Current Events > Defund the police does not mean dissolve the police.

(+) Yeah! (+)

First of all, yes, there are some people absolutely calling for the complete abolishment of the institution. Bad neighborhoods get bad because no one does anything to help them and people take it upon themselves to mete out the justice they feel they've been denied. And many of those people feel their lives would be better without cops at all.

That is a small cry in an otherwise far larger issue. These protests consist of people protesting police brutality and police racism; they are not protesting police existing.

Here is a better picture of what "Defund the police" means. These are not universally agreed upon by everyone supporting the movement but they much closer to what the end result should look like than the complete removal of the institution.

https://i.imgur.com/6g9dkhf.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4rSStyv.jpg

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But the police, at least the vast majority, are good people and do a good job.

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right wingers dont have the ability to nuance

Odoylerules posted...

right wingers dont have the ability to nuance

FulminatedHydra posted...

But the police, at least the vast majority, are good people and do a good job.

Good police are not impacted in any way by the above talking points and would see benefit in suggestions such as removal of body cams.

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This should probably be stickied for the foreseeable future.

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Access to imgur denied? Wtf

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It doesnt matter, reform the police is a much better term and doesnt give delicious bait to the right and turn away moderate voters.

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Jabodie posted...

Access to imgur denied? Wtf

Imgur is being a butt on mobile devices lately. Trying to make it as inconvenient as possible so you install the app.

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JBaLLEN66 posted...

It doesnt matter, reform the police is a much better term and doesnt give delicious bait to the right and turn away moderate voters.

The infographic linked calls it reforms. I agree reform or rebuild or remediate are all better words.

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"Defund the police" will be a disaster catchphrase for Democrats. The average voter won't understand the difference or take the time to read your charts.

Instead of using abolish or defund, they should call it reallocating funds of the police.

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Has defunding an organization ever made it perform it's job better? If so, please provide examples.

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GodIsImaginary posted...

"Defund the police" will be a disaster catchphrase for Democrats. The average voter won't understand the difference or take the time to read your charts.

omfg whats the point in even taking this position in the first place? Its not fucking cute, its dumb af! This is the reason why Bernie lost twice and nobody takes his supporters seriously.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

The infographic linked calls it reforms. I agree reform or rebuild or remediate are all better words.

The infographic you provided seems to be knocking reform.

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GodIsImaginary posted...

"Defund the police" will be a disaster catchphrase for Democrats. The average voter won't understand the difference or take the time to read your charts.

This, I just got sick and tired of trying to inform everyone what they meant by "defunding the police". Reforming would be a less confusing term in my opinion.

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LightHawKnight posted...

Instead of using abolish or defund, they should call it reallocating funds of the police.

Reallocating isn't a good word, sounds like you're just shuffling budget priorities within the police.

The real action

"Take subsidies away from police and spend them on community social entitlements" sounds like a far harder sell that just "reform the police" because you'll be a bunch of moderates going "IS THIS COMMUNISM!?"

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a big problem is that "defund" literally means zero money if you look it up in many dictionaries.

LightHawKnight posted...

Instead of using abolish or defund, they should call it reallocating funds of the police.

They should call it "Fuck da Police" and legislate accordingly.

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creating a bunch of infographs to explain why my hashtag doesn't mean what it says, i'm very good at politics

Fam_Fam posted...

a big problem is that "defund" literally means zero money if you look it up in many dictionaries.

To fund means give money, to defund means to remove money. It doesn't necessarily implying taking 100% of the money.

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GodIsImaginary posted...

"Defund the police" will be a disaster catchphrase for Democrats. The average voter won't understand the difference or take the time to read your charts.

I agree. I hated the phrase from the moment I first heard it. I disagreed with it entirely until I education myself about what it means.
Poor choice of wording.

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Try telling Trumpanzies this. They think that defunding means anarchy will ensue.

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In this country you have to explain things to a ton of people like they're five years old and many still wouldn't get it.

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The left just loves to redefine words. They are like lets abolish and defund the police but oh wait the words abolish and defund do not mean what you think they mean. They now mean this then they provide this huge paragraph explaining what abolish and defund now mean. So when they say abolish they do not mean abolish and if they can not be honest with their words how can they be trusted at all.

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Quicksilver posted...

The left just loves to redefine words. They are like lets abolish and defund the police but oh wait the words abolish and defund do not mean what you think they mean. They now mean this then they provide this huge paragraph explaining what abolish and defund now mean. So when they say abolish they do not mean abolish and if they can not be honest with their words how can they be trusted at all.

Did you read the OP? It sure doesnt seem like it.

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Southernfatman posted...

In this country you have to explain things to a ton of people like they're five years old and many still wouldn't get it.

And saying something is blue when its actually green and giving a smug rebuttal isnt smart either

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LMAO right, because cities like Chicago, Stockton, Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis, St. Louis and so many others have so much crime because their police departments are obviously over funded. They're doing their jobs too well! While we're at it, here are a few more things we should defund.

• Public schools. We're underperforming as a nation because schools have too much money. Also think of how many fewer sex scandals there would be if we just had fewer teachers. We should be diverting those funds into alternative social programs where kids can teach themselves.
• DOT. Road construction creates traffic causing millions of tons of carbon emissions per year. They're savages who would rather have safe roads and highways than clean air.
• Fire departments. Firetrucks are too big and noisy and my dog howls when they go by.

I already know what defund and abolish mean so why would you say defund or abolish the police if that is not what you allegedly want or mean. People are literally redefining words to suit their agenda then acting all high and mighty because other people just don't get it.

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If they really want to reduce the scope of police departments and in turn their budgets in order to reallocate it for the community, their motto really should be "Streamline the Police." "Defund" is far too inflammatory of a term to garner popular acceptance.
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Quicksilver posted...

I already know what defund and abolish mean so why would you say defund or abolish the police if that is not what you allegedly want or mean. People are literally redefining words to suit their agenda then acting all high and mighty because other people just don't get it.

It was illuminated for you in the OP, though. A few people want to defund the police but the general idea of the movement is to reform them so what happened to George Floyd and countless others stops happening through training police to deescalate and getting them more and better training in general including in ways to deal with mental health-related incidents and such along with trying to reduce the staggering prison population we have and stuff like that.

Defund the police is a poorly worded slogan, probably created by someone with extreme views, and perhaps picked up others who think defund can mean to reduce funding. It picked up steam because its simple and catchy, but the general idea behind the movement is good. Police in the U.S. are terribly and inadequately trained and our justice system is designed to let them get away with anything.

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BathroomWater posted...

It was illuminated for you in the OP, though. A few people want to defund the police but the general idea of the movement is to reform them so what happened to George Floyd and countless others stops happening through training police to deescalate and getting them more and better training in general including in ways to deal with mental health-related incidents and such

But this is exactly what the majority of people who are talking about defunding the police are arguing against. TC's infographic is literally arguing against reform like this. What you stated is essentially what politicians are pushing for, for example look at Joe Biden's statement.

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I mean people get so fucking butthurt about incorrect labels all the damn time but yet they make exceptions to these. Let's be smart. Let's call it the right things instead of using an absolute saying or term.

#ReformThePolice

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All of these explanations are great, but the goal of a slogan is to be catchy and memorable, even if it isnt an exact description of the goal.
Like, I want to spend less money on police and more on social programs is, perhaps, more accurate, but its a poor sound bite they would distort anyway. The status quo will never deal with us in good faith.

Tyranthraxus posted...

To fund means give money, to defund means to remove money. It doesn't necessarily implying taking 100% of the money.

source for this?

Fam_Fam posted...

source for this?

Literally the dictionary you told me to look up.




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"we want higher quality better trained police

but we want to pay them less"

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Cops should definitely be paid more but also be better trained and held to a reasonable accountability.

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ThePrinceFish posted...

"we want higher quality better trained police

but we want to pay them less"

Not a single talking point above mentions their paycheck.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

Not a single talking point above mentions their paycheck.

Guess what the first things cut under budget cuts are.

If you guessed training, you're right!

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Quicksilver posted...

The left just loves to redefine words. They are like lets abolish and defund the police but oh wait the words abolish and defund do not mean what you think they mean. They now mean this then they provide this huge paragraph explaining what abolish and defund now mean. So when they say abolish they do not mean abolish and if they can not be honest with their words how can they be trusted at all.

No, that's liberals. The actual left legitimately wants to abolish the police, and probably imprison a lot of murderous officers and make them poop in a bucket for the rest of their lives, and tear down their statues.

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To some people it does, to others it doesn't. The mayor of Minnesota would probably agree with most police reforms, but was publicly shamed by a large crowd because he specifically said he did not support the complete abolition of the police. Just shows you the variety of opinions present in this movement.

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ThePrinceFish posted...

"we want higher quality better trained police

but we want to pay them less"

Well then maybe a nice compromise is to massively cut down on the number of police officers, and raise the pay of the ones left
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ThePrinceFish posted...

Guess what the first things cut under budget cuts are.

If you guessed training, you're right!

No one said anything about cutting existing training. Just not adding additional training. The majority of the reform ideas revolve around defunding police by making bad police a financial liability and taking away their pensions and money that would be going to their paid leaves and spending it on community social programs instead.

You should try reading the topic if you want to argue against it.

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MarqueeSeries posted...

Well then maybe a nice compromise is to massively cut down on the number of police officers, and raise the pay of the ones left

This is one of the proposed solutions.

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the right knows that but admitting it would mean they cant keep curbstomping strawmen so...

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Tyranthraxus posted...

No one said anything about cutting existing training. Just not adding additional training. The majority of the reform ideas revolve around defunding police by making bad police a financial liability and taking away their pensions and money that would be going to their paid leaves and spending it on community social programs instead.

You should try reading the topic if you want to argue against it.

"Nobody is talking about cutting police budgets, we're just talking about taking the money that would go to the police and distributing it elsewhere"

This doublespeak game where you hamstring the cops at every turn and expect them to perform better is fun but getting tiring. Enjoy your self defeating policies that will only lead to a smaller number of poorly trained cops taking longer to respond to your calls.

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ThePrinceFish posted...

"Nobody is talking about cutting police budgets, we're just talking about taking the money that would go to the police and distributing it elsewhere"

This doublespeak game where you hamstring the cops at every turn and expect them to perform better is fun but getting tiring. Enjoy your self defeating policies that will only lead to a smaller number of poorly trained cops taking longer to respond to your calls.

No we are in fact talking about cutting budgets, just not cutting existing training. You've been given explicit line items that will be cut and completely ignored them in order for you to argue against a position no one here has.

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Ehhh there are plenty of people saying the police need to be dissolved tho.

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