No, they aren't. Even if they are kind and friendly to you, they are still cops. They are still the state sanctioned users of violence whose primary job is to keep the status quo in which the rich own everything, and the workers don't. Where people live on the streets and children go hungry.

[–] smb@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 months ago

basically a system that makes crime necessary to survive only due to unaccounted crimes of the rich so that cops can claim they would "solve problems" but aren't because they mainly accompanied the rich causing them?

[–] stepan@lemmy.cafe 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Just a few days ago in my country cops arrested several rich bastards for corruption. They took the Mayor of a big city, member of currently most supported (and populist) political party, in handcuffs. At least those I know believe they are making world better and safer, and I think that by catching criminals they are. That's their actual job, and that's what they do. And I'm glad that if I got robbed, I can call those "bad people" and they will try to find whoever robbed me. And they are not "state sanctioned user of violence". If a cop shoots a person here, they are heavily investigated, even if the person was a criminal.

[–] BlackDragon@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Just a few days ago in my country cops arrested several rich bastards for corruption.

But every single rich bastard is corrupt and commits crimes against the people daily. The fact that very occasionally cops arrest a couple of them and then once in a blue moon maybe one of them sees an actual punishment doesn't change the fact that the status quo is for those rich bastards and all their rich bastard buddies to live in luxury on the backs of the unfairly compensated workers and that the job of the cops is to enforce that status quo through violence.

And they are not “state sanctioned user of violence”

If I tackled you to the ground, bound you hand and foot, shoved you into my car, drove you to my headquarters and locked you in a cage, you wouldn't consider that violence? What exactly would it be then?