The Militarization of American Law Enforcement

[Joe R. Golowka]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
And we all know how quility of life is great in ukraine

Modern Ukraine is ruled by nationalists and was ruled by communists before that. You can blame them for any current problems. You obviously no virtually nothing about Nestor Makhno or what I was refering to.

Which says nothing about the well-being of it's civilians. If anything they gayned from the resources and slaves captured.

The fact that you consider a slave society prosperous says quite a bit about the kind of society you advocate.

That is what a government could be if directed towards evil.

To varying degrees all governments are evil.

However modern day governments observe laws which are needed to have bounds for a possible life of a society.

There are thousands of laws that are on the books which are not needed for "a possible life of a society." The fact that there have been many societies without states proves that laws are not necessary for a society to exist.

If there is no "don't kill, don't steal" law, then people would kill and steal.

People kill and steal even with those laws. How effective.

In which case
a) you advocate the imposing of a majority of a minority

No, not really. But majority rule would be better than minority rule, which is what we have now.

b) you can't create a huge assembly - you have to create representatives for "bigger scale" assemblies, in which you again create elites.

We could create a huge assembly with millions of people if we wanted to, I see no reason why this is impossible. But if we didn't want to we could instead create networks between various smaller assemblies. If a bunch of groups are working together on something and a decision needs to be made each individual assembly can discuss the issue among themselves and then assign a person to contact the other assemblies and convey their ideas. They can thereby form networks between assemblies and coordinate things.

What an Anarchist society could look like - http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secIcon.html
An anarchist organising manual - http://www.radio4all.org/aia/

Your claim that anarchists can't organise, and that organisation always leads to hierarchy, is proof of your ignorance of Anarchism. We have built organisations with millions of members along anarchist principles without any kind of upper caste. The CNT is one famous example. You have to be an ignorant fool to reject a philosophy despite hardly having read a word about it.

Crime is caused be lawlessness and lack of morals rather than poverty.

Crime has a demonstrated causative relationship with poverty. Recently, as the economy has gone south and unemployment gone up, crime has also started to go up. When the economy, and unemployment, begins to improve we will eventually see a drop in crime. Countries with greater economic inequality have less crime; those with greater inequality have greater crime. And by crime I mean things like murder, muggin and the like.

Many poor people do not crime. Yet many rich people do crime, in hope to become richer.

Far more poor people commit violent crimes then rich ones. A person not in poverty will be able to meet their needs without resorting to crime, but it is much harder for poor people to do so. Crime is one of the very few options left open for survival to those in abject poverty. Hence, when poverty & unemployment go up, crime goes up (and vice versa).

Crime is caused by Greed and caring for oneself over another.

Greed, etc. are promoted by class society and especially capitalism.

Furthermore, classes aren't a cause for poverty rather a result.

By definition if you have classes you have poverty. That's the meaning of the term - division of society into rich, poor, etc.

Classes don't really exist in non-monarchic/feudal societies.

Boy is your head deep in the sand! There are most certainly types of class societies other then feudalism. Slave societies, for example, have a quite obvious stratification between slaves, masters and non-slaveowning free people. State Socialism as practised in the USSR had stratification between workers and party members. Modern Capitalism has stratification between workers, bosses, capitalists and others. All of these are class societies.

Today classes exist as a way to describe differences between professions and income, which will not go away unless you give everyone the same pay no matter what they do.

Rubbish. Class is defined by one's relationship to the means of production as well as power & prestige. A person who makes their living primarily off of money invested in the stock market is in a different class, the capitalist class, then someone who makes their money by producing things in exchange for a wage (the working class).

People who are ignorant of anti-class critiques often blather nonsense about "giving everyone the same pay no matter what they do." Such statements completely ignore the structures of class society and the critiques of them. In capitalism one class, the capitalists, make their living primarily off their ownership of the means of production. They thus accumulate massive amounts of wealth due to this ownership. If property relations were changed this would also change. For example, syndicalists advocate the means of production (factories, mines, etc.) being owned by the people who work in them, the workers. This would greatly change the distribution of wealth since the workers would probably choose to distribute the wealth among them approximately equally (or proportional to working time), rather then giving the majority of it to some capitalist who doesn't even work there.

The structure of a company is essentially fascist in nature. There is a hierarchical power structure, with those at the top exerting almost complete control over those under them. Those on the bottom must obey those on the top, period. While there may be some amount of consultation from the top to the lower levels, the same can be said of any slave society. There are no elections, no voting. Those on top have an absolute rule. Capitalism is an economic dictatorship. The fact that one can quit a job is irrelevant - if you could immigrate from a totaltarian society that wouldn't make totaltarianism right.

Incorrect, since crime is caused when people are greedy, not poor or rich.

Then explain why crime rises with poverty.

A police is there to enforce laws which are agreed upon by society in which they serve.

It's the government that set's the laws, not "society." There are many laws which most people don't support.

And Isolation is infact prison.
social pressure is infact taxes / fines.

False analogy.

The state has monopoly over law-enforcement, not about laws.

Uh, it has both.

The state has to have monopoly over law-enforcement, otherwise, people could make up their own laws and enforce them.

Or we could just NOT HAVE LAWS AT ALL (law = decree of a state).

But there are proper mechanisms to stop politicians from getting thuggish.

Which don't work very well in practise.

There also are mechanisms to stop people from getting thuggish. There are also mechanisms to have people become politicians and politicians lose thier status.

But politicians are needed since a horde can't rule itself in a non=representative form.

People are quite capable of making decisions for themselves without bosses telling us what to do. One of the problems with representative systems is that an elected representative is not tied in any substantial way to particular policies, whatever the preferences of the electorate. Influence on the politician is greatest at the time of election. Once elected, the representative is released from popular control but continues to be exposed to powerful pressure groups, especially corporations, state bureaucracies, lobbyists, and political party power brokers. Thus this "democracy" becomes little more then a fraud.

"All the methods employed -- divine consecration, selection, succession, voting and elections, assemblies, parliaments and senates -- have proved and still prove ineffective. Everybody knows that not one of these methods has succeeded either in preventing the misuse of power or in entrusting it only to immaculate men. Everybody knows on the contrary that men possessed of power -- be they emperors, ministers, chiefs of police, or policemen -- are for that very reason more apt to become demoralized (that is, to subordinate the public interest to their own) than men who do not possess power, nor can it be otherwise." - Leo Tolstoy

Yes, but that authoritaran society would not be as benevolent as todays democracy.

That authoritarian society would probably be just like today's democracy. The worst that'll happen in anarchy is we'll end up right back where we are now.

You should really read about a philosophy before you start trying to criticise it, instead of displaying your ignorance so blatantly.

"Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners." - Edward Abbey

[Joe R. Golowka]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Regarding anarchy, even in nature there are example of collective hierarchies (complete with elites) in action.

And there are also examples of non-hierarchical behaviour. Just because bees do something doesn't mean humans should.

Ants, termites, bees, all live in a monarchy. Different classes depend on each other for certain life support.

According to NPR there are some species of ants which organise without rulers. And "Monarchy" is probably not the right term, since your'e projecting human behaviour onto insect behaviour.

[Ted Striker]

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[Joe R. Golowka]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
The societies you bring as examples haven't evolved at all

Some have.

He argued "those books mean nothing since their claims are wrong and will be refuted in the future".

No I didn't, your'e misinterpriting my words.

Medieval people had no infrastructure and were basically all slaves of their numbered masters.

There were very few slaves in Europe during the middle ages. Rome's economy was largely based on slavery, though.

How can you build a power plant or a road if not by a centralized body?

Probably The same way they built factories in the Spanish Revolution.

"If by industry is meant a group of manufacturing establishments making the same type of merchandise in a county, province, or region, then there was no optical industry in Spain before the 19th of July....

.... The greatest innovation was the construction of a new factory for optical apparatuses and instruments. The whole operation was financed by the voluntary contributions of the workers. In a short time the factory turned out opera glasses, telemeters, binoculars, surveying instruments, industrial glassware in different colors, and certain scientific instruments. (The workers presented Buenaventura Durruti with a special set of field glasses.) Another achievement was the opening of a new, up-to-date optical school.... The workers had every reason to be proud of these achievements. What private capitalists failed to do was accomplished by the creative capacity of the members of the Optical Workers' Union of the CNT." - Augustin Souchy and P. Folgare (eds.), "The Collectivization of the Optical Industry," in Sam Dolgoff (ed.), The Anarchist Collectives, ch. 7

That's the point - anarchism can't defend itself since defense requires some sort of "elites" for planning and controlling.

Of course we can defend ourselves. Just arm the population and organise militias. That's what was done in Spain and they didn't need states or ruling classes to do that.

[DinoDoc]

*Ahem*

Originally posted by Joe R. Golowka
Civilization is highly over-rated.

You must be one of those crazy anarchists Ramo told me about.

Your assertion is a non-sequitor and a bare assertion. Just because you claim something is true doesn't mean it is true.

My assertion is based on historical facts and peer reviewed sociological research. Now if you can provide me even one credible, non-primitivist study regarding the non-inevitability of elities in a society, I will happily consider the possibility of error.

The !kung are a society who have not developed a ruling elite and have been around for thousands of years. Therefore, the development of ruling elites is not inevitable.

*Snicker* I think that this works as a point in my favor if you consider the kind of life this "society" actually leads. But, one statistical anomoly does not a trend make.

And a hundred years ago you could have cited many sources to "prove" that white people are inherently superior to everyone else.

And this has to do with the validity of my sources (which you haven't said if you wanted or not) in what way?

I'm not sure what your'e asking in this question.

I'm trying to find out why you find this normative statement, "Every people is governed by an elite, by a chosen element of the population," is the result of any special problem in society?

[Roland]

Mr Machu Grande trauma:

"Seeing as how flagship, blue-chipper companies like Coca Cola (which is not service though), Mickey Dees, and IBM make most of their revenue from international markets, I find that hard to believe."

Most services and products are made outisde the US - the companies only recieve a return on their brand, essentially. Quite small part of the revenue that can actually count as a US export.

"People didn't like the state the economy was in, and voted Bush Sr. (whether fairly or not) out of office and voted Blow Job into it."

A bad economy is about the only reason to replace incumbants - which is quite odd. Since when is the government responsible for the business cycle ? Bloody Americoms.

"And who exactly would that be? Buddhist Monks?"

They'd do a better job than uncle Alan. Nope, the macro interest is pretty obvious, so set it on autopilot. The problem with the Fed is that it is barely independent.

[Mihai]

I read only first half of this thread, but I want to say something (before I forgot )

First, I want to say something about the initial topic of this thread….

It seems that in US the police is considered more as an occupation force than a law inforcement organisation. What happen with “we serve and protect”?. I mean if you are subject of a police illegality you can sue the police force and the town. I am sure that in USA you have more chance to win that in Romania (I don’t know about the rest of Europe). What use is a weapon against the police? You will be overnumbered and outguned very fast.

I remember that in 2001 a policeman was shoot down in Timisoara (west of the country). Policemen and public opinion was outraged because that policeman died because his crappy pistol (“Carpati” model 1972) was useless against the bad guys submachine gun. Government took the decision to buy 20,000 pieces of newer and better models. Until those will arrive, the policemen were equiped with AK 47 Kalashnicov. A week after the shooting I had a little shock to see in the middle of Bucharest a road-policeman with a Kalashnicov on his back.

The police, as an institution, had a bad name (coruption and everthing), but public opinion usually take side to the police when they are wounded in confrontation with suspects. Because few civils have guns (you need a special permit to have a gun), this kind of incidents are seldom.


And now about unemployement, welfare and Co.

Those who oppose to minimum wage forgot the vicious circle : some people are in a desperate situation (no money, no house, kids, etc) and they will accept almost any wage, simply because they cannot wait at all. This way they will work up to 12-14 hours/day (if there is a limit of 8 hours/day they’ll take 2 jobs) for little money, just enough to survive he and his family. He will simply not have the time to look for a better job and he will remain prisoner in this situation. His kids won’t have posibility to learn too much and take some better jobs than their parent. Also there are some people in the middle class who had a badluck (illness, company closing etc) and little or no financial reserve (most people keep the same level of expensives when thir income decrese because they hope it’s just temporary) and they became despearate and … back to the beginning of the phrase.