Abolishing police makes abolishing guns impossible though imo. And not because an unarmed volunteer safety committee couldn’t take away someone’s gun or close a gun manufacturer or store, but because they never ever would. And not because they would all love guns, but they would be inhibited by their respect for their neighbors making that choice for themselves.
Ok, so when do we get to the point where the policies actually get proposed? Because that’s what I’m trying to do itt.
I agree with your point. I just feel like now is the time that some real shit can get enacted. Corporate overlords and local and state govts are definitely ready to make concessions. We need to push hard for real reform - like the NY law. Anything that can help.
I agree with this and have acknowledged this multiple times. What started this is that I think changing our crazy gun laws should be part of that conversation.
But I don’t think everyone itt agrees with you that “abolish the police” is a watchword. They take it extremely literally - to the point of not being interested in any other discussion about perceived half-measures.
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The Criminal Justice Reform that Trump signed was a good half-measure. If I were in a position to do something I would have voted for it even though it does not abolish the police.
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Don’t we have an actual “Abolish the Police” thread?
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The NY policy that exposed that evil cop did actually get implemented (at least long enough for ProPublica to scrape the data). The story said it was the direct result of the protests. Stuff does happen.
Don’t get sucked into the reverse cargo cult mentality that only a naive sucker believes something good can happen. It’s very seductive imo and I even suspect a lot of it is pushed by Russian bots - as it’s their go to propaganda tool.
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Just so long as we don’t suck any other online communities in with us, that would be dangerous.
You are stifling the chat.
You are insisting it must only be about “proposals” and “incremental change”, and have been dismissive, and in the above quote even condescending, to those who want to have a different chat altogether.
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There is no possible way to reform the institution of police as it exists in the US.
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Can we at least acknowledge this?
Medicare for all? Not that radical - pretty much every developed nation has it. We do it for seniors.
Highly subsidized higher education? Not that radical - lots of countries do it. California used to do it.
Much stricter gun control? Not that radical. We’re actually the radical ones among developed nations. As with healthcare too I guess. USA #1.
Completely abolishing all police in the 3rd most populous country on earth and by a factor of 2 the country with the most guns per capita? Not really a lot of precedent for that one.
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I’m the one offering ideas, constantly posting stuff that I think could help, and getting dismissed with “just abolish the police, it really is that simple”.
I spend a lot of time looking at this problem from all angles, and honestly trying to ascertain the truth of what’s going on. Whereas many in the abolish the police crowd (but not all) seem to have made up their minds, and aren’t really into the kind of conversation you think I’m stifling.
It’s not cult mentality. It’s the reverse cargo cult - basically saying everything sucks and nothing can ever be good or fixed. Dems are just as bad as Republicans, etc.
“Sure, things might be bad here, but they are just as bad in America, and in America people are actually foolish enough to believe in the lie! Not like you, clever people. You get it. You know it is a lie.”
The idea that both sides suck equally is very seductive. It’s always delivered with a dismissive sneer. That sneer is powerful. It’s hard to push back against. No one wants to be laughed at as the hopelessly naive fool who thinks better laws can actually help.
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I don’t really have a strong opinion on abolishing the police in particular (it’s a radical policy goal, and I prefer to be radical on things broader than policy goals), but I want to point out that Suzzer is correct that vastly limiting the amount of guns people carry in this society would (1) be good in general, (2) improve the specific problem of police violence, and (3) make the prospects for a police-free society much better.
Does everyone agree so far?
This is an important question to take stock in because it demonstrates how much ground we’ve ceded to the right. To the point that a bunch of leftists on an Internet forum are hesitant to directly confront the moderate, sensible position of severely limiting gun possession, even though the very radical goal we’re talking about would become much more feasible if gun possession weren’t quite so widespread.
Yet “abolish the police” is less toxic than “severely limit the amount of guns in society” because we all know the second amendment is a sacred fucking cow to the right wing, and nobody confronts that directly because the public has been deliberately manipulated over the last 50 years to support an insane amount of weapons being legal despite it being objectively bad for society. There’s no better way for an eDem to be lauded as a reach-across-the-aisle type than saying they “support the second amendment.”
So I’ll say it.
Fuck the modern interpretation of the second amendment.
Fuck the supposed “right to bear arms.”
Take all the guns and throw them in a fire.
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The above is you being dismissive and condescending. This chat is of this form…
- You: Here’s a reform-the-police idea I just pulled out of my ass.
- Others: The police cannot be reformed.
- [a hidden assumption on your part]
- You: ZOMG Cargo Cult !!!1!
Note: Saying the police can’t be reformed does not imply “nothing can ever be good or fixed”, or “Donkeys are just as bad as Elephants”, or " that both sides suck equally", or any of that other gibberish you spewed. To demonstrate clearly that you do in fact have a hidden assumption here, consider if we changed the topic such that the reply was “slavery cannot be reformed”, “segregation cannot be reformed”, “capitalism cannot be reformed”, etc/etc. Are you going to whine “Cargo Cult!” in those cases?
On the flip side, we have this kind of exchange ITT…
Here you demonstrate that you haven’t bothered to inform yourself about what the abolitionists are even talking about.
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Let’s rewind to what started this. I agreed with a poster about gun control and said this:
Was that being condescending? If I took that tone later it’s because I felt I was being condescended to by some glib one line replies.
You’re getting hung up un the words cargo cult. It’s not a cult it’s just a term to describe a certain attitude. You’re right this isn’t exactly Dems and Reps are just as bad. But it’s a similar idea - that I’m the naive one for thinking reform and new laws can help, and no one wants to be on the naive side. That was my point.
Slavery was already abolished by almost every other nation on earth. There is precedent. Slavery is also inherently evil. Segregation is wrong and should be abolished. Capitalism sucks but I’m not ready to take the leap into anarchy or communism. I’m rooting for Norway basically.
I didn’t know about ggoreo’s thread until an hour ago. I will check it out. If the subject is actually nuanced and more complicated than just “abolish the police” - maybe you should take issue with the one sentence reply people. I got the idea from them.
I just had the most heartbreaking experience in my entire life. Mrs. Tilted and I are driving back from our favorite brewery and we decided to stop at my friends house for a quick laugh. We stayed outside in the car bullshitting for a little bit and finally decided to head home. Buddy has a Section 8 housing apartment right next to him in a gentrified area. As we were leaving a group of 6 little black girls ages 6 to 11 stopped us to pet our dog whose head was hanging out the window. Immediately one of them asks why white people killing black people. Why George Floyd had to die. Another one asks if we think black lives matter. These are elementary aged children. We talk to them for awhile and try to alleviate their fears. At the end they asked if we wanted to race so we obliged and “raced” them to the stop sign. They asked if we could come back tomorrow and said thanks for talking to us. Never felt this much impact from a conversation in my life.
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This stuff always sucks because it starts as a conversation about whether it’s rational for cops to imagine everyone has a gun and wants to shoot them, then quickly transforms into one side saying, “You don’t want to reduce the amount of guns in the population.” And it’s just nonsense, because no one is saying that.
We’re just pointing out that it’s completely irrational for cops to be worried about getting shot every time they pull someone over because almost no one plans on shooting the cop when they get pulled over. Cops are literally walking lawsuits for their respective cities right now because they kill/injure a ton of people that represent zero threat to them. It’s bad. Why is there any push back on that point? I can tell you that the Supreme Court justices disagree because they know that they’re never going to be on the wrong side of a cops gun, that’s only something that happens to others.
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Saying “X cannot be reformed” (or the equivalent “abolish X”) is not a “glib one line reply”. It’s a raising an (alleged) very important point. You could engage with that point (historic ex: slavery can be reformed by banning importation), or you could ridicule that point (ZOMG Cargo Cult!).
You fundamentally misunderstand what is being said. LOL @ this having anything to do with internal mental drama and such gibberish as “naive shaming”. It’s a matter of lessening the symptoms -vs- curing the disease. Reformist ideas might “help” in the sense of masking the symptoms, but almost invariably they make the disease worse.
A good example was a recent graphic from some reformists with 12 reforms they felt would “help”. Something like eight of them were variations of giving the cops more $$$ y/o authority.
I wasn’t giving you a list of things to agree y/o disagree with. I was giving you a list of examples of things that cannot be reformed. Love’em or hate’em… slavery, segregation, and capitalism are examples of things that must either be endured or abolished.
I don’t disagree with that at all, and I don’t mean to characterize people ITT as being pro-gun or anything.
But I sense people tiptoeing around the issue a lot, both on here and in other far left circles (Bernie bros, for instance), and talking about strict gun control like it’s a complete pipe dream.
The hardest thing I push for is ending blanket criminal immunity for cops. I think that’s easily the biggest contributing factor in all this mess.
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Yup, the qualified immunity 5-4 episode Is required listening. It’s a complete disgrace and indictment of our society on many levels.
And…guns make the problem a lot worse.