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In reply to the discussion: Obama Says Anti-Cop Rhetoric Can Hurt Black Lives Matter [View all]Sand Rat Expat
(290 posts)Every positive interaction with the police doesn't get the same traction in the news that the negative interactions do. Thus, there's no way to account for them. But if the negative interactions outweighed the positive, it stands to reason there'd be a whole lot more dead bodies in the streets.
And if they don't save lives or protect us, then we could do away with the police entirely and let the chips fall where they may, right? That's the endpoint of the argument you're making.
And I believe that most cops, like most people (and cops are people, after all...) are fundamentally decent people who try to do the best they can. We need to do better at weeding out the people who want to be cops for the wrong reasons, like the power trip and the authority fetish types.
And speaking as someone who, I daresay, knows a little better than most what cops deal with on a daily basis, that sympathy is warranted. It's not a job I could ever do.
There is a police brutality problem, yes, and it needs to be dealt with. But that doesn't change the fact that the majority of cops are decent people doing a tough job for the right reasons, and I won't be party to or stand silently by while the good ones are smeared along with the bad ones.