Scottish Cops. (I think that's everyone who posts here?) You may be okay to think that your cops are nonlethal.

But if you're American? Regardless on your own personal moral feelings on the use of lethal force, the fact that American Cops ARE ONE is no longer up for debate.

[Mongrel]

Yeah our cops are non-lethal... most of the time. A critical fail is still a die roll, and I'm pretty sure everyone here's rolled more than a few snake-eyes or natural 1s in their life. I'd have to think long and hard before I started chucking dice.

Then there's the especially insidious stuff which isn't usually counted among deaths caused by cops, even though they clearly are. Multiple recent police deaths here were situations in which a person in need of medical care committed suicide (yes, actual suicide and not "suicide") during the vastly increased tension of a visit from the cops which they probably would not have done if the respondent had actually been someone useful.

Also bear in mind that even if cops don't kill people they can and frequently will fuck them up in a variety of ways which need not even include beating them. Cops will often default to solving a problem by just arresting the first person they feel like dragging off, which obviously has a shitload of consequences even if you're let out the next morning.

[Niku]

when you have a big ol bear trap with a donut right in the middle of it

[Grath]

I don't know what the stats are on British Cops or Canadian Cops or Australian Cops or Irish Cops or Scottish Cops. (I think that's everyone who posts here?) You may be okay to think that your cops are nonlethal.

But if you're American? Regardless on your own personal moral feelings on the use of lethal force, the fact that American Cops ARE ONE is no longer up for debate.

Canadian cops are less lethal unless you're First Nations, in which case they'll still just shoot you or take you on a "starlight tour". The Mohawk reservation near where I grew up had several months of turbulence in 2009 in response to protests over Canada's decision to arm the border patrol, which eventually lead to the border crossing moved even further away and making life more of a headache.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, as Ada has reminded us recently, the RCMP continues to fulfill it's original purpose to this day - as a paramilitary force raised for the specific purpose of keeping a boot on pesky indigenous people's necks.

As for the Mohawk, man, when I was kid it was just like "Those are the violent cranky natives". Then you grow the fuck up, hopefully, maybe, and can see and respect the Mohawk as the most stubborn of resistance fighters who refuse to conveniently lie down and die.

I mean they don't always get it right (even trying to compensate for bias from white news sources and my own inherent biases, they still kinda ARE plain old ornery buggers, lol), but like, you fight as an underdog for 250 years and you're gonna be a little prickly.

And I gotta say, when they dig in for a big fight, they are damned good at making the Ontario and Quebec provincial police look so blitheringly stupid and incompetent (I mean... they ARE) that the Keystone Kops are a well-ordered machine in comparison.

Reminds me of a couple other stories (better news!), but I'll continue those in the Canada thread.

[Blossom]

The point I'm making is you should consider "calling the police" as the exact same thing as using lethal force against that person. Because it is. Quintuple so against blacks and other minorities. But let's not forget that they will execute whites as well.

So, my thought on this is not that you're wrong, because you're absolutely not. Calling the police on someone is using lethal force against them, if they show in a timely manner (not guaranteed). But it's also using lethal force on everyone in the vicinity, you included. Cops kinda just shoot people, and even if you call on an active shooter, there's no guarantee they'll shoot him instead of a bunch of other people. Lots of cases where the cops burst into the wrong house and shot people, or dogs, or shoot at a truck literally a hundred times because it kind of looks like someone else's truck.

As far as I'm concerned, the only situation I can think of where I would call the police is after a car accident where my insurance requires that I get a police report in order for my damage to be covered, if the damage is gonna be more than my deductible anyway. Other than that, I can't think of any.

Also, I should note that this advice only applies to Americans. I don't know what the stats are on British Cops or Canadian Cops or Australian Cops or Irish Cops or Scottish Cops. (I think that's everyone who posts here?) You may be okay to think that your cops are nonlethal.

Nah, cops are cops everywhere. There is no country with nonlethal cops.

[JD]

Cops are cops everywhere, but the British cops kill fewer people per capita, because most aren't issued guns, and the ones who do are not trained to shoot on sight. I think the statistics show British police with zero shooting fatalities in most years.

There's a video a while back where police in England apprehend a guy who's walking around with a machete. The entire video takes something like fifteen minutes while the officer on the scene keeps their distance and calls in the firearms squad, and when they arrive, they too keep their distance. Eventually the firearms squad taze the guy and take him down with no loss of life.

Not as efficient as American-style shoot-to-kill, but I would argue that wasting police time is preferable to killing someone.

[Mongrel]

Not that British cops aren't assholes though, and PC Plod has always loved handing out beatings.

But statistically less lethal, yes.

I really don't know that would remain the case with the mass issue of firearms. Popular American culture has spread concepts and attitudes from American police forces around the world, especially the adversarial pattern of policing rather than the "Police by consent" model. I doubt it would change overnight, but there's almost no way there wouldn't be more frequent shootings, because you'd be increasing the number of armed British cops by a full order of magnitude.

One of the interesting factoids about professional policing in general was the original major objection to the London police (one of the first such force in the world - IIRC Glasgow had the actual first, 20 years earlier) by residents of London and British people in general was that it was effectively introducing a standing government army to watch over the population; that it would be de facto martial law. There was a very solid basis for this fear, since the established practise at the time was for actual British army units to be called up for any major civil unrest and even some major crimes, with rather predictable results.

This is in fact the main reason why frontline British police, to this day, remain unarmed with firearms. There have been sporadic issuance of firearms to British police forces over time of course, and it's important to note that currently 10% of all British police are armed with guns, an all-time high-water mark, but in general, British public opinion remains very strongly against regular police carrying any sort of firearms.

Colonial police forces of course faced no such objections, even in majority-white colonies, especially since many of these forces - such as the RCMP! - were established as actual paramilitaries or at least as a gendarmerie, so almost all of those were armed to the teeth. To say nothing of orgs like the Royal Irish Constabulary.

[JD]

I recall reading that the Irish police had a similar founding principle: "the Garda Síochána will succeed not by force of arms or numbers, but on their moral authority as servants of the people."

[atog]

One of the reasons it's thought the English made such headway early in the colonial era, was an implicit support of the right of colonists to bear arms, and were essentially left to their own devices whereas Spain and the Netherlands meddled or prohibited colonial self-defense and policing. Eventually the expense of sending professional armies to prop up rotten and unwelcome colonies undid them. Not that doubling down on martial law from the mother country did anything for them either, after watching with horror as the American Revolution unfolded.

Essentially colonial imperialism was bad, and continues to be bad for former colonies to this day, even the ones who self-actualized

[Friday]

WHOOPS NEVERMIND IF YOU CALL THE COPS ON SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY NEEDS TO BE KILLED THEY WON'T

THREAD TITLE UPDATED

[Mongrel]