Defund vs. Re -allocate
In the BLM movement one of their platforms is to "defund the police". A word that is not so scary to the right would be re-allocate. When the right hears the word defund the police, they go in a tizzy. They say BLM wants to abolish the policeforce. That could not be further from the truth; BLM wants to re-allocate the budget given to the police departmen by the taxpayers. Thoughts?
ASPartOfMe
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Some of the BLM organizers and people associated with the movement do want to abolish the police. Abolishing the police and reallocating money say to mental health professionals is not a zero-sum proposition.
To oversimplify things progressives tend to believe BLM people when they say they do not want to abolish the police. "Conservatives" believe "defund the police" is a code term for abolishing the police or defunding the police is the first step to designed to soften up the public for eventual abolition.
I would rethink the idea of anti defunding police is only a conservative thing
Americans Don’t Want to Defund the Police. Here’s What They Do Want
These results were no fluke. The same thing had happened in July, when pollsters asked similar questions in Detroit. That survey, commissioned by the Detroit Free Press and USA Today, presented a list of eight issues and asked residents which was the biggest one facing the city. White respondents were slightly more likely to choose police reform than public safety. But Black respondents named public safety as their top concern, and they ranked police reform last. White residents opposed defunding the police, but Black residents rejected it even more decisively.
The findings in Minneapolis and Detroit are part of a larger story. When people are asked what they really think about criminal justice, the answers are complicated. Many white people are open to police reform, and many Black people are wary of curtailing law enforcement.
One of the worst things to propose, politically, is defunding the police. Americans reject that idea by about 40 percentage points. Democrats and people of color are against it. The only idea that’s less popular is abolishing the police, which, in an Economist-YouGov poll taken this month, lost by 45 points among Black Americans, by 64 points among Democrats, and by 76 points among all voters.
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Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 18 Jan 2022, 2:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
It's an incredibly bad slogan, it forces progressives to constantly explain "well actually..." every time someone brings up what a bad idea police abolition is, while some radical rando pops up screaming "ACAB!!" in the background, it's like exhibit A in why the left is bad at politics.
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I am part of the pro-reform crowd.
But in addition to reforming law enforcement to weed out the Derek Chauvin wannabes, we also have a whole shedload of unjust (and in many cases, legally unenforceable) laws that need to go.
Laws against marijuana are probably the best example.
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The BLM group on the university campus that I work for is openly wanting the police department to completely shut down. They do not want them there, nor in any part of the city per their agenda at campus meetings with school administration. Not good...
We often have issues with vagrants attacking people on campus. I have been approached several times by menacing thugs while walking on campus. One wanted my cell phone, but I did not have it on me at the time. Without the police there, I would hate to think how bad it would actually get. If it goes to that point, I will be getting my conceal/carry permit (for self defense only). We are allowed to have one on campus.
But in addition to reforming law enforcement to weed out the Derek Chauvin wannabes, we also have a whole shedload of unjust (and in many cases, legally unenforceable) laws that need to go.
Laws against marijuana are probably the best example.
Its OK to get sloppy drunk and its legal There is also legalized gambling. Thank goodness I live in a state where marijuana is legal
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"Defund the Police" is a terrible slogan.
I think the majority of the people supporting the idea are actually thinking of something more like:
"Let the Police police and let Social Workers do the social work!"
Then, how much money is moved where becomes just an implementation detail.
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I asked some liberal friends of mine about why "reform the police" was rejected as a slogan (same number of syllables, more accurate, etc), and could not get them to budge from "the time for reform is past" even though all of them admitted that defund or abolish were terrible slogans that were costing Democrats votes. They were literally unwilling to compromise on a bad slogan that they knew was bad in order to make their agenda more palatable to mainstream voters, and these are all very smart people who make way more money than I do who've been involved in activism since high-school (where I know most of them from). Liberals really are the Washington Generals of politics, which is bizarre considering how they dominate popular culture, you'd really think that some of the skills would transfer over, but it's like their effortless cultural hegemony has robbed them of the ability to pitch and persuade people who don't already agree with them.
As far as the militarization goes, my problem with it is more the occupying army attitude than the gear, though having it certainly does create the temptation to find reasons to use it, such as using SWAT teams to serve low level drug warrants and such. I don't know when this "I need to make it home alive at the end of my shift" attitude came in, it seems to have become a thing since the 80s, as it sure seemed like older cops were a lot less "twitchy", for want of a better word, less afraid of being ambushed and murdered at any second.
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“The totally convinced and the totally stupid have too much in common for the resemblance to be accidental.”
-- Robert Anton Wilson
I really don't know much about this topic, but here's how it looks to me: some people actually want to abolish the police while others just want to re-allocate funds. So the way to get both of these groups on board is to use a deliberately vague slogan that can mean what either group wants it to mean.
The thing is, the group who wants to abolish is tiny, a minority of a minority, while police abolition is politically toxic to broad swathes of the electorate, so pandering to the abolition crowd is political malpractice, jumping over a dollar to grab a nickel.
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“The totally convinced and the totally stupid have too much in common for the resemblance to be accidental.”
-- Robert Anton Wilson
BLM had nothing to do with originating the slogan AFAIK.
It just appeared on the lips of mostly White activists in communities across the nation pressuring their local govts.