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Comment by zepto | Hacker News Reader

Why would you want or expect the press to present a unified face?

I don't, and it would be very scary if it did. all I'm saying it's quite reasonable to be unsure what "defund the police" means. it's not at all clear that it has some generally accepted meaning.

I agree - it doesn’t have some generally accepted meaning.

Some people seem to mean ‘no police at all’ and some seem to mean ‘don’t task the police with trivial stuff’.

But why then would the right assume it means the former?

well for one thing, the conservative slogan "defund planned parenthood" really does mean (AFAIK) remove all ways planned parenthood could possibly get a dollar from the government. it's not inconsistent to interpret "defund the police" the same way.

but more generally, it's inevitable that the opposing side will interpret a vague slogan in the most negative and scary light possible. I suspect this is often by design, ie motte and bailey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Conservatives complained about Obama defunding the military too. They knew he didn't disband it.

Because apparently "the press" and "the left" are both homogenous things that are in cahoots with each other to... do... something?

I think the standard end to that sentence is "to destroy our democracy."

It’s a handy assumption when you want to use straw-man arguments.

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