It was always a false dichotomy.
The core issue was America needing better and more accountable policing.
"Defunding" the police was an extremist, fringe position that hijacked the situation.
The core issue was America needing better and more accountable policing.
"Defunding" the police was an extremist, fringe position that hijacked the situation.
I think it sounded extremist and fringe, if you assumed it meant completely gutting their budget and placing police officers on a trebuchet aimed at the nearest shoreline.
But the actual "Defund the Police" proposal tried to shift some of that funding to non-armed responders, to better community services, and other things that have been proven to work better at improving outcomes and preventing crimes than a man with a gun showing up to deal with every conceivable scenario that someone found unpleasant.
NYT, June 12, 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...
Barely mattered what it was, it just had to be Good Enough for a judge (sometimes another high school kid who was grabbed out of the hall) to accept.
No, defund the police means defund the police... not defund some subsection of policing to fund another new section of policing.
"Defund the police" is as hilarious as it is backwards as a statement.
less beating of black men? accountability.
more convictions of thieves? accountability.
more presence in disorderly areas? accountability.
equality before the law? accountability.
Pick anything you want, any political position, and if the cops are unaccountable, its a dead letter. Except for one: no more cops.
"defunding" is, perhaps, the worst political slogan I've heard of in my _life_, as it implies yeeting the cops out of the city, with prejudice. Most people didn't want that. (Some did). So that was a cluster.
I think that all Americans need to step out of their houses and shake hands with their neighbors, look around, and realize we live next to each other, all of us. And we have to make this a society we can all live in, rather than griping online.
It isn't a false dichotomy, but simply a difference in interpreting what the core issue is. Some believe the police can't be reformed and can't be held accountable, because the core issue is systemic racism and white supremacy, and the only option is to tear the entire system down and rebuild it from scratch around truly anti-racist principles.
Obviously if you don't accept the thesis, you can't accept the conclusion.