[ExI] Seattle's defund the police plan: Minor changes

[Dan TheBookMan]

See: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/23/us/seattle-city-council-overrides-mayor-trnd/index.html

This isn't anywhere close to what most protesters mean by defunding.
You might say it's better than nothing, and it shows the council is
willing to stand up to the mayor. You might say whatever people
protest for, they're not ever likely to get anything more than a
middle ground. But let's not kid ourselves saying this is full on
defunding. (To be sure, there's a range of defunding levels and
strategies, but I'm sure none of you here believe, say, a less than 2%
cut in the budget the first year is defunding. I think after that it
amounts to -- if they stick to the cuts and don't increase the budget
on top of them -- less than a 5% cut. If you believe that's defunding,
then you must think a 10% cut would be total abolition.)

By the way, reading up more on defunding the police, I think it's a
misnomer to call what happened in Camden, NJ defunding -- at least in
terms of how defunding is used by most people. Defunding usually means
slashing a good chunk of the police budget (which is why Seattle's
defunding plan seems anemic by comparison with others) and
reallocating those resources to other agencies -- usually social
services and the like.

What happened in Camden was actually _abolishing_ the police, then
reconstituting it. That's a bit different and more radical. Now this
isn't the same as what advocates of police abolition want either: they
don't want abolition followed by reconstitution. By analogy, that
would be like abolishing slavery and then coming up with a new system
of slavery. In the end, you'd still have a slave system even if there
have been some modifications. Those who call for police abolition
really want no replacements -- just like those who called for
abolishing slavery didn't merely want a new and improved slave system.
(This is John's chance to ignore the whole post and respond as if I
conflated police abolition with defunding.:)

Regards,

Dan
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