I'm really hoping this is a good faith argument, so in goof faith I'll say I get where you're coming from. The RWBY writers took years to fill out what hunters actually do and their job is so varied that one hunter that's a traveler looks and feels completely different from another hunter like Clover, but they are both hunters, as are Dee and Dudley from season six, Qrow, Winter, and Team RWBY in volume 7. By and large, the actual working hunters we've seen in the show ARE specifically working for the government doing things involving working with humans AND ALSO slaying Grimm, not one or the other. Although the show frames Hunters that act as something of a bounty hunter/mercenary as normal in V4 and I don't think the HH worked for the Government (unless you count working for Robyn who wanted to be in the government,) that isn't what we've seen in action the most. By and large, the actually official working hunters we've seen were specifically working for the government and were expected to be law enforcement officers on top of Grimm hunters, not one or the other. We also see that at the very least, Atlas and Beacon are both tied to the government, with Oz's position threatened by the Vale council in V3. The hunter academies are run by the government and it seems that there are multiple avenues that hunters can take, one of which is being a traveling Grimm hunter, and one of which is being a law enforcement officer. But either way, it seems like they mostly answer to the government because in V5 we see Qrow using a government set up system to look for any and all Mistral hunters. They might be able to choose jobs, but it seems to me that they still answer to the government in one way or another. Again, in the first five seasons, this was vague, so I get the confusion.
But more importantly, Team RWBYJNOR were law enforcement officers. They carried badges, they arrested people, they used their weapons to get into a civilian's home (whether or not they were related to that civilian is irrelevant,) they flashed their badges to get people to do what they said, they used it as a sign of authority when addressing other people, they interfaced with the public as extensions of the government working to enforce government law. Whether or not ALL hunters are fantasy cops with a different name, that's certainly what Team RWBY became in V7. I said this in a different post, but I only think that RWBY delved into copaganda in the seventh season because of this, the writers chose to make Team RWBY become the fantasy equivalent of cops when they were given a chance to flesh out what so far had been a very vague position and instead of going with 'they're specialists who only fight Grimm' they instead chose to write Team RWBY to take patrols and arrest people. It had been previously established that hunters fight people (Glynda v. Cinder and Roman in ep 1, we see the kids fighting each other to train for that in V2, it's always treated as something normal for hunters to do, Qrow wanted to get hunter friends to help them in V5,) but it originally seemed like they mostly fought Grimm. But in V7, their role is both fighting Grimm AND being law enforcement officers to people, and I don't remember this ever being treated as weird.
We could say hypothetically that some hunters are not cops, but that doesn’t change the fact that when Team RWBY were written to become hunters, they DID operate as badge carrying law enforcement officers. If the show writers had stuck to the vague monster hunting mercenaries who might occasionally fight people route, I wouldn't consider the show copaganda. But they did make them law enforcement officers in V7.
The idea that somehow they weren't cops because they defy the law is a strange one, and let me try to explain why and I hope I don't say this in a confusing way.
Cops defy the law all the time. One of the many problems with cops is that they do things that they're not allowed to do (like break into people's houses without a warrant, or enact violence against people in their custody, or kill people who aren't threats,) and then their fellow cops cover for them or the precinct doesn't take it seriously or they get put on a paid leave while the bad press blows over. Cops not following the law and getting away with it because they're cops and therefore they think they’re above the law is something that people are trying to push back against, which is why people are pushing for stronger accountability, harsher sentences, required bodycams, so on and so forth. One problem with RWBY is that it suggests that "following the law" is something hunters are held back by and they should be allowed to do whatever they want with no consequences as badge carrying law enforcement officers working for the government (which is what they were in V7.) Coco is another example, in the Before the Dawn book specifically, she acts shocked and indignant when held to any rule, she wants to be a badge carrying law enforcement officer who can go after criminals, but she doesn't want to have any rules over what she can or can't do with that authority.
And cops can also defy their position as working for the government and stop working for the government, or go against corruption and get fired, which is something we've seen as people are unwilling to accept the systemic racism built into the system in real life and leave their jobs as cops. You're right that in RWBY, it seems like they can stop working for the government and still be hunters (I say 'it seems' because the RWBY writers are really bad about leaving things vague.) But A. I'm not sure that's what happened because in the 'original ending for V9' it looked like Ren and Nora just started working for the government in Vacuo so it doesn't seem like the show is taking a 'it's bad to be a cop' route, but B. The show didn't have Team RWBY reflect on their role as badge carrying law enforcement officers as something bad that they regret, they didn't have them look back on working with the government in Atlas as a mistake, they didn't have them grapple with what it means to be a hunter, or have them decide they don't want to work for the government anymore. In fact, it feels like the show went out of its way to say that the only person at fault had been Ironwood, that Winter and the Ace Ops were by and large fine and with Winter specifically we don't even have to think about her role as a government law enforcement officer meaning she's a worse person, because so long as Ironwood is gone now, everything is fine and good. Headmaster Theodore is fine, Winter is fine, Team RWBY doesn't have to do an ounce of reflection, everyone can just work for a different government (probably,) Team RWBY aren't going to lose their badges, no one has to worry about unpacking the system because we can all just say it was Ironwood's fault. One thing that's prevalent in copaganda is the idea that the system is fine, there are just bad apples. It seems like RWBY does that. The show frames Team RWBY as not being in the wrong for being badge carrying law enforcement officers because, as you said, that was before Ironwood turned evil.
That's what it feels like the show is saying when they have WBY proudly proclaiming that hunters help people and therefore it is their identity in V9 maybe four in-universe days after splitting off from Ironwood in the first place without having any of them do an ounce of reflecting on whether or not they were in the wrong or what being a hunter means, and they refuse to acknowledge the much bigger than Ironwood problems with being a hunter in the first place with all the corruption we (and Team RWBY personally) have seen.
I don't think "RWBY is copaganda" because EVERY hunter we've seen is a cop. I think RWBY is copaganda because Team RWBY specifically were badge carrying officers with authority over people, the position of hunters is something we've seen plagued by corruption, and there are clear problems with the systems of power in the rwby world, and the only moral stance the writers seem to be interested in taking in regards to the role of badge carrying law enforcement officers in their show is 'they should be able to do whatever they want with no consequences' and 'this one specific guy was a bad guy.'
And before this comes up, yes in the show Team RWBY are meant to be seen as good people (Ruby is the only one I'm currently convinced is that good of a person, but that's a topic for another post,) and the show "proved them right" about not wanting to be managed by having Ironwood turn into a completely crazy and maniacally evil villain, and they'll probably be heroes while being hunters still. But that's part of propaganda. It's like the cops in Brooklyn 99, no one is saying Jake Peralta is a bad person who does terrible things, we're saying that framing fictional cops as good people who do the right thing is propaganda. It's a problem that Weiss was written to be a badge carrying law enforcement officer who wants the authority to arrest people without any accountability, not because I think Weiss is going to misuse that authority, but because I think the show is suggesting that the problem is bad apple cops but if a good person is in the role, then it's fine.
Just like how Weiss wanted to be a GOOD billionaire CEO and her grandfather billionaire CEO was a hero, and Jacques is treated like just a bad apple. It feels like the show is fundamentally disinterested in unpacking anything from a systemic standpoint and wrote a show where the systems aren't worth thinking about and the only problem is a few bad apples, and when you frame badge carrying law enforcement officers that way, that's copaganda.
Also I'm only saying this because I've had problems with this in the past, please don't screenshot any part of this post or any of my other posts and post it separately or send it around to anyone. Whenever that happens, I get a string of hate anons. XD
