Could you provide some examples of anything on the ballot that influenced police behavior?
Sure, a lot of people just vote party line. But a lot of local elections are non-partisan.
Have you ever belonged to a club or nonprofit or something? Often they are begging people to run for office unopposed. If nobody wants to, you can't force them. People who do want to, eventually get tired or die and then it can be kind of a crisis to find a replacement.
It's similar in small local political races. If you don't vote every year, you might not have noticed?
Sometimes the incumbent goes unchallenged, and sometimes there is a challenger that is obviously not serious, but at the same time, the incumbent has a lot of murky dealings and connections that make it hard to have enthusiasm.
I only vote if there is a choice, but the "choice" is usually the incumbent in a de facto one-party government.
Yes, I have. Actually I'm part of the founding team of a nonprofit engaged in developing software to make parliamentarians' voting behavior transparent for their constituency.
Voter apathy is a depressing fact I'm confronted with almost every day. The sad truth is that many people ... simply don't care. The reason we founded votelog is to make people understand what their representatives are up to and make better decisions.
> If you don't vote every year, you might not have noticed?
I try to vote as often as I have the chance to and cherish everyone participating in an informed way in our democracies. Unfortunately for many people, voting is not a duty to be fulfilled but a right to be enjoyed. Just having the right is enough for them.
I guess I'm a bit jaded because I still haven't found out how to make them care to actually fulfill the duty.
Fine, but isn't it true that candidates are needed before voter apathy is relevant?
I struggle to understand why.
I have some idea that this because things nowadays happen so far away - as in; I hear news and happenings from the capital - but people usually don't have the means to influence these happenings, they learn to just not participate. Maybe?
If he beats you up after you are compliant, then we are talking about abuse. Forces you to confess, abuse. Any unnecessary roughness while you are in custody (e.g. The Ride), also abuse. But if he legitimately suspects you are committing a crime and asserts his control to stop it, then he is merely doing exactly what we (society) have paid him to do. It only becomes a problem if he abuses that power after control has already been gained.
That's hardly something that everyone believes without qualification. I'm not saying you're right or wrong, just that I perceive a social context where it is normal to consider it a potential misuse of power depending on various factors.
For instance, suppose you were stopped and had a gun pointed at you because you resembled someone involved in an armed robbery, but it appeared they had little more to go on than race and gender.
You'd agree it's a fact that some people have perceived a situation like that, as victims, right? And if it was as they perceived, and a pattern, wouldn't it then be correct to consider it an institutional misuse of police power?
One thing to consider is that pointing a gun at a person is not harmless. It carries a risk of inadvertently discharging the weapon. How many times have you heard the admonition to not point a gun without the intention to shoot?
Accidents happen, and sometimes make the news, especially when the officer says they thought they had their taser. Pointing a gun is also a threat that suggests the victim might be shot with impunity. Statistically, there are probably people who have heart attacks or strokes due to the stress. Even if most officers are professional and trustworthy, there's no way to know in such a situation before the outcome.
I know that this discussion is about US law, but I want to add this here to put in perspective how skewed law enforcement regulation is in the US.
Much of what's perfectly acceptable in the US would be considered abuse of power in Europe. Such as pointing a gun at someone just because that someone could possibly be in the process of committing a felony.