this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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This feels really weird to me:
protecting the community against ICE is of course a righteous cause, but to do it by basically acting like less murderous cops, inconveniencing a lot of innocent people is not the BEST way to do that.
Especially since many of the people who would be willing to volunteer for such a task will tend to be less willing to stop again once ICE hopefully goes away making the stops an unnecessary nuisance..
If it's a community action empowered by the community they'll probably willingly stop when the community stops supporting it. Should they become a nuisance then the community has learned how to handle that.
Cops don't lose their backing when the local community wants them out.
Consider the fact that police have co-opted the right and responsibility for community defense from the citizenry and hold that responsibility captive from us every day, so that they can abuse it only to divide, oppress, and disorganize us as a class. If a community of neighbors decide that they need a checkpoint to protect each other then they do, and the only reason that recalls cops in our heads is because for our whole lives cops are the only context we've had for anything that looks remotely like community defense.
I am very much considering that. That's both the reason why I don't immediately condemn non-cops doing it out of hand AND why I'm wary of what'll happen once they've been doing it long enough that they're used to it/it's been normalized.
Most cops started out working or lower middle class and betrayed their class to become the hired thugs of the rich. People starting to do cop type things with good intentions aren't always immune to the temptation to let it change them.
Not really, no. There's myriad different ways to organize your community that isn't cop stuff like the car version of Stop & Frisk. What's that quote about using the master's tools to liberate ourselves not working?
You've offered no alternatives.
And if you put "inconvenience" and "nuisance" on a scale opposite to "beaten" and "executed in the street", I don't think they'd land even.
It does feel weird because it is weird in a weird situation where it is needed. If ICE leaves the situation gets less weird and these people can go back to their normal lives.
How dare the citizenry try to challenge the government's monopoly on violence?
It's not weird at all. It's called operant conditioning: Instead bombing Nazis, freeing victims in deathcamps, heck even hunting nazis, they have become Nazis themselves, gestapoing non in-groups in their community “for their protection.”
It is precisely this conditionate praxis why I have given up on 🇺🇲ans ever revolting. They have become the very thing they fought against.
so much incorrect. let's just start with the accusation they have become cops. just flat out wrong
Then why are they watching who comes in or not in their community? What's the point of barricading their entrances? Why are they even stopping traffic for?
Liberators would have already demolished deathcamps. Noncombatants would be feeding, sheltering, and networking with the victims. And the combat ready would be bombing Lockheed Martin, Palantir, SpaceX, Amazon, Google, Meta, OpenAI, et al.
What're “cops” to you?
Sounds like an interesting plot line. Let us know when your screenplay is complete.
Glad that you at the least are aware 🇺🇲ans will never do this🙃
Now time to chant the reality: 🇺🇲ans are all fascists.