Ser Reptitious

"Extra History" did an interesting 9-minute episode on the 1921 riots that resulted in the complete destruction of Greenwood, OK (a.k.a. "Black Wall Street"). Sad, but very informative for those (such as me) who didn't really know much about it beforehand:

Keep in mind that you are arguing with someone who by his own admission seems to be part of the 1% (based on statements he's made in the past) so he probably moves in circles where making $1+ million per year is nothing unusual. Hence his (warped, imho) view on salaries.

Wasn’t it 20 minutes, according to his own dad?

Completely agree, but you might as well work with them while it suits you, sort of like the allies held their nose and worked with Stalin in WW2. (Just as long as there is no equivalent to the Yalta Agreement!)

Barney Stinson, is that you?

What do you propose?

Love the Ice Cube reference. As to the second half, do you mean numbers as in the amount of people who support such a policy? If so, I don’t disagree with that. “Abolish/defund the police” isn’t what I expect to happen at the end of the day (nor am I personally in favour of that, just to be clear). I just don’t see the harm in some random protesters pushing the conversation in that direction. Imo it’s a good way of showing that the root of the problem goes so deep that all options need to be on the table. My impression is rather that the protesters advocating this are completely serious (but maybe @Fury Resurrected would be in a better position to speak to that point) and now you have some sympathetic intellectuals who are trying to put their own spin on it. I highly doubt everyone sees “defund the police” (and I think that’s mostly the slogan being pushed, rather than “abolish the police”, no?) exactly the same way.

@OldGimletEye, ok, fair enough, the Tea Party is perhaps not the best example to use (other than the fact that they definitely pushed the Overton Window significantly rightward). But how many times have people here expressed frustration with the Democrats for already starting negotiations from a compromised position, only to have it watered down when negotiating among themselves, and then have it further significantly watered down when negotiating with the Republicans (to the extent that this is even possible nowadays)? And yes, if official, high-ranking national Democrats start pushing "abolish the police", then I'd agree that this is a very high-risk move. But how many of the protesters who are pushing this idea even identify as Democrats? So I don't see the harm in protesters unaffiliated with the Democrats pushing the envelope, allowing the Democrats to use this to position themselves as the reasonable compromisers. Also, as @OnionAhaiReborn correctly points out, ultimately any approach taken will require more details and nuance, but that doesn't work well as a protest slogan. Ultimately any chosen protest slogan will have to be explained further. And if protesters simply settled for something milquetoast like "Reform the Police", then I suspect we'd be having a significantly less far-reaching discussion about the substantial changes that are necessary. The fact that "abolish the police" is even being discussed signals to everyone just how deep the problem goes.

Huh? I think we are talking past each other. As far as I can tell, the “defund/abolish the police” demands are coming from protesters and observers, not members of the Democratic Party. Thus I’m not sure what you mean by “the Democratic strategy is more extreme sounding than it is”? To me this seems more like Fox News / random Tea Party activists pushing something radical and then the official Republican Party coming in with a more “reasonable” compromise that the ‘moderates’/‘centrists’ can get behind. Only this time it’s the Democrats using that tactic.

Exactly! For once the Democrats could/should take a page from the Republican playbook. As much as I hate the latter’s objectives, it’s hard to deny that they are effective strategists (sadly)!

Well, isn’t that the perfect set-up, though? The “street” calls for radical solutions such as defunding and abolishing the police (thereby shifting the Overton window of what to do with the police), and Democratic candidates get to look all reasonable to the average voter by proposing compromises such as re-allocating some police funds towards social services. Seems like a smart strategy!

I’m honestly not sure what you mean here. If you could answer the questions I posed in the very next paragraph after the part you quoted that would be helpful.

Are there groups of people (such as the descendents of slaves in the UK) around today that have legitimate grievances with these ancient individuals today? If Hitler statues still existed anywhere in the world today, would you be troubled if they were destroyed without proper bureaucratic approval? And did you feel that way about Lenin statues at the end of the cold war? I bet many of them in former East Bloc countries were torn down in the heat of euphoria, without getting the proper paper work first. Did/does that trouble you? Seems a bit like you’re going for the ‘slippery slope’ fallacy here, whereby no statue, no matter what evil it depicts, can ever be torn down without getting official approval first, lest it opens the floodgates for the potential destruction of all statues. Pretty sure he was being sarcastic, playing on the same ‘slippery slope’ fallacy as BFC above.

I agree with you in principle, but (speaking as one former lawyer to another), those word games might be necessary to get rid of the toxic police union protecting all the bad apples and further enabling the current culture within the PD!

I wonder if the proper procedures were followed when Saddam Hussein’s statues were pulled down in 2003?