"For the sake of order, we are constrained and accept that we are constrained, policed, not just abstractly but physically, guarded, bounded, out-muscled."
This is a truism that verges on banality. For most people, the question of "what kind of safety we want" is a settled one. *Of course* people prefer order to disorder. Skepticism of th…
"For the sake of order, we are constrained and accept that we are constrained, policed, not just abstractly but physically, guarded, bounded, out-muscled."
This is a truism that verges on banality. For most people, the question of "what kind of safety we want" is a settled one. *Of course* people prefer order to disorder. Skepticism of the utopian abolition movement is not evidence of "authoritarian attitudes", it's a common-sense response to lived experience.
"For most people, the question of 'what kind of safety we want' is a settled one. "
Are you including African-Americans in your definition of "most people"? Because there's a healthy debate within that community about what kind and how much policing they need or want, it's hardly a "settled question."
To his credit, Adam concedes that defunding/abolishing the police polls badly - and that very much includes the African American community. Whatever the '68 LARPers would have you believe, the desire for order is not false consciousness.
Is that the debate? Whether we should ABOLISH the police? Because the debate I see is how to get the cops under control, how to make sure there are consequences for cops who kill, how police resources in crime-ridden neighborhoods could be redirected into investigating crimes instead of just roaming the streets looking for people to pick up on relatively minor violations. Do you know what the clearance (solved) rate is on murders in Chicago? Could the cops do a better job of investigating murders? Rather than stopping and searching cars on shaky pretexts? And how about redirecting some of the money spent on cops into preventing crime? All things that intelligent people are discussing, whatever someone might have shouted at a protest.
Yes, the police should try harder to solve murders. Stopping and searching cars is one good way to prevent murders in the first place, because it takes illegal guns off of the street. That the presence of police prevents crime in the first place is a well-established fact.
"For the sake of order, we are constrained and accept that we are constrained, policed, not just abstractly but physically, guarded, bounded, out-muscled."
This is a truism that verges on banality. For most people, the question of "what kind of safety we want" is a settled one. *Of course* people prefer order to disorder. Skepticism of the utopian abolition movement is not evidence of "authoritarian attitudes", it's a common-sense response to lived experience.
"For most people, the question of 'what kind of safety we want' is a settled one. "
Are you including African-Americans in your definition of "most people"? Because there's a healthy debate within that community about what kind and how much policing they need or want, it's hardly a "settled question."
To his credit, Adam concedes that defunding/abolishing the police polls badly - and that very much includes the African American community. Whatever the '68 LARPers would have you believe, the desire for order is not false consciousness.
Is that the debate? Whether we should ABOLISH the police? Because the debate I see is how to get the cops under control, how to make sure there are consequences for cops who kill, how police resources in crime-ridden neighborhoods could be redirected into investigating crimes instead of just roaming the streets looking for people to pick up on relatively minor violations. Do you know what the clearance (solved) rate is on murders in Chicago? Could the cops do a better job of investigating murders? Rather than stopping and searching cars on shaky pretexts? And how about redirecting some of the money spent on cops into preventing crime? All things that intelligent people are discussing, whatever someone might have shouted at a protest.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html
Yes, the police should try harder to solve murders. Stopping and searching cars is one good way to prevent murders in the first place, because it takes illegal guns off of the street. That the presence of police prevents crime in the first place is a well-established fact.
In case it's helpful https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235224000357
•Most Black Americans want to maintain or increase police patrols.
•Most Black Americans want to maintain or increase police spending.
•Even if crime declines, most Black Americans want police patrols and spending.
•Even absent new reforms, most Black Americans want police patrols and spending.
•Black Americans’ policing preferences may be firmer than those of other groups.