> I invested your "10 seconds". Google took me to a site called Defund the Police[1].
Weird. That page is not even at page 1 for me. Wikipedia comes up first for me and would generally be my go-to source for these topics.
> Reading this site, it seems that they want to... defund the police. As in, take the majority of their funding away, and put it somewhere else (nominally into social programs).
> Not making a value judgement here, but I'm pretty sure this thing does what it says on the tin.
Yes? This is correctly what the movement is about. The misunderstanding we're talking about here is that people assume it means only cutting down police funds without investing it anywhere else.
It's as straightforward as it sounds: Instead of funding a police department, a sizable chunk of a city's budget is invested in communities, especially marginalized ones where much of the policing occurs.
Wikipedia states
"Defund the police" is a slogan that supports divesting funds from police departments and reallocating them to non-policing forms of public safety and community support, such as social services, youth services, housing, education, healthcare and other community resources. Activists who use the phrase may do so with varying intentions; some seek modest reductions, while others argue for full defunding as a step toward the abolition of contemporary police services.
> The misunderstanding we're talking about here is that people assume it means only cutting down police funds without investing it anywhere else.
You'd think conservatives would be all for that - smaller state, lower taxes
> You'd think conservatives would be all for that - smaller state, lower taxes.
I think conservatives might get behind defunding the police if those funds were routed back to the taxpayer, rather than to expanding social programs -- or any government program, for that matter.
Moving money from a strongly conservative part of the government to a strongly leftist part of the government looks too much like a power grab to gain traction with conservatives.
You'd also get conservative buy-in if it came with a pro-gun stance.
If citizens are going to police their own communities, then they need to have the option to carry and employ arms as necessary for the task.
I think there's a lot of opportunity for give-and-take in criminal justice reform -- prisons and drug policy should also be on the table! -- but it requires both sides putting things of equal value on the fire, and I don't see that happening.
> The misunderstanding we're talking about here is that people assume it means only cutting down police funds without investing it anywhere else.
Pretty sure people understood that part.
Edit: I am also seeing downvotes on my above comment, which seems to indicate that a fair number of people disagree with the assessment that "defund the police" means "defund the police".
Weird. That page is not even at page 1 for me. Wikipedia comes up first for me and would generally be my go-to source for these topics.
> Reading this site, it seems that they want to... defund the police. As in, take the majority of their funding away, and put it somewhere else (nominally into social programs).
> Not making a value judgement here, but I'm pretty sure this thing does what it says on the tin.
Yes? This is correctly what the movement is about. The misunderstanding we're talking about here is that people assume it means only cutting down police funds without investing it anywhere else.