fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5184 ]

[ SECRET POST #5184 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5184 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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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.

DA
Except that there are definitely situations where both sides are wrong. Usually even then one side is MORE wrong, but the other one can still be going about a justifiable cause in a way that does more harm than good.

I don't disagree with that, but I also don't agree with the dichotomy above which seems to be about revolutions as concept. I'm not like pro-vigilante or terrorists, but I also think the state abdicating its duty to preserve the rights of its citizens is declaring that they are in fact in opposition to its citizens (or some of its citizens). There's also a point where the relevant wrongness is irrelevant. Like I'm sure Haiti's revolution enacted stochastic and hell immoral and deplorable violence against french citizens, but uh, that was already happening to the slaves. Revolutions are rarely about pure hatred of authority OR anarchy, there's almost no reason to bring that up as a opposing view in a discussion about revolutions unless you're on some bullshit.

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.

I don't think you're being stupid at all, first.

I do think that that people assume the difference is the direction of state power and (most but not even close to all of the time) the field of operation. Citizens are (most of the time) entitled to more rights than combatants. But...I think that the state interests the military are advancing are not in fact different than the ones the police are advancing. The police and military are both advancing the stability of the state, and therefore state authority. The military could simply operate different hats towards different people on different "fields" and did and could because the people who could were of a higher class. (I think my greatest objection is in fact that class one, because the idea that police are just citizens with more power is I think mostly validated by the fact that not all civilians have the same power. I do not think we should be inculcating this understanding of citizenry or civilian status). But if enough people die in war, then you simply do not have enough of them to do this, and the state would eventually have to step in. Hence: police.

I do think Vimes is meant to be a character embodying a Socratic conflict regarding policing and coming to one side of them. His internal conflict is the point of him, and therefore I think his resolutions deserve scrutiny.

I just do not think it's possible to have a police force that has more power than citizenry and not have them ultimately believing they are enforcing in opposition of that citizenry. that's just not how institutions operate, even if Vimes as an individual can hold that consideration in his head. So more to the later, in that police in policing's construction as to the interests of the state cannot be civilians AND hold state power. it's an ideal that is mutually exclusive to its purpose to the state, and therefore I'm tired of people going "pratchett has the right idea about police!"

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.

If that were the argument for saying they were the same I probably wouldn't have a problem.

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[ SECRET POST #5184 ]

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