Texas

[BBB]

Glass half-empty or half-full?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...publicans-poll

[j44ke]

Glass half-empty or half-full?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...publicans-poll

Cracked glass that doesn't hold water but still keeps getting put out on the table.

[jclay]

Cracked glass that doesn't hold water but still keeps getting put out on the table.

Precisely.

This country is so broken that it will do everything except what needs to be done to stop the slaughter; and it's led by "Christians". What a perverse joke.

[Chik]

On some level, there might be a logic to banning abortions because abortions decrease the rate at which child population can be replenished. That's a real issue in a country that leads the world in mass shootings of school children. Is that called pragmatism?

Obviously, I'm being sarcastic here, but the appearance of wanting to "save" a foetus more than a child boggles my mind. Pro Life, until their born?

[HorsCat]

Pro Life, until their born?

They're not pro life. They're pro Christian Jihad.

[j44ke]

They're not pro life. They're pro Christian Jihad.

Thank you. I was thinking Christian Shariah but Christian Jihad captures the whole death cult aspect.

[BBB]

Cracked glass that doesn't hold water but still keeps getting put out on the table.

This is pretty effed up also.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-manufacturers

[SlowPokePete]

Robert Reich is a good guy.

https://www.instagram.com/rbreich/

SPP

[bcm119]

I don’t agree. Here’s a video from two years ago that says cutting the police budget by just 5% could double the funding for public health in some cities.

What Defunding the Police Really Means — Black Lives Matter

• Instead of funding armed officers in schools, invest in teachers and counselors.
• Instead of criminalizing mental illness, invest in mental health and restorative services.
• Instead of buying military weapons for use on our citizens, invest in community-led programs to reduce harm.

“It’s time to claim healthy, safe futures for our children.”

The Republicans built a straw man. We shouldn’t prop it up.

Perhaps. But this was a softball for the republicans. We all knew it within 5 seconds of the first time we heard 'defund the police'. Absolutely abysmal political strategy that played a role in losing additional support from black and latino communities that not only depend on the police for protection in high crime cities, but are employed by the police as well. It was one of the most tone deaf, white, privileged political slogans ever.

[thollandpe]

It was one of the most tone deaf, white, privileged political slogans ever.

White and privileged — where do you think it came from?

It may be worth watching the video, https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-de...-really-means/

[vertical_doug]

It was one of the most tone deaf, white, privileged political slogans ever.

I agree the slogan was easy to manipulate, but the white privilege and tone deafness is actually on the response from the right. They don't engage in meaningful discussion, but instead ridicule it. It is the equivalent of mansplaining to a woman.

[jclay]

From the Florida Phoenix: The AR-15 is for mass killing — ban it.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/06/0...an-it-opinion/

And yes, ^^ "de-fund the police" was an astonishingly counter productive slogan; a self inflicted wound as it relates to constructive dialog and change.

[Mark Kelly]

And yes, ^^ "de-fund the police" was an astonishingly counter productive slogan; a self inflicted wound as it relates to constructive dialog and change.

I really have no business joining this discussion but it strikes me that "de-militarise the police" would have been far better.

[echappist]

I agree the slogan was easy to manipulate, but the white privilege and tone deafness is actually on the response from the right. They don't engage in meaningful discussion, but instead ridicule it. It is the equivalent of mansplaining to a woman.

Though I support quite a bit of the police reform demands, purely to play the devil's advocate, why should one engage on the substance when one's opponent relies on shockingly bad rhetorical slogans?

I would say that when the plain meaning of one's slogans is so far different in scope from one's actual intended aims, the plot is lost.

I know I tend to play the pedant here, but it is worth emphasizing the rhetorical strength of the following.

"Defund the Police". Three words, but packed with perceived meaning. The implied meaning is also strong. The slogan isn't talking about reducing funding here, it's specifically saying defund. The slogan isn't talking defunding just a subset of the roles a normal police department takes on and/or redirecting that funding to other aspects of policing, it's referring to the societal institution of police. The slogan also feels empowering when uttered by those seeking reform, and it's eminently conducive to being chanted at demonstrations.

Contrast that with what a poster above wrote, regarding actual aims of policing reform

I don’t agree. Here’s a video from two years ago that says cutting the police budget by just 5% could double the funding for public health in some cities.

What Defunding the Police Really Means — Black Lives Matter

• Instead of funding armed officers in schools, invest in teachers and counselors.
• Instead of criminalizing mental illness, invest in mental health and restorative services.
• Instead of buying military weapons for use on our citizens, invest in community-led programs to reduce harm.
  

“It’s time to claim healthy, safe futures for our children.”

The Republicans built a straw man. We shouldn’t prop it up.

The list represents something much more nuanced. But hey, can't get those proposed reforms in three very simple words.

One could also rephrase the intent as "reform policing", "rethink policing", etc. Those would refer to the specific acts conducted during the course of policing, as opposed to directly swooping in people who perform policing duties, thereby unnecessarily getting a whole bunch of snowflakes triggered (and by snowflakes, I mean organizations such as various PBAs). Of course, when the acts of policing are reformed, the people performing policing duties also have to change how they act, but the key difference is that a more nuanced slogan wouldn't go directly after the people and be so antagonizing. In fact, I'm sure any above average liberal arts major could come up with something pithy and more reflective of the actual aims. Why willfully antagonize when a discussion on substance would be more effective?

That's a half-rhetorical question, of course. There is undoubtedly an unabashedly provocative streak behind slogans such as "defund the police". Slogans such as these sound empowering and are easy to roll off the tongue, but anyone with understanding of human psychology would know that such slogans would 1) do more to inflame rather than persuade an opponent to change and 2) alienate those on the sidelines who might otherwise lend support.

If the GOP build a strawman on the basis of the actual aims of "defund the police" movement, then surely that movement is culpable for supplying the straw.

Elsewhere on this forum, people mentioned that the generic left-leaning political movements too often seeks to appeal to reason whereas right-leaning ones seek to appeal to emotions. The reason why slogans such as "defund the police" is so horrid an own-goal is because there's very little rational underpinning to the slogan per se (at least, without having to look up the actual policy demands), while it provokes almost an immediate emotional response.

I'm not saying that every slogan needs to be thought-up by someone with the oratorical bravura of Dr. King, but what I am saying is that it really should be thought-up by someone who can think beyond beyond the payoff of the initial "act-out" phase of uttering such a slogan and comprehend how such slogans might affect one's aims further down the road.

[j44ke]

Sort of like the recent imbroglio over the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board - a stupidly tone-deaf name that plays straight into the hands of all the conspiracy theory whack jobs out there who are perpetuating all the disinformation in the first place.

[Matthew Strongin]

I really have no business joining this discussion but it strikes me that "de-militarise the police" would have been far better.

“Make Policing Great Again” probably would have gotten the right on board.

[bcm119]

White and privileged — where do you think it came from?

It may be worth watching the video, https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-de...-really-means/

I’m not watching the video now, but this is my point – if you have to watch a video to learn that the slogan doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means, it’s a failure of messaging. The implication of the slogan wasn’t just inflammatory and misleading, it was fundamentally un-large D Democratic -- defunding public services and programs you don’t like is the GOP playbook.

And worse, many people on the right and left apparently didn’t watch the video either, because many large cities across the country did defund their police pretty broadly, without any of the precision and nuance required for real police reform. And the result was increased crime in urban areas and a political backlash (see: Eric Adams in NYC, recall of Chesa Boudin in SF). One could argue [conspiratorially] that police purposefully neglected a certain amount of crime to make a point. But the data show crime did increase, and the electorate blamed police funding, and now most of those cities have restored police budgets back to previous levels or higher.

But who suffered the most from this stunt? Urban black and Latino people who saw rising crime rates in their neighborhoods. And who was yelling ‘defund the police’ the loudest in 2020? White people. And now here we are a couple years later, with any chance of *real* police reform haunted by the political aftermath of ‘defund the police’ for the next decade. To put out such an inflammatory, polarizing slogan while risking political fallout, unknown consequences in high crime urban areas, and any chance of real incremental change – that’s the domain of the privileged.

[thollandpe]

Yeah I get it. It could have been phrased better.

“If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone, anyhow” – John and Sir Paul

But I don’t get it. They found a way to discredit and dismiss Black Lives Matter (a simple, affirming, a non-threatening slogan if there ever was one). Because although we’re still talking about how something was said rather than what was said, their real problem is the content and not the delivery. There will never be a correct way to say it, and that’s part of their strategy.

I don’t think that Defund the Police was coined by Black Lives Matter anyway. I think it was in the 70’s Critical Resistance movement, by activist scholars like Angela Davis (talk about oratorical bravura), Ruthie Wilson Gilmore, Andrea Smith, and Beth Ritchie who opposed police militarization and its use against civil rights, anti-war, indigenous sovereignty, and gay rights movements.

I’m still stuck that the three basic tenets apply so well to the topic at hand, as opposed to the absurd proposals to arm teachers, harden schools, and further militarize police.

Here’s an interesting story that mentions the intersection of police/prison funding, a Black academic, and Latinx youth at a conference in California’s Central Valley:

Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind
In three decades of advocating for prison abolition, the activist and scholar has helped transform how people think about criminal justice.

[echappist]

Yeah I get it. It could have been phrased better.

“If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain’t gonna make it with anyone, anyhow” – John and Sir Paul

But I don’t get it. They found a way to discredit and dismiss Black Lives Matter (a simple, affirming, a non-threatening slogan if there ever was one). Because although we’re still talking about how something was said rather than what was said, their real problem is the content and not the delivery. There will never be a correct way to say it, and that’s part of their strategy.

That's quite the abrogation of duties. There may not necessarily be a best way of saying it, but if the whole point is to effect policy change as opposed to venting, then something bland like "new policing" or "policing in the 21st century" might even work (and draw less scrutiny and criticism on the perfunctory stuff).

And I would add that they have a problem with both the content and the delivery. Countering the content requires them to confront the facts (like hitting a home run); countering the delivery is a lot easier (like getting a single hit or perhaps even a sacrificial fly). Why bother with the more difficult task when one's opponent allows a simpler solution.

I don’t think that Defund the Police was coined by Black Lives Matter anyway. I think it was in the 70’s Critical Resistance movement, by activist scholars like Angela Davis (talk about oratorical bravura), Ruthie Wilson Gilmore, Andrea Smith, and Beth Ritchie who opposed police militarization and its use against civil rights, anti-war, indigenous sovereignty, and gay rights movements.

I’m still stuck that the three basic tenets apply so well to the topic at hand, as opposed to the absurd proposals to arm teachers, harden schools, and further militarize police.

Here’s an interesting story that mentions the intersection of police/prison funding, a Black academic, and Latinx youth at a conference in California’s Central Valley:

Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind
In three decades of advocating for prison abolition, the activist and scholar has helped transform how people think about criminal justice.

And here is another instance where the plot is lost.

Again, this appears to be an issue with messaging from what I would consider to be "the far left" (and I hate using that term). I don't think any one of us would disagree with the notion that serious prison reform is needed, and where we differ would be the magnitude. Many in prisons no doubt could be better served in mental institutions, and that's a distinctly American issue, made worse by the defunding of mental health institutions (e.g. Ronald Reagan). However, this still doesn't account for all the psychopaths and the recidivists. The professor profiled in the story goes far beyond mere prison reform and instead argues for abolition of prisons, and by abolition of prisons, she truly means it (as in, she means what she says, unlike the "defund the police" advocates). The following from the article just about sums up the fantastical aims of the professor (emphasis mine)

Abolition means not just the closing of prisons but the presence, instead, of vital systems of support that many communities lack. Instead of asking how, in a future without prisons, we will deal with so-called violent people, abolitionists ask how we resolve inequalities and get people the resources they need long before the hypothetical moment when, as Gilmore puts it, they “mess up.”

I have no doubt that economical deprivation leads to and is a significant driver of crime, but criminals and psychopaths originate from all walks of life, and what the professor argues for at best reduces prison population (which is an admirable aim), but the whole thing about crime can never be eliminated just gets elided over. In that aspect, the article is quite shocking. What's even more shocking is just how one-sided the article was, and how the true opposing view came at the beginning (from the Latinx youth), with the professor recounting how she tells these youths that prisons are immoral. To illustrate her point, she cites how certain European countries gives out seven year prison terms for convicted murderers. Let's assume that this is indeed correct, at best, her example illustrates the point for sentencing reform (reduction of terms), but the writer of the article apparently thought it serves as justification for wholesale prison abolition. A sly rhetorical trick, and it got me when I first read it, but the fact that the writer (presumably with approval from the professor) resorted to this sleight of hand shows just how big a gap there is between policy aims and actual implementation. The gap in cause and effect is so large, that the article had to rely on objections of the callow (as opposed to her fellow academics), so that the entire article doesn't get dismissed as something fantastical and farcical.

I'll turn that question around (and attempt to segue this back on topic). Is prison necessary? Had the murderer who committed this heinous act in Texas been apprehended alive, brought to justice, and sentenced to scores of years in prison (like the way James Holmes was), would prison have been a just punishment? Why or why not? In what alternative manner should he be kept so that he no longer poses a menace to society? Would that alternative manner require any form of institutionalization?

[bcm119]

....

Here’s an interesting story that mentions the intersection of police/prison funding, a Black academic, and Latinx youth at a conference in California’s Central Valley:

Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind
In three decades of advocating for prison abolition, the activist and scholar has helped transform how people think about criminal justice.

I'm not going to speak to the merits of that study. There's probably some valuable findings that add to the body of academic work on criminal justice. But that sort of headline is the very last thing anyone needs to see at this moment.

I don't understand how progressive activists can be so intelligent in many ways, and so completely clueless about how to build a majority to effect political change. It is exhausting and infuriating to watch. It is becoming difficult to believe they aren't more interested in adulation from their peers than actually persuading outsiders to join their cause.