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[Dwarf_Fever]

1. A quick study of a budget pie chart will show that it isn't police who need to be defunded, it's the military.
2. Reducing the funds police have available for pay or training in, say, conflict de-escalation, will result in more police brutality as they're expected to do the same job with less training/manpower, translating to more stress and less motivation.
3. If you were to get rid of the police entirely, organized crime will take their place, this is historical fact. Now you're paying double "tax," and if you don't, say goodbye to your nuts, family and home.

[Max™]

City budgets don't go to military, and using the funding for things which police aren't trained for will result in them not doing jobs they don't want and aren't good at.

We've covered this a few times, about the huge budgets police departments get for militarized weaponry and armor and training.

Also, no, it isn't a historical fact, cops don't do anything besides keep poor people in line, if you believe otherwise you've been lied to.

[Dwarf_Fever]

1. In order to train people to do a thing, you need money. This is true of any department. I don't disagree that, for example, it would be better to have mental institutions to deal with all the homeless people society just chucks out on the streets, but we have to deal with things one way or the other until we have these institutions in place. Putting the cart in front of the horse simply doesn't work, and in fact it will make things worse.

2. The amount of taxes that go to police funding is a fraction of taxes that go to the military. I don't especially care what label we put on them.

3. The rise of organized crime and generally bad results following a lack of organized policing are well documented through history. (See eg Mobutu decentralizing police in Zaire and the subsequent looting of the economy and general impoverishment of the nation as well as massive human rights violations. Or see the rise of the south american drug cartels in the un-policed interiors of those countries. Or see literally any serious study on organized crime which will inform you that organized crime emerges out of the power vacuum that is created by the absence of enforcement and good governance.)

[wierd]

Max is rightly pointing out that CITY and STATE police officers are not paid for out of FEDERAL coffers.

What *IS* going on, is that our military industrial complex has a "Mighty need!" to constantly push the fed to re-purchase gear all the time, and what does the Fed do with all that obsoleted gear?

"Here you go, State Governments! Have some ACTUAL MILITARY GEAR for your police officers to use! SURELY that will NOT have an adverse reaction in your citizenry, being policed by people dressed for full combat encounters, and driving literal APCs and TANKS."


Do I have a problem with bullet proof vests? No.  Do I have a problem with bullet proof vests that are full tactical gear, in cammo fatigue print, along with full cammo fatigues, boots, and co...?  YES. IT SENDS THE WRONG MESSAGE that the government is at war with its own citizens-- Both to the citizens being policed, and to the police officers doing the policing.  IT IS A THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE DONE.

Here's the kicker Dwarf_Fever--  That gear was already purchased at full price by the US Federal Govt.  That owner needs to get rid of that investment quick, so that it can re-arm with the newer model gear.  To accomplish that, it practically gives the shit away to state and city governments.  THAT NEEDS TO STOP.

[Max™]

Dwarf_Fever, what makes you think cops enforce laws or help govern in a good or healthy or positive way?

Literally what on earth would make you think that to be the case besides copaganda shows?

Dictatorships and kleptocrats ruining nations and leaving a power vacuum is different from removing the roving murderers from our street and spending the massive budgets on actually helping people, because make no mistake, cops help nobody. Cops don't stop crime, don't make victims whole, and don't target the most financially harmful criminals: wage thieves and cops themselves through civil forfeiture.

Federal taxes and local taxes are vastly different things, do not conflate them, city budgets need to collect taxes to function, federal budgets collect taxes to control the money supply, a city can run out of funds, a government which issues currency cannot, by definition. There is no similarity, you are not helping your point when making such a vast categorical class of error.

[Dwarf_Fever]

What *IS* going on, is that our military industrial complex has a "Mighty need!" to constantly push the fed to re-purchase gear all the time, and what does the Fed do with all that obsoleted gear?

Yeah, and that's because the military industrial complex is criminally bloated well past any police department, which is trying to do the job of 3 institutions with the funding for 2 and the training for 1 1/2.

Take the money for social programs, assistance for the poor, out of the military first, to get these things rolling. Their budget is 4-5 x more than all police departments put together. It is more than the military budget for China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, UK, Japan and South Korea combined. Maybe after that they'll be less eager to give hand-me-downs to the police every 10 minutes, as well. Then reevaluate police funding after other systems are in place to deal with the issues they'll no longer be seeing to.

[wierd]

The legislature is to blame for the colossal miscarriage of justice that is Civil Forfeiture.

It is right up there with the Cadaver Synod in terms of absurdity.  Literally, the "police action" is against an inanimate object, which is why there are no rights involved, and no due process.  "Fancy car! You are ACCUSED of being involved in a drive-by shooting for meeting the description, even though we dont have a positive ID for your license plate, nor any other corroborating evidence!! You will be taken into police custody and sold at an impound auction sale! DISMISSED!"  No shit-- that is totally how it goes down.  Literally right up there with accusing a corpse of crimes, then beating it, like with said synod.  Only worse, because it gives carte blanche to city and state governments to seize private property en-mass, then turn around and sell it for state and city government operational budgetary items.


Edit

Dwarf_Fever,  A state government cannot take money out of a FEDERAL coffer.  Again, as max pointed out-- A federal coffer is literally bottomless, because they *ISSUE* the currency.  This is apples and oranges.

[Dwarf_Fever]

Dwarf_Fever, what makes you think cops enforce laws or help govern in a good or healthy or positive way?

Literally having seen cops enforce laws makes me think that they enforce laws? Do you live in some sort of ivory tower, or just up on a mountain?

[Dwarf_Fever]

Dwarf_Fever,  A state government cannot take money out of a FEDERAL coffer.  Again, as max pointed out-- A federal coffer is literally bottomless, because they *ISSUE* the currency.  This is apples and oranges.

I don't care if you use the purple word or the pink word to describe the coffer. The problem can be solved with funding, and it's all green.

[Max™]

The military has too much power to dismantle like that, and the military actually serves the purpose of projecting power to keep everyone safe here.

Nobody is going to come set up shop while the military is around.

Police help nobody, this is a problem, we spend multiples of every other budget item in funding on cops alone in the US. Cities are literally police departments with underfunded side projects, THIS IS SOMETHING WE CAN FIX, trying to make the argument about military budget misses the point entirely, we can't fix that right now, it isn't a problem right now.

Right now federal funding gets funneled into police departments, they would literally pay you to make the argument you're making now to more people so they can maintain the status quo, stop helping them.

No, it is not apples and oranges, it's apples and 747's, I just made that comparison to the missus while talking this out with her.

Dwarf_Fever, what makes you think cops enforce laws or help govern in a good or healthy or positive way?

Literally having seen cops enforce laws makes me think that they enforce laws? Do you live in some sort of ivory tower, or just up on a mountain?

Which laws? They do a lot of traffic stops and scooping up homeless people and other such things which criminalize being poor for money.

[Dwarf_Fever]

Nobody is going to come set up shop while the military is around.

The military has zero jurisdiction over civilians unless martial law is invoked, and that's a terrible idea.

Which laws? They do a lot of traffic stops and scooping up homeless people and other such things which criminalize being poor for money.

I've personally seen them enforce the right to medical records, stop a man beating his wife, arrest an alleged murderer who was jumping bail (ie the step father of my then girlfriend), bring my neighbor, a mentally ill Nam vet, to his treatment center after receiving complaints he was shooting holes in the air from his porch, (I suppose that would be "disturbing the peace," though I don't think they actually arrested him), and of course, as you say, enforce the ever-present traffic laws, including removing a pedestrian (me) from the interstate, as well as giving him a ride. Maybe more that I was too drunk at the time to recollect properly while sober, haha.

The military has too much power to dismantle like that, and the military actually serves the purpose of projecting power to keep everyone safe here.

So you're saying the problem is so big that it no longer should be solved, and feeding the military insane amounts of money simply for appearances sake makes sense to you, while you think we should pay police less because we're asking them too do more jobs than they're prepared for?

[Max™]

When I was 4 I called the cops from a neighbors house to ask them to help because I was scared my dad was going to kill my mom.

The next day he was let out and came home.

Next time it escalated and I got the cops to come, while my mother sat on her knees in the front yard, scalp torn open, as I begged the cops to do something to stop him before he killed her, they said I should go inside, it's late, and did nothing. I learned as a little kid that cops will not help you.

You're discussing edge cases like they're a majority, do you think there are more cases like yours or mine?

The military prevents outside powers from trying to set up shop here, that is useful in various ways, and it is out of the reach of local city and state government to influence it.

The military can barely be influenced by the FEDERAL government because it's wormed in everywhere, no it is not a problem which we should be diverting effort and energy away from fixing the broken police system to worry about.

We shouldn't pay the police anything because we should replace them with social workers, mental health specialists, community care projects, feeding and housing homeless people, relationship counseling, childcare specialists, actual traffic control specialists, and a small focused force to deal with actual violent crimes.

We could have well funded staff and training for all these departments/agencies instead of our bloated police departments trying to do all of those tasks while only training to deal with violent crimes.

[Dwarf_Fever]

The military prevents outside powers from trying to set up shop here, that is useful in various ways, and it is out of the reach of local city and state government to influence it.

Have you considered the thought that organized crime is an outside power that the military has no authority over to keep from setting up shop?

You're discussing edge cases like they're a majority

You literally asked me why I thought cops enforced laws in a helpful manner, I told you I know they do because I have seen them do it multiple times over the course of my years. Why did you ask, if you don't want to hear an answer? On the other hand, if you're going to talk statistical significance, why give us your sad story about how you still blame the cops for your parents failed marriage and your childhood trauma?

We shouldn't pay the police anything because we should replace them with social workers, mental health specialists, community care projects, feeding and housing homeless people, relationship counseling, childcare specialists, actual traffic control specialists, and a small focused force to deal with actual violent crimes.

Sort of like how we shouldn't pay the military anything because we should replace them all with diplomats and international outreach organizations... and a small focused force to deal with actual wars?

[Max™]

I don't blame cops for Jackie being a psychopath, that's on him, my point was that of all the situations where just on a basic human level you'd think a little boy with tears in his eyes begging you to help protect his mother who is sitting there in the front yard bleeding profusely... might engender some sort of motivation to help, but it didn't.

That was when I realized cops don't do what I thought they did, what I assumed they did from the various copaganda I had seen.

The more common outcome is like you, where you've internalized the copaganda and come to believe it to the point that the idea of not having cops is outrageous, even scary.

This is not your fault.

They are very good at doing this, it is reasonable to think, after everything you've encountered has said something, that said something is true.

You've been lied to your entire life, your positive encounters with cops are a minority, an edge case which those in power want everyone to believe is the norm.

Stop helping them, they do not have your best interests in mind.

[Dwarf_Fever]

They are very good at doing this, it is reasonable to think, after everything you've encountered has said something, that said something is true. You've been lied to your entire life

Since suddenly now we're talking about individual experiences again (ok), noone said anything to me, I was just recounting actual things I have seen cops do. Maybe once could be a fluke, but every single time?

"Copaganda?" "Internalized?" Sounds suspiciously like echo chamber language. Real world question: No pansy social worker was gonna touch daddy with a golden finger and make him not be a dick (holy crap, relationships and marriage are complicated and sometimes shitty, who knew?) but do you really want to live in a world where he just kept beating mommy and cops didn't show up?