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I'm not new to this issue and I haven't "been woken up". As I just said, I actually have experience living in a crime-ridden area. Of course the police are a pr

I'm not new to this issue and I haven't "been woken up". As I just said, I actually have experience living in a crime-ridden area. Of course the police are a problem but again, the facts simply don't line up to your statements. The police killed 1,098 people in 2019. https://mappingpoliceviolence.org https://mappingpoliceviolence.org Compare that to the overall murder rate (not including other crimes.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_homicid... > To some segments of society (who are not criminals), the police absolutely are more of a threat than criminals. So getting rid of the police will have no effect whatsoever on the amount of criminals or crime? It will simply remain the same? That, again, is extremely naive. As usual, the predominant political news topic overrides all rational thought. One week, we have a mass shooting and call for more police and less guns. The next, the police unjustly kill someone and everyone wants to abolish them entirely.

stormbrew 6y ago
I like how you just completely ignore the part about how no one is saying "abolish the police and replace them with absolutely nothing we love crime!" You also lump various different debates all into one and assume the people you disagree with are in alignment with each other on all of them. But it's the other side that's had its "rational thought" overridden. These are not a good faith arguments.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  I'm not really sure what you're arguing for. It seemed to be that "the police are more of a threat than criminals", which is factually untrue, even today, before any so-called abolition of the police (which is what people are calling for.) Also, I am not "on a side" and my original comment was calling out this attempt to make it a black-and-white issue. There are more than two options.
  - stormbrew 6y ago
    That the police are more of a threat to criminals to specific subsets of the population is absolutely, unquestionably, factually true. There is more than enough personal attestation to the experiences of black and queer people (including those who otherwise have privilege in some ways) in the US with police to say this with confidence. They aren't to you perhaps. And again, when people call for abolition of the police they are not talking about leaving a complete vacuum of every function they serve in society. They are calling for dismantling police departments completely and replacing their functions in society with other, more directly capable, social systems. You may want to actually read some of what's been written on the topic instead of having a knee jerk reaction that assumes the worst.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      Any statistic is true of a small subset of the population. To use your example of black people: Killed in 2018: Black or African American 2,925 Police killed 1,098 people in 2019. (I can't find exact numbers by race) Again, I'm not arguing that there isn't police bias against minorities, that they aren't disportionally affected, or anything like this. But the facts simply show that the police kill less people than other people do, so it seems like a stretch to say they're more of a threat. In regards to the other point: that may be the case, but that isn't what "abolish" and "dismantle" mean. I still don't see how you avoid some amount of armed protective personnel (to deal with shootings or robberies) which are basically police.
      - xnyan 6y ago
        > But the facts simply show that the police kill less people than other people do The total number of police is a fraction of the population of the united states. Do you really not understand even the most basic math or is this argument in bad faith?

stormbrew 6y ago

I like how you just completely ignore the part about how no one is saying "abolish the police and replace them with absolutely nothing we love crime!" You also lump various different debates all into one and assume the people you disagree with are in alignment with each other on all of them. But it's the other side that's had its "rational thought" overridden. These are not a good faith arguments.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
I'm not really sure what you're arguing for. It seemed to be that "the police are more of a threat than criminals", which is factually untrue, even today, before any so-called abolition of the police (which is what people are calling for.) Also, I am not "on a side" and my original comment was calling out this attempt to make it a black-and-white issue. There are more than two options.
- stormbrew 6y ago
  That the police are more of a threat to criminals to specific subsets of the population is absolutely, unquestionably, factually true. There is more than enough personal attestation to the experiences of black and queer people (including those who otherwise have privilege in some ways) in the US with police to say this with confidence. They aren't to you perhaps. And again, when people call for abolition of the police they are not talking about leaving a complete vacuum of every function they serve in society. They are calling for dismantling police departments completely and replacing their functions in society with other, more directly capable, social systems. You may want to actually read some of what's been written on the topic instead of having a knee jerk reaction that assumes the worst.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    Any statistic is true of a small subset of the population. To use your example of black people: Killed in 2018: Black or African American 2,925 Police killed 1,098 people in 2019. (I can't find exact numbers by race) Again, I'm not arguing that there isn't police bias against minorities, that they aren't disportionally affected, or anything like this. But the facts simply show that the police kill less people than other people do, so it seems like a stretch to say they're more of a threat. In regards to the other point: that may be the case, but that isn't what "abolish" and "dismantle" mean. I still don't see how you avoid some amount of armed protective personnel (to deal with shootings or robberies) which are basically police.
    - xnyan 6y ago
      > But the facts simply show that the police kill less people than other people do The total number of police is a fraction of the population of the united states. Do you really not understand even the most basic math or is this argument in bad faith?