Lowering the budget isn't abolishing. It's just lowering the budget. And it's going towards social services so that's not the worst thing that could happen.
Trump will win again
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Lowering the budget isn't abolishing. It's just lowering the budget. And it's going towards social services so that's not the worst thing that could happen.
the purpose of reducing funding to the police is to increase funding to social programs. police intervention is not appropriate for mental health issues. .if cities were funding programs for the homeless and the mentally ill there would be much less inappropriate police violence. The police are not an occupying force that requires military hardware. .they exist to protect and serve. right now, in many instances they are doing neither. shooting an unarmed person in the back is murder, not acceptable use of force. it sickens me as a mental health nurse who has dealt with violence my entire career to see people gunned down for not instantly following commands. .this is not a training issue as they are trained in non violent management of behavioral issues, they choose to resort to force. . I know there will be the "well, we need to wait and see what he was doing, you dont know the whole story" argument, but that is simply an excuse for the murder of an unarmed person of color. .. .this whole thing makes me sick. .
I totally understand your point and others, I’m completely aware what others mean by defunding the police. However, the messaging frankly sucks. There’s got to be a way better way to message what is simply just reallocating the police budget over to social programs. Call it anything but that.
Here is where one would accuse me of being a concern troll that’s tone policing. Yes, you would be correct. You cannot allow radicals to weaponize your rhetoric for propaganda to radicalize others and feed their confirmation biases. Whether it’s cheering on violence and destruction during protests or saying “defund” the police. Controlling the narrative is everything in American politics since so many Americans seem to lack any real critical thinking skills. It shows.
A lot on the extreme end of the political spectrum simply don't have the moral capacity to see how such actions not only make more people hate their cause but also how such actions are destroying lives in the process including getting more people shot. Overall though aggressive American police are much more civilized than that of Belarus for example and generally are normal people who actually do care about their communities.
That's the problem with these slogans. Activists and politicians love these short, emotional phrases that seem to stir up such controversy. To be honest, it blows my mind when someone hears them and has a completely seizure over it... They're meant to be "dumb". Short and simple is effective, regardless as to how much information is left out.
Defunding in and of itself isn't a radical idea, as it happens in public sectors all across America already. People emotionally react as if they have some sort of terrifying, anarchistic vision of our country that would somehow suddenly manifest in the next few years.
The logical thing to do is assess how much money is going into police departments in a given area/city (it's certainly not the same everywhere) and determine if the allocation of funds is maximizing that area/city's effectiveness of serving the public. I'm aware that many believe that we allocate an excessive % of city funds to police departments across America (I haven't looked at this allocation enough to have a definitive opinion myself); if we allocate some of that money elsewhere, would it stop the "police problem"?
Probably not. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is the complete lack of accountability powerful entities in America have. This problem exists with our police forces as well as with our judicial system. A major culture change needs to happen. It's absurd that we have officers committing unprovoked violence (and even sexual assault) on citizens of this country, and I've heard enough awful stories from friends of mine (from different sides of the political spectrum) about police misconduct to know that a lot of improvement is needed, especially in the lower ranks of our police departments.
But she responded to the top post the way she did because you didn't specify New York.
It sounded like you were just speaking generally. After that you clarified but that was after her response already.
That's because there's nothing left to destroy in Detroit.
She quoted where I mentioned New York and in that quote-post complained that I didn't mention New York. I just saw it as pig headed trolling.
Well you're entitled to your opinion I guess. Seems like a weird stance to take.
I hope as the walls fall in on donny he tells his cult to drink the kool aid
Really? Do you live here? Likely not, but be careful my friend. Do not go quoting my posts and stating bullshit in bad faith. Be careful of what you wish for.
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I think this is a very important point.
There's a risk of valorising the Police in the same way as the military has been in America, and making the issue a political one, or about 'loyalty' to the state.
I was disturbed by Trump's pardon of that platoon commander who was convicted of war crimes, simply because Fox News created a 'wronged hero' narrative for him... and yet if you listen to his actual men, they are disappointed by the pardon because they feel that he definitely committed a war crime (which fucked a lot of them up mentally) and that 'justice' has been reversed.
Imagine the United States slowly making its armed public servants immune from prosecution through a misguided form of patriotism and hero worship. These are the grandpatents of fascism.
Yes. This is exactly it. Police here are revered as veterans. People tell them, "Thank you for your service" as we do vets... But police role is to serve their communities. They are not in a war zone. But they do treat civilians as such. Not all, but enough in the profession to create this chaos. They can kill civilians with impunity. People fly American flags defaced with the Thin Blue Line like it's patriotic. It's authoritarianism.
You see how the police in Kenosha, WI looked the other way at the vigilante who murdered 2 people. The police thanked armed militiamen and handed out water. The Kenosha chief gave a press conference and said those people were murdered because they were out after curfew. Right wing pundits like Tucker Carlson defend the Kenosha shooter, who was a 17 year old kid obsessed with the police.
The police are linked with the right now. The police have made themselves political. And people are asking for reform. And instead painted as unAmerican anarchists who support rioting and looting by people who drape themselves in the flag but have lost all sense of what the flag represents. If Trump wins again, I think we may be too far gone.
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they have lost all respect from me..this "bad apple" narrative is a smoke screen for the real issues. they are to protect and serve not seek and destroy. . this country is crying out for the things our country is supposed to be about. . we are teetering on disaster. . brought on by trump and his cult. . he has unleashed the racism that festers in the dark. . now it is allowed and encouraged to behave as though this was post civil war times. .
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Deleted member 16771
I don't want to say that the British system is 'better', or anything, but I think there's a good lesson to be learned from our history of policing (as an aside, I actually taught the history of British policing as a history teacher).
Police in the UK were expressly created as a civilian service since there was a lot of fear and mistrust of military forces enforcing law and order on the streets of the homeland. There had been a few bloody massacres by military units that stuck in the memory, such as the Peterloo Massacre, and any suggestion that the Police were to be a 'military' or paramilitary force was strongly avoided.
The uniform, the system of ranks, and most importantly the culture of policing, was geared around it being a civilian force in service of the community. In fact the British police still have a very 'working class' culture of flat hierarchy (compared to the armed forces, for example) for this reason.
When we look at American police, with its corporals and its lieutenants and captains, the design of the force is clearly paramilitary and strikes us as somewhat odd. It's more like a gendarmerie than a police service.
Even so, the nation as a whole is so heavily armed that fielding a proper first-world style civilian police force would be very difficult. It would be much easier if the 2nd amendment was interpreted in its original intent, more like Switzerland than Mogadishu.
I think the "bad apple" narrative is kind of a biased or ignorant sentiment. For much of my life, I've actually found myself idealizing what investigators/detectives are like. It's the shit I've heard from friends and people I know (from different areas of the political compass) that have really painted a picture of a profession (and more specifically, a role within that profession) that doesn't attract competent, methodical people in general, but instead attracts people that get off on that authority and aren't incentivized to play by the rules. The things police officers have done to people I know and people that my friends know have painted this pattern of a role in our governments that largely lacks accountability and professionalism. I do think there are "good apples", though, and I find the "all cops are bad" sentiment offensive, to be honest.