Homeland Security Was Destined to Become a Secret Police Force
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
In this case, the 'officers' were not even dressed as law enforcement, and either way, it is not very difficult to produce a reasonably convincing replica of a uniform. How can you make sure that you are dealing with actual law enforcement, when you submit yourself to them, they cuff you, take your stuff, drive you away, etc.?
"Can I see your badge?" doesn't seem very effective, given that a badge can easily be faked, but more importantly you'd probably, for good reason, be too afraid to even ask. Is America really such a police state now that you are just supposed to submit to anyone in a uniform? And does this not seem ripe for abuse to everyone else?
If, by "British Bill of rights" you mean https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp then it seems to be clearly concerned that a standing army in peace time is a concern, and places a limit on it (specifically, that it require consent of Parliament). It doesn't strike me as remotely contradictory to think that those drafting the 2nd Amendment might have thought that did not go quite far enough, and have chosen a slightly different tack in addressing the same concern.
This certainly leaves room for other evidence to decide the question in either direction, but (assuming I correctly interpreted your reference) the thing that you presented as evidence for your position doesn't seem to be.
Yes. It has been since Sept 11th 2001. (And every single day since, that we stand idly as a nation and refuse to look further into that day)
To make it worse, your only tool for fighting it is the court system, which for every day infractions committed by the system, is usually not financially (yes i am using this word) viable.
I guess what really surprises me every time I see it is... how can I put it?
The level of militarisation of said police; I mean these federal agents look like they're on their way to storm Faluja, in full battle dress, and that makes me really, really, really uncomfortable.
Its not quite the same here in the UK, although I believe we're getting there, albeit slower. But yeah, seeing those dudes dressed in battle rig with no visible badges of rank/name etc gives me the creeps.
Soldiers carry visible identification (mostly) because they are subject to the Geneva convention, but police isn't and thus doesn't, since there is no legal obligation by the state in many countries.
Even in Germany, a somewhat civil country, police generally wear their rank and name openly, except when they are deployed in Hundertschaften, where they carry no identification apart from the unit number. Obviously this makes it very difficult for people to report officers, since "that guy in dark blue riot gear with a BY 84-V on his back hit me for no reason" applies to literally a hundred people who were in roughly the same area doing roughly the same thing.
The other thing is that not everyone gets to suffer. Under any form of government the ones that are on the leadership's "good side" will benefit or simply not suffer obviously. The others get to suffer. In democracy this might be the "dictatorship of the majority", and if that majority doesn't care enough to vote for fixing the country's problems instead of their individual problems, or is complacent with the current situation based on the above "doesn't suffer obviously" then by the time they do somebody already consolidated power or subverted that democratic process. Or perhaps some of the people just shifted to the minority and get to see that side.
It's hard for people to see the real problems as long as their interests temporarily align with their leadership's.
Just like the famous "First they came ..." quote. The person who uttered it got to live through this transition from being on the good side of the leadership, seeing his own interest, to the less pleasant side seeing too late what it was for the others.
A government has to have a place to throw all that expensive high tech combat gear that $686.1 Billion buys you. What better place than their local communities' police units? Making grown men (and women) who haven't served in a real military feel empowered by carrying and opearting such munition.
Google some of the vehicles they've deployed in local communities, your gut will sink even lower.
At least these federal agents have uniforms and police insignia.
I guess the American way is to comply, then sue them later.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-cau...
> Police in Ferguson, Missouri, once charged a man with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms while four of them allegedly beat him.
Don't they have to show you a proof of being a police officer anyway?
The moment you put your hand in your pocket you will get shot because the cop is allowed to suspect you have a gun and shoot in fear of his life.
Google "Daniel Shaver" for a real-world example of this.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_firearm_use_by_country
Granted, the crime rate is also lower, but in any case an end result is that people here are less likely to be shot and/or killed by a cop despite their weaponry. Why should I bother disadvantaging the police in their ability to use a gun at least as a threat, or as a potential weapon, when some years have gone by in which no one here has been killed by a police officer's gun?
Furthermore, the distinction you draw between "community police" and "specialist officers" exists through a systematic process in the UK (creating separate training programs, etc.) but why should a country even bother with this process and the potential disadvantages it poses (e.g. delayed armed responses when needed) if it can handle arming ordinary officers without a fatal police shooting problem?
> I currently live in a country with a much lower police shooting and killing rate than the UK
There are only four countries in the entire world where the police kill less than the UK according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc... if that's accurate. It may get lower but can't really get much lower can it!
Even countries you think are as-safe or safer have insane rates of killings. For example French police kill almost 8x as much as British police do. What on earth are they doing over there? Maybe take away their guns to stop them slaughtering so many people?
> Even countries you think are as-safe or safer have insane rates of killings. For example French police kill almost 8x as much as British police do. What on earth are they doing over there? Maybe take away their guns to stop them killing so many people?
Yep, credit where credit is due: given that the violent crime rate and other similar heuristics in the UK are higher than several of the countries with more fatal police shootings, I think it's very impressive that British police are as non-fatal as they are. I definitely think disarming much of the police force can benefit some of these other countries. That would include France, which you mentioned, as it seems to have a similar violent crime rate.
> I think it's a principle thing - community police shouldn't have that kind of weaponry, no matter how responsibly they use it or not use it at all. It makes any interaction with them always half-a-second from being lethal. No thanks.
I suppose I can't directly disagree with this, and I see where you're coming from. I recognize that where I am is probably more of an anomaly than the pattern, and this approach likely wouldn't be as successful in many other places.
Of course, there is still the issue that all that serves to do is keep honest people honest, and doesn't do much to deter a determined criminal who is certain they'll get away with it, criminals who don't care and just want to do as much damage as they can before being stopped, etc...
In truth, you can't do much about it short of public access to operational details of Law enforcement agencies, which arguably comes with it's own set of problems.
Hence, now the country being in the midst of a crisis of faith, all thanks to the absolutely jaw dropping incompetence and unprofessionalism perpetrated by the Administration, the Legislature's complete ineffectiveness and incapability to follow any other strategy than "pitch impossibility and deadlock", and the Media not even being able to be relied upon to show some decency in terms of holding the bar of ethical journalism high enough that enough people can trust them without having to cross-reference to next Sunday to get a reasonably accurate rendition of what actually happened.
While others may advise the 2nd Amendment, which I wholeheartedly support, it doesn't solve the immediate need of satisfying due process without escalating to violence in the event of a lawful arrest.
Of course, if you're a protestor,even a lawful arrest may not carry that much weight for you, and at the end of the day there is something extremely uncomfortable about a state of affairs where you end up either arresting unarmed Protestors, and shooting/ignoring the armed ones.
Can't deny that fundamentally speaking though, individual to individual: only you can ultimately be responsible for keeping yourself alive, breathing, and free. Act accordingly. If you accept that puts you on the wrong side of the law, then that's that, and maybe one day that can stop being the case, and the struggle continues. If it puts you on the side of enforcing the will of the People you deem to be legitimate, that's that; the struggle continues.
If you just want others to leave you be, to live and let live, you need to be prepared to fend off getting wrangled in by either of the aforementioned groups, and just as above the struggle continues.
There are thousands of videos on the internet of Americans being harassed, beaten or arrested, sometimes illegally, by cops who refuse to identify themselves when asked.
Even if they carried a badge, what reason would a jackbooted thug have to reveal their identity to their victims? The government already gave them carte blanche to shoot, maim and abduct citizens for exercising constitutional rights to assembly and speech.
Don’t be hyperbolic.
They may have the ability to abuse their position as police officers to do all that, but the government and the law has certainly not given them permission.
Any officer caught breaking the law like this, does run the risk of himself getting arrested and losing his job (even though the risk may be smaller than we’d like it to be).
They had the van and the appropriate uniforms all ready for use.
The idea that the police squad busting down your door might not be the actual police is downright scary. Of course this is an extreme case, and involving something most of us are not involved in, but it does make you wonder what recourse the drug lord would have had (except for the obvious 'don't be a drug lord, dummy' solution of course).
I doubt 'can I just check your badge for a moment?' would work even if the actual police showed up.
I just mean to show that even upstanding citizens and role models and inspirational figures could have enemies ruthless enough to drag them into an unmarked van. "That's why you shouldn't become an upstanding moral figure" is what they'll say.
I'm sure if you go take a stroll down the history of crime, both fictionalized and real, this has happened tens of times.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-president-stay-ou...
No unconstitutional act of congress can take away rights enshrined in the constitution.
The lack of these things is why the answer here is to defend yourself by any means possible, including lethal force. Realistically though most people would just get kidnapped - we don't all walk around prepared to fight, because we rely on society being calm enough that this is not necessary. These goon squads are not upholding law and order, but rather creating confusion and disorder. The cities that are directing their local police to arrest these dangerous criminals have the right idea, although we'll see how it plays out.
The snarky answer is: if people with guns come up to you and tell you to come with them, you should probably comply, especially if they aren't cops. But really you raise a good point, one that the ACLU's lawsuit explicitly brings up.
I recall a case (I think in Myrtle Beach) where some police officers broke conducted a no-knock warrant to arrest someone, but they did so in plain clothes and did not announce that they were officers and that the person was under arrest. The person, fearing for his safety, came out of his bedroom with a gun and the officers shot him multiple times. He later sued. I remember the opinion from the judges was absolutely scathing. They held that the officers would be personally liable for damages (i.e. the would have to pay this guy out of their own pockets, not just the city). I recall listening to oral arguments and at one point the defense rhetorically said something to the effect of "he had a gun, were the officers supposed to just stand there and get shot?" And the judges essentially responded "yes".
Now part of that conclusion rested on the fact that he has a right to defend his home, and there's some specific case law there ( I believe Heller calls out defending your home specifically). But I wouldn't be surprised if it was perfectly legal to refuse to go with someone who does not identify themselves, and even to respond with force if they assault you. But it's probably not the wisest thing to do. Best thing to do would probably be to record them and take legal action. I think the craziest thing about this is that the people getting arrested by these weird federal agents are all being released within hours without charges, because these arrests violate all normal procedures. Actually I kind of wish they would try to prosecute these protesters. Because you have the right to face your accuser, and during discovery all of the information about who these people are and who ordered them to do what would come to light.
or maybe its just a subterfuge. maybe the catch and release was to disguise interaction with confidential informants or undercover agents...
The only way they lose is with scrutiny, so avoiding scrutiny is their top priority. Hence the secrecy. Any U.S. attorney charged with the task of defending police in any of these cases will be ordered to obfuscate, delay, and confuse the issues.
Interesting case.
Order is code for two things: compliance and nostalgia. Not trust or civility.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Let us know how that works out.
I can't tell if this is a serious comment or not.
[1] https://medium.com/@wkc6428/the-lead-federal-agency-respondi...
These federal police should show up in databases confirming their identities, whether that's a federal db or a relatives FB page.
Maybe we should be using ClearView AI to keep the police honest.
In neither situation would facial recognition systems make things better for the populace.
Evidence enough?
I am perfectly comfortable questioning the legitimacy of the deployment without any speculation about which individuals we the tax payers ended up paying to be there.
> we are watching the perfect and perhaps inevitable combination of a domestic-security superagency and a President who rejects all mechanisms of accountability, including the Senate confirmation process.
Accountability appears to be broken with a two party system.
Combined with a President who’s willing to push boundaries and a federal agency built to act more swiftly with broader powers, we could see a lot more civil strife before this term is up.
I think this is one of the most fundamental factors in the breakdown at higher levels of discourse. Most liberals I personally know used to put a strong emphasis on benefit of the doubt and pragmatism when it came to judging Republican leadership - there was always plenty of strong criticism, but there was also a lot of "well, in such-and-such case, they are just doing what they honestly think is best for the country". But that attitude is now utterly gone, because of the silence of such leaders on the incredibly overt hatred and unreasonableness of Trump and other proponents of spite-motivated authoritarianism. They still have plenty of good faith for Republicans, but what's changed is that they now have absolutely zero for Republican leaders. What's happening is awful.
Like, there _have_ to be quite a few of them who have misgivings about this (either on a 'this is wrong' basis, or, more cynically, on a 'we will suffer for this electorally' basis), but practically none have voiced any.
Or all I saw are a bunch of alt-right propaganda? Or violence is the voice of unheard so by asking these questions I'm a disgusting evil person? And no, those are not rhetorical questions. I honestly don't have answers. For one, the so-called "arson" in front of the courthouse looked so small. It looks just a bunch of people burning cardboard for fun or for protesting. Probably still illegal, but I wouldn't call it violent or arson.
Oh, please.
We went from being "these United States" to being "the United States" after the Civil War, and not without reason.
A century back, under Wilson, we brought in 16A, 17A & the Federal Reserve.
If there is substantial interest in redistributing power, not wealth, via Washington D.C., then we need https://conventionofstates.com/
Anything less is so much Mary Kay on the swine herd.
To VPN, or not VPN: that is the question.
While there are many soft power actions like blocking payments etc to outright hacking American LEA can do to extract data from other countries orgs but legally there are no tools like NSL and FISA courts to get it .
Why not have always-on VPN? Not a nice experience for Google users, but screw Google, iCloud never complains on 'new device'.
So you're saying Apple is worse at protecting you from suspicious logins?
One can dislike how/why DHS was created and also believe that order needs to be restored the area by the feds.
As for the "unmarked cars" picking people up, what is actually happening to these people? Is it catch and release? It seems pretty tame to me.
Should they just let the protesters/rioters burn down the courthouse?
As to whether they are protesters or rioters, ask whether you think Peter Schiff could do what he did during occupy and stroll into the crowd attempting to debate and defend capitalism with the folk (which I think he failed to do at all, but more just the fact he was able to try it there is significant)? The answer is of course not; he'd probably be beaten or severely injured.
Its illegal to detain people for no reason. How will you feel when it happens to you?
> Should they just let the protesters/rioters burn down the courthouse?
That is an interesting perspective. And its one that a lot of people currently hold toward the police. Does one (or even a few) bad apple spoil the bunch?
Do you think that protesters like the Navy Vet, Naked Athena, the Wall of Moms, and even the Mayor of Portland really want to burn down a Federal building?
I agree and I find these events troubling. But I also want to put them in perspective.
> Does one (or even a few) bad apple spoil the bunch?
I don't understand the point you're making here.
> Do you think that protesters like the Navy Vet, Naked Athena, the Wall of Moms, and even the Mayor of Portland really want to burn down a Federal building?
As another commenter said, there are about 3 different groups with different adgendas operating in the area.
The point of a mob is that having diffuse boundaries there is no central leader, planning, or accountability
So the response should be police with no identification, planning, or accountability? And assault everyone?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/feds-unmarked-vans-portlan...
If this happened at all, there have only been 2 possible cases, and given that extent, we are not talking about a widespread phenomenon. The scope of the discussion and ramifications should account for that.
> police with no.. planning, or accountability?
Yes, I think an institution has a lot more of those things than a mob does. And just because that is true doesn't mean police need to be reformed. But i'm responding to your direct coments.
> And assault everyone?
Are they 'assaulting everyone?" I don't know what events you're talking about anymore.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/26/leaf-blower...
"Typically, police fire the agent once or twice to clear crowds and encourage people to move away from an area, said Michelle Heisler, the medical director of Physicians for Human Rights. But in Portland, federal agents have been unleashing the chemicals repeatedly for hours. This sustained cascade makes it difficult for peaceful demonstrators to avoid being hit and runs the risk of ensnaring bystanders in the area, she said."
I find it sad that you hold the symbolism of a building over the lives and fair treatment of your countrymen.
https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
>Should they just let the protesters/rioters burn down the courthouse?
You're implying a binary, which is a common fallacy. It's not helpful, and is in fact provocative, to respond to critics of some behavior to the effect of, "So, what, they should do the extreme opposite thing?"
> You don't know what's happening to the taken people, but it seems pretty tame to you?
I don't think they're being killed/maimed/"dissapeared" (south american style) as another commenter put it, but i agree that detainment without identification is a problem and it should stop.
- terrorizing
- while having committed no crimes
- only exercised their first amendment rights
I haven't seen the evidence for or against those - I'm not sure how you know in each of those cases what actually happened either.
I do think the unmarked arrests should stop though
EDIT: I'm not sure why I took your false dichotomy at face value in the first place. A burnt-down courthouse and an informal military occupation aren't the only two options; but even if they were, the former is preferable.
He's saying that if those were the only choices he'd prefer those buildings burning down over the suspension of civil liberties. But they are not the only choices, we can protect both. It's not easy, but it's worth it.
I've seen some people float "do everything the mob demands so they won't have to follow through on their threats", but I hope we can agree that doing that would itself constitute mob rule.
However federal agents violating 1st and 4th amendment rights by teargassing peaceful protests and unlawfully detaining people that's what needs to stop.
I fail to see why people are defending that behavior. You can support the deployment of those federal agents while still being critical of their overreach.
Both sides abandoning the middle ground is the reason we're in such a divisive political time. If you can't come to the defense of arguments you agree with because they're voiced by people you disagree with then you're contributing to the divisiveness.
There is no easy fix for the problem, because any solution requires both the protesters and the police to come to the middle ground.
The police and federal agents need to show respect for the peaceful protests during the day and the protesters need to respect a reasonable curfew so police can do their work stopping rioters and arsonists at night.
Showing up in militarized uniforms and teargassing/shooting peaceful protestors doesn't bring us closer to that middle ground. Neither does destruction of property and defending rioters/arsonists.
That was the hard fix. I don't believe the feds will be able to solve it this time by doing what they did in LA in 1992.
And if we simply restore the status quo using a show of force then these riots will happen again and again.
...not sure who's side the anarchists are on.
There's the BLM daylight protestors... There's the "moms" in the evening... Then there's the anarchists/antifa at 2am.
Before you judge what the DHS is doing, watch the videos from 2am. I think many people are watching the peaceful daytime videos and seeing DHS as overreacting. Which it would be.
I don't think it's overreacting to people setting the court house on fire, hitting police in the head with hammers or destroying businesses. You can find videos of this easily even though the "protestors" tend to beat up and eject "unofficial" camera people.
And they've been doing this for 2 MONTHS, way before DHS arrived with a mission to protect federal property, which we all pay for.
It was disturbing and a little frightening, but yes, in hindsight I am fine with it. I hope they found the right house and found the person they were looking for.
The police in the United States are a paramilitary force, equipped with military gear, and in many cases with military training -- the only thing military thing they don't have is the uniform code of military justice, which forbids things like the use of chemical weaponry and war crimes.
Another where a person was riding their bike away from a protest and got hauled into an anonymous van and held without cause.
Self defense is ok, these actions are not. One "protester" being violent does not warrant collective punishment of all/any protesters. It warrants defense from, and the arrest of, the violent ones.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/645981db-2a88-3304-ae89-094ca25...
What if change through the courts is impossible because it would take longer than any one person’s life to acquire standing to sue, and have the case heard?
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/07/judge-inclined-t...
I would not want to show my face in that court ever again.
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
"Don't be snarky."
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
It's obviously not easy to stay in the mode of curious conversation when discussing the most conflictual topics of the moment, but the intended spirit of this place requires all of us to try.
The feds stay locked up in the courthouse, the “protestors” breakdown the barriers erected, start fires, then the feds rush them and grab who they can.
These are not “innocent” protestors just exercising their 1st amendment rights. At least not in the videos I’ve seen.
The Portland police declare a riot each night (regardless of the state of the crowd) and start crowd control procedures, where they force people out of areas with noxious gas and other violent methods.
Peaceful protests are not a problem to anyone.
https://continuations.com/post/624305968188145664/help-stop-...
There the relevant law is quoted and explained.
So, in short, the DHS has the FPS (Federal Protective Service), and their job is
> "... safeguarding Federal owned and leased facilities and has been since 1790.
The FPS is part of the DHS.
...
The Customs and Border Protection unit is legally supporting the Federal Protective Service because the particular unit -- the Border Patrol Tactical Unit -- BORTAC -- is highly trained in riot control operations."
There are lots more details by JLM there including quotes of the relevant laws, e.g., 40 USC 1315.
So, the FPS was in Portland to protect Federal property as in 40 USC 1315.
In simplest terms, the Federal work there in Portland was protecting Federal property. Policing Portland in general was not part of the work.
The article mentioned "secret police": To set that aside, just read the JLM quotes and explanations of the laws.
The claim is that they didn't want to dive into an angry, violent, dense mob to arrest people because that would be dangerous.
For an arrest away from the action, all I saw was one video clip. For how general that was, I saw no information.
I was concerned about that one video clip, but without more information I'm ready to set it aside as poor judgment, a mistake, a one time thing, or some such. I need more information.
But, still, broadly, the "FPS" was not there, in either theory or practice, for the scary reason, Federal forces, not wanted in Portland, inserted to police the city, etc. Even given the one video clip, the FPS was clearly not policing the city. And for protecting the Federal courthouse, they were not over doing it since the courthouse was significantly damaged.
Can read the reference I gave and conclude that the FPS, CBP, and DHS were just doing what the laws said they were supposed to do.
For the laws, does anyone have any better ideas how the Feds can protect Fed property? Uh, supposedly that is actually not the job of the local police, that usually there is an agreement that the line is the center line on the street in front of the Fed building with the FPS on their side and local police on the other.
IMHO the Portland case does not look like some start on Federal secret police.
For the Chicago case, as best as I can see from the media, the Feds are there just to help local police with murder, etc. investigations and not on the street police work and were invited in by the mayor of Chicago.
Story 1: In the late evening hours, the sound of sporadic gunfire was heard all over the city. There were many white vans driving around the streets searching for people. During one incident, plainclothes police jumped out of a sliding door, grabbed a civilian and then sped off.
Story 2: They had barely made it half a block when an unmarked minivan pulled up in front of them. "I see guys in camo. Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, 'Oh s*. I don't know who you are or what you want with us.'" Law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around and detain protesters since at least Tuesday. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation about why they are being arrested, and driving off.
Now here's the quiz part: which of these describes Tiananmen Square and which describes Portland, OR?
1. http://www.jeffwidener.com/index.php?/stories/2016/09/tankma...
2. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/17/892277592/federal-officers-us...
Compare Trump’s response to how the government responded to the Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge where a federal building was occupied for 40 days and cost the Federal government millions of dollars. But the Feds didn’t escalate the situation like Trump and the DHS are attempting to do.
This is a three block area of Portland. The city is not overrun. The protests are largely peaceful. I don’t condone the graffiti or anyone trying to damage the building but the Federal response is over the top and unjustified.
Trump would like nothing more than a huge escalation in events.
That there’s any similarity between the events in Tiananmen and in Portland by the authorities is not okay.
I don't think protecting the Courthouse is authoritarianism AT ALL. It's protecting a Federal building.
> The protests are largely peaceful
The anarchists are not protesters. They aren't at all the same people. The vast numbers of peaceful protesters don't change the need for police to contain the ~200 anarchists trying to destroy the Federal Courthouse.
> Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
This is an insane comparison. A major west coast Federal Courthouse, home to the US 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals as well as a number of Federal offices, is absolutely NOTHING like occupying a small park Welcome center: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/MalheurN... . Was that even a serious comment?
> I don’t condone the graffiti or anyone trying to damage the building but the Federal response is over the top and unjustified.
The Federal response doesn't go far enough. The people attacking the building need to be arrested and sentenced to prison for attempted arson of a Federal Courthouse - ideally by the judges who's courthouse they are trying to burn down.
> Trump would like nothing more than a huge escalation in events.
I agree. So they should stop trying to burn down the Federal Courthouse.
> That there’s any similarity between the events in Tiananmen and in Portland by the authorities is not okay.
There isn't of any significance. You can always claim "similarities" when your bar for such is so low. Hitler and Trump both breathed oxygen - did you know that? Obviously he's a Nazi leader reincarnate.
Land of the oppressed, home of the scared.
It was later that we decided, oh no, let's let the terrorists win by throwing the bill of rights on metaphorical fire.
Freedom has pros and cons. The historical foundations of Freedom in America is an idealistic notion that should be tempered with modern knowledge about the price and complexity of freedom.
My friend in China has told me that the crisis has largely been contained in in their country. The irony here being they have less freedoms than we do but they can now go out in public without worrying about transmitting or receiving covid.
This does come with tradeoffs, but I don’t think the masks and beach are part of that tradeoff. People can and will voluntarily take on inconvenience for the good of others, but they have to be convinced. Our dysfunctional president has actively fought against creating a consensus that we should move as one against this virus. When the US decides to do something together, especially in the modern era, we do it incredibly well mostly without sacrificing human rights (with some obvious historical injustices we have to remedy). What is happening here is a failure of leadership, not a failure of liberty.
>...freedom to not wear masks and go to the beach during a pandemic.
>...they can now go out in public without worrying about transmitting or receiving covid.
People who are going to the beach probably are not worried about COVID. There's also a fair amount of debate among the technocrats about how transmissible it is on a beach.
Ultimately people just want the freedom to decide for themselves. Central planning isn't always the best for everyone. Fallibility plays a key role. If your friend is happy with her situation in China, that's fine. I'm sure beach goers also enjoyed themselves...
There were huge huge crowds on the beach with know one wearing masks and now we're experiencing Covid spikes. I wonder why?
The doctors and the CDC are telling everyone to stay in and wear masks. Ignore the technocrats, they're not experts.
By definition a technocrat would be ordained as an expert in his field. However, this does not preclude the fallibility of man. If we extrapolate from this, we can say that it would be impossible for an individual or group of individuals to obtain the perfect information necessary to ideally centrally plan a society.
There is a propensity for 'experts' in their field to massage data to suit political or personal goals. Heart attack deaths are down, but COVID deaths are up. Some have suggested that this is due to selective reporting of deaths which would otherwise be cardiac arrests as COVID related deaths.
There's also the problem of the unseen. Even if the epidemiologists could have the perfect information in regards to controlling an outbreak, they wouldn't necessarily appreciate the economic or social implications of their mandates.
If we accept these limitations, we can say that greater information can be obtained via the network effects of decentralized decision making. This is the value of individualism which has allowed the west to flourish, whereas more communal cultures have been regressive. Of course this is all a very general overview.
>and now we're experiencing Covid spikes. I wonder why?
I'll ignore your cherry picking and refrain from picking an equivalent counter-example.
If we accept that the US has failed in managing the covid crisis, then we should just as readily ask if top-down planning has been effective. Instead you focus on the inverse.
Not to mention the statistical measures and statements from technocrats are all inline and consistent.
Your retort is the equivalent of flat earthers or fake moon landing conspiracy theories. Open your eyes.
>Not to mention the statistical measures and statements from technocrats are all inline and consistent.
Wear a mask, don't wear a mask. Cloth face coverings are sufficient. Cloth face coverings are not sufficient.
A paper debunking the use of hydroxychloroquine was retracted, as many studies are. Without a doubt, the issue has become politicized.
Human knowledge is imperfect. Science is a system of rational inquiry practiced by fallible humans, not a system of belief. Scientism would be the misuse of science as a system of belief. Typical of the theme, those who criticize scientism (and the annointed technocrats) are castigated as heretics and unbelievers.
Attempting to conflate my doubts about the effectiveness of technocratic management and central planning with flat eartherism is plain hyperbole. This kind of retort speaks to your inability to address the issue.
What would fact-checkers have said to Copernicus?
I gave you 3 contexts. Anecdotal, statistical and sayings from technocrats.
Statistical: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
Technocrats: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6498/1481
Anecdotal evidence was already provided to you.
>Wear a mask, don't wear a mask. Cloth face coverings are sufficient. Cloth face coverings are not sufficient.
Technocrats from China and the US were obviously divided about this. Sources of information can be wrong. But in this specific case I am providing you with 3 sources. Each consistent.
>Human knowledge is imperfect. Science is a system of rational inquiry practiced by fallible humans, not a system of belief. Scientism would be the misuse of science as a system of belief. Typical of the theme, those who criticize scientism (and the annointed technocrats) are castigated as heretics and unbelievers.
But it is more perfect then anything that can come out of you. If I have provided you evidence from three sources or even one source it is better than anything you can come up with. Right now the information I provided you is the best information we have. Similar to how the theory of gravity is the best theory we have for why things go down and not up.
>Attempting to conflate my doubts about the effectiveness of technocratic management and central planning with flat eartherism is plain hyperbole. This kind of retort speaks to your inability to address the issue.
No I am conflating your ability to ignore evidence and not present counter-evidence. All you do is just doubt doubt doubt. How can you doubt without evidence yourself? How is that scientific? It is not. You can just as well doubt the theory of gravity. There is no difference, and your bias makes you incapable of seeing that.
There are multiple lenses and sources and observers seeing what's going on in China both biased and unbiased. You have utilizes none of those sources, only choosing to doubt.
I have presented evidence. Where's yours?
>But it is more perfect then anything that can come out of you
How so?
>There are multiple lenses and sources and observers seeing what's going on in China both biased and unbiased
Everyone has a bias. Everyone's view is subjective by definition.
I'm not sure you've understood anything that I've written here.
Nothing can be proven. This is a property of science and reality. Even a scientific paper can't prove anything. What can be done is to say my hypothesis has more evidence and is more likely than your hypothesis to a significant degree.
This is how science works. We can say hey look this scientific paper has more rigor and accuracy than the opinions of a religious shaman in Africa because we understand the statistical rigor and science that is used by the scientific paper to gather evidence to support a conclusion. We also understand that the shaman in africa came to a conclusion getting high off some drug in his straw hut so we know one source is better than the other.
>>But it is more perfect then anything that can come out of you >How so?
You're not a credible source... You're not a scientific paper, you're not a statistic. You're just a person on the internet spouting off his opinions, not too far off from an African Shaman.
If I write a thesis can I cite "random person on the internet" as a source? No, I can't because you don't have the reputation or the scientific rigor to gather any evidence that's worth anything. You are not a "lens" into what's happening in China, because you yourself use other "lenses" to see what's going on. Your opinion and your information is only as good as the "lenses" you are using. Yet look at what information you provided me with. You provided me with no sources and a shitload of opinion thats it's pretty much useless.
Thus in order to give more credence to your statements you have to back them up with credible sources. You tell me which lens your using, why it's accurate and how it supports your conclusion... Which you have not done.
As a random person on the internet myself, my word is as useless as yours until I backed up my word with sources more credible than myself.... Which I have done.
>Everyone has a bias. Everyone's view is subjective by definition.
Underneath every viewpoint is the actual object being viewed. And that objective reality cannot be biased. But all observations of said object is done through a lens and that lens is biased.
But....
Some views are less biased than others. For example a scientific paper that statistically measures the amount of covid cases in China is less biased than a random person on the internet stating his useless opinion without evidence backing it up.
There can be cases where there are two scientific papers that come to opposite conclusions. In this case it's hard to tell which lens is more biased and which lens is more accurate. In this case no conclusion can easily be declared.
>I'm not sure you've understood anything that I've written here.
I understand everything you've written. You don't understand how to make a point and how to back it up and you don't understand science. You just view the world as a muddy: "everyone has a biased viewpoint" without truly understanding why and without truly understanding how to navigate such a world and make some "viewpoints" less biased than other "viewpoints."
Not to mention your viewpoints and lenses that you're using have led you to come to a deeply inaccurate and incorrect view of China. You realize the nobody can actually 100% prove to the flat earthers that the world is round? What they can do is present scientific evidence that makes a flat earth very very unlikely. That's it.
I can assure you, with my background and the sources I have presented to you, I can never prove my point to you, but I have certainly shown that my conclusion is quite accurate by presenting to you several angles of the same objective reality: The scientific angle, the anecdotal angle and the statistical angle.
Think about it, if Fox news can produce dozens of stupid people who don't know any better, how do you know the media isn't affecting you? It is. To people in the know... you look like a flat earther.
As a piece of non-formal advice: you really need to go to China to see the phenomenon that's happening there. The speed of Chinas' ascendence to power has never been seen in the history of civilization. It produces a country with a story more complex than the one sided viewpoint most HNers have. Really most of it is just pride. Nobody in the states likes to think of China as a country who will one day have a GDP that exceeds the US, so they need to make up some story to make China look worse. You can criticize your president but something that will really hit a nerve is if someone says that China is more powerful than the United States because it's really close to happening.
I thought you wanted to discuss the differences between individualism and a centrally planned society. Is that true, or were you primarily interested in nationalism and identity politics?
Pursuant to what I viewed as a noble discussion about these ideals, I attempted to sidestep your tribalism and focus on what I viewed as the crux of the issue.
Central planning requires perfect information to live up to its stated goals. Thus in any centrally planned society we see mishaps resulting from imperfect information wielded by central planners.
In contrast, decentralized systems based upon individualism and free markets are generally more resiliant to errors committed by individuals. Participants who have the _freedom_ to choose for themselves can observe errors committed by others and look for alternate solutions. Similarly, they can emulate successes they observe.
At the time, I felt that a succinct reply was sufficient to express these general concepts.
In response to these points you provide anecdotal evidence about your friend attending a wedding in China. While I am no mind reader, I could only assume that you were implying that the wedding was not canceled because of the superior central planning of the CCP. This is absurd on many levels.
First of all as I pointed out, China is a large country. There are lockdowns elsewhere. Week to week we see new lockdowns throughout the country. Even Beijing has had entire neighborhoods on lockdown. Head central planner Xi, has fled the capital.
We can also look to Sweden, where lockdowns were not mandated at all by the central authorities. Death rates there are normalizing.
Finally, if central planning equated to competent governance, then why did COVID-19 originate under the reign of central planners?
In your next comment you misuse the temporal sense and suggest that you have already given me three contexts. In this comment you provide a link to a COVID study and a map of COVID cases. Obviously, these data have no relation to the points expressed about technocracy or central planning.
>Nothing can be proven. This is a property of science and reality
The points made are philosophical. They can be challenged or even refuted logically. So far you have failed to do so. You haven't even approached the discussion. Observation can be part of this process, but strictly speaking this is not scientific.
Then you go on to hyperbole and debase yourself with ridiculous insults. Much of your rambling follow up is dedicated to the same. The greater part seeks to defend China from an imagined slight. I will entertain this digression.
China is not the CCP. Throughout this discussion you appear to conflate the two. This is an important distinction. You also make several inaccurate assumptions about myself, but I'll leave that to the side for now. In any strictly logical debate, the identity of the speaker should not play a role.
GDP is a self-gratifying statist metric preferred by technocrats the world over. The calculation of GDP justifies further government intervention in an economy. In the case of the west, this can be in the form of credit expansion. In the case of the CCP's centrally planned economy, this is much more direct.
GDP can be increased by simply paying workers to dig and fill holes. While this will increase GDP, it will not add any value to the economy. Similarly in China we see 'tofu buildings'. These kinds of projects may increase GDP, but they decrease the quality of life for market participants. Residents have been injured by these shoddy constructions. Markets are distorted and capital is misallocated, preventing entrepreneurs from contributing actual value.
Removing your hands from the neck of the patient is not the same as performing the Heimlich maneuver.
From this perspective it would be more fitting to applaud the increase in the standard of living of the Chinese people. The CCP is not responsible for this, they have stood in the way and continue to obstruct. Crediting the CCP for these increases is anti-Chinese. The Chinese people deserve credit for increasing their standard of living in spite of the obstructions of the CCP. Those individual entrepreneurs who have strived, survived and thrived while the party has attempted to milk them at every step deserve our applause.
Yes, I encourage you to travel and see the real China, to involve yourself in an entrepreneurial pursuit anywhere in this amazing world. I think this will give you a different perspective. Thanks for the discussion.
Nope. I'm just trying to teach you.
>Pursuant to what I viewed as a noble discussion about these ideals, I attempted to sidestep your tribalism and focus on what I viewed as the crux of the issue.
No. You don't get it. Your entire argument is tribal. You need to present evidence, you have none. Just statements of your own opinions.
>Central planning requires perfect information to live up to its stated goals. Thus in any centrally planned...
Again another opinion. With no offering of evidence. How about you give me a an example of a perfect system that doesn't need perfect information and then we can talk about the merits of central government. I really can't even cite an example of a government that doesn't require perfect information to be perfect. But go ahead, here's an opportunity for you to give me evidence to show me that I'm wrong.
>In contrast, decentralized systems based upon individualism and free markets are generally more resiliant to errors committed by individuals. Participants who have the _freedom_ to choose for themselves can observe errors committed by others and look for alternate solutions. Similarly, they can emulate successes they observe.
And what makes you say people behave this way? Where's your evidence? Again, another useless opinion because I have a different opinion: People are doomed to repeat history, people as a group mob function with as if they were a single person with an IQ of 80. My opinions differ from yours. Again your useless attempt to turn me requires evidence. There is no tribalism going on here. I am teaching you how to debate because you don't know how. All in all my real opinion is a hybrid of your opinion and mine. People are shades of both creating a story that is far more complex than your simple classifications of behavior. But again, who cares because no evidence.
>In response to these points you provide anecdotal evidence about your friend attending a wedding in China. While I am no mind reader, I could only assume that you were implying that the wedding was not canceled because of the superior central planning of the CCP. This is absurd on many levels.
No. I am presenting to you a piece of evidence. The evidence doesn't prove anything by itself, it just gives more credibility to something. The more evidence I present to you the more credibility is given to my hypothesis. So in total the evidence I presented to you were three in total: Technocratic, Anecdotal, and statistical. Each piece of evidence no doubt has different levels of quality and veracity but all three combined together form a consistent picture. No doubt, if I observe a friend going to a wedding in China it shows consistency with statistical evidence and news articles.
>First of all as I pointed out, China is a large country. There are lockdowns elsewhere. Week to week we see new lockdowns throughout the country. Even Beijing has had entire neighborhoods on lockdown. Head central planner Xi, has fled the capital.
Evidence. Please. Cite your sources.
>We can also look to Sweden, where lockdowns were not manda...
Cite your sources. Give me statistics. Numbers. You could be pulling all of this out of your ass.
>Finally, if central planning equated to competent governance, then why did COVID-19 originate under the reign of central planners?
Why do people have such simple minded views on issues that are startlingly more complex? I know why. It's because of pride. It's US vs. China and the US has to be better. Look, I don't equate central planning to better governance or worse governance or perfect governance. I never said this, you just assumed it. I equate it to alternative governance. If the US was an Orange then China would be an Apple. You're comparing Apples and Oranges.
For example how do you explain the massive growth China has experienced over the past decades where millions and millions of people are pulled out of poverty at a breakneck pace that has not been witnessed in the history of civilization? You're not wrong about about China's failures. But you have blinded yourself to the failures of your own government and the successes of China.
Regardless of your own opinion. China GDP is projected to surpass the GDP of the US within in your lifetime, this is fact.
>The points made are philosophical. They can be challenged or even refuted logically. So far you have failed to do so. You haven't even approac...
So philosophical points don't need evidence? No man. They do.
>They can be challenged or even refuted logically.
If you were actually logical you would know that in all of science and reality as we know it, nothing can be proven. Pure Logic is the domain of abstract maths, but in the real world as we know it, science requires evidence. Your logic must rest on a foundation and that foundation is called an axiom aka evidence.
>Observation can be part of this process, but strictly speaking this is not scientific.
This is not a logical statement. Observation HAS to be part of the process. Basically you're implying that conclusions and opinions can be formulated with ZERO observations about the world as we know it. How do you even know there's a global pandemic going on? You must've observed something.
Statements like the one you made indicate to me that you have an intense lack of logical and scientific maturity.
>Then you go on to hyperbole and debase yourself with ridiculous insults. Much of your rambling follow up is dedicated to the same. The greater part seeks to defend China from an imagined slight. I will entertain this digression.
I have not insulted you. Just stated facts. You take offense to the truth. For that I cannot help you.
I am not defending China. I am defending facts. I'm not blindly supporting China. I'm attacking the blind support of total freedom as if individualism is the perfect answer to the worlds problems. With Americas total fuck up of handling covid-19 we can easily see the price we pay for freedom.
Let me put it this way. My initial post is in support of a balanced narrative between individualism and central planning. The pros and cons of each.
>China is not the CCP. Throughout this discussion you appear to conflate the two. This is an important distinction. You also make several inaccurate assumptions about myself, but I'll leave that to the side for now. In any strictly logical debate, the identity of the speaker should not play a role.
Then we won't reveal our identities. But you need to note all logic rests on foundational axioms (aka evidence) and you have presented none. Therefore you are not acting logically nor are you acting scientifically.
As for China not being the CCP. There's really no point in stating this fact. Obviously the Chinese people are different from the Chinese government. I know this and you know I know this. I conflate the vocabulary but I assume you have the intelligence to know when I'm referring to one or the other. This is more of a jab at me for something that clearly you already know is not true (aka an insult).
>GDP is a self-gratifying statist metric preferred by technocrats the world over. The calculation of GDP justifies further government intervention in an economy. In the case of the west, this can be in the form of credit expansion. In the case of the CCP's centrally planned economy, this is much more direct.
True but unfortunately, it's the best quantitative metric available. It's a piece of evidence that correlates with the rising quality of life in China and is no doubt a slice of evidence that shows the benefits of central government.
>GDP can be increased by simply paying workers to dig and fill holes. While this will increase GDP, it will not add any value to the economy. Similarly in China we see 'tofu buildings'. These kinds of projects may increase GDP, but they decrease the quality of life for market participants. Residents have been injured by these shoddy constructions. Markets are distorted and capital is misallocated, preventing entrepreneurs from contributing actual value.
Doubtful this has much of an impact on overall GDP or the overall story of China. If it does you need to provide evidence. Which you have not.
>From this perspective it would be more fitting to applaud the increase in the standard of living of the Chinese people. The CCP is not responsible for this, they have stood in the way and continue to obstruct. Crediting the CCP for these increases is anti-Chinese. The Chinese people deserve credit for increasing their standard of living in spite of the obstructions of the CCP. Those individual entrepreneurs who have strived, survived and thrived while the party has attempted to milk them at every step deserve our applause.
Now who's going on a tangent? More opinions. Some I agree with some I don't, but again no evidence. So really I can present my opinion but everything will go in circles until someone presents evidence.
In my opinion the CCP and the people participated in the success of China overall. The CCP also, no doubt, hindered progress at times but the same could be said of any government and people. In fact those TOFU buildings you mentioned are the result of the lack of centralized control. Local officials gaming the rules because the central government don't have the power to stop them.
>Yes, I encourage you to travel and see the real China, to involve yourself in an entrepreneurial pursuit anywhere in this amazing world. I think this will give you a different perspective. Thanks for the discussion.
Why encourage me if I have already obviously done something similar (like living in China for years). I'm encouraging you because it appears to me that you have not even visited.
You could never know, because freedom of speech and the press doesn't exist there. The CCP jailed the doctors and experts who spoke up about the original Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in 2019, then proceeded to have a public banquet without social distancing or masks in the following weeks, and the CCP celebrated the fact that 40,000 families[1] showed up to it.
You say that the lack of freedom has been a good thing for handling the outbreak, but that lack of freedom stopped doctors and epidemiologists from learning more about the coronavirus outbreak while it could still be contained, and prevented them from informing and warning the world about it.
[1] https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/coronavirus-wuha...
I'm talking about the general handling of the epidemic. When china got serious, they killed it. When America tried to get serious they got people protesting that covid is a hoax.
There's some really stupid shit that china did like you brought up above, but overall in the big picture scheme of things... China did a really good job and the United States is bungling the whole situation.
Again, because of the lack of free speech and press in China, the only proof of what you allege publicized through CCP approved media.
Doubling down on authoritarianism and suppression of the press after initial authoritarianism allowed an epidemic to become a pandemic just suggests you can't trust the press in China without extensive independent auditing, which the CCP doesn't allow.
Lack of free speech is not the reason why this pandemic spread. The proof is in the United States. The United States "freedoms" including speech has allowed it to be #1 in covid-19 cases.
Additionally, I'm not even sure how your misguided reasoning works... Patient Zero has a disease, he covertly spreads it to 3 people who in turn also covertly spread it 3 people, the cycle continues... Where in this scenario of compounding growth does free speech stop a disease from being covertly spread?
Also China isn't stupid. They aren't North Korea. When there's a real problem in China they won't clamp down on the information and release propaganda that is completely ludicrous. In fact if covid-19 was still killing tons of people in China and the Chinese media was hiding it, the US would know because Chinese citizens have the freedom to talk to the press outside of their borders. Word gets out.
Either way, the US and US public was informed about the impending problem WELL before it arrived at our borders, we failed to take action for various reasons including the fact that we didn't need to do such a thing for SARS or ebola.... Everyone is still learning about covid.
>Again, because of the lack of free speech and press in China, the only proof of what you allege publicized through CCP approved media.
The CCP is not that powerful. Nor does their desire to preserve their own image become so ludicrous that they'll outright lie about the pandemic dying down for no reason. Your image of China is twisted. Yes they are authoritarian, yes they are fallible to human weaknesses, no they are not stupid, no they are not North Korea, and no they are not evil incarnate.
>That doesn't make authoritarianism something to be celebrated, that makes it something the CCP should be embarrassed of.
This statement is where the controversy lies. Do you want to be embarrassed about authoritarianism or are you more embarrassed about all the deaths occurring in the United States despite superior medical knowledge?
In New York City I read a story about a nurse in tears because she had to remove a respirator from an older patient to give a chance to a younger patient to live. They are choosing who lives and who dies in NYC because they don't have enough respirators.
The counterpart story in China was they built an entire hospital in a week to handle the crisis and now the hospital is mostly empty because the crisis is dying down.
It's kind of embarrassing that China wasted resources on building a hospital that is now empty. But you know what's more embarrassing? The fact that my own country can't build enough respirators and as a result a nurse has to choose between killing an older patient or a younger patient because some people have the freedom not to wear masks.
Take a look at this video and tell me which country should be embarrassed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f6-MDhygWc
Like literally every country is looking at the US and shaking their heads. This isn't just my opinion... it's an obvious fact and if you can't see this, then you're lying to yourself.
Freedom has a price, and we are paying that price right now with deaths and "embarrassment."
That reasoning sounds eerily close to the Reichstag Fire Decree.
These people are being detained by people with POLICE written on their vests, charged in front of a magistrate, and released. All the info is on the Portland website of arrests.
https://oregon.staterecords.org/multnomah
What civil liberty has been suspended?
Those are the violations of civil liberties we are discussing and this argument throws out.
You can even see who the arrest agency is and it includes federal agencies. Note that most of them have been released.
But up thread you claim that the people detained and placed in unmarked vehicles are listed there. I was wondering how you had determined that, or if you were assuming it to be true, or what.
It just demonstrates that some people detained in Portland have been detained by officers working under those entities.
People are asking for a federal mandate on masks, but at the same time want no federal enforcement of these laws? How about neither?
I hate seeing a world where “federal police” come in and squash local protests, and it bugs me that previously state rights advocates are calling for it.
I recall outraged partisans demanding federal intervention, while claiming that the ranchers were enjoying special privileges due to their race. I believe they called them "vanilla ISIS".
Of course individuals within any movement will vary, but generally speaking, partisans want to use the power of the state against their ideological opponents. When it is used against them, they predictably cry foul.
The problem is that people believe the protests in Portland are violent riots. They aren't. As long as people are manipulated so easily, I guess real policy discussions aren't going to happen.
The equivalence is the partisan hypocrisy. There are several sources citing violence in Portland. Even left leaning sources acknowledge this.
When you dismiss someone's view you disagree with as "manipulated", you illustrate the larger point I was making.
Here we are in 2020 and we've got camps trying to justify how violent protests are a "civil rights" or "free speech" issue instead of just agreeing and everyone saying "yeah - anyone can protest because we agree it's a right, but police can arrest anyone that does violence". We're forever complicating and conflating issues, adding layer upon layer of complexity, instead of simplifying. I think the analogy to software development is quite profound.
No police means maximum freedom quickly followed by complete Anarchy. Then back to some sort of restrictive government.
Maybe that means having a deescalation officer lead to thugs around I'm not sure but it's not have no police force.
Presumably the ones that make this call are hoping an ideological paramilitary arm (such as antifa) can fill the power vacuum left behind.
Those that want reform are asking for reform.
Don’t be gaslit.
Here are top results on Google for "defund the police."
“Defund the police” means reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies ...
“Defund the police” means reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipality.
"Defund the police" is a slogan that supports divesting funds from police departments and reallocating them to non-policing forms of public safety and community support, such as social services, youth services, housing, education, healthcare and other community resources.
Instead of funding a police department, a sizable chunk of a city's budget is invested in communities, especially marginalized ...
Police abolition means reducing, with the vision of eventually eliminating, our reliance on policing to secure our public safety. It ...
No sources in these results say "create a power vacuum". That is the invention of critics. Please demonstrate otherwise.
Public education has been defunded for decades, but we still have teachers and public schools, and their charter alternatives - that should be your mental model not abolishment of police.
This is, incidentally, probably the US left learning the Hillary Clinton Lesson. Detailed, costed proposals of what you want to do may be very practical, but people prefer a good slogan, and to leave the details to the detail people.
The people who are saying defund the police do want that literally, but they don't mean “reduce funding to zero”, they mean reduce funding and responsibility and transfer the bits that aren't optimally served by an armed paramilitary law enforcement force to be served by other agencies, who also get the associated funding.
There are people who take that a step further, who prefer the slogan “dismantle the police” or “abolish the police”. Mostly, like the “defund” group with which they overlap (these are variations rather than strict alternatives) they want to fund agencies that they see as more appropriate for the functions, but the dismantle/abolish group thinks that the kind of centralized armed groups with paramilitary organization that exist as local police departments aren't the right solution to any problems (except perhaps for large scale civil disorder, but we already have the national guard to respond to that, who don't do nearly as much to provoke that disorder in the first place), so they think all the functions of existing police departments should be transferred to other agencies (some of which might have arrest powers, and even armed agents, but those agents would be working for domain-specific agencies, not a massive centralized general-purpose paramilitary law enforcement agency.)
> Presumably the ones that make this call are hoping an ideological paramilitary arm (such as antifa) can fill the power vacuum left behind.
No, for the most part the defund/dismantle/abolish group thinks that the problem is centralized omnipresent paramilitary forces with a separate ideology and culture from the general society, not that we just need to swap one out for a different one.
> Those that want reform are asking for reform.
“Defund the police” and “dismantle/abolish the police” are approaches to reform of how society serves the functions currently served by the police. They are approaches differing from the counterproductive “reform” efforts that have led us where we are today because they don't involve shoveling more scarce resources and more responsibility into local centralized paramilitary law enforcement agencies.
This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.
(From the Hacker's Manifesto, 1986)
"Homeland Security" is a umbrella grouping of organizations that were independent pre-9/11 and who were combined after 9/11. Seemed like a good idea, at the time!8-))
When you're arrested you're arrested by someone from a particular agency: a Secret Service agent, a member of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Protective Service, the USDA, INS, etc. Creation of DHS "merely" brought 22 agencies under one umbrella for coordination. Of course, judgments and plans made in haste often age poorly.
I'm not saying DHS is a good thing but there's a better explanation than the alarmist "HS was destined to become a secret police force." See
"Break Up the Department of Homeland Security":
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/department-homel...
And remember Hanlon's Razor:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
IOW I think your corollary is precisely on point. Perhaps we should name it: "Romeo's Corollary to Hanlon's Razor" has a nice ring to it!