Hacker News Reader

Comment by praestigiare | Hacker News Reader

Whether you agree with it or not, the purpose is to remove funds from police, which many believe is a positive outcome. Look at police budgets, how that money is spent, how it affects communities to have 60-80% of their tax money go to police. Again, you may disagree, but removing money from the police is the point of the slogan.

View on HN

The point is that "defund" means "remove all funding from", not "remove some funding from". The person carrying the sign in this photo doesn't want 20% fewer abortions, they want abortions to stop altogether:

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12189446/mike-pence-planned-pa...

I live round the corner from a UK housing estate with a drugs problem. I very often deeply wish that 60-80% of my local tax money would go to the police.

I often also frankly wish that 10% of it would fund a Sharia-style hangman, but perhaps that is my inner misanthrope.

The US drug war is an abject failure, despite very generous and ever-increasing funding. Why would you think it'd work substantially better in the UK?

The point of "defund the police" is that that funding would be better used in treating the underlying causes of said drugs problem.

Here's a simple test: if half of the funds that go today to the police would simply be wasted (say, they go to a "Trump foundation" where Trump may use them as he pleases) - would you consider that a "win"? If not, your primary goal is not "defund the police", it is better allocation of funds

It's a bit late to reply, but I do think that would be a win, if not as great a win as using the money elsewhere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com