I'm curious. Did you talk to them in person?
"Defund" is a loaded word, with multiple interpretations. I think I'm in the majority when I don't think of defund as disbanding.
You probably know this already, but "defund" means "to remove funding for [something]."
By removing funding, you remove the ability for the police force to perform its assigned functions.
I don't think it's the best word that could've been used because it strikes fear in the hearts of law and order middle America. But on the other hand, as a way of getting their attention, it certainly worked. It's a word that sticks.
Broadly sketched, I agree we should at the least: review and reallocate funding.
Why?
Fund less police hardware, fund more community-supporting social outreach.
Because there aren't enough of those already, apparently...
You want to remove the polices ability to stand a chance to be able to defend themselves in the literal warzone that some American streets have become in the past months and years (and especially this year)?
When criminals are killing people, the police, via the government, has the authority to use deadly force against those criminals. If they don't have the ability to do that because some pansy limp-wristed liberal thinks they had too much equipment that hardly gets used, first, consider that simply having them is a deterrent against such criminal actions, and second, not having them means they, unwilling to put the officers' lives at risk with inadequate equipment, will be unable to deal with such crime should it arise.
Even Espy said it bothered him that the police looked like the military.
When it's a warzone on the streets of America, the police need military-grade equipment.
It bothers me a lot that we look like a police state.
In what way do we look like a police state?
We need way better police training in de-escalation, we have to weed out the white supremacists.
So what happens when that training, which is more than enough, when put to use, fails to de-escalate a situation?
The only option at that point is to use an escalation of force appropriate to the situation. And you want to limit the police's ability to do that?
There needs to be more transparency, more accountability.
Because there isn't enough of that already?
For starters. We need to reform the justice system,
Not just reform it.
Toss it in the bin and remake it.
Preferably using do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not commit adultery, and do not covet as its foundation.
stop privatizing prisons,
Not only that, but stop USING prisons.
Return to restitution, flogging, and the death penalty.
Wait, what?
Why end that?
"...
fix remove the bail system [along with prisons]"
There, that's better.
reform sentencing guidelines.
Right, to go along with getting rid of prisons and returning to restitution, flogging, and death penalty punishments.
