Yeah, even in a utopian anarchist society, there would still be some group of people empowered to enforce the rules as laid down by society, with force at the last resort.
I get that crime will diminish as we move away from capitalism, but there are still a ton of non-economic crimes of passion that will exist no matter how much material abundance there is.
I think they were teasing you. But in reality, cops fail to protect people All. The. Time
And to expect them to lay the hammer down on fascists is wishful thinking, at best
Most of the people commenting "never call cops" like to imagine they're living in an anarchist commune that's just overflowing with solidarity that's just waiting to drop the hammer on some chuds. In reality, we're all atomized and isolated and alone and some cope with that by doubling down on how radical badass they are. I'm at the point in my life where I don't foresee myself calling the cops in any situation that I would personally need help but I get that there are people who would
Getting the cops to take a bullet instead of you =/= snitching
Seriously. Do we want things to be easier or harder for our enemies? Do we want them emboldened to do whatever the hell they want or, at minimum, dealing with a lot of legal bullshit that will take up their time and energy? I'm not saying I'm excited about the prospect of Patriot Act II, but the might of the government is going to be pointed at somebody, might as well point them at our enemies as much as possible. Is that ideologically pure? Idk, but it sure is practical.
They won't be though. They will always be pointed at us in the end because we are the inevitable actual popular threat to their power and hegemony. Do you think it will be pointed at the cops internally? Or the militias? While there are different organs at play here with different interests, cheering on the might of the state apparatus being solely used to punish your enemies as opposed to, you know, give them matierial incentives to not be your enemies, is some lib austerity shit.
Trying to deprogram chuds is a good use of time, yes. But there are plenty who quite literally want us all dead, and any shit they get from the government is good with me.
Sure. But there are also plenty within the actual state that want us dead, more than they want chuds dead, so empowering them to ramp up control of any dissent isn't particularly helpful either. This isn't a good situation.
I guess I don't see reporting fascists as empowering the state to ramp up control of any dissent. Until things change massively, the control of dissent is getting ramped up no matter what we do--GOP or Dems, it doesn't matter, they want the same thing and we don't have an effective counter to that yet. So in the mean time, we all know that the expansion of surveillance, etc is going to be used against the left. That's a given, and it's bad. Not reporting fascists isn't going to make any of that stop though.
I suppose there is still some legal lib brain left in me here. The state can and will use these things as legal precedent to continue their actions, and justify their use later against leftists. I absolutely agree that control of dissent is ramping up no matter what, but actively encouraging the state and accelerating the process seems like a huge self-own if we are to ever try to establish independent authority. Idk, maybe I am thinking too many steps ahead here and need to be more pragmatic.
I get what you're saying with precedent and such, and I do get the aspect of manufacturing consent for further state control, and even the optics of saying that living in a police state is bad while saying "well, while you're at it, how about you arrest that fascist over there?" But the thing is, I don't think precedent matters that much because they're going to find a pretext for whatever they want to do anyway, the consent-manufacturer is going brrrr even if we say arresting fascists is bad, and that kind of concern for optics is skirting too close to a toothless "when they go low we go high" philosophy for my taste. I do get where you're coming from though, and I'd be the first to agree that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is pretty dumb and can get you into a lot of trouble. I guess what I'm aiming for is more of a "the enemy of my enemy can be a useful tool at times" kind of approach. But what do I know?
Idk, it definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth and doesn't pass my gut check, but again idk if that is leftover lib brain or materialist philosophy or marxist political analysis. Probably a bit of everything.
I will not be participating in it, but this kind of stuff makes me wish for some sort of democratic centralist organization to vote with and see what the organization as a whole wants to do in this instance. There are good arguments either way here and what action is actually to be taken should come from an actual committee decision making process, as opposed to individuals online.
IMO the precedent already exists (or as TillieNeuen said, they will make it anyway), and any contribution we make to that by reporting fascists is small enough to be pretty inconsequential.
But nobody needs to "empower" the state to crack down. It's not like they are watching leftists on twitter and saying "oh they like this we should do more!"
I mean, it definitely makes it easier for libs to do the same to us, idk though, maybe I am suffering from lib brain.
The more time and resources the feds spend chasing militia chuds, the less they spend chasing you and your comrades. The goal isn't to dogmatically ignore cops -- the goal is to build a successful leftist movement.
The problem is trying to find an absolute political or ethical principle that will always hold, right now, in an explosively contradictory point of development, history and society. The cops are "bad" always so we shouldn't rely on the cops ever or exploit the ability to pit the police against reactionaries because in doing so we give the appearance and therefore tacit endorsement of supporting the oppressive arm of capital.
It doesn't need to be that complicated, siccing the police on exposed fascists doesn't mean you endorse the police forever and it doesn't somehow seriously contribute to perpetuating the police because you've relied on their existence to confine fascists, they would persist anyway in the absence of large revolutionary changes. Don't rely on them for meaningful protection or assistance or service in any way, but if your expectation is them getting involved will fuck things for people, that's accurate, and if those people are fascists that's a win.
Personally, calling the cops should only be a response when you're okay with bringing a potentially deadly wildcard into the situation. If it's already a potentially deadly situation, or you're okay with making it potentially deadly, then sure go ahead and tell the cops to come out there and do something. If there's a way to de-escalate the situation or remove the deadly situation without the cops, then that's great and definitely don't involve them, but when it's a violent enemy who has obviously committed crimes, I don't see why you'd endanger yourself trying to deal with them when there's a violent gang that you can just tell to go fight them. Like, if you can trick a cop into doing something anti-fascist why the hell not?
Think of it this way. If you call the police, someone could die. Period. They have and will continue to show up for literally all sorts of calls and immediately shoot people for absolutely no reason. It's not common but it happens.
So. It's okay to call the police for something if you're ready to have their actions on your hands. If you call the police because someone stole your bike and they roll up and shoot a random bystander you need to live with that.
I personally don't talk to the police. For any reason. I will record them, but I will not call them and I will not answer questions. They are not there to protect my community
I say use the tools that are available to you. The state will crack down as much as they want on leftist movements and minorities regardless of weather people report the chuds to the police or not. So might as well get something out of it and rat out the chuds
Have these people ever heard of letting your enemies fight themselves? You have to be a galaxy brained leftist to not want the police and fascist paramilitaries to fight themselves, lmao
yeah it sucks but i think sometimes your only option might be to call the police, unless you want to do some vigilante justice and then face your own criminal charges.
but that first tweet almost gets it, don't commit any crimes with people unless you trust them
I 100% agree with the "don't commit crimes with people you don't trust", but also the first tweet was an extension of an earlier argument involving whether it was fascist to give tips to the FBI about people doing the Capitol raid.
yeah i get what they're saying and how they're wrong, i think it's good to report Chuds to the police if you can. but a lot of them made it really easy to get identified by posting about what they were doing/streaming as they charged into the capitol/didn't cover their faces, and it's not like the chuds would pass up an opportunity to report BLM protestors to the fbi
I dunno but they spammed me a ton and proceeded to get banned so maybe?
they've been bothering me all night too. it's just really pathetic lol
They spammed a shitty copypasta like 50 times to any comment I made that they could find. Seriously pathetic stuff
Yea I agree with you here. We have to use the tools that are available to us.
i don't call the cops. ever. in the vast, vast majority of cases, calling the cops results in them basically coming in, giving out whatever fines they possibly can to anyone around, and in some cases murdering innocent people and animals.
fuck the police.
but sometimes i want to let a bull loose in a china shop, seriously just call the cops on a group and they'll find some way to arrest them for bs reasons even if you did a false call
Some dude was high on heroin and hit my car and drove off back in April. I called the cops, gave them the license plate number, and which direction he was driving. They caught him within 15 minutes and my insurance didn’t go up for the incident, which was cool.
I still want to abolish cops, but my experience puts some confusion in me and I’m not smart enough to find the solution to yet.
Also not a fan of posting your twitter fights, but I'm not looking for validation, just opinions.
The alternative to the police is quite literally a communist party that acts uncannily similar to a protection racket. Like not even joking.
I just want a police force that has complete transparency and very heavy citizen oversight. Give them body cams and make it a felony to turn them off, make it a 4 year program, double sentences for cops found breaking the law, let the community have a vote in kicking out cops. Also take away their guns and let a special division of cops be there for situations that really need a gun.
There's gotta be a way to do community defence that doesn't turn into a protection racket.
Honest question: what are we to do if we see someone about to be physically harmed by a criminal and we aren't in a position to physically intervene?
If I'm in a wheelchair and see someone about to be murdered or raped, what choice do I have except inaction?
My one irl experience on calling the cops was seeing a group of drunk people kicking a homeless man on a Friday night. There happened to be a patrol car nearby (busy nightlife area) and the drunk guys broke and ran as soon as they heard the siren.
I stayed and watched until the cops left, they definitely did not kill the victim.
How does my situation gel with "never call the cops"?
So you tell me what I should have done?
Try to fight 6 guys by myself and get fucked up, or let a vulnerable person get kicked in the head repeatedly, possibly until death?
If you have a realistic third option, I'm interested.
