Defund the police? Insanity squared

The entirely justified national — even international — protests against the death of George Floyd, and ongoing police brutality, has generated an idea as radical as Russian Roulette.

And as deadly.

The insanity can be found along the left edge of the progressive movement that now shouts three words: Defund the police. Or abolish the police. That’s because they hate all cops, not just the bad ones who deserve it.

The defund idea is so stunning, so contrary to reason, so opposed to public safety, that I am almost at a loss for words. How do you even begin to put forth a rational argument against something so fundamentally irrational? It’s like arguing thermonuclear dynamics with a kangaroo.

And yet the insanity is gaining traction, as noted in a compelling story in the Guardian.

At its least crazy, some Americans are calling for some money spent on law enforcement to be transferred to social services. That is a discussion of resources that we can have.

At its most crazy, they want no police departments. Proponents have this utopian notion that communities can be self-policing.

Interesting idea. Let’s take a look at a society not located in the jungles of New Guinea that has no police.

I can’t think of one.

The neutral Swiss have police. Native Americans on tribal lands have police. The Vatican has police.

But, somehow, Chicago, for example — which racks up several dozen shootings each week — will regulate itself. If you believe that, you also believe unicorns fart Chanel No. 5.

Police budgets, along with prison budgets, have risen sharply in the past quarter century. It is also true that major crime has dropped by about half in the same period of time. 

You think that is a coincidence?

Generally speaking, more cops = less crime. The reverse is true. Fewer cops = more crime.

Need an example? Remember New Orleans during and after Katrina? For one reason or another, half the cops didn’t show up and the city was mercilessly looted, down to its Sazerac glassware. 

Too far back and too far away? One week ago, even with hundreds of cops in the area, Walnut and Chestnut street stores were stripped bare. On Germantown Avenue in North Philly, on 52nd Street in West Philly, on Aramingo Avenue in Fishtown, stores were ravaged, while police raced from call to call.

No more cops and that’s what you’d see every night until Philadelphia was nothing more than a corpse.

But before the city dies, something else would happen.

With the police gone the vacuum would be filled by the 100 million Americans who own firearms.

You don’t doubt that, do you?

When the government can’t or won’t protect the people, the people will protect themselves. It may be individuals, it may be town watches, it may be private security hired by neighborhoods, but it will happen.

The people with the biggest guns, and the most guns, will emerge on top.

That doesn’t seem to occur to those who want to defund the police, such as the Black Lives Matters organization, which is circulating a petition to defund the police.

There’s even a #DefundPolice hash tag.

I can hear a few of you saying, “They don’t mean actually getting rid of police.”

Except they do, some of them. Others just want to strip police of their power and arms, expecting them to talk armed robbers into submission.

#DefundPolice is stupidity squared.

Far more helpful, and sane, are ideas for reform, such as better training, body cameras on all the time, citizen review boards with teeth, independent review of all shootings.

That makes sense. Sending social workers instead of cops does not. 

This is an idea — and I use that word advisedly — that comes from the Left. It is ironic that Left countries — Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela — have huge police forces and internal intelligence agencies.

I have a new hashtag: #IgnoreStupidity