Also Europe:
“Let’s do this obviously good thing for the sake of the whole continent.”
“No, because it would help France.”
Haha sounds about right!
Is this based on actual event or is it a general joke?
A quote I heard from a Greek minister (from memory). “If Germany had a choice between doing the right thing and hurting France, they will hurt France.”
So? Where is Your punchline?
The US is politically older than most European countries.
European exceptionalism will lead to the complacency that leads to the kind of problems the US has.
I love the salty Euros downvoting clear historical fact.
Plus, it already did. In the 1930s.
Yeah, no, fuck all cops. And please lets not pretend like shit isn’t getting mighty fasc-y all over Europe too…
Yeah nah. This is such an American way to look at the world
I’m not American, and the article linked is by a European about Europe…
Swing and a fucking miss, clown… lmfao 🤣
You should purge all the white cells from your body. Not only are they extremely militant cops, they’re white.
So what’s the alternative to police? Just getting rid of them would just lead to militias taking their place which would be much worse.
Defunding them and diverting those resources into social services that have been shown to actually give back in meaningful ways to the communities and safety/effectively deescalate tense situations without committing atrocities while perpetuating systemic hate-based violence.
There does need to be someone with a gun I can call if someone is literally breaking into my home intent on murdering my family. But outside of those extreme and fringe outlier circumstances, society would be much better served by well-funded social workers and emergency first responders who are trained to resolve conflicts while actually helping those in need of it without threat of eminent deadly violence.
Reality is and always should have been cops do cop things. Locally. Traffic shit should be department of transportation. etc. etc.
Make local cops walk local beats and only focus on the community safety and suddenly things get better. ‘Us vs Them’ is a pretty easy thing to spin when they only are a corrective force with a chip on their shoulder.
Proper training, education, and being held accountable for your actions will filter out the bad blood quickly enough.
Defund is frankly a word that was selected poorly. It implies punishment. It only amplifies the ‘Us vs Them’ narrative on both ‘sides.’
ACAB? No. Problem with corruption and a system that spits out at best tight lipped accomplices and at worst zealots brandishing ‘might makes right’ ideals? Yep.
Fix the system and the problem fixes itself.
ALL cops you say?
I have many friends and family who have joined the Scottish Police and given years of their lives to serving their communities, risking their own lives and health. Should I say fuck them too?
I joined the police for six months before deciding it wasn’t the career for me and got back into charity work. Are you saying Fuck Me now or just for the six months I was in? Did my fuckery expire?
How can thousands, millions of people doing a job be reduced to such a binary sentiment.
ALL cops you say?
While acab is probably too generalized a term to apply to ALL police forces in the world… Interpreting acab in absolutes is also kinda silly and needlessly pedantic.
If I were to say all Nazi are bastards… Would we be making the same arguments? Surely there were Nazi that were forced to join the party, surely there were Nazi giving years of their lives to serving their communities, risking their lives and health.
The point of ACAB is to highlight the inherent and institutional failures of policing actions native to the vast majority of western democracies. Where police are primarily utilized to protect property and institutional power, rather than protecting the most disadvantaged communities in our society.
Trouble with that theory is that I think regular people won’t hear something like ‘All Cops Are Bastards’ and immediately think ‘well they probably don’t mean all cops’. It literally says it there.
Maybe because I’m Scottish living in Scotland I’m separate from the US side of the movement/argument but knowing so many good people in the service who have probably done more for their communities than some people spray painting on walls it just sounds so blatant. If it was a different slogan then I doubt people would have an issue with it but not everyone hears all the details about what it apparently means online or whatnot, they just see the words.
No desire to be pedantic at all, just explaining why a lot of folk won’t get behind the message.
ACAISAETOSOOSBTNOTPI or All Cops Are Inherently Supporting And Enforcing The Opressive Systems Of Our Society By The Nature Of The Policing Institution doesn’t quite have the same ring to it though.
I mean I get it, “ACAB” sounds a bit like an over-reaction and I wouldn’t use that term to talk about Belgian cops, but within leftist circles like lemmy I think it’s an acceptable shorthand since 90+ percent of people already understand The Discourse™ on some level.
I mean how about instead of hyperbolizing, we actually find a good acronym that does less to push people away from our world-view? If the problem is the system, find an acronym about the system. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but if we don’t genuinely think every single cop is bad, we should stop saying it, no?
I’m very left wing and I hate the ACAB slogan.
I’ve never heard a progressive, liberal or democrat call themselves “left wing” before
Thanks for expanding my world view!
I’m not American so labels like democrat and liberal mean nothing to me. Consequently I have no idea what you’re trying to insinuate
PEB
Policing Enables Bastards
Meanwhile, “ACAB” is obviously wrong and disrespect to anyone who signs up to get fired for being a good cop.
Don’t need to say literally wrong things that have to be re-explained, even if it is catchy. Be The Change!
AACABAL! (All ACAB’rs Are Lazy!) :)
Haha that acronym gave me a chuckle.
Yeah I get it, I just don’t like when things are reduced to all x’s are y’s, think that kind of polarised thinking isn’t helpful when the world has a whole lot of grey in it. Equally if someone is happy to post a comment like that online I don’t think there is anything bad about chatting it through like reasonable humans.
How can thousands, millions of people doing a job be reduced to such a binary statement
The reason why most people (including myself) say ACAB is because of the system of policing, not the merits of any given police officer. Systems are inflexible and adverse to change. Individual good cops can exist, but once again, the system itself is the problem. A good cop can never fix the system, nor could a hundred, or a thousand. A million could, at best, give the illusion of a good system. People often say a rotten apple spoils the bunch, and I think that looking at policing from the perspective of individual rotten cops, or rotten cops “spoiling the bunch” is problematic when the system itself is rotten. And for participating in the system, yes, all cops are bastards.
I think it’s disingenuous to have a slogan that targets individuals then claim you’re just commenting on the system when questioned. If it’s about the system say the system sucks.
Okay I agree with the idea of a rotten system as think that generally many legal or government institutions are rotten and self serving for the rich.
But the flaw in the argument from my perspective is that if all the decent people don’t go into the police, the ones with integrity, a moral compass who genuinely try to help people and do the right thing, then that leaves the bad apples.
So for going into a system and hoping to change it for the better, help/protect their community from criminals and the bad apples and make a real difference in lives, by that logic those people striving for better are still bastards and that just doesn’t feel right to me.
Again no hate here just a genuine conversation
Yes, in the US. The commenter above was talking about more than just one country.
if all the decent people don’t go into the police, the ones with integrity… that leaves the bad apples
and
[good cops that] help/protect their people from … bad apples
I think this is flawed. The policing system is built in such a way that it protects the bad apples at all costs. From police unions making it difficult to get rid of the bad cops, to the laws, legal precedent, and cultural norms which make it impossible to prosecute them. In the US, police are allowed to lie to people, but they are often trusted in court, regardless if they regularly lie. The police often form a Blue wall of silence in order to protect other cops when literally perjuring themselves in the process. Qualified immunity makes it impossible for people to seek damages from individual cops when they violate their rights. While good cops might break the blue wall of silence (and they might get punished for it) and they don’t violate other’s rights and therefore are not protected in court by qualified immunity, the participation of these good cops does nothing to address the system in the first place.
You and I both agree that there are many legal or governmental institutions that are rotten, but police fundamentally protect them and enforce their will. It is police who break strikes. It is the police that arrest protestors and activists. It is the police that hold the power to call legal protests illegal by declaring them riots. Fundamentally, the police protect the system that lets them be corrupt, and make it difficult to change it outside the impossible task of making change within electoral systems.
… protect their community from criminals …
Police are often an ineffective force at catching criminals. One of the best examples of this is sexual assault and rape. 70% of survivors do not involve the police. All the survivors I know did not call the police. They have good reason not to, 24% of them are arrested after doing so! If a person belongs to a group that is often oppressed by the police, such as gay and trans people, or a group that is criminalized, such as sex workers, there is nowhere for these people to turn in order to get justice.
In the event these people do call the police, odds are there will be no arrests. Only 5% of cases will result in arrest. Fewer will result in convictions and incarceration. (WATR Zine (this is a download link))
On a more ironic note, Policing increases crime. After NYC cops went on strike and reduced proactive policing, major crime reports fell.
So for [cops] going into a system and hoping to change it for the better … and make a real difference in lives …
While I wholeheartedly support trying to make a change for the better, and protecting and building community, I think police are a terrible way to do so. I think working outside the system is a much better way to materially help people’s lives. Organizations like Food Not Bombs helps people with food insecurity eat. Instead of joining the police which might make you destroy homeless encampments and make them worse off, you could instead volunteer at soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Joining an antifascist organization can help protect communities from fascists, but joining the police might make you side with the fascists and protect people with demonstrably harmful rhetoric, or worse, oppressive and murderous, fascist, intent
by that logic [cops] striving for better are still bastards and that just doesn’t feel right to me.
I still think it is fair to call them bastards. While it sucks to call someone with good intentions a bastard, ACAB points out that police as a whole is a flawed institution, and participating in it does not change that, it reinforces the legitimacy of it, and brings erroneous hope to people that it can be fixed from within, when in reality it needs drastic change if not total abolition.
Again no hate here just a genuine conversation
I genuinely appreciate this, ngl. I live in a very conservative area and when speaking about this, I’m used to discussion quickly devolving into meaningless argument
Yes, fuck them, and fuck you.
You choose to knowingly join the organisation that was literally created and exists solely to serve the rich and oppress everyone else to do it.
Cops are class traitors who can choose to leave their position at any time, the marginalised people they exist to abuse have no such luxury.
Your feeling are irrelevant.
ACAB
B-but my uncle is a cop and he’s nice to me! /j
You’re a fucking idiot. I live in a small town up in the mountains in Europe, and some absolute fucking dimwits like you have been going round spraying ACAB on stuff
Our two policemen and two policewomen are the genuinely nicest folk you’ll ever meet and do loads and loads of good for the community. When they’re not busy they volunteer to deliver free meals to the elderly and help out at the charity shop
Tarring everyone with the same brush is something simpletons do, which is probably why they didn’t accept you into the police 😂
I don’t understand why nuance is so complicated for people.
We got nukes first and WW2 barely touched us. That’s about it. We started the game in the easiest mode.
It was the same with the original development of the country.
The difference is apparent when compared to Canada.
In Canada the pioneers were led or joined by the police, the newly created Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Law and order arrived either before or with the new pioneers.
In the US, it was the other way around. Pioneers went west without any officials, police or law enforcement. Pioneers dealt with everything by the force of a gun. Whoever had a gun was the one with power and controlled everything … you could be a good moral person and lead a community or you could be a gang leader, decrepit, immoral and unjust, as long as you had a gun, you could do whatever you wanted.
We also had an OP start point
I don’t know, what does “we” mean here? A lot of people colonized America prior to the creation of the united states of America.
To be fair, it’s not that old, as far as countries go
Define country, because the American government is actually one of the oldest continuous governmental systems in the world. Certainly the oldest republic that isn’t a micro-state.
Now if you want argue that France, for example, is an older country than America because there’s been a fairly stable region largely called France for several centuries you can, you’d just be wrong.
Now if you want to start talking about nations that’s different, but also a much, much blurrier subject in general.
I’m using the term to mean more or less the collectively agreed upon “identity” of a state. Not merely a single contiguous government (for the same reason you just bring up, people still consider France to be France even though the government has changed fundamentally many times over the years), but I’m not using it to just mean “nation” either, since were France to be completely conquered and annexed by a foreign power, the French nation, as in the group of people, would still exist, but the country would not, at least until such time as it could be recreated, or for a different reason, that one can have a national identity split between different states, or a state involving different such groups.
Let’s not forget brexit. Americans aren’t alone in their dumbassarry
Or the recent wins of fascist parties in Europe.
The fascist parties that want to stop immigrants on the borders? Remind me who was the previous president in US and who’s controlling the house now…
Initial comment about dumbassery not in the USA.
Reply back about additional dumbassery not in America.
You: bUt WhAt AbOuT aMeRiCa?
I’m just saying that the “fascist” parties in Europe are no more “fascist” than American right wing parties. People support right-wing parties for different reasons. Calling it dumbassery is weird.
Why so sensitive?
Stopping immigrants at the border would actually be a horrendous policy and have devastating economic effects. Literally advocating for a terrible US policy that could be seen as inhumane and unethical.
Who’s advocating for it?
“I’m not saying we actually do it it’s the implication that we will do it”
Who’s saying that? Who’s we? I think you’re confusing mentioning something with endorsing it.
Do i need to make a nesting meme in this thread to show you mooks that you’re literally doing the meme right now?
I fear the outcome of the three “state” elections in Eastern Germany later this year.
Literally facist? I know about a few right wing ones, but none of them seem actually facist
Giorgia Meloni is Italy’s current prime minister and also happens to be a proud founding member of the Neo-Facist party, and is the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini.
Musolini’s grand daughter sends her regards:
I stand corrected! Didnt know they are self-proclaimed fashists… Thats a bold marketing campaign and terrifing that she got the seats she did.
Although the policies she supports are not really Musollini-like.
Pretty bold for a region that can’t last more than a generation or two before devolving into a police state so severe that it plunges the entire globe into armed conflict.
ACAB means the police is upholding unjust systems and laws, isn’t that cops as individuals are bad. Of course a large percent of them are domestic abusers and racist, but that’s an entirely different issue.
In most European countries you need a 4 year university degree in criminology to become a cop. They have the same standards for average police officers as we in North America have for Federal law enforcement. So while it’s certainly true that some European countries have shitty cops, the ones with stricter barriers to entry have slightly less shitty cops.
Here’s an interactive map although it does seem to be missing a fair bit of data for Europe. The USA has the most abysmal Police training time at just 500 hours of training between being a civilian and being a Police officer.
Hmm. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve really heard of many cases of FBI agents or similar federal agents doing shootings like ordinary cops do.
Only ones that come to mind are Waco and Ruby Ridge but those occurred decades ago.
Better education and training would really, really help.
No they just write death threats to people like Martin Luther King, Jr.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–King_suicide_letter
They find mentally unstable people and use undercover agents to convince these people to commit acts of terror, often even giving them the tools to succeed… And then they swoop in to stop the attack and yell to the media “SEE WE SAVED THE DAY!!” Nevermind that this person woulf have never been in this position without the FBI’s backing. It’s a lot easier than stopping real terrorism and gets them the budgets they want.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/fbi-entrapment-fake-terror-plots
https://theintercept.com/2023/07/31/fbi-isis-sting-mentally-ill-teen/
I mean COINTELPRO, the villification of black panthers, the railroading of Bruce Ivins in the anthrax attacks…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
You must be living under a rock if you think the FBI is any better.
between being a civilian and being a Police officer
Also, in Europe, police are considered to be a part of civilian society. Here, “civilian” means “not part of the military”. Police officers are civilians.
Civilian means varied things in the US.
The police are civilians, but they’re also not, because they’re law enforcement.Legally they’re civilians, but colloquially they’re not, because there’s a vague separation of public service workers from the public.
Firefighters are the same, because they can also legally order you to do something. You just don’t think about it as much because the fire department isn’t intrinsically fucked up.That could be a part of the problem. I consider police to be a respected and trusted role that comes with certain privilegies, like carring an overwhellingly powerful weapon (a hand gun).
That’s very different from a civilian.
I consider police to be a respected and trusted
I hate to assume, but you must be a white man, and if you’re not you’re really fucking lucky and should read up a little more about how the police actually conduct themselves and what obligation they have to you (hint: none).
Or … they aren’t part of racist America.
Not everywhere is the white man supreme. Far from it actually.
The point is that they are not a thing unto themselves, they are people hired by the commons to do a job. They have the same rights and responsibilities, they go in front of a civilian judge if they fuck up. Also, as a rule, non-civilians are not permitted to police civilians, at least here. Being a civilian BTW is, and should be, a higher status than not being one, not a way to say “not part of the cool in-group”.
Airline crews are also in a respected and trusted role and operate machinery that can cause the deaths of hundreds to thousands of people. They even have ranks and stuff. I’ve never heard anyone say airline crews are not civilians.
They have the same rights and responsibilities, they go in front of a civilian judge if they fuck up
Bahahahahhahahahahhahahah 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Do you live under a rock?
That depends, the gendarmerie in France is part of the military, but there is also regular police which isn’t. European cops aren’t perfect, but it varies a lot by division and country and overall I’d say that your typical every day police you encounter as a normal citizen is fine, they’re usually at least somewhat polite and won’t shoot you or your dog for no reason. Some of them might go on ego trips now and then with some youth or something.
Where you see more issues is with riot police which is starting to look like a RoboCop army in some countries just smashing into protesters, or some other anti-crime divisions where they act like cowboys and leads to some events where some kids get killed or something like that, but it’s much more rare than in the US.
In some countries like in the Netherlands they are next level and you basically don’t see them or when you do they’re always super nice and polite, using positive tactics and just generally doing public service work which is what all police should be.
In Quebec it’s three years in college and another half year in police school. Pretty sure that’s the highest standard in North America and it seem we have much less trouble here too…
The quality of the cop is irrelevant when their entire purpose in existing is to serve the rich owning class by oppressing everyone who gets in their way.
Stop making excuses.
In developed countries they serve the people instead of just the ruling class. Get out of your country sometime. Not everywhere is as bleak as yours.
Well, that’s a product of capitalism not the US. It’s more blatant in the US, but it’s how any capitalist society is organized.
It’s a structural property of capitalism, not any nations specific implementation of policing.
I wonder where you think I’m from…
Either way, you’re the one who needs to expand their narrow view, not me… Here are some links I happen to have to hand, feel free to look things up for yourself in your own time (lol, as if…)
https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-you-federal-court-affirms-yet-again
Are you forgetting how often European nations fell apart and had many civil wars and change of government forms? Don’t you remember the Yugoslav Wars? Even the Kingdom of the Netherlands is younger than the United States. The USA has a continuous democracy since 1789
“How the fuck have they lasted this long as a country?”
Applies to Belgium far more than the US.
I’m from germany and I’m scared about the future. The far-right is getting more and more voters. It’s not just the USA who is fckd.
Thanks for sharing our pain. I don’t understand how people pretend that Europe isn’t going thru the same stuff like we are in the US.
Inflation, migration debates, cost of living crises, rise of authoritarianism, income inequality, all of this is and has been global. Some places affected more than others depending on what you look at.
we sorta haven’t. We haven’t even made it a few hundred years without a civil war or some sort of uprising.
What, you think acab vs notallcops is a usa thing ?
One of the ways the state maintains capitalism & white hegemony is through information warfare. The US state has the largest and most advanced propaganda apparatus on the planet. Revolutionary left wing tendencies do not exist for long in the status-quo. This is by design. Ignorance to left wing prefigured politics maintains the status-quo’s legitimacy. The state is incredibly effective at coopting narratives to reform its image.
