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Football player Tyreek Hill was arrested the other day during a traffic stop. Because he refused to keep his tinted windows rolled down for the officers, they commanded him to get out of the vehicle. Because he refused to get out of the vehicle, the officers forced him to the ground for a detainment. In Florida, officers have the right to command you to keep the window low enough for (1) communication and (2) officer safety. This appears to be a universally agreed upon fact before this event, as for instance in a video by a criminal defense attorney specifically about a Floridian just two weeks ago, and in legal advice proffered online just a month ago.
Let us assume that the officers knew who Tyrell Hill was, which isn’t a given because of the arresting officer’s thick Latino accent. They would have every reason to treat him with precaution because of his domestic violence and assault record, meaning that a concern for officer safety is legitimate despite the subject’s fame. And really, even thinking about a subject’s level of fame before enacting a law or police procedure should make us recoil. We don’t want to do that, right? We should treat everyone the same. The typical talking heads, of course, are calling this police brutality.
I am interested in how this scene would be treated if the subject were of a different appearance and nature. Tyreek, a 1%er super-wealthy person of privilege, is extremely rude to a working class minority police officer. Let’s imagine some white CEO stammering to the minority police officer, “don’t knock on my window… I’m going to be late… don’t tell me what to do!”, while ignoring the officer’s requests. We would all agree that this behavior is unacceptable. We would rightfully delight in his retribution, being placed on the ground in subservience to the Law. The comments would read like, “white man realizes the law applies to him”. But Tyreek, a (former) criminal, has a social privilege that would never be afforded to a white CEO: he is a star athlete and the public implicitly expects less of him because of his genetic nature. I can understand the public behaving like the public, but it’s annoying to see media figures excusing the behavior, too.
I'm not sure how this got in my feed, but I've seen a lot of videos on X of police radically escalating situations beyond what's necessary. It often includes legal commentary on citizen rights and self-defense. Things like a police PITing a pregant woman and flipping her car for not pulling over fast enough during a stop. Police harassing a guy working on his car in a auto-shop late at night because its "suspicious". Cops bodyslamming a dad who's taking his autistic son for a walk at 6am and not carrying his ID. Surely there is a sampling bias here, but I do get the general sense that this closer to the norm than not.
I'm not sure exactly why people on right in the USA are till on the "thin blue line" team. Perhaps its because the median cop is more conservative. Perhaps its being more comfortable with authority and generally being more conscientious - leading to less altercations. Either way, I think theyre in for a rude awakening in the coming years. This doesn't strike me a stable equilibrium. The state pays the police. There is a chain of command. The state has a lot of tools. They can make the job miserable so the right leaning cops leave. They can implement vaccine requirements. Look at the UK police system for an example of where I think we're going. It seems like a total historical accident that this hasent happened already. The UK practically has political commissars enforcing western liberalism on anyone who sticks their head up. I have no doubt that TPTB want that for the USA. The only reason it hasnt happened already is that theyre dealing with thousands of individual police departments as opposed to like 10.
You clearly know why the right says it's for police.
"Thin blue line" is not a content free slogan, it doesn't just mean "pro-cop". It says something about the right's view of society that explains why they're pro-cop. The right has told you why and you clearly heard them.
Is the right so insincere that their given explanation doesn't suffice and we need to speculate ?
Why does the right say it, then?
If I had to guess at a bog-standard conservative belief… The average Republican voter probably thinks policing is difficult and unpleasant but necessary for a social contract, that they’d prefer a heavy hand to an absent one, and that the consequences of policing mostly fall on criminals who asked for it. But I’m not an average Republican voter, and I’m sure plenty of them would give a different explanation.
What’s yours?
It's just a difference in which criminals you're more OK with roaming the streets.
If we grant that these police are themselves criminals, and I honestly don't think the Right has much problem seeing that if presented in a sufficiently neutral way, the Left simply has a different view of which criminals should be permitted to [burn, loot, murder, etc.] and why that is preferable, and use every justification you listed to argue for that.
Which implies that the rank comes with certain privileges. The reasons people will give the "snarky" answer get at this but I think it's actually the most realistic answer, and is also why there's very little movement on ending the practice of no-knock raids and other property destruction [burning], civil forfeiture [looting], and qualified immunity [murdering].
The Left functions exactly the same way, they simply assign those ranks differently.
Most republicans admit that problem cops should face consequences/be dismissed before they literally kill someone.
Yes, but they generally don't believe in problem cops. Unless the cop is literally caught doing rape or murder, they side with the cop in all cop/citizen interactions.
Even this is not really true. The right wing gives police grace in the face of criticism because they, imo rightly, don't believe their opponents are acting in good faith.
The discussion is not really about whether there're bad cops, anymore than the education debate is about there're bad teachers (where I'm sure a right-winger can accuse progressives of refusing to grant this when it comes time to defend teacher's unions)
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Which mirrors how the Democrats generally don't believe in problem criminals and side with the criminal in all criminal/citizen interactions (rape or murder can make either D or R reconsider, but is far from guaranteed to do so).
In fairness, polite society has basically zero crime [and zero desire to commit crime] to the point that the populace's demand for crime exceeds its supply (and this has been true for most of the last 60 years, though it did spike hard in the '80s; the State filled some of the power vacuum with a massive expansion in regulations, saw that nobody pushed back, and as such continually seeks new and exciting criminals per popular demand). Much like one's choice of beer, traditionalists prefer domestic perpetrators of crime where progressives prefer the imported stuff.
IIRC, if you actually look at beer preferences by brand, republicans drink better beer than democrats. I suspect that a big part of this is race effects.
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That's a big stretch to do both-sidesism. Not believing in problem criminals is a whole lot less understandable than not believing in bad cops.
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