krwlz

Well, Ive been watching this thread, more or less from the begining.

YourNeverThere, I cant say that I think anarchy is the right path, but as it stands, the government certinly needs a major overhaul...

That aside, I can completely see where you are coming from. Forgive me, I cant seem to remember the names, but wern't there two English philosophers that represented the differant views on whether humans were innatly good or bad? Was it Locke and Hobbes?

On that note, how do you define good and bad?

Personaly, I do see a need for cops. Not everyone is bad, in fact most people are good. But there are those few real fucking dick heads that ruin it for the rest of us.

Even if we were all basicaly good, there are still things that good people can do, that would harm other good people. Thats not to say that its intentional.

After all, driving 100 mph on your way home is fine, but accidentaly making a head on crash and killng some mother of three, BECAUSE of that is not. But, you never intended to kill her, you just wanted to get where ever you were going.

In my belief the only laws that exist should be ones that distinctly prevent harm to another human being. Any law that can be justified by that is fine by me, provided it doesn not affect any of our other freedoms (ex: 2nd ammendment...).

Lastly, as far as ego goes...I dont care who has what ego, but keep it to your fucking self would you? After all, I cant stop you from having a condecending opinion about me, but I sure as hell don't need to hear about it.

rooster

yourneverthere why dont you go to your local police department and see if they have a ride along program. then you might get a better idea as to what a police officer goes through while pulling his duty shift. who knows you might even change your mind about them and find out they are just like u and i. are u judging every one of them on a whole are a particular police officer? do you think they judge you on your appearance? most of the time they will . i am fifty yrs old and have really long hair and they give me second looks too.not your typical cops dad,but my choice.
sorry for being such a ass earlier but i hear it all the time how bad cops are, and 9 out of 10 times it is out of the mouth of someone that breaks the law and gets caught and blames the arresting officer are the judge.i have a 22 yr old that likes to break the law and he thinks it is the policemen fault when he has to spend time in jail.i dont feel sorry for him i figure if he spends enough time there he will get it ,but some time you cant fix stupid.

Loki

on an aside... just out of curiosity, what does 911 have to do with this discussion? the police have existed and performed the same duties befure, during and after the event.


Back to the original question, you forget one thing. It is optional to listen to a police officer. By this i mean you have an option as per your reaction. You can listen to him, or ignore him, which may of course lead to further actions being taken against you. What im saying though is that it is not compulsory to listen to the police.

I can liken this to perhaps a doctor. Lets say that a doctor has been seeing a particular patient for a while now, and tells the patient that, in the interest of his health, either give up the booze, or give up any chance of living beyond 50. The patient has two choices, to ignore him and subsequently die before he reaches 50, or to listen to the doctor, or the experts advice and live beyond 50.


The point im trying to get across here, is that perhaps you should think of a police officer as an expert on the law, more than an enforcer. The law may be defined as socially acceptable behaviour as decided by the people (i know you'll hate this comment, but i can think of no other way of putting it).

And the laws cover everyone. No individual or group should be above the law, not even the police. For instance, lets consider the following encounter:


Two police officers are walking down the road, when they see Mr X. Now, they know that Mr X is a dodgy bastard, so they go up to him and start making small talk. Mr X responds to the small talk, but suddenly one of the officers crash tackle him and starts searching Mr X. Lo and Behold, they find a huge cache of drugs in his pockets.

The police officers, being experts in the law, know that drug carrying has been deemed illegal, so they throw Mr X into jail. Mr X however, believes that the arrest they made was illegal. So, Mr X decides to use one of the laws made to protect him, and contacts a lawyer, or another expert on the law.

The lawyer researches the relevant information, and comes to the conclusion that Mr X was in fact correct, and that its illegal to arrest someone based on searches made without warrants.

So, the lawyer knows Mr X was right, but the lawyer still has to convince two other experts of the law about this as well, namely, the judge, and the jury.

The case comes to court, and the lawyer successfully demonstrates that Mr X was illegally arrested. The judge and the jury agree with the lawyer, and the case is thrown out, and Mr X walks out scot free, even though he is guilty of another crime, because the procedures used by the police were, as it were, illegal. Chances are, the police would be reprimanded as well, for breaching the law.

Unfortunately, in many cases, the police are not better than us, and are just as restricted as us.

MSD

I'll just sum up my answer to the original question by saying that cops have authority over you because they have decided that they respect and believe in the law enough to become trained and certifed to uphold it according to standards set by the people who we have elected to make laws. They feel that it's important enough to dedicate their lives to it.

BTW, every teacher or professor who I have asked has replied that the concept of a citizen's arrest is entirely fictional, and that all you can do is hold a person in place until the police get there. Theoretically, you can thorw them in the back of your car, read them their miranda rights, and drag them down to the station, write and sign a statement about what you saw them doing, but the police still have to do the paperwork and official procedures, and the guy isn't going to be too happy about being thrown in the back of a car by some random person and dragged down to the station.

nowthen

Yourneverthere, I would like to repeat my question which was never answered, what exactly is it that you want to do that the police will so greatly impede you?

Outside of drug use (which is a whole other topic...) I am willing to bet that the reason you would be stopped doing these things is because that they have some direct or indirect means to harm or otherwise disturb other members of society.

I invite you to prove me wrong.

__________________

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them."

George Bernard Shaw

Mael

i just thought of this, but when "YNT" talks about ego, i think he's talking more about the fact that police have the audacity (sp?) to actually tell people what to do. there doesn't have to be any ego involved. if someone is a cop, they could easily go up to someone and tell them to move because they're loitering or pull them over for a traffic violation and no ego has to be involved. but the fact that they are willing to do it i think is what he has the problem with. just a thought.


haha, that's great!!!

tj2001cobra

This statement is ludicrous. You are inferring that I am an unsafe driver. You have no idea what type of driver I am. Getting pulled over for 70 is a 65 is unsafe? Does the copknow I am unsafe. If you are driving 70 at the same place, how does he know to pull me over and not you? What constitues safe and unsafe? I have driven approx 600,000 miles in the 12 years I have had my license. I have never been in a wreck. Ever. Not one that was my fault or someone else's fault.

Quote:

I have a scanner, and I would think the same that you do, but every time I've seen them run lights, they were in pursuit of suspects, and would lose track of them and probably not find them if they stopped. Same goes for "just fucking around." They might bethe nearest unit to be able to respond to a situation. Maybe you should try getting a scanner and seeing if they're really fucking around, or if they're rushing to a home where a kid called 911 because his father is beating his mother and the officers don't want to give him time to hide evidence, or if they're trying to make it to make it down a clear road where sirens would cause more problems than they solve and get to the grocery store with the defibrilator in the back of his car because an old woman just had a heart attack and the difference between getting there in three minutes or two can be a life-or-death situation. Maybe that woman is your mother or grandmother; I doubt you'd be pissed at a cop for speeding past you at twice the speed limit if he saved her life.

Once again, people blindly defending the cops. You might say I am blindly bashing cops. Whatever. I am telling you I have seen cops flip their lights on for a yellow or red light, go through it, and proceed at their normal speed. You can call it what you want, but they are abusing their powers. I saw a cop tear down a gravel road in front of my grandparents house. Three times. Back and forth. It was a young kid cop who was "testing" out his vehicle. I know this for a fact because my father went out onto the road and talked to him and told him to slow down. There were kids playing there at my grandparents. Now tell me who is safe.

This is not a heated discussion for me. I am speaking my mind and telling you the reality that I see on a regular basis. End of story.

Mael

i have a question to the people who think negitively about the cops and think that they have ego's and think they're better than you. if you could mark a little box on your taxes stating that none of your tax money would go to the police, and in return you would no longer be eligible to have any assistance from them, would you? it soudns like some of you would prefer a world without police, if you could get them out of your life, would you do it?

WhoaitsZ

a cop's job is to serve and protect civilians.

it is not their job to be polite, sure, but it also not their job to be assholes.

and they did choose their field. i hope they are safe and all, however, the job they are so proud to 'be just doing' is just that; a job.

if a cop can ask me to move, no problem. if he's moving a crowd for a reason, no problem. if he tells me to move for no reason and i ask why and he glares at me then fuck him.

there are lots of people who stay quiet and get pushed around. i am not one of them.

WhoaitsZ

oh yes...... people have understood me well so far but i wanna be clear that I do not hate all cops.

if we had no police our society wouldn't exist. most people have lost their balls and will hide away and let themselves be bullied.

sooner or later one person will stand up... it leads to policing and that's fine.

if we wish to get rid of such authorities we have to learn how to work together.

hippies, normal folk, stoners, christians, muslims, scient - er well maybe not scientologists (kidding), white people, black people...blahblah

if most of society would get together and quit copying the ways of monkeys, we'd not need police. we'd fix it ourselves.

ps way of monkeys = get pissed and throws feces at you

giblfiz

by YNT
I guess I misunderstood your question, if the question is "what makes people think that they should be a cop" I'm a little less qualified to answer, but Ill take a stab in the dark anyway.

Probably some combination of three things. The balance is different for different people, but I think the first is the most common and the last is the least.

1) Dad was a cop. Its not that they think highly of themselves in particular, its that there parents indoctrinated them with the idea that growing up to be a cop would be a good thing. The morality of the issue wasn't ever really deeply considered, they just want to make their family proud.

2) They are paragons of establishment. They like and love the government for some reason. They feel that the best thing they can do for the world is lend it as much of their own "might" as possible.

3) They are drawn to power. Everyone is at some level. We all have some urge to want to be able to tell people what to do, and right what we see as wrongs. (perhaps that wrong is our own poverty, hence the whole concept of "cream") This should not be viewed all that negatively, its something that is intrinsically human

__________________
Use the star one and you'll be fighting off the old ones with your bare hands
-A Shoggoth on the Roof

giblfiz

Actually it is their job to be polite. (as much is as possible, obviously they don't have to be polite while chasing you) That said I'm a student, its my job to do my homework. Doesn't mean that I do it more than about once a month. All in all I think the cops try hard and fail often. Its not exactly an easy job and sadly I see no way to raise the success percentage.

I have a few stupid ideas that I think might help like a mandatory massage and therapy session for all of the cops. Chill them fuckers out.

__________________
Use the star one and you'll be fighting off the old ones with your bare hands
-A Shoggoth on the Roof

miked10270

Is it time for a cop to jump in yet?

krwlz

At least he took the precautions of using a less populated road...Ill bet he apologized to you grandfather when all was said an done as well....

WhoaitsZ

mandontory (sp) counselling should be assigned free of charge to every law enforcer for at least, say, five sessions.

making one do counselling does little good. maybe after the fourth or fifth visit they will see the good in it and continue. if not, just wating time and funds.

Lebell

This is important to understand.

The 'cop' is not telling you what to do, the government is telling you what to do using the cop as the agent.

Saying the 'cop' is telling you what to do implies that it is his (possibly capricious and arbitrary) will being enforced.

Understanding that it is the government telling you what to do reinforces the fundamental point that making and enforcing the rule of law is the government's sacred responsibility and reason d'etre. (sp?)

By extension, the power to do this does not come from the job, but is invested in the officer by the appropriate government entity.

This is all important to us because the Governments in Canada and the US (as well as most western govts.) are representative of the will of the people. (Which is why in a court, the cases are always stated as "The People of blah blah vs. Joe Blow" and not "The Govt. of Blah blah...")

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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soccerchamp76

Some cops are assholes, some are nice.

One cop lets you get off for goin 15mph on the highway after pulling you over.

Another cop on a 40mph street goes behind you (taking radar I would assume but my radar detector did not go off), I turn into a ramp to go into my school to turn left (you have to go into a seperate lane and there is a light there). The cop goes into the ramp and seeing my radar dectector, decides to turn it on to my my thing go off like crazy, then runs my plates during the light. He turns left I go straight, no harm though.

CyCo PL

Cops aren't better than anybody... they just think they are.

I don't have a problem with cops in general. They do their job, I don't get in their way. It's the little things that make me angry, like one time when I was walking down the street with a couple friends at 10pm, some cop came by and stopped us, asked for our ID's. We gave them to him, waited, waited, waited. Two more cop cars show up. So there's three cop cars there, lights on, because of three people walking down the street who did nothing. What seemed like 20 or so minutes later, they let us go.

It just kind of makes me think. Couldn't they be out there actually doing their job? Instead of calling for backup to run a check on three 19-20 year old kids that pose no threat whatsoever? I'm honestly convinced that most police officers enter the job solely for the purpose of pushing people around. Probably because nobody respects them without their badge.

debaser

Police are empowered by the government to enforce the law. Therefor they can tell you what to do within those legal constraints. You as a citizen have every right (indeed, some would say responsibility) to give orders to someone you see breaking the law.

The difference, actually the only difference, between you and him (or her), is that the officer has the training and the mandate to back his order up with force if need be.

__________________

YourNeverThere

This is probably going to be a long post, I guess I had to sleep sometimes and now I've got a whole new page ,
Anyway.

Locke and Demosethous if I'm not mistaken, Though I don't think that that is how you spell Demosethous name.


I can agree that I see the need for cop in todays society. I also think that there are types of societies that don't need them. Right now though we do.
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I Have been on ride alongs before, not since I was younger but I have. Me and friends decieded not long ago that we should go on more. I am judgeing everyone of them on a whole, not a particular officer. I'm not saying that they are all bad, or that they are all good, but just that they all, at some level think that they are better than me, they are 'just doing thier jobs' but no one's forcing them too, they decieded to do this job themselves.
And of course they judge me on looks, it's annoying, but it doesn't really matter.

Ya don't worry it's all good, like I said, I don't get mad easily.
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Ya I guess it's optional, thing is with a docter if you don't take your medication you don't go to jail... It's optional the same way that you CAN rip your own arm off, or that you CAN wander drunkingly into the back of a van fill with fertilizer and fuel oil and get pushed over a cliff by a susicidal micky mouse.
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ya, I'm not to sure about in the States, this is what the Canadian Encylopeda says:
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I'm sorry nowthen, this turned out to be a huge thread and I read yours and said "I'll answer that" then skipped over it by accident. Anyway, I'd just like to do the things I do now but with freedom, I hate the feeling of dread that I get when I see a cop drive by even know I'm not doing anything, they menace, Aside from the drug thing there really is no specfic thing.
Thing is, when I get pulled over, as an example, I am posing no more or less of a direct or indirect thread to the society, They don't find any drugs on me, they don't give me a ticket, it's just becuase they think that they can.
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I'm not sure why the initials of my name are in quotes, but hey, I'm assuming you mean me... Have you ever told anyone to do something? ever been a camp councellor? or a father mabye? Had you not noticed that when you tell someone to do something, force your opinion on them, it's becuase you think your right? and if you think your right then you think there wrong. Your right, there wrong, your better then them. I think that that chain of logic is fairly clear, I guess i'm wrong though.

Mael are you crazy? of course I would! that would be amazing, I'd just leave them alone and they could leave me alone. I'm a fairly non-confrontational person, I don't anger people very often except on this topic, so the police have never done anything good for me directly, I'm sure they have done many good things for me indirectly, like stop a murderer that might have killed me in the future, but if I could stop them from holding authority over me I would.
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They really never question the morality of the issue? They really never questioned what they do for a living. Is that really the type of person one would want police us, someone who not only doesn't question the morality of the law there inforcing, but doesn't even question the moral of there full time job?

Thats true, I guess people can get fixedated(sp?) on the fact that they think the government needs protection, I really don't have anything usefull to add to that, thats what you meant by paragon.

I don't know if it is intrinsically human there unfortunatly is no way to prove what the basic nature of a human being is, good or bad, extending that, we can't prove if a human is basicly greedy, or basicly drawn to power, or whatever. The only way to prove that we are would be to have a child grow up alone, without any contributing factors, and even in that expiriment you wouldn't be able to find out the basic nature of humans becuase that poor child would probably die.
It's the old nature vs. nurture debate, thats what anarchy boils down to, could we have a society where good values are nurtured into people from birth so that in the end we don't need law, or will nature force us to be unruly, force us to distroy.
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Of course miked, where have you been this whole time! I knew there must be at least one officer on this board.
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But lebell, the cop isn't a robot, he is enforceing the rules on purpose, no one is forcing him to do anything, so, it is his will.
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I'm sorry if I missed anyone.

__________________
The Above post is a direct quote from Shakespeare

WhoaitsZ

I definatly agree, dude, except:


My problem is mainly the rude fuckers. I'd never shoot a messenger. . . unless the messenger is being an asshole. if someone has to tell me something, tell me. if i ask is something wrong or what's going on, just give me a quick polite, stern answer.

i will coperate cuz i've no idea what could be going on. but I'm not just taking orders.

look.... i can't speak for other people... but for me, it's not being told to do something for our best interest or what not..... no problem

i just don't a guy chiding me as if I did something wrong, especially since i've extreemly fuckin' peaceful.

speak up cops. i don't hate you. i hate some of the macho attitudes.

WhoaitsZ

um. don't most cops hold odd loyalties? this could be like bullshit hollywood idea.

but anyhow. you gets cops.. you're one. if you are a few, you will most likely havey our story turned upside down.

cops are armed.

there is a huge difference, man.

Lebell

OH, Z,

I definitely agree with what you are saying, there are rude cops, just like there are rude receptionists, rude waiters, rude yada yada yada.

And certainly the badge and gun attract a macho/bully type more than other professions. But police forces try to cull these types out (as opposed to those who are bad-ass when they need to be.)

It's in their best interest to do so.

Then there are some cops (usually the younger, less experienced ones) who haven't learned yet how to read situations, be alert and yet respectful at the same time. (These are usually the 25 yr olds who call guy's in their 40's "son" when they pull them over in a traffic stop...)

YNT,

No,

His will might be, "I really hate Chevy's/Fords, so I'm only going to pull them over today..."

In otherwords, a cop doing his duty doesn't pull the rules out of thin air. It is the rules, i.e. will, of the people he/she is enforcing.

My point is that they are usually just regular guys in a tough job usually dealing with rough people, so to paint them with such a broad brush is unfair.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Apokx

Anyone with a little power gets somewhat of an attitude.

Comes with the territory.

debaser

I don't understand the first two paragraphs, as as for the last two, that is the mandate I was speaking about.

__________________

WhoaitsZ

blerg. i admit i did a shit job there.

i meant.......

if I were a cop and I had other cops with me or nearbye.... and you are the citizen with a complaint.

do you honestly believe the civilian's views will be heard as equally as mine? especially with other cops?

debaser

I agree with you there, and I am engaged to a cop.

I constantly give her shit about the same issue, cops walk on water as far as simple stuff goes. Of course if a citizen sees a cop speeding they can call the supervisor and the cop will have to spend hours going over their video tape to justify the incident, or be written up.

I have mixed feelings. On one hand they have the shittiest job in the world, everyone lies to you, it's dangerous, and the pay is shit, so it is natural for them to band together. On the other hand the law is the law.

Oh, well. As someone above said, they are human, and prone to human failings...

__________________

Stiltzkin

All the cops where I live speed all the time, and it kind of bugs me because I got pulled over once for speeding, and it wasn't even that much over the speed limit (5MPH over the speed limit). It is a double standard, of course, but oh well. That's all I have to say in this matter

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