Well it doesn't matter, I'm just an over-privileged white animal with a despicable education at a useless shithole called Oxford, where I was taught, according to Rousseau's theory of truth by consensus, it must all be true. I dont really have anything more constructive to offer than that currently.
— ernestm
Is somebody here saying that to you? — ssu
The criticism of Trump of many retired generals is actually notable. — ssu
Also this kind of notification to the forces from the top echelon of the US armed forces is quite rare. (And note that it has been unclassified too). General Milley is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking general in the armed forces: — ssu
It's not the first locale to break up a department, but no cities as populous have ever attempted it. Minneapolis city council members haven't specified what or who will replace it if the department disbands.
Camden, New Jersey, may be the closest thing to a case study they can get.
The city, home to a population about 17% of Minneapolis' size, dissolved its police department in 2012 and replaced it with an entirely new one after corruption rendered the existing agency unfixable.
Before its police reforms, Camden was routinely named one of the most violent cities in the US. Now, seven years after the old department was booted, the city's crime has dropped by close to half. Officers host outdoor parties for residents and knock on doors to introduce themselves. It's a radically different Camden than it was even a decade ago. Here's how they did it. — CNN
Defund, or just reform? That is the question now at the heart of this moment. Protesters, along with progressive elected officials around the country, are demanding that police departments be defunded, disbanded and replaced by a newly anti-racist system of public safety and justice. In Minneapolis, there are already signs that such a drastic change could soon occur.
Proponents of a more moderate approach support new measures to exert oversight over police departments and regulate the use of force, but not break up the departments. Democratic leaders in the House backed this approach yesterday when they unveiled a sweeping police-overhaul bill amid fanfare on Capitol Hill. The bill would make it easier to prosecute officers accused of wrongdoing and would put new restrictions on the use of force.
Where does all this leave Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president? Just a few weeks ago, he was still adamantly defending his support for the 1994 crime bill — a law that put 100,000 new police officers on the street, and spent nearly $10 billion on prisons.
Biden’s campaign will probably walk a fine line on matters of policing, as he works to shore up support on the left while courting moderate voters. Yesterday, he threw his support firmly behind the more moderate reformers. “No, I don’t support defunding the police,” he told CBS News, in a similar statement to the one that recently got Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis booed out of a rally. “I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness,” Biden said.
It’s clear what sidePresident Trump is on. “There won’t be defunding, there won’t be dismantling of our police, and there is not going to be any disbanding of our police,” he declared on Monday. He spoke alongside law enforcement officials and top members of his administration, including state attorneys general, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and officials from some police departments. “You’ll see some horrible things like we witnessed recently, but 99 — I say 99.9, but let’s go with 99 percent of them — are great, great people,” Trump said of the police.
But polls suggest that Trump’s hard-line stance over the past two weeks has not particularly helped him. In a CNN poll released yesterday, just 38 percent of the country approved of his job performance, his lowest marks since January 2019 — even as the country proceeds with a cautious economic reopening. And only 31 percent said they liked how he was handling race relations — roughly on par with past results to this question, and an indication that even some of Trump’s supporters are uncomfortable with his positions on racial issues. — NY Times
Over the past week, among the countless variations of protest signs carried by demonstrators across the country, one message has gained new traction: “Defund the police.” On Sunday, it was a common theme inLos Angeles, where Mayor Eric Garcetti unveiled a proposal to divert $100 million to $150 million from the Police Department’s budget to programs that would benefit communities of color — a response that many said didn’t go nearly far enough, while others said such a move would have been unimaginable just weeks ago.
San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, made a similar announcement, though without a specific dollar number attached.
And San Jose’s mayor, Sam Liccardo, rejected calls to defund the city’s Police Department, instead saying he wanted to reform it.
How is this different from reforming police departments?
It is, in some ways, a matter of degree. Activists in Los Angeles have noted that the $150 million cut Mr. Garcetti proposed is just a fraction of the department’s more than $1.8 billion budget. In many places, however, activists aren’t just pushing to divert money away from police departments, they are calling to dismantle them entirely.
That was the case in Minneapolis, where, over the weekend, a veto-proof majority of the City Council pledged to dismantle its Police Department and instead create a new system of public safety from the ground up. The new system could follow various models that have been established in cities around the country. In Eugene, Ore., a team called CAHOOTS — Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets — deploys a medic and a crisis worker with mental health training to emergency calls.
What are arguments against defunding or dismantling police departments?
Those who don’t support defunding or dismantling police departments have mostly said they’d like to see reforms of existing systems instead. Democrats in Congress unveiled legislation that would make it easier to identify, track and prosecute police misconduct. Mayor Liccardo said in a statement that defunding San Jose’s Police Department would “hurt the very people who have suffered the most from systemic racism.” — New York Times
That means, over the last decade, there are well over 10 million frustrated would-be criminals — ernestm
You went to Oxford? Fucking bullshit. — StreetlightX
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.