Horse Sense

First off, for most people who support and chant “defund the police,” it’s not literally about eliminating police departments. Second, despite what fuckers like Tucker will repeatedly tell you, President Biden has NEVER expressed support for “defunding the police” or eliminating police. Even though it’s on public record, Republicans keep lying about it.

A lot of Democrats have criticized the slogan and movement. Despite that, Republicans have used it against them and will continue to do so. Fuck facts, right? They’re Republicans.

“Defund the Police” is mostly a slogan while there are more serious efforts to reduce funding and restructure police departments in addition to redistributing police responsibilities to other government agencies. Slogans that are more than three words just are not as catchy. Ever been to a Trump rally? “Lock her up,” “space force,” “build the wall,” “send them back,” “save whitey,” “I got crabs,” are all catchy and extremely limited. For the Black Lives Matter movement, “defund the police” is catchier than “reduce police department budgets so they stop buying tanks and rocket launchers.”

A 2020 study by The Washington Post showed that since 1960, around the time cops were buying water hoses and billy clubs for crowd control on black Americans protesting against discrimination and for civil rights, police spending has increased 800 percent while there’s been a minuscule drop in the national crime rate.

As for redistributing responsibilities for the police, why are they in charge of homelessness, mental health, and substance abuse? Did you know that one in four people killed by cops suffers from severe mental illness? Taking money from cops so they can’t buy bazookas, and giving it to more capable agencies, like mental health counseling, is a good idea. Maybe we can chant “demilitarize the police?” Too many syllables?

In case you’re a Republican, a syllable is a unit of pronunciation having more than one vowel sound without surrounding consonants. “Demilitarize” has five syllables. Notice that each syllable has at least one vowel. Vowels are the letters a, e, i, o, u. Tomorrow, we’ll do consonants. Anyway, nobody’s going to chant it.

Most people don’t support defunding the police or even reallocating resources and responsiblities. But most people don’t understand what they’re talking about on this issue. A lot of them are being lied to. Lies work. For example, Virginia made Glenn Youngkin governor over fear of something that doesn’t exist. Now, we have book burnings in Virginia. It’s shit like this that makes me turn off the news on Saturdays and watch something like “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.”

Donald Trump leads the way for Republicans lying about where Democrats stand on defunding the police. He tweeted, before he got banned for using Twitter to coordinate a terrorist attack to destroy our democracy and constitution, “The Radical Left Democrats new theme is ‘Defund the Police.’ Remember that when you don’t want Crime, especially against you and your family. This is where Sleepy Joe is being dragged by the socialists. I am the complete opposite, more money for Law Enforcement!” he tapped off the tweet with a hashtag about law and order, which is another example of Republicans missing the irony. Also, looking at how Trump needed to capitalize “radical,” “left,” “crime” and “law enforcement” makes me think we need to reallocate money from cops and into educating old crusty-ass racist orange politicians.

But the reality is that a majority of Democrats don’t support defunding the police. President Biden is totally opposed to defunding police and is in favor or reform.

Bernie Sanders, who nobody will argue is a moderate, is also opposed to defunding police and has spoken out for more accountability from police, along with better education and training, and making their job better defined. Republicans are probably against all that too.

Senator Cory Booker said he understood the sentiment behind the slogan but would not use it.

Congressional Caucus chair Karen Black said, “”I do think that, in cities, in states, we need to look at how we are spending the resources and invest more in our communities. Maybe this is an opportunity to re-envision public safety.” Pfft. Republicans don’t want to do that.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said, “‘Defund the police’ is killing our party, and we’ve got to stop it.” Clyburn compared the slogan “defund the police” to “burn, baby, burn” used in the 1960s which many believe alienated and undermined support for the Civil Rights Movement.

“Defund the police” has been credited for Democrats losing House seats in 2020. It may have saved a few Republican Senate seats as well. Republicans are much better at messaging than Democrats, even if they are all lies.

While Republicans argue against defunding the police, they support the white nationalists who wounded Capitol Police during their insurrection, accused one of the cops of murdering one of their terrorists when he “stood his ground” and shot her as she was attempting to break into the Speaker’s office, and the GOP voted against awarding medals to the Capitol Police. Irony, irony, irony, motherfuckers.

Where do Republicans in Congress stand on defunding the Capitol Police Department? Maybe they’re not needed since Lauren Boebert is bringing a gun to the House Floor every day.

While cops are arguing against any reform, they also support white vigilantes. In Kenosha, they patted racist vigilantes on the back, gave them water, and drove by past Kyle Rittenhouse very slowly after he had just shot three people, killing two of them.

Kyle Rittenhouse wasn’t even tried for being a vigilante as the judge in his case accepted before the trial that he was in Kenosha to clean graffiti and offer medical assistance he wasn’t qualified to give. The judge decided the gun he couldn’t purchase legally was legal for him to skulk around the city with. The judge never questioned why graffiti could only be cleaned after Kyle’s curfew. The judge never questioned if the person Kyle shot was possibly defending himself. If Kyle can claim self-defense because the guy he killed pulled out a gun, then why couldn’t the person he shot make the same claim. In case you forgot, Kyle already had his gun out. And if it was legal in Wisconsin for Kyle to terrorize people with a gun at his age, then why isn’t it legal in that state for Kyle to buy the gun? Did Wisconsin become Florida?

My point with that is, the judge and the jury, joined the Kenosha Police Department in supporting vigilantes. If we’re going to bring in vigilantes, and the cops are going to ignore when they kill people, then why do we need cops? Maybe we can just defund and get rid of the racist cops? What’s that you say? Then there won’t be any cops?

The real irony is we need to defund the police so we can fund some police to police the police.

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