[theden]

I agree with you, and the reference _is_ politically loaded (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line):

>The thin blue line U.S. flag has been banned by some police departments in the United States for its associations with ideologies described as "undemocratic, racist, and bigoted."

>According to a 2018 law review article, "thin blue line" also refers to an unwritten code of silence used to cover up police misconduct, also known as the blue wall of silence, a term dating back to 1978

[jdlshore]

Seems like ignorance of the implications, not any desire to a tie themselves to a political stance. I think the “assume positive intent” principle needs to apply here.

[lexandstuff]

Also, if you're not from the USA, you're more likely to associate it with the beloved Rowan Atkinson sitcom.

[o11c]

Of the key members of this drama though, almost all of them live in the USA.

[OJFord]

Or the non-politically-loaded phrase that the sitcom is named for.

[defrost]

> the non-politically-loaded phrase

You mean its popularisation and heavy use by William Henry Parker III, Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (from 1950 to 1966)?

He very much used it in a loaded manner to portray police as bastions of good and the last defence against "the criminal element".

From his wikipedia page:

   Parker himself was known for his "unambiguous racism".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Parker_(police_offi...

[o11c]

There's a difference between "not politically-loaded decades ago" and "not politically-loaded now".

We still let people use the Swastika if they had a harmless tradition of using it beforetime. But if anybody new uses it, we assume it's because of the murder.

[OJFord]

There's also a difference between 'the USA' and 'the rest of the world'.

I don't know how Tso was using it and don't care nor have any reason to defend him, don't mistake me.

[milesrout]

Law review articles are largely written by students. They are not authoritative.

Do you think that Rowan Atkinson was dogwhistling about undemocratic, racist, bigoted police violence when he named his police sitcom "The Thin Blue Line" or do you think perhaps your dislike of the police has led to you associating negative attributes with anyone that happens to use any phrase related to the police?

Where I am from, the police is a respected, largely unarmed institution. Imperfect, as all institutions are. American left-political dislike of law enforcement isn't universal and most people don't have instant negative mental associations with everything police-related...

[defrost]

> Do you think that Rowan Atkinson was ...

No, but Ben Elton certainly was when he created and wrote it, even before hiring Atkinson to star in it . . .

When I last spoke to him Elton didn't view the entire UK Police force with disdain but he absolutely felt it was riddled with clusters of bigoted and violent police. You can see that in his other works such as the The Young Ones and various novels.

[milesrout]

Sorry but have you actually seen the program? There isn't a hint of any of thise feelings.

[defrost]

> Sorry

are you? what for?

> but have you actually seen the program?

Yes.

> There isn't a hint of any of thise feelings.

It comes some 15 years after his angriest socialist days .. and it's a well crafted comedy played for laughs. You'll recall, I trust, that it mocks the police pretty heavily.

Detective Inspector Derek Grim isn't a lovable pussycat.

Have you seen it? Did you read the credits? What made you think Rowan created the show?

[MyOutfitIsVague]

I'm not a left winger, and I generally respect the police, but everybody I've met with a "thin blue line" American flag decal or sticker has been a total asshole. It's not just hatred of the police. Connotations change over time, and the general connotation of "the thin blue line" in the US at the moment is unabashed support of far-right authoritarianism.

[milesrout]

The phrase has nothing to do with any flags used much later by US policemen. That is the whole point of the thread.

>far-right authoritarianism

Get a grip. Even if it were a reference to what you say it is, that has nothing to do with the "far right". It is stock standard centre-right (and centre-left for that matter) position in the US to support the police in principle (if not, obviously, in every action theyve ever taken). The "defund the police" types are a minority of a minority.

[mindslight]

Regardless of its history, the current popularity of the phrase is most certainly part of the neofascist movement in the US. Its rise was a direct response to the "Black Lives Matter" call for accountability - essentially doubling down on asserting that lawless behavior by the police is justified in service of some authoritarian "order", regardless of the destruction of everyone else's rights. In a free society, the police are a necessary institution [0] for upholding the law, not a special class of enforcers unbound by it.

[0] how do you think police get so biased against everyone else to begin with? they're effectively dealing with the shittiest rungs of society on repeat, so they form a pattern and end up applying it to everyone they meet

[milesrout]

I don't think the police are "biased against everyone" in the first place. Nobody has said that lawless behaviour by the police is justified in the service of order. What is said is that the police are entitled to use force and have to make quick decisions about the use of force in very trying circumstances on a daily basis. In a country of 330m people full of guns and with highly differential rates of violent crime in different communities, it is not necessarily the case that different rates of police use of force against black people implies police racial bias. It is also not reasonable to tar the entire institution across the entire world just because of a couple of stand-out incidents when those incidents are viewed across the backdrop of the sheer volume of police interactions every day.

So yes, to make it concrete and cut past the bullshit euphemisms, sometimes the police will shoot an "unarmed" black man. Sometimes, very rarely, the so-called "unarmed" person not only doesn't have a gun but doesn't pose a real threat to the life or limb of another person. That sucks. But we cannot get rid of those "type I errors" without curtailing the use of force in a way that produces more "type II errors" in the sense that the police don't use force in a scenario where they should have, and someone gets hurt unnecessarily by someone that should have been disarmed or killed by a policeman earlier.

That is in no sense a defence of those extremely rare cases where a policeman just murders someone and there is no justification or excuse.

It is not unreasonable for them to point out that if they are held to an impossible standard where they get blamed if they don't perfectly protect the public but they also get blamed if they ever have to make a split second decision with limited information, choose to use force, and it turns out not to have been necessary, that that impossible standard is not fair.

None of that has anything to do with "neofascism" or "authoritarianism", which are simply bogeymen invented by the left.

[mindslight]

It seems like you must not be American. For starters, we have the 2nd amendment here, which means that someone simply being "armed" does not mean they deserve to be summarily executed. Talking about "type I and "type II" errors is completely missing the problem - the situations that have drawn extreme outrage were created and escalated by police themselves. This identification with a singular all-powerful government perspective that asserts some active judgement must be performed (as opposed to say retreat, regroup, and call for backup) is a large part of what I mean by authoritarianism. Just because you're steeped in it so deeply that you cannot recognize it does not mean that it is a "bogeyman".