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Top-level
@Orc @dalias @bmalsuj @janisf the other way of looking at it is that "the public and civilian government" are not actually the "bosses" of the police in any meaningful sense. The historical context of unions is the asymmetry in authority between bosses and workers. Bosses have power individually, workers only have it collectively, if they have any at all. Does that accurately describe the actual professional relationship that exists between city councillors and cops, in your view? 13 comments
@janisf ouch. But that is up to you. Part of what I'm getting at is that the systemic problem is systemic so "solving it locally" rarely works, and then tends to be short-lived. If the city were the boss of the cops, solving it locally, at least temporarily, would happen all the time. There's like 1m people within city limits here, but in a lot of ways it's more small-town than cities of comparable size. So we happen coincidentally not to have as many cop problems. @darcher @Orc @dalias @bmalsuj I think we both know the patterns that end up coagulating around gun-toting (e.g.) Kentucky politicians who say they are also concurrently some sort of mechanic *and* engineer. Neither one of us has the magic pill that's going alleviate the anxiety that drives the insecurity around these guys never being able to control the world enough to please the imaginary women in their heads. It's these guys that drive *me* to crazy rambling rants. Guns down, boys. @janisf sadly, I agree. No magic pill, just a festering multi-generational cultural dysfunction. Even if the political will and the political coalitions were already in place, it would still take many years to repair. @janisf yeah, it's wild how that works. I didn't have any real exposure to Christianity until my early teens, and then it was all people who took "WWJD" very seriously indeed - Unitarians and Liberation Catholics and whatnot. So I *still* struggle sometimes with the way a lot of Christian churches are openly hostile to Christian scripture and teachings. @darcher @dalias @bmalsuj @janisf Yes, of course it does. Why would you think differently? It's not a single rotten apple, it's an entire barrel of them and they've successfully laid the government over that stinking mess. Unions are not a paragon of moral purity, they're a way for workers to represent themselves. And police are, as a general rules, armed bastards so their way of representing themselves involves forcing their bosses to accept rape & robbery. @Orc @dalias I think if you can threaten your boss with violence, and not get fired, your boss is not your "boss" in the sense I was describing. What I want is to discourage using the word "union" for situations like that. But I'm happy to concede that we're just quibbling over a definition. And i want to discourage it *even though* other unions are full of assholes and bastards in the same way that police unions are.  @orman San Francisco right now, I would argue. IIRC there's a solid analysis of SF in particular somewhere but I didn't bookmark it. Minneapolis, New York, and various other metros come to mind too. |
Gregory's Server
@darcher @Orc @dalias @bmalsuj No? But I'm not on my city council, while I also understand that every local arrangement is different.
I'll be putting my thought energy to better use of I focus on my area of expertise. Right now, my local police are doing pretty well, and I'm happy with recent efforts toward reform.