Questions Abound
- How will that work?
- Whom do you call?
- When does this happen?
Abolish the Police
When I first heard the disbanding news, I thought it was an errant proposal by a city council minority, but it’s not.
There is a Veto-Proof Majority in favor of doing this.
A veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members announced during a rally at Powderhorn Sunday that they are planning to disband the police department.
City Council members said they will invest in community-led safety initiatives instead of the police department.
“Our commitment is to end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it, and to re-create systems of public safety that actually keep us safe,” Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender said at Sunday’s community meeting.
The University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Public Schools, First Avenue, and others also decided to end or limit their relationship with the police department.
Incremental Efforts Failed
Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender told The Appeal that disbanding the police department is necessary because “our efforts at incremental reform have failed.”
And When We Are Done, We Won’t Glue it Back Together
Jeremiah Ellison’s Twitter Profile
Jeremiah Ellison is a “City Council Member, Ward 5. Visual Artist. Storyteller. Political organizer. Northsider.”
Majority Pledge
Mayor Booed
CNN reports Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was met with a chorus of boos after telling a group of demonstrators he did not support abolishing the city police department.
Voters Support Protests
Data for Progress reports Voters Have Lost Trust in Police.
- A majority of voters believe that recent protests spring from a desire to hold police accountable and that most protesters are peaceful.
- 68 percent of voters support creating a new non-police first responder agency to respond to issues of mental illness or addiction.
- A majority agree that police killings of black Americans are part of a larger problem and that police use violence when they don’t need to.
Another Question Surfaces
How much will point number 2 cost?
Explanations Please
I would like an explanation as to how these ideas will work and how they will save lives and money.
I could get behind the idea, if someone can provide reasonable answers.
Disband the Unions
Meanwhile, I have a simpler proposal: Instead of disbanding the police, disband the police unions, the teachers’ unions, and all public unions.
In addition, end collective bargaining of public unions.
Why It’s Impossible to Get Rid of Bad Cops
Public unions protect the bad, the corrupt, and the incompetent.
Incremental efforts failed because the problem is public unions.
For discussion, please see Why It’s Impossible to Get Rid of Bad Cops.
Mish
This is a very old playbook used by a fellow named Adolf. Organize the youth, establish a group of brown shirt (Antifa) goons to control decent, establish fear in the law abiding to contridict the official news propaganda, abolish the police, make the same brown shirts the new law enforcers. Full control established and Bill of Rights voided with no vore necessary.
Think about this carefully and consider the following two facts:
Fact 1: Police departments are the pinnacle of power in most towns/cities/counties/parishes/states. Why? Because they have all the government guns – and to paraphrase Mao – all political power is derived from the barrel of a gun.
Fact 2: No government anywhere is willingly going to give up what amounts to the root of their own power. It’s simply not going to happen.
Given these two facts, it should be plain to see that no matter what they say, individuals in ANY level of government employ who are calling for the abolition of the police as we know them actually want no such thing.
Instead, they want control over the guns and who does the policing.
Why? Because that will give them control over a significant amount of power that as of now, they do not have.
Those of you who think that police departments will be disbanded and their swords beaten into plowshares in place of some sort of “unarmed citizen/mental health enforcement” or something are living in an alternate reality.
No problem sharia law. Whole city will be no go zone.
Point 4 – mass exodus of PRODUCTIVE WORKERS/1% to places that have PD
leaving Minneapolis the s-hole it already is
Everybody required to join a gang.
White Flight Mish loves this proposal.
I was just going to talk about that. Because the reality is whites will feel the oppression, I know exactly how it does feel when I lived in Columbus for college, when OJ Simpson was acquitted the black minority (about 30% of the population) made the next several days hell for white people. I am not an out-and-out white power racist type like so many on the right, but I no longer view the black community in America as blameless for their plight ether. Yes whites and government and especially police must change attitudes and policy, practices that are discriminatory, but while we do blacks must also change their victim hood to optimism and pride, to work for assimilation in a society rather than trying to carve out a separate nation within our borders then cry about injustice when they face actual consequences for bad behaviors. And it is not enough to give them special status, if you are going to honor the rights of citizens and residents you have to do it for ALL, immigrants, gay people, Jewish people, ALL OF US! Equally!
If blacks stopped being victims, what would black leadership and a lot of the left have to do? A lot of this is purposefully keeping the black man down by the people that claim to support him. It is a disgrace. There was a study by the GAO that predicted all of this before congress enacted the Great Society legislation. They did it anyhow.
Yep. As long as races and religions see themselves as separate from all others instead of part of a common, overarching culture, tribalism will continue to create division. “Diversity”, as currently construed, means “my sub-culture is special, therefore all you other groups need to give us more privileges and more money!”
The truth is most people don’t give a $h!t about other sub-cultures, especially if it embraces violence, misogyny and irresponsibility. Rioting has only made things worse by creating additional confirmation bias. “See, I was right about how ‘they’ are!”
Societies go through social mood swings, and the west as a whole is very much on the downhill slide. Someone once noted the cycle of governments has never really changed from:
We’re obviously in Phase 4. At some point, things will get bad enough someone will take control by force, or he/she will be elected and will consolidate power “for the common good and to thwart ‘counter-revolutionaries’”.
There is a current meme about what black fathers have to tell their sons about police. My dad had the same talk with me over 50 years ago. I’m white. Police brutality has been a problem since the first cop who knows how many thousand years ago. All lives matter.
How would you begin to open a business in these areas if you could get no action on robberies theft and so on ? The answer is they won’t and it will create a further decay in these areas
Also note, that if you compare killings of black and white by police to the violent crime rates of their respective races, race based killing does not exist. The sorry truth is that blacks commit violent crimes as 7 times the rate of white. If you want to work on Black Lives Matter, help the black community to stop turning out so many angry young men. That is the sorry, heartbreaking truth. Much more terrible and difficult problem to solve.
Here’s a 2016 paper which concluded that lethal use of force by police did not appear correlated with race alone, but non-lethal use of force did to some extent.
How DARE you confuse the issue with facts! You must be a racist.
No police. Clearly won’t work out well. No City police. Good. Two problems with US police, one is the militarism. Their role being to suppress and oppress not protect. Partly a reaction to heavily armed bad guys but also it seems like a lot of them want to play soldiers.
The 2nd issue is the 18,000 police forces. How can you maintain professional police forces with so many little fiefdoms. How can they maintain standards, training, admin, even be up to date with what the law is. The CV of the 4 officers in the Floyd killing none seemed to have had any real training. Walmart security guards recruited by a back door and presumably mates of someone.
Get rid of the City police.
One state police, one fed police. No other civilian agencies are armed except border forces.
When government stops protecting its territory, other governments will be formed. Vigilantes and organized crime will move in and take control. You might be tempted to say that they aren’t government, but they operate in exactly the same manner.
Superbly indicative news of Portugal’s 3 anti-racist protest marches – that almost no lighter brown skinned Portuguese could have been involved.
Almost all marchers being darker skinned Portuguese and north Europeans as shown by the medical profession being summoned to warn against too many ‘higher covid risk blacks too close together’!
Also complaining vigorously – given that the origin was anti-Police racist mistreatment of citizens elsewhere – was the Portuguese Police. Upset at the popularity of signs against the Portuguese Police. Don’t wait for any change there as it is still their State!
Ironic since the Portuguese STARTED and owned the slave trade for a very long time till the Spanish horned in on them. Followed by the British. There were actually few American slavers in the trade bringing them from overseas. So given that all these nations allowed slavery at one point or the other and were at times the exclusive importers perhaps they should be responsible for the majority of the monetary compensation the descendants are demanding?
Abolish police – we got taste of that in places police didn’t show up to deal with hard crime and safety issues.
Replace police+Union with just-police – Ya, bring it on.
I have realized the obvious: most of the protestors are under 30, and thus really don’t know a damn thing about life. You have to be young and naïve to feel like you can escape and forego the lessons of history, and get your way by yelling and throwing things, or by laying down on a bridge like it’s preschool nap time. Granted, the young are encouraged by gray-haired progressive PhD’s, whose intellectual accomplishment has been putting the words “systemic racism” together without feeling one whit of guilt about failing to provide a plausible definition.
I miss the Tea Party protests, when things got REALLY out of hand and people lined up single-file to drop packets of Lipton in the Willamette river. Scandalous!
Ellison looks like he’s about 35. I don’t think it would occur to very many 65-year-olds to engage in an experiment of having no city police in a major city.
Strawman. No one’s seriously suggesting no police.
I couldn’t have said it better. Factor in the paid protesters with all the young and naive kids and that probably accounts for most of the rioters. I really miss the Tea Party and think it is long overdue for a return to the political arena. Ross Perot started a wonderful movement.
Very well said. Each generation has to make its own mistakes.
and by the way while none of us were looking: China mobilises thousands of troops, armoured vehicles near border with India https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3088093/china-mobilises-thousands-troops-armoured-vehicles-near-border
Let them go for it…. I give it about 6 months maybe less and no one will go downtown..Probably lot longer because it will be a slow phase out or they will not really give up policing just shifting responsibility to County Sheriff. They will have to pay for that but hey minimizes direct pension responsibility you get two birds with one stone! They can blame the Sheriff on the next death.
How will that work? Just like the shut downs and the protests. It will cause the further erosion of small business. Seems to be the political trend for quite a while… shut down competition against corporations so that we are totally dependent on them.
Let’s cut to the chase here, police are not going anywhere, this is a symbolic move. The police protect the status quo/inequality and are the main glue holding the current system together protecting the elite.
They are going nowhere, the job however will become harder and more dangerous for them as they will be viewed increasingly as an occupying force, not very far from them having to patrol in armored vehicles, etc. They will be cannon fodder along with the regular people revolting, while the elite are safely tucked away and watch from afar.
Was ours still a sentient country, neither Totalitarian Geriatric 1 (the insane one) nor Totalitarian Geriatric 2 (the senile one), would stand a chance against you, come November….
You can cut police dept budgets in half just by ending the war on drugs. Legalizing drugs would destroy the black market and a lot of its problems: petty theft, terrorism, smuggling, porous borders, etc. Drug laws have made LE excessively intrusive and have created a lot of bad will (asset forfeiture laws, blackmailing users into becoming “snitches,” sending most black men into prisons thus depriving their families of income and maintaining the ghetto cycle of poverty, etc.)
As Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman said:
“I see America with half the number of prisons, half the number of prisoners, ten thousand fewer homicides a year, inner cities in which there’s a chance for these poor people to live without being afraid for their lives, citizens who might be respectable who are now addicts not being subject to becoming criminals in order to get their drug, being able to get drugs for which they’re sure of the quality. You know, the same thing happened under prohibition of alcohol as is happening now.
Under prohibition of alcohol, deaths from alcohol poisoning, from poisoning by things that were mixed in with the bootleg alcohol, went up sharply. Similarly, under drug prohibition, deaths from overdose, from adulterations, from adulterated substances have gone up.”
The War on Drugs is the root of all evil in America since 1973, along with the systemic racism that fuels it.
It’s hard to fight drugs when it’s the CIA that’s bringing those in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking
The corruption runs so deep, it drains the will to fight it. But we must press the initiative now.
You make several valid points BUT do we want pr need a nation of drug addicts? Look what drug addiction has done to the social fabric of our country? Yes legalizing drugs would solve some problems but it would create a hell of a lot more.
That is only true if legalising drugs would make them more available than they are today. Far better to legalise the sale, then deal with the problem through the same lens applied to smoking.
Peter Christ (former LAPD police lt) has a few good videos on youtube
Re: “ Yes legalizing drugs would solve some problems but it would create a hell of a lot more.”
Really? Wasn’t there a hell of a lot more problems under prohibition than after its repeal. It’s the same old mentality. If we don’t like a behavior, just make it illegal and people will stop doing it. Doesn’t work.
It should not be a crime, nor morally wrong, to do something to yourself. The argument implied is that a person taking drugs is more likely to commit a crime against others. Even if that were true, it does not justify being preemptive; by arresting people that engage in certain behaviors just because they might one day commit some other crime. We cannot possibly know whether someone will commit some future crime.
The problem with just cutting the police budget (as opposed to disbanding the police) is that, like all bureaucrats faced with a budget cut, they will keep all of the paper-pushers, all of the ticket writers, all of the freedom-restrictors, and cut ONLY the cops on the beat who stop crime. Then when crime happens, they will blame the budget cuts and do fear-monger interviews with local news outlets saying it will get much worse unless the police get a massive funding increase. This is standard government agency ‘management’ when faced with a budget cut.
Yup.
If this place was anything other than a newspeaking, totalitarian progressive dump long since failed already; “defunding” would mean just that: All money spent on the police department, would be handed back to the people. Everyone involved with the failed state agency, would be laid off, all contracts voided, and all managers who hired and supported them ditto.
If people, after seeing how that went, felt that they may need someone to do some of what those guys used to do, they could start over. With zero memory nor overhang from before. Clean slate entirely.
But of course, this is America. So, instead, we’ll just pay more to taxfeeding leeeches instead. To be bent over even harder. By the same guys. With the only change being; an update to the official Newspeak dictionary, naming them something more currently fashionable and politically correct than “police.”
“I would like an explanation as to how these ideas will work and how they will save lives and money. I could get behind the idea, if someone can provide reasonable answers.”
I’m pretty sure Minneapolis and ALL its institutions will lay it all out very soon. I mean, there is overwhelming public and institutional support for this.
It could not possibly be any worse than the status quo.
“It could not possibly be any worse than the status quo”
It can ALWAYS get worse.
Yes, if the status quo continues there will be civil war. That would be worse and TPTB know that.
“It can ALWAYS get worse.”
Not anymore. Once you have a Fed, it’s over already.
Putin may, in theory, be able to make it incrementally worse by throwing his entire nuclear stockpile at the problem. But even that is only a big, fat maybe.
It can & will get considerably worse.
States rights and laboratories of democracy is all I care about. We need more innovation and testing, not a blanket approach. I don’t live there, vote there, so I’m sitting back hoping they figure it out.
I may be wrong here, but I believe that according to Minneapolis charter it would take all 12 city council members and the mayor to make this happen.
I predict gun sales will skyrocket. I wish I owned a gun shop.
Of course, the exact places and people who need more guns the most, are the ones where, tah-dah, the newly rebranded Department of Woke And Feelgood Community Outreach Officers, must be authorized to use their military rifles to shoot anyone who dares to own and carry one….
Can’t have freedom, after all. It’s America.
Guess the NRA will back this.
This’ll be fun to watch! Imagine the job announcement:
WANTED – Fools and do-gooders willing to work unarmed and for lousy pay to help people in “crisis” due to mental illness, chronic intoxication or being on unknown drugs. Must be willing to dialog and if necessary, give hugs to unjustly targeted and mis-understood victims of society.
Must be able to react quickly and overcome surprise when said “customers” become unexpectedly agitated and violent. Options include whining (“I’m on your side!”); cowering in fear; asking bystanders to put down their phones and help; and/or begging for mercy. Running away is not an acceptable response.
Required education, experience, knowledge, skills and abilities include:
A degree in any Grievance Studies or Communications major including Journalism.
Experience as demonstrator or activist for any liberal cause.
Thorough knowledge of worthless platitudes the prove you care deeply about social justice.
The ability to act and appear sincere as you spew said platitudes.
Skill in wishful thinking while ignoring the realities of human nature.
The ability to avoid EVER thinking your customers in crisis bear any responsibility whatsoever for their lives or the situation they’re in. (Such Thought Crime will result in immediate termination.)
Except it worked in Camden NJ, an absolute hellhole, from 2013 to present.
Camden replaced its PD with a different, and better, POLICE organization. They’re still COPS. The key was by doing so they nullified the union old PD’s contract.
Mish is right, police unions are a huge problem. Unions interfere in PD disciplinary processes and if they don’t achieve their usual goal of a “slap on the hand” outcome, they appeal to state run organizations. In blue states, state level administrative law judges and arbitrators who decide appealed cases are almost universally liberals who often reinstate cops fired for bad conduct. In other words, the rot goes beyond individual police agencies.
We can agree on that Quark. I don’t see the idea of a citizen outreach committee and a reformed police force as mutually-exclusive.
I think we all understand that the State will always need agents deputized with force. The questions are: how many, who is in control and what are their duties.
So let’s all agree to end the hyperbole. There will be no anarchy and there will be substantive reform.
“…and there will be substantive reform.”
Fat chance.
This is America. “Reform” will be as substantive as every new GOP administration’s “getting the deficit under control.” Or the idiots in San Francisco and Jackson, WY “solving” “their” “housing problem.” Anything more substantive than that, takes something at least resembling a brain. Which hasn’t existed in America’s ruling classes of pure leeches for generations. Ergo: Fat chance.
I would agree based on past experience. But call me idealistic or romantic, the continuous civil disobedience and protesting can be the force of change.
I agree wholeheartedly — if the public falls back on voting and trusting authorities to change then you are correct. It will depend on protests in perpetuity to effect substantial change.
Either way, let’s see how it plays out.
Add to the list an item for must belong to a public union.
LOL, we will see how well this works when you get into a car accident in the city, bleed to death? Whatever. Accident reports for insurance companies? No report no payout. Homeowners insurance rates in a city without police first responders? Forget it, no company will underwrite policy there and your bank will slap your mortgage with their own insurance that only covers the remaining balance of your loan and no liability at 4- hundred percent your current rates.
This is one of the single most idiotic moves but it is so typical of the “progressive/white guilt” eco Nazi left. When something like your police force is broken you FIX it. You do not take a wrecking ball to it and start from scratch with utopian ideas that even a cretin knows is not going to work. People will DIE because of this bullshit!
My wife was hit by somebody a few months back. The cops wouldn’t even come out, she just got the drivers license info and the insurance companies worked it out.
When seconds count, the police are minutes away.
I am certain once you read more about this subject you will be more receptive Herkie. We all acknowledge the necessity of police, but policing can be VASTLY improved.
I 100% agree with that Mr. P. The police need to be POLICE not some special OPs team that shoots first and then covers it up without asking questions. But the idea that we can get by without any frontline law enforcement is just crazy, there are a LOT of bad people out there and the only thing keeping this nation from turning into the Thunderdome is their fear of doing yet more time.
Re: “When seconds count, the police are minutes away.”
I’ll give you a counter point. Not long ago there was a grisly accident, and it was at least half hour away from a hospital. The police on the scene knew more help was needed that they could provide. One asked at a nearby gas station if any doctors or nurses lived nearby. My ladyfriend, who is a PA, was awakened by sirens coming to her door. She arrived at the scene before the EMTs, and continued to work with them after they arrived. There were two dead, three others in critical condition, and 4 more that were hospitalized. The police were on the scene fast, and went over and above what they needed to do so as to got the best help they they could, to try to save as many as possible.
While there are bad police, not all of them are bad. Many work hard, and do their best to save lives.
Thanks for the perspective Carl.
My quote is not an indictment of all cops as bad. It’s a recognition of the inherent defects of police as agents of public safety. And an indictment of citizens delegating their personal responsibility for safety to an outside agency.
I understand there are special situations that demand a professional response. Let’s narrow police responsibilities to those alone and take back our personal obligations. What a strong society we would have.
Cop was speeding in the rain, crashed into my brothers vehicle. Copper at fault no question about it. They threatened my brother and his wife. Also they were never made whole. Corrupt state agencies rule the day.
The state is corrupt. It is a system whose foundation in violence. Only an eternally vigilant citizenry can counterbalance the state. Our national sin is the abdication of that eternal vigilance.
A postal jeep whipped an illegal U’y right in front of me in 1989 I did not even have time to hit the brakes. Did quite a bit of damage to my brand new pickup, pretty much totaled the Jeep. The post office is self insured, they just pay damages out of an account they have for that, it is cheaper than insurance on hundreds of thousands of vehicles and drivers. They eventually paid but wanted three estimates and only paid the lowest. Mormon church ditto, a guy from Utah hit me head on from a 4 way stop where he did not have the right of way, so he was ticketed. It was a friend’s car and worth so little the church hasseled her till about 16 months later they gave her $1,000 because the car was totaled. I guess some Mormons can sign their cars over to the church which posts the state minimum bond and self insures, that way they are not paying insurance comapanies, and multiply by enough people it is many hundreds of millions in saved money per year they can then tithe to the church. That guy had glasses so thick that I am pretty sure the state of California never would have issued a license, he would have been considered blind for DMV purposes there. It’s all about money. Even the churches make it their first priority.
I was thinking about that earlier, if we did haave some sort of FAIR UBI it would lower the temperature on greed in America at least some. It is the threat of all out starvation and homelessness that makes so many people so damned greedy that they do not care who they hurt or about just plain fundamental fairness in a society where like it or not we do all need to be able to count one one another. It just cannot be all MONEY MONEY MONEY, I am not talking about banning wealth so people can still win the lotto or work hard and be inspired to new ideas, be driven to make more than that minimum, but we have to remove the fear of all out dire poverty with no care, food, shelter, maybe some sort of workhouses that do provide a bed and meals and at least rudimentary medical. A place where people can go to get a new start. Get off of drugs.
Solution is never more government intervention, this will exasberate the problem. More freedoms should be prioritized.
Well cannot agree there, less? Maybe. Better? Better be. But this is no rural agrarian yoeman farmer tilling the soil nation of 3 million as it was when Washington and the Continental Army beat back the British tyranny. It is a highly advanced technical urban nation of a third of a billion with a lot more problems and a near complete inability for individuals to do everything for themselves, it is impossible to get by without division of labor and that means relying on each other and APPROPRIATE government. Anything else is just mental masturbation and a sentimental but futile keening for the simpler life of hundreds of years ago, it is not dealing with REALITY!
Damn. What a thoughtful and insightful post. I like the way you think.
Exactly how would a “New agency of first responders – like firefighters or medical services to deal with addiction or mental illness” differ from the police department?
Who would respond to break-ins, robberies, rapes, murders, assaults, and other crimes against persons and property?
Aside from renaming them, it would “require” a bunch more taxfeeders from the leeching classes, to be paid union salaries and benefits to sit around and cackle about things way beyond their meager abilities to comprehend. That’s it, as far as “differ” goes.
If any of these reformers actually could read and stuff, the responders would be the same ones who responded back in the civilized era: The intended victim and his immediate friends and family. And only once that avenue is thoroughly exhausted, and only if things were truly bad enough to obviously require non local response: A civilian posse sufficiently outraged to voluntarily join in the chase.
As you hint at, you cannot reduce the scope of professionalized policing, unless and until the little progressively-indoctrinated-into-helpless-pliancy captive drones, grow up and again accept increased responsibility for their own safety.
Fat chance of that happening, though. This is America in the Progressive era, after all. The goal is never to reduce overreach by any department of the totalitarian state, police included. But rather to facilitate tax feeding leeches leeching and preying on their captives to an ever greater extent. All while waving flags and pretending “Land of the Free” has retained any meaning at all, for the past century.
Spot on. The delegation of personal safety to a professional police force is at the root of the problem.
cf. Camden, NJ.
Great article showing how defunding has actually worked in a city
Biden backs advocates’ calls to increase spending on social programs separate from local police budgets, but he also wants more funding for police reforms such as body cameras and training on community policing approaches, campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.
“Vice President Biden does not believe that police should be defunded,” Bates said. “He hears and shares the deep grief and frustration of those calling out for change, and is driven to ensure that justice is done and that we put a stop to this terrible pain.”
A study will be made. And 6 months from now with the study done, the idea will fade.
Who would actually make arrests and deliver the miscreant to jail? A simple matter of passing a bad $20–how would that have been handled by private citizens against an individual. Seems to me more random follow-on deaths, crimes and injuries will happen without clear lines of authority.
Sure, petty crime may be able to be handled, what about gang crime, long-term crime, human trafficking–how would those be handled by citizen-police. What tools would they have for the genuinely bad people and bad organizations out there.
Has anyone ever instituted a citizen’s arrest?
It’s a very short memory given that just a week of so ago, the police were absent from the scene and bad actors dominated the scene of riot and chaos.
You’re advocating that the state must use violence. They’re already the largest perpatrators of violence world wide. Why would my tax dollars go towards a draconian, archaic, unimaginative, violent, over funded, government agency. This is the most unimaginative form of serving and protecting the community. In fact, we’re paying taxes to install fear in one another while driving down the road. It’s beyond absurd, and totally backwards. Give those ass hats batons and mace for all I care. Running from the cops is not a death sentence. You can run away without fear of deadly force. Sober up, government should fear the people, not the other way around. Hopefully this will be the beginning of dismantling useless agencies but I doubt it. It’ll blow over in six months once power is reestablished. They’ll just get more handouts to shut up again. Same old story.
Need to move past cynicism. This is the best chance within my 52-year lifetime to see a lasting meaningful change in society. Can we at least work for change and then be cynical if we fail?
True change will only come about when resources are defined by scarcity. Until then, anything along with bizarre behavior (government and the people) will continue. At such time, when resources are redefined and utilized as a scarcity will society sober up. It could be a while folks. Haha
Isn’t passing a bad $20 bill a federal crime, and under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service? Why should local cops and local taxpayers concern themselves with this issue? Just pass the complaint up the chain of command to the feds. They’ve got plenty of money. In fact, most of our taxes goes to the federal government.
The Police Force WILL BE disbanded. No doubt, only to be replaced by Citizen’s Force. Same people, different uniform. A very American solution. Don’t address the root of the problem, just dress them up a different way.
Pastel uniforms and lavender spray
Give them Power Rangers uniforms and call them Citizen’s Rangers.
Will Citizen’s Force have a Union?
Of course.
Anything other than maximizing the leeching, would be un-American.
Not initially, that comes after an election or two, when corruption re-establishes itself. Then, they start the cycle again.
Maybe have the County Sheriff department take over… main problem I see is how does your states attorneys office prosecute cases were the arresting office no-longer works for the local police agency or wasn’t hired by the sheriff’s office. You might need them to testify.
Smile and wave boys, just smile and wave.
It’s going to happen and here’s how: Item one on City Council agenda will be to de-fund and disband the police department.
Item two will be to establish the Community Woke Kneeler’s Society. Nothing substantive will have changed except for career criminals all over the world canceling their tickets to Minneapolis in bitter disappointment.
If there’s any real progress made, there’ll be an item three: Dissolve the police union and appoint a civilian police oversight committee.
But wait, isn’t “Community Woke Kneeler’s Society” going to have Union, too?
Isn’t Community Woke Kneeler’s Society goona have a Union, too?
I guess it will take a decade till its Union corrupts CWKS.
“If there’s any real progress made, there’ll be an item three: Dissolve the police union and appoint a civilian police oversight committee.
“
And real progress requires that the funds saved by defunding, are in fact returned to the people.
Of course, these guys being clueless and well indoctrinated, that will never happen. Instead, as is the case with all of Progressivism, they’ll just rename “police department” to “feelgood PC department”, increase the budget to hire a bunch more tax-feeders, and pretend that any of them are useful for anything at all.
Maybe they should get to work revoking all victimless and petty laws. You literally cannot drive or walk down the street without the police having some pretense to stop, search, and interrogate.
Stick to the union of what Moses and The Founders recognized as proper law, and most problems of police overreach take car of themselves.
AGREE! The entire criminal justice system could be greatly slashed if you decriminalize victimless behaviors.
The Portugal plan for drugs might work and save money. Get rid of no knock warrants. The rest looks delusional.
I can see now the police union going to the courts and demand that state law, which is all that matters, be followed, and the Mpls PD ends up being exactly as it is now. Stop thinking these screams and yells by kids mean anything — they dont even vote (Bernie got submarined by their not showing up). It is only 800 officers — obviously with a white supremacy bent to them — but you arent gonna not have a police department. State law is all that matters, and its been “cop-ized”.
Does state law require a city to have a police department? Or can the city release its authority to the county sheriff? Some smaller towns here have done that.
Very interesting post. I believe you are right.
I’m willing to take the other side of that bet.