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Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

nytimes.com

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Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#51

Post by syshum »

adjkant wrote: post #31
syshum wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>From what I've seen, that isn't what the majority who are calling for abolishment are aiming for. The problem is a large number of people calling for for abolishing the police do not have an actual plan on what to replace them with, saying things like "Something will rise up to replace it" There is also a over riding belief that criminality is 100% related to systemic racism and poverty which is not really the case…

I think you're falling for the straw man here. A quick Google of the phrase yields many nuanced results with plans that sound very much in line with your prescriptions: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/12/21283813/g...

I dont think I am, and reading thought the that story reinforced my statement "There is also a over riding belief that criminality is 100% related to systemic racism and poverty " as most of the commentary is about defunding the police and replacing that with some kind of social programs (aka socialism) under the belief that the reason people commit crime is solely do to economic hardship

There belief is if we give people free stuff they will stop harming people. I disagree with this position

We can eliminate militarization of police and decriminalize society with out adopting socialism

I am 100% pro-capitalism and libertarian solutions to the problem, the "Abolish Police" movement seems to be just a reformation of democratic socialism under a new banner

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#52

Post by lostapathy »

collyw wrote: post #2

Was anyone surprised by this? Defund / Abolish the police sound like the stupidest ideas ever.

It's mostly terrible messaging. Defund and Abolish are both absolute terms (i.e., people try to defund planned parenthood, and we abolished slavery) but, for the most part, what's being asked for is just to scale back the police and their funding.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#53

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

capableweb wrote: post #22
hartator wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Abolish the police” is a scale Words have meaning though. No one on the political board is against reforms but “abolish”, “defund”, or “shut down” mean what it means.

Sure, and sometimes different people have different understandings of the meaning of a particular word. Someone can say "abolish the police" and mean that there should be no one with monopoly on violence. Another one can say "abolish the police" and refer the to current state/situation with the police in the US, and simply want the police to stop shooting people at sight and instead act like police in other countries…

Right. Compare "Occupy Wall Street". Snappy slogan; lots of public visibility; many groups coming together under that umbrella; no coherent policy agenda; no lasting impact.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#54

Post by dorian-graph »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #48
dorian-graph wrote: post #6

> “Seattle’s unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public” Is this what people advocating for abolish the police are advocating for? Removal of health services? Isn't it literally the opposite, to have more and more varied health (and social) services, that people are advo…

Why should an ambulance driver have to respond to a call in a dangerous neighborhood without a police escort? I wouldn’t. Fuck that, you don’t want police, good luck.

This comment I will call a straw-man argument.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#56

Post by throwaway924385 »

dorian-graph wrote: post #6

> “Seattle’s unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public” Is this what people advocating for abolish the police are advocating for? Removal of health services? Isn't it literally the opposite, to have more and more varied health (and social) services, that people are advo…

Not sure if this could have been more perfectly executed to discredit the idea of abolishing/defunding the police, which in my understanding has always been proposed as a structured, intentional shift away from heavily militarized policing toward a system of robust social services. I've seen others use the language of divest/invest to make clear that it's a shift in resources. Reading a little bit of abolitionist literature (because this stems out of a much larger, ongoing conversation about the prison industrial complex), it seems even full abolitionists see it as a process that involves building new systems and drastically shifting the American mindset around punitive retribution.

Instead, you have a situation where the police to abandon a precinct all at once and not long after, far-right groups start showing up at night to stoke violence. Hard not to read that as intentional.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#57

Post by happytoexplain »

lostapathy wrote: post #52
collyw wrote: post #2

Was anyone surprised by this? Defund / Abolish the police sound like the stupidest ideas ever.

It's mostly terrible messaging. Defund and Abolish are both absolute terms (i.e., people try to defund planned parenthood, and we abolished slavery) but, for the most part, what's being asked for is just to scale back the police and their funding.

I agree it's unfortunate. "Defund", though, I can defend as colloquially non-absolute. Literally it means "remove all funds", but people often use it to mean "reduce funds", I've found.

Edit: Of course, that's not to say there are no people using it absolutely in this case.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#58

Post by adjkant »

Remember back when people had such issue with the language and phrasing of "Black Lives Matter" until people (over 50%, according to recent polls) finally came around after George Floyd? "Abolish the police" is going to be the same scenario in time.

Please, do your research on what abolition actually looks like. This article does not describe abolition, it describes a PR tactic the Seattle PD decided to pull as punishment to protestors. Linked below is one with actual interest and nuance.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/6/12/21283813/g...

If you look around and see incredible injustice, great. Don't spend your time policing the language and methodology the oppressed use to argue for their rights, go do things and help them be more effective. This is a classic white liberal issue of "I support the ideas but not the way to them" that has been around for centuries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/01/17/martin-luth...

"We do not need allies who are more devoted to order than to justice" - MLK

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#59

Post by throwaway0a5e »

happytoexplain wrote: post #50
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the details would be contentions but I think reducing the scope of policing in abstract is widely supported across America. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who can't think of an entire category of behavior the government is currently in, and should not be, in the business of micromanaging with violence. But when people say "abolish the police" they do not come across as meaning "reduce the scope of po…

>But when people say "abolish the police" they do not come across as meaning "reduce the scope of policing". Some people, sure, but that's understandable given their extremely dire situation. Regardless, in my experience, most people do in fact flesh out reasonable ideas while using the phrase. Further, by far most "phrases" I've heard in person are of the "defund/reform" variety. But of course "abolishment" gets dis…

I agree that the ideas put forth are generally reasonable but a national political slogan shouldn't require "but wait I don't mean that in the literal sense" explanation. You can't have a catch phrase and then complain when it's taken literally. A phrase like that was a marketing disaster waiting to happen.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#60

Post by [deleted] »

happytoexplain wrote: post #16
collyw wrote: post #2

Was anyone surprised by this? Defund / Abolish the police sound like the stupidest ideas ever.

I know you may be unwilling to entertain the opposite point of view, but it doesn't necessarily sound like a "stupid idea" to friends/families/cultures who have lost members to murder by police (at varying points on the scale from negligence to depraved heart to purposeful to premeditated), especially in the case for mere "defunding", which is thoughtless to call a "stupid idea" out of hand, since the argument that s…

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