this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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The "state" in this case is the municipal district of a town or city, which is to say "a community of people".
my issue with this is that while this is what police say they are, it is not how they do things and the point of a thing is what it does. police officers other than sheriffs are selected not by other members of the community, but are selected based on their willingness to carry out violence in the name of capital.
so the problem with police is how they are selected/rewarded, not their existence?
i love this question. so if the point of a thing is what it does, and what the system of policing does is select bad cops, we have to abolish the system and implement a new system that prevents a new just as bad system from arising. so in answer to your question, it's not an either or problem, but an intrinsically interlinked problem
Sheriffs are literally voted in. The problem is the complete lack of oversight or accountability.
Right. Which is why I specifically separated out sheriffs' selection process being distinct from all other processes. And without oversight or accountability, who will select police officers will be whoever has power within the current system. As things stand, the structures we exist in favor people who already have access to power in the form of money and political positioning to design the police officer selection process (which mostly hinges on desperation) to maintain the status quo in order for them to retain their access to power in the form of money and political positioning.
and the funny thing is, around here the sheriffs tend to be the worst troublemakers
Yeah... If we really get into it we also have a massive propaganda problem where the voting public perceives the police differently than the people that the police interact with on a regular basis. The most common deciding factor in sheriff elections around here where I am is who talks in their TV ads the most about the bible
here it's who had the higher military rank. ugh.