fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5184 ]

07. https://i.imgur.com/LSywLfg.png

I am not sure I understand the part of your argument that's about policing practice - it seems to me correct to say that police at least ought to be civil and not military. And there are some obvious reasons why Peel would be a person to look at to understand the normative intent and origins of policing. Not because Peel was especially perceptive as a political thinker, but because he was one of the prime movers in creating the modern institution.

But I definitely agree people give too much of a pass to quotes based on the source sometimes.

If you can exert state force against civilians, even if you choose not to, and they cannot return the same....civilian as a designation isn't useful or frankly quite correct. and it's ridiculous to pretend that regular people treating you like you have this state power is abhorrent to the job when it's inherent in the job. I get that the governments of all stripes like separating military and civil service but that's a distinction without a useful difference to people who do neither, but are definitely subject to police in way they aren't even to the military! And it really doesn't help that the police developed from former soldiers and spy-y civil servants.

Noting Pratchett is reproducing Peel doesn't really suggest leftyness or thoughtfulness, so it doesn't make sense as a defense imo.

The distinction is absolutely useful because there is a distinct difference between the police in say European countries and the militarized police in the US where they are given military equipment, given basically free reign, and taught to treat the streets like the battlefield and everyone who isn't the police like the enemy.

You are right there there is still a clear distinction between people and police when police can exert state force. But that is massively increased in the US, and that is a major problem that needs to be called out and hopefully ended. And militarization is a useful way to describe it.

since the problem with policing is the institution, not the tools, that part isn't as significant to me as it clearly is to you. the police were a problem when they started (and were disaffected soldiers to your point).

Re: OP

philstar22 - 2021-03-17 05:02 (UTC) - Expand

OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-17 05:44 (UTC) - Expand

Noting Pratchett is reproducing Peel doesn't really suggest leftyness or thoughtfulness, so it doesn't make sense as a defense imo.

It suggests there are reasonable historical grounds for the idea that there is a normative distinction between the ways in which the police and the military exercise state violence.

The idea of a distinction between police and military is a really common one in theory, it's embedded in the law, and it's foundational to a lot of things about the organization of policing. It's definitely possible that ultimately this distinction is just nonsense and that, as much as laws and politicians say otherwise, police and military are really the same. But I guess I don't see why they are actually the same. The distinction seems pretty meaningful and significant to me.

Police are organized in different institutional ways than the military; they are subject to civil law and civil control in different ways than soldiers; the purpose and function of policing is very different from the purpose and function of military force. And ultimately, the fact that (unlike the military) the function of the police is to exercise state power against subjects of the state seems to demand a totally different structure and ethos. I think it's just too reductive to say that all uses of state force are the same.

And a lot of those things are also the reasons why it makes sense to talk about police as civilians. Yes, it's true that police aren't exactly the same as other civilians, and they do have a right to exercise state violence in a way that other civilians don't. But compared to the military, there are a lot of differences. Police are a job that you leave at the end of the day, whereas military service requires a term of service and can punish you in extremely severe ways for desertion. And police are subject to civil law and oversight in a much more direct way than the military is. There are a lot of ways in which the military is set apart from ordinary civilian life which are absolutely not mirrored by policing. And ultimately, it's really important and central to the idea of police as a distinct institution that police should treat their job as being fundamentally different from the job of an occupying army.

In practice obviously police fucking suck, and a lot of police do treat their job like an occupying army. But I think that the distinction between police and military is still conceptually *useful* nevertheless.

It suggests there are reasonable historical grounds for the idea that there is a normative distinction between the ways in which the police and the military exercise state violence.
Which is irrelevant to whether that's actually a good point or not, so it's not a good defense about whether it's a good point.

The idea of a distinction between police and military is a really common one in theory, it's embedded in the law, and it's foundational to a lot of things about the organization of policing
I wouldn't say that actually, it was in fact first indistinguishable from military responsibility. In the same laws in fact. I'll grant you that when you get to 1812, Peel thought policing should be the line before military interference or jail, but that's all the distinction the Peelian principles give and suggest mostly that he viewed policing on a continuity of state interference as the least interfering, not necessarily strictly distinct from military purpose.

Police are organized in different institutional ways than the military; they are subject to civil law and civil control in different ways than soldiers
This is true of every institution of the state (including foreign affairs otherwise) and ultimately, of them all, the police operate the closest to the military in both function, form, and structure and furthest from every other institution in their subjectness to civil law and civil control, except for covert institutions which operate like nothing else, and institutions which have their own police. The difference seems to be primarily one of field, and I don't countenance that as an aspect that confers the distinction Vimes is making. But, frankly, what distinctions do you think are significant? I can certainly be over-looking something.

the purpose and function of policing is very different from the purpose and function of military force.
I don't actually think so at all. They both maintain state interests of stability and authority against those who they believe willingly oppose it. That they don't believe civilians will oppose it in the same ways as combatants doesn't change that imo.

Police are a job that you leave at the end of the day
You can leave at the end of the day, I think you mean. You also can have the authority to use it regardless of duty status.

whereas military service requires a term of service and can punish you in extremely severe ways for desertion.
That's not a inherent aspect of all militaries, but I'll say I agree with this distinction for the most part. I still think that's an aspect of target and not purpose.

And police are subject to civil law and oversight in a much more direct way than the military is.
Disagree to an extent, in that civil oversight of police is dependent on their status at the time, which is exactly the way most militaries operate, except their status isn't, as we've said, up for debate. There's some difference when police are said to act outside scope, but getting there....is up to the state. Moreover, outside the civil there's usually an internal system which is not civil oversight, and influences whether there is civil oversight a LOT. This is objectively better (aka more civil oversight) in the Europe, but still.

There are a lot of ways in which the military is set apart from ordinary civilian life which are absolutely not mirrored by policing.
When active or including when not active? I'd like to see more of what you mean. Are you including forces which are only called up?

And ultimately, it's really important and central to the idea of police as a distinct institution that police should treat their job as being fundamentally different from the job of an occupying army.
I understand the issue of cooperative public assent, but "the public" as a concept does not act like "the state" as a concept, and that papers over its purpose to act in the state interests of stability. In other words, I could believe your distinction if police were truly community led, but as long as they're not, they cannot help but be distinct force from the community. I don't know that you can prevent the attitude of occupation from that perspective.

Re: OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-17 18:58 (UTC) - Expand

OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-18 00:09 (UTC) - Expand

If nothing else, Pratchett was certainly idealistic about how police work should be adapted. He wasn’t big on brute force and retribution.

Besides, Nights Watch was also very firm in condemning both sides during revolutions. Police and authority with overreach will lead to a terrifying rule; anarchism and raw hatred for authority will only create destruction and a futile cycling of rulers.

One moment that stuck with me from that book was when Vimes tried asking people not to take the law into their own hands, and suffered a personal crisis of ideals when he realized his city's government wasn't bringing it. And yet, in the end, Vimes realized the best he could is following the laws and ideals he needs to follow.

Some ideas stick for a reason. And sometimes idealism is really necessary, because once a society becomes nihilist in its actions and beliefs, that's when things collapse.

lmao well "both sides are wrong" is another problem of thoughtless political discourse, lol.

Re: OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-17 05:40 (UTC) - Expand

OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-17 07:08 (UTC) - Expand

which is great, but if you want to pontificate that police should be treated like anyone else.....you can't use any force civilians aren't entitled to which would mean that there is no point to the police.

I've read all of Discworld and some of Pratchett's other stuff.

I'm exhausted so this may be more an asspull than a sensible argument, but the difference between the military and a police force is that a military is, on paper anyway, supposed to be fighting an enemy force made up of another country or countries soldiers, but a police force doesn't have an enemy.

They're supposed to stop crimes, but while theoretically an army has done well if they kill enough of an opposing army that they surrender, a police force is doing a shitty job if they stop crime by killing all the criminals.

Armies and police forces both wield state power, but on paper it's against different kinds of people with different end goals, wars on crime and the militarization of (especially but not only US) police forces aside.

Vimes isn't meant to represent a real world police officer or commissioner or chief, I don't think; he's not perfect, but he's definitely idealized in his views of what police and policing should be.

Idk if any of that made sense or even addressed your argument, which I am too tired to parse.

Was it that rl police are basically the military but treating their fellow citizens like enemy combatants, so people quoting Pratchett are being stupid in bringing up a fictional idealized officer?

Or possibly that by quoting Vimes or Pratchett they are saying that there is a "good" version of police/policing, however fictional, when all police and military are equally indefensible and evil uses of state power that ought to be abolished?

I need sleep, I think I'm being stupid rn. Sorry.

OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-17 08:27 (UTC) - Expand

Well, that seems reasonable. Civilians *are* allowed to use reasonable force to defend themselves and others from an imminent threat, so that's what regular police should also be allowed to do, with strict criteria for calling in specialist armed backup when there's the occasional reason to do so.

OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-17 07:20 (UTC) - Expand

I think you (and anyone using this quote to support US cops) are looking at this quote the wrong way around - you're seeing this as an excuse to let militarized cops off the hook, Pratchett is saying cops shouldn't be militarized in the first place.

uh no, I understand the quote just fine. it saying that cops are just citizens with authority, not military forces. my issue is that citizens with authority means you can't be treated as any other citizen and it's silly to pretend that you should, and there is no way for the state to act to reduce your rights without treating you as opposition to the state's interests, so it's also silly to pretend the distinction with the military is bright line.

No, it says cops *should ideally be* citizens with authority, not that they *are*. There are plenty of citizens with authority (medical personnel, social workers, MPs) who are not militarised, why should cops be different?

OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-17 08:34 (UTC) - Expand

Re: OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-17 19:04 (UTC) - Expand

OP

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-17 23:32 (UTC) - Expand

overall I enjoy the Watch books even though they're definitely failing to grapple with some of the fundamental problems of policing, but oh man BIG AGREE on being tired of people putting pratchett on a pedastal

the anti-intellectualism in his books is genuinely horrifying to me

i've never read any of his stuff. can you elaborate on the anti-intellectualism?

Huh, I never got anti-intellectualism from his work; it's hard to read Nation and come away thinking he hated scientific inquiry, for example.

I'm too tired to phrase this well, but I can sort of see where his skewering of institutional knowledge, distrust of authority by a lot of his characters, and the only commonly shown university being full of self-important whackjobs could come across as anti-intellectual, but Pratchett also had a lot to say about the uselessness and idiocy of things "everybody knows" and the "wisdom" of the mob. If he was anti-intellectual (I don't think he was exactly), he was also pro questioning assumptions.

They're books, not philosophical treatise. Perhaps it's time both the idolizers of his work and the trumped up graduates of Tumblr University like you and OP both gave it a rest.

do you understand what satire is? or literature? it's okay to think about things!

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2021-03-17 20:09 (UTC) - Expand

Philosophical treatises are also books

And it horrifies me how people confuse compassion for the less-educated (Nobby, Colon, various other significant characters) with anti-intellectualism. Seriously, where are you getting that? He fondly mocks the students at Unseen University but Stibbons is credited with various insights including the theory of evolution and he's equally mocking of the old boy's club of the administration. Various intelligent characters are lauded for their intelligence e.g. The Truth. It mocks the lowest common denominators of media, The News of the World type stuff. One of the most intelligent characters in the series is Vetenari and he's persistently shown as being a force of good for Ankh Morpork and the wider universe.

Yep. All of this.

I sure do love how you haven't replied to any of the people asking for clarification on that “anti-intellectualism” point.