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> It’s hard to blame people for misunderstanding slogans that supposedly don’t mean what the plain meaning would suggest. I find it very easy to blame people w

> It’s hard to blame people for misunderstanding slogans that supposedly don’t mean what the plain meaning would suggest. I find it very easy to blame people who are not willing to spend 10 seconds researching what a movement stands for. We can't say that it's okay to read three words on a sign, interpret it in your own context, and then blame the movement when you don't "understand" it. It's a slogan! What do you expect for a less-than-five-word sentence that people can unite under?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I'd expect something that's not so much more extreme than the idea it's trying to communicate. If people march around saying "tear down the bridges", tagging bridges with little Xs where the demolitions should start, I'm not gonna stick around to hear that they actually mean rural highways should be better funded.
- judofyr 6y ago
  Why not? Why are you not willing to invest time into understanding what other people are willing to march in the street for?
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I'm willing to invest time, but I start from the assumption that the slogans and symbols of the marchers are honest attempts to explain what they're marching for.
JoshuaDavid 6y ago
At a minimum, I'd hope that if you asked 5 people who were uniting under that less-than-five word slogan what that slogan meant, in terms of desired policy, that at least 3 of those 5 people would agree with one another.
- p49k 6y ago
  Anyone who has had discussions with such supporters in good faith would be aware that they are closely aligned on the central points of reform.
  - JoshuaDavid 6y ago
    All the supporters I have talked to are in favor of "reform", yes. The specifics of what exactly it means to "defund" the police varies pretty significantly between supporters though -- some say "obviously we still need police but maybe try sending in a social worker for the homeless guy who is lying unconscious onthe ground" and others say "defund means entirely defund, as in abolish, I mean what I say" (I'm assuming that is the slogan in question, but not entirely positive because the post I was replying to was vagueposting).
    - p49k 6y ago
      I’ve heard hundreds of supporters speak and the message is fairly uniform: reduce the operational scope and budget of police significantly and use those resources on programs - proven to work elsewhere - which help people and communities in ways that are more appropriate to the specific problem and more efficient in reducing crime. The degree in which the scope/budget varies, but of course some people are arguing for what they think is realistically achievable and others are arguing their ideal; both are valid debate strategies and don’t necessarily mean that they aren’t aligned. The few people I’ve heard say “remove police entirely,” when asked to elaborate, meant that the entire organization/concept of policing should be rebuilt from the ground up, not that there should be no one in society available to respond to crimes occurring.
donw 6y ago
> I find it very easy to blame people who are not willing to spend 10 seconds researching what a movement stands for. Then you suffer from a profound lack of empathy. I invested your "10 seconds". Google took me to a site called Defund the Police[1]. Reading this site, it seems that they want to... defund the police. As in, take the majority of their funding away, and put it somewhere else (nominally into social programs). Not making a value judgement here, but I'm pretty sure this thing does what it says on the tin. [1] https://defundthepolice.org https://defundthepolice.org
- judofyr 6y ago
  > I invested your "10 seconds". Google took me to a site called Defund the Police[1]. Weird. That page is not even at page 1 for me. Wikipedia comes up first for me and would generally be my go-to source for these topics. > Reading this site, it seems that they want to... defund the police. As in, take the majority of their funding away, and put it somewhere else (nominally into social programs). > Not making a value judgement here, but I'm pretty sure this thing does what it says on the tin. Yes? This is correctly what the movement is about. The misunderstanding we're talking about here is that people assume it means only cutting down police funds without investing it anywhere else.
  - donw 6y ago
    > The misunderstanding we're talking about here is that people assume it means only cutting down police funds without investing it anywhere else. Pretty sure people understood that part. Edit: I am also seeing downvotes on my above comment, which seems to indicate that a fair number of people disagree with the assessment that "defund the police" means "defund the police".
  - iso1210 6y ago
    DDG for "Defund the Police" from my normal browser at home in the UK with UK sites enabled 1) CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/06/us/what-is-defund-police-trnd/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/06/us/what-is-defund-police-... 2) https://defundthepolice.org https://defundthepolice.org 3) Wikipedia 4) Daily Caller (sigh) 5) Guardian CNN opens with It's as straightforward as it sounds: Instead of funding a police department, a sizable chunk of a city's budget is invested in communities, especially marginalized ones where much of the policing occurs. Wikipedia states "Defund the police" is a slogan that supports divesting funds from police departments and reallocating them to non-policing forms of public safety and community support, such as social services, youth services, housing, education, healthcare and other community resources. Activists who use the phrase may do so with varying intentions; some seek modest reductions, while others argue for full defunding as a step toward the abolition of contemporary police services. > The misunderstanding we're talking about here is that people assume it means only cutting down police funds without investing it anywhere else. You'd think conservatives would be all for that - smaller state, lower taxes
bradleyjg 6y ago
Make love, not war The personal is political We’re here. We’re queer. We are the 99% Black Lives Matter
zarkov99 6y ago
I would expect a slogan that is not so insane that that it constantly has be explained and interpreted by apologists. Lets cut the crap. Defund the police means defund the police.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

I'd expect something that's not so much more extreme than the idea it's trying to communicate. If people march around saying "tear down the bridges", tagging bridges with little Xs where the demolitions should start, I'm not gonna stick around to hear that they actually mean rural highways should be better funded.

judofyr 6y ago
Why not? Why are you not willing to invest time into understanding what other people are willing to march in the street for?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I'm willing to invest time, but I start from the assumption that the slogans and symbols of the marchers are honest attempts to explain what they're marching for.

JoshuaDavid 6y ago

At a minimum, I'd hope that if you asked 5 people who were uniting under that less-than-five word slogan what that slogan meant, in terms of desired policy, that at least 3 of those 5 people would agree with one another.

p49k 6y ago
Anyone who has had discussions with such supporters in good faith would be aware that they are closely aligned on the central points of reform.
- JoshuaDavid 6y ago
  All the supporters I have talked to are in favor of "reform", yes. The specifics of what exactly it means to "defund" the police varies pretty significantly between supporters though -- some say "obviously we still need police but maybe try sending in a social worker for the homeless guy who is lying unconscious onthe ground" and others say "defund means entirely defund, as in abolish, I mean what I say" (I'm assuming that is the slogan in question, but not entirely positive because the post I was replying to was vagueposting).
  - p49k 6y ago
    I’ve heard hundreds of supporters speak and the message is fairly uniform: reduce the operational scope and budget of police significantly and use those resources on programs - proven to work elsewhere - which help people and communities in ways that are more appropriate to the specific problem and more efficient in reducing crime. The degree in which the scope/budget varies, but of course some people are arguing for what they think is realistically achievable and others are arguing their ideal; both are valid debate strategies and don’t necessarily mean that they aren’t aligned. The few people I’ve heard say “remove police entirely,” when asked to elaborate, meant that the entire organization/concept of policing should be rebuilt from the ground up, not that there should be no one in society available to respond to crimes occurring.

donw 6y ago

> I find it very easy to blame people who are not willing to spend 10 seconds researching what a movement stands for. Then you suffer from a profound lack of empathy. I invested your "10 seconds". Google took me to a site called Defund the Police[1]. Reading this site, it seems that they want to... defund the police. As in, take the majority of their funding away, and put it somewhere else (nominally into social programs). Not making a value judgement here, but I'm pretty sure this thing does what it says on the tin. [1] https://defundthepolice.org https://defundthepolice.org

judofyr 6y ago
> I invested your "10 seconds". Google took me to a site called Defund the Police[1]. Weird. That page is not even at page 1 for me. Wikipedia comes up first for me and would generally be my go-to source for these topics. > Reading this site, it seems that they want to... defund the police. As in, take the majority of their funding away, and put it somewhere else (nominally into social programs). > Not making a value judgement here, but I'm pretty sure this thing does what it says on the tin. Yes? This is correctly what the movement is about. The misunderstanding we're talking about here is that people assume it means only cutting down police funds without investing it anywhere else.
- donw 6y ago
  > The misunderstanding we're talking about here is that people assume it means only cutting down police funds without investing it anywhere else. Pretty sure people understood that part. Edit: I am also seeing downvotes on my above comment, which seems to indicate that a fair number of people disagree with the assessment that "defund the police" means "defund the police".
- iso1210 6y ago
  DDG for "Defund the Police" from my normal browser at home in the UK with UK sites enabled 1) CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/06/us/what-is-defund-police-trnd/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/06/us/what-is-defund-police-... 2) https://defundthepolice.org https://defundthepolice.org 3) Wikipedia 4) Daily Caller (sigh) 5) Guardian CNN opens with It's as straightforward as it sounds: Instead of funding a police department, a sizable chunk of a city's budget is invested in communities, especially marginalized ones where much of the policing occurs. Wikipedia states "Defund the police" is a slogan that supports divesting funds from police departments and reallocating them to non-policing forms of public safety and community support, such as social services, youth services, housing, education, healthcare and other community resources. Activists who use the phrase may do so with varying intentions; some seek modest reductions, while others argue for full defunding as a step toward the abolition of contemporary police services. > The misunderstanding we're talking about here is that people assume it means only cutting down police funds without investing it anywhere else. You'd think conservatives would be all for that - smaller state, lower taxes

bradleyjg 6y ago

Make love, not war The personal is political We’re here. We’re queer. We are the 99% Black Lives Matter

zarkov99 6y ago

I would expect a slogan that is not so insane that that it constantly has be explained and interpreted by apologists. Lets cut the crap. Defund the police means defund the police.