We allow the police to use violence that is not allowed for ordinary citizens. The doesn't mean the police have authority to do whatever they want.
Yes sometimes police officers will drag somebody into the back of a van and beat the shit out of them for no reason other than their own sadistic amusement, and yes police generally get away with it, but it's not something they are legally allowed to do. The problem is not to do with trite libertarian buzzwords like 'government monopoly on violence'. The problem is a culture of violence within the police, and a culture of closing ranks and not 'snitching', together with a court system that tends to take police officers at their word. Additionally in most of these cases you have a 'police investigating the police' situation, if it even gets that far.
There is also a wider social indifference towards certain section of society which means many people just don't care about the police 'cracking skulls' to put certain groups 'back in their place'. For examples go look at the comments on Fox articles in relation to Occupy protests or cases of police violence against minorities.
It really comes down to people in positions of power getting away with things that less powerful people wouldn't get away with, and that extends to groups other than just the police; the rich and well connected can get away with plenty of crimes that the ordinary person would get locked away for.
You can make a decent argument that giving people as much power over others as we give police (or other people in similar situations like prison guards) will inevitably lead to them abusing that power[1]. That is an argument for stronger oversight and regulation of police forces, not privately funded militias with no regulation at all, which seems to be what the 'government have a monopoly on violence' crowd desire.
Yes sometimes police officers will drag somebody into the back of a van and beat the shit out of them for no reason other than their own sadistic amusement, and yes police generally get away with it, but it's not something they are legally allowed to do. The problem is not to do with trite libertarian buzzwords like 'government monopoly on violence'. The problem is a culture of violence within the police, and a culture of closing ranks and not 'snitching', together with a court system that tends to take police officers at their word. Additionally in most of these cases you have a 'police investigating the police' situation, if it even gets that far.
There is also a wider social indifference towards certain section of society which means many people just don't care about the police 'cracking skulls' to put certain groups 'back in their place'. For examples go look at the comments on Fox articles in relation to Occupy protests or cases of police violence against minorities.
It really comes down to people in positions of power getting away with things that less powerful people wouldn't get away with, and that extends to groups other than just the police; the rich and well connected can get away with plenty of crimes that the ordinary person would get locked away for.
You can make a decent argument that giving people as much power over others as we give police (or other people in similar situations like prison guards) will inevitably lead to them abusing that power[1]. That is an argument for stronger oversight and regulation of police forces, not privately funded militias with no regulation at all, which seems to be what the 'government have a monopoly on violence' crowd desire.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment