# Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942 "2014-10-10T07:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 11344
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/11344 "2017-09-03T21:31:44Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Which is why it is disturbing that police are using military tactics and equipment against their communities. They are creating an us vs them situation, which is why it is unsurprising that these abuses happen. Saying the police are using military tactics is ridiculous hyperbole. > [@](#): > > Ridiculously incorrect. If unions create and us vs them environment, it is that of employee vs management. Unions do not create a union vs public environment. The militarization and lack of accountability of police towards abuses in their community create that. As you say later, the bosses of the police are the public. It’s obvious that unions will create or exacerbate that divide. Unions also create a divide between workers and the government, workers and other, non-unionised workers, and between them and the public who see the unfairness they promote. This isn’t the 1920s, and worker’s rights are enshrined in law. The only valid function of a union these days is to ensure those rights are recognised, by funding legal action. > [@](#): > > That people protest police abuses, or criticize the police for abusing citizens and terrorizing communities is what ensures that the police maintain a us vs them mentality? Sound like the police that feel this way either need to stop being delicate snowflakes, or they need to get a different job. No, the people who protest against the police who are doing their jobs, and lump all police together as bad guys, are the ones who are causing or exacerbating that divide. There are several hundred, at minimum, posts in this thread doing just that. > [@](#): > > And that’s where you get really stupid(er). The police need to change, yes. The public, no. The police serve the public. If the public is not being served properly by the police, it is the police who need to change and serve the public properly, not the public who should accept corruption, abuse, and oppression in their neighborhoods by those “few bad apples”. Where a section of the public is lying about the police, or actually breaking the law, they need to change. Just as the police need to change when they are doing that. > [@](#): > > There is no one in this thread, and scarce few in real life who would advocate for not having police (yes, there are some stupid anarchist out there, and some may even have blogs, if they are the ones that you are actually refering to, go talk to them). So every time you make such a claim, you show once again just how stupid and dishonest you really are. Is it not this thread where **MrDibble** has explicitly said he’d prefer not to have any police? In one of these threads, **iiandyiiii** has said that having a police force does more harm than good to black communities. Apart from that, there are many people here who have disdain and disrespect for the police in general. They are entitled to that view, but the consequences of it are obvious, and obviously negative. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942)._