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I'm not from US and when I see people claim for abolition of police I can only imagine the world they live in, completely disconnected from reality. Seriously,

I'm not from US and when I see people claim for abolition of police I can only imagine the world they live in, completely disconnected from reality. Seriously, abolishing police? Is this some kind of demolition-man-like future?

arkitaip 6y ago
Not being from the US is no excuse for being ignorant and arrogant on the matter.
- aortega 6y ago
  Then please explain why abolition of a basic public service would lead to better living conditions. Would you like to abolish water service or the army too?
- dang 6y ago
  Personal attacks will get you banned on HN. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
ianleeclark 6y ago
> I can only imagine the world they live in You know, you can go and read why they advocate for that position. You can do more than just imagine--more than just imprinting your own biases onto their position. It's just lazy.
rvz 6y ago
Well, we gave them the chance to create their own utopia in the CHAZ area and that became another stunning failure. It goes to show that realistically, they (who ever wants to defund the police) are really asking for an anarcho-communist utopia.
- TMWNN 6y ago
  > Well, we gave them the chance to create their own utopia in the CHAZ area and that became another stunning failure. I heard that during its existence, the six blocks of CHAZ were by capita the most dangerous place in the world, exceeding anywhere in South America or the Middle East.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  It was ad hoc and unplanned. That doesn't make for a good example of how police reform should work.
jjoonathan 6y ago
Is abolishing the police primarily an actual sub-movement or is it primarily a straw-man? "De-fund the police," as I've heard explained from people who actually claim to hold the belief, is about taxpayers being very generous when funding police and very stingy when funding education, infrastructure, and social programs. The idea is that the next marginal dollar might not best be spent on the police, even though taxpayers following historical trends would overwhelmingly vote to spend it there. I'm no social scientist, but I've certainly noticed that in the inner city the police always seem to have freshly painted, frequently-washed, current-year cars, freshly paved and remodeled offices with new signs and landscaping, new uniforms, and so on, while the food bank and the school are decrepit and run-down. The one time I bothered to look up salaries, they were, uhhh, entirely in-line with those outer appearances. On the basis of this purely personal and anecdotal evidence, I would tentatively support such proposals. Visiting San Francisco and seeing signs in every parking lot warning you to keep your valuables out-of-sight when parked and then learning that apparently they've decided to not punish crimes with damage below $1000, resulting in a predictable crime wave, makes me think that some part of the "de-fund the police" movement actually does want to get rid of the police, though. I haven't been paying enough attention to figure out how large these relative sub-groups are. Legitimately, I mean -- obviously if you listen to conservative media you'll get the impression that the crazies are the majority, while if you listen to liberal media you'll get the impression that they're a tiny minority -- I just haven't done the homework to make up my mind as to who's right. Either way, I'll give a close reading to any proposals they manage to get on to the ballot.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
scarface74 6y ago
If your reality were getting stopped and frisked statistically more because of your color or pulled over more for “looking suspicious”, your viewpoint might change. There have been plenty of cases where Black men were “suspiciously” going into their own homes. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/07/29/mission-impossible-star-ving-rhames-says-police-pulled-gun/859126002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/07/29/missio...
- aortega 6y ago
  That happens in every country. We call it "Illegal face possession", it's called profiling.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    That still doesn’t negate that if you are on the receiving end, you might be a little hostile to the police.
    - aortega 6y ago
      I'm no friends with police but they have been way more times in my side that against me.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        But if that one time they are against you they short you in the back seven times, suffocate you for nine minutes, or arrest you on trumped up charges, it doesn’t really balance out does it? That’s about like an abused spouse. “He doesn’t always beat me”.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    What form does it take in your country? Is it based on the amount of melanin in the profiling victim's skin, or are there other arbitrary factors?
    - 6y ago
HarryHirsch 6y ago
Come to America, experience American police when you get a chance. My university's (an also-ran regional institution) police force got a million dollar's worth of military surplus!
ineedasername 6y ago
The "defund" slogan is misleading. It doesn't mean "abolition"
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  No, that’s what it means. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol... Many articles from BLM leaders making this unambiguous statement.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    A very few people may want police abolished. That doesn't change the common meaning of "defund" as it is used by the vast majority of people.
dragonwriter 6y ago
“Abolish the police” isn't “abolish law enforcement” or even “abolish armed law enforcement”, but “abolish the centralize all-purpose paramilitart law-enforcement agencies that dominate local law enforcement (and, often, more than that, up to and sometimes including local politics) throughout the US. Its a call to radically redesign local government and community services and redesign how law enforcement fits into that, because of the perception not only that the current model is broken, but that decades of pouring money into reforms of police within the current model in response to problems has exacerbate the problems by draining resources from other priorities and forcing the police to expand the scope of their responsibility further out of the scope of their competency. Reform within the existing basic model being viewed as a failure leaves seeking a different model.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
It’s truly amazing. You must be thinking, people can’t possibly be this dumb. Unfortunately it’s true. Marxism is alive and well. Anarchists in west coast cities have been emboldened by the riots. The whole movement is a combination of the painfully naive and criminals. People keep jumping in to say “defund doesn’t mean defund” or “abolish doesn’t mean abolish”, but they really do mean it literally. They also chant “all cops are bastards”.

arkitaip 6y ago

Not being from the US is no excuse for being ignorant and arrogant on the matter.

aortega 6y ago
Then please explain why abolition of a basic public service would lead to better living conditions. Would you like to abolish water service or the army too?
dang 6y ago
Personal attacks will get you banned on HN. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

ianleeclark 6y ago

> I can only imagine the world they live in You know, you can go and read why they advocate for that position. You can do more than just imagine--more than just imprinting your own biases onto their position. It's just lazy.

rvz 6y ago

Well, we gave them the chance to create their own utopia in the CHAZ area and that became another stunning failure. It goes to show that realistically, they (who ever wants to defund the police) are really asking for an anarcho-communist utopia.

TMWNN 6y ago
> Well, we gave them the chance to create their own utopia in the CHAZ area and that became another stunning failure. I heard that during its existence, the six blocks of CHAZ were by capita the most dangerous place in the world, exceeding anywhere in South America or the Middle East.
ineedasername 6y ago
It was ad hoc and unplanned. That doesn't make for a good example of how police reform should work.

jjoonathan 6y ago

Is abolishing the police primarily an actual sub-movement or is it primarily a straw-man? "De-fund the police," as I've heard explained from people who actually claim to hold the belief, is about taxpayers being very generous when funding police and very stingy when funding education, infrastructure, and social programs. The idea is that the next marginal dollar might not best be spent on the police, even though taxpayers following historical trends would overwhelmingly vote to spend it there. I'm no social scientist, but I've certainly noticed that in the inner city the police always seem to have freshly painted, frequently-washed, current-year cars, freshly paved and remodeled offices with new signs and landscaping, new uniforms, and so on, while the food bank and the school are decrepit and run-down. The one time I bothered to look up salaries, they were, uhhh, entirely in-line with those outer appearances. On the basis of this purely personal and anecdotal evidence, I would tentatively support such proposals. Visiting San Francisco and seeing signs in every parking lot warning you to keep your valuables out-of-sight when parked and then learning that apparently they've decided to not punish crimes with damage below $1000, resulting in a predictable crime wave, makes me think that some part of the "de-fund the police" movement actually does want to get rid of the police, though. I haven't been paying enough attention to figure out how large these relative sub-groups are. Legitimately, I mean -- obviously if you listen to conservative media you'll get the impression that the crazies are the majority, while if you listen to liberal media you'll get the impression that they're a tiny minority -- I just haven't done the homework to make up my mind as to who's right. Either way, I'll give a close reading to any proposals they manage to get on to the ballot.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

scarface74 6y ago

If your reality were getting stopped and frisked statistically more because of your color or pulled over more for “looking suspicious”, your viewpoint might change. There have been plenty of cases where Black men were “suspiciously” going into their own homes. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/07/29/mission-impossible-star-ving-rhames-says-police-pulled-gun/859126002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/07/29/missio...

aortega 6y ago
That happens in every country. We call it "Illegal face possession", it's called profiling.
- scarface74 6y ago
  That still doesn’t negate that if you are on the receiving end, you might be a little hostile to the police.
  - aortega 6y ago
    I'm no friends with police but they have been way more times in my side that against me.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      But if that one time they are against you they short you in the back seven times, suffocate you for nine minutes, or arrest you on trumped up charges, it doesn’t really balance out does it? That’s about like an abused spouse. “He doesn’t always beat me”.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  What form does it take in your country? Is it based on the amount of melanin in the profiling victim's skin, or are there other arbitrary factors?
  - 6y ago

HarryHirsch 6y ago

Come to America, experience American police when you get a chance. My university's (an also-ran regional institution) police force got a million dollar's worth of military surplus!

ineedasername 6y ago

The "defund" slogan is misleading. It doesn't mean "abolition"

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
No, that’s what it means. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol... Many articles from BLM leaders making this unambiguous statement.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  A very few people may want police abolished. That doesn't change the common meaning of "defund" as it is used by the vast majority of people.

dragonwriter 6y ago

“Abolish the police” isn't “abolish law enforcement” or even “abolish armed law enforcement”, but “abolish the centralize all-purpose paramilitart law-enforcement agencies that dominate local law enforcement (and, often, more than that, up to and sometimes including local politics) throughout the US. Its a call to radically redesign local government and community services and redesign how law enforcement fits into that, because of the perception not only that the current model is broken, but that decades of pouring money into reforms of police within the current model in response to problems has exacerbate the problems by draining resources from other priorities and forcing the police to expand the scope of their responsibility further out of the scope of their competency. Reform within the existing basic model being viewed as a failure leaves seeking a different model.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

It’s truly amazing. You must be thinking, people can’t possibly be this dumb. Unfortunately it’s true. Marxism is alive and well. Anarchists in west coast cities have been emboldened by the riots. The whole movement is a combination of the painfully naive and criminals. People keep jumping in to say “defund doesn’t mean defund” or “abolish doesn’t mean abolish”, but they really do mean it literally. They also chant “all cops are bastards”.