Defund the Police U.S or anywhere?

[Endus]

Stop wasting your breath on him, he will refuse to listen when plenty of people including Obama have explained why it is a no go here in America. Instead anyone with a different opinion is a right winger even though as evidenced by the people trying to explain it to him the vast majority are left leaning by post history. I already posted multiple links that even the majority of minorities do not want less cops.

You've made an appeal to authority looking to Obama, and an appeal to popularity by looking at, well, popularity.

I'd rather focus on the merit of the idea itself, rather than fallacious deflections because the idea makes you uncomfortable or whatever.

Sue me for expecting actual discussion rather than handwaves and deflection.

Edit: Also, stop saying I'm accusing "everyone of being a right-winger" as if there's only two teams and the lines are neatly laid out. Democrats are mostly right-wing. Center-right, but right. Biden and Clinton are clear examples, and that's before we get to the likes of Manchin. If I point out views that are right-wing in character, that's not an accusation of betrayal or some garbage. Most of those are perfectly in-line with mainstream Democratic views.

Which are center-right in character.

[Deus Mortis]

I'd rather focus on the merit of the idea itself, rather than fallacious deflections because the idea makes you uncomfortable or whatever.

That's fine the thing is the majority, including minorities do not want less officers. In an ideal space when people hear defund in America they would think of its actual description. However due to the years and years of Republicans using that word when in reality they mean abolish, it has twisted the word into at times having more meanings, even if those meanings are wrong by definition. This is one reason why people say it is a bad slogan. The goal that you want would be easier accomplished with going for words like reform. We have seen all across the US that even in very liberal areas, that defund is not a winning platform.

Edit: Imo the best way to get what you want is to start with going down the reform road, increase help to communities that need it. In the process you get better police officers, you get less crime and then you can start defunding them since they will not be as needed as well as the perception of them not being as needed. As long as crime rates spike, people will want to see more officers.

[Endus]

That's fine the thing is the majority, including minorities do not want less officers. In an ideal space when people hear defund in America they would think of its actual description. However due to the years and years of Republicans using that word when in reality they mean abolish, it has twisted the word into at times having more meanings, even if those meanings are wrong by definition. This is one reason why people say it is a bad slogan. The goal that you want would be easier accomplished with going for words like reform. We have seen all across the US that even in very liberal areas, that defund is not a winning platform.

Here is what I think the core issue is;

My position, and that of those supporting Defund the Police, want to carve down and reduce police presence in society.

You're arguing for reforming the police, as they are, without doing so.

Your issue is not that the slogan is "bad", your issue is that you don't agree with the movement and its goals. If we shifted to "Reform the Police" and pushed for what you're suggesting, that would be an entirely different movement. That doesn't mean the slogan or the Defund movement is "bad", it just means you, personally, don't support it.

Which is fine. Nobody's saying you must. But that's not a problem with the Defund movement or its slogan. It's just an ideological difference in what we think would be most effective, and over what length of term (I agree the Defund movement's approach would take a longer term to reach full value).

Again; there aren't just two sides. We don't all have to come to an agreement on this "side" about a topic. We're free to have differences of opinion. I'm an incrementalist; if all I can get is reform, I'll take reform, but I'll keep pushing for defunding. That's how this stuff works. I don't need to get everything I want on a silver platter tomorrow or else. But I'm gonna keep holding up my idealized end point as the goal we should be seeking, even if current practices aren't gonna get us that much closer. Maybe not even in my own lifetime.

Telling me we'll never reach my utopia is never gonna be an argument to me that I should stop trying.

[Shadowferal]

That's some nice handwaving.

And yet we have a thread on rural vs urban. I suppose that's all handwaving too?

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

And yet we have a thread on rural vs urban. I suppose that's all handwaving too?

When you're only explanation is "big cities vs small towns"...yeah...that's handwaving my dude.

How about you tell us why having more cops in a big city is safer and having more cops in a small town isn't?

[Shadowferal]

Telling me we'll never reach my utopia is never gonna be an argument to me that I should stop trying.

But you're not really doing anything. The Minneapolis link had it best, those yelling "defund police" don't live there. "You" are at best a tourist. You can't vote in referendums, you don't know anything of what it's like on a day-to-day basis, let alone walk around at night. You need to accept that as why this all failed at a time when you believed it shouldn't have. "We" live here. "You" don't.

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When you're only explanation is "big cities vs small towns"...yeah...that's handwaving my dude.

Best chance was in 2020, why did "you" lose the argument? The reasons were already posted.

How about you tell us why having more cops in a big city is safer and having more cops in a small town isn't?

I don't live in a small town. I never have. I can't compare. I certainly don't let one shitty example set policy.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Best chance was in 2020, why did "you" lose the argument? The reasons were already posted.

That has literally nothing to do with what I said.

I don't live in a small town. I never have. I can't compare. I certainly don't let one shitty example set policy.

You're the one that brought "Small Town vs Big City" into the discussion.

Read what i said again...I didn't say one thing about policy, 2020, or any argument the "I" suppodely lost.

I think Uvalde is proof that more Cops does not equal more Safety.

The cops had the shooter outnumbered 400 to 1.

[PACOX]

That's fine the thing is the majority, including minorities do not want less officers. In an ideal space when people hear defund in America they would think of its actual description. However due to the years and years of Republicans using that word when in reality they mean abolish, it has twisted the word into at times having more meanings, even if those meanings are wrong by definition. This is one reason why people say it is a bad slogan. The goal that you want would be easier accomplished with going for words like reform. We have seen all across the US that even in very liberal areas, that defund is not a winning platform.

Edit: Imo the best way to get what you want is to start with going down the reform road, increase help to communities that need it. In the process you get better police officers, you get less crime and then you can start defunding them since they will not be as needed as well as the perception of them not being as needed. As long as crime rates spike, people will want to see more officers.

I don't know many minorities who want more police when the whole call for defunding the police is is response targeted abusive policing of minority communities. What are they going to do? Harass more poor people with moving violations and fuck with young black men walking while black?

It really doesn't matter what the majority wants when the majority does take the brunt of police misconduct.

The idea behind 'defund the police' is to reallocate police surpluses into programs that will help communities - that money doesn't just vanish the same way the PDs wouldn't just vanish.

[Endus]

But you're not really doing anything. The Minneapolis link had it best, those yelling "defund police" don't live there. "You" are at best a tourist. You can't vote in referendums, you don't know anything of what it's like on a day-to-day basis, let alone walk around at night. You need to accept that as why this all failed at a time when you believed it shouldn't have. "We" live here. "You" don't.

Fun facts;

1> The USA is not the only country that exists.
2> Time did not end yesterday.
3> None of these efforts have "failed". They just have not gained much ground yet, in the USA in particular.

[Ripster42]

It continues to baffle me how many people can misunderstand something even after it is explained.

It's almost like it's a terrible slogan that leads people to the wrong conclusions. The point of a slogan isn't to get people talking, it's to get people on your side. "Save our cities!" "Stop wasteful spending!" "Give our police the support they need!" Any of these would be a better slogan for the movement than "Defund the police!" All of them target motivations a lot of people support. All of them can be about reallocating money from the police to other social services.

[richardhuntr]

Defund the police? No
Amend the law so they can be charged with offenses the same way as regular people? Sure.

Given that murder charges can be avoided in the US if the gun was used in self-defence, police shootings should be charged as murder, and the defence of "minimum force required" should be applied in cases where the cops are involved in a legitimate shoot out. (By which I don't mean shooting someone they've already restrained)

Also: People should be able to sue the police for any action the police take against them, if they're later proved innocent. This is the systems mistake, and the system should be responsible for either reversing the damage done to the person's life (for example if they were sent to prison, then released on appeal, the loss of their home), or paying a sum of money to that person so that they can reverse the damage themselves.

[Endus]

It's almost like it's a terrible slogan that leads people to the wrong conclusions. The point of a slogan isn't to get people talking, it's to get people on your side. "Save our cities!" "Stop wasteful spending!" "Give our police the support they need!" Any of these would be a better slogan for the movement than "Defund the police!" All of them target motivations a lot of people support. All of them can be about reallocating money from the police to other social services.

If you're going to reallocate money from police to other social services, what "wrong conclusion" is "Defund the Police" leading you to?

The question that's never answered.

[Ripster42]

appeal to popularity by looking at, well, popularity.

You're talking about a logical fallacy that is directly related to public opinion when dealing with public opinion, a demonstrably non-logical thing.

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If you're going to reallocate money from police to other social services, what "wrong conclusion" is "Defund the Police" leading you to?

The question that's never answered.

It's been answered multiple times in this thread, you just don't like the answer. Stupid people think it means you're going to cut all police funding. Guess what, you still need to convince stupid people that it's a good idea.

[Endus]

It's been answered multiple times in this thread, you just don't like the answer. Stupid people think it means you're going to cut all police funding. Guess what, you still need to convince stupid people that it's a good idea.

This isn't a problem with the slogan. It's a problem with willful ignorance. No slogan is immune to people being intentionally, willfully ignorant about it.

They'd lie and believe whatever they wanted regardless of the slogan. The slogan isn't driving their stance.

This is what I mean; you're not talking about the slogan. You're talking about people intentionally misrepresenting it. That's not a flaw in the slogan itself.

[Ripster42]

This isn't a problem with the slogan. It's a problem with willful ignorance. No slogan is immune to people being intentionally, willfully ignorant about it.

They'd lie and believe whatever they wanted regardless of the slogan. The slogan isn't driving their stance.

Na, it's a problem with the slogan. The initial response people have to the slogan is negative. It's been pointed out multiple times. Not everyone is as determined to educate themselves on public policy as you think/hope. Not everyone who has a negative reaction to that slogan disagrees with the underlying movement when it's explained to them before they're exposed to the slogan. A lot of people who are too involved in raising their kids/their job/whatever to follow the news see that and think the movement is full of idiots. That's not a great jumping off point to convince people to your position. Why would those people listen to someone who they think is an idiot?

[Endus]

Na, it's a problem with the slogan. The initial response people have to the slogan is negative. It's been pointed out multiple times.

People's willful ignorance has been pointed out multiple times.

It's no different than when people opposed to abortion rights think "pro-choice" means "pro-baby-murder". Literally the same bullshit.

Not everyone is as determined to educate themselves on public policy as you think/hope. Not everyone who has a negative reaction to that slogan disagrees with the underlying movement when it's explained to them before they're exposed to the slogan. A lot of people who are too involved in raising their kids/their job/whatever to follow the news see that and think the movement is full of idiots. That's not a great jumping off point to convince people to your position. Why would those people listen to someone who they think is an idiot?

Again, you're explaining people's malice, not anything actually "bad" about the slogan itself.

I'm well aware people blindly follow propagandists' lies. The thing is; I blame the propagandists for those lies, not those they're lying about.

[Shadowferal]

Na, it's a problem with the slogan. The initial response people have to the slogan is negative. It's been pointed out multiple times. Not everyone is as determined to educate themselves on public policy as you think/hope. Not everyone who has a negative reaction to that slogan disagrees with the underlying movement when it's explained to them before they're exposed to the slogan. A lot of people who are too involved in raising their kids/their job/whatever to follow the news see that and think the movement is full of idiots. That's not a great jumping off point to convince people to your position. Why would those people listen to someone who they think is an idiot?

It doesn't help that most people's attention span is all that long to begin with.

[Ripster42]

People's willful ignorance has been pointed out multiple times.

It's no different than when people opposed to abortion rights think "pro-choice" means "pro-baby-murder". Literally the same bullshit.



Again, you're explaining people's malice, not anything actually "bad" about the slogan itself.

I'm well aware people blindly follow propagandists' lies. The thing is; I blame the propagandists for those lies, not those they're lying about.

You're ascribing maliciousness to laziness. Not a great look.

Let's take a very shallow dive into what slogans are for and how to craft good slogans.

They're to convince people over to your side and provide something to rally around. This slogan fails both tests. The initial response people have is to think the movement is full of idiots. You can't rally around something when 1/2 your side hates explaining the damn slogan to people.

You craft good slogans by targeting people's motivations. A lot of people still equate police with safety. That slogan when read by those people reads "I want you less safe!" That's why it's a bad slogan. There are a shitload of stupid/lazy people in this world. They're not all malicious. Also, calling them malicious because they're susceptible to propaganda just makes the movement look worse. People don't like being insulted.

From above, better slogans:

"Save our cities!" People recognize there's something wrong. They want it fixed. This goes directly to that motivation. Pretty hard to attack.
"Stop wasteful spending!" People don't like wasteful spending. They want to pay as little taxes as possible. This goes directly to that motivation. Pretty hard to attack.
"Give our police the support they need!" Again, a lot of people equate police with safety. This goes directly to their safety motivation. Pretty hard to attack.

When your slogan gives people ammunition against you, you've already lost the messaging battle. You're no longer talking about reallocating funding to social services, you're trying to defend your slogan. Just look at this thread.;

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It doesn't help that most people's attention span is all that long to begin with.

It really doesn't help when people are so full of self-righteousness and belief in their own infallibility that they can't take criticism on how shitty a bad slogan is.

[Deus Mortis]

This isn't a problem with the slogan. It's a problem with willful ignorance. No slogan is immune to people being intentionally, willfully ignorant about it.

They'd lie and believe whatever they wanted regardless of the slogan. The slogan isn't driving their stance.

This is what I mean; you're not talking about the slogan. You're talking about people intentionally misrepresenting it. That's not a flaw in the slogan itself.

Going to try and explain it so that hopefully you understand why a lot of people feel that it is a bad slogan, probably going to do a shit job but here we go anyways. Take the "ok" sign, before 4chan did shit with it it meant, ok, and if it was below the belt it was the "made you look" game, so I get to punch you. Defund on the face of it means exactly what its definition is. However the word got co-opted by republicans to mean abolish, just like the ok sign got co-opted to mean white power. Now we have gotten articles about someone obviously doing the made you look game and the articles author thinks that person is throwing white power signs up. When average joe person sees it because it has been co-opted they very well might think someone just going "ok", is throwing wp signs up. Same thing with defund, because republicans co-opted the word to mean something different for a long time now, someone hearing that can very well think that the democrats want to abolish the police.

Not everyone doing it is doing it intentionally, or with malice. That is why you see in the statistics that the majority of minorities do not want to "defund", yet when worded to say do you want to take police funds and put it towards things like mental health professionals, the majority does want it. This is why it is a bad slogan, because the word has been co-opted by years of bad use from republicans when it comes to "defunding" planned parenthood.

[Endus]

You're ascribing maliciousness to laziness. Not a great look.

To willful ignorance, not "laziness".

You could work out what "Defund the Police" is about in less than a minute's search time on the Internet. Not bothering to and yet still forming an opinion about the movement is not "laziness", it's malice.

That last bit is important; I couldn't tell you the first thing about Jamaican politics. If I saw a campaign slogan for a party and then thought I knew enough to express opinions about the state of their political sphere without any further investigation, I'd be an asshole acting out of willful ignorance and malice, not someone with a legitimate opinion.

Jamaica picked for literally no reason, but I legitimately don't know anything about their internal politics.

Let's take a very shallow dive into what slogans are for and how to craft good slogans.

They're to convince people over to your side and provide something to rally around. This slogan fails both tests. The initial response people have is to think the movement is full of idiots. You can't rally around something when 1/2 your side hates explaining the damn slogan to people.

You craft good slogans by targeting people's motivations. A lot of people still equate police with safety. That slogan when read by those people reads "I want you less safe!" That's why it's a bad slogan. There are a shitload of stupid/lazy people in this world. They're not all malicious. Also, calling them malicious because they're susceptible to propaganda just makes the movement look worse. People don't like being insulted.

From above, better slogans:

"Save our cities!" People recognize there's something wrong. They want it fixed. This goes directly to that motivation. Pretty hard to attack.
"Stop wasteful spending!" People don't like wasteful spending. They want to pay as little taxes as possible. This goes directly to that motivation. Pretty hard to attack.
"Give our police the support they need!" Again, a lot of people equate police with safety. This goes directly to their safety motivation. Pretty hard to attack.

When your slogan gives people ammunition against you, you've already lost the messaging battle. You're no longer talking about reallocating funding to social services, you're trying to defend your slogan. Just look at this thread.;

Pretty much all the complaints given against the slogan thus far have been "some people are malicious and will lie about it" and "but I want to reform the police, not defund them, and confuse my opposing the movement for there being an internal problem with the slogan".

Even here; your slogans don't work. "Save our cities" is so blandly generic it means nothing. It could be talking about anti-homelessness ventures. Or COVID-19 response. "Stop wasteful spending" doesn't apply, because most Defund advocates are advocating for increasing spending, overall; it's distribution of that spending that's being challenged. And "give our police the support they need" is directly antithetical to the Defund movement's goals, which is to reduce policing overall.

Yes, we get it; you don't support the Defund movement. That's not a communication problem.

It really doesn't help when people are so full of self-righteousness and belief in their own infallibility that they can't take criticism on how shitty a bad slogan is.

I keep asking for an explanation, and the answer is always "but people might lie about what your movement is about", or "but I don't want to defund the police".

Neither of those is a communication issue based on the slogan. You can lie about any slogan. And if you don't support the goals, no slogan's gonna convince you otherwise.

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Going to try and explain it so that hopefully you understand why a lot of people feel that it is a bad slogan, probably going to do a shit job but here we go anyways. Take the "ok" sign, before 4chan did shit with it it meant, ok, and if it was below the belt it was the "made you look" game, so I get to punch you. Defund on the face of it means exactly what its definition is. However the word got co-opted by republicans to mean abolish, just like the ok sign got co-opted to mean white power. Now we have gotten articles about someone obviously doing the made you look game and the articles author thinks that person is throwing white power signs up. When average joe person sees it because it has been co-opted they very well might think someone just going "ok", is throwing wp signs up. Same thing with defund, because republicans co-opted the word to mean something different for a long time now, someone hearing that can very well think that the democrats want to abolish the police.

Not everyone doing it is doing it intentionally, or with malice. That is why you see in the statistics that the majority of minorities do not want to "defund", yet when worded to say do you want to take police funds and put it towards things like mental health professionals, the majority does want it. This is why it is a bad slogan, because the word has been co-opted by years of bad use from republicans when it comes to "defunding" planned parenthood.

I don't see that Republicans are even using it differently.

"Defund" is a matter of degree, and always has been. You can mean "defund completely", or "defund partially". And some "Defund the Police" advocates do mean "completely". That's not off the table. That's not a misunderstanding of the movement.

Are we seriously at a point where Republicans used a word so nobody else can ever use it in the future?

Like, I seriously do not understand how any of you can think these arguments make any kind of sense.

Edit: And to repeat a point; I am not arguing everyone should be on-board with "Defund the Police". If you don't agree with it, that's fine. But when your argument boils down to "it's a bad slogan because people might think you want to defund the police", I question what you're on about.

Edit edit: Which may be part of the confusion, because thinking back, some have made arguments that slogans are meant to draw people into the movement. And I flat-out disagree with that. Making a slogan that's inviting to conceal what the movement's about by misleading people into supporting it without understanding it is propaganda. A good slogan should be open and honest; if that fails to attract enough support, then the idea simply doesn't have enough popular support. And that's fine. I'd rather see a movement honestly fail than garner support through dishonesty and propaganda.