Yes.
And yes, most cities run in America are Democratic-run.
You can’t blame Giuliani and Riordan anymore, this is not 1997.
And yes, a lot of Democratic officials have called for abolishing police.
This is why a lot of police officers are endorsing Trump or associating themselves with the GOP in campaigns and mailers.
Excellent post overall, IMHO.
“Defund” does not mean “abolish,” though I agree “defund” was probably a poor choice, as it can easily be misunderstood to mean that.
Can it be called a “misunderstanding” if the term has been clarified/explained to someone over and over and over again?
Nyet. 
Defund means lower the funding. It also implies punishment for bad behavior.
I realize that punishment is popular, but it doesn’t often work.
Right now, police are punished if they don’t arrest enough people:
Asking them to continue to make lots of drug arrests, but do it politely and with fewer officers, is not a good plan.
Here is a good book, I just finished, on police reform
But you can’t get much in the way of police reform without criminal justice reform:
Because of COVID, state and local budgets, in the U.S., must probably be reduced. I would defund prisons, and drug units in DA offices, but not police.
I realize that I’m not focusing on what has happened in just the past few months. I’m guilty of not listening to the louder voices of the moment. Perhaps because I’m a, ahem, senior citizen, that’s not my approach.
“Defund” means exactly that. Cutting the police budget which means laying off officers and cutting back also on training, overtime, etc…
So when someone is trying to break into your house there will be twice the wait time because only half the officers are available. What? Do you really think if someone is breaking into your house they will send a social worker?
And lets say there is a major disturbance which could call for say 20 officers. But, only 10 are available because you “defunded” the department.
Bad idea.
Thank you for explaining that no matter how well something is broken down for you, if you don’t want to understand, you never will.
So your saying that cutting half the police budget and supposedly spending it on social services will cause an overall improvement? That social service workers and programs will stop crime?
I think they want the cops to stop crime and not do social work.
I know, that’s completely insane. What social service spending is gonna cause an overall improvement to social service problems if it don’t include shooting people and prison?
CMC
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying.
Do you believe that people with mental health problems, drug addiction, or homelessness and poverty contribute to crime?
Do you think that locking people up for having mental health problems, drug addiction, or homelessness and poverty will solve those?
This is only hard if you only look at it from the perspective of wanting to punish people for having mental health problems, drug addiction, or homelessness and poverty. If you are actually looking to solve those problems, then it becomes much easier.
I have no problem with working to solve issues like drug addiction or mental issues.
I am not sure cutting half the police budget will do it.
Nor am I.
We may need to cut 75% or more.
But 50% is a good start. See where things go from there.
Ending “proactive policing” and the drug war should free up quite a number of funds.
What cities in the US have enough police response that if someone is breaking into your house, you can reasonably call the police and they will dispatch officers before the person breaking in has left? Generally if someone is breaking in, they’re either intent on violence, in which case they’ll act before the cops get there, or they want money, in which case they’re gone once they see the lights and hear noise. I’ve known several people who called the cops about a break-in, and were able to give a police report about what happened several hours later. I’ve never known anyone who called the cops about a break-in and had them stop the break-in. Do you have any actual example of this, or is it all blue-line mythology?
The only thing I’ve seen collections of 20+ officers do in the last few months is create major disturbances by assaulting people exercising their right to protest, so that seems like a good way to cut out the major disturbances.
I dont call setting fire to a courthouse or blocking traffic or breaking windows and looting “peaceful protests”.
YES, GOD DAMN IT, YES! Pay attention!
Cops are there to stop crime while it’s happening, or, by visibility, deter it from happening from those that would do crime.
Social services tend to the very reasons those that would do crimes do crimes. Thus, far fewer crimes to be policed.
My hunch is that the violence/rioting isn’t going to hurt Democrats much in 2020 because it’s Trump versus Biden and because of the pandemic. If there was a more normal Republican candidate and a more woke Democratic one it absolutely would have hurt the Democrats. Also if there wasn’t a massive pandemic which is still killing hundreds every day.
However if Biden wins and if the pandemic dies down it absolutely will become a massive problem if these riots continue. I sense a lot of denialism of the violence on the left and a lot of under-reporting in the mainstream media. For example people don’t seem to have realized the economic damage done in the first round of rioting in Minneapolis, the sheer number of businesses torched down and massive long-term damage this is going to inflict particularly on the poorer parts of the city. Similarly there is a lot of underplaying of the violence in CHAZ particularly at night when it became an extremely scary and violence place.
The bottom line is that there is a hard core of violent activists who are using these protests to inflict mayhem and Democratic cities don’t seem to know how to deal with them. It’s probably too late for Trump but if they aren’t eventually brought under control they will absolutely become prime political fodder for the Republicans looking to mount a comeback.
I can see some of them helping but I think some of the best things that help people are thru the private sector. Churches, scouts, youth outreach programs, sports and such. Even someone in the neighborhood who makes friends with the neighborhood kids. I mention kids because I think working with them is the best way to stop crime before it happens.
And the thing is back in the day, liberals actually cared about their communities and started or worked with such groups. Liberals today want the government to fix everything. Go further on the left and they work to bring down groups like churches or scouts.
Great points.
The riots are continuing especially in democrat controlled cities like Seattle and Portland and may have gotten worse with burning and chaos.
And your so right on the press. You have to really search to find this.
Proof: the above riots - I cannot find any mention of them on CNN or MSNBC.
I think also that democrats have worked so hard to suppress free speech its become downright dangerous to admit to being a Trump supporter (yes, I’m sure alot of you are yelling GOOD).
According to a recent Cato poll most Trump supporters are nervous about sharing it. Also that 50% of strong liberals think supporting Trump should be grounds for firing a person. Granted the poll also shows centrist liberals also feel nervous about sharing their views.
This is getting dangerously close to nazi level suppression where people are feeling forced to go along with certain views.