Please tell me what law any Democrat anywhere has proposed that is as radical as compelling a woman forcibly impregnated to continue that pregnancy and than allowing the rapist's family to sue if she tries to terminate it?! Sure, there are some loony lefties out there (especially on social media), but the polarization is this country is NOT symetrical. The Rs have gone off a cliff.
Please tell me what law any Democrat anywhere has proposed that is as radical as compelling a woman forcibly impregnated to continue that pregnancy and than allowing the rapist's family to sue if she tries to terminate it?! Sure, there are some loony lefties out there (especially on social media), but the polarization is this country is NOT symetrical. The Rs have gone off a cliff.
An LA lawmaker wants abortion classified as murder. Ditto other places. No sane person, including the churches, want that. The Rs are running a race to the bottom.
Some churches do want abortion classified as murder because Exodus 20:13 says "thou shalt not kill." However, in quoting Exodus, they are appealing to Jewish Law. Inconsistently, they completely ignore Exodus 21: 22 which implies that the killing of a fetus is a property offense against the father. The penalty specified is a civil fine payable to the father. Think if the outcry if the churches tried to lobby for the fetus being the property of the father.
Some protestors said that, and a few in office, but most people, progressive liberals like myself, believe we should fund the police, but we should also train them properly and consistently. There should also be better standards for hiring them and training them. Officers fired from one force for bad behavior get hired in another despite having a record that demonstrates they shouldn't be. I also don't believe providing police departments with military-style gear is a good thing, save for perhaps departments in major cities. Can we strive for better policing...an approach which gives us well-trained officers who understand when deadly force is required and when it should be avoided. This includes dealing with mentally ill people who are often killed (some while merely wielding a broom or shopping cart).
"Defund the police" was a spectacular bad slogan for a position that usually boiled down to "stop paying for police to do stuff that isn't policing, and spend the money on specialists instead." Akin to removing ambulance-driving from police duties in the 60s and creating a trained, professional paramedic corps.
For another example, if you spend the money you were using to give police an often inadequate level of training in social work to hire actual social workers, you are defunding the police, but almost every actual police officer will be grateful for having one less societal problem they're expected to fix. We've basically put every social problem except fires and people who need emergency stabilization on police to fix.
IOW, "Reform the Police" would have been a much better slogan and was even recommended. Yet it was rejected. Why? I think that is because there are some on the radical left who do want to defund and eliminate the police. They believe that police themselves cause crime because of their activities, especially in communities of color.
I think this absolute rubbish, as do most of those communities of color. See my prior comment on white liberals and their paid talking heads not understanding the people they deem to represent.
I read recently about a community (I wish I could remember where) that started sending social workers instead of police on certain types of calls and with over 2000 calls never had one that needed to call for police backup. De-escalation is a much better approach in many situations.
According to a recent report, it takes up to 8% of the 911 burden off the local police but does, in turn, need backup or accompaniment from the police about 8% of the time:
CAHOOTS does a lot of welfare checks (which police are often asked, but ill-equipped, to do), and has special skill in handling situations which may look violent to police but probably aren't (like mental illness and excited intoxication). It seems to have saved Eugene lives and money.
But the left wasn’t messaging it. The Republicans heard someone somewhere say it, and ran with it. I guess the Dems lacked message discipline in being to slow to disavow it, but I honestly never heard a Democratic official say it.
the "defunding the police" outrage was mostly a republican crafted controversy created by cherry-picking a small minority position and poor Dem messaging and then re-casting and projecting it as a mainstream Dem view.
Very, very few people actually wanted to stop funding a police department, most people were advocating for oversight and reform in light of repeated police abuse of power and brutality, particularly in minority communities, after the Michael Brown and George Floyd incidents.
I agree "defunding the police" has never been mainstream Democrats' goal, but I can think of two reasons ordinary people might get the impression "defunding" was a fairly mainstream idea based on non-right-wing news sources:
First, some policies labeled "defunding" police (like diverting some police money to CAHOOTS-style programs or completely dissolving a dysfunctional police department to replace it with a reformed one) might really be good ideas. Second, journalists like a hook, and "Maybe 'defund the police' is good, ackshully!" is a hook. Ergo:
The subtitle is, "(And rebuilt the department from the ground up. The strange, hopeful, politically complicated story of Camden, N.J.)" But the hook is police abolition.
"These US cities defunded police: 'We're transferring money to the community'"
These stories ran in center-to-left US national outlets, center-to-left international outlets, and local US papers, too. Of course the likes of Tucker Carlson would then wave these headlines about, devoid of context. But variations on the phrase "defund the police" proved pretty tempting to non-right-wing headline writers, too.
It was your assertion, your job to support it. Are you suggesting that budget cuts are equivalent to defunding? The Seattle police department was not defunded. The fringe who popularized the "Defund the Police" slogan meant "abolish by withdrawing all funding." Now they are trying to cover themselves by claiming any budget cut is "defunding."
Your claim would be accurate if you stated that Seattle was one of a handful of cities with plans to drastically cut police funding. City council wanted to cut the budget by 50%. If Austin is typical, some cities are reallocating funds to areas like mental health, and NOT sending cops on mental health calls. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-defund-police-transferring-money-community
I just looked up “defund” and the definition was “to withdraw funds”. So there you go.
Now your job is to prove that the slogan maker used the term exclusively to mean completely 100% removed. Because if they didn’t mean 100% then the Seattle action is a city defunding the police per the slogan.
Yah…I realize that most Dems didn’t buy into it but to claim there wasn’t any truth to it isn’t true. Seattle took it seriously and I think continues to struggle with it.
I don't think there's a ton of people on the right who are looking forward to forcibly making rape victims have their babies....but here we are acting like the entire right wants that.
I think that will depend on: 1) how many ppl on the right speak out against it; 2) how many R politicians speak out and vote against it; and 3) if the politicians do vote for it, whether or not they get re-elected or put into office if they support it as part of their campaign.
I know. I think one stupid politician said it and it went on to have a life of its own.
I did hear Biden say he was against defunding police as soon as it was brought up. And Bernie Sanders said he actually wanted to give police depts more money. These quotes were never brought up by Republicans.
Please tell me what law any Democrat anywhere has proposed that is as radical as compelling a woman forcibly impregnated to continue that pregnancy and than allowing the rapist's family to sue if she tries to terminate it?! Sure, there are some loony lefties out there (especially on social media), but the polarization is this country is NOT symetrical. The Rs have gone off a cliff.
An LA lawmaker wants abortion classified as murder. Ditto other places. No sane person, including the churches, want that. The Rs are running a race to the bottom.
Some churches do want abortion classified as murder because Exodus 20:13 says "thou shalt not kill." However, in quoting Exodus, they are appealing to Jewish Law. Inconsistently, they completely ignore Exodus 21: 22 which implies that the killing of a fetus is a property offense against the father. The penalty specified is a civil fine payable to the father. Think if the outcry if the churches tried to lobby for the fetus being the property of the father.
But many of these more fundamentalist people actually tend to think that way--given the place of women in that conceptual framework.
Its a marathon.. and the finish line keeps getting further away.
Maybe not the same, but the whole "Defunding the Police" falls into the category of running to the left in my book.
Some protestors said that, and a few in office, but most people, progressive liberals like myself, believe we should fund the police, but we should also train them properly and consistently. There should also be better standards for hiring them and training them. Officers fired from one force for bad behavior get hired in another despite having a record that demonstrates they shouldn't be. I also don't believe providing police departments with military-style gear is a good thing, save for perhaps departments in major cities. Can we strive for better policing...an approach which gives us well-trained officers who understand when deadly force is required and when it should be avoided. This includes dealing with mentally ill people who are often killed (some while merely wielding a broom or shopping cart).
And de-escalation should be at the center of their training programs.
"Defund the police" was a spectacular bad slogan for a position that usually boiled down to "stop paying for police to do stuff that isn't policing, and spend the money on specialists instead." Akin to removing ambulance-driving from police duties in the 60s and creating a trained, professional paramedic corps.
For another example, if you spend the money you were using to give police an often inadequate level of training in social work to hire actual social workers, you are defunding the police, but almost every actual police officer will be grateful for having one less societal problem they're expected to fix. We've basically put every social problem except fires and people who need emergency stabilization on police to fix.
IOW, "Reform the Police" would have been a much better slogan and was even recommended. Yet it was rejected. Why? I think that is because there are some on the radical left who do want to defund and eliminate the police. They believe that police themselves cause crime because of their activities, especially in communities of color.
I think this absolute rubbish, as do most of those communities of color. See my prior comment on white liberals and their paid talking heads not understanding the people they deem to represent.
I read recently about a community (I wish I could remember where) that started sending social workers instead of police on certain types of calls and with over 2000 calls never had one that needed to call for police backup. De-escalation is a much better approach in many situations.
I think that was made up. I read it somewhere as something that might work.perhaps in a non violent domestic dispute
It was Denver https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/06/denver-sent-mental-health-help-not-police-hundreds-calls/4421364001/
Why do you think it was made up? I do think it was from a major media source.
There's CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) in Eugene, OR:
https://www.eugene-or.gov/4508/CAHOOTS
According to a recent report, it takes up to 8% of the 911 burden off the local police but does, in turn, need backup or accompaniment from the police about 8% of the time:
https://www.eugene-or.gov/DocumentCenter/View/56717/CAHOOTS-Program-Analysis
CAHOOTS does a lot of welfare checks (which police are often asked, but ill-equipped, to do), and has special skill in handling situations which may look violent to police but probably aren't (like mental illness and excited intoxication). It seems to have saved Eugene lives and money.
All true, but the slogan is exhibit A of the lack of message discipline on the left.
I think because it's not a monolith. You have some far left and some left of center and many who can support various views neither right or left.
But the left wasn’t messaging it. The Republicans heard someone somewhere say it, and ran with it. I guess the Dems lacked message discipline in being to slow to disavow it, but I honestly never heard a Democratic official say it.
Cori Bush, Ayanna Pressley said it directly. This odor spread over the whole party because it was not disavowed immediately and repeatedly.
the "defunding the police" outrage was mostly a republican crafted controversy created by cherry-picking a small minority position and poor Dem messaging and then re-casting and projecting it as a mainstream Dem view.
Very, very few people actually wanted to stop funding a police department, most people were advocating for oversight and reform in light of repeated police abuse of power and brutality, particularly in minority communities, after the Michael Brown and George Floyd incidents.
I agree "defunding the police" has never been mainstream Democrats' goal, but I can think of two reasons ordinary people might get the impression "defunding" was a fairly mainstream idea based on non-right-wing news sources:
First, some policies labeled "defunding" police (like diverting some police money to CAHOOTS-style programs or completely dissolving a dysfunctional police department to replace it with a reformed one) might really be good ideas. Second, journalists like a hook, and "Maybe 'defund the police' is good, ackshully!" is a hook. Ergo:
"The City that Really Did Abolish the Police"
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/12/camden-policing-reforms-313750
The subtitle is, "(And rebuilt the department from the ground up. The strange, hopeful, politically complicated story of Camden, N.J.)" But the hook is police abolition.
"These US cities defunded police: 'We're transferring money to the community'"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-defund-police-transferring-money-community
Subtitled, "More than 20 major cities have reduced police budgets in some form, and activists are fighting to ensure that is only the start"
"The 'abolish the police' movement, explained by 7 scholars and activists"
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/12/21283813/george-floyd-blm-abolish-the-police-8cantwait-minneapolis
"What happens if we defund the police?" Subtitled, "Erica Scott and Randy Janzen offer alternatives from around North America"
https://www.nelsonstar.com/opinion/column-what-happens-if-we-defund-the-police/
Etc.
These stories ran in center-to-left US national outlets, center-to-left international outlets, and local US papers, too. Of course the likes of Tucker Carlson would then wave these headlines about, devoid of context. But variations on the phrase "defund the police" proved pretty tempting to non-right-wing headline writers, too.
Not one police dept was defunded.
Well...I just found this article...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/seattle-city-council-defunds-the-police-again-11638572886
What does the article actually say? It is a mistake to draw conclusions from headlines.
It indicated that the city council is lowering the police budget for the 2nd straight year.
Are you going to believe me or are you going to actually read the article yourself?
The article is behind a paywall.
There were other articles. Google works for you too, right?
It was your assertion, your job to support it. Are you suggesting that budget cuts are equivalent to defunding? The Seattle police department was not defunded. The fringe who popularized the "Defund the Police" slogan meant "abolish by withdrawing all funding." Now they are trying to cover themselves by claiming any budget cut is "defunding."
Your claim would be accurate if you stated that Seattle was one of a handful of cities with plans to drastically cut police funding. City council wanted to cut the budget by 50%. If Austin is typical, some cities are reallocating funds to areas like mental health, and NOT sending cops on mental health calls. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-defund-police-transferring-money-community
I just looked up “defund” and the definition was “to withdraw funds”. So there you go.
Now your job is to prove that the slogan maker used the term exclusively to mean completely 100% removed. Because if they didn’t mean 100% then the Seattle action is a city defunding the police per the slogan.
Yah…I realize that most Dems didn’t buy into it but to claim there wasn’t any truth to it isn’t true. Seattle took it seriously and I think continues to struggle with it.
I don't think there's a ton of people on the right who are looking forward to forcibly making rape victims have their babies....but here we are acting like the entire right wants that.
I think that will depend on: 1) how many ppl on the right speak out against it; 2) how many R politicians speak out and vote against it; and 3) if the politicians do vote for it, whether or not they get re-elected or put into office if they support it as part of their campaign.
I know. I think one stupid politician said it and it went on to have a life of its own.
I did hear Biden say he was against defunding police as soon as it was brought up. And Bernie Sanders said he actually wanted to give police depts more money. These quotes were never brought up by Republicans.
And Biden actually increased funding for the police. A few idiots were parroting that; no legitimate Dem politician has advocated it.
That’s an incredibly small percentage of Dems, although they can be loud. Have any Dem led cities actually defunded their police?