2 ms·

I agree that to a lot of people, defund seems to imply abolish, which is not a great position. On the one hand, I think the word choice is somewhat purposeful,

I agree that to a lot of people, defund seems to imply abolish, which is not a great position. On the one hand, I think the word choice is somewhat purposeful, as it's designed to sound extreme and appeal to people who see the police as an extreme problem. On the other hand, it definitely lends itself to purposeful misrepresentation by opponents. That said, I think given the popularity of the movement, the phrasing doesn't necessarily doom it. It's a popular enough phrase now that it's getting explanatory media coverage (I just saw the last John Oliver, where he explained that defunding the police doesn't mean abolishing them, and there's lots of other articles out there if you Google "defund the police"), and since the idea behind it is good, once people understand it I think there's a reasonable likelihood they get on board. With all that in mind, I actually still struggle to come up with better phrasing that's both strong enough and also clearer in meaning. The obvious phrase would be "reform the police," but police reform has been talked about too much already and hasn't been effective as previously described, so that's got too much baggage to be good. "Fix the police" could be okay, but it's too general. "Redistribute the police budget to a wider range of services" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. It's a tough one.

gremlinsinc 6y ago
Abolish has it's merits, assuming they replace it after abolishing. Abolish is more.... tear down and rebuild back up something similar but re-imagined... maybe following the Swedish model. But, really the police system is so draconian, might we not be better w/out it than we are now? I mean have you seen the videos of mayhem at the hands of the police, it's hard to think of them at all in a positive light. I mean, did Germany keep the S.S. Cops are literally murdering, abusing, and going rogue - and may actually be fully infiltrated by purpose by white power extremists. Some of the cops responsible for Eric Garner dying, actually wore t-shirts saying "I Can Breath" for fuck sake. Mayhem would be better than police inciting of mayhem. All the rioting, looting, etc didn't happen in a vacuum the COPS CAUSED IT by their corrupt actions.
thu2111 6y ago
Or phrased another way, meaningful improvements don't fit inside snappy slogans. Which in turn means they don't really fit inside protest movements. Obama wrote an essay about this. He said the only way to get meaningful change is to get involved in local politics. "Vote in municipal elections" is not a slogan that will appeal to the kinds of people who are fanatical BLM activists though.

gremlinsinc 6y ago

Abolish has it's merits, assuming they replace it after abolishing. Abolish is more.... tear down and rebuild back up something similar but re-imagined... maybe following the Swedish model. But, really the police system is so draconian, might we not be better w/out it than we are now? I mean have you seen the videos of mayhem at the hands of the police, it's hard to think of them at all in a positive light. I mean, did Germany keep the S.S. Cops are literally murdering, abusing, and going rogue - and may actually be fully infiltrated by purpose by white power extremists. Some of the cops responsible for Eric Garner dying, actually wore t-shirts saying "I Can Breath" for fuck sake. Mayhem would be better than police inciting of mayhem. All the rioting, looting, etc didn't happen in a vacuum the COPS CAUSED IT by their corrupt actions.

thu2111 6y ago

Or phrased another way, meaningful improvements don't fit inside snappy slogans. Which in turn means they don't really fit inside protest movements. Obama wrote an essay about this. He said the only way to get meaningful change is to get involved in local politics. "Vote in municipal elections" is not a slogan that will appeal to the kinds of people who are fanatical BLM activists though.