Abolishing the Police

Politics & News
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Some updates in Philly:

Every night up until last night I had been hearing explosions from like 6pm to 6am every day, at least every 10-15 minutes, usually a few at a time. They all sounded like they were coming from the same areas. Police say there have been a bunch of ATM bombings, but there is very little evidence of more than a handful of them. Lots of chatter about LRADs being deployed to scare people into staying inside and/or drum up support for military-style crackdowns on protesters. Apparently we also use this tactic in military combat to sleep deprive the enemy. If that’s their goal, they’re doing a bang up job of it as far as my sleep is concerned.

My opinion at this point is that it’s a combination. I’ve easily heard 50-100 blasts in my surrounding area the last several days, and not seen any social media chatter about damage nearby. No visible smoke or fire. Hard to buy there are that many real explosions.

Another day of big protests in Philly, but there appears to be less coverage of them as they stay peaceful, and the news is starting to give other stories (like re-opening into the yellow phase from COVID-19) more time.

Philly police are photographing protesters and asking the media to turn over photos of protesters.

There have been a couple Cessnas flying circles around the city this week, so I assume they are DEA or US Marshalls with DRT boxes.

More big protests planned the next few days.

I keep teetering back and forth. I was going to go to one yesterday afternoon nearby, it was going to be smaller than the big ones, thus making me feel a little safer with my COVID-19 risks. The weather made me back off (we had a derecho early afternoon and a tornado warning early evening). I was in on the big one Saturday, now I’m starting to wuss out because of COVID-19, as I read that thread a bit last night and the stuff about it being a vascular disease adds more risk for me.

I’m very concerned this is going to peter out with less news coverage. The combination of not knocking heads and not covering it as much in the news is probably going to make it slowly drift away. That makes me want to go and do my part, but we’ll see. I’ve done my part in a few other ways, too, it’s just really torturing me mentally to not be out there showing solidarity and support.

I don’t think I’ve ever waffled over a decision like this before. This is like at the core of my values and very important to me, but you all know how careful I’ve been with the pandemic. I haven’t been able to resolve that conflict. I’ll have to make a decision by tomorrow night, so I think how things are handled all over but especially in DC and here in Philly will weigh heavily.

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I’d say this is a “you” problem.

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SOMEONE SHOULD CALL THE…umm…nevermind.

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I’m not the smartest person in the world, I studied math, not sociology. I am ignorant of many things. I’m attempting to be less ignorant of a topic, in which I earnestly read the material presented to me, and get called an ignorant moron.

I think a few people here need to read “how to win friends and influence people.” I can’t imagine the arrogance involved in some of the responses here. It’s quite staggering.

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Wait, what does repeal the 2nd amendment mean?

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“We need ideas, we need an explanation of what you mean.”
-OK here’s literally an entire book.

“Can’t you encapsulate it, like can’t you boil it down to some slogans or something?”
-OK here’s some brief outlines of alternative scenarios.

So idk, I mean I’m not sure anything’s ever going to be good enough.

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I’m not inherently opposed to abolishing police as it currently exists in our country, but damn, have some self awareness, that’s horrible branding that’s going to unnecessarily freak out a lot of people who you need. Even though there are tons of people even very conservative people who think the murder of George Floyd was terrible, most people aren’t at a place where they see the police as a fundamentally rotten/evil institution, and they are not ready for “let’s abolish it!” Say you want to transform or modernize criminal justice of something that sounds like progress and optimistic.

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I think you missed the punchline

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Cuse, I share your concerns about the protest losing steam as MSM is starting to report other stories. I have to say, I’ve admired and appreciated what you have accomplished already, given your heightened COVID risk. I understand that you are experiencing a weighty decision, but I hope you don’t beat yourself up about it. The intel and reports you’ve provided along the way all counts. We do what we are able and at the end of the day, I think we have to be ok with that.

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Again:

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Also, there’s supposedly an armed group of white supremacists at a mall a few miles away in Northeast Philadelphia. Disgusting.

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Brilliant :+1: Absolutely anything

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I would never say “abolish the police” 2 my lame stream Democrat mother. I think you guys should be able to handle it though, and some of you have while others have never gotten past " how you going to pay for it?"

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Exactly my friend :v:

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Protests don’t need to be every day. South Koreans held massive protests in Seoul every Saturday for 3+ years until their president was removed from office. Two years later, she was imprisoned for 25 years.

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Your problem is that this country is just too damn big. Any reasonably sized country would have had a 5 million+ people rally already that would dominate news cycles for ages.

The only solution is to abolish Montana, Wyoming and all the rest of the pointless squares on your map. I would argue that you don’t need a single Dakota.

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I guess we are a conservative political forum.

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The 3rd precinct was a planned abandonment. The cops left it to be burned down.

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@bestof

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Iceland