“Instead of catching real criminals and terrorists, we are arresting pensioners and disabled people calling for the saving of children’s lives,” said one Metropolitan Police officer.

  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    ACAB holy fuck.

    If my boss told me at my job, I had to attack genocide protesters or I would be fired, I think I would rip out his jugular with my teeth and then quit

    • porksnort@slrpnk.net
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      3 days ago

      To be fair, cops have no other marketable skills, so rage quitting has more serious consequences than for normal people with transferable skills.

    • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
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      This isn’t like working in fast food, where you can just find another job right away. You’re talking about abandoning a career the officer has spent years building.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        4 days ago

        Principles aren’t principles if you only follow them when they’re easy.

        • crapwittyname@feddit.uk
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          3 days ago

          Principles can be in conflict though. The promise to provide stability for your family, for example, is often more urgent than more lofty political principles. In this situation, looking actively for another job whilst continuing to perform the tasks you disagree with at a level of bare minimum compliance might be an ethically acceptable compromise.

          • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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            3 days ago

            You dont have a line you wouldnt cross at work? Arresting someone carries a risk of harm, would you harm someone else daily whilst looking for new work?

            • crapwittyname@feddit.uk
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              2 days ago

              There are tons of lines I wouldn’t cross at work, but those lines would be different in another job. If arresting people is generally part of your job description, then I would expect you to have different red lines.

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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          3 days ago

          Easy to say but my job is shit and what real choice do I have? Sure I can look for something else but there isn’t much out there.

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            3 days ago

            Are you a cop? If so then you don’t need me to tell you about all of the private security gigs that are going because you 100% already knew about them.

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            4 days ago

            I’m not claiming to be the moral arbiters of the nation though, am I. They are, that’s the job they chose to do, it’s not my fault they suddenly don’t like it. Same for the military in the US wandering aboud LA, and DC.

            • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
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              4 days ago

              Demanding they quit because of this has definite “I live with my parents” vibes though. I doubt that person has a mortgage.

              • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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                2 days ago

                This is bullshit. I’d rather sell my house and move to a poorer area and find a job where I don’t hurt people for half the pay, then to hurt people as a police office or in the military. I would expect a wife and children to be pretty understanding of that. And yes I have a mortgage, and no I’m not rich.

              • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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                4 days ago

                Again, they were aware that was always a possibility when they took the job. If you have a job that involves following orders so there is always the possibility that you will be given orders you don’t agree with, you should think about that before signing up.

                • crapwittyname@feddit.uk
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                  3 days ago

                  Seems a bit daft. The answer then is to have either no police, or to have police who will mindlessly follow any order?
                  No police would be great, but in the absence of that ideal, I’d rather have people in the role who question the morality of what they’re doing. Compare this response with ICE in the US who kidnap people off the streets and send them to concentration camps and don’t complain that they disagree with what they are doing

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    They can literally not do it…

    Cops have an insane amount of power because they can just not do their job whenever they feel like it

    • SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml
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      I doubt it’s that easy. There will be disciplinary systems. And if they quit, I’m sure the govt will find people with fewer morals to take their place.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        How can they discipline you for not seeing something? Also, no one is saying to quit. They should keep working, but just become blind to these “criminals.”

    • Alex@lemmy.ml
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      Your talking about their discretionary powers and that’s not going to be relevant on a protest enforcement action where their senior officer in command will have laid out exactly what the criteria to arrest is.

  • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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    “Just following orders” you say? You could choose not to do it. You could choose to not participate in injustice. What you are doing is bad and you should feel bad for doing it.

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
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    Then they should refuse to do it, and make the police force go through the trouble of firing them.

  • Bronstein_Tardigrade@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 days ago

    When confronted by protestors, do a 180, grab a sign, and join them. You were a human once upon a time. If you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

    • Leraje@piefed.blahaj.zone
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      Everyone knows what they did. That’s not the issue that people have. The issue is proscribing them as a terrorist group when they quite clearly aren’t a terrorist group in a monumental trivialisation of what terrorism actually is and an obvious attempt to silence people.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      Palestine Action was banned after they breached into a military base and damaged RAF jets

      Yes everyone knows that.

      A lot of their supporters are good people that simply aren’t aware of what the group did.

      No that is incorrect, what you are trying to do is make it look legitimate for them to be prescribed. I don’t know of anyone who both supports them but also doesn’t know what they were accused of.

    • BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
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      I think plenty of their supporters knew what they did and frankly they absolutely deserve to be punished for criminal damage. Proscribing them as a terror organisation, however, is waaaay disproportionate and in my personal opinion an abuse of the law. I think their supporters feel the same and are making a stand against this.

    • HumanPenguin@feddit.uk
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      Not only do the vaste majority know what they did. They know Starmer as a lawyer successfully defended very similar actions under the Blair administration. As not criminal due to intent to save lives.

      The level of hypocrisy within the current government is beyond belief. Starmer is clearly the puppet of someone. What or who is the only thing up for debate.

      • MartianSands@sh.itjust.works
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        4 days ago

        Throwing paint into a jet engine really is damage. You gave to take the engine apart and meticulously clean out the paint before you can run it again, because otherwise the engine could do itself serious harm next time it’s started. That’s a very expensive thing to do.

        That actually makes it a very effective act of protest, which is why the government has come down so hard on them

      • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
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        That’s something that would cost thousands to fix if done to a car, as the paint needs to be sanded back and repainted. On an aircraft, it could easily be a six figure job, in addition to a multimillion dollar aircraft being unable to be flown.

        Calling it terrorism is silly, but it’s absolutely damage.

    • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
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      4 days ago

      The public must be so terrorised in their homes, knowing the orphan crushing machines can’t come and save them when they need snap-orphan crushing.