Just managed to finish this before the Wooden overcoats live show!

*reluctant sigh*

*scrolls back up*

Erika, referencing ebenezer scrooge: You, boy! What day is it?!

(time sensitive)

Great question - thanks for asking!

So, while I wouldn't go so far as to argue for Robocop being fully excluded for ACAB (he still ultimately functions as a component in the system of US policing), my central thesis is that, because they are marketing-obsessed corporate stooges who don't actually understand what the police are, when OCP created Robocop they accidentally created the Only Good Cop.

Lets look at his three directives; the three rules he is incapable of ignoring.

1. Serve the public trust

2. Protect the innocent

3. Uphold the law

Now, the thing is, the role of the police is actually not to do any of those things. The role of the police is to enforce the power structures and hierachies of the society in which they operate and maintain the status quo for the state. They are the domestic/internal coercive force of the state. The law is a tool they use to do this, but they are not compelled to uphold it, as is obvious to anyone who's paid attention to how the police interact with people in different class/race/wealth positions.

But the suits at Omni Consumer Products don't know that. They're not exactly big philosophical thinkers - they're in the business of business and business is good. So when they're programming their robot cop, what do they do? They look at how the police market themselves (We serve the public! We protect the innocent! We uphold the law!) and take it at face value, making those the core principals of Robocop.

And a cop who actually does those things? That might just be a good cop. Someone who upholds the law impartially for everyone? Whose programmed role is to serve the public trust, not control and coerce it? The protect the innocent directive raises a lot of tricky questions about the nature of guilt, but it does mean he'll put his robolife on the line to save people, unlike real cops.

Obviously directive 4 complicates matters, but at least when Robocop doesn't arrest a wealthy executive it's because a secret progam is shutting down his brain. What the excuse for police in the real world?

So yeah, anyway, I think Robocop is maybe the only good cop because they programmed him wrong.

quick tma piece for my perspective class ^_^