Author Topic: Defund the Police  (Read 17815 times)

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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #210 on: April 22, 2021, 02:10:24 pm »
You can make up all sorts of fantasy scenarios to support your narrative....

You know I'm right, and so does black dog.  You guys don't have to say it, just keep dodging questions you don't want to answer and i'll already know your answer.

An old white lady comes knocking at your door late at night and most people, including you, aren't going to be as nervous to open your door compared to if it was a young white man or young black man  Cops make the same threat assessments and yes do stereotype people.  That doesn't mean its right to pull over young black men just because they look "suspicious".
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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #211 on: April 22, 2021, 02:18:41 pm »
I'm fairly on board with the idea that the police are a flawed institution that will never accept any real accountability or reform.  The part I have a hard time wrapping my head around is how a world without the police would be safer for me or for the majority of the population.   If we disband the police, what happens afterwards?

The people who want to get rid of police and prisons offer this notion of having those institutions replaced with a "community driven" "restorative justice" process where "community stakeholders" would bring the victim and offender together in some sort of mediative process where they would share their feelings and arrive at a mutually beneficial resolution where everybody is "made whole" again and nobody has so go to jail. And it all magically happens without any use of force by the state.  Money the state spends on police and prisons would be spent on social programs that eradicate poverty and mental illness. It all sounds wildly idealistic and improbable to me.

There's a new buzzword going around called "transformative justice", which as far as I can tell is exactly the same as "restorative justice" except that it's "victim centered" and instead of "making whole" the victim and offender, they are instead "transformed" into better versions of themselves. It all sounds like fantasy.

 -k

You can have more "restorative justice" but you still need police.  With guns.  Maybe you can have fewer guns, but you don't bring flowers to a gun fight.  These proposals are from compassionate but naive and idealistic people who sing John Lennon's "Imagine" while smoking the BC bud but don't understand these things don't actually work in real-life, it's fantasy.  There's no data to support these ideas.  You give some people an inch and they'll take it, some people are just jerks.  If the punishment for murder and theft is sitting around apologizing to the victims, murders and thefts will increase.
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Offline Squidward von Squidderson

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #212 on: April 22, 2021, 02:35:00 pm »
Am I scared. Of a group of whites, or a group of blacks?   Well, I can tell you definitively that whiteys are way more apt to be biker gangs here than any minority...  might be different in Surrey, or different in Richmond as to who the dangerous ones are...  but making up fantasy scenarios about groups of black people doesn’t prove anything...

Actually, it probably shows more about your prejudices than anything else...

Offline Black Dog

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #213 on: April 22, 2021, 02:56:37 pm »
You're dodging the question and refuse to answer because you know the answer doesn't support your narrative.

I mean if you have to invent fantasy scenarios to show why you think it's ok for people to be racist IDK what to tell you. It certainly says nothing about the world we actually live in.

Offline Black Dog

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #214 on: April 22, 2021, 02:57:08 pm »
I'm fairly on board with the idea that the police are a flawed institution that will never accept any real accountability or reform.  The part I have a hard time wrapping my head around is how a world without the police would be safer for me or for the majority of the population.   If we disband the police, what happens afterwards?

Did you read the article I posted above?

Offline kimmy

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #215 on: April 22, 2021, 03:03:52 pm »
Did you read the article I posted above?

The one that says "The problem isn't just police, it's politics"?  Not yet.  Does it talk about what happens after the police are disbanded?

 -k
Paris - London - New York - Kim City

Offline Black Dog

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #216 on: April 22, 2021, 03:06:08 pm »
The one that says "The problem isn't just police, it's politics"?  Not yet.  Does it talk about what happens after the police are disbanded?

 -k

Yes.

Offline kimmy

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #217 on: April 22, 2021, 03:54:43 pm »
Yes.

Okay, I read it. It rests heavily on the claim that "police don't prevent crime" and some study showing that relative levels of police presence didn't have a dramatic effect on crime rates.  But here's what no study can examine empirically:

Quote
(As the police scholar David Bayley put it in his 1994 book Police for the Future, “The police do not prevent crime. This is one of the best kept secrets of modern life. Experts know it, the police know it, but the public does not know it.”)

You can study what effect you see from increasing or decreasing police presence have on crime rates, but you can't account for what effect it would have on people's behavior if they knew the police were no longer there. 

Aside from that, the bulk of the interview is just talking about social good that could be done if more money were devoted to social programs and mental health services. And I agree with those things.  But I think that the premise that since changes to the relative amount of policing hasn't resulted in dramatic changes to the crime rate we could do away with police altogether without any consequences is unfounded.

 -k
Paris - London - New York - Kim City
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Offline Black Dog

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #218 on: April 22, 2021, 04:18:00 pm »
Okay, I read it. It rests heavily on the claim that "police don't prevent crime" and some study showing that relative levels of police presence didn't have a dramatic effect on crime rates.  But here's what no study can examine empirically:

You can study what effect you see from increasing or decreasing police presence have on crime rates, but you can't account for what effect it would have on people's behavior if they knew the police were no longer there. 

Aside from that, the bulk of the interview is just talking about social good that could be done if more money were devoted to social programs and mental health services. And I agree with those things.  But I think that the premise that since changes to the relative amount of policing hasn't resulted in dramatic changes to the crime rate we could do away with police altogether without any consequences is unfounded.

 -k

Dude literally says we don't know what those consequences would be, but if doing away with policing as it is currently constituted is accompanied by a significant increase in resources to eliminate the causes of crime, why would you expect crime to go up unless you think everyone around you is secretly a monster whose base urges are only held in check by the threat of state violence?

He also contends that the issue isn't having some body to maintain order and enforce laws, but the nature of modern policing and society itself.

Offline Black Dog

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #219 on: April 22, 2021, 05:10:19 pm »
If anyone wonders why cops seem to regard their role as that of an occupying military force, here's an article about one of the foremost police training "experts" that explains how that mindset comes to be.

Here's an insane twitter thread of Grossman in action.

It's bonkers.

Offline kimmy

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #220 on: April 22, 2021, 05:39:16 pm »
Dude literally says we don't know what those consequences would be, but if doing away with policing as it is currently constituted is accompanied by a significant increase in resources to eliminate the causes of crime, why would you expect crime to go up unless you think everyone around you is secretly a monster whose base urges are only held in check by the threat of state violence?

I don't think everyone around me is secretly a monster held in check only by fear of state violence. I think that some unknown but not insignificant portion of people around me are pretty much animals whose behavior is held in check by fear of consequences rather than by any inherent moral decency.  As it stands, state authority is probably the main kind of consequence holding those people in check.   Propose me an alternative kind of consequence other than "everybody packing a gun", and I'd be more open to the idea of dispensing with the police.

He also contends that the issue isn't having some body to maintain order and enforce laws, but the nature of modern policing and society itself.

Okay, so he'd like to replace the police with some other public body that maintains order and enforces laws but isn't the police?

 -k
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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #221 on: April 22, 2021, 06:46:23 pm »
Dude literally says we don't know what those consequences would be, but if doing away with policing as it is currently constituted is accompanied by a significant increase in resources to eliminate the causes of crime, why would you expect crime to go up unless you think everyone around you is secretly a monster whose base urges are only held in check by the threat of state violence?

He also contends that the issue isn't having some body to maintain order and enforce laws, but the nature of modern policing and society itself.

"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint." - Alexander Hamilton

Not everyone is a monster obviously, the problem is there's still many jerks out there and that will never change, no matter how much you reduce poverty and increase mental health services etc.  You can help reduce some of the causes of crime, like poverty, but you'll never eliminate all crime, ever.  For every nice law-abiding person living in your neighbourhood you're going to have arse-hats too.  If there's no cops enforcing speeding, what % of cars do you think would speed?  Every time I see a cop on the highway I see every car around me slow down.

I've had wonderful neighbours in my life, and I've also had neighbours who acted like the scum of the earth with no respect for anyone, and it had nothing to do with poverty or mental health (though yes these problems do increase crime).  We don't disband the military because we hope we can turn every world leader into an Obama by being nice to them, because the Hitler's and Putin's will take every inch you give them and only care about advancing their interests because they just don't care.

The idea of disbanding the police in favour of social programs etc is so illogical that it will never be done on a wide scale because it simply won't work.  So it comes down to how can we make police the most accountable as possible and actually serve the public and honour their oaths.  There will always be racists and power-mongers among the police no matter what, but we can minimize the damage they do via training and accountability etc so that they're not able to get away with it and lose their jobs or are put in jail.
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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #222 on: April 22, 2021, 06:51:42 pm »
Cities in Canada like Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto etc don't even have their police wearing body cameras.  This is how much the cities and mayors cares about accountability and the rule of law.  They're too cheap to buy the police cameras.  They don't care if they get away with abuse of power.

You never even heard anything about it until George Floyd, which put pressure on municipalities.
"Nipples is one of the great minds of our time!" - Bubbermiley

Offline eyeball

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #223 on: April 22, 2021, 09:15:13 pm »
I'm fairly on board with the idea that the police are a flawed institution that will never accept any real accountability or reform.  The part I have a hard time wrapping my head around is how a world without the police would be safer for me or for the majority of the population.   If we disband the police, what happens afterwards?

 -k
I doubt this will be the end result and the original idea behind the term 'de-fund' alluded to diverting some of the money dedicated to policing to an alternative and supplemental force. Personally I think that should take the form of unarmed psychiatric first responders partnered with conventionally armed police.  People who are more accountable to health authorities than police.
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Offline Black Dog

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Re: Defund the Police
« Reply #224 on: April 22, 2021, 09:21:41 pm »
I don't think everyone around me is secretly a monster held in check only by fear of state violence. I think that some unknown but not insignificant portion of people around me are pretty much animals whose behavior is held in check by fear of consequences rather than by any inherent moral decency.  As it stands, state authority is probably the main kind of consequence holding those people in check.   Propose me an alternative kind of consequence other than "everybody packing a gun", and I'd be more open to the idea of dispensing with the police.

Okay, so he'd like to replace the police with some other public body that maintains order and enforces laws but isn't the police?

If you consider the modern policing model as less a crime fighting/solving one and more of what it actually is (ie a tool for raising revenue, protecting capital, preserving social and racial hierarchies through force and facilitating exploitation) then replacing it with a different model that actually does what people think the cops do now could effectively combat whatever crime persists in a society where the majority of people are able to have their social, physical and economic needs met.

The idea that we need to preserve what is increasingly a hostile occupying force because you can't envision an alternative is not just a failure of imagination, but an act of cowardice.