Discretion is just selective enforcement. Lots of people do a thing. But cops only think it’s damaging to society when the wrong kind of people do it. That thing might just be existing.
Maybe that punishment involves jail time, but more likely it means being harassed, or put in cuffs for a while but let off, or just be intimidated by a guy who can legally whisper “I fear for my life” into a body cam and then kill you.
ACAB means cops either participate in that system, do nothing to stop it, or try to stop it and get forced out.
It sounds like you’re breaking down cops into several categories:
Cops that do bad things on purpose
Cops that do bad things on accident
Cops that work alongside groups 1 and 2
Sure, group 3 cops may use that discretion for good. Maybe they don’t pull someone over for going one over the speed limit, or decide to look the other way when a homeless guy tries to sell cigarettes. I agree with you, this is the kind of discretion that’s supposed to happen.
But when people say ACAB, they’re saying that when cops that don’t do terrible things work alongside cops that do, they are complicit. One cop slowly, agonizingly kills a guy. Three cops watch and do nothing to stop him. That’s an extreme example. But there’s a million small versions of that, in every big city and small town, where a cop uses either their legal authority or “I’m a person with a gun” authority to do something bad, and their coworkers let it happen.
Cops that don’t stop their coworkers from doing bad things are just as bad as those doing the bad things. So, ACAB.
Keep it up man, you’ve obviously got more energy than most of us who think that slogan is shit.
ACAB is one of the things which give ammo to the conservatives on a silver platter. It makes us look stupid.
There are occasional stories about cops who risk their lives to save people. But, fuck them I suppose, because of that one time they heard a story about their colleague they knew was shady, shooting someone for smoking weed and they didn’t organise everyone else in their department to protest outside the station until they were fired.
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Discretion is just selective enforcement. Lots of people do a thing. But cops only think it’s damaging to society when the wrong kind of people do it. That thing might just be existing.
Maybe that punishment involves jail time, but more likely it means being harassed, or put in cuffs for a while but let off, or just be intimidated by a guy who can legally whisper “I fear for my life” into a body cam and then kill you.
ACAB means cops either participate in that system, do nothing to stop it, or try to stop it and get forced out.
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It sounds like you’re breaking down cops into several categories:
Sure, group 3 cops may use that discretion for good. Maybe they don’t pull someone over for going one over the speed limit, or decide to look the other way when a homeless guy tries to sell cigarettes. I agree with you, this is the kind of discretion that’s supposed to happen.
But when people say ACAB, they’re saying that when cops that don’t do terrible things work alongside cops that do, they are complicit. One cop slowly, agonizingly kills a guy. Three cops watch and do nothing to stop him. That’s an extreme example. But there’s a million small versions of that, in every big city and small town, where a cop uses either their legal authority or “I’m a person with a gun” authority to do something bad, and their coworkers let it happen.
Cops that don’t stop their coworkers from doing bad things are just as bad as those doing the bad things. So, ACAB.
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Keep it up man, you’ve obviously got more energy than most of us who think that slogan is shit.
ACAB is one of the things which give ammo to the conservatives on a silver platter. It makes us look stupid.
There are occasional stories about cops who risk their lives to save people. But, fuck them I suppose, because of that one time they heard a story about their colleague they knew was shady, shooting someone for smoking weed and they didn’t organise everyone else in their department to protest outside the station until they were fired.
No room for nuance with these people.
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“Defund the police”
“Black people cannot be racist”
“Trans women are women”
I’m sure we’re actually all on the same page, with the exception of how valuable we consider the optics of these slogans.
I see right wingers present these slogans as evidence of our mental deficiencies.
They are either convinced we are stupid, or are trying to convince others we are stupid. We have given them ammo.
To this point, people have claimed they’ll have ammo regardless, but I’m not so sure. People detransition from the (alt)right every day.
The more sensible we appear, the easier it is for them to consider whether they were justified in what they believed in the first place.
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