BrobyDDark said
A Cracked article? That's really what you're going to bring to the table to try to counter his statement? Alright, let's delve into it and see what these guys have to say about police.
Upon reading it, I can say that that article is not just stupid, it's blatantly stupid and incorrect. It takes bits and pieces from the Ferguson shit and draws conclusions that would fit right in with conspiracy theorist "logic." The most obviously stupid part of it is that it's taking things from Ferguson and then saying that all police are bad and think the same way, but there's plenty more stupid to go around in that article.
Their first point ("Cops Separate Themselves From the Community") totally falls apart if you stop and think about their argument for it. Not naming the police officer in a time when there were large and angry crowds quite literally calling for his death as "justice" = cops care more about themselves than non-cops? How? That's just the logical thing to do, no matter if you're a cop or not. You don't give the name of the current hate lightning rod out to the angry fucking mobs, not unless you're purposely trying to get him and his family hurt. The other points the writers tried to use as evidence for this include a cherry-picked quote devoid of context (which is actually just the article title, in fact), completely misunderstanding a quote from a different article, and facepalm-worthy misunderstandings of some basic things (why cops carry guns, how police work is similar to customer service work, and what police uniforms are meant to do). This level of stupid crap would be called out as a horrible failure of logic and reason even in a middle school level paper.
Their "Cops See Civilians as the Enemy" point does similarly stupid things. This time they add the good old slippery slope into the mix. They say that Ferguson police being overly aggressive in trying to deal with rioters and protestors comes from all police (another fun generalization) starting off kind of paranoid about how anyone could turn violent, then it slips into them thinking everyone could or will become violent against them, which then slips into them viewing every non-cop as an enemy. It says they walk around all the time viewing civilians as enemies, which is somehow proven by how the Ferguson police acted. They of course make no mention of how dealing with large groups of protestors and rioters are extremely fucking different from average everyday police work, in that the large and angry groups of people who are in a very anti-police mindset are very clearly a potential danger to the well being of police officers, which of course would put cops on edge. Imagine if you were a teacher and there were huge mobs of people screaming about how teachers are awful running around your town. You'd be fucking scared of those groups too, and fear fucks with your head. The Ferguson police absofuckinglutely fucked up in numerous ways, but trying to take those actions and derive something like "all cops see all civilians as an enemy" is utterly foolish.
"Cops Do Not to See Citizens As People" is predicated on the idea (which I will grant is fairly well supported) that people only have room to make actual lasting personal connections (not how they phrase it, but that's what it boils down to) with about 150 people at a time at most. They say that because of this, cops do not view citizens as people, but rather as objects. They also bring up a completely unrelated thing of a guy not being personally recognized (y'know, by name and shit) by cops after many years of going to police community outreach meetings and hanging out with drug dealers to write a book about them, and they say that's somehow proof of cops not seeing people as anything more than potential threats and objects. Now, this one is bloody stupid because it's so easy to disprove. Go look at a busy street some time during the day, take a look at all of the people walking around. Can you recognize that they are living human beings rather than objects? Do you understand that they all have feelings and rights and shit just like you? Good for you. Cops can do that too. Oh, look at that, turns out this point is just as dumb as the first two, just better disguised by trying and failing to use the work of smarter people as support.
"Cops Chose to Be Badass." Yeah, that's the summarized statement they chose for what they stage as their biggest and most important point. Just let that sink in for a moment. They go on to claim that, essentially, the dark colors of their gear and uniforms plus their use of things like body armor and large guns (AKA the riot gear used by Ferguson police, though they don't outright make that connection and imply that cops go around with that shit all the time) means that they've consciously chosen to try to look and be badass. Furthermore, this apparently means they've decided to behave like movie villains because villains are more badass than heroes in movies. Yeah, that's right, dark colors and modern technology usage means the police view themselves as Stormtroopers now. Their support for that is an article which, funnily enough, has a bit near the end that mentions a study where people were asked to judge police by their uniforms and those wearing all black uniforms were judged more favorably than others. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, they also make a false correlation by saying police ability to enforce the law has become weaker as their uniforms get more dark and bad-guy-ish. I could just say "correlation does not equal causation" and leave it at that, but it gets even funnier. That article they used as support mentioned a bunch of experiments with less militaristic uniforms, but that "By the 1990s, a uniform backlash was under way," meaning the general trend was going for darker and sterner uniforms for US police forces. Here's where the funny shit comes in: since the early-mid 1990s, crime rates of all kinds in the United States have
gone down, often by a lot, would would indicate better ability to enforce the law rather than a weakening of that ability. Here's
a chart showing violent crime rates from 1960-2010, and here's
a chart showing property crime rates from 1986-2005. Great research skills there, Cracked article writers!
So yeah, that whole article is a fucking farce. My favorite bit comes from that final point they try to make. "We don't understand crime, police work, poverty, or oppression, and we won't pretend to." They admit to not understanding crime or police work or oppression, yet they wrote an article about how the police are doing their work wrong because they're handling crime improperly by way of being too oppressive. Oh hey, look at that, their whole article is about three of the four things they admit to knowing nothing about. Imagine that.
Take this thorough reaming as a lesson, boys and girls. Cracked is a clickbaiting site where people try to be super edgy and sensational to spark arguments in their comments sections to rack up those page views and that sweet ad revenue. You wouldn't trust the average exaggerating edgy kid to make your arguments for you, would you? Then don't link a fucking Cracked article in response to any even semi-serious discussion. If you're going to be blatantly and alarmingly stupid, do it with your own words rather than relying on what some other asshole wrote. That way at least you'll be able to attempt to participate in a meaningful discussion instead of being laughed out of the room for being stupid
and lazy.
