canpakes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 15, 2021 5:29 am
In my own opinion, the titling of the document is unnecessarily provocative and the authors have done themselves no favors in choosing this option, as is plainly evidenced by the fact that this is now the conservosphere’s focus of rage-for-the-moment ... but if you were to actually read the contents and suggestions within this document, you’d find some very solid ideas that would benefit potentially everyone.
I've also looked at the original document(s), and I agree with you on the question of titling.
Why did they have to tie that can to their own tail? Well we can speculate on questions of how funding priorities are set, but I don't know enough about the context to say anything useful there. But I will say that this seems to be a minor parallel to the disastrous way in which a set of observations and initiatives that amounted to saying:
1. Too often, the police are the only organisation available to deal with a whole range of problems for which a different (and perhaps less costly) kind of intervention would be more appropriate. If, for instance, there was a team of mental health professionals on call to deal with a clearly deranged person wandering down the street, the person would be dealt with more effectively (and often more safely) than if the police had been called, and the police could concentrate on dealing with the crime-related incidents for which they are trained and equipped. Moving some police funding to provide resources of this kind would in fact free up the police to do their real job more effectively.
Were summed up in the slogan:
2. "Defund the police"
If I had been a US voter and thought that slogan really represented Democrat public order policy, that would have materially diminished my inclination to vote Democrat. And of course is was a wonderful gift to all those conservative chat-show hosts ...