Story Time - RL Communist Era Shitcurity

[Guest]

Once upon the time, on my 18th birthday, a bouncer decided to steal my ID and get it lost on purpose. Why? Well, he was a massive shithead, but it was my fault as well for trying to smuggle my underage shithead friends into a club. What happened next, kinda ties wonderfully to the points about our dear NT Security. When I went to the police station to report it, I was instantly treated as a criminal. I got questioned as if I had actually done something wrong, assumed guilt so to speak. Every minor inconsistancy was hammered until it either fit the story or fucked it up entirely.

Of course, I wanted to avoid actual trouble and having to report theft, so I explained I was just drunk and I lost it. This made things easier, but the shit which

I went through just to report a lost ID was kinda too much, regardless of the danger it might create for myself.

This brought an obvious question: Why was I treated like a criminal? I asked my uncle, a police officer, who advised me to go to police for it in the first place, why they though it was okay to be such shitheads. He said it was necessary to prevent further crime. He gave an example of an underage drinker girl he once processed (I can read your dirty mind). She was brought in slightly drunk, so they started hammering her with questions. Where she drank? What? Who was with her? And repeat. In the end, the poor girl caved; She revealed she smoked a bit of weed, along with all of the weed dealers she knew and everyone else who smoked it with her.

It produces results, yes, but mind you, here in Croatia, we don't have gang culture as some countries have, other than, well football it's not soccer, fuck off hooligans. They weren't hardened criminals who stabbed and shoot people for drug debts. The drug dealers she knew were just kids, basically, who got their shit from older guys they knew. Although criminals, they hardly deserved such treatment. Why did they think it was okay? Well, let's go back to our good old Communist Yugoslavia!

It was a time when absolute freedom of operations for police officers. Then, they were called 'milicija' or 'milice' in english, a slight variation on the word 'police' to include its frighteningly obvious military element. Above and under them, there was UDBA, a vast network of spies created to work only for the communist party. Literally anyone could've been a member of it. You meet a new friend in a pub, you call him to visit your home and family, you have a dozen shots of Rakija and you decide to tell a political joke. Next day, police drags you away to rot in a political prison for a few months.

Then youngsters would beat each other a lot. Just my 100,000 people town was split into at least 30 'gang' areas, sometimes even by blocks. You would get beaten for simply passing through the other gang's area regardless of if you identified as a member of the 'hood' or not. The police? They beat on them like dogs. If you had a criminal record, they would beat you every time they saw you. They were both selective and non-picky in their beatings, everyone was a target. Their parents didn't say anything, because, I think they understood something. They understood that boys needed to vent all those hormones in their youth, because, if they did not, they would not survive the state thought control. Tought to take beatings, instead of rebeling, because that's what police would do to them, both mentally and physically. It was for their own sake. Then, at their peak age, came the obligatory military service. If everything before didn't break them, this would. It wasn't that bad, though, as we weren't part of the soviet block. Everyone had food on their table, a house and some luxury goods, medical ensurance, etc.

My uncle grew up in that system. It's part of how he views the world. That when things are given to you, they are expected as well. You have all the life safety you needed, but disloyalty would not be tolerated. You have to pay for your mistakes and if you don't turn yourself in, police will find a way to punish you, guilty or not.

What was the point of this story? I don't even know. Maybe I just like telling stories from the past so that a bit of that 'old' wisdom lives on in us. I'm not saying you should beat your kids like dogs, I'm saying it would be good for them under the right light. After all, my father never beat me, while his father did. I'm a mental wreck, he's not. But, correlation doesn't equal causation, I know. It's just that I lack discipline that was drilled into him from day he started walking and why I think military service should be mandatory. But yes, opinions stink.

Hmm. Maybe I wrote this as a pointer to what I consider a red elephant in the room. We all know NT Security aren't mall cops. They are here to make your character work, as in, do their jobs. They are suppose to be repressive dickheads. When exposed publicly, sure, shitcurity will be dealt with, but every Captain, HoS, DO or NT Official would rather have its repressive aparatus happy and working, rather than being a bunch of scared pussies. This is why they would bury bad 'cop' reports under shitton of paperwork and protocol, slowing their demotion sagnificantly. Am I excusing shitcurity? Kinda? Not the one that locks you in perma for for stealing electic gloves without any RP, but the one that actually produces RP, the common fucking asshole.

[Erik Tiber]

Oh man, thanks for sharing this. I find it very interesting to read about everyday life in places like old Yugoslavia.

For shitcurity, I'd imagine that mostly they'd just try to keep everything appearing nice and ethical, regardless of how things actually work out.

I live in the St. Louis area, and my college is riiiiight next door to Ferguson. And the thing is, like half a dozen municipalities in the St. Louis county area have/had worse-acting police forces than Ferguson, but it's not like that's actually brought up. Generally speaking, police forces maintain plausible deniability.

So you probably wouldn't be seeing officers talking shit over comms. They'd just do it in person. And you wouldn't see officers beating people out in the open, they'd take them somewhere else out of the view of the public. Or at least somewhere where they know they won't be recorded.

And if someone starts complaining over comms about sec abuse, you'd see them pulled aside for abuse of comms (without the officer mentioning such over the radio), or for insulting an officer.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Where I live, the cops are generally good people. Sure, they may initially be standoffish and fire off a few questions at you, but if you go along with what they say, cooperate, and are polite, you tend to be let off with simple warnings, or even nothing at all.

I've never really understood how people get in bad situations with cops unless they're being assholes, quite frankly...

And I think that should apply to the security on the server too. If someone isn't an asshole to an officer, they shouldn't expect harsh treatment. Even if the officer is standoffish and possibly rude, cooperation and politeness would prevent a good portion of the shitcurity incidents people complain about.