Dominos continue to fall, as protests turned into riots, devolved back into protests, and are followed by Democrat calls to “defund,” “disband,” federalize, and radically reform America’s police forces. Three questions loom, after violence in 200 cities.
First, while assuring police accountability, including better training, strategic deployment, and ending persistent racism, how does defunding police ever increase public safety?
Truth is laws are paper. They carry only as much weight as a society gives them. If they are not abided and enforced, they are worthless. That is why no civil society in history based on laws ever existed without police. Still, Democrat leaders push the idea – harkening to House efforts to defund ICE – that police should be defunded.
For those who think this is a political canard, advanced but not seriously, think again. If the idea is nonsensical, it is gaining steam. The Los Angeles Times reported calls “for defunding the police” are spreading.
In Seattle “authorities boarded up and vacated” a police precinct, allowing armed protestors to hold an “autonomous zone,” triggering memories of the armed “autonomous zone” held by FARC terrorists in Colombia – two decades ago.
In Portland, Oregon, a white female police chief was forced to resign, untrained civilians dispatched to answer police calls, a dangerous experiment. The city’s council members are calling for “revolution,” involving deep cuts to police.
In Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed by a white police officer, defunding police is real. “Nine city council members, including Jeremiah Ellison, the son of state Attorney General Keith Ellison, who declared his support for Antifa, spoke at a protest …” pushing “to end policing as we know it.”
Notably, Keith Ellison is not without past controversy. He gained national attention between 2006 and 2019, as the first Muslim in Congress and then as outspoken deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee.
In New York City, 300 officers have been injured, 600 are suddenly retiring, and Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio announced he will “accede to protesters’ demands” to “shift funds away from the NYPD toward youth and social services.”
This move begs the question how New York’s police force will continue to be funded at current levels. See, https://www.foxnews.com/us/defund-police-george-floyd-protest-reforms-new-york-los-angeles-minneapolis. The city has 38,000 police to secure 8.2 million residents, plus 1.2 million illegal aliens.
In Los Angeles, Democrat Mayor Eric Garcetti said he will cut $100 to $250 million from police, a city with 9000 officers keeping peace for four million residents. The city has an added one million illegal aliens.
In Washington DC, the Mayor’s decision to paint a street with “Black Lives Matter” was followed by protestors painting “Defund the Police,” which the Mayor refuses to remove.
Over strenuous objections, the DC Council passed a no-hearing, no-comment “reform bill,” leading the police union to say: “It is beyond comprehension that an entire deliberative body of legislators would so hastily make such extreme changes without the proper input and review,” adding “what we saw today was a disservice to the citizens of the District of Columbia who have been plagued with violent crime for years.”
So, how would cutting police nationwide make the country, including black neighborhoods – more secure? Short answer: It would not. If more training, community policing, improved recruiting, public disclosure of complaints, ending chokeholds and no-knock warrants might, “ending police as we know it” and “defunding” the police would not.
Second question: How does the unrest, including violent riots causing billions in damage – burning black businesses – translate politically? How does defunding or federalizing as House legislation aims to, resonate with voters?
Short answer: Not well. As a strong indication of how far Democrats are estranged from struggling Americans, recent polls present a stark contrast. On one hand, Democrat leaders support defunding police, dodge the question, or – like presumptive nominee Joe Biden – are all over the board. Initially saying police “escalate tension,” he has now decided to up-fund them. See, e.g. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/02/joe-biden-appears-blame-police-for-riots-they-escalate-tension/; https://nypost.com/2020/06/09/biden-police-funds-should-be-tied-to-basic-standards-of-decency/.
Meantime, the latest national polls show defunding police is not popular. A Yahoo/YouGov poll released June 9 revealed “about 85 percent of Americans across party lines do not support defunding the police.” One report: “The overwhelming majority of Americans do not want police departments defunded, despite widespread calls by the far-left Democrats to do so.” See: https://spectrumreport.com/poll-85-of-americans-dont-want-to-defund-police/.
Separately, on June 12, an ABC/Ipsos poll found “strong majorities of Americans oppose the movement to ‘defund the police’ and some of its most significant goals, specifically reshuffling funding away from law enforcement to support mental health, housing and education programs.” In fact, “nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose calls for defunding police departments …See: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/64-americans-oppose-defund-police-movement-key-goals/story?id=71202300
All this just highlights what Democrats face – including Joe Biden’s campaign – as they approach November. They must satisfy wild-eyed socialists while holding a center increasingly unaligned with their new leftist party.
The “defund police” movement is only the latest. A profound crisis afflicts Democrats. They must either accommodate radical leftists in their ranks, or risk those same leftists staying home or supporting a third-party candidate. So, how does defunding police and radicalization play? For most, not well.
Third question: Unasked in recent DC violence is a question that deserves answering. Lost in coverage of painted streets, clearing of Lafayette Park, statements by the President, Mayor, Joint Chiefs and Attorney General Barr, is a simple question: Why, if the unrest was about justice, violence directed at the police, did rioters target and burn a church?
On June 2, officials reviewed what happened on the streets of DC. Beyond torching businesses, threatening police and the White House, the movement burned a church that – with much media fuming – the President later visited. It is historic, attended by every president, including Obama.
While debate rages over the President’s walk across the park to this burned church, no news outlet asked the question: Why would a peaceful, racial justice movement cover a church in graffiti and burn it? Does that not tell us something about the movement, or those who hijacked it?
Having walked through ruins of burned churches in Kosovo, a nation we sought to stabilize, allow me to say a burned church is a very sad place. When lost souls, spurred by ethnic hatred, violent atheism, or radical socialist dogma, deliberately burn a church, something is deeply wrong.
The question is two-fold: Why did violent rioters deface and burn the church? Why did the press not ask that question? The answer to part one is that forces behind the riots were more interested in chaos, perhaps ideologically opposed to faith. The answer to part two is tougher. In the rush to condemn Trump’s visit, one might wonder – why was the church targeted? No one in the media wondered.
So, three questions linger: How would defunding police make us secure? How do Democrats support a policy two-thirds of America opposes? And how did we end up discussing a visit to a burned DC church, without asking why the church was burned? Sometimes, when all else fails, asking the obvious works.
Removing police is like letting the fox guard the chicken coop. Why do blacks and brainwashed young want cops gone. Well any idiot knows then the criminals can have a field day. But that is not the real story. Liberals including democrats are cheering on the violent riots and paying the usefull idiots to do it. Blm and antifa are paided to riot. Most of the leaders are known. Arrest them and charge them with sedition first then the lesser crimes. It is time to get serious and deal with them. And make them clean up their mess. And make the funders buy new statues and public landmarks. Hell I am ready to start shooting these people. Where is the law? Arrest the mayors, governors and city county officials for failing to protect their people.
Again where is the law in these liberal run jungles???? The militia will be becoming a real possibility very soon.
Fewer police will result in fewer crimes. If the police don’t show up to write a report has a crime been committed? If half the current number of calls for help go unanswered then the official crime rate will drop accordingly. See, de-funding really does work.
Defunding the police is a ridiculous idea! Training and better standards are the answer to “brutality “. “Citizens “ need to realise: you don’t fight or run from the police! Racism is a much bigger and deeper problem.
The USA should not concentrate all the local police forces into a national police force. A national police force would make it easy for a political party to abuse its power and go after any person or organization that does not believe in its platform. The Obama Administration’s abuse of power by using the IRS, State Department, Justice Department, the CIA, and the FBI to pursue any group with differing political opinions should not be allowed to happen again.
I hope people think more about defund all police. I would imagine that more than half of citizens have called on police at one time in their life to take care of a problem. And what good did burning down the Minneapolis; police station & Wendy’s in Atlanta do for Americans to unite and help this nation to get back on track. United we stand, divided we fall.
Just look at history, specifically Nazi Germany. Don’t think it can’t happen here. America is changing rapidly. Our best days are definitely NOT ahead of us.
this is what happens when we take GOD out of the pictures !!!!
This entire situation is getting out of control. This happened when Obama was in office. At Louis was destroyed. If you take a good long look into this problem you can see it has always been in the cities run by democrats. Every time something happens it is in the cities where the democrats control the people. People have been under their control for 50 years. Every city that falls under democrats fails and does it miserably. All you have to do is look at history. It is not hard to pin point when it happened. Take Flint and Detroit for example. They were the auto capital of the world. In Flint alone they employed more than 100k employees. People don’t look at that. Buick city may have been close to that number on its own. You bring the dem’s in and they turn the city into a welfare city. Section 8 housing bussing every where. When you pay for people to live in an apartment there is no ambition to keep it up. You can’t give everyone FREE stuff. It ruins theri character and drivw. You create a city of depressing dependant population. It have to stop. You have to give people a feeling of self worth. Which has not been happening for many years. It starts at home, if you have parents that could careless about the outside environment what do you think the children will care about. The Democratic party has been demoralizing the middle class and making a larger base of lower class people for about 75 years. That is why you always hear the rich get richer. They make it happen that way. Time to stop it.
The left is pulling out allthe stopstotry and defeat President Trump. They are pushing for total anarchy which of course they’ll blame on President Trump. But of course there was not even a hiccup for President Obama’s total wickedness in his time in office!!!
I agree with what Eric said.
The left has been trying to take our guns for years. After all, they can’t control an armed society like the want. Their efforts cannot be accomplished as long as there are individual police chiefs elected by local voters or those appointed in conservative localities, because those chiefs will continue to support their oath to defend the constitution and our 2nd amendment rights. Next step, then, is to rid the country of those individual police units, so they can be replaced with a federal force. That, of course, will happen when crime increases as police forces are defunded and dismantled and citizens start calling for the federal government to do something. While Trump is President, he is attempting to follow the constitution and wait for the state governments to ask for help so as not to set a precedent of overpowering states rights with the federal government (federalizing the police). The Democrat leaders, by causing the local police to stand down during these riots are hoping for Trump to cave to pressure and rush in uninvited with federal troops, thereby setting the precedent for a future Democrat President to create a federal police force dismantling all local forces and taking away the protections of our constitutional rights.
Short and sweet: The American police officer will not confiscate firearms from private citizens. You have to clear the way for someone else to do it. Constitution prevents US military. I propose UN troops will be called in to quell rioting and in turn collect firearms.
More money for the Kennedy Center, the arts, and ice cream for Pelosi. Those are the idiots we have to contend with. It is a deliberate attempt based on greed and the power hungry to destroy our constitution and way of life. There is no attempt by our home grown communist party (democrats) to work towards a solution. Why? They seem intent on destroying anyone or anything in order to fundamentally change (destroy) our country. Would like to see 48 states go for Trump and the other 2 can go to …. We all go through sexual harassment training on the job, we need to make the same type of emphasis for equal, fair, and un-prejudicial treatment for all. Training that would be beneficial for all that can affect other people’s lives, police, courts,financial institutions. I love my police and I love my fellow man and I hope that will someday be a majority position. The “democrats” I would be happy to visit and send them cookies to whatever Federal Prison they may occupy. Pelosi, I won’t forget your ice cream, but remember you will have to share.
All lives matter, burning,looting, defunding the police , NONE of those are the solution. Respect life, respect others, work at removing the divisive policies of the establishment politicians .
The democrats and their 50 years of lying to their base is the problem.
I believe that it is time for everyone stand up and demand that all this insanity be stopped, by military force if that is what it takes. The President can stop this and I hope he will. People act like they don’t have a mind of their own that they are to do what anyone says. We need more police to protect us from idiots that are doing this to America. Fight for our rights like our forefathers did and quit being complacent before we have a Communist rule.
I think de-funding our police is stupid and makes no sense. De-funding police will only increase the number of those who will carry a firearm for protection of self and loved ones. America will turn into the middle east. The leftist in America with with the aid of mainstream media are doing everything they can to destroy the greatest country on earth.
The only solution to the problem of overkill by the police is to disarm them all and teach them the Vulcan neck pinch. No creature in the universe with a neck can oppose them!
maybe a mandatory psychological evaluation every three years. But for now ENFORCE THE LAWS WE ALREADY HAVE!!!!!
Robt. B. Charles’s article: excellent-“right on”. Thank AMAC for keeping us informed with TRUTHS!
I fear for the first time that cooler heads will not prevail. This insanity is frightening. I am helpless to do anything about it.