To Defund or Not to Defund
After the deaths of George Floyd, Briana Taylor and others, police have been the subject of public scrutiny for racism and the use of excessive force. This is nothing new.
Throughout history, there have been instances of the use of police force that has ended in tragedy. With public outrage at its peak, the questionable Black Lives Matter movement began in 2014 and started a rally cry for social change and accountability in law enforcement.
The “Defund the Police” movement followed urging funding to be taken from law enforcement agencies and disband them, instead using those funds for other forms of public safety that would not involve police such as: social and youth services, community resources and education. Unfortunately, this was not a good strategy as crime rates in places such as New York City and other places were people have called out for this approach, have soared.
It seems that mental health deterioration and poor local government policies have combined together to create a cocktail of disaster.
Defund the Police Debate
This concept of defunding the police has definitely been a hot topic of debate sparking controversy in public as well as political opinion. A survey showed the three-quarters of Americans see police brutality as a major problem but in a follow up survey showed that only 15 percent supported abolishing police departments and less than half supported reducing funds to police.
It seems that more people are rational and logical when it comes to their security and ensuring to have safety and peace in their local areas.
For officials, it is a debated on how monies should be allocated for public safety services. For the public, it is also a safety issue in regard to rising crime rates if funds to police or police staff are cut.
This debate crosses political lines as well, even though it should not. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, you want to make sure that you have safety and security. Any rational human being would want to make sure that they do not have to worry about execution style shootings like what is happening in Chicago or about looting and random muggings in their area.
Who Wants to Defund the Police?
Since the movement started, there has been a lot of fingers pointing as to which political party supports defunding the police.
The White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, made claims that President Biden and the Democratic party support funding of police because it is a part of the new rescue plan. She also stated that the Republican party wants to defund police because they oppose the new plan. What is extremely hilarious here is that it has been the exalted leaders of the left that have been leading the charge on defunding the police. For instance, AOC and a slew of others on the left cry out at every chance to defund the police.
In an interview with Fox news, Psaki defended her remarks regarding the GOP party and its stance on the new rescue plan and defunding police. When pressed to actually name a Republican who rejected the bill on the basis of defunding the police, Psaki did not have an answer.
Instead, she was quoted as saying. “I think actions speak louder than words,” she said. “If you oppose funding for the COPS program — something that was dramatically cut by the prior administration and many Republicans supported — and then you vote against a bill that has funding for the COPS program, we can let other people evaluate what that means. “It doesn’t require them to speak to it or to shout it out,” she added.
What she fails to mention is that that specific part of the bill is part of a larger bill and that larger bill may be absolute garbage and another way of spending more than the government has.
