Thinking Citizen Blog — “Yes. We Mean Literally Abolish the Police”

Thinking Citizen Blog — Sunday is Political Process, Campaign Strategy, and Candidate Selection Day

Today’s Topic — “Yes. We Mean Literally Abolish the Police” (Mariame Kaba, NYT)

The headline grabbed me. Wow! This is one of those moments I had to take a deep breath. What was the author’s argument? Today, a summary of the article in the form of a series of excerpts. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.

A CENTURY OF FAILURE — incremental reforms have never worked before

1. “Congressional Democrats want to make it easier to identify and prosecute police misconduct; “

2. “Joe Biden wants to give police departments $300 MM.”

3. “But efforts to solve police violence through liberal reforms like these have failed for nearly a century.”

NB: “When a police officer brutalizes a black person, he is doing what he sees as his job.”

A SIMPLE FIRST STEP

1. “Cut the number of police in half and cut their budget in half.”

2. “Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people.”

3. “The idea is gaining traction in Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles, and other cities.”

THE FAULTY PREMISE

1. “The philosophy undergirding these reforms is that more rules will mean less violence.”

2. “ But police officers break rules all the time.”

3. “ Look what has happened over the past few weeks..”

NB: is Derek Chauvin really representative? which is the bigger problem — crime or the police?

Next time: “Don’t Reform Police Unions — abolish them!” (Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html

YOUR TURN

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This is your chance to make someone else’s day or change their thinking. Or to consolidate in your own memory something worth remembering that might otherwise be lost. Or to clarify or deepen your own understanding of something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.