2 ms·

The gist of the slogan, as originally intended, is to take some (not all) money and responsibilities away from the police and give them to unarmed or lesser-arm

The gist of the slogan, as originally intended, is to take some (not all) money and responsibilities away from the police and give them to unarmed or lesser-armed civil enforcement agencies when appropriate (for example: parking enforcement, mental health interventions with unarmed people), and to take away funding the exceeds that scope of reasonable armed police activity (e.g. no MRAPs, no elaborate SWAT teams in small towns). In other words, the intent is to fundamentally remove the institutional potential for cases like "I called in a noise complaint and then an officer showed up, shot my neighbor's dog, and kicked my child" by making it so that police are no longer the unfettered monolithic response for every possible civil disturbance.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
I see what the problem is now. The thing you're asking for is too reasonable and the reason it hasn't happened is political corruption. Because the reason the police have military vehicles isn't because anybody thought it was a good idea. It's because companies that make military hardware lobby for funding for law enforcement to buy their products. So you say "police don't need MRAPs" and everybody says "no kidding" and there is no debate to be had because there is no one really defending it. There is no controversy to cover, no story, because what are you going to say? Everyone we interviewed thought this was stupid? Then you turn around and it's happened again because some Congressperson needed some campaign contributions they could only get by sticking that funding into the omnibus bill. And of course anything that would actually reduce the need for police, and therefore their number, would be fought hard by police unions. The best solution I can come up with to problems like this is the double ox goring. Police unions are Republican things, so if you want to get something that benefits the public at their expense, find some thing that benefits the public at the political expense of the Democrats (e.g school choice), and then do them both together so it cancels out. In other words, so you can pass it with 60% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans instead of 100% of either party.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

I see what the problem is now. The thing you're asking for is too reasonable and the reason it hasn't happened is political corruption. Because the reason the police have military vehicles isn't because anybody thought it was a good idea. It's because companies that make military hardware lobby for funding for law enforcement to buy their products. So you say "police don't need MRAPs" and everybody says "no kidding" and there is no debate to be had because there is no one really defending it. There is no controversy to cover, no story, because what are you going to say? Everyone we interviewed thought this was stupid? Then you turn around and it's happened again because some Congressperson needed some campaign contributions they could only get by sticking that funding into the omnibus bill. And of course anything that would actually reduce the need for police, and therefore their number, would be fought hard by police unions. The best solution I can come up with to problems like this is the double ox goring. Police unions are Republican things, so if you want to get something that benefits the public at their expense, find some thing that benefits the public at the political expense of the Democrats (e.g school choice), and then do them both together so it cancels out. In other words, so you can pass it with 60% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans instead of 100% of either party.