Stop that, please.
That entire “defund the police” is the dumbest idea out there. You NEED police, any society needs police. Either that, or next time your being assaulted or robbed, well, sucks to be you.
What the US needs is a completely restructured police system, from the ground up. It needs officers that received training, not the 3-6 months dicking around with idiots that teach them “anyways, then I started blasting”. It needs restructuring of yhe laws so that they can be held accountable when they abusre their powers. They need to learn how to de-escalate situations instead of throwing oil on fires. Racism needs to be squeezed out.
This is how police works in other countries, this is why in other countries we actually like and respect police .
This also requires other changes in the US. This justice system based on revenge has to go. Focus on rehabilitation instead. You gotta limit your guns. I know that people start screeching at the idea, bit if by now it’s still not clear that US citizens are NOT able to responsibly use their guns, then you have issues. You yourself might be super responsible but the next ten people are not. Take the guns away. Best would be all of it.
Those are things that will make your country nicer, and your police actually respectable.
While I agree that the system needs to be restructured, and rehabilitation and limiting of guns would be very very good policy. The idea of defunding the police exists for a reason.
US courts have ruled that police are not obligated to put themselves in danger for you. So if you are being attacked, and the police believe the attacker could pose a threat to them, they don’t have to do anything to help you or stop the attacker. So next time you’re being assaulted or robbed, it may still very well suck to be you even with the police in line of sight.
Furthermore, the police spend the budget that they do get on military equipment rather than training their officers in de-escalation.
So at what point do we stop funneling so much money into the police for them to waste it on things that make situations worse. We either have to defund the police and put the money towards other services such as social workers who can de-escalate through non violent means, or start putting restrictions on how the police are able to spend the money, and having stronger guidelines/requirements for the training they go through.
Defund the police means take their bloated military surplus budget, reduce it to reasonable levels and channel those funds into social services instead. It doesn’t mean ‘erase all cops’
All of that is true, but our police also need to be defunded. Police spending makes up a huge percentage of most municipal budgets, and diverts money from other necessary and helpful things, like social workers, emergency responders, programs for the unhoused, education, etc.
Yeah but you still need police. You need well trained police who know how to de-escalate situations. It also requires a change in how usi citizens look at crime. Prison sentences in Europe are always een as too lenient and lax but that is because in the US they are to punish, to enact revenge for the victims. In Europe prison sentences are also meant to reeducate, to prepare the person to come back to society. If o get arrested in Europe, it sucks. If I get arrested in the US, my life is mostly over. Once you’ve been a prisoner in the US, and you come back into society, you’re fucked. Good luck getting a normal job. It makes it that crimjnals are mucbore aggressive in the US, so police needs to be more aggressive too. You need to change how you handle crime, you need to rework your entire justice system.
No shit. That starts with reducing how much money they’re allocated. That’s what defunding the police means. It doesn’t mean get rid of the police as your implying, it means give them less money, so we have more to spend on social programs, rehabilitation, and other things that actually reduce crime.
Increase the budget for those things, keep the police budget the same but with the changes op is outlining and reduce the military budget.
police are essentially unneeded in a society that treats its members with compassion. That role is better handled by social workers. Defunding the police seems like a dumb idea to people principally unconcerned with compassion, but extremely concerned with a governmental occupationary force who, in a fit of paranoia, cant imagine that maybe humans arent rabidly violent without a looming threat of violence. One might in fact imagine that police themselves are responsible in part and often in whole for the many systemic failures that appear to justify them at their incredible unrivaled level of funding to you.
Also, you described reforms that would necessarily involve defunding the police. You agree with the position but think you dont because of the soundbite.
Defund the police doesn’t mean no police! It means not giving them so much money when that money is better spent on things that actually reduce crime. 99% of all blue collar crime is due to poverty. Why only treat the symptoms when you can get to the root of the problem. If cops really want to stop crime they would be more interested in white collar crime as that has far more impact down the road than any other crime.
Then don’t say defund the Police, say that instead. I agree that the US needs to fix a lot of issues, and you need police but restructured.
“Defund the pice” sounds like take all the money away and get rid of police. That’s how many conservatives interpret it, and it’s used successfully to ridicule the left.
I have so many questions, but I will limit it to one. Why are you content giving the power to defend yourself to someone else?
Because if you leave it up to each person to defend themselves, you have literal anarchy. You’ll have the weaker that will be at the bottom abused and only the strongest on top. You’ll have abuse and people getting away with abusing. It’s the thing I’m happy is far, far behind us.
We all need trained police.
Police are strong and abuse the “weak”. A monopoly on violence does make people weak.
I’m not sure if I am a top or bottom. I prefer horizontal.
