US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3654

On May 29 2022 00:30 ChristianS wrote:

Surprises me a little you think “lots of *white people* agree with your position, but *black people* don’t” is some kinda mic drop argument. Can’t people just argue for or against a policy on its merits? Do you support ignoring white people and deferring to a majority of black people on all issues, or just this one?

In this thread for ages the only proponent of “abolish the police” was GH, and I’ve never seen the thread more mad at him. Years later people were in the website feedback thread citing that argument as a reason he should be banned. Since 2020 I think everybody softened on the argument quite a bit, but I think most left-leaning posters (Mohdoo I’m pretty sure, idk about everyone else) still think “defund the police” was a bad slogan that cost dems a bunch of seats in 2020.

Anyway, does that mean you’re in a “reform the police”-type position? Or are you more a “back the blue” type? (I hate to generalize the factions so grossly, but everybody I’ve met seems to happily identify with either “abolish,” “reform,” or “thin blue line” pretty cleanly). I’d love if the thread did a little more on-the-merits discussion of law enforcement policy. Even during 2020 I remember feeling like we dropped the subject kinda quick.

On May 29 2022 03:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:
tbh its prolly best to not say 'this thread' when you mean two named posters.

On May 29 2022 03:59 BlackJack wrote:


Fair, but also can’t say it’s only GreenHorizons when neither of those two named posters are him

Jenn Jackson, political scientist, Syracuse University:

By “abolish the police,” I mean building a world where we do not rely on anti-Black, white supremacist institutions of order to regulate society. This means that alternative forms of order might be embraced, like community care networks and justice structures rooted in restoration rather than punishment.

Yes, defunding police authorities and reinvesting in communities that are most affected by structural inequality is an approach. However, organizers are doing amazing work right now to think through many approaches and methods that might build a freer world and sustain Black futures. A good example is the “8 to Abolition” plan put together by young organizers and scholars.

On May 29 2022 04:18 NewSunshine wrote:

You parade around this thread all the time like you're the only one who exercises critical thinking, and is willing to question what is commonly accepted as true, but you get a bug up your shirt when I'm doing the same thing.

Yeah, I'm questioning whether police are a net positive to society. I'm open to evidence of them abusing their authority to inflict active harm on people who are already desperate for help, because we see it all the time now. And I'm having a harder and harder time believing the police can just be reformed in a country where an officer can kneel on the neck of a black man for several minutes, in broad daylight, kill him, and just get away with it. That's a very radical act and there were essentially no consequences for it. And now, two years later, we're still running in circles as headlines continue to come out revealing the damage they cause.

So yeah, I'm sympathetic to the idea that we need to be similarly radical about reevaluating what they're actually good for. If that really bugs you, stay mad about it. I don't really care.

On May 29 2022 05:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:


What? Just to be clear, I'm not at all saying that American police are held accountable at nearly close to the rate they should be, but wasn't Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22 years in prison?

On May 29 2022 06:25 NewSunshine wrote:

I misremembered that, and that's my bad. Yeah, he did go to prison in that particular case. You are correct.

I still think it wasn't enough, and black people are still serving lifetimes in prison for harmless shit like possessing marijuana, so I still don't see it as some execution of justice. A huge amount of social pressure managed to see one of the most obvious and egregious abuses of authority actually get charged with anything. It's a wonder the armor of Qualified Immunity got pierced. In most cases, not even close.

On May 29 2022 06:16 plasmidghost wrote:

I do think there are significant problems with nearly everything structurally in the United States. The reliance on police is in itself a problem. Complete structural change would have to happen.

The thing with the community care networks is, that would institute a fundamental shift in the nature of Americans. If you look at small changes like responding to around 20% of 911 incidents without police, the number of incidents requiring police backup have dropped to nearly zero, saving millions of dollars and a far more incalculable value of human lives. These are just very small reform-minded actions but show great potential.

With gun violence, that would be extremely tricky, I will admit. The shooter had access to AR-15s at 18 and there are more guns than people in the United States, a figure that still baffles me. If we were to get rid of all guns in the US right away, I believe it would target marginalized groups first and the more serious threat of those far-right mass shooters last. There are ways other countries handle guns, like Japan, that involve many more checks on things like mental health, known associates, criminal behavior, etc., and blanket bans on more lethal guns, ammo, etc. are something I support, but if systems involving psychological assessments and the like were to happen in the US as the systems currently stand, I believe the right-wingers would pass but not left-wingers, and there would have to be some sort of oversight to ensure that extreme partisanship doesn't cause unequal decisions.

Ways of enforcing the removal of guns, I will admit, are a problem I freely admit I am not smart enough to figure out. Having police or anyone armed like, for instance, the National Guard, go to some guy with 50 AR-15s' house and try to take them away will end in carnage. I think that reducing the amount of guns and ammo someone can own is good. I look at other countries that allow handgun ownership, like Britain, that allow restrictive gun ownership and don't have police that carry guns, then look back at America and our perverted culture of guns and think that at the moment, it's a seemingly impossible task to get to a culture where guns don't reign supreme, but just because it's daunting doesn't mean it' shouldn't be tried.

As for the final statement, namely how would prison abolition work with incidents like the Uvalde shooter. Obviously, my end goal is in the future, these kinds of horrifying crimes wouldn't even be possible to happen or would be an extremely rare occurrence. But as this is not a perfect world, and we have a long way to go and an immense effort would be required to make it happen, here's someone that's so much smarter than me explaining how abolition would deal with rapists, murders, and the like: It's too long to post the full text here, but I think it's well worth a read.

On May 29 2022 06:45 JimmiC wrote:
In the US there are far too many bad cops for the few bad apples theory to make any sense, there is clearly a lot of law enforcement that should not be there and likely as you say in jail is where some belong more than those they put there.

But the other side of the coin is what an awful and hard job it is in the US where you have an armed, angry populace many who hate cops and cheer their deaths. Compound that with the war on drugs and extreme wealth disparities even in school funding and you have a recipe for disaster.


Abolishing the police is not going to solve anything because they are a symptom of a deeper problem. Having better trained braver cops or teachers with their own guns is also not going to solve anything.

People need to stop pretending that the NRA cares about the constitution or gun freedom, they do not. If they did they would love 3d printed guns but they hate them because they hurt gun sales. And other people need to stop pretending like you can get rid of the police and crime will go away, it wont. Every developed country has some sort of law enforcement, it just works way better and people do not hate them because of how it is designed. They are not perfect but they keep making progress to better.

Until people figure out they need to come together instead of blaming the "other side" and impliment the already existing, well tested and working solutions. Nothing is going to change.