What are your views on police officers? I dislike them, I see them as rather immoral types who are happy to be funded by others in order to do the states bidding. Are they just state hired thugs who are under the illusion that they do some good?
Exactly. They are outright criminals who realize that it’s better to be a state approved criminal instead of being a free-lance criminal (which is way riskier)
Well, as Ian from Freetalklive has pointed out on his show, based on calls he has received from people who are or have been in the police force, the “good” cops end up leaving and the “bad” cops get promoted. I do not see how such an organization can attract anything but the worst in society. It is a customer service job where you can not only treat everyone like shit, but you get to kill people too and get away with it.
I have yet to meet one I like as well.
Who knows? They are for the most part, just sickos as far as I am concerned. As Ian pointed out, they are “law enforcement officers”, not “peace officers”. Their job is nothing more than enforcing whatever arbitrary laws the “law makers” come up with, regardless of whether or not it is just or not.
Actually I had discussion with a police officer the other week. He told me something I didn’t know before, all cops must take oath on the Bible (or The Communist Manifesto, if it suits you better) that will be corrupt, murderous pigs and that they will stiffle any dissent with as much violence as they can get away with.
Without the enforcement of laws, and the promise of violence against those who commit violence against others, society will be at the mercy of criminals. But, of course, in anarcho-capitalist world, the private defense firms are so much more polite than police officers, and soldiers despite the fact that they would be of the same people.
and here i thought you weren’t political, silly me[:P]
wut?
If the good cops get disgusted and leave, then why don’t they form a private police force that competes with the State police monopoly?
because america spends more than the rest of the world on ammo maybe?
The difference between the two is not the existence of a monopoly, but the introduction of coercion into the transaction. Violence is in the transaction of justice in both the anarcho-capitalist, and statist vision; hence, the entire strawman falls apart.
you are ignoring the monopoly not because it isnt there or has no effect or meaning but just because you would rather ignore it. good tactic for cognitive dissonance but not much else. hence the analogy holds.
regardless, the violence of self-defence and of coercion are different.
Monopolies emerge out of coercion, yet coercion is already present in justice; hence, my point holds true.
Self-defense is the use of coercion against those who would coerce oneself, a sort of counter-coercion, what you do is redefine the terms to better suit your positions.
what is this liberal guilt? catholic guilt?
No guilt at all, just an acceptance of reality. Quite honestly, I don’t even see a reason why one would see guilt in there for it is the reality of life that often we must utilized coercion, and violence against those who would do so against ourselves.
do you tell the difference between morally acceptable coercion and morally unacceptable coercion? is there such a difference?
Why do I get the feeling someone’s going to post a NWA music video?
Joking aside, are we assuming everyone here is American? Since, I’d say there are rather different ethics to becoming a police officer in say, Cuba, Vietnam or North Korea than there would be in say, Monaco or Hong Kong.
Coercion is just, or not just depending on the circumstances.
is there a difference between coercion and violence?
if there is not. then i prefer my distinction that leavs violence ambivelent to justice, and coercion the imiplication that the violence is unjust.
is there a word for just coercion and another word for unjust coercion? you could help improve my vocab if there is…
next, i think we should revist both the police monopoly and the farmer monopoly and swap out the words ‘violence’ and ‘coercion’ and put in ‘just coercion’ and ‘unjust coercion’ as they might be appropriate in the places of the words taken ou,t and see what our prior argument looked like under this semantic revision.
I’m not too sure how different the movties are. In many ways yes, for example in Cuba they will be out for bribes and that will be a motivator. However an officer in Cuba and one in the UK both want POWER. They want to control people.