This is why the GOP went with “Repeal and Replace” even they had no intention of replacing. It sounded better and they were happy to let the rest of us pick up the pieces.
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After reading a load of stuff on reddit about Wisconsin and the Sheriffs departments there, some laws made it impossible to dispose of them.
And imo it’s where Americans need to start defunding 1st as they seem to be the main enforcement of the black communities and poor.
Literally re-form police departments? Sounds like a good idea. And I think that the bolded could be widely popular and could and even be supported by someone like Sean Hannity.
I think that “palatable” terminology is inherently a tool to stifle change. I don’t want my political slogans to be palatable. I want them to get their hooks in people’s brains and make it clear that the other side (“reform”) is not the comfortable default position for democrats and democrat adjacent people.
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No.
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The anti union stuff will have a teeny tiny bit of traction, like Republicans might concede that police union members should contribute a bit more to their pensions in exchange for the complete elimination of teacher unions.
Which part, Hannity or widely popular. If it’s just Hannity, fine, whatever. If you don’t think the reforms I bolded would be popular, I don’t think that packaging them with confusing and alienating branding like “abolish” or “defund” is really going to help anything. You can differentiate between milquetoast status quo “reform” and the meaningful reforms you’re talking about without doing so.
I mean, both, but in terms of public popularity I’m not sure how much it even matters. Public messaging about major issues, from both the media and elected officials, is so misleading and dishonest that I’m not sure there’s an effective way to gauge approval of any given policy via polling.
“Should abusive police officers have their disciplinary hearings decided by their coworkers/friends” is going to poll differently than “should police officers’ conduct be decided by the court of public opinion/mob rule”, and whatever more neutral way you phrase the question is going to still get responses that are fundamentally shaped by the propaganda from all sides.
If you could sit someone down and take 40 hours to give them a full background on the issues, or make them read unstuck until their eyes bleed, then yeah I think most of my ideal stuff would be pretty popular. But there are literal multi billion dollar outfits that do nothing but intentionally obfuscate issues like this. You can’t compete with that. Public opinion is a stupid way to craft policy. Do what’s right.
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Six out of ten murders solved isn’t the high end. It’s the average that includes Chicago and other places with low rates. Could better police do better? I think so. And of course I’m concerned with the murder rate and not just punishing murderers. Failing to catch and punish murderers would have a very bad effect on the murder rate, for obvious reasons. Although punishing murders and delivering justice to the murdered and their families is obviously important in its own right, absent deterrence and preventing someone who murdered once from doing so again.
How would I reform the police? End the drug war for starters. Demilitarize the police, both in equipment and in mindset. Increase funding for social workers who can deal with cases of mental health crises and drug addiction, which can help the police focus more on policing rather than being armed poorly trained social workers. Many of the reforms catface mentioned below your post also make sense to me.
I’m 1000% fine with totally eliminating teachers unions and police unions. No concessions required I think it’s good in a vacuum.
If teachers unions did anything but prevent bad teachers from being fired being a teacher would pay something approximating a market rate for someone with a Masters degree. Police unions have done a good job of securing pay and benefits for their members but they’ve been almost universally a force for evil in my lifetime despite that.
Honestly I’m not particularly pro union. I think it’s a 19th century solution to labor conditions that in 2021 mostly exists to protect a class of workers who very badly need to lose their jobs. You know who I mean too… the moochers who collect a paycheck while shoveling as much of what they’re getting paid to do onto other union members as humanly possible.
What do you think is the effect on the murder rate if significantly less than 60% of murders will get solved?
Right now it’s significantly less than 60%. What replaces the current police is going to be a much more reactive force dedicated to things like solving murders… so it seems unlikely they would have a lower solve rate.
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I think there’s good arguments for eliminating public sector unions or at least putting tax payer representation in the middle of their negotiations somehow. My point was just that among all that police reform stuff the only thing that might resonate with conservatives at all is the anti-union stuff, and that’s only because they would see the opportunity to weaponize it against other unions.
Grunch, but does anyone know if anyone has ever tried or suggested taking settlements for police violence out of police pensions? Seems like an idea you could sell to the public and that might actually put some cracks in the “thin blue line” bullshit.
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Like out of the pension of the offending police officer or out of the general pension fund?
Out of the general pension fund.
I find your arguments unconvincing. Does the police need to solve 100% of murders to justify their existence? 90%? Some other number?
Again: Do you think the existence of a police force deters crime?
I think law enforcement/police is part of the solution for crime.
Is that your question?
If yes, then my answer is I disagree.
Yeah this is the right take. Way too often people like the people on this board try to make moral arguments with people who aren’t super motivated by that. Speaking as someone who isn’t super motivated by moral arguments I think what doesn’t get pointed out enough is that this shit doesn’t work at all and is a complete waste of money.
The police conversation and the racism conversations are such obvious moral travesties that the practical fact that they are totally broken and don’t accomplish anything of value at all gets lost because it seems like an after thought. But it’s not an afterthought… because the way the other side on these issues sleeps at night is by telling themselves that we’re pansies and just bleeding heart liberals with no tolerance for hard truths. Fuck that I’m VERY good at hard truth and the hard truth is that racism wastes a substantial amount of talent and our police state is so broken it’s a net contributor to crime. I don’t care what these bleeding heart racists tell themselves they aren’t ‘tough’ they’re stupid and it’s time to try to make them feel dumb not bad. If making them feel bad worked it would have already worked.
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