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Recently I've started to think that these and other similar battles are lost.

I actually kind of disagree in this context. Less is sharper and more readable while conveying the same meaning. The grammar books might say it’s technically incorrect, but I think it was the right word to use here.

Ahh, I went on a rant about this, and someone already did it for me much more concisely.

Literal grammar police.

ACAB.

You wanted a lecture, here you go:

You can use less for countable nouns, any of them. We've been doing it for literally centuries. In fact, it has never been used only for uncountable nouns (unlike fewer, which has generally only been used for countable nouns). Correct language is determined by what native speakers use on purpose, not what a textbook or teacher says.

At least read the Wikipedia and the dictionary if you want to keep a strong opinion about this:

However, modern linguistics has shown that idiomatic past and current usage consists of the word less with both countable nouns and uncountable nouns so that the traditional rule for the use of the word fewer stands, but not the traditional rule for the use of the word less. As Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage explains, "Less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured and to number among things that are counted.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_versus_less

Hey man, do you want to be grammatically correct, or do you want to speak clearly to people who want to be a cop? Sometimes you have to make a choice.

Less cops --> Fewer racism

Actually? Because good! Cops try and act like they're an emergency service, like they're first responders, when they're not. So it's good to hear some firies and ambos pushing back against that, all too often cops buddy up to them.

Good people who become cops get bullied into either becoming bad cops or leaving (or worse)

YouTube content creator and ex-police officer That Dang Dad notes that it's not just the current killology-riddled precinct culture in which every civilian is a potential threat that drives pro-escalation attitudes in law enforcement, but also a degree of combat PTSD, as police are directedmto where social trouble spots occur, and have to deal with the potential of violence even when all the people in a situation are polite.

That Dang Dad quit law enforcement before coming to terms with how it affected his brain. He is a total police abolitionist now, saying not only that police officers are driven by the culture to be cold and cruel but also by the work to be afraid of everything, that danger might come from anywhere at any moment.

These days, we know the police are not here to protect the public, rather to serve as an occupying garrison for the ownership class, and while this was always the case, the DEA and war on drugs and the 1033 program have made this role even more clear. But it also means we're not going to get a public serving response service until we are no longer occupied by the ownership class.

The story I've heard is "What does a 'good cop' get for sticking their neck out for what is right?" "Fired."

I agree with your sentiment though. I don't know how to fix it, but we need an overhaul of the system.

Maybe a progressive, grass roots “infiltration” of the police is doomed to fail, I dunno. But I’m not sure we’ll ever find out.

You not wanting to find out doesn't mean it hasn't been confirmed, over and over and over and over again.

but is what we’re currently doing really working?

No, that's literally why people who say ACAB also want to abolish the police.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/officer-a-cab-confessions-of-a-former-bastard-cop

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-manifesto-for-the-abolition-of-the-police

https://inthesetimes.com/article/police-and-poor-people

https://web.archive.org/web/20220128000248/https://www.enainstitute.org/en/publication/mark-neocleous-capitalism-was-created-by-the-police-power-interview-at-ena-institute/

It's because the institution itself is corrupt. The cops are best thought of as a state-sponsored gang. What you're proposing is like saying "Maybe if enough progressives join street gangs, we can end gang violence!"

Less cops. More people with higher education.

Yes. The poster is encouraging people to do better.

Less pedants
You can do better

Yet you have no problem with "wanna?"