Defund the Police

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dustin
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Defund the Police

Post by dustin » Sat Jun 06, 2020 3:50 pm

We exist in a racist system :( . There are systemic problems that call for systemic changes. Defunding the police and instead spending that money on services that help people without guns or violence is the best suggestion for a progressive system change that I've seen. This guardian article explains in much better detail.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by PJB » Sun Jun 07, 2020 6:57 pm


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Re: Defund the Police

Post by PJB » Thu Jun 11, 2020 8:39 pm

https://youtu.be/QRen8nI8_aM

Don Lemon makes me never ever want to watch CNN again.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by PJB » Thu Jun 11, 2020 9:48 pm

David Webb - The United States is Not Institutionally Racist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv7hsiUirUU

David Webb is not a great example for black men. He is a great example for all men.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by hoodie » Fri Jun 12, 2020 5:43 pm

PJB these posts are cherry picked and disturbing in their message as well as far off base. If I were Dustin I'd really be considering if you belong as a community moderator, even as community moderators are in thin supply.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by PJB » Fri Jun 12, 2020 9:33 pm

Cherry picked, yeah thats true but why disturbing? What does this got to do with being a good or bad moderator?
My wife is black, my son is (or half), i and my family agree with these people and thats our opinion and you have yours. What is disturbing in their message? That you do not agree with them? That i find Don Lemon a douche? Thats alright Hoodie.

I like it that nuances are being made by black people on the blacklivesmatter movement. Apparently you dont agree with them and of that i should not be a moderator? cause of my thoughts on it?.
I know talking about racism is a sensitive subject but removing someone from a modsquad cause they have a different opinion on this? Wow, i hope Dustin feels differently or else i truly dont belong here. You seem to be very narrow-minded Hoodie.

Maybe its a bit offtopic but not far off base, there are no other topics on the recent happenings with #blacklivesmatter or defund the police etc in here.

But to be more on topic, i dont find defunding the police necessarily a good idea. Of course a review on where the money is spent is always warranted but i believe the money needs to be spent differently. Police should be way more focused and trained on deescalating. With less police you might get more vigilant groups taking matters and law into their own hands which i believe is not good. About the racism part. Racism is in every layer of society and should never ever be tolerated!

:bang:

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by mnemosyne » Fri Jun 12, 2020 11:42 pm

instead of spinning off into issues that some may consider to be red herrings, it is important that people focus on the underlying concern at hand, namely:

george floyd was brutally murdered by the minneapolis police.

end of story! (but, sadly, it is not) . . .

it does not matter if he was a good or bad man; nobody deserves to be brutalized in that way at the hands of a civil servant. it is just the most recent example of countless other instances of police brutality directed toward people of color, or those we consider "other."

now, pj, if you want to talk about institutional racism, let's move closer to home; perhaps we can talk about santa's little "helper" (aka slave), zwarte piet (aka black peter). i know, i know, he is just covered in chimney soot, the convenient ever evolving modern explanation (which, of course, does not explain his pronounced cherry red lips, or afro).

and, admittedly, he is not quite as blatant as belgium's "the savage."

but to dustin's initial observation, that we live in an inherently racist system (that is a subset of class, imo), it seems that you two agree. and i give a hearty hear, hear to that.

on his broader point, i still believe that ice cube put it best: @%&# the police!

warmly,

m

:catrun

#blackpantherrising

♪♫ i don't want to bring a sour note
remember this before you vote
we can all sink or we all float
'cause we're all in the same big boat ♪♫

"one world (not three)"

--the police (irony loves company)

:globe

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by hoodie » Sat Jun 13, 2020 2:29 am

Mnemo hit a lot on the head with that post; pretty much everything in the first part of your (edit: your meaning PJB’s) response is a red herring.
I am not distracted by the identity politics you seem to propose as some sort of inoculation and absolution.
I am entirely aware that your initial posts are protecting an abusive system that is deeply harmful to Black people.
Congratulations on backpedaling with a few sentiments that you did not portray earlier.
Defunding the police is an area of finding solutions that I in no way expect everyone to be in unanimity on, but you changed the topic.
Human rights are not political. And as I know it, Sillysoft stands for human rights.
I still find your first three posts and judgement in how you present them inappropriate for a moderator.
Last edited by hoodie on Sat Jun 13, 2020 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by PJB » Sat Jun 13, 2020 3:38 am

mnemosyne wrote:
Fri Jun 12, 2020 11:42 pm
instead of spinning off into issues that some may consider to be red herrings, it is important that people focus on the underlying concern at hand, namely:

george floyd was brutally murdered by the minneapolis police.

end of story! (but, sadly, it is not) . . .

it does not matter if he was a good or bad man; nobody deserves to be brutalized in that way at the hands of a civil servant. it is just the most recent example of countless other instances of police brutality directed toward people of color, or those we consider "other."
I dont disagree with anything you wrote above except that i dont consider people of color "other".
mnemosyne wrote:
Fri Jun 12, 2020 11:42 pm

now, pj, if you want to talk about institutional racism, let's move closer to home; perhaps we can talk about santa's little "helper" (aka slave), zwarte piet (aka black peter). i know, i know, he is just covered in chimney soot, the convenient ever evolving modern explanation (which, of course, does not explain his pronounced cherry red lips, or afro).

and, admittedly, he is not quite as blatant as belgium's "the savage."
Nmemo, i dont hope your implying im Pro Zwarte piet? Talking about red herring.
mnemosyne wrote:
Fri Jun 12, 2020 11:42 pm

but to dustin's initial observation, that we live in an inherently racist system (that is a subset of class, imo), it seems that you two agree. and i give a hearty hear, hear to that.

on his broader point, i still believe that ice cube put it best: @%&# the police!

warmly,

m

:catrun

#blackpantherrising

♪♫ i don't want to bring a sour note
remember this before you vote
we can all sink or we all float
'cause we're all in the same big boat ♪♫

"one world (not three)"

--the police (irony loves company)

:globe

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by PJB » Sat Jun 13, 2020 8:26 pm

hoodie wrote:
Sat Jun 13, 2020 2:29 am

I am entirely aware that your initial posts are protecting an abusive system that is deeply harmful to Black people.
You know Hoodie its ok to have a different opinion than yours, even as a moderator i can and should share my thoughts about it. Im not a racist, im not supporting hate or spreading violence. I share my opinion with millions of black people. No they are not yours and no we dont believe they are deeply harmful towards black people. I respect your opinion but I find it scary that you think a community moderator cant have these thoughts and if so he needs to be taken out here or silenced. Yes Sillysoft and also I stand for human rights.
I get a feeling you must be furious or at least annoyed by now but please have a look and be open for context into a complicated topic.

I will let professor John McWhorter talk about it.

How Anti Racism Hurts Black People - John McWhorter
https://youtu.be/mT2rlJe9cuU

Ill make this my last post about it cause i guess its to sensitive to talk about here. In my country we are demonstrating, talking/debating about it everyday since George Floyd died.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by hoodie » Sun Jun 14, 2020 3:08 am

Sounds real nice till you click through to a Breitbart All Lives Matter video that you seem to promote without question.

I don’t care that they found a Black woman to say it. It’s not like there’s a caucus that decides as a block what all people of a specific race or ethnicity will believe.

There are racist symbols and dog whistles that the lid has finally blown off of.

I never called you racist by the way. We are all racist, growing up and participating in a society that has ingrained racism. You either protect it or move to change it. You’re protecting it and using old standbys as red herrings and politeness as a tool to excuse yourself.

In any case, if you can’t see it, I won’t convince you. But I do know Dustin knows the score and encourage him to consider who represents sillysoft as a mod. I don’t think you deserve that respect with your statements.
Last edited by hoodie on Sun Jun 14, 2020 1:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by RogueMonk » Sun Jun 14, 2020 8:52 am

Wow. That escalated quickly.

And here I thought we were still all mad at bean...

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by PJB » Sun Jun 14, 2020 3:39 pm

I changed my mind a bit. I saw dustin posting his post and and giving a suggestion. I thought, i should respond to it. Of course its the best for a moderator to stay neutral whenever he can. Dustin is sillysoft and he can do and say whatever he wants in here. Me as moderator, i now think i should have remained silent. I made a mistake.

In my family and with my friends we talk a lot about these things, specially on the side from my wife (who is black). Some of them have been protesting in the #BLM protest here in the Netherlands other would never ever do that and some cant be bothered with either and just go on with their life. When they are at home or together they all live in peace and harmony with each other. My thoughts on this hasn't changed and come very close to a person like John McWhorter, sharing that as a moderator here has changed. @Hoodie You're probably right about how Dustin thinks about these things but thats not why i write the following.

My apologies if i offended anyone and in the future i will try to stay away as a moderator from these kind of discussions and debates.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by Red Beard » Wed Jun 17, 2020 3:53 am

PJB, I appreciate that you are following your wife's lead, as a person of color, regarding racism in the US (and elsewhere) and how it functions. I neither know her background nor that of your family, nor do I claim to know what life experiences have lead her to her conclusions which you've also adopted. But I wonder, if you or she have considered that the experiences she's had with racism might be different than the lived experiences of others elsewhere? Or even that the conclusions she may have drawn from her lived experiences with racism should not negate the ability of others to push back against their oppressors?

Even within the African American community, you will find people who have differing opinions on what the most effective solutions are. A classic example is from the US reconstruction era following the emancipation of slavery. Two of the most prominent leaders in the African American community at the time, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, could not have had more differing views on what the path forward should be. They pretty well hated each other. But after 100 years, for whatever progress Booker T. Washington made with concessions and slow initial advancement, the writings of Du Bois feel like that could have been written yesterday. The problems he was addressing are no less real now than they were then.

And what we are seeing now are communities of millions of people pushing back, communities pushed so far beyond desperation that they have no other options. By negating their experiences, people like yourself have left these communities voiceless. Peaceful means of resistances have been mocked as you are doing. Their public leaders have been actively murdered, exiled, imprisoned, or in the case of Philadelphia where I live, actively bombed. Political action has been pushed aside and overwritten. Public schools have been defunded continuously and gratuitously while militarization of police forces and police brutality has steady risen. As of 2015 the US represented 4.4% of the worlds population and yet it held 21% of the worlds incarcerated population. In that continuously growing prison industrial complex, a black person is 5 times more likely to be incarcerated than their white counterparts with out even mentioning other people of color. The list of systemic racism goes on and on and on, and there is no lack of historical documentation. Hundreds of years of a people systematically devalued, brutalized, raped and broken who apparently have to light shit on fire for the world to acknowledge their grief and their right to something better.

And you want to call the Black Lives Matter movement a joke? A movement the very name of which implies that Black Lives Matter Too? Then you and your tokenism are part of the problem. You should be ashamed of your comments here, moderator or otherwise.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by dustin » Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:26 am

Image

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by hoodie » Wed Jun 17, 2020 6:50 pm

Alex Grey wrote:As every state in our nation has been alive with unprecedented waves of protests over racial injustice, it reminds us that transformation is messy, risky, and likely to meet great resistance. We thank #Black Lives Matter and the millions of peaceful protesters around the globe showing solidarity, and inspiring a better world. The murder of George Floyd and people of color by the police and systemic racism in our society and government is sickening heartbreaking and must end. The War on Drugs and prison system have been used to enact a racist agenda that needs to be dismantled. The promise of equality must be enacted in America and the recent protests have been the strongest call for cultural evolution I have ever witnessed. God bless and protect everyone who is part of this movement for truth, justice, and compassion. Please vote friends 🙏 @ COSM Chapel of Sacred Mirrors
Alex Grey's post here. For those unfamiliar, he painted PJB's avatar.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by plane crazy » Tue Jul 07, 2020 12:22 pm

I state out front that I am a progressive liberal.
If you feel your thoughts about BLM are progressively aligned, STOP SAYING AND REPEATING THE PHRASE, DEFUND THE POLICE.

Words are weapons. Liberals and progressive thinkers need to stop playing into the hands of those who would continue the systemic racist systems. Using the phrase, "defund the police" is way too overly dramatic and does not explain the intent of the statement in any worthwhile method and allows the radical right and most others who are on the fence to point at the stupid liberal fools who want to clearly take away all their cops.

I don’t have an answer as to how progressive liberal folks might get the message across concerning how they want to diverted cop money and assets to mental health EMS crews, but I do know that insisting that we "defund the police" is not the way to communicate the real intent.

And no, my friend pjb should not be stripped of his MOD job because of his thoughts about anything unrelated to Lux. He posted them in a respectful way with the intent to create a civil dialogue, which is what we really need more of. Civil dialogues, so we can reason our way out of the evil of this “us against them” mess.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by dustin » Tue Jul 07, 2020 3:35 pm

wise words plane crazy

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by plane crazy » Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:37 pm

Thank you Dustin.

And while I am ranting about words, it does not help for progressive liberals to advocate for change by chanting, "Free health care for all", or "Free higher education for all".

The word "free" is another trigger word and in this case as in the Defund the police statement, very wrong and incorrect as health care and education isn't and never will be free and the word free is really insulting to lots of folks.

As a Canadian, Dustin will tell you that the Canadian Medicare for all system is not free, employers pay into the system, taxes pay into the system, it is not free. But it sure is about a magnitude better than Amerikkka’s grossly dysfunctional insurance for profit health care system.

Fight the Power.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by Dangerous Beans » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:04 pm

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by Dangerous Beans » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:17 pm

plane crazy wrote:
Tue Jul 07, 2020 5:37 pm

As a Canadian, Dustin will tell you that the Canadian Medicare for all system is not free, employers pay into the system, taxes pay into the system, it is not free. But it sure is about a magnitude better than Amerikkka’s grossly dysfunctional insurance for profit health care system.
To be fair, half of the entire world's innovation in health and medicine comes from the USA. Which of course the USA gives freely to the rest of the world. The majority of Nobel prizes for medicine are from the USA as well. If you remove for profit health care from the US, who will step up to make the difference? Maybe Europeans with their vastly superior health care should contribute equally.

I'm sure there is a way to make healthcare more affordable in the USA without negatively affecting USA's vast contribution to research in the medical field (and no its not just better boner pills its a lot of new life saving research as well), but its not fair to downplay the huge benefits USA's healthcare system provides for the entire world of future generations compared to any other healthcare system- because at the end of the day America still leads the way in terms of cutting edge surgeries and research. If the rest of the world contributed their fair share of medical innovations and research there is no doubt their healthcare costs would go up as well.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by Dangerous Beans » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:18 pm

/me prepares for all the hippies' counterarguments :P

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by dustin » Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:10 pm

"Medicare for all" seems like a great slogan. Of course everyone should have healthcare! One of the greatest things about Canada is our public health system. It's not perfect, but it's awesome!

I'm really curious what a better slogan then "Defund the police" is. I haven't heard it expressed yet.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by plane crazy » Tue Jul 14, 2020 6:53 pm

Yo Beanster,

I can totally downplay the so called USA led medical innovation gravy train because none of it means a rats ass when 30% of the population is not insured and 30% to 40% are under insured.

Only the elitest segment of the population would really care about your argument. The rest of us putz knockers can only hope to have the evil health insurance company cover our chemo costs.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by Dangerous Beans » Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:39 am

Hey brotha PC,

Its not just about the US population, or about demographics based on income. Its about the entire world that obtains our research for free and is able to apply it not just to themselves but more importantly to their children and their grandchildren when they are born. I would compare it to how Neil Tyson puts it about exploring space, the technological benefits of it are reaped by the future, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to pay for.

If we reduce our expenditure on health care, we are also reducing "USA led medical innovation" which is detrimental to the world. I am no expert so I cannot prove there is a causation between amount of money spent on healthcare per capita and amount of new medical research developed, but there is a correlation in the insanely high amount of money the average US citizen spends on healthcare and the insanely high amount of medical research and innovation that the US develops. So if you advocate an improved model of US healthcare, it should include some way to compensate for that, because other first world country models are unable to provide the same level of research development that the US model provides.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by Mike » Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:51 pm

dustin wrote:
Sat Jun 06, 2020 3:50 pm
We exist in a racist system :( . There are systemic problems that call for systemic changes. Defunding the police and instead spending that money on services that help people without guns or violence is the best suggestion for a progressive system change that I've seen. This guardian article explains in much better detail.
I concur

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by dustin » Thu Aug 06, 2020 1:42 pm


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Re: Defund the Police

Post by Mike » Thu Apr 08, 2021 7:24 am

Late to the party here - but I agree, we should defund the police and do our best to dismantle institutional racism - even if it means to 'throw out the baby with the bathwater' - because the bathwater in this case is as toxic as the cooling water from No. 4 reactor.


Edit to add: Clearly I'm losing my mind - as I responded to this in June of 2020 - and have no memory of it.

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by n00less cluebie » Mon Jun 21, 2021 5:37 pm

plane crazy wrote:
Tue Jul 14, 2020 6:53 pm
putz knockers
To be honest, I only came here to see that Plane Crazy is still an expert wordsmith!

dustin wrote:
Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:10 pm
I'm really curious what a better slogan then "Defund the police" is. I haven't heard it expressed yet.
Defund the Police is a bad slogan because the idea of eliminating the police without a proven-successful law-enforcement solution is MADNESS. We need MAJOR police reform, and way too much is spent on military hardware by certain precincts, but maybe the answer is INNOVATE the Police. or INTEGRATE the Police (into other social services) might work better. There is a time and a place for policing, and there's a time and a place for other social services, but all "Defund the Police" does is push Moderates and Independants away, and further feeds the Ouroboros Panic Snake that is Right Wing Media. (Fun Fact: Tucker Carlson only can orgasm while screaming "Antifa!")

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Re: Defund the Police

Post by rentspel » Wed Aug 25, 2021 5:49 am

Everyone that wants to defund the police should listen to Thomas Sowell on YT.

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