How would you explain why cops are bad with a single one-liner?
I was chatting with an acquaintance earlier today. I said something to the effect of “I would consider it the worst parenting fail if my daughter became a cop”. This acquaintance then asked why that was, probably with about 50% indignation and 50% genuine curiousity.
Honestly, I kind of drew a blank. Like, I know how to explain it in a long post or like a missive, but I really couldn’t think of how to explain to someone who probably isn’t a leftist in just a quick comment. So I just went with:
“Well all they do is beat up on black kids”
Which… is of course correct. But tbh I fell that answer is just missing a lot. A beat later I almost said something about how cruel they are to homeless folks around here but by then moment had passed.
How would you all explain - in the span of a single one-liner - why cops are bad? I’m not looking to knock someone over with my impressive rhetoric or whatever. Not looking to convince them. Just so I can feel I articulated my position correctly. Just got my own sense of pride. Help me out here.
Nearly every police department in the entire country was filmed committing thousands upon thousands of violent crimes against peaceful protesters in 2020, and maybe 5 are facing even the slightest consequences
Here's another: They neither prevent nor solve crimes.
There is no evidence that consistently links higher police budgets with lower crime. They will often neglect to intervene in domestic abuse situations, and the conviction rate for most crimes is abysmally low.
Every police officer is either a Derek Chauvin or a Tou Thao.
If they're not the ones doing the crimes against humanity, they're protecting the others who are, and preventing regular citizens from doing anything about it.
Talking to a non-leftist, your one liner is already great imo.
You could maybe add "they are worthless psychopaths with a license to kill and total impunity with huge paychecks and retirements yet all they do is beat up black/poor people while claded in tacticool and tanks that costs millions of dollars. And that's their legal 'job description', they all inmersed in organized crime"
You can even just shorten it to "they enforce unjust laws." It's a great one liner because it so easily leads into all other sorts of conversation threads if the other person bites, and stands well on its own if they don't bite.
Unjust laws like what? Vagrancy laws, private property laws, etc.
What if they're really good cops and don't enforce any of those laws? Then they get fired.
Can't we change the system and fix those unjust laws? Sure, maybe, but until we do the people who uphold the law are bad.
In the same vein, if you happen to be talking to someone who puts a lot of stock into the 2nd amendment I've found some (limited, sometimes the brainworms are just too tangled) success by asking "who do you think would enforce a gun grab?"
It's like a 60/40 where sometimes the brainworms take over and they wholeheartedly believe every cop would join them and take up arms against the government
If the person is on the left: cops are the first line of defense for neoliberalized fascism and will be the people arresting and killing is when we build enough power to pose even a minor threat to the capitalist order.
To someone that doesn't know anything about politics: cops are there to protect business owners' interests and not public safety to the point that they actually make all of us less safe just to make sure some storefront continues to "look nice" or someone struggling with a drug addiction gets additional pain.
An employer illegally steals millions of dollars from their employees to buy another yacht. One of those employees steals a few hundred dollars from that employer because the alternative is not being able to afford to feed and house their children. Who do the police beat up and send to a for-profit prison?
They operate as above the law. If someone in any other line of work kills a customer or client or bystander on the job, they get fired and criminally charged. If a police officer kills a civilian, they will get "administrative leave" or reassignment.
"When the bad apples kill an innocent person, the good apples always rally behind them. Cops are so used to lying in their testimony to get the outcome they want that they have cute jargon for it."
One more angle: They actively target and harass homeless people, poor people, and people of color, especially Black and Indigenous people. Most of their time is spent on specified patrol routes, speed traps, sitting around doing nothing (or occasionally busywork), or going after people for loitering.
My answer would be "Cops are bad because they're the executive arm of a government that only serves the rich, and it shows by their actions. Cops are the system and there is little room for "being a good person"."
But that kinda requires the person you're talking to to already have at least left-liberal tendencies. To someone who is totally on board with the status quo, you can really only say surface level stuff.
How would you all explain - in the span of a single one-liner - why cops are bad?
Differs on political leanings of the one another but assuming there's an inroad here at all is assuming they're not chud-freaks and I found out that now mostly accepted gay tolerance works pretty well, so I usually go with "If they made being gay illegal again, do you think they'd not arrest them?"
Their sworn duties include imprisoning somebody for stealing a mouldy loaf of bread while starving. That's a moral failing (and obviously their main job is to reinforce the wider moral failing that is capitalism).
If you are interested in the law part of that there are different jobs with different titles available that pay much better. Lawyers sure don't have to be great, but that is the path for people who care about the law. Cop is the path for people who care about enforcement, while almost by definition not caring too much about the law.
Cops in Amerikkka are a monstrously twisted position. A cop can start as a good person, with noble intentions (I know, I know) and the position will twist them into a casually racist, callous, hyper-violent shell.
The lack of social support in our society means cops are bouncing between neighbor quibbles, brains smeared across a highway, homeless people that can never be helped under capitalism, and hyper violent murders within a matter of minutes. It literally breaks their brains, and leads them to not consider the rest of us human (if they ever did at all).
Cops are, by their own metrics, ineffective. They're tools of an immensely cruel and uncaring machine. Cops are bad because of the system, their position in supporting it, and the ways they have to think and feel to justify their actions.