EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 2405
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4731 Posts
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Elroi
Sweden5595 Posts
On June 09 2020 06:33 GreenHorizons wrote: Just as a matter of clarification there's a lot of cooption taking place on what is actually being called for. Now there's a lot of liberal and 'progressive' folks all over the chart but a brief synopsis of what "Defund the police" means can be found here: www.8toabolition.com It's a good hub for a lot of other useful information about related movements as well. Doritos Deray put out a more centrist version and tacked on the word "abolish" later but that's just sheepdog shit imo. So if I understand that list of demands right, a police officer who gets accused of excessive violence should be fired and his pension should be withdrawn, without the need to provide any kind of proof of the accusation? I wonder how organized criminals could use that as a way of extorting cops... | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23295 Posts
On June 09 2020 19:06 Elroi wrote: So if I understand that list of demands right, a police who gets accused of excessive violence should be fired and his pension should be withdrawn, without the need to provide any kind of proof of the accusation? I wonder how organized criminals could use that as a way of extorting cops... I'm personally not worried about how cops use it against each other. On June 09 2020 18:37 Silvanel wrote: I kinda wonder how much the recent coronawirus related rise in unemployment contributed to the size of current unrest. Were people of color hit harder by unemployment spike? Any thgoughts? With ~25% of people not working, or less than they'd like, it certainly is playing a role in the size of the protests. A lot of this is being organized by/through students out of class as well. There are very few negative consequences that aren't experienced by BIPoC worse than white amerika (this is the nature of systemic racism). Unemployment has been a standing one, and covid has been another, and obviously police brutality. | ||
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Sr18
Netherlands1141 Posts
On June 09 2020 19:06 Elroi wrote: So if I understand that list of demands right, a police officer who gets accused of excessive violence should be fired and his pension should be withdrawn, without the need to provide any kind of proof of the accusation? I wonder how organized criminals could use that as a way of extorting cops... Yeah, it's an excessively dumb idea. No idea why the same few posters keep proposing obviously terrible solutions. It's like they believe that if you repeat something often enough bad ideas will somehow become good. | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4731 Posts
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Belisarius
Australia6231 Posts
If we've decided that the police in the US should be replaced by something else, the difficult questions are what to transition to, and how to convince people of that. If we have the political capital to do half the things on that list, we can just go ahead and fire them all. The exact mechanism that is used to wind down their power seems very secondary. Plus, defunding is such an oddly capitalist way to achieve this socialist objective. It seems just as likely that squeezing the budget of an effective paramilitary organisation will lead to them acquiring that budget in other, even more destructive ways. If we want them gone, I would much rather strip their hardware and legal powers but keep paying them, than the reverse. | ||
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farvacola
United States18832 Posts
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9675 Posts
On June 09 2020 20:41 Belisarius wrote: To me, "defund the police" seems a bit of a weird administrative debate. If we've decided that the police in the US should be replaced by something else, the difficult questions are what to transition to, and how to convince people of that. The exact mechanism that is used to reduce their power seems very secondary. Plus, defunding is such an oddly capitalist way to achieve this socialist objective. It seems just as likely that squeezing the budget of an effective paramilitary organisation will lead to them acquiring that budget in other, even more destructive ways. If we want them gone, I would much rather strip their hardware and legal powers but keep paying them, than the reverse. This is something I've thought about. We've had to deal with austerity in the UK and the effect that the inevitable defunding has had on the police is mostly that they have been given wide ranging powers to use technology to make their jobs easier, which is definitely a BAD thing (most people have barely noticed this happening except those poor people who now get 5 years in jail for not being able to tell a cop the password to LITERALLY any archive file on their computer). There should be a discussion about the effects of this on the wider justice system also. The reforms should absolutely not be limited to the Police. Cases will start getting rushed through to court and failing, leading to mistrials and stuff like that. You can't skimp on court paperwork and evidence procedure, but defunding the police will cause that. I do think its possible to defund the police and reform them to use existing funding better, but it needs reforms of many other systems simultaneously that rely on the police force interacting with them in a certain way. I think taking jobs away from the police is the number 1 way to defund them. I've mentioned before that a properly functioning mental health system would drastically reduce the number of calls that the police have to deal with. Poor mental health informs almost every single type of crime the police routinely deal with, makes people unpredictable and makes the police unpredictable in their responses. Increasing funding and engagement for mental health services in poor communities is something I'm confident would allow for a huge reduction in Police numbers. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23295 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21787 Posts
On June 09 2020 21:15 GreenHorizons wrote: Ah to funny. Not happy that people are finally talking about your idea's for radically changing the police force, you just have to go for broke.I'd just mention that abolition is based in marxist analysis so it presupposes the accompanying social and economic changes as also necessary. | ||
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iPlaY.NettleS
Australia4338 Posts
Maybe a better system to weed out sociopaths from the front line is required. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9675 Posts
On June 09 2020 21:15 GreenHorizons wrote: I'd just mention that abolition is based in marxist analysis so it presupposes the accompanying social and economic changes as also necessary. This is the problem right now though... Its all very well local governments saying they want to defund the police but doesn't make any of the causes of the problems go away, it just hampers society's ability to solve any of the problems that require a functioning police department, until wider changes are made. I'm totally on board with the changes in principle, but doing half a job will make things ALOT worse. A part of me is curious as to whether local governments know this and will use this opportunity to further solidify police power. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23295 Posts
On June 09 2020 21:17 Gorsameth wrote: Ah to funny. Not happy that people are finally talking about your idea's for radically changing the police force, you just have to go for broke. No? I think it's good people are beginning to work through this stuff and believe knowing that it is based in marxist analysis is helpful to understanding the social and economic goals that coincide with abolition. That abolition of police requires other social and economic changes isn't a novel observation unconsidered by its supporters? | ||
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Elroi
Sweden5595 Posts
On June 09 2020 21:15 GreenHorizons wrote: I'd just mention that abolition is based in marxist analysis so it presupposes the accompanying social and economic changes as also necessary. By "marxist analysis" you mean your fairy tale idea that we abolish private property and somehow all people will be good, no one will have the urge to take for himself what someone else has, rapists and pedophiles will magically lose their urges and homicidal psychopaths will be cured? Can you point to where Marx makes that assumption please? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23295 Posts
On June 09 2020 21:21 Jockmcplop wrote: This is the problem right now though... Its all very well local governments saying they want to defund the police but doesn't make any of the causes of the problems go away, it just hampers society's ability to solve any of the problems that require a functioning police department, until wider changes are made. I'm totally on board with the changes in principle, but doing half a job will make things ALOT worse. A part of me is curious as to whether local governments know this and will use this opportunity to further solidify police power. This is exactly what the centrist reactionary plan is. Which is one reason why it is important to not support (or critique) abolition in a vacuum, but as part of a larger ML framework. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9675 Posts
On June 09 2020 21:17 Gorsameth wrote: Ah to funny. Not happy that people are finally talking about your idea's for radically changing the police force, you just have to go for broke. You can't radically change the police force without changing the context that they operate in. Otherwise the problems that exist now will be made worse, not better. That's the whole point. | ||
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Belisarius
Australia6231 Posts
On June 09 2020 13:50 Mohdoo wrote: A few of us have touched on this subject: cops manufacturing crime because they are super bored and basically encouraged to do so. This Twitter thread is really worth reading because it is supported by what most cops say: the work is very tedious, boring, and often nothing going on. I really recommend people read this to understand why it makes sense to burn the whole tree down, not try to selectively deal with "bad apples". This is a giant issue that minor pushes won't solve. Abolish all police departments yesterday. To me, a big part of the issue is that the cops in his anecdote are not even manufacturing crime. The laws that they are using to harass and intimidate are genuine laws, and somehow bullshit things like busted tail-lights are genuine crimes. This is huge in Australia. We pretend we are a nation of convicts but we have one of the most obnoxious, parochial nanny-states in the developed world. Our standard lawmaking method is to identify some minor, everyday issue, respond by banning any practice remotely adjacent to that issue, and then trust the police to enforce these over-broad laws with discretion. Surprise, they mostly use this discretion to discriminate. For example, we're not allowed to ride bikes without a helmet. It turns out something like 80% of fines for this are issued to our indigenous minorities, certainly not to the euro backpackers who are routinely flabbergasted by the existence of this law. When these fines go unpaid, the cycle of debt and harassment that this initiates eventually lands people in jail. For cycling without a helmet at 5 kph on an empty footpath at 10pm. This is my main concern with any plan to spin off minor police duties onto some group of glorified parking inspectors. You don't need guns to wreck people's lives. You just need a small man with a big badge looking for someone to stand over. | ||
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iamthedave
England2814 Posts
On June 09 2020 09:44 Fanharijo wrote: Is there really an appetite for policies like BLM proposes ? I can't think of a single person I know that would even remotely vote for anything like that. Whether or not there's an appetite for it doesn't matter. There's never been an appetite for actual change in the police force in the US, that's why we're at the precipice we're at in the first place. The US police force has been left to stagnate in corruption for an absurd length of time. You can't fix this by giving them a stern talking to. Every single stage of the system is corrupt at this point, to the point that good actors are unable to influence it positively and even segments that aren't directly part of the police force are corrupted by association (the courts, which have their own set of issues admittedly, but are complicit in getting police off when they perform abhorrent deeds by deliberately accusing them of crimes that can't be proven rather than ones which can). Radical action is needed. Maybe what BLM is proposing is too radical. But better to start too radical and work down to something reasonable than not go far enough. Consider, if you will, the sheer absurdity of the amount of pressure needed just to get people to seriously consider changes. Rioting in multiple major cities, police precincts set on fire, protests worldwide. This - if it even is a chance for change - is the chance for change. Their won't be another. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25648 Posts
On June 09 2020 18:37 Silvanel wrote: I kinda wonder how much the recent coronawirus related rise in unemployment contributed to the size of current unrest. Were people of color hit harder by unemployment spike? Any thgoughts? I don’t know honestly, my best guess is hit less, but it’s pure educated conjecture. This is assuming a lot, generally they’re poorer, generally doing the shit jobs but those are the jobs that are ‘essential’ so counter-intuitively Covid may be less devastating to PoC. I’m extrapolating a lot here, just what I’m seeing over here with my friend group. Myself and friends who do grunt work have been stable, my friends in higher tier professional tier jobs have been the ones suffering with job loss or at least uncertainty. A silver lining is that such folks are rather more sympathetic (the general populace not my friends, who were already) about many of my complaints about employment practice in my sector. PoC are suffering disproportionately from the medical effects of Covid over here (well the UK mainland). Which I think is partly explicable based on my initial point, as well as communities having less access to testing etc amongst other factors. As I said it’s me extrapolating and guessing. Many PoC obviously belong to the professional classes, so when things are being downsized and the axe is coming down I wonder upon whom it would fall first. | ||
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Sr18
Netherlands1141 Posts
On June 09 2020 21:15 GreenHorizons wrote: I'd just mention that abolition is based in marxist analysis so it presupposes the accompanying social and economic changes as also necessary. Well, considering that these accompanying social and economical changes are not remotely close to happening, I assume you agree then that abolition of the police right now is not a good idea. | ||
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