Gallacher later told 404 Media that the email was something of “a joke,” but reaffirmed the agency’s wish to obtain a Cybertruck before other agencies, even if more for “community engagement” than using it as a patrol vehicle.
In other words, we have too much money.
and this is why defund the police was such a hot topic. To those on the other side, they think we mean “Get rid of all police, zero funding, go away”
When in reality it’s “Uh, they literally have too much money, they’re buying literal tanks. What if we took some of that tank/cybertruck money and gave it to trained professionals who could help in conflict situations?”
Honestly? Considering how little the police actually do to help anyone, versus the huge amount of harm they cause, I’m not entirely convinced that “Get rid of all police” wouldn’t be a good idea, even if they got replaced with basically nothing. And I’ve seen a lot of leftists who felt similarly. So “those on the other side” aren’t entirely wrong; they just don’t understand how incredibly bad police are.
This doesn’t mean we should replace the police with literally nothing — obviously things investing in social services and crisis intervention would be great. It’s just that I find it hard to do worse than what currently exists.
I’m not a fan of all or nothing, I think there’s a place for a well trained police force. Look at Europe and the UK, they aren’t armed, but they have power still. Someone has to take care of the person who stole a car and is speeding down the freeway going 100+, crisis councilors aren’t going to be driving trying to perform a PIT maneuver.
I think it’s a blend, in my example the police would bring them into custody, and then trained people work with them after that working out what happened and working with the justice department. There are many things that police aren’t needed at, like domestic issues, but there are plenty we do need them at too. (However, reforming the police needs to happen, I’m not saying they are perfect right now.)
The problem is that to argue this point, you have to start going through all of the facts like case conversion rates, the domestic abuse rates, the rates of racist attacks by law enforcement, and the membership overlap between law enforcement and white supremacist groups. Once you start bringing up that many numbers, the idiots get confused and their eyes roll out of their skull, whereas the centrists get too scared realizing that basically no cop is actually trying to keep the U.S. safe and try to shutdown the conversation.
The modern concept of police is relatively recent, it was invented during the industrial revolution. In Rojava they replaced the police with community patrols whose members are elected and accountable for their actions. Different ways are possible.
Or better training, so people don’t hate them. Though, there is laws too.
