There’s a slogan: A.C.A.B., or “All Cops Are Bastards”. The premise is, if you’re a good person you don’t join the side of the oppressor. You don’t don jackboots and riot gear. You don’t swing the club, and you don’t launch tear gas.
It’s a good slogan; effective, it’s viscerally appealing. It speaks to us where we live.
And yet it’s wrong. Not completely, as you’ll see, but fundamentally. (more…)