You’re under the impression that they were my friends first, which aside from one, who was s cop in another city, I was not. Ony after opening a place of business and being vandalized and had things stolen did I get to know some. The ones I did become more familiar with are definitely the kinds of police you want. They use discretion first, try hard to de escalate a situation, and the last thing they want to do is make a bad situation worse for anyone. And per your questions about how they would treat people, the ones I know would help before punish, as per your examples, they’d buy someone a meal or defuse a tough situation.

The way you describe them all as soldiers working against everyone is a tough statement to take simply because when you don’t need them, ACAB, but when you do need them, they can’t get there soon enough. Sadly, the bad cops everyone sees is all we’ll be left with once all the good ones leave because of that sentiment. Then you’ll see the “soldiers” you’re talking about.

The good ones I was talking about, the ones I know, half have retired early, because no matter how much good they try to do, reasonable they try to be the only rhe thing people see is an enemy. I don’t look forward to the day when all we are left with is the bad ones, and it’s coming sadly.

My only issue with that is taking from regular people to fund it. Tax solely corporations, many of them view increased profits at any cost as the only objective, which means they have more to spare. If you take it from the people who take all the risk by investing their own money, I don’t see that as fair. If I work hard to make a living, invest what I can to improve my life and future that shouldn’t be touched by any tax. Where I’m from, we have capital gains tax of something assured, like 55%+. I don’t see how that is fair. If I go bust, I don’t get a hand out or do over, but if I succeed, I have to fork over more than half…

The fact that you have to ask means you’d judge people on skin color. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh because if the answer is yes, they’re white, you’d attribute it to that but not bother looking any further. They are mostly white, but my friends wife isn’t. I know my fair share of people who have had extremely bad interactions, too, and they are white. My brother was pulled out of his car at gun point for making an illegal turn. Do dwb happen sadly, yes, but those are not as frequent as you’d like to believe.

What I find funny is that some days I’ll be adamant about how bad UBI would be because of the cost, and the next, I’d be the loudest voice next to yours for its good. I feel it would be super easy to implement. Basically, you’d tax every company for every self checkout machine as if each machine is a person and the salary that would be paid to the person is instead of a machine would be used to fund it. I k ow its poorly worded, but I hope people have enough sense to understand what I mean.

I know a few people who are police, one being a very close friend who is now retired from being a cop. Not a single one of them is a bad person or cop. The stories I hear from them make me wonder why they would do it, and the universal answer is usually to help people. The best part is that of the six or so people I know counting my friends, they are all quitting because people treat them so badly juat for doing thier job, and they will be replaced with cops who show no compassion. I myself have many stories of cops being understanding and caring and, in turn, being very lenient. When I talk to people with the acab mentality, the police never go easy. It’s odd how just treat people how you want to be treated works.

Is there a light switch that controls it? Maybe lighting options that can hang.