LogFAQs > #965315398

I'd like to point out that I'm NOT ACAB. I've been one of the voices arguing loudest that ACAB and "defend the police", while feel good for the left-wing base, do more harm to enacting the policies they desire than good.

However, as more and more incidents happen like this one, it makes it definitely makes it easier and easier to agree with the ACAB mindset. Our tax dollars fund police officers' salaries, and they make good money and good benefits. Our society as a whole hero worships police officers in a way that few others receive (probably because soldier and firefighter network television shows, while still available, aren't as easy to produce as cop shows). And due to their police unions (which are very different from labor unions, since they're basically like forming a managers' union to protect against your employees), they hold an inordinate amount of power over your average citizen.

The motto on their badges says "To Protect and Serve", yet time and time again, it feels like those are empty words. Between the general plethora of shooting deaths of unarmed black men (unarmed people in general, but black people, and black men specifically seem to bear the brunt of it), and the militarized force against peaceful protestors (specifically protestors protesting police brutality)...and then the near-complete stand down on January 6th, plus countless instances of holding back when there's a mass shooter on the loose (who manage to get taken into custody a surprising amount of the time, given how factually dangerous they are)...it just raises questions about what purpose the police actually serve. It's like we pay the police to attack and brutalize innocent civilians (not how often we see riots occur and the police aren't there to stop it...yet they're plenty on-hand against peaceful protests), but when we need them to put their lives on the line to truly earn the paycheck we expect them to earn, they care about their own safety more than that of the general public. So it makes one question what purpose they serve in our society.