Do you agree with AOC that cutting a billion dollars form NYC police is just not enough?

Notanumber said:

It is a quote from the linked video and there are many more of similar worth.

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I don't think it has a lot of worth. You seem to. So are you suggesting the US is a better place to be a female than Sweden?
Or do you agree with me that the comment appears jingoistic?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

And that's what I'm disagreeing with.

In the US, it's quite common for people not to vote because:

• they don't have "acceptable" ID for voting, but they don't drive and the only government office in their area where they could get the required ID is only accessible by car.
• they don't drive and their polling place is only accessible by car.
• they can't get enough time off to vote because:
  • They live in a state that doesn't require employers to give staff any time off to vote at all.
  • Their state only requires employers to give employees 2 hours off to vote, but the line at their polling station is much longer than 2 hours.
  • They work 2 jobs to make ends meet (so both employers are providing "off duty" time while polls are open, but the employee is never actually off-duty
• They're scared of voting in-person during a pandemic, but their state has clamped down on mail-in voting.
• They're legally prohibited from voting because they're in prison or have a felony conviction (which is a major issue in the US, which has the highest incarceration rate in the world).

... etc., etc.

The US system puts up a lot of obstacles to stop marginalized people from voting. Often, these obstacles are successful and the person doesn't vote. I think that these people have every right to complain about the outcome of an election that they've been excluded from.

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We can differ on that, then.
I get that there will be some level of exclusion for reasons outside people's control.

But only 53% of the eligible citizens voted in 2018.
And only 67% are even registered.

And the figures skew heavily towards older demographics voting.

Trump got in on a minority vote, due to the election college system, and voter apathy is a massive problem.

In individual cases, of course I have empathy. But at a systemic level voters have to turn up and vote. And if they honestly can't, they should be raising their voices to change the voting system with every bit as much vigour as they are raising their voices to change policing now.

To ring their hands afterwards is pointless. Vote. Protest. Something.

Notanumber said:

This former member of the UK parliament has a similar stance on free speech as you.

Free speech is for all, not the privileged few.

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Again, I don't know enough about UK politics to agree or not based on a single snippet.
In general, the Brexit Party hasn't impressed me at all, but I'm looking from a distance and don't spend much time on UK politics.

Suffice to say, I could agree with her stance on free speech, and completely disagree with her politics, since that's kinda the point. But in general I'm not interested in whatever the hot button topic is, nor in headline grabbing use of language. Quite the opposite.

tytlyf said:

I heard you can de-fund the police and not lose any officers.. Imagine that!

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Depends how much you defund them and which services you cut or transfer to other agencies, but yes... of course.

Harel13 said:

If I ask AOC, will she concur with this interpretation of her words?

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Ask her and tell me what she says.

Notanumber said:

One that is brave enough to stand up to the anarchists.

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I stand up to right wing anarchists every day.

Jayhawker Soule said:

It's really hard to know whether harangues such as this stem from raw dishonesty, rank stupidity, or intellectual laziness, but clearly someone has been spending far too much time in the Fox News reading room of the basket of deplorables. The Hill has a more sober report. AOC is right.

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I agree... when AOC says a billion dollar law enforcement cut while crime increases makes it hard to take her seriously

It's like CHOP which ended up like the story LORD OF THE FLIEDS... doesn't end well.

whirlingmerc said:

I agree... when AOC says a billion dollar law enforcement cut while crime increases makes it hard to take her seriously

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Are you saying that the NYPD budget should be held steady while the rest of the City departments have to shoulder a $9 billion City-wide cut?

Cutting the NYPD's budget sure seems to make more sense to me than cutting, say, public health and emergency medical services during a pandemic, or cutting social services in the middle of the worst unemployment that the city's seen in decades.

whirlingmerc said:

Crime rising. Police discouraged. Shut it down?
and who will protect the city? Batman?

AOC says proposed $1B budget cut to NYPD isn't enough: 'Defunding police means defunding police’

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So... turns out there's some accounting sleight-of-hand here: about half of the billion dollar "cut" is being achieved by moving the school officer budget to the Dept. of Education.

... so it's really about a $500 million cut, not a $1 billion cut.