inaccurate description: Who Watches The Watchmen

So, this page seems to mostly mean exactly what the original quote meant: the question of how we ensure those who enforce the law are themselves obeying it. But then there's this:

I suppose, in a vacuum, those two sentences are a valid interpretation of the Juvenal quote, or at least its English translation. But Juvenal wasn't asking who protects those who protects others, he was asking who enforces the law on those who enforce the law on others. The rest of the description and, as far as I can tell, the examples seem to be limited to this meaning. I was going to just cut these out, but I wasn't sure if that should be a valid use of this trope, and I didn't want to change the description without consensus.

edited 4th May '11 6:05:22 PM by joeyjojojuniorshabadoo

Those sound like bad lines. I suggest removing them.

Fight smart, not fair.

This is the sentence that directly precedes the portion of the description quoted in the OP.

That said, "the existence of a corrupt police force" is not the only occasion time police would require policing. Theoretical threats against the police force that would require the police to receive police protection would allow just as much opportunity to raise the question "Who Watches the Watchmen?" all the same.

edited 4th May '11 7:11:56 PM by SeanMurrayI

No it doesn't. Police can easily protect police. In fact, they're naturally inclined to do so. Police policing police is different because it involves of trust and loyalty and isolation.

edited 4th May '11 7:13:28 PM by Clarste

"Policing the police" is an action that would require a second force to carry ALL of the same duties for police as the police have over civilians, including both providing protection and preventing criminal behavior.

The question Who Watches the Watchmen? can be phrased as Who Protects The Protectors, just as much as it can be Who Regulates The Regulators; whatever particular duty for a police officer you want to look at on its own, you can spin it off in this trope.

edited 4th May '11 7:17:14 PM by SeanMurrayI

Who Watches the Watchmen? isn't about protection, it's about enforcement and regulation. You could also rephrase it as Who Teaches The Teachers or Who Murders The Murderers or Who Ducks The Ducks...doesn't mean it'll still be the same trope.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

What are you talking about? The protectors don't need protection from an outside source because they can protect themselves. First of all they all have self-defense training and second of all they already have contacts in the police to get back-up if they need it. And, well, they're going to be less reluctant to report things to the police*

. Honestly, it's much easier for the police to protect themselves than it is for them to protect others. At no point is anyone going to wonder who's supposed to protect the police. It's a non-issue.

Internal corruption though is a completely different issue. Even if not all of them are corrupted, it's difficult for the uncorrupted to know who to trust. Perhaps it goes all the way to the top. In this case the police answer to no one, which brings up the titular question.

edited 4th May '11 7:22:56 PM by Clarste

^^ You do realize that the original translation of the original phrase from Latin is "Who will guard the guards themselves," right?

The phrase certainly can (and has) been used in the past to refer to questions regarding the personal protection of the protectors.

edited 4th May '11 7:24:12 PM by SeanMurrayI

I'm not sure what the exact connotations of "custodiet" are and how good that translation is, but Juvenal was definitely talking about regulation, not protection.

edited 4th May '11 7:27:16 PM by joeyjojojuniorshabadoo

The original context is about getting people to guard someone's wife so she doesn't cheat on him. However, it's implied that she'll just cheat on him with the guards. Thus, it's been about regulation rather than protection from the very beginning. It's also used heavily in political discussion about abuses of authority in dictatorships and such.

Guards as in like prison guards, not as in like bodyguards.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

^Tropes Are Flexible. Several examples of this trope in use are already detailing something more akin to the "guards as in bodyguards" interpretation and have nothing to do with pondering over the monitoring groups in positions of power and privilege to ensure that they use their responsibilities for harm.

The Daily Show's mention of having to "wrap a wrapper," the "who rescues the rescuers" tagline given for a Thunderbirds movie...

There's definitely room for a broader interpretation, such as "pondering whether someone or something with a role or duty to perform requires someone or something else to perform that same role or duty over itself." It's obvious in its current use, and the trope description in its present wording allows for it.

edited 4th May '11 7:46:44 PM by SeanMurrayI

That's a different trope though. The storytelling implications are completely different. That's not just being flexible with the trope, that's reading the name in a completely different way that has nothing to do with what it actually means.

edited 4th May '11 7:47:17 PM by Clarste

Sean, tropes are flexible, but that doesn't mean that they're catch-alls. This trope is about watching, in the sense of regulating and controlling, not in the sense of protecting. And "police" as a verb does not mean "protect", it means control or regulate (or clean up, if it's used in the phrase "policing the area", but that's merely an extension of "regulate".)

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Guy who started the trope here.

When I made this trope, I intended it to cover both "Who guards us from the guards?" and "Who guards the guards?" I've seen the phrase used in both senses.

However, Joey and Clarste make some good arguments that these are actually different tropes. I do think that "Who guards the guards?" is a valid and related trope, so perhaps a split is in order.

Ukrainian Red Cross