Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What liberals say they mean by 'defund the police'

This is from the NY Times. They make it sound so good on the surface.

The ‘defund’ conundrum
Advocates for police reform are making the case that the phrase “defund the police” doesn’t mean what many people think it means. “Be not afraid,” Christy E. Lopez, a Georgetown University law professor, wrote in The Washington Post. “‘Defunding the police’ is not as scary (or even as radical) as it sounds.”

What it actually means, these advocates say, is reducing police budgets and no longer asking officers to do many jobs that they often don’t even want to do: resolving family and school disputes, moving homeless people into shelters and so on. Instead, funding for education, health care and other social services would increase. (For more detail on the movement’s agenda, you can read this Times explainer.)

The challenge for advocates is that many people equate “defunding” with a major reduction in policing — and they don’t like that idea. Reducing police budgets is arguably the only high-profile reform idea that’s not popular:


By The New York Times | Source: Yahoo News/YouGov Poll
This situation reminds me of several other political issues in the Trump era, like health care and immigration. On all of them, progressives are pushing for multiple policy changes that are popular with voters (like expanded Medicare, the end of migrant-family separation and more police accountability). These changes are typically much more popular than President Trump’s positions on the same issues.

But many progressives have also adopted one big idea in each area that is decidedly unpopular with voters: Get rid of private health insurance. Abolish ICE. Defund the police.

The combination explains much of the political response you’ve seen in recent days. Joe Biden, Cory Booker and other Democrats have distanced themselves from the phrase “defund the police,” while Trump has highlighted it. “They’re saying defund the police,” he said last week. “Defund. Think of it.”

At the same time, some Republicans have begun signaling their openness to other parts of police reform, which is a big change. John Cornyn, a conservative senator facing a tough re-election campaign in Texas, yesterday tweeted the following: “I’m dedicated to rooting out racial injustices so no other family has to experience what George Floyd’s family has. It will require bipartisan commitment across the country & listening to the voices of those who have been most affected is the first step — we must not fail to act.”

A shift: A majority of Americans (57 percent) now believe the police are more likely to use excessive force against African-Americans. In 2014, the share was only 33 percent. “In my 35 years of polling, I’ve never seen opinion shift this fast or deeply,” Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, said.

"A majority of Americans (57 percent) now believe the police are more likely to use excessive force against African-Americans."

Are you sure? I heard them saying in Minneapolis, " we don't want police in our neighborhoods patrolling with guns"!

Well of course, guns kill people.

The looters, rioters and criminals have promised to no longer commit crimes with their guns. So the police won't need their guns either.

It's just peachy.

It's not a federal issue. If a city wants to try this, fine, go ahead. I don't think it will last very long if it's done this way. On the other hand, once police policies become federally-mandated and police forces become federally-controlled, it will be nearly impossible to reverse them. I think this is the left's strategy to federalize the police and take another step towards tyranny.

Yep. The left is concerned that White folks will turn against them if they don't pull back in the "defund the police" rhetoric, but they actually do want local policing to go away, to be replaced with an armed Bolshevik force for arresting unreformed White people.

Exactly.

Look for an interim "solution", a la Brown Shirts.

Winner, winner.

Wonder how much police time and money is wasted because a couple are at outs and one calls the cops on the other, essentially using LE against the partner?

Another agree. We were just discussing this the other evening after dinner. That's the goal, think Soviet Militia.

Since I don't have a puppy to train or a bird cage to line, I don't have any need for the Noo Yawk Slime. If the socialist idiots in the big cities want to hamstring the cops with budget cuts and restrictive ROE's, go for it. I would support a federal grant program to provide disillusioned cops with moving expenses and salary assistance for about six months to help them relocate to communities where their skills would be appreciated and supported by the local citizens. You know, places where police vehicles aren't used routinely as tiki torches to illuminate store fronts for looters!
Jerry

Tucker Carlson stated on his Monday evening monologue the cities that will defund their police Dept. will replace them with liberal advocates they control.....the liberals are just not telling their citizens their intentions.

Cities replacing the police with their own liberal security forces they control has been done before........Ernst Rohm "Brown Shirts" in 1930's Nazi Germany.

Yep. Used to waste half the shift on response to domestic issues. My standard spiel was, “You need a lawyer, minister, or a social worker, not the poleece. If I come back here tonight, I’m bringing enough help to put every ass in this place in jail and kids off to child protective services.” End of discussion.

People deserve it.

I sure wouldn't want to be a parent with a young kid today. Face it, they are screwed, blued and tattooed.

How is a city going to sustain itself with no tax dollars. Taxpayers aren't going to stay in a place that won't protect them. No business will want to be in a city where they hope no one will rob or loot them.

The mayor of Minneapolis learned about being careful what you wish for. He got it

You seriously underestimate white guilt, most especially as it pertains to those in more northern latitudes. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if white girls had to blow blacks as an entrance requirement to college in Minnesota in a few years. Many white, liberal parents would endorse it.

I don't think you've been paying attention.

The Brown Shirts were the reaction to the the Bolsheviks seeking, via perpetual mob violence in the streets, to install Marxism in Germany. The Government was too weak and feckless to do anything about the takeover that was in the process of occurring, which is why the German people supported the Brown Shirts. They were the only faction willing to go into the streets, in force, and put down the destruction being wrought by the radical left, i.e., by the Antifa/BLM of that time and place.

and all the thugs jumped at the chance.