Ultimately, I try to stay out of heated political debates on most days, but I feel it irresponsible for not give my take on the situation.
Firstly in preface: Police brutality and militarization are clear issues with the police in the USA at this point, and there is a clear need for police to be reformed. However, this does not mean defunding the police - a better course of action would be to reform the funding system, and provide a federal standard to which police must be trained. As things stand, many states do not require psychological profiling or extensive training for their officers before they take on the badge. There is also a clear lack of accountability in many instances due to the way police officers try to look after one another. My personal issue with the racialization of what is a far more broad and nuanced topic aside (as police brutality is worse for whites on a per-crime [according to the FBI] basis, and depending on the statistic you're working with, worse for hispanics on a per-capita basis, at least in recent years - at least by 2018 statistics,) the fact remains that the police system in the USA is at present inherently easy to corrupt. My personal opinion is that we should see;
1. A federally standardized police training system, which incorporates annual psychological screening as part of the job. Furthermore, standardization of police equipment and limitations of arms to that which civilians can own. i.e. no NFA controlled firearms such as fully automatic weapons.
2. Removal of SWAT functions from police departments, as well as a regulatory prohibition on no-knock raids. In instances where such are deemed necessary, this should be a function of the National Guard, for which a branch of which may be formed. However, it should not be considered part of "normal" police duties, and has been clearly shown to lead to police officers adopting a militerized, us-vs-them mentality.
3. Ending of the for-profit prison system. All such prisons should be purchased by the federal government and overseen as such from here-on, as private prisons have a clear connection to many prosecutors across the USA which has led to vast over-prosecution and unjust incarceration.
4. Ending of the war on drugs. This has not only been a colossal failure, but has led to a grand cycle of incarceration for those lower in socioeconomic status.
5. The development of a federal oversight justice board, whose one task is to investigate potential crimes committed by police officers. Furthermore, it is my belief that police officers should be held to a higher standard, and receive the maximum possible sentence for any crime which they may commit should it be found they do so maliciously.
I believe, were such actions taken, we would see a great change to policing across the united states for the better, without the many, many issues which defunding or abolishment of the police would cause.
However, as for other concerns raised in this thread, I feel the need to bring retort to such.
1. There is clear concern in regards to the possibility of funds going to Antifa. As for those saying that it is "merely a concept" I am afraid it is no more such than many middle eastern terrorist groups. As things stand, Antifa has a core ideology book, cells which publicly identify as such with uniforms, sell their uniforms and book of ideology, have clear avenues of funding with business accounts, their cells have hierarchical structures as organizations, etc. They operate much in the way that various gangs or terrorist cells do, and as such can be considered such. Furthermore, members of Antifa have now been linked to murders caused in recent riots, and portray themselves as a communist group, while also taking the name of a historical communist group. As such, it can be legally declared that they are politically motivated, such being the determinator between the difference between such a group being designated as a gang or a terrorist group. With that said, it is unlikely Toady has any risk of seeing jail time, unless Toady himself were active in criminal activity after declaring support for such an organization, or he were directly providing money to the organization rather than second-hand. However, he may see himself put on a watchlist or actively survived. Albeit realistically speaking, in the age of the patriot act, essentially everyone is anyway, if not as in depth.
2. Ultimately, support for protests sees opposition regardless who is doing it. Regardless of what is given the spotlight in the US's political sphere, ultimately it's been historically rather even irrespective of the topic. With that said, there is a difference between a protest, and a riot - and in the riots of the past week, we have seen more than 11 people have been confirmed to be killed in these riots by rioters and looters. There may be more which have yet to be confirmed. Property damages have reached the hundreds of millions, and low-income housing as well as small business owners have been disproportionately hit. At this point, the riots aren't even about justice anymore, and have become selfish indulgence for those participating, or a blind act of rage. It is, in my opinion, an injustice that must end, and those arrested while participating in such should see criminal charges for their actions during such, be it property damage, theft, assault, or for those so involved in the deaths of innocents, murder and manslaughter.
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Topic: On the topic of the June 1'st Devlog (Read 7100 times)