Ryan Waller, a 22-year-old man who, despite having a bullet in his eye, endured 4 hours of interrogation by cops who thought he was lying—only to receive medical help too late.

[u/SilkenSeraph]

[u/fakawfbro]

You just said it would be a better comparison, but alright, lol. Sure, let’s explore that. I didn’t say all pimps, but sure. For the record, saying “generally” is actually the opposite of generalization, ironically, because it’s acknowledging there are exceptions to what’s being said. Saying ALL x are x is a generalization, but is not the same as saying “all x are generally x”. Important distinction. Let’s pretend that’s not the case for conversation’s sake though.

Pimps, through their existence, take money from those who have earned it through selling their bodies. There’s also a high correlation, obviously, between pimping and sex trafficking, not just of adults but also of minors. The pimping “profession” exists outside the bounds of the law, and is essentially, in its absolute best forms, an extrajudicial form of vigilantism meant to prevent abuse of sex workers through financial and sexual abuse. In clearer terms, sex workers get protection from strangers in exchange for not being protected from their pimp’s abuse. Through prostitute’s work, pimps are enriched.

Cops are a publicly funded institution that has been put into power through democratic processes. They have regulations, governmental oversight (not nearly enough though, don’t get me wrong), and training (often not good training, again). Policing can do harm and can also be improved, but systemically speaking sometimes strays into useful territory. Police solve crimes on occasion, save lives on occasion, do good on occasion. Their abuse of law-abiding citizens is considered an anomaly and, when justice is done, will be punished harshly by the law. Pimps’ abuse, meanwhile, is the cost of their protection.

In my view, there’s more than enough clear distinctions between the professions to consider them wildly different things. Judging people based on their choice of career as some sort of morally enlightened arbiter is what I’m criticizing - but that doesn’t mean you can’t acknowledge the systemic reality of what that career entails. If the line was “cops are generally bastards,” I’d have no issue whatsoever with that rhetoric. That’s not what it is, though. It’s a willfully childish generalization of what the situation actually is, refusing to acknowledge exceptions, cultural circumstance, and the ethical complexities inherent in society needing some form of policing to prevent complete anarchy and, put bluntly, to prevent a rapist’s or murderer’s paradise from forming.

[u/ncvbn → u/fakawfbro]

1. You seem to be assuming that generalizations must be exceptionless. But that's not true. There are exceptionless generalizations and there are generalizations that admit of exceptions. Both are generalizations.

2. I did indeed say it would be a better comparison: cops are far more like pimps (predators) than like prostitutes (prey). You yourself have no issue with "cops are generally bastards" and you say that pimps are generally predatory. But I don't know of anyone in this conversation who thinks that prostitutes are predatory bastards, as opposed to victims of predatory bastards. So I don't know how you can avoid agreeing that cops are more like pimps than like prostitutes.

3. The bulk of what you write is about what differences there might be between cops and pimps. But even if you were 100% right, that obviously wouldn't do anything to undermine my point that cops are more like pimps than like prostitutes. There can be significant differences between cops and pimps, and still the cop-pimp comparison would be in much much better shape than the cop-prostitute comparison you were suggesting.

4. I think you're exaggerating the differences between cops and pimps ("wildly different things"). When you write that "Their abuse of law-abiding citizens is considered an anomaly and, when justice is done, will be punished harshly by the law" the parts in bold seem calculated to distort things. After all, abuse is abuse, and the case of pimps clearly illustrates that mainly abusing people who aren't law-abiding citizens doesn't keep you from being a predatory bastard. Moreover, it doesn't matter what's considered an anomaly; what matters is what is an anomaly. Finally, what happens when justice is done is of little relevance seeing as how justice is rarely done.

5. I really don't understand how you can criticize "Judging people based on their choice of career as some sort of morally enlightened arbiter", given what you say about pimps. You're definitely judging them based on their choice of career. It's definitely a moral judgment that presupposes your possession of at least a certain degree of moral enlightenment: enough to tell whether a certain career is blamably predatory. And as a judgment it definitely presupposes that you the judger occupy the role of arbiter. Of course, "as some sort of morally enlightened arbiter" sounds like it involves an arrogant claim to have an exceptional degree of moral enlightenment and to occupy an exceptional position of authority; but I don't see how anyone in this conversation could be credibly accused of having made that kind of arrogant claim.

[u/fakawfbro → u/ncvbn]

1. I completely disagree. Saying all x are x is a sweeping generalization, which is different than saying something is generally the case.

2. It’s a fact that there are those who look down on prostitutes due to their career. My point is that if you would criticize cops for that, you should be willing to criticize other professions too. I also don’t really care what’s a more apt comparison my guy, the ultimate point is the judgment of people’s careers, and what those careers actually bring to society.

3. Don’t care, not the point I was making. It’s the point you’re making that you’re attempting to conflate with mine. It’s also a stupid comparison if you ask me; cops will need to use force to enforce the law, and that has been deemed appropriate legally, even if in other contexts it would be seen as abusive. Pimps do not have that exception under the law. Pointless comparison because I’m not even comparing the careers themselves, I’m pointing out that to look down on others who judge based on career choice is idiotic if you do the exact same thing to cops.

4. Justice is “rarely done”? You’re making extreme stretches here. If you just wanna be lazy and make sweeping generalizations, do that, but don’t come out here complaining that other people aren’t interested in participating. What you call distortions I call acknowledgement of the variability of reality, aka the exact reason sweeping generalizations are stupid.

5. Yeah, I am, because pimps in general are predatory fuckheads in the best of times. What, are you going to start complaining that I look down on human traffickers, too? It’s just their career!!1! Jfc. The very existence of the job requires predation and cruelty. Policing can be done peacefully, and unlike pimping, is necessary to the health of a functioning society. If you can’t even agree that police are important in the most legally aboveboard of times, we’ll never see eye to eye cuz you’re on some stupid ass anarchy shit. I’m not gonna say all pimps are bastards, but I’ll happily say that in general, being a pimp presupposes some level of human evil. I’ll arbitrate that all I want because society does not need fucking pimps to function. Whining about cops regardless of who the cop is, what they’ve done in their police work, what their intentions are, what their background is, etc is fucking dumb because we need cops for society. You need some level of moral greyness which ACAB inherently does not allow for.

[u/ncvbn → u/fakawfbro]

1. Obviously there's a difference between "all Fs are Gs" and "Fs are generally Gs". My point was just that both are generalizations, not that there's no difference between exceptionless generalizations and generalizations that admit of exceptions.

2. If you don't care about whether the cop-pimp comparison is stronger than the cop-prostitute comparison, then you don't care about the central topic of this conversation. As for your point that critics of cops should be willing to criticize other professions too: they are. Critics of cops have no problem criticizing pimps or criticizing drug cartel enforcers or criticizing megachurch pastors. And of course that doesn't mean they should be fine with extremely foolish criticisms of professions, e.g. of college professors, of drag queens, of prostitutes, of medical researchers.

3. Again, which comparison is stronger is precisely what we were talking about. And again, there's nothing wrong with judging people based on career choice. As far as I can tell, you're the only one who's ever suggested that there's anything wrong with that, but then (it sure looks like) you engage in it yourself (which makes sense, given that it was a mistake to suggest that there was anything wrong with it).

4. Wait, are you saying that it's not rare for abusive cops to be held accountable for their abuse? I apologize if I'm misunderstanding you, and I don't want to attribute such an absurd position to you, but I don't know how else to interpret what you've written. And while there's nothing wrong with acknowledging the variability of reality, the clauses in bold only serve to obstruct a fair and honest apples-to-apples comparison of cops and pimps.

5. The point isn't that it's wrong to criticize pimps, the point is that it seems flagrantly inconsistent with what you've written about "Judging people based on their choice of career as some sort of morally enlightened arbiter". If you want to criticize pimps, that's great, but you need to stop suggesting that it's wrong to criticize people based on career choice. And of course, I never claimed that all cops are bastards, that society could function without cops, or even that cops are on a moral par with pimps. I only claimed that the cop-pimp comparison was stronger than the cop-prostitute comparison. So most of what you've written here is irrelevant.