| sundin13 said: [3] I don't believe that all such ideas come from white people, but as the USA is a country which has historically been dominated by white people and white culture, it is most common for such ideas to have white origins. You seem to disagree with me on this point, but you didn't really provide an alternate explanation which fits the data, so, what is the alternative you are proposing here? [4] Is it accurate to state that crime reports have increased year on year? According to the preliminary UCR for the first six months of 2020, rape reports decreased, robbery reports decreased, larceny decreased, burglaries decreased and overall violent crime decreased. However, homicides increased significantly. The divergence of these statistics could be explained by the idea that many smaller crimes are not being reported, but it is somewhat difficult to not report homicides. This could indicate that individuals are not being caught when they commit smaller scale crimes, which causes an uptick in larger scale crimes. I agree however that this is unlikely to explain everything, I only posit that it may be a significant contributing cause. As you stated, the rapid changes in police forces may very well be causing additional problems. As I stated to someone earlier in this thread (I don't believe it was you), I believe that police departments could handle adequately planned decreases in budget. Changes as a result of Covid and mass exodus of officers aren't really "adequately planned" so they could impair police function, causing issues. However, again, I believe blame is somewhat misplaced if you attempt to place it on BLM here. The police have grown accustomed to some degree of immunity that I don't believe they should have. Losing this immunity is something that should happen, however it very well may cause short term problems with police staffing for the people who don't wish to be held accountable. I mentioned earlier that I think that police pay should increase. One of the ways to attract better officers is by increasing pay and similarly increasing the standards of officers (however, an appetite must first be shown by police forces to increase their standards, otherwise you are just burning money). |
[3] You make a concession and then claim I disagree with it. *shrugs* I don't.
In any event, I don't need an alternative, sweeping, systemic theory of the world to disagree with critical race theory regardless. I don't view the color of people's skin as the most important thing about them, let alone believe that ideas should be accepted or rejected based on the skin color of those who conceive them. It's not on me as a naysayer to disprove CRT any more than it is on me as an atheist to disprove God's existence. It is on you, as the affirmative proponent thereof, to demonstrate its correctness. That's how that works.
[4] I think we're at least largely in agreement on this point, at this point, save 1) the idea that only one force here is responsible for the current levels of violent crime we're seeing in many parts of the U.S., and 2) that I still don't see the merit of generally decreasing funding for police forces. I think we've had out the first argument. Concerning the second remaining area of disagreement, proponents of this line (de-fund the police) contend that doing so frees up financial resources necessary to invest in proper social work that could serve as a healthier, and safer, substitute for much of the work that police departments currently do. I just don't see the point in viewing it as an either-or proposition. I see no reason why we can't just tax the wealthier segments of the population more and use those resources to fully fund both. Aside from this, we agree: there should be more accountability for police officers, and indeed for entire departments as needed, which is why I strongly support the legislation I've mentioned earlier on this thread.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 05 June 2021
