Is this for real? I could commit murder under your plan and all I get is counseling? What if I refuse to go to counseling? What if I go but am disruptive? What if I go but don’t pay attention and think of how many more people I can kill in this great new world where murder is legal? What if I continue to drink alcohol? You know my ex wife was also pissing me off. Maybe I can pop her too and just wrap up both murders in one counseling session? Save the state some money.
Who is going to make me do anything you tell me without police?
Indeed. We hardly ever agree on anything but this proposal is borderline insane.
What if after the man kills his wife and lover he calls 911 and says he is there and to come pick up the corpses but he has a loaded gun and isn’t going anywhere? Who do you send? More counselors?
Or perhaps you should send someone with a weapon, or more than one person, to disarm the man? Maybe someone who could talk him down? Maybe, oh say, the police just like we do now? The proposal is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Again, and as I said before, we do a tremendous amount of restorative justice already. Does the other poster believe that the criminal justice system does not use probation, drug treatment, mental health counseling and the like when appropriate yet also uses punitive measures when appropriate, and sometimes a combination of the two?
There has to be some sort of punishment to deter others from doing the same thing because there are a hell of a lot of angry spouses who would kill if there were no consequences, even if that person would regret it later.
The left has no idea how to sell itself. They suck ass at marketing, salesmanship, messaging, everything that you need to succeed in getting other people on your side. I’m continually amazed and horrified at how many idiotic blunders they make that just give free political capital to the right and are going to lead to Trump and Trump-like people holding onto power until they can finally stop stepping on their own dick.
To expand on that, what’s to stop the murdered wife’s brother from killing the husband in revenge? I imagine a lot of people in that situation would want to do that, and if all they have to worry about are a few counselling sessions afterwards then why on earth wouldn’t they? And what if the husband’s family decide to take revenge? What’s to stop the situation spiraling into a generational vendetta? Punishment is a crucial aspect of our system because people have an innate sense of fairness. If a crime is committed, and if the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, then people will take matters into their own hands.
Again, agreed. That is really one of the basic foundations of society. The wife’s brother does not go out and kill her murderer because of the societal construct that you stand back and let society mete out its own justice. After fairness for the defendant and after a trial at which he is convicted, society delivers its own punishment, duly enacted by a majority of the voters or their representatives. The murderer gets what we have decided is a fair punishment.
If you take that away and people who are victims are not satisfied that there has been a punishment, they will create their own. If someone rapes my daughter, for example, and all society does is send him to classes, that doesn’t satisfy me. I would be tempted to tender my own justice, and much more tempted if all I would have to do is go to classes. And it would go back and forth until society breaks down.
Mostly wrong on both counts.
NPR had a interview with one of the biggest Police Union Presidents and he said about in about half the firings suggested , the Union didnt defend.
And it all depends on what you are fired for? Being a woman officer and filing a sexual harassment complaint, for which you are fired? Why shouldnt that woman find another job?
I dunno, “look, we need to get rid of Trump, so I’m gonna need you to shut up about what you really think about this matter of personal life and death” doesn’t feel like it’s gonna fly to me.
And what relevance is the Cotton pushback? That existed because people hated his racist views. If enough people push back against this one, it’ll be yanked too. Why is it that only one side is held responsible for its extremists? Unless you’re arguing that the extreme right has demonstrated that it has mainstream acceptance, in which case I might sadly agree…
My previous post made something occur to me: in my experience, there are quite a few folks who consider themselves extreme left who don’t give a damn about the Democratic Party, and in fact consider them an oppressor. Is that phenomenon found at all on the right? I get the sense that even the most extreme feel that the Republicans at least indirectly serve their interests enough to generally vote for them. If this is so, it might go some way in explaining this thread.
That is a great article. It illustrates very clearly that at no time (except when the Governor slashed budgets) was the police “defunded” or “abolished”:
Once again demonstrating that what is needed is REFORM, not DEFUND/ABOLISH.
And as I keep saying, this may be true, but it’s irrelevant to the abolitionists. They say if “reform” was possible, it would be done by now. But the will on the part of the people and government just is not there. So they have no choice but to get rid of the whole rotten structure. It’s a lot like when many socialists criticize capitalism, now that I think about it…
SAYING this stuff is cheap and does nothing, just like the back and forth about, “oh, the police are the only thing keeping us from crime-ridden chaos.” By definition, abolitionists do not feel they are getting any benefit from the police as an institution. In both cases, all that’s really left is a basic disagreement on whether things are “that bad.” One side thinks it is, and the other doesn’t think so. I’m not sure there’s a way to get past that.
And an answer to my previous post occurred to me: the extreme left feels harmed by the basic structures of society and government, so of course Democrats being part of that structure are viewed negatively. The extreme right generally seem fine with those basic structures, and sometimes see them as useful tools, so they don’t have that reason to not vote Republican. The closest comparison on the right I can think of is extreme libertarianism, and even they don’t necessarily shy away from voting Republican. Hmmm.
…which is probably what will end up happening. But demands for reform haven’t worked. We’ve had protests, we’ve had calls for reform and calls for “training” in the past, and then the protests die down and then we make minor changes and move on. People are sick and tired of incremental change and empty promises.
Minneapolis will have a police force of some kind - that’s not a question. The question is what will it look like, and whether the police force will be run by corrupt unions that want to use the police as occupying armies and agents of systemic racism, or whether it starts policing minority and underprivileged communities in ways that are less hostile. If police aren’t going to listen and respond to the needs of the taxpaying public, then the public needs to take the power back, and in this sense, it’s appropriate to put a nuclear option on the table. Use it as leverage first, but use it to wrest control of the community if necessary.
This is not a time to chicken out and worry about political optics. This is a time to implement reforms that actually mean something. But more to the point is that requiring the best of our police will make us a stronger community and democracy in toto. It’s fucking pathetic how we’ve come to expect and accept police violence.
“He reached into his pocket - I thought he might have a gun.”
“He moved suddenly. I was afraid he might attack.”
“Oh sorry I stormed your house without identifying who the fuck I was and killed your daughter - I had the wrong address, hope you understand.”
“Oh sorry I shot you when you were unarmed and opening your door when I knocked - I thought there was a hostage situation.”
Being a police officer is a dangerous job - I get that. But do you think being a taxi driver isn’t a dangerous job? Do you think being a liquor store owner in a rough neighborhood isn’t a dangerous job? Do you think a pawn shop manager doesn’t deal with dangerous people who, at any moment, might pull a gun on him? The taxi driver, liquor store owner, and pawn shop manager have dangerous jobs. None of them can blast someone in the chest and get off by claiming they were afraid - but cops can. Why? Why do we accept that as the standard?
And we wonder why we elected Donald Trump, why he fires IGs, why he breaks laws right and left, why he uses the military to violently break up police demonstrations in DC, and why he threatens to use the military to violently respond to protests elsewhere. We fucking deserve it. We deserve it because when we fail to protect another man’s liberty, we’re signing democracy’s death warrant.
Yes we live in a dangerous society - we all do, not just cops. Don’t like it? Good, then organize and mobilize for more democracy. And for fucks sake, don’t tell people who are being oppressed to shut up and take more of it. The key is more democracy, not more authoritarianism. More freedom to speak out, not more police and government latitude to abuse ordinary people. Out-vote the NRA. Out-vote the opponents of democracy. Don’t worry about Trump and stop referring back to the nightmare of 2016. The reason Trump and authoritarians won last time is because not enough people saw how dangerous he and his ilk were. Fight harder this time. And as we’ve already seen in elections so far, if they keep putting up roadblocks, if they keep obstructing voting by mail, if they keep moving the polling stations, just keep showing up in even greater numbers. Over power them. Out-vote them. Impose your will on them. We’re right.
Out only point of disagreement is on what each of us means when we use words which up until this very moment in time meant something other than what they have come to mean.
If you, and those who appear to hold your view, that “Abolish” now means “Reform”, so be it.