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Tana Ganeva's avatar

Thank you!!!! My fallback is self-deprecation. Not sure if it's good humility or the Patriarchy. Who knows?

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Sep 5, 2023
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Tana Ganeva's avatar

That's true. Ugh but also, I do not like mean, arrogant people.

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Alex's avatar

This is an extremely stupid take.

Obviously, police shouldn’t do everything. Police should do what they are effective at, and not do what they aren’t effective at.

This isn’t particularly profound. Calling this concept ‘defunding the police’ is just silly.

You point to a woman who died because of police cowardice in not stopping a homicidal armed man. Should they have sent social workers or economists instead?

No, that was a case where an armed police response – or at least some sort of armed response, government or civilian – was necessary. The fact that the police were cowardly, useless, and poorly trained doesn’t change that.

Criminality isn’t always, or even usually, the result of poverty. And the same character traits that lead to senseless crimes also contribute to poverty. The police are certainly flawed, as any human organizations are, but ‘defund the police’ is an incoherent concept.

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Rachael A Horning's avatar

You do realize from where the concept “defund” was taken for use in this context “right?”

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Alex's avatar

Enlighten me?

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Rachael A Horning's avatar

Hmmm...I shouldn’t bother expending the effort since you’re such an asshole, but I was curious after this about just how far back I could remember calls for “defunding” basically everything they could get their hands on was the favorite conservative buzzword...

For some reason (I have a life) I couldn’t put my hands on the Powell Memo immediately so I threw it at google and just found the oldest date I could on the 1st page, ‘85:

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/02/weekinreview/conservatives-demand-a-defunding-of-the-left.html

Maybe take a file to that thing on your shoulder, it’s gotta be heavy.

🖤

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Alex's avatar

You made the claim that "“defunding” is the specific language the republican machine has been using for 40+ years to describe the project it’s been undertaking to dismantle the public education system."

To justify this claim, you brought up a NYT article from 40 years ago talking about defunding...'the left.'

More specifically, defunding certain social science institutes in public universities.

Of course, public education and academic research institutes are very different things.

You'll notice that most people on left simply have no concept of 'truth' and 'falsehood.' Because your'e a lefty, you no doubt hang out with people who share the same fundamental personality trait that you do. So when you call me an 'asshole,' it's because I call out the outrageous falsehood you wrote above, and you don't like that because you aren't used to it.

Hanging out with lefties, as you presumably do, you can lie and speak falsehood all day, and everyone in your peer group will generally accept it and agree with you.

(note that intellectual honesty is core to actually having a net positive impact on the world, and is thus core to actually being a good human being)

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Tana Ganeva's avatar

I'm very confused by your critique. What NYT article from 40 years ago?

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Alex's avatar

In the comment I replied to, Rachel posted a NYT article from 1983.

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Alex's avatar

I've followed politics pretty closely since I was in middle school.

I've never once seen this term used to advocate for defunding public education. Perhaps defunding the federal Department of Education, but that's a totally different idea; it's a proposal to return power over education back to a more local level.

It's telling that you can't in any way rebut my absolutely valid claim above, other than by conjuring up a totally ficticious tangent.

It's worth emphasizing that there are literally no intelligent, honest, and thoughtful people on the left anymore. Every single person not horrified by what the left has become lacks at least one of these qualities; most lack all of them. This isn't an exaggeration; it's literally true. Sometimes they can accurately point out problems, but they are terrible at crafting durable solutions that do not create larger problems. The task of creating working solutions is orders of magnitude more difficult, and a far better test of one's intelligence and honesty, than pointing out problems.

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Rachael A Horning's avatar

If you haven’t heard conservatives hollering about defunding the public schools then you’re being dishonest about how closely you’ve followed politics and I don’t know what to tell you. The 1st time I heard it might’ve been the Powell Memo all the way back in the 70’s.

You might want to check your blood pressure.

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sheila hand's avatar

Un be FUCKING lievable!!!

Well sadly, not 😟🥵

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Rachael A Horning's avatar

Any arguments against “defund” are disingenuous in my opinion really-everyone knows it’s a clever slogan BECAUSE “defunding” is the specific language the republican machine has been using for 40+ years to describe the project it’s been undertaking to dismantle the public education system.

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