Current Events > "Defund the police doesn't mean abolish"

(+) Yeah! (+)

"Defund" sounds a lot more like "abolish" than "reform" to quite a few people, so the confusion is completely reasonable.

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Police reform is impossible. There is no incentive for the police to change their behaviors.

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The issue is the for many it does mean abolish. And for others, defund does not mean reform, just defund.

I'd say the majority of the actual conversation has surrounded those two options, with reform options being approached by politicians and being received with disdain from activists.

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Refund definitely means stop giving them money. Which will effectively abolish them. And there are some who actually do want to abolish the police. It's a very stupid phrase, and while it is in its infancy they should nip it in the bud. Just stomp that shit out and move forward. But those whose proposals are pretty much reform and redistribute some funding seem to be holding the forefront. And if you see what they are saying need to be done and you want to harp on the phrasing of a hashtag instead of the policy, it's clear it wouldn't really matter what it was called. Just like the "All Lives Matter" people. Even after being told what BLM is about for years they still stick to their guns. The slogan isn't what the problem is. They oppose the substance because they want things to stay the way they are. Hell, many of them want things to go back to "the way it used to be" despite being shown how horrible it is for a subsection of Americans.
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It means abolish the current system and make a new one from the ground up. The current system is corrupt all the way to its roots, and there's just no real hope of any reform working. It's far better to just start over.

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Police are simply the enforcers in the corrupt justice system in America. America has the most prisoners both by raw population and per capita (about .7% of America is currently in jail). About 30% of Americans have a criminal record by FBI definitions. It's a culture of violence, control, and punishment. Simply replacing the people you send out to deprive people of their freedom fixes nothing. The reason other countries have less of these problems isn't simply because they have better cops or less criminals, it's because they aren't trying to arrest everyone over every minor thing and fill up their prisons to punish them (the majority in jail in America didn't commit a violent crime).

I predict nothing changing for America because they don't want to change. Republicans and Democrats love being "tough on crime".

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Fund something new

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simple solution. break up the police union and institute civilian review boards for police misconduct. you get rid of the "police policing the police" bullshit that keeps bad cops in circulation, and you gut the lobbying power that the police union holds over politicians.

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monkmith posted...

simple solution. break up the police union and institute civilian review boards for police misconduct. you get rid of the "police policing the police" bullshit that keeps bad cops in circulation, and you gut the lobbying power that the police union holds over politicians.

If you got rid of teacher's unions and fired all "bad" teachers would US education suddenly stop achieving 3rd world results or is the problem with the system and not the teachers? Thinking that you will magically get good cops now is like thinking the Stanford prison experiment only went bad because bad people got the cop role.

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Abolish the police union (If Soldiers and Marine Sailors can't have unions why should the police?).

Defund Police Departments and heavily scale back patrols and the constant demand for police to ticket civilians(This has been abused as money making schemes for cities and municipalities)

Body Cameras for all officers and have the footage available to all citizens in the event of a police killing or other brutality inquiries.

All complaint records open to the public

Finally and most importantly Officers must be punished with hard time when they abuse their power. The same as any other citizen. Murderers should get murder convictions. Thieves and those who assault should get the appropriate convictions.

Without trust in governance you have a break down in society. Strong hard measures toward real change must happen for us ensure a safe and peaceful society. The police as we have today must be abolished and rebuilt from the ground up. Defund the police

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We should unfriend them on social media.

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ssjevot posted...

Thinking that you will magically get good cops now is like thinking the Stanford prison experiment only went bad because bad people got the cop role.

The stanford prison "experiment" wasn't real.

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ssjevot posted...

If you got rid of teacher's unions and fired all "bad" teachers would US education suddenly stop achieving 3rd world results or is the problem with the system and not the teachers? Thinking that you will magically get good cops now is like thinking the Stanford prison experiment only went bad because bad people got the cop role.

do you seriously think teachers unions hold the same power? do you understand why shit cops get away with the things they do? its not (just) because other cops cover for them, its because a metric fuckton of lobbying money from the police union is funnled into politicians pockets to persuade them to write the laws and regulations that let the cops functionally self govern. every time a cop gets a complaint, its looked at by other cops; this only happens because the police union throws enough money and lawyers at the situation to keep it from changing.

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Just start development of a robot police force already.

We do need to ban police unions too, but let's not act like there's not a bunch of deeply systemic issues that have nothing to do with the unions.

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BLAKUboy posted...

We do need to ban police unions too, but let's not act like there's not a bunch of deeply systemic issues that have nothing to do with the unions.

many of those deeply systemic issues are only there because unions block the reforms needed to fix it. you cant fire police because they support racist groups on facebook, because the unions have the legal money and power to block those firings.

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Abolish Police Unions Now

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Its ridiculous to completely defund the police if you still have jails and courts. Otherwise, youre just looking at all fugitives being brought in by bounty hunters and US marshals etc.

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monkmith posted...

do you seriously think teachers unions hold the same power? do you understand why shit cops get away with the things they do? its not (just) because other cops cover for them, its because a metric fuckton of lobbying money from the police union is funnled into politicians pockets to persuade them to write the laws and regulations that let the cops functionally self govern. every time a cop gets a complaint, its looked at by other cops; this only happens because the police union throws enough money and lawyers at the situation to keep it from changing.

Yeah the unions are the problem, which is why all other countries that have unions don't have these problems. We get rid of the unions and then cops become nice and polite while continuing to deprive people of their liberty over petty shit. It's hilarious people think pet issues line police unions or private prisons are somehow the solution to having people enforce laws passed by politicians. It's always the bottom rung that you go after. If some corporation does bad things is the solution dismantle the unions and fire all the low payed employees to replace them with new ones that have no representation while keeping all the executives and policies in place?

People are pretending like cops are the cause of and not the result of the American justice system.

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54 Officers were insubordinate in Buffalo after they nearly killed a 70 year old man. And they didnt get fired just reassigned. Actially they reassigned themselves and got away with it no repercussions

Our Navy Seals on the other hand wished to escape their ship due to a Corona outbreak and instead they get fired.

Police Officers are treated like children in this country. And they abuse their power the most. Even our veterans dont get the same respect or leeway. This must change immediately.

Abolish Police Unions. If our armed forces can't have the. Then police officers certainly shouldn't be allowed to either. They've abused their power long enough

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Police unions turn everyone into a Republican. Not all police in the US are even unionized (I can't find numbers at the moment but I want to say it's like 40% of departments are unionized). It's the assault weapons ban of police violence.

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Yeah, I agree that "abolish the police" is a dumb idea that many people are taking to heart. However, when I hear the reasoning behind the phrase by certain individuals they are really just saying "reform the police" which is an idea I can get behind

As stated in this topic, at the end of the day, the phrasing of it doesn't matter when actual reformation could be happening. With that also being said, it splits into two ideals with people actually believing in "abolishing the police" and "reformation of the police" and makes it look disorganized and also alienates people why would otherwise side with the idea of "reform the police" and not "abolish the police."

It also makes plenty of pointless arguments of who means what and what makes who instead of pushing the conversation forward of what matters at the end of the day. If people just had "reform the police" there would be a lot less confusion, but I guess "abolish the police" is more attention grabbing and there are people that actually believe in it.

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COVxy posted...

The stanford prison "experiment" wasn't real.

beat me to it.

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I wish people would say what they mean.

Look up the motte and bailey fallacy. It's when you make a weak argument and then replace it with a stronger one when questioned. This is exactly what people are doing. They say "defund/abolish the police" and when someone says "no that would be a bad idea, we should reform the police" they respond with "I actually want to replace the police with another organization; it would function essentially the same way as the police but it wouldn't be so inherently corrupt" or something like that.

This sort of argument is much stronger than the original one, but the original argument is still "defund/abolish the police" and explicitly not "reform the police," and on top of that the revised argument is really vague in its own right.

I wish people would just be honest with what they meant, even if their opinion is unpopular.

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The problem is it gets watered down to nothing. Defund/abolish police sounds pretty good assuming it leads to a better alternative. Reform sounds good, especially if it starts at the top with criminal justice reform. But now apparently what they really mean is just get rid of unions and fire the bad caps because All Cops Are Bad, just means unionized cops are bad and all the other ones are actually great.

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Sloganeering is hard. Defund the police probably was the thing that caught on because it feels good to say it. And really, the one thing that cities actually have control over is how much they fund their police, whether theyre city-run or contracted with a county sheriff. Its a slogan that requires an explanation... But its also a slogan that spread quickly in part because you feel powerful when you say it.

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https://imgur.com/a/iBcJM3Q

yeah, defund the pigs

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DeathDeathSong posted...

https://imgur.com/a/iBcJM3Q

yeah, defund the pigs

holy shit I didnt know it was that bad.

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ssjevot posted...

Republicans and Democrats love being "tough on crime".

Only because they think that is what their voters want. If the voters say they want cops gone, prepare for a "sudden change of heart" video from President Biden where he announces he is banning all police

"defund" is more ambiguous. the people on the ground actually doing shit to enact change largely want abolition

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