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"There is always a risk" I think there's an easy way to figure out what people mean when they chant a slogan. Talk to them. "In my experience the community is

"There is always a risk" I think there's an easy way to figure out what people mean when they chant a slogan. Talk to them. "In my experience the community is quite divided on most topics and tends to come to a consensus using the literal meaning of words" Well, even if your experience is correct, so what? Defunding the police -as it currently exists-, in its entirety, and directing those funds to different agencies, including what the current police would turn into, is still removing 100% of the funds from the existing organization and redirecting them. No one is arguing to remove that funding and then setting that money on fire.

roenxi 5y ago
> Talk to them. They'll all have different opinions on what, in the detail, the phrase means. Large political crowds generally can't handle complex ideas. That is why the slogan matters, it is the bit that coordinates what the goal is. > Defunding the police -as it currently exists-, in its entirety, and directing those funds to different agencies... There are a few options. Major ones include: 1) This project is renaming the police. 2) This project is changing what they do. It probably isn't going to be 1, because then it wouldn't be worth the fuss. So the question is, which responsibilities of the police are we jettisoning here? Because the slogan suggests all of them. "Better funding for mental health" uses quite different syllables from "defund the police". I'm sure there are people with some great ideas in the crowd. But the ones in charge might be the people who believe, literally, that the point here is to defund everything the police do. There is a real risk people mean what they say.