"The government" isn't a monolith, and I'd argue it largely isn't "the police's boss."
For instance, the NYPD leaked Mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter's arrest information, in a move that was widely criticized as an attempt at intimidation.
There's a great documentary about war from the 80s or 90s, and I remember a quote from it about how in an all volunteer military, soldiers are afforded special privileges in society. I think police in the US basically function in the same way.
The government isn't a monolith but the tens of thousands of police departments, containing what, tens of millions of officers are?
Here are the facts, a large proportion, if not the vast majority of violent police interaction in the United States is a direct result of the war on drugs. The people who voted those laws in are currently still in power, one is the president, and generally they blame the police for this state of affairs while making no effort to correct their lethal mistake. How many young men would run or resist arrest if that bag in their backpack resulted in a small fine vs a few decades in prison like today?
>The government isn't a monolith but the tens of thousands of police departments, containing what, tens of millions of officers are?
I think the metaphor "the government is the boss of the police" is not very accurate. The police are a political force that receives a huge % of most municipal budgets, with their own PR team/media relations, etc.
I oppose the war on drugs. However, I don't think decriminalization of all drugs solves this issue.
We could say the same thing about the armed forces or teachers. I would agree if we were to call them factions within a larger entity, they certainly are distinct enough from one another, there is some degree of infighting, but I feel that in general a member of the governmental caste feels greater affinity for other caste members than they do the public at large, and that is why it makes sense to look at them as a single unit. At the end of the day, individual police officers aren't elected, the only form of redress we really have in our system is the remove the leadership that allows these things to happen, we haven't done that and nothing has changed, that shouldn't be surprising.
If you reference my comment in this same GP thread I completely agree with you. If you want to take control of a local society, you need a cast of hitmen willing to do what you want. Conversely, if you try to take control of a local society and you don't have a cast of hitmen willing to do what you want, you will not gain control.
For instance, the NYPD leaked Mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter's arrest information, in a move that was widely criticized as an attempt at intimidation.
There's a great documentary about war from the 80s or 90s, and I remember a quote from it about how in an all volunteer military, soldiers are afforded special privileges in society. I think police in the US basically function in the same way.