Defunding the police

On weekends this board is dead as fried chicken!

Defunding is not a term I would use if I were pushing for change.

I have huge respect for what most police officers do. I appreciate they are under difficult conditions at times and mistakes are made.

But something has to change.

You may not have to worry about it....I know quite a few cops who are just going through the motions now...most will shut enforcement efforts down altogether. None know when the next person will resist, they only know it will happen... so why put themselves in that position.

marcag I've seen a couple of incidents of police violence in Montreal just in the last few weeks. Thankfully there is video of both or imagine the victims would be getting the short end of the stick having to go up against "a police offers word". By your statement this is an ongoing issue in Canada too?

I'm in a solid blue city and our city council asked for public comments on police defunding. Ended up being several hundred comments, I think maybe 10% were for defunding. I have no doubt republicans are eager to use it as a talking point, but I've see nothing that suggests defunding has widespread support from democratic leaders or voters.

The saddest part of the whole thing is how resistant many police officers and departments are to making any changes to improve accountability and the safety of the public. You would think there would be more openness and even suggestions to weed out bad apples and acquire training to deescalate issues instead of immediately beating the out of people. Had a university student here that was badly beaten by police, really messed up his face. Turned out it was a case of mistaken identity and who has time to ask for compliance these days. No amount of training will result in zero mistakes, but this resistance to improvement is a clear indication they are poor at their job, no wonder trust has waned.

yes, it's in Canada as well. There was an incident this week where RCMP officers shot a man with a knife, but how much of a threat he was is in question.

It happens here. Apparently it happens 4x less (per capita), but it happens. Then again the people our police deal with are less armed.

Where I walk the dog, they put up pictures of individuals shot by police with their story. I stopped and read every one. They all had something in common. They were all black but I think that's the choice of the people that put up the pictures. They all had mental health issues.

I am extremely supportive of the police. I want to see change but I do not blame the police. I blame the position they are put in.

There are police that abuse their power. No doubt about it. I do think there is a certain amount of protecting each other and lack of consequences when they do.

I have not seen any resistance to change here. I have heard from both the head of Ottawa and Montreal police and they are supportive of change.

BTW, I watched the video of the incident in Atlanta. The first few minutes show 2 very polite, calm officers. Not a hint of racism, arrogance, violence, tough guy attitude..... Nothing. It all goes down hill when the guy steals the tazer and fires it. I honestly don't know what I would have done.

Synon, honestly, that's a ridiculous comment. Policing is NOTHING like it was 33 years ago when I started. Use of force incidents are way down, police shootings are down, training is non-stop...all while the police have had to deal with more and more cases of mentally I'll people, and the rest if societal ills.How about some training for people on how not to resist arrest? That would literally save EVERY life if you can get people on board. Let me know when you think you've made some headway on that.

Edited by Left Brain 2020-06-14 4:37 PM

If it's so ridiculous then why did you just validate it? You listed some great improvements you've witnessed over the last 33 years, none of which would have taken place without a willingness to change. There is absolutely no reason why that can't continue. Policing 33 years from now hopefully won't look like policing from today, and if it doesn't we will continue to have protests and riots and people will continue to get hurt and killed.

Expecting others to change doesn't make you exempt.

Yep....we are going to continue to have protests of killings by the police as long as people fight the police....no resistings, no killings.....simple deal. Personal responsibility is an actual thing. If the guy in Atlanta had not decided to fight the police he'd have been at his daughters birthday party today....NO QUESTION. We can train and improve on and on....but we can't fix stupid....and , hopefully, we're going home to celebrate our kid's birthdays.....believe it.

Edited by Left Brain 2020-06-14 10:38 PM

LB, you made a comment in another thread mocking social media. In many ways I agree.

But it seems social media and citizens filming things are the only way to get any exposure to police abusing their power, even if it doesn't end in a fatality.

Some cops are on a "power trip" and there is no way Joe Citizen can do anything about it.

I agree this is a minority, but how do you make bad cops more accountable ?

Anyone see the irony of liberals blaming all cops over the actions of a small rogue minority?

Do you see the irony of blaming all liberals over the actions of a small rogue minority? We all know there are many good cops, but that doesn't excuse the behavior of the bad ones, and sometimes the good ones overstep their bounds and violate the rights of citizens. I can't think of a single situation where additional accountability is undesirable, not only to prevent wrongful death but all abuses of authority.

Your rhetorical question makes no sense. If I didn’t think it was wrong to blame all liberals for the actions of a few then my there is no loving or irony in my comment.

No one is trying to “excuse” anyone. That like saying “not everyone is a murder” excuses the crime of murder. The majority of cops are good cops and the majority of Americans support law enforcement. Demonizing the cops is doing nothing but divide the country and pizs off law abiding citizens. There is a growing, angry silent majority. Why are they silent? Because someone will burn their house down and they will be fired and harassed if they speak out. In less than 5 months these people will speak. I’m gonna so angry I will likely give 10x as much as I normally do to defeat every democrat on the ballot. Trust me, I am not alone.


This people aren’t po’d?

“Trump campaign touts 1 million ticket requests for Tulsa rally”

Biden couldn’t fill the stairwell to his basement!



Edited by Rogillio 2020-06-15 12:57 PM

Let 'em go.......this has never worked for libs in the history of liberals. 

It's how we got Nixon, Reagan, and Trump.....and soon Trump again.  And then I'm going to set everything around me to "record" because that day will be hysterical.  LOL

Edited by Left Brain 2020-06-15 1:20 PM

https://news.yahoo.com/new-yahoo-news-you-gov-poll-support-for-black...

Better make it 20x Rog. The silent majority may not be who you think it is, but who knows, maybe this will all be forgotten about by the time November rolls around.

Of course a Yahoo poll shows bad news for Trump. The silent majority is likely not going to answer polls at all or, if they do, will give the PC answer the pollster is looking for. President Trump has defended the police and law and order while liberals refuse to even take back Seattle. If you are a voter and see a city taken over by mobs and Antifa and run by warlords that will effect your vote. Sometimes you just need to turn off the news and the spin and polls and just think. Which party is most likely to restore law and order? Hint, it sure as hail ant the democrats. No one, and I mean 99.9% of people do not want to see their cities taken over by a mob of protestors. The images of the riots and mobs and looting and violence will be played over and over in campaign ads with democrats’ audio as the black drop supporting these protests and calls to defund the police. I still contend “defund the police” is the best campaign slogan democrats have ever come up with to help republicans win re-election. Regardless of what Dems think it means, the idea of “less police” during these violent times is frightening to most Americans.

Images of people being forced to kneel in front to BLM and others just galls me to no end. Put a gun to my head and ask me to kneel and you might as well pull the trigger because I’m not kneeling to no man. Images of democrats members of Congress kneeling will not play well come re-election. Who would vote for such a spineless coward?

I don’t care what the polls say, I predict am historic landslide in November. Bookmark this thread and I will either eat my words or take an I-told-you-so lap in November.

BTW, WTH is Biden? Did anyone tell him there is an election is less than 5 months?

In the last 5 months you had an impeachment, a pandemic, a national uprise on race and violence, a crash and a boom.

In the next 5 months you probably have enough time for a war, a bear and bull market, a natural disaster and a few sex scandals.

Nevertheless, people are making up their minds now! Those who send the Trump campaign $100 not are not likely to change their mind later now that they have an investment in the game.

Another benefit now is mailing/calling lists. The million people who signed up for the Trump rally gave their phone number and email address to sign up - wether they go to the rally or not. These are ‘likely’ Trump voters and the type of people you want to email and/or call for financial support. Contrast this to a basement podcast full of gaffs and democrats should be concerned. It will be interesting to see how big the crowds are for Biden when and if he ever comes out of his basement and starts campaigning. I’m looking forward to the debates. Biden has a hard enough time speaking coherently with a teleprompter or script. Be fun to watch him have to shoot from the hip for an hour or 2. Rest assured the Trump campaign is already compiling Biden quotes that Trump will throw in his face. As we’ve seen, Biden is very easily push to anger. This doesn’t bode well for him in the debates. Trump otoh is quick witted and great with the ad lib one-liners. Remember when Hillary said “If Trump were president....” and he finished he line with “You’d be in jail!” You cannot script this sort of thing. No amount of debate coaching can make up for a natural ability to ad lib. Gonna be a fun political season for sure.

You don't need to invent a narrative to explain the overwhelming shift from the poll Rog. Other polls show the same shift, it is what it is.

The less Biden has been in the public eye the more his poll numbers have gone up... LOL! Sad they couldn't come up with a stronger candidate, I think you're right, he is going to struggle badly with the debates. If Trump loses to Biden, yikes... pathetic comes to mind.

Well let’s just say the polls had Hillary up by as much as 10 points. Nuff said about polls.

10 points? Was that from a Trump tweet or something? Aggregate polls had her up in the 3-5% range, she won the popular vote by 2.1%. I'd imagine 1-3% is within the margin of error.

23-30% is not "margin of error" territory. Yeah, nuff said about polls.

Guess there wasn’t enough said.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/23/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump...


Hillary up by 12 points! Google is your friend. :-).


https://time.com/4546942/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-lead-poll/

Time magazine hah Hillary up by 14 points.

You cannot rewrite history.

BTW, the CNN poll was a poll of polls.

Look also at Trump’s “odds” of winning in 2016. It was a 65% chance of he winning....this was likely based on flawed polling.

Same thing is happening now. Pollsters have not figured out how to account for the “I’m gonna vote for Trump, but am not going to tell pollsters that” factor.


Not too that the CNN poll of polls was 2 weeks before the 2016 election!

Edited by Rogillio 2020-06-16 11:15 AM

And the USC/LA times poll had Trump up by 6% at the end of October 2016, hence the reason why I said aggregate, clearly that was an outlier. Maybe you think the multiple BLM polls that have showed similar shifts had a margin of error of 30%, but I doubt it.

Every year of election I watch a movie "Wag the Dog" (1997). I watched it with my partner again last night. It does not represent any specific party, it's just fun to watch and reflect. It also has a great team of actors (Deniro, Hoffman, Heche). It was done before social media, when only the TV had the power. I don't even want to imagine how this movie would be made nowadays

I take all polls with a grain of salt. For one, they don’t count people like me at all. I always just say I’lm not interested and hang up. Second, how you frame the questions effects the results and I simply do not trust most polling agencies. We all know the media is extremely biased. Why would anyone believe their polls are unbiased? Unless you look at the demographics of the polls the poll is meaningless. Most claim a cross section of society but that is NOT who votes. Older people are far more likely to vote than young people. I’d also venture to guess people who refuse to participate in polls are more likely to be conservatives than liberals. Lastly, polling is not a gauge of enthusiasm. Hard to poll how committed someone is to their position. It’s one thing to sit on your couch and say you plan to vote it’s a much different thing to register and go to the polls and stand in line for an hour or two to cast a vote.

Oh, I also don’t think “favorability” is a good metric either. One could have an unfavorable opinion of someone and vote for them anyway. Case is point, Pelosi. She stays at like 30% favorability yet gets reflected over and over.

Then of course, we don’t elect by popular vote. If polls wanted accuracy they would sample by county and weight the results against the electoral college.