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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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Basically, rebranding will work for most of what Republicans complain about. A majority of them hate Obamacare... But love the Affordable Care Act. Turns out those people usually don't understand what they're talking about, they just want to oppose what Liberals want.
Biden's done his best to rebrand 'defunding the police' while still doing the majority of what people who want to defund the police call for.
Edited by Resileafs on Nov 30th 2020 at 4:14:52 AM
I mean, an "Anarchist Elected Official" is kind of an oxymoron, as politicians are rulers and by definition the very job that anarchists want to phase out. I'm unsure if there have been any publicly anarchist elected politicians, I'm a little curious now.
It's "merely" an oxymoron like "Old News" though, rather than a logical contradiction (like "Square Circle"). I can see an anarchist rationalize becoming a politician on the basis that somebody's gonna do it anyways, so it might as well be them.
Leviticus 19:34"Reform" or "Improve" the police sound accurate yet appealing. I admit I don't know what people were thinking when they said "Defund", considering the side effects, but I know exactly what the real intention is. Or "Redistribute government funding" would also work, but that's not as catchy.
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.
If there is the possibility of legal challenges, let the Dems sue.
Also can't there be a recount if the race is that close?
"Wow, no Mega Togekiss in Legends Z-A. Or any non-Froslass new Sinnoh Mega Evolutions. Round of applause, everybody." - DawnSome people say that they legitimately do want to abolish the police, though I honestly have no idea how many of them really mean it, or how popular such a position truly is. I suppose I’m broadly sympathetic to the notion, though I don’t think it’s politically viable now, if it’ll ever be.
Regardless, given the current state of things, the police definitely need to be brought to heel, and we should probably look at alternative systems. But I do think at least some people mean what they say.
Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Nov 30th 2020 at 4:58:24 AM
Oh God! Natural light!![]()
With a result that close I’d be shocked if that’s not the result after the recount.
Also there are different versions of abolishing the police out there, sometimes it means abolishing police forces in favour of sherifs offices, sometimes it means replacing police with an alternative form of law enforcement and in very rare cases it means abolishing law enforcement as a government service.
Edited by Silasw on Nov 30th 2020 at 10:00:01 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThe main problem I've found is that a lot of police officers do not actually live in the city in which they work. If you think you can get away with things because you don't think there'll be consequences, you'll try to get away with them. Make them live in the city where they work, and suddenly you'll see a lot of them be less likely to pull crap because THEY know that they could run into one of the people they screwed over or their families.
Edited by ScubaWolf on Nov 30th 2020 at 5:04:06 AM
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"I would suggest a system where all firearms used by law enforcement are kept stored in a vault and must be logged out before use, and can only be logged out in cases involving individuals who can be proven to have inflicted, are inflicting, or intend to inflict potentially lethal harm on a person or persons. This system should be monitored via a database that should be regularly subject to independent review (the results of which should be made public), and should perhaps even be available for public viewing.
Violators of this system should be subject to suspension without pay at the very least, with further possibilities of jail time and having their employment terminated, as well as being barred from further employment in law enforcement, the military and private security.
There is of course the risk of such a process impeding response in the case of, say, a mass shooting, so some sort of steps should be put in place to allow for the expediting of the process in the case of emergencies.
What do you guys think? Are there any governments that currently have a system like that?
Oh God! Natural light!From personal anecdote, I suspect a lot of the people who want to "abolish the police" tend to have a definition of "police" that is a lot more narrow than most people.
For example, I was once in a debate with someone who appeared to (and I might be misrepresenting this person's argument) support abolishing "police", but what they meant was more along the lines of doing away with the common patrolman but keeping detectives and SWAT teams (on the basis that the common patrolman is unlikely to stop a crime in progress).
With police and racism, my opinion is that there's three major problems:
- Police unions.
- "Loyalty over morality": Basically, police are encouraged to be buddy-buddy with each other, which discourages them from policing each other even if it's the right thing to do. A lot of circles tend to value a sort of familial piety over morality, especially if it's crimes committed against someone outside their group.
- Racism in society: This one's simple. Racism exists, so people with racial biases go into policing.
Since I feel like the question "do you know what defund the police means" was aimed at me, I feel like I have to answer. Now, I'm not 100% tuned into Democratic politics so much of what I gleam is from this forum and other sources.
Anyway, I generally understand it to be a catch all term for reducing police budgets and reallocating it to other avenues of public spending that could be used to address issues that historically have been addressed via policing. The typical example I hear would be to pay for counsellors and mental health interventionists who would then answer 911 calls from people who are in some sort of mental health crisis - as opposed to the current situation where it is the police who will arrive to try and "control" the situation with force, discipline and a loaded gun - the last of which is something you really don't want to add to a mental health crisis.
It also applies to more systemic issues such as tackling social deprivation through reallocated funding and as a consequence reduce the feeling of social unrest in the first place as opposed to just using the police to crush protest and dissent when it arises.
It has a stronger vibe than police reform because it's putting the threat of budget cuts on the table so as to drive through the reforms. In that sense it is somewhat more antagonistic to the police establishment in suggesting that there needs to be more stick and less carrot. It doesn't rule out dissolving the current police service and starting from scratch if the police establishment proves to be completely intransigent to reform - but even in this case there is an assumption that there will be some sort of policing body to carry out police functions.
It does of course fit in with the broader narratives around BLM and justice and prison reform, and those aspects should not be ignored. The reforms that "defund the police" are trying to achieve will include tackling the institutional racism within police departments, challenging the absurdly high level of black incarceration within the US prison system and achieving some level of restitution by for example restoring voting rights.
There are of course more extreme positions which has the budget for policing wiped to zero with no obvious replacement for the police service - but this is not what most people who want to defund the police call for. My point however it that this extreme position is what moderate democrats are fighting against in their marginal districts when voters apply that overly broad brush thinking to democrats and republicans in general. And fighting against it adds credibility to that position, and if it's something that worries you as a voter well you aren't going to vote for the Democrat in that situation.
Thinking about my point in general, it may have been better to consider an example from the other side of the aisle. One thing we have learnt over the past four years is that Republican senators are really good at power walking past microphones, dodging into closing elevator doors and otherwise not engaging with questions about the extreme, often times illegal positions set out by Donald Trump and the far right wing of the party he represents. And much to our consternation, this ambivalence towards Trump didn't appear to hurt them in the election. For the most part they out performed him in the polls. My point therefore was could a similar tactic be used by democratic candidates in marginal districts, when faced with questions such as taking "defund the police" 100% literally.
Most people agree that the chant does mean redistributing the overwhelming amount of funds the police get into preventative measures and other community benefits, so as to prevent crime rather than confront it. It's just a bad first draft of words that the conservatives have absolutely pounced on.
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad."Defund the police" is a catastrophic slogan. I can't emphasize how big of a fuck-up this was. We lost votes and we lost elections because we handed the GOP a slogan that they ran with.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."I mean, I'd argue the problem with "Abolish the Police" as a slogan is that a person's first assumption what it means is probably going to be incorrect.
Leviticus 19:34My understanding is that it’s not actually clear if it played a big role in the election, a lot of the swing seats lost were held by people who didn’t adapt to campaigning in a COVID world.
Also there’s not really much that could have been done, it’s not like any Dem politicians ran on defunding the police, it was purely a call from activists, not elected officials.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI think the amount of racism and brutality in policing is more than just a reflection of the fact that racism exists in society. There have been documented issues with right-wing extremist movements in both police and military (including in Canada). I think that occupations where you get to carry a weapon, where you have the power of life and death over other people, disproportionately attract bullies and power-trippers. Training that teaches them to regard the public as their enemy rather than as the people they serve then deepens and reinforces those existing impulses.
There are a lot of different levels to the problem, and lack of accountability is just the surface.
(I think “Abolish the Police” can potentially be a very handy left-wing slogan, because it gives moderates the cover to say “of course we won’t do that!” (i.e. we won’t literally get rid of all law enforcement) and then carry out the kind of reforms that many people saying “Abolish the Police!” actually mean. Just saying it shifts the Overton Window on the matter way to the left by redefining any position short of that as a compromise.)
Edited by Galadriel on Nov 30th 2020 at 6:47:51 AM
Monday's What the Fuck Just Happened Today roundup after the long weekend.
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2020/11/30/day-1411/
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/live-updates/coronavirus/?id=74456908#74457111
😷 Dept. of “We Have It Totally Under Control.”
Global: Total confirmed cases: ~63,119,000; deaths: ~1,466,000
U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~13,512,000; deaths: ~268,000
Source: Johns Hopkins University
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Live Blogs: New York Times
/ Washington Post
/ CNN
/ CNBC
/ Wall Street Journal
/ NBC News
/ ABC News
2/ Moderna applied for FDA emergency authorization of its coronavirus vaccine, becoming the second company to do so. Moderna’s vaccine was 94.1% effective in a 30,000-person clinical trial at preventing COVID-19 and 100% effective at preventing severe cases of the disease. If approved, vaccinations for Americans could begin as early as Dec. 21. (New York Times / Washington Post / Politico / NBC News / CNN)
3/ Biden’s senior White House communications team will be composed entirely of women – a first – with Jennifer Psaki, a veteran of the Obama administration, as White House press secretary. The transition team also announced that Kate Bedingfield will serve as the White House communications director; Karine Jean Pierre will be the principal deputy press secretary; Pili Tobar will serve as the deputy White House communications director; Symone Sanders will serve as the senior adviser and chief spokeswoman for Kamala Harris; and Ashley Etienne will serve as the communications director for Harris. Biden is also expected to nominate Neera Tanden as director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Cecilia Rouse to be chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Tanden would be the first woman of color to oversee the agency and Rouse would be the first woman of color to chair the council. Biden will also nominate former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to be the first female treasury secretary. (New York Times / Washington Post / The 19th / Politico / NPR / Wall Street Journal)
Several members of Biden’s team and others under consideration for high-ranking posts have done work for undisclosed corporate clients and a fund that invests in government contractors. The consulting firm, WestExec Advisors, and the investment fund, Pine Island Capital Partners are strategic partners with an overlapping team of officials. WestExec’s founders include Antony Blinken, Biden’s choice for secretary of state, and Michèle Flournoy, one of the leading candidates to be his defense secretary. This year, Pine Island Capital purchased a weapons system parts manufacturer and another company that sells weapons training systems to the Pentagon and law enforcement agencies. Pine Island Capital, where Blinken and Flournoy have also served as advisers, raised $218 million this month for a new fund to invest in additional military and aerospace companies. In addition, Avril Haines, Biden’s pick to be director of national intelligence, Christina Killingsworth, who is helping with Biden’s White House budget office, Ely Ratner, who is helping organize the Biden transition at the Pentagon, and Jennifer Psaki, Biden’s pick for White House press secretary, all came out of WestExec. (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/us/politics/biden-westexec.html
4/ Arizona certified its election results, awarding the state’s 11 electoral votes to Biden. The certification came as Rudy Giuliani appeared before some Republican Arizona lawmakers in an unofficial hearing to ask lawmakers to overturn the election results, citing baseless claims of widespread election fraud. Biden beat the president in Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. (Politico / Axios / CNN)
https://www.axios.com/arizona-certifies-bidens-win-46cdd914-a510-48fc-856d-6030d74a2406.html
5/ Two recounts in Wisconsin – requested by the Trump campaign – were completed and confirmed that Biden won the state. Trump’s campaign paid $3 million to cover the cost of recounts in two counties, which resulted in Biden gaining an additional 87 total votes. Biden won Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes. (Washington Post/ USA Today / Axios)
6/ A federal appeals court unanimously rejected the Trump campaign’s emergency appeal to challenge Pennsylvania’s election results, writing that the campaign’s lawsuit lacked proof and its allegations in Pennsylvania “have no merit.” In five hours of oral arguments last week, Rudy Giuliani argued that the 2020 presidential election had been marred by widespread fraud in Pennsylvania. However, Giuliani failed to offer any tangible proof of that in court. The three-judge panel for the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals denied the campaign’s effort to refile its lawsuit, saying “Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here. Voters, not lawyers, choose the President. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections.” (Associated Press / CNN / Axios / Washington Post / BuzzFeed News)
7/ Trump said he’ll leave the White House if the Electoral College affirms Biden’s win next month. When asked whether he would acknowledge defeat, Trump said it would “be a very hard thing to concede” – even if the Electoral College confirms Biden’s victory – adding: “If they do, they’ve made a mistake. This election was a fraud.” A day later, Trump reiterated his baseless claims of voter fraud, tweeting that Biden “can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous ‘80,000,000 votes’ were not fraudulently or illegally obtained.” (Bloomberg / New York Times / Washington Post / CBS News)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-says-hell-leave-if-electoral-college-votes-biden/
👑 Inside Trump’s quest to overturn the election. “The result was an election aftermath without precedent in U.S. history. With his denial of the outcome, despite a string of courtroom defeats, Trump endangered America’s democracy, threatened to undermine national security and public health, and duped millions of his supporters into believing, perhaps permanently, that Biden was elected illegitimately.” (Washington Post)
poll/ Since the election, Biden’s favorability rating has risen six percentage points (55%) while Trump’s favorability has dropped three points (42%). (Gallup)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/326885/biden-favorability-rises-trump-dips.aspx
The Justice Department created a new rule that would allow methods – including firing squads and electrocution – to be used for federal executions. “Last week, the Justice Department announced that it plans to execute three more inmates on federal death row. If the administration does so, along with two other executions already scheduled, it will have put 13 prisoners to death since July, marking one of the deadliest periods in the history of federal capital punishment since at least 1927.” (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/us/politics/executions-firing-squads-electrocution.html
The Trump administration moved to relax rules on companies’ liability for killing birds, releasing an analysis that says that modifying the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act would not cause any substantial environmental harm. (Washington Post / Axios)
FCC Ajit Pai announced that he would step down when Biden is sworn in. Pai led the partisan repeal of Obama-era net neutrality regulation in 2017, which prohibited internet providers from blocking or slowing traffic to particular sites and offering higher speed “lanes” at higher prices. (CNBC / Politico / Washington Post)
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/30/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-will-step-down-on-january-20.html
Carter Page filed a $75 million lawsuit against the FBI, Justice Department, and James Comey, claiming he was the victim of “unlawful spying” during the bureau’s Russia investigation. (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/carter-page-lawsuit-fbi-doj-comey-63a14cc6-dca6-4c1e-a5cd-c367aac6c5c2.html
The Government Accountability Office reported that the system for providing unemployment benefits consistently produced inaccurate data and lower-than-appropriate payouts to millions of workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Labor Department’s weekly reports on jobless claims have published “flawed estimates of the number of individuals receiving benefits each week throughout the pandemic,” the GAO said. (CNN / Wall Street Journal)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/politics/unemployment-payment-problems-gao-report/index.html
Edited by sgamer82 on Nov 30th 2020 at 4:23:04 AM

I'm trying, but I just can't imagine Biden- or, Sanders, for that matter- quoting Bakunin, Kropotkin, or Emma Goldman.