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[hector13]

That’s the kind of joke people go to Hell for.

[McTraveller]

Nah, they usually go to Hell for much more mundane reasons. Like to get the t-shirt.

[Vector]

But make no mistake - as Vector said, despite all its ills, much of what you come to enjoy as modern civil rights - especially for women - has its roots in early Christianity and institutionalized as  Catholicism.  From my protestant viewpoint, the only things I take issue with Catholicism are the preeminence of the pope and the focus on shame and ritual (I can't speak to the claim of "something bad happened to you, you must have unrepentant sin"; Christ himself said that was a wrong view ("This man with the withered hand - who sinned, him or his parents?"), I didn't think Catholicism held to that belief...).

I'm mostly not talking about Protestants at large in that post above, for clarity. It's supposed to be a strict contrast between the Evangelical churches and the Catholic church on the topic of guilt, abortion, and how the "right to life" fits into other ideas. Both Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism are under fire for anti-abortion viewpoints right now, but in addition to that, both of them find truth within the expressions of their priesthood, as opposed to from within the Biblical text.


For your other comment, I want to emphasize what you already know, namely the Catholic tendency to communicate in visual images and in physical objects and not a text. Most Catholic institutions are decorated with the stations of the Cross (I've even seen paper ones posted to the fence outside a school before) and images of the Virgin Mary, along with candles, basins of holy water, fairytale architecture made of stone, and so on. And, in the middle, a big cross usually with a Jesus on there who is having a very bad time. In Europe, cathedrals will have 1 bones upon bones in catacombs and 2 relics (little tatters of the bodies of saints or objects associated to them). Compared with Protestant and Anglican institutions, the buildings are strangely decorated in a, dare I say it, maximalist fashion. Light, color, and images of torture.

These physical objects, the priests' actions, and the actions of the congregants are the Bible because a good Catholic may be illiterate; their Bible is their community.

What do these objects say?

For a Catholic, the very first task is to understand, or not understand: "Once upon a time, something extremely bad happened to a very good man." The priest mutters at you in a language you don't know (Latin) and you may not even speak the language of the other church-goers. You see person after person walk into the building, take water, and make an unusual sign as they go to their knees, then walk to the side. The windows are covered in pictures of people, the roof is the tallest roof you have ever seen, there are candles in the daytime, sunlight seems to be coming from nowhere, there is singing, a fog of sweet-smelling and mildly hallucinogenic smoke. Eventually the man in the brocade robes gives a line of the people with you something to eat that you can't touch. It's a little piece of bread (?) that is stored in a special metal holder ... decorated so that it looks like the sun ...

All of this is confusing . . . but it provides the core message. "Stick with us. We have food and water we'll give you. We have abundant, abundant wealth and understanding of mysteries that allow us to create these unusual, colorful buildings. We control politicians and labor enough that we managed to source all this stone and all these candles. We know things that you don't know. Do as we say! Do what we do! Look, it's simple: take some water. Cross yourself. Yes, you are going to suffer, and it will be terrible. Some very good men from our group suffered before you and we kept their things and remembered them. We and you are and will be like them."

As for the Pope, you need to keep all of this under control somehow. You can't just rely on people picking up the Bible and learning your religion from it, because your Bible isn't in the book, it's in the buildings and the priesthood. You need to keep the priests fed, the buildings maintained, and inspire the people by publicly releasing a dove once in a while.



On another note, there was a bill that just went through the House on combating the presence of neo-Nazis in the military, and every single Republican voted against. Oy vey!

[nenjin]

Any choice quotes for their oh-so-well reasoned objections?

[hector13]

Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, as did all other House Republicans, voted against the measure. He argued, “This amendment attempts to create a problem where none exists by requesting investigations into law enforcement and the armed services for alleged rampant white supremacists or white national sympathies.”

In late 2020, The Brennan Center published a report entitled Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism White Supremacy and Far Right Militancy in Law Enforcement. The paper lists no fewer than 121 footnotes documenting instances they call the government’s “strikingly insufficient” response to clear threat.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law

[EuchreJack]

report their beha­vior to prosec­utors who might unwit­tingly rely on their testi­mony in crim­inal cases

Yes, because prosecutors aren't racists...

[hector13]

report their beha­vior to prosec­utors who might unwit­tingly rely on their testi­mony in crim­inal cases

Yes, because prosecutors aren't racists...

Where does it say that prosecutors can’t be racist?

[Rolan7]

It's sarcasm.  EuchreJack highlighted the word "unwittingly" because the article is implying that a prosecutor would only accidentally act on racist testimony.  It's funny because in reality the prosecutor is likely to be in on it.

Sorry if I'm typing weird, I'm a bit endorphin-high right now

Edit: In fact yeah, it doesn't outright say the prosecutors *can't* be, but it's kinda funny how they ignore the possibility and assume it would be an accident.

[bloop_bleep]

Though at least prosecutors are licensed professionals who have to pass an exam and in most cases have to attend 3 years of law school. Whereas cops seem to be mostly selected without discretion in a process laid bare to the ambitions of bumfuck useless power addicts. In my opinion that's the main central reason for this problem. I think that's what breeds this culture.
 

[nenjin]

I think you have to go way, way back in American policing to find the start of the problem. Pinkerton, for example. What passed for police originally in America where private security forces that were well-funded and equipped for the time, and were used for all sorts of things, from suppressing workers to human trafficking. They eventually become the model for "professional policing." (Maybe you can even go back further to the highly rugged and individualistic nature of law enforcement during the Wild West. The "romantic" notion of lone law men above reproach, blah blah blah blah blah fantasy.)

Now law enforcement organizations are self-perpetuating entities. They exist primarily to continue existing, secondarily to do the job they were created to do. They have an insular, elitist mentality of us vs. them (see: how military personnel tend to talk and feel about civilians) and lately it seems like they're recruiting based on people's willingness to be part of that. Less that they care about justice, doing their jobs well, actually maintaining law and order, etc....They want loyalty above all, and what end that loyalty serves varies by the individual culture of law enforcement agencies around the country. And people are fascinated by becoming part of the LEO fraternity, just like people are fascinated by joining the military for the same reasons. And then, to pile on THAT, is the belief in Law Enforcement that their sacrifices are not appreciated or respected or valued or can't make a dent in crime and shittiness, so why risk yourself for the public? Put on the uniform, go through the motions, frag some dirt bags when you feel like exercising your power, enjoy the prestige of being a cop and eventually collect your pension.

And then into that mix you inject the actual racists and psychopaths.

I hate ACAB because it just discourages good people in law enforcement from trying, since they're bastards too by association. But it's getting harder and harder to argue against saying it when you've seen a summer like this summer.

That said, I watched a lot of police audit videos in the last couple years (citizens filming police-citizen interactions or testing the limits of the law and putting it on Youtube), and I saw plenty that made by blood boil. But amidst all that shittiness and abuse of power and not understanding the law.....there are cops out there trying to do the right thing. I watched one female officer hold back a much larger male officer who was about to kick the shit out of a cuffed suspect in a moment of rage. She damn near got knocked the fuck out herself, the enraged cop looked like he was ready to tear her apart before more people got involved. All caught on camera. There are some police officers out there that are trying to do their jobs the right way, instead of just quitting like most of us would. That's heroism of a new kind, and to say ACAB just shits all over those people. So I try not to, because we need them. And they may be the seed of a new breed of law enforcement this country needs if it's going to survive.

To sum it up, Law Enforcement needs to be dethroned. Their status in society needs to change. The way they think of themselves vis-a-vis society needs to change. Forget waiting for internal change, we're so far past that. And the only way to hurt them is financially. I think we're seeing more of that trend, but not enough of it. It's a fucking travesty anyone who was at the school in Uvalde still has a job right now. Police departments need to be sued and their budgets should affected. Their pensions should be affected. When there's actual consequences for what they do at an organizational, the liabilities will be gotten rid of or those organizations won't survive. It doesn't matter if a dirt bag cop goes to jail if the rest of the dirt bags don't learn from it. And as for retaliation, they're already doing literally nothing in some cases, how much worse can they do their jobs in protest? Probably not much.

Police Unions are also something that as a political body need to be looked at. They're a special interest all their own and we should be even more concerned about their effect on politics than we are about oil companies, tech companies, big pharma and all the others. Because if there's going to be a boot on your neck, it's going to be an officer's boot guaranteed. So the body representing them needs to be treated with maximum skepticism and transparency.

[Doomblade187]

One thing i find interesting is whenever someone says "There are plenty of christians who do good and follow non racist beliefs" is that while it is true (big tent and whatnot), there's lots of data showing that the increased political polarization has actually driven a lot of people away from religion over the past few years. Many people probably didn't realize until trump,  etc. came along how conservative and political their churces really were, and it's had knock on effects too.

and remember folks - you can't change the policing system from within (you can try but they arrest/institutionalize/hurt you for it, historically speaking). By staying within the policing system, while you may be able to do some local change, actual systematic change is likely impossible and you may well.be contributing to it by staying.

[MaxTheFox]

The vast majority of Christians are just normal people. You hear a lot about the fundamentalists because they are the ones making noise.

[Random_Dragon]

There's also no doubt some degree of overlap involving secular-minded people who simply don't really put up with organized religion and its problems anymore, aren't the church-going type, etc while still maintaining their own beliefs.

It's fairly easy for someone who isn't awash in creationist nonsense and incessant peer pressure from people who make dogma their living to be able to reconcile their beliefs with the needs of a secular world, without actually discarding it. If anything I feel like that sort of self-aware agnosticism this can lead to (i.e. "I don't know, and I know that it's impossible to know, but I will retain my belief without stressing over whether it'll be proven wrong in the next life, and accept that those of different faith are doing the same in their own way") fits the the definition of faith than the sort of blind parroting of scripture most people who self-identify as having faith are inclined towards.

That such a live and let live attitude isn't more common among religious organizations, and that there seems to be a deep willful ignorance of fun lil things like historical context, the intricacies of interpretation and translation (despite theology as a field of study being basically all about that) is yet one more problem with the world among many. :/

[McTraveller]

The challenge with calling for extensive law enforcement reform is that communities need continuous law enforcement services.  You can't just gut a police force and make it ineffective, you have to somehow replace it.  The same problem exists with the education system, the health care system, etc.

That is, you have to somehow get enough of a newly-trained force to come in and replace the messed up one all at once, not some sort of gradual change.  So you need to have some period of time where you're literally paying for two police forces (or whatever).  It's an expensive investment that, as much as people already scream about the ills they experience, the general public just isn't willing to fund.  So the pessimist in me is like, "well it must not really be that bad then, because the collective is not willing to pay to fix it."

It's an interesting problem space to contemplate.

[Frumple]

It's literally a solved problem, you sub in nat guard or whatever while the district is reorganizing. It's been done before in the past with particularly fucked up precincts, iirc.