What would be different if there was no police

[rory_20_uk]

Saying that you can always hire a different company is an assumption that does not always hold true. I want fast internet, oh well I have a "choice" of Comcast or AT&T in my region. AT&T is charging me too much, I want to switch. Well Comcast knows they are the only other company, so they put a strangle on my wallet by charging as much if not more then AT&T. I don't want to stick with one crappy company but the only way to ditch it is to shell out tons of money to the other. If I decline to give either of these companies my money, I am without protection period and anyone can come kill me and my family.

Quite frankly, I don't trust mercenaries to genuinely care about my safety, they only want my money, cops in local areas are generally from the area and have a connection to the region.

EDIT: Also, no one reports the times when cops do their jobs right as often as when they do it wrong. When a cop does his job right, the outcome is usually boring (waiting for a deranged person to simply come outside and give up after a 5 hour standoff or waiting for a car chase to result in an empty tank of gas and one screwed escapee). You all know how it is, it's the same with guns. Guns are killing everyone! We hear about it everyday, but I'm sure a lot of those I am arguing against here would agree that there are many, many cases where the guns do their job safely and correctly with the proper use by responsible citizens.

IN the UK, one village was going to be charged £50,000 to be connected by BT. They formed a company and got another povider to do it for a lot less. As Fragony said, it does require collective action.

Everyone is a Merc. We do jobs for the money (unless we're loaded enough not ot need it - I certainly do need the money). Being employed by the state doesn't alter that fact. Most teachers do their hours and go home. They do their job and mainly do what's best for them. Same as lawers, firefighters, nurses, doctors (I know one who saw a pedestrian hit by a car being treated by paramedics. Didn't even break stride).

Why do you think that private security guards would suddenly be employed from miles away? In the UK, police chase targets. So whatever the new targets are is the area that gets targeted. Set by central government with no interest on what the locals want. Certain crimes are also branded misdemeanours to reduce the levels of certain crimes in areas. Same with medicine. But somehow this is much better than what the nasty private sector would do...

Cops do often do a good job. Although it has been found that the public's perception of police decreases the more interaction they have with them. That's certainly been my experience (man banging on door late at night. Called police. Am I in an imminent emergency? Well, unless he kicks the door in and is armed then no - but shall I call back as I'm being attacked? They sent 2 officers around in the morning. I wanted something at the time for probably only a few seconds, not two the next morning to waste 1 hour of their time each as well as mine).

Guns are as safe in the right hands as drugs are.

[a completely inoffensive name]

At University, there was a null vote which meant a call for all new candidates. That allowed the voters to have real claws. We don't. Even if 1 vote is cast, we get an MP. Do you see that form of democracy making its way into UK politics?
Running a campaign even at local level requires money, so you need backing, or to be very rich. There are limits on spending, but the abuse of the system is rife. Who is going to reform it? The people abusing it? Fat chance.

More accountability? Don't make me laugh. If they say on their manifesto they'll publish everything that goes on, even if they wanted to they'd be stopped by central government. Even if central government wanted to the Civil Service would probably delay it for years. There is so much embedded self-interest in the current system that only radical ways to in essence bypass it will achieve anything. Get the Civil Service to reform and come back in a decade - and it's bigger. Their internal audit found they were massively understaffed...

Government should be there for overarching strategic matters and oversight. It plays to their strengths.

Most other matters should have as little to do with government as humanly possible - except the aforesaid oversight.

Ok, so this post is basically just one big circular logic post. Government is too corrupt. It resists my efforts to put in place people that legitimately want to improve it. So I'm not going to bother to attempt to make it better and instead attempt to dismantle it and put in place organizations that don't pretend like they care about my input in the first place. Oh look, now government is even more corrupt and broken down since I changed my philosophy to ignore and deconstruct instead of awareness and progress. I guess my philosophy is justified. More privatization for me please.

Why do you think that private security guards would suddenly be employed from miles away? In the UK, police chase targets. So whatever the new targets are is the area that gets targeted. Set by central government with no interest on what the locals want. Certain crimes are also branded misdemeanours to reduce the levels of certain crimes in areas. Same with medicine. But somehow this is much better than what the nasty private sector would do...

Why do you think that any sort of problem you have just described about government police would not also apply to private? Every company wants to present themselves as the best. If somehow certain crimes are looked over and instead criminals are arrested for less offensives crime, then the felony rate would go down in their region which makes them seem more competant.