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13 hours agoMuch like the term ‘defund the police’ doesn’t mean ‘completely eradicate police departments across the U.S.’,
I have a problem with this kind of double speak - and the average apolitical person won’t give a shit about the intended meaning either. Especially since we absolutely should be talking about how to safely eradicate police departments. We live in a police state that the founding fathers, for all their faults, would absolutely not consider a free society. Police departments as an institution is an aberration in human history. They have not always existed in society, nor will they always exist.
Most of the police officers I know are keenly aware that violence and incarceration is their main job description. The only thing they like more than their core duties is committing overtime fraud. I do agree that crime can be lessened by making people’s lives objectively less shitty. As for the enforcement arm, do we really trust existing police forces to accept meaningful reforms and and incorporate deescalation as part of their duties? I think it’s far more likely they quiet quit faced with those demands. We have a history of seeing just that in Los Angeles, my hometown, which, to be fair, colors my perception on the role of police in society.
As to the founders problems: Yes, I’m aware of them. They also regularly took pot shots at the uniformed personnel sent to enforce the law, so they’ve at least got that going for them in my book. The founding of the NYPD, the first police force in the USA was very controversial in the 19th century because many elders, who had lived through the revolution, thought it was a tyrranical idea.