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Counterpoint: it’s easy to support abolishing the police, when a clogged milk foamer is the biggest threat to your personal safety. Live in a wonderful sheltere

by nikanj 5y ago

Counterpoint: it’s easy to support abolishing the police, when a clogged milk foamer is the biggest threat to your personal safety. Live in a wonderful sheltered community, say ”I don’t see why we would need law enforcement”

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
While it is true that there are people who actually do propose completely defunding police activity or abolishing the police, they are a tiny minority of those who took part in protests about police behavior towards non-white communities. It's so easy to make cheap digs about that handful of people instead of actually tackle the issues that this misnamed movement was/is really about. If it had actually been called "Redirect substantive parts of the funding currently going to the police to provide alternate mechanisms to address a variety of situations and crises", would you still find it appropriate to make jabs about the situation of some of those who supported it?
- Taywee 5y ago
  > If it had actually been called "Redirect substantive parts of the funding currently going to the police to provide alternate mechanisms to address a variety of situations and crises", would you still find it appropriate to make jabs about the situation of some of those who supported it? No, because that's a rational and reasonable statement, where "defund the police" grabs attention, but is ultimately divisive and alienating. Like so many popular talking points, it's a complete failure of marketing and communication, and everybody who says it ends up having to redefine or explain it on a constant basis because on the surface it sounds completely irrational. Maybe it could have been more successful if the name actually reflected the goal. As-is, the supporters either actually believe in abolishing the police (which was also called for), or they are saying something they don't actually mean in a literal sense because it grabs more attention. The detractors in turn are only arguing with what a minority of the supporters actually even want, because we've grown so unconcerned as a society with actually conveying our points and getting people on our side, and more concerned with simply being noticed.
- josephg 5y ago
  I hear what you're saying, but words matter. I can never support a slogan I explicitly disagree with. There's plenty of better slogans out there. I'd support "end police violence" or "stop killer cops" or something. Thats certainly much more catchy than the full slogan right now, which seems to be "Defund the police, but we don't really want to do that, even though some people in our movement actually do want that, but they're a minority - we swear. But we want political power anyway and it'll be fine - you can trust us". You can tell its a bad slogan because of how much oxygen gets spent explaining it. (Eg, right here)
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    "End Police Violence" has been a slogan in fact. It didn't really do much, precisely because not enough people who consider themselves unaffected by the risk of police violence were drawn in by it. By contrast "Defund the Police" definitely generated a "say what?" response from just about everyone, whether you agreed with it or not. As for the political power thing ... given the difficulty that existing politicians and political bodies have in exerting control over police authority, the idea that any new group would somehow be able to actually accomplish anything remotely close to abolition is crazy. Look at what happened in Minneapolis as an illustrative example: probably the closest to "actual abolition", and it just fizzled out completely.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      What you heard as a “say what?” was a politely phrased “you guys haven’t thought this through” in a lot of cases. “Think different”, “Think outside the bun”, “Just Do It” are good “say what?” examples. I don’t think “Defund the Police” accomplished the goal to make curious and enlist fence-sitters to the cause and instead likely pushed more people towards supporting their police departments.
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    This sounds very much like the critiques I heard of “black lives matter”. Wait, are you saying white lives don’t matter? Where do these slogans come from? Are they designed by conservatives to make liberals look bad?
pessimizer 5y ago
Ah, "latte-sipping liberal." edit: There's something correct here, because if you want to look for people who supported defund, they were probably working in food service, making you coffee.
HomeGear 5y ago
“Defund the Police” was not an attempt at abolishing police. However, I do understand there are outlets that positioned it as such to gain emotional investment. The idea was to reallocate some of the police budget to mental health experts. The idea behind that idea is that we’d had better outcomes if mental health experts helped those having a breakdown (suicide attempt, etc) than armed police.

by nikanj 5y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

While it is true that there are people who actually do propose completely defunding police activity or abolishing the police, they are a tiny minority of those who took part in protests about police behavior towards non-white communities. It's so easy to make cheap digs about that handful of people instead of actually tackle the issues that this misnamed movement was/is really about. If it had actually been called "Redirect substantive parts of the funding currently going to the police to provide alternate mechanisms to address a variety of situations and crises", would you still find it appropriate to make jabs about the situation of some of those who supported it?

Taywee 5y ago
> If it had actually been called "Redirect substantive parts of the funding currently going to the police to provide alternate mechanisms to address a variety of situations and crises", would you still find it appropriate to make jabs about the situation of some of those who supported it? No, because that's a rational and reasonable statement, where "defund the police" grabs attention, but is ultimately divisive and alienating. Like so many popular talking points, it's a complete failure of marketing and communication, and everybody who says it ends up having to redefine or explain it on a constant basis because on the surface it sounds completely irrational. Maybe it could have been more successful if the name actually reflected the goal. As-is, the supporters either actually believe in abolishing the police (which was also called for), or they are saying something they don't actually mean in a literal sense because it grabs more attention. The detractors in turn are only arguing with what a minority of the supporters actually even want, because we've grown so unconcerned as a society with actually conveying our points and getting people on our side, and more concerned with simply being noticed.
josephg 5y ago
I hear what you're saying, but words matter. I can never support a slogan I explicitly disagree with. There's plenty of better slogans out there. I'd support "end police violence" or "stop killer cops" or something. Thats certainly much more catchy than the full slogan right now, which seems to be "Defund the police, but we don't really want to do that, even though some people in our movement actually do want that, but they're a minority - we swear. But we want political power anyway and it'll be fine - you can trust us". You can tell its a bad slogan because of how much oxygen gets spent explaining it. (Eg, right here)
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  "End Police Violence" has been a slogan in fact. It didn't really do much, precisely because not enough people who consider themselves unaffected by the risk of police violence were drawn in by it. By contrast "Defund the Police" definitely generated a "say what?" response from just about everyone, whether you agreed with it or not. As for the political power thing ... given the difficulty that existing politicians and political bodies have in exerting control over police authority, the idea that any new group would somehow be able to actually accomplish anything remotely close to abolition is crazy. Look at what happened in Minneapolis as an illustrative example: probably the closest to "actual abolition", and it just fizzled out completely.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    What you heard as a “say what?” was a politely phrased “you guys haven’t thought this through” in a lot of cases. “Think different”, “Think outside the bun”, “Just Do It” are good “say what?” examples. I don’t think “Defund the Police” accomplished the goal to make curious and enlist fence-sitters to the cause and instead likely pushed more people towards supporting their police departments.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  This sounds very much like the critiques I heard of “black lives matter”. Wait, are you saying white lives don’t matter? Where do these slogans come from? Are they designed by conservatives to make liberals look bad?

pessimizer 5y ago

Ah, "latte-sipping liberal." edit: There's something correct here, because if you want to look for people who supported defund, they were probably working in food service, making you coffee.

HomeGear 5y ago

“Defund the Police” was not an attempt at abolishing police. However, I do understand there are outlets that positioned it as such to gain emotional investment. The idea was to reallocate some of the police budget to mental health experts. The idea behind that idea is that we’d had better outcomes if mental health experts helped those having a breakdown (suicide attempt, etc) than armed police.