100% of american cops who have managed to keep their job for more than a year are bad people, there I said it.

Any cop who is a good person would have arrested dozen of their fellow cops by now for abuse of their position and likely gotten themselves fired long before a year had passed.

So when people say "not all cops are bad" my first instinct is, unless you were just hired a week ago, bullshit, your as bad as the rest of them.

@freemo This assumes all police precincts are corrupt.

@realcaseyrollins No, it asserts, correctly, that all precincts are corrupt. It isnt an assumption :)

@freemo Proof? :)

@realcaseyrollins Proof of a negative (lack of good guys) beyond simple reasoning is always going to be pretty hard to do.

Usually these arguments would need to be argued the other way. If a "good" precinct exists where bad cops are routinely arrested by their peers and the vast majority of cops are good, you'd have to show that as a counter example to disprove the underlying point. If such a precinct existed it would be much easier to prove than the corollary where such a precinct does not exist and one would have to prove a lack of such existance.

Do you know of a precicnt where it can be shown objectively they have no or very few bad cops?

@freemo IDK where I would find this; apparently, nobody makes articles or reports saying "yo, check it out, this precinct doesn't have any corruption!"

But you're not even going about this correctly; you cannot prove all police precincts are corrupt if you can't demonstrate whether one is not corrupt. This is an Argument from Ignorance fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance)

It can be your opinion, perhaps, but it is not fact until you can prove it.

@realcaseyrollins

I dont claim to be able to make a scientific white paper proving my case that can pass peer review.

But having lived in the USA most my life, I have seen it to be true first hand. I have never once witnessed a cop behaving morally when faced with a person who was being antagonistic (though non-violent and non-criminal) with them.

In literally 100% of the cases I've seen when someone isnt "respecting" an officer but well within their rights the officer invariable abuses their power to some extent.

I have seen it dozens of times in my life personally and have heard it from every single person who has ever done the same.

So is there maybe some hidden away fantasy land where police officers are good people... maybe I guess. But in all my years I've never heard of such a place within the USA.

As for if its my opinion.. well yes it is. But an opinion doesnt become fact when you can prove it. A fact is a fact and always has been one even if you dont **know** its a fact. so it is more appropriate to say that I have an opinion that this is fact.. which it is, because my opinion is right :)

@freemo Ugh...yet another fallacy, this time the Fallacy of Composition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition).

Perhaps in the places you lived, that was your experience, but that does not make your experience representative of the entire nation.

@realcaseyrollins As I stated it isnt limited to my expiernce just in the places I have lived. It is an opinion drawn from the composite expiernces of anyone I've ever known who has explained to me situations where they have been antagonistic to police though within their rights.

So in the end it is an opinion drawn covering a huge percentage of the places in america I'd say.

@freemo You know most of the people in the #USA? Dang, you're popular dude.

@realcaseyrollins No I wouldnt have to. But I certainly have spoken about this issue with thousands of people over the years from all across the country. That covers a huge swatch of america.

Like i said maybe there is one really exceptional mystical land hidden within a wardrobe somewhere within the USA I havent covered with this approach. But i doubt that is very likely.

@freemo

> thousands of people

There are like 330 million people in the #USA, IDK why you're pretending that knowing a small fraction of them means you know everything about all police departments.

If you've never heard of a single positive interaction with law enforcement, IDK what to tell you man. You're rare, I guess.

@realcaseyrollins

The number of people arent really relevant. A thousand people spread out over a thousand different precincts covers a **huge** swatch of america.

I didnt say I never heard of a single positive interaction with law enforcement. Read what I said again, my words were very specific. I have never heard of someone being antagonistic with police, disobeying their wishes, but being withint their rights without police abusing their power as a response.

I have no doubt there are plenty of positive interactions with police. I know a few rapists who are nice people sometimes too, doesnt mean I'm going to give them a pass.

@freemo

> disobeying their wishes

What wishes? Citizens need to comply with officers' requests, generally speaking (assuming of course they are lawful). It's kind of a big thing here.

> police abusing their power

In what way?

@realcaseyrollins No citizens are not required to listen to all of an officers request.

As I specifically stated I am talking about people who do not obey police but are within their rights.

A prime example (and one of the most common) would be someone videotaping an officer during their job, being told (and often lied to) that they are not allowed to do that, or other tactics to get them to stop, the person continues anyway, and is often threatened by the cops or even acted upon.

@freemo That's a fine example, but again it doesn't make it true that all precincts are corrupt. I won't believe that all precincts are corrupt until you can prove it.

@realcaseyrollins I only state what is true, I dont garuntee I can convince others of the truth :)

@freemo you can't prove it's true either, apparently :)

@realcaseyrollins
I'm not a statistician, but the argument seems odd to me. I'm normally quite impressed by freemo's statical perspective.

I can't think there's a lot of situations where would pass as a solid truth claim: I have personal experience and I heard others who agree with me, therefore the only only way I can be wrong is if there's a magical fairy land. Disagreement with my assertion is believing in magical fairly lands. *mic drop*

@freemo