Well, self-supporting in that police are the enforcers in favor of capital, and capital in turn funds not only police but pro-police PR and media. Police don’t just enjoy self-support and allies in the form of friends and family. Billions of dollars are spent by wealthy individuals and corporations to generate pro-police PR, news stories, and popular media. For chrissakes, the most popular television show is the police procedural for the last 4 or 5 decades. That isn’t an accident. It’s propaganda. Or, I should say, copaganda.
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Here you go:
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“Police officer” isn’t even close to the most dangerous or most unpleasant job in America. The fatality rate for loggers is somewhere around ten times as high, and even a delivery driver is twice as likely to die on the job as a cop. Yet police officers have much higher salaries and benefit packages than almost any other career with similar educational requirements, and there are entire social movements from the highest levels of government on down constantly amplifying the message that American police officers are some of the best people in the world.
I don’t remember the last time I noticed a highway named after an unfortunate logger who was killed on the job or got a phone call from some fundraiser trying to guilt-trip me into giving a bunch of money to the fraternal order of pizza delivery drivers. Nor do I recall ever reading about people in those professions literally getting away with murder because their jobs are just so darn hard.
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Well no. that’s not what the police are meant to do - they are meant to investigate crime and arrest people they believe committed crimes. Their job is NOT the execute people on the spot because THEY believe that they are guilty.
Seriously, dude, there is tons of literature out there on the state of modern policing in america as well as tons of ideas about how to deal with both the problem of over-policing and the problem of gun violence. Maybe instead of asking questions that you apparently never like the answer to, go educate yourself and go out and help to solve the problem by joining one of the many activist groups who are working on these issues - or donate, etc.
Clearly you do not understand what a revolution is or can be, since you entirely mis-represented what it is there in the first sentence.
Starting what backwards? Are you saying that we should not address what has been an ongoing systemic problem for decades now?
Would you? Because you seem to believe it’s possible.
Um… do you live in America? Do you know about American history? While it may be an example of a more conservative revolution - it’s hardly a failed one, given the changes it brought to the world. And let’s not forget the October revolution, and many others through out history.
On what? You keep making very vague statements when people here are responding in great detail. You just seem like you’re arguing just to argue rather than trying to learn about possible solutions here.
You can’t solve a problem by not understanding it.
Crab fishing in Alaska comes to mind as an incredibly dangerous job… I don’t think being a police officer is even in the top 10.
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… and that question is called “concern trolling”
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In most rankings I’ve seen it barely breaks the top 25 most dangerous jobs. Fishing, logging, construction (especially roofing), mining and private aircraft operators are consistently at the top and are all around an order of magnitude more dangerous than police work.
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Not even in the top 25:
But when you include non-lethal danger/injury to the equation, there’'s an interesting shift toward jobs that are more likely staffed by women:
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I think the most convincing discussion would be about how do we make people feel safe. I think if you concentrate on police it doesn’t solve anything. I don’t think the police feel safe, either.
Dealing with police violence against POC and the working poor IS about making people feel safe!
Then stop doing that. 
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Full disclosure time: are you yourself or are you related to a police officer?
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Full disclosure : I am not related to the police, nor police. I work for a non-profit serving the needy. I work in NYC in places you may never visit or ever see. I see horrible things, maybe you can help.
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So if and when you meet cops, how about talking them down from the lethal fear they typically have that their job is dangerous?
( Because you know, as repeatedly pointed out above, it is NOT an especially dangerous job.)
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That thought runs counter to most correlations. Examples: Fast food cooks; dishwashers; cashiers; waitresses/waiters; etc.
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Well that rather depends on which people you’re talking about, doesn’t it?
Millions of Americans are just fine and dandy with the status quo because they think police protect them from “those people,” or that more funding and gear for cops will make them safer than they are now.
Meanwhile, People of Color across America are asking for some basic measures to keep their communities safe from wanton, unaccountable police violence.
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Somehow, we need to feel protected from the police and ourselves. I don’t see the answer in this discussion. I see a point of view, but if we were to remove the police what replaces them?
I have done most of those jobs. I would be better paid as police. Would you want that job?
Congratulations: you’ve just repeated the Police’s argument back at us.
The answer, in the US is, like, literally anything. They are actively doing more harm than good, replacing them with a vacuum until something better is implemented would be an improvement.
The “Yeah, we steal from the community, and we steal from passing travellers, and we kill people and literally straight up murder people and get promoted for it, but what are you going to do?” argument is bullshit. If only because it’s an excluded middle. “Those are your choices: us, or nothing! We continue to kill you with impunity, or it’s The Purge!”. Well, no. Those are not the only two options.
In any case, the answer is simple. What replaces them? Different, better police.
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The problem lies within how you yourself just framed the issue. You say “we need to feel protected from the police and ourselves.” This implies that the police are inherently separate from the rest of our society, i.e. the “thin blue line” bullshit that is one of the most malignant memes in our society today.
Police should not be held apart from the rest of society, they have a job to do just like the loggers and the delivery drivers and the teachers and the bakers and every other person who has to be held accountable to the same rules as everyone else.
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That’s not remotely what @Brainspore said. Accountability is not abolition - though there is an argument to be made for that, and you can do your own research on what abolitionists argue and what their solution is.
Somehow, I don’t think that you will. I think you’ll just keep wringing your hands and dismissing everything people offer here…
Community policing can be helpful, so can having other institutions or organizations deal with problems that police should not be dealing with - a mental health crisis does not need a cop, it needs someone equipped to deal with that problem.
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