content: They are just paid thugs on our side,  Except they're not on your side.  They're on the side of the rich and the government.  The police are designed and trained to protect the assets of the upper-class and the interests of corporations and be a fist of an authoritarian government.  The fact that they happen to lend a hand every now and then to the common man is merely to keep us from rising up against them.    And the sad thing is a privatized police force would just be exponentially worse, despite the libertarian/free market fantasies I often see people masturbating about when that topic comes up.