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While the events of 1/6 are hardly justifiable, I find it deeply troubling that the same crowd who was calling for the abolition of the police a few months ago

by smshgl 6y ago

While the events of 1/6 are hardly justifiable, I find it deeply troubling that the same crowd who was calling for the abolition of the police a few months ago is now earnestly encouraging informing on their own friends, family, and neighbors because they deserve to be punished and most importantly, humiliated. I hardly believe the FBI needs any assistance in locating anyone, but I fear this is settling a troubling precedent that has not been seen since 20th century Europe. In the months and years to come, we must try to not forget that the government exists solely for the benefit of its constituents, not the other way around. The ruled class, red and blue, does not want freedom from oppression, they want to be the oppressors.

jMyles 6y ago
> I find it deeply troubling that the same crowd who was calling for the abolition of the police a few months ago is now earnestly encouraging informing on their own friends Uhhh, is that actually happening? I think I have my finger pretty firmly on the pulse of one center of today's abolitionist movement, in Portland (where I was in the streets getting gassed many times this summer), and I don't know of anybody who holds the contradictory viewpoint you're describing. I don't think most abolitionists care enough about the Capitol in the first place to get enraged about this.
ceejayoz 6y ago
“Defund the police” (in general) doesn’t mean “don’t stop any crimes”. It means things like “maybe we don’t need armed people to give tickets to drivers with a busted headlight” and “if we put more funds into mental health crisis teams we won’t have to send as many cops to violent incidents”. There are full-on police abolitionists, but they’re far fewer in number.
- zpeti 6y ago
  That’s an interesting clarification as I’ve never heard this take before, especially from the press who’s supposed to speak for the left. They seem pretty happy with just plain: let’s defund the police, full stop.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    > especially from the press who’s supposed to speak for the left I have no idea what this quote means, but left leaning press have explained the concept of defunding the press just fine. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/05/defunding-the-police-us-what-does-it-mean https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/05/defunding-th... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-what-that-really-means/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-po...
    - leetcrew 6y ago
      have they? at the very least, they are not presenting a unified face. 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...
      - zepto 6y ago
        Why would you want or expect the press to present a unified face?
        mike_h 6y ago
        It’s a handy assumption when you want to use straw-man arguments.
        moron4hire 6y ago
        Because apparently "the press" and "the left" are both homogenous things that are in cahoots with each other to... do... something?
        smaddox 6y ago
        I think the standard end to that sentence is "to destroy our democracy."
        leetcrew 6y ago
- smshgl 6y ago
  Yes, I agree with you. I would also add the ‘spirit’ of the Defund the Police movement was that a lack of oversight created a safe environment for bad officers to victimize their community. Now, many of the same champions of this cause are taking on the role of the police themselves. Across Reddit, Twitter, and elsewhere, people are creating open source documents with the names of anyone they believe was at the riot. Most troubling of all, I am seeing many people openly advocating the police should have shot more protesters or brutalized them in some manner. This seems highly contrary to the goals of the movement.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    I haven't seen that. I have seen many saying black people would have been shot, and this is unequal, that doesn't mean they want more shot. I've also seen many decrying the lack of defence of congress. Again, doesn't mean more deaths, just better preparation.
    - loveistheanswer 6y ago
      I've seen many of my peers, friends even (which hurts to see) openly calling for mass bloodshed and rejoicing in the deaths of those who were shot or died on 1/6. Hatred and malice spreads like a viral wildfire on social media, no matter what your political ideology.
      - Nursie 6y ago
        Well on the one hand, hoping people get killed is pretty dark. On the other, these people literally attempted to overthrow the country, some were armed, some had bombs, some had the intent of abducting and/or harming people like Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. So I would be very sympathetic to there having been a much more robust response, whilst still preferring nobody be hurt.
        loveistheanswer 6y ago
        Yes, the lack of preparation for a mob which had been announcing its intentions publicly for weeks in advance leads me to believe someone higher up must have issued orders to stand down, essentially letting them in.
- daenz 6y ago
  >maybe we don’t need armed people to give tickets to drivers with a busted headlight There are endless videos of normal cops being executed by unhinged drivers who were pulled over for things like "a busted headlight." You don't know who you're dealing with, how close to the edge some people are, or if they are dangerous felons, when you pull them over. If those situations were a very real possibility in your daily job, would you perform that job unarmed? I wouldn't. Maybe some very brave mental health professionals would, for a time, until some of them are killed as well, as indiscriminately as the police, which is inevitable. What then? Stop pulling people over altogether, because it's not worth risking anybody's life further? Just let people speed and drive drunk, or drive with an unsafe vehicle? When I get this far in discussions with people, it eventually comes down to "well dangerous people shouldn't have guns." It's a nice thought, naive in my opinion, but regardless, how do we deal with the reality of right now until those ideals manifest in reality? The reality is that dangerous people make regular traffic stops too dangerous for normal people to behave in any other way that to exercise extreme caution.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > There are endless videos of cops being executed by unhinged drivers who were pulled over for things like "a busted headlight." Frequently, this is because they suspect the cop will find they have a warrant or contraband and the stop will proceed past a ticket to arrest and felony charges. Separating the civil and criminal enforcement here makes these encounters safer; we can see this in countries where traffic cops aren't routinely armed.
    - throwaway201103 6y ago
      So a traffic stop shouldn't involve a check for outstanding warrants?
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        There are a variety of different opinions on the matter. Don't check at all. Check, but report without pursuit. Some have issues with traffic stops entirely, given the racial biases involved in who to pull over. (Demonstrated most effectively in this study, where the disparity disappears when the sun goes down: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/inside-100-million-police-traffic-stops-new-evidence-racial-bias-n980556 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/inside-100-million-poli... / https://news.stanford.edu/2020/05/05/veil-darkness-reduces-racial-bias-traffic-stops/ https://news.stanford.edu/2020/05/05/veil-darkness-reduces-r...) There's also the fact that the scary "normal cops being executed by unhinged drivers" scenario is a vanishingly rare scenario. The rate of murders of police officers matches roughly the rate in the general population. https://www.newsweek.com/it-has-never-been-safer-be-cop-372025 https://www.newsweek.com/it-has-never-been-safer-be-cop-3720...
- anchpop 6y ago
  I'm totally on board with that plan (it would be nice if there were someone I could call to check on a possibly-suicidal friend who wouldn't show up with guns drawn). Americans are four times more likely to be killed by cops than Canadians, and 1 in 1000 young black men is killed by a cop (or some number along those lines). Clearly something should change. My question is, why call it "defund the police"? The core of the idea is that, in many cases we can change our response from involving police officers to involving some other group who will hopefully be able to do a better job. The fact that this can be accomplished by reallocating funds from the police department, to avoid needing to levy taxes to raise revenue, seems like almost the least important part of the plan. Even then, "defund the police" is only the first half of "defund the police and use the additional funding to create another group that picks up some of the police's responsibilities". My feeling is that many people view police with antipathy, so they like the slogan and concept of "defund the police" because it feels like a retaliation against the police. I strongly suspect that other ideas, some of which may be much more beneficial than changing the response, will be ignored if they can't be phrased as a tactical strike in the culture war. Here's one list of proposals [0] for police reform, many of which seem very promising for how little cultural sway they have (delegalize police unions, abolish QI, decriminalize victimless offenses, etc.) I wonder if they have so little sway because they can't be phrased in a sufficiently incendiary manner. (And by the way, just because there's antipathy towards the police doesn't mean the police are directly at fault. For instance, if police are made to enforce unpopular legislation like the war on drugs, that will obviously make people dislike them but the root problem is somewhat upstream) [0]: https://medium.com/@yudkowsky/a-comprehensive-reboot-of-law-enforcement-b76bfab850a3 https://medium.com/@yudkowsky/a-comprehensive-reboot-of-law-...
  - novok 6y ago
    I don't know if the the more reasonable but equivalent slogans got replaced by the more spicy ones in some sort of meme survival of the fittest, or if it's a trend of today's social movements to use divisive or easy to misunderstand slogans on purpose. Ex: "Black lives matter too" vs "black lives matter". or "replace / reboot the police" vs "defund the police". The police one I'm having a hard time thinking of a slogan that would be better, maybe that's why it stuck.
- travisoneill1 6y ago
  The problem is that "defund" means remove all funding. So these people are playing word games.
  - _jal 6y ago
    The problem is people who would rather whine about word choice in protest slogans instead the underlying issues.
    - tertius 6y ago
      No, the real problem is people getting angry because they think they understand the underlying issues. There is no reasoning that will allow down that anger. No looking at actual facts and statistics.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > The problem is that "defund" means remove all funding. So these people are playing word games. You have to that with slogans. They're low resolution, so there's an inevitable loss of fidelity. No one marches with a legislative proposal on a placard, and it would be unreasonable to do so.
    - travisoneill1 6y ago
      "Reform the police" is a slogan and accurate.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-police-reform-a-fundamentally-flawed-idea/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-police-reform-a-fund...
      - Pfhreak 6y ago
        It's not accurate, unfortunately. Reform is as ambiguous as defund. Do you mean totally eradicate and then reform a department? Or do you mean just telling them "do better"? Are you talking about re-forming the police or reforms for police?
- newsbinator 6y ago
  I take “defund the police” to mean the opposite of “fund the police”.
rconti 6y ago
"Defund the police" doesn't mean what you think it means. I was glad the police, in this case, showed the restraint to not engage in violence due to an unruly crowd who seemed to pose no threat to their lives. They showed how it could be done, although due to planning failures, they were BADLY under-staffed, and it got perilously close to the VP and other leaders. Deadly force was only employed as a last resort. And I fully support snitching on violent criminals. There are many consistent positions a large number of people hold. Trying to make this an "us versus them" by proclaiming in your comment that the entirety of "red vs blue" are only out for their own interests is only feeding into a narrative of complete polarization where there is actually a ton of common ground.
- smshgl 6y ago
  Unfortunately, it seems all too often we are sorted into red or blue containers if we don’t choose a side ourselves. > And I fully support snitching on violent criminals And when the criminals have all been removed, the police will give back their power? Or will they create more? They don’t need your help to arrest anyone, they do need your help to not question their methods.
  - rconti 6y ago
    The thing is, people choosing to turn in offenders is not an expansion in police powers. If anything, good people doing nothing gives police justification to ask for an expansion of their powers. For the police to be effective, I believe they need to work hand in hand with the people they are supposed to serve. They need the respect and consent of the citizenry. I think that's a two-way street. When that relationship turns adversarial, whatever the reason, we see an expansion in statutory powers, pretextual searches, etc.
betterunix2 6y ago
No serious person was saying we should abolish the police, that is just another lie from the former conservative media (former, because there is nothing recognizably conservative about trumpism). There are legitimate questions about the use of police funding for militarization, and those questions have been raised by people all over the political spectrum. There are also serious problems with the differences in how the police handle calls, patrol work, and arrests in black neighborhoods and with black suspects versus white neighborhoods. Since the 90s the alarm has been sounded about the infiltration of police forces across the country by white nationalists and neonazis. Those concerns can be addressed by well-planned police reform, which is what people have actually been calling for. As for 20th century Europe, we are already there when armed terrorists invade the Capitol in an attempt to, as they themselves said, overthrow the government.
- jMyles 6y ago
  > No serious person was saying we should abolish the police I don't think any serious person is saying that "no serious person was saying we should abolish the police." Abolitionism has been a strong movement, close to the core of American values of liberty, since the beginning of professional police and the Charleston Watch, before the civil war. I am a serious person. And I do not believe that the institution of the police is the best way for a nation whose laws are based on the commonlaw tradition to establish justice or promote safety. Especially in 2020, when there are cameras everywhere and the capacity to report emergencies at lightspeed, I think that continuing to fund and empower this particular experiment is irresponsible.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  I guess a statement like that can always be true depending on how you define serious person. But millions of people were and are arguing for the strongest possible interpretation of “abolish the police”. 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... I have to admit I find it pretty disheartening that mainstream liberals are for the most part just as unwilling to take a critical look at the most extreme, “all cops are bad”, toppling statues of Abraham Lincoln and burning down police stations subset of the left or even acknowledge that it exists, as the mainstream republicans have been of condemning the trumpism/q-anon alt right.
sokoloff 6y ago
How sure are you that it’s the same people? For my account, I’m in favor of arresting and charging everyone acting criminally lawlessly, whether wearing a Viking helmet, a MAGA hat, or a BLM shirt. I want the public to be free from the oppression caused by lawless rioting.
- pjc50 6y ago
  .. provided they're held to the same standard. Which has been a problem up till now.
D13Fd 6y ago
I think a lot of people weren't thinking things through, and a lot of the "defund the police" stuff was hyperbole. Also, a violent insurrection literally storming and occupying the seat of the U.S. government, with the goal of changing the incoming government, is very different from what happened this summer. What happened this summer included a large number of violent riots, but they targeted mainly state and local governments and private property, and without the goal of regime change. Both are very bad, but open insurrection against the sitting U.S. government is far worse.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  The establishment of “autonomous zones” were technically also acts of insurrection.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Seattle protesters only wanted to assemble peacefully at the police station. The autonomous zone formed after the police abandoned the station and the area. People inside worked with other city departments up until the end. They even renamed the area because so many people didn't understand what autonomous meant.
neogodless 6y ago
There is a recurring theme in thin arguments where it is argued that "the same people" argue two different, apparently contrasting things (without evidence.) The reality is that there are some groupings of people with contradictory beliefs, but more realistically, each individual has a belief of each issue somewhere on a spectrum. Polarization has further grouped issues together, and attributed each stance as one side or the other, but this is not a useful way to explore issues or try to find the right balance or compromise for individual issues. You might be left-wing and also support a demilitarization of law enforcement, especially when you look at uneven responses to protests[0], but political affiliation is not nearly as consistent as that just based on race alone[1], despite the greater risk of lethal force being applied when you have black skin[2]. And if you are right-wing and support overrunning the Capitol and disrupting the election process, you believe what was done was right and a fight against a corrupt and oppressive government. But wherever you fall on the political spectrum, if you believe that the individuals broke the law by forcefully entering the Capitol, you may find it dutiful to respond to requests from the FBI to aide in identifying those individuals (particularly if you believe this behavior attacks an important component of elected representative democracy.) What keeps surprising me, though, is the failure to see President Donald Trump as an oppressor. He labels roughly half of his own citizens as enemies, discredits alternative sources of information (basically anyone that disagrees with him); accepting that behavior is a dangerous way to choose your political leaders. You should strive to unite the citizens, and your government should not be the strongest, loudest voice you listen to, because you need checks and balances against government controlled information. [0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-response-to-the-capitol-breach-wasnt-an-aberration/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-respo... [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-two-party-system-obscures-the-complexity-of-black-americans-politics/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-two-party-syste... [2] https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3660&context=faculty_scholarship https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... > The finding of elevated risk for Black victims in the Mental Health Crisis group suggests two worrisome features of police killings: First, training protocols focused solely on mental health may need to be redesigned to incorporate issues of greater perceptions of threat among Black civilians. Second, race may be more salient than other factors in the decision to use lethal force on a suspect across circumstances. This is particularly worrisome given the additional details of flight and threat in killings with less substantial bases for reasonableness. In other words, race appears to distinguish these killings even after taking into account the additional factors that might justify an officer’s use of lethal force. Police killings, then, are neither race-neutral nor linked to specific features of the incident.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by smshgl 6y ago

jMyles 6y ago

> I find it deeply troubling that the same crowd who was calling for the abolition of the police a few months ago is now earnestly encouraging informing on their own friends Uhhh, is that actually happening? I think I have my finger pretty firmly on the pulse of one center of today's abolitionist movement, in Portland (where I was in the streets getting gassed many times this summer), and I don't know of anybody who holds the contradictory viewpoint you're describing. I don't think most abolitionists care enough about the Capitol in the first place to get enraged about this.

ceejayoz 6y ago

“Defund the police” (in general) doesn’t mean “don’t stop any crimes”. It means things like “maybe we don’t need armed people to give tickets to drivers with a busted headlight” and “if we put more funds into mental health crisis teams we won’t have to send as many cops to violent incidents”. There are full-on police abolitionists, but they’re far fewer in number.

zpeti 6y ago
That’s an interesting clarification as I’ve never heard this take before, especially from the press who’s supposed to speak for the left. They seem pretty happy with just plain: let’s defund the police, full stop.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  > especially from the press who’s supposed to speak for the left I have no idea what this quote means, but left leaning press have explained the concept of defunding the press just fine. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/05/defunding-the-police-us-what-does-it-mean https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/05/defunding-th... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-what-that-really-means/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-po...
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    have they? at the very least, they are not presenting a unified face. 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...
    - zepto 6y ago
      Why would you want or expect the press to present a unified face?
      - mike_h 6y ago
        It’s a handy assumption when you want to use straw-man arguments.
      - moron4hire 6y ago
        Because apparently "the press" and "the left" are both homogenous things that are in cahoots with each other to... do... something?
        smaddox 6y ago
        I think the standard end to that sentence is "to destroy our democracy."
      - leetcrew 6y ago
smshgl 6y ago
Yes, I agree with you. I would also add the ‘spirit’ of the Defund the Police movement was that a lack of oversight created a safe environment for bad officers to victimize their community. Now, many of the same champions of this cause are taking on the role of the police themselves. Across Reddit, Twitter, and elsewhere, people are creating open source documents with the names of anyone they believe was at the riot. Most troubling of all, I am seeing many people openly advocating the police should have shot more protesters or brutalized them in some manner. This seems highly contrary to the goals of the movement.
- Nursie 6y ago
  I haven't seen that. I have seen many saying black people would have been shot, and this is unequal, that doesn't mean they want more shot. I've also seen many decrying the lack of defence of congress. Again, doesn't mean more deaths, just better preparation.
  - loveistheanswer 6y ago
    I've seen many of my peers, friends even (which hurts to see) openly calling for mass bloodshed and rejoicing in the deaths of those who were shot or died on 1/6. Hatred and malice spreads like a viral wildfire on social media, no matter what your political ideology.
    - Nursie 6y ago
      Well on the one hand, hoping people get killed is pretty dark. On the other, these people literally attempted to overthrow the country, some were armed, some had bombs, some had the intent of abducting and/or harming people like Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. So I would be very sympathetic to there having been a much more robust response, whilst still preferring nobody be hurt.
      - loveistheanswer 6y ago
        Yes, the lack of preparation for a mob which had been announcing its intentions publicly for weeks in advance leads me to believe someone higher up must have issued orders to stand down, essentially letting them in.
daenz 6y ago
>maybe we don’t need armed people to give tickets to drivers with a busted headlight There are endless videos of normal cops being executed by unhinged drivers who were pulled over for things like "a busted headlight." You don't know who you're dealing with, how close to the edge some people are, or if they are dangerous felons, when you pull them over. If those situations were a very real possibility in your daily job, would you perform that job unarmed? I wouldn't. Maybe some very brave mental health professionals would, for a time, until some of them are killed as well, as indiscriminately as the police, which is inevitable. What then? Stop pulling people over altogether, because it's not worth risking anybody's life further? Just let people speed and drive drunk, or drive with an unsafe vehicle? When I get this far in discussions with people, it eventually comes down to "well dangerous people shouldn't have guns." It's a nice thought, naive in my opinion, but regardless, how do we deal with the reality of right now until those ideals manifest in reality? The reality is that dangerous people make regular traffic stops too dangerous for normal people to behave in any other way that to exercise extreme caution.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > There are endless videos of cops being executed by unhinged drivers who were pulled over for things like "a busted headlight." Frequently, this is because they suspect the cop will find they have a warrant or contraband and the stop will proceed past a ticket to arrest and felony charges. Separating the civil and criminal enforcement here makes these encounters safer; we can see this in countries where traffic cops aren't routinely armed.
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    So a traffic stop shouldn't involve a check for outstanding warrants?
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      There are a variety of different opinions on the matter. Don't check at all. Check, but report without pursuit. Some have issues with traffic stops entirely, given the racial biases involved in who to pull over. (Demonstrated most effectively in this study, where the disparity disappears when the sun goes down: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/inside-100-million-police-traffic-stops-new-evidence-racial-bias-n980556 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/inside-100-million-poli... / https://news.stanford.edu/2020/05/05/veil-darkness-reduces-racial-bias-traffic-stops/ https://news.stanford.edu/2020/05/05/veil-darkness-reduces-r...) There's also the fact that the scary "normal cops being executed by unhinged drivers" scenario is a vanishingly rare scenario. The rate of murders of police officers matches roughly the rate in the general population. https://www.newsweek.com/it-has-never-been-safer-be-cop-372025 https://www.newsweek.com/it-has-never-been-safer-be-cop-3720...
anchpop 6y ago
I'm totally on board with that plan (it would be nice if there were someone I could call to check on a possibly-suicidal friend who wouldn't show up with guns drawn). Americans are four times more likely to be killed by cops than Canadians, and 1 in 1000 young black men is killed by a cop (or some number along those lines). Clearly something should change. My question is, why call it "defund the police"? The core of the idea is that, in many cases we can change our response from involving police officers to involving some other group who will hopefully be able to do a better job. The fact that this can be accomplished by reallocating funds from the police department, to avoid needing to levy taxes to raise revenue, seems like almost the least important part of the plan. Even then, "defund the police" is only the first half of "defund the police and use the additional funding to create another group that picks up some of the police's responsibilities". My feeling is that many people view police with antipathy, so they like the slogan and concept of "defund the police" because it feels like a retaliation against the police. I strongly suspect that other ideas, some of which may be much more beneficial than changing the response, will be ignored if they can't be phrased as a tactical strike in the culture war. Here's one list of proposals [0] for police reform, many of which seem very promising for how little cultural sway they have (delegalize police unions, abolish QI, decriminalize victimless offenses, etc.) I wonder if they have so little sway because they can't be phrased in a sufficiently incendiary manner. (And by the way, just because there's antipathy towards the police doesn't mean the police are directly at fault. For instance, if police are made to enforce unpopular legislation like the war on drugs, that will obviously make people dislike them but the root problem is somewhat upstream) [0]: https://medium.com/@yudkowsky/a-comprehensive-reboot-of-law-enforcement-b76bfab850a3 https://medium.com/@yudkowsky/a-comprehensive-reboot-of-law-...
- novok 6y ago
  I don't know if the the more reasonable but equivalent slogans got replaced by the more spicy ones in some sort of meme survival of the fittest, or if it's a trend of today's social movements to use divisive or easy to misunderstand slogans on purpose. Ex: "Black lives matter too" vs "black lives matter". or "replace / reboot the police" vs "defund the police". The police one I'm having a hard time thinking of a slogan that would be better, maybe that's why it stuck.
travisoneill1 6y ago
The problem is that "defund" means remove all funding. So these people are playing word games.
- _jal 6y ago
  The problem is people who would rather whine about word choice in protest slogans instead the underlying issues.
  - tertius 6y ago
    No, the real problem is people getting angry because they think they understand the underlying issues. There is no reasoning that will allow down that anger. No looking at actual facts and statistics.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > The problem is that "defund" means remove all funding. So these people are playing word games. You have to that with slogans. They're low resolution, so there's an inevitable loss of fidelity. No one marches with a legislative proposal on a placard, and it would be unreasonable to do so.
  - travisoneill1 6y ago
    "Reform the police" is a slogan and accurate.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-police-reform-a-fundamentally-flawed-idea/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-police-reform-a-fund...
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      It's not accurate, unfortunately. Reform is as ambiguous as defund. Do you mean totally eradicate and then reform a department? Or do you mean just telling them "do better"? Are you talking about re-forming the police or reforms for police?
newsbinator 6y ago
I take “defund the police” to mean the opposite of “fund the police”.

rconti 6y ago

"Defund the police" doesn't mean what you think it means. I was glad the police, in this case, showed the restraint to not engage in violence due to an unruly crowd who seemed to pose no threat to their lives. They showed how it could be done, although due to planning failures, they were BADLY under-staffed, and it got perilously close to the VP and other leaders. Deadly force was only employed as a last resort. And I fully support snitching on violent criminals. There are many consistent positions a large number of people hold. Trying to make this an "us versus them" by proclaiming in your comment that the entirety of "red vs blue" are only out for their own interests is only feeding into a narrative of complete polarization where there is actually a ton of common ground.

smshgl 6y ago
Unfortunately, it seems all too often we are sorted into red or blue containers if we don’t choose a side ourselves. > And I fully support snitching on violent criminals And when the criminals have all been removed, the police will give back their power? Or will they create more? They don’t need your help to arrest anyone, they do need your help to not question their methods.
- rconti 6y ago
  The thing is, people choosing to turn in offenders is not an expansion in police powers. If anything, good people doing nothing gives police justification to ask for an expansion of their powers. For the police to be effective, I believe they need to work hand in hand with the people they are supposed to serve. They need the respect and consent of the citizenry. I think that's a two-way street. When that relationship turns adversarial, whatever the reason, we see an expansion in statutory powers, pretextual searches, etc.

betterunix2 6y ago

No serious person was saying we should abolish the police, that is just another lie from the former conservative media (former, because there is nothing recognizably conservative about trumpism). There are legitimate questions about the use of police funding for militarization, and those questions have been raised by people all over the political spectrum. There are also serious problems with the differences in how the police handle calls, patrol work, and arrests in black neighborhoods and with black suspects versus white neighborhoods. Since the 90s the alarm has been sounded about the infiltration of police forces across the country by white nationalists and neonazis. Those concerns can be addressed by well-planned police reform, which is what people have actually been calling for. As for 20th century Europe, we are already there when armed terrorists invade the Capitol in an attempt to, as they themselves said, overthrow the government.

jMyles 6y ago
> No serious person was saying we should abolish the police I don't think any serious person is saying that "no serious person was saying we should abolish the police." Abolitionism has been a strong movement, close to the core of American values of liberty, since the beginning of professional police and the Charleston Watch, before the civil war. I am a serious person. And I do not believe that the institution of the police is the best way for a nation whose laws are based on the commonlaw tradition to establish justice or promote safety. Especially in 2020, when there are cameras everywhere and the capacity to report emergencies at lightspeed, I think that continuing to fund and empower this particular experiment is irresponsible.
cactus2093 6y ago
I guess a statement like that can always be true depending on how you define serious person. But millions of people were and are arguing for the strongest possible interpretation of “abolish the police”. 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... I have to admit I find it pretty disheartening that mainstream liberals are for the most part just as unwilling to take a critical look at the most extreme, “all cops are bad”, toppling statues of Abraham Lincoln and burning down police stations subset of the left or even acknowledge that it exists, as the mainstream republicans have been of condemning the trumpism/q-anon alt right.

sokoloff 6y ago

How sure are you that it’s the same people? For my account, I’m in favor of arresting and charging everyone acting criminally lawlessly, whether wearing a Viking helmet, a MAGA hat, or a BLM shirt. I want the public to be free from the oppression caused by lawless rioting.

pjc50 6y ago
.. provided they're held to the same standard. Which has been a problem up till now.

D13Fd 6y ago

I think a lot of people weren't thinking things through, and a lot of the "defund the police" stuff was hyperbole. Also, a violent insurrection literally storming and occupying the seat of the U.S. government, with the goal of changing the incoming government, is very different from what happened this summer. What happened this summer included a large number of violent riots, but they targeted mainly state and local governments and private property, and without the goal of regime change. Both are very bad, but open insurrection against the sitting U.S. government is far worse.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
The establishment of “autonomous zones” were technically also acts of insurrection.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Seattle protesters only wanted to assemble peacefully at the police station. The autonomous zone formed after the police abandoned the station and the area. People inside worked with other city departments up until the end. They even renamed the area because so many people didn't understand what autonomous meant.

neogodless 6y ago

There is a recurring theme in thin arguments where it is argued that "the same people" argue two different, apparently contrasting things (without evidence.) The reality is that there are some groupings of people with contradictory beliefs, but more realistically, each individual has a belief of each issue somewhere on a spectrum. Polarization has further grouped issues together, and attributed each stance as one side or the other, but this is not a useful way to explore issues or try to find the right balance or compromise for individual issues. You might be left-wing and also support a demilitarization of law enforcement, especially when you look at uneven responses to protests[0], but political affiliation is not nearly as consistent as that just based on race alone[1], despite the greater risk of lethal force being applied when you have black skin[2]. And if you are right-wing and support overrunning the Capitol and disrupting the election process, you believe what was done was right and a fight against a corrupt and oppressive government. But wherever you fall on the political spectrum, if you believe that the individuals broke the law by forcefully entering the Capitol, you may find it dutiful to respond to requests from the FBI to aide in identifying those individuals (particularly if you believe this behavior attacks an important component of elected representative democracy.) What keeps surprising me, though, is the failure to see President Donald Trump as an oppressor. He labels roughly half of his own citizens as enemies, discredits alternative sources of information (basically anyone that disagrees with him); accepting that behavior is a dangerous way to choose your political leaders. You should strive to unite the citizens, and your government should not be the strongest, loudest voice you listen to, because you need checks and balances against government controlled information. [0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-response-to-the-capitol-breach-wasnt-an-aberration/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-respo... [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-two-party-system-obscures-the-complexity-of-black-americans-politics/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-two-party-syste... [2] https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3660&context=faculty_scholarship https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art... > The finding of elevated risk for Black victims in the Mental Health Crisis group suggests two worrisome features of police killings: First, training protocols focused solely on mental health may need to be redesigned to incorporate issues of greater perceptions of threat among Black civilians. Second, race may be more salient than other factors in the decision to use lethal force on a suspect across circumstances. This is particularly worrisome given the additional details of flight and threat in killings with less substantial bases for reasonableness. In other words, race appears to distinguish these killings even after taking into account the additional factors that might justify an officer’s use of lethal force. Police killings, then, are neither race-neutral nor linked to specific features of the incident.

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