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> so far in 2021 there have been more homicides in Portland than there were in 2017 and 2018 and we are on track for over 100 homicides this year

Out of curiosity, have any other items than "defund the police" happened in, say, March 2020 through the present, that might've affected crime rates?

Yes, the gun violence reduction team was disbanded. Since then the number of shootings has skyrocketed. Police are in such disarray and completely disrespected that they don't even go into certain neighborhoods anymore.

I'll be a bit more direct.

Claiming "defund the police" is the obvious cause of an increase in crime while completely ignoring the global pandemic and its economic/employment effects and their resulting impact on crime is confirmation bias.

OK, well reducing the police is hardly an appropriate action in the middle of a crime spike. Ted Wheeler said the shootings started trending up a few months before the disbanded the gun violence reduction team...so is that better or worse? The team was disbanded because the stats came out that almost half the people pulled over by the team were black...so it's immediately racist. However half of the shooting victims are black and more than half the suspects are black. The shootings occur in primarily black neighborhoods...which is where the team focused their efforts. I guess to avoid the perception of being racist they would rather get rid of something that was working and let people be killed.

Yes. High poverty is directly linked to an increase in crime. High unemployment leads to that.

Poverty is actually a quite weak predictor of crime rates once you condition on demographic factors such as percent single-parent households.

Thank you. Some of the poorest people I know are deeply moral. Indeed a poorly run home is the largest predictor - and too little (or too much) money does magnify the problem, poverty isn’t synonymous with crime.

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/google-shadow-bans-sear...

You are saying you would like people to actually improve the country, but are saying defunding the police counters that.

When people say they'll want to defund the police, they are not saying there should be no police. People want a different police. There are structural problems that are not easily fixed, as we have seen. Making a new police-like organisation from the ground up is a way to fix those structural problems. I'm not sure if I agree that is the best solution, but people that do are trying to improve the country that way.

In fact, all people that are protesting do want to improve the world. But they realise that they are held back. See climate change and inequality. Those problems cannot be fixed without getting the people in power to help.

Destroying inner cities is not helping. Pulling money away from the police in the middle of crime spiking and giving it to experimental task forces that have little in the way of experience is not a great idea. Portland just decided that to combat all of the shootings and crime happening in the city's parks they will add more unarmed park rangers. This should go well...

> Destroying inner cities is not helping.

I wholefully agree with you. That is harmful. Though, it is only a small subset of the people who are guilty of that. So we should speak to those people instead of the whole group that is critical of the current police force.

> Portland just decided that to combat all of the shootings and crime happening in the city's parks they will add more unarmed park rangers.

Well, you have got to start somewhere. That are structural problems in the police force which aren't going away anytime soon. We should do something about that. We've learned that arming police more certainly isn't helping.

I'll be surprised if, in 10 years, we wouldn't conclude that Portland's efforts were helpful to come to a solution to the problem. Solving problems, also what OP is talking about, is a long term effort.

Did you entirely forget about the 60s? Domestic unrest and geopolitical power aren't that tightly connected. People have been saying the West is "in decline" for decades and it's almost always by people looking at chance in society as being some kind of negative force. The "social change misinterpreted as cultural decline" is basically a meme at this point.

Hitler believed that America was in such moral decline that the country would be unable to unify and run any kind of large-scale war effort in Europe. The Nazis had a particular derision for jazz music, viewing it as a way for "undesirables" to corrupt and destroy society. Again, internal division and cultural change had little bearing on America's ability to move vast amounts of equipment and manpower to Europe when the country decided to.

> putting that time toward actually cleaning up neighborhoods or tutoring underprivileged youth

EDIT: Before you downvote what I say below, read about the Defund the Police movement. Start with the wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police

This is EXACTLY what the Defund Police movement is about. It's recognizing that half of city budgets are used for policing and some of those resources instead could be used to cleanup the neighborhoods and teach children.

If policing takes half the budget and nobody wants to raise taxes, then clearly to get resources to do other things, like teach underprivileged youth and cleanup neighborhoods, you must take away from some group, and since police take up such a HUGE part of the budget and they already do things they shouldn't be doing (like dealing with mental health issues), then it's clear we must reduce police budgets to free up resources.

EDIT: Before you downvote, take a moment to actually research why people are wanting to defund the police. And If I'm wrong, show me.

Here is the wikipedia page to start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police

Perhaps its not infighting?

Seriously. While we were pretending that communism was defeated and the Cold War has been over since 1989, the CCP has infiltrated western corporations, institutions, and schools right under our noses. Lord knows what sort of havoc they have instigated and what IP they have stolen.

> When you look at the infighting within the US that is front page news every day...the decline is in full swing.

I don’t see how there’s any other option either. At this point there a multiple “factions” who’s end vision of society is actively hostile to certain other factions.

> At this point there a multiple “factions” who’s end vision of society is actively hostile to certain other factions.

Some time ago there was even an active shooting war between US factions, and yet the country still was ascendant afterwards.

Sure, when the nation was still pretty young and the world was much different with many great powers, there was a civil war. Do you really think the US could maintain dominance if half the nation went to war with itself again, in more modern times? Not that I think any future conflict would be remotely similar.

> Do you really think the US could maintain dominance if half the nation went to war with itself again, in more modern times?

No, not really. But... I don’t really have any way of knowing. I just have to remind myself that, as ugly as it has gotten, it used to be a whole lot worse, and we survived and thrived, and so maybe we can do it again.

So, you’re suggesting that the USA is in decline because marginalized groups are demanding equal treatment?

I’ll agree that police violence is a symptom of much larger systemic issues, but you seem to be implying that the larger systemic issue is... people are unhappy with the USA and they should stop being unhappy and support the USA.

Have you considered why they might be unhappy, why they may very well have legitimate grievances?

Perhaps we can strengthen our union by addressing these centuries old grievances? My understanding of your post is, you just want them to stop complaining without doing anything to help them.

> So, you’re suggesting that the USA is in decline because marginalized groups are demanding equal treatment?

Some demand equal treatment, some demand better treatment and other not only accept their life-style, but to consider their niche life-style as something more desirable than an average life style.

> but to consider their niche life-style as something more desirable than an average life style.

I don't see how this follows as a rebuttal of the gp comment, if anything it says (to me) that the US is _not_ in decline because we're willing and able to have conversations and make progress on what should be accepted in modern society. This comment feels like a soapbox to me rather than contributing to any sort of discussion, because nobody can comment on _what_ groups you're referring to, and there are no sources to be had. Very disappointing.

The way it's being done is the problem. No one can have a discussion about things anymore. It does us no good to be living on the moral high ground as our borders are invaded and our technology stolen. I'm not saying people shouldn't be treated equally...however the actions of a few don't speak for the entire country (this goes for bigots, radical islamists, mass shooters, rogue police officers and many others). Everyone loves to be offended by something now...but it's not the majority and passing more laws won't make people less racist.