Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

>Sometimes, quitting is just setting the stage for the next unscrupulous individual to come in and really muck things up where at least if you are still there, there's a brake, and a voice in the room

Then don't quit and do your job. Simply not doing the job you are paid to do isn't an option. There are parts of my job that I do that I don't agree with. Its called life.

>Those dead set on abusing power would prefer that all those principled people would just get out of the way to let them steamroll the populace or enact their designs.

This is rich. The NYPD is abusing their power. This isn't some valient cops sticking up for us. It's criminals who want to continue to act in a criminal manner.

>It isn't a right wing thing.

Yes it is

>Lets say every cop isn't fine with law X. You say you'll dismiss every cop who won't enforce it. You start doing it. You fire cops in droves. You'll very quickly start running out of candidates for the job, or you'll find yourself having to make concessions elsewhere. In fact, if it's a lot of cops you get rid of, you may find yourself short of any degree of law enforcement.

I mean yes, you are just describing how police hold the public hostage to avoid accountability. That doesn't make it okay for them to do it.




>Then don't quit and do your job. Simply not doing the job you are paid to do isn't an option. There are parts of my job that I do that I don't agree with. Its called life.

Nope. To hell with that. Paying me buys my time. It does not buy unthinking compliance. It does not get you my integrity. It gets my sense of right and wrong, my knowledge, my skills oriented on furthering whatever it is you're doing as long as you're keeping it clean. Cross the line, and as the best equipped person to dig in and drag your ass back, you will find yourself square in my sights. "Go lynch the darkies." "Go do some transparently corrupt BS." I will not follow those orders, and I won't get out of the way to let you find someone else more willing to do it for you. You want to do it anyway? Good. Fire me. The ensuing scandal will amuse me greatly. You think you can weather it? Good for you. Maybe you can, but it won't be at the expense of turning my back on what I know to be right. You don't get to cherry pick for the next unscrupled piece of meat while I'm around. Evil is that which is left in the void created by the inaction of Good people.

>This is rich. The NYPD is abusing their power. This isn't some valient cops sticking up for us. It's criminals who want to continue to act in a criminal manner.

Yes. They are. Arguably because either all the principled cops followed ypur advice/caved to the pressure to make their Brothers in Blue's lives easier and have stopped fighting to keep the PD above board, or you've made the job so impossible to reconcile or do in a legit manner, that the only ones attracted to it anymore are more into the power fantasy in the first place, and not genuinely in there to keep the peace or serve the cause of Justice.

>Yes it is

>I mean yes, you are just describing how police hold the Public hostage to avoid accountability.

That's cute, but no, wrong. The police are part of the Public. Posse comitatus, remember? Who do you think you're hiring from, huh? You can't force squat beyond the capabilities of convincing a group of prople to do violence on your behalf. Whether that is the police force in question, or some other group; coercion and capitulation happens only at the tip of a weapon used in anger, no matter the form. If you put them in opposition to you; you have no position of legitimacy or power when the people expected to be the instrumentality of that authority do not align with you. They are the ones willing to even attempt to do the damn job.

So again. You want it done, but nobody is willing to do it. This isn't their problem, this is your problem. You can shout and curse, and deny that all you want. You aren't, at the end of the day, entitled to anyone else to put their skin on the line to provide you a Police force tailored to your liking. No one owes you that. We've run and organized them out of a common interest and recognition that not making them causes more strife in the long run. That still doesn't mean anyone is beholden to them (the Police), or that they (those making up the Force) are beholden to anyone beyond their own sense of obligation. They are fundamentally volunteers.

What are you going to do anyway, make Police unions illegal? Oh wait... I mean, the Federal government thinks that making collective bargaining by anyone inconvenient illegal is going to work out for them in the long run. All it does is prove to more and more people that Leadership is completely out of touch with reality, though.

>Right wing thinking

If you think that something that can be extrapolated simply by observing the mechanics of how human beings collectively organize to get things done is "right wing"; well, I guess that's on you. Tell ya what though. See an awful lot of rich people evading taxes, and not a whole lot of skilled IRS agents to go after them. See an awful lot of "less than legal" decisions made in many tech businesses, but hardly any prosecution. I see a heck of a lot of drug crimes leading to convictions... But golly gee, it seems the investigators responsible for handling police misconduct are frequently blue-balled, limp wristed, under-funded, and not exactly generating the highest rate of evicting corrupt actors from the force.

Sure seems to me like there is indeed, a difference between the law as written, and the law as enforced. Note, I'm not saying they align with me, or I align with them. I'm simply stating de facto law is the law only in so much as the rank and file, the boots on the ground, enforce it; period. If that weren't the case, you'd never see things like Sanctuary cities.

Life is not black and white. Politics encompasses all that gray in between, and as much as it may frustrate you, not one cop on the force is there without their oen unique prioritization about what is worth enforcing and what isn't. If you think you can do a better job, with a group of like-minded people to yourself, then do it. Start up a competitor to the NYPD. Challenge them. Shake them up. Until you are angry enough to do so, nothing will change. Even if you do, nothing will fundamentally change about any of my points though; because each of your group of Big Apple PD will prioritize your particular umwelts of law enforcement, and let the rest slide as unable to be enforced, or not ultimately worth it, just like the NYPD ultimately does.

Welcome to life. You only have one, and ultimately, you are the one responsible for everything you do in it. Employed or not. You don't get to dodge respondibility for you deciding to do something fucked up because someone else told you to, and happened to be paying you at the time. Your responsibility to be a decent, morally upstanding person comes first. Your failure to do so is no one else's fault but your own. No one said it was easy, or that the battles would be fun, or come at a convenient time, or that any of us will see all of what we want to see done, done. What gets done, generally does so because a lot of people made the best tradeoffs they knew/felt they could make to do the right thing to them at time. We can have a lively argument about the relative merits of one view vs. another; that's politics. I'm pretty sure though, that unless you're willing to take the reins from those you're dissatisfied with the performance of without sacrificing the performance of any other duties you have in life, then the amount of change you're going to realize trends toward whatever everyone else is willing to throw you a bone in terms of making happen in your stead.

Good luck.




The deadline for YC's W25 batch is 8pm PT tonight. Go for it!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: