this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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The Invention of Anarchism - Existential Comics (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 days ago by merdaverse@lemmy.world to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world
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source: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/637

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[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Forgive me but I do have some difficulty with your English, but if this is the point you are making:

Some could says we want reforms police, and use a different word. We do not. Institution reproduce themselves through the people in it. Even the most social advance organization for “law enforcement” with former cops in it will go wrong.

Then I will say, just because we are likely to make the same mistakes over and over is not an excuse to stop doing a thing if it helps, and I cannot subscribe to the belief that just because a thing CAN go wrong that it necessarily MUST go wrong. We can manage our world better with better policies and social structures, to abandon something just because it's been misused is like not using dinner knives anymore because they're used for stabbings.

Either we abandon modernity or we overhaul our system for maintaining and preserving it. I would respect the anarchist position more if it said that we need to return to a more primitive lifestyle. I would still think it's dumb, but I would respect it more.

We hate our police, but we would hate the alternative more. Those two facts can exist side-by-side without conflict, it's called nuance. I want a shining, gleaming future where people leave their doors unlocked, but we don't get there with police, and we also don't get there without police. We need new structures for dealing with evil, and we need to do a lot better in admitting and recognizing that evil is real and it WILL take advantage of whatever utopian visions you have. It just will.

[–] menas@lemmy.wtf 1 points 7 hours ago

Then I will say, just because we are likely to make the same mistakes over and over is not an excuse to stop doing a thing if it helps, and I cannot subscribe to the belief that just because a thing CAN go wrong that it necessarily MUST go wrong. We can manage our world better with better policies and social structures, to abandon something just because it’s been misused is like not using dinner knives anymore because they’re used for stabbings.

Yep. And to make better policies and social structure, we need to understand why it goes wrong. Modern police has been made with mercenaries, soldiers (18/19e centuries), slave hunters (19/20e centuries), gang members paid to terrorize union members, and nazis. Those people were fired for their skills, and taught others cops to do like them. Because it was need by the ruling class to keep the inequality that favor them : to keep slave in slavery, workers wish small wages, or keep away racialize and colonized people from the infrastructure build with loot of other countries.

I'm not saying that cops are evil people. Some cops know that kind of issues and want to be "a lesser evil", others want to be good but will believe in some stuff that give sense to the violence they are making (racial inequity, nationalism, ... ). In the end, a white collar triggering war, or funding war crime would have a better treatment than a hobo stealing.

My point is : the social structure are stronger than individual will. And the police is a social structure. Again, police as an institution with people, a hierarchy, and an history that produce it. The social function "protect everyone against violence" is important, and is not the police we are talking about.