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The murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer has galvanized the nation and the world. His murder was only one in a long, long list of murders and lynchings over decades. But this was a perfect storm that made its heinousness obvious to all: This was not the instant firing of a gun in a moment of fear, but a torturously long, drawn-out 8 minutes, 46 seconds, during which three other police officers stood around, onlookers pleaded for mercy, and the whole thing captured on video that was shared over social media.

So while there were other unprovoked killings Breonna Taylor, shot in her own Louisville apartment in the dead of night after police invaded with a no-knock warrant this one was undeniable in demonstrating the ingrained culture that dehumanizes in order for such violence to occur, and the smug security of police, given the unparalleled power of a gun and a badge, that they would not be held accountable.

Enough is enough, protesters by the tens of thousands in hundreds of cities throughout the country and the world, chant, even putting their own lives at risk, not just from the baton-wielding, tear-gas throwing, flashbang-grenade hurling, rubber-bullet firing police dressed as an invading army, but from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The protests have come to suburbia and our hometown as well most affectingly, one this weekend organized by Great Neck High School students which drew well over 500 people to Firefighters Park in Great Neck Plaza. (They withstood accusations on Facebook they were terrorists.)

They decried the structural racism at the heart of a police culture that has its origins in catching slaves, then morphed into an enforcement mechanism for white supremacy, along with so many other structural inequities that, by design, have kept African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities unequal in society.

While the elements of police brutality and criminal injustice are well-known, they are kept in force year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation by supremely politically powerful police unions.

Indeed, the most dramatic reform is to completely rebuild police departments there are 16,000 of them. Some police departments have actually done this Camden, NJ, for example and it may be the only way to really root out the structural inequities as well as bias. Now Minneapolis city council has voted to disband its $193 million police department. What that actually means is that, like Camden, it intends to rebuild it in order to make it functional and appropriate in a country that supposedly is based on principles of equal justice for all.

They will likely scrutinize how police officers are recruited, hired and tracked for a record of police brutality (like Timothy Loehmann, who murdered 12-year old Tamir Rice). How are officers trained and what do they understand their mission to be? One trendy training program (as John Oliver disclosed on Last Week Tonight) is in the art of Killology where officers are instructed that if they are not predators prepared to kill, they have no business being police.

Not only are the problems well-known, but the solutions have been methodically investigated, analyzed, quantified and put in the form of recommendations by the Obama administration after the Ferguson, Mo., riots that followed Michael Browns unprovoked murder by police. The task force developed a template for 21st Century Policing, including ending militarizing police. Obamas Department of Justice under Eric Holder obtained consent decrees from the most vile police forces. But like the template to address a global pandemic handed to the Trump administration, it was immediately discarded and the consent decrees withdrawn.

George Floyd has created the rarest opportunity for reform, however. With breathtaking speed for New York or any state government, major measures for a Say Their Name police reform agenda have already passed the Legislature allowing for transparency of prior disciplinary records by reforming 50-a, banning chokeholds, prosecuting callers for making a false race-based 911 report and designating the attorney general as an independent prosecutor in cases involving the death of unarmed civilian by law enforcement.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to go further to seize the momentum, correctly seeing this time as transformational to reinvent policing.

This is a long time coming, Cuomo said. It is time to reimagine and reinvent policing for 2020Police are public servants for that community if the community doesnt trust, doesnt respect police, police cant do their job.

Democrats in Congress have also seized on this transformational moment as well, introducing the Justice in Policing Act, which at the federal level would ban chokeholds; challenge qualified immunity; prohibit no-knock warrants; counter the trend toward militarization of police; require body and dashboard cameras; require independent prosecutors in cases of police brutality; establish a national database to track police misconduct; and (finally) make lynching a federal hate crime.

Others want more. There are calls to defund police which like Theyre coming for your guns and Open Borders! is a catchy slogan that fits on a sign that has been deliberately distorted by Trump and the Republicans and used to incite fear among (white suburban) voters, who are being told their neighborhoods will be overrun by criminals, gangs and rapists.

What defund police means is reassessing what functions the police do. Do we want protectors or warriors? Are police the best ones to address situations involving mental health, drug overdoses, domestic violence or school discipline? More accurately, people are calling for divest-reinvest: Take that money and invest in social workers, mental health professionals and guidance counselors, roles that the police have said they are not equipped to handle.

And it means investing in community programs that in themselves reduce crime. Thats what Cuomo is proposing in a Justice Agenda to root out the causes of criminal injustice, all on view in conjunction with the coronavirus epidemic and its disproportionate impact on communities of color. It goes to addressing the disparities in education, housing, health care, poverty.

But none of this will happen as long as Trump and the Republicans are in power.

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Viewpoint: Seize the moment for police reform - Blog - The Island Now

For years, Camden, New Jersey, was known as the murder capital of the United States. The city of 74,000 people would record murder rates six times the national average and was plagued by open-air drug markets, robberies, looting and violence.

In November 2012, Scott Thomson, Camdens then-chief of police, decided to conduct a radical overhaul of policing disbanding the citys 141-year-old local force and handing law enforcement of the city over to the county police department.

Many of the laid-off officers were rehired by the county at lower salaries and fewer benefits, which ultimately doubled the size of the county police department. More officers were assigned to patrol the streets a trust-building tactic, Thomson told Bloomberg last week, to increase non-crisis interactions between officers and residents. Police were also required to undergo de-escalation training, wear body cameras and adhere to stricter rules on the use of force in the line of duty.

Seven years later, the homicide rate in Camden has more than halved, from 69 in 2012 to 25 in 2019.

Forward to 2020, and Camden is hailed as one of the few U.S cities that saw a completely peaceful Black Lives Matter protest on May 30, a march led by organizer Yolanda Deaver and Police Chief Joseph Wysocki.

Deaver told CBC that she had asked Wysocki to hold the banner with her during the protest. The chief said I set the tone, Deaver recounted, but he set the tone because he didnt come in with riot gear.

Camden isnt the only city to operate without local police. Compton, Calif., also took the same step in 2000, handing over policing to Los Angeles County.

In 2015, the U.S. attorney general at the time, Eric Holder, stated that the Justice Department was considering a similar solution for the police in Ferguson, Mo., after the murder of Michael Brown. Ultimately the city and its lawmakers struck a less-drastic agreement, but one that still included many reforms.

This idea of police reform isnt new, says Dexter Voisin, dean of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. However, he said its gaining more traction now as authorities across the U.S. and Canada re-examine public safety amid weeks of global protests against police brutality and anti-Black racism. For example, on Monday, two Toronto councillors said they will put forward a motion to defund the citys police force by 10 per cent and use that money for additional community resources.

In the U.S., the mayors of Los Angeles and New York City have both pledged to divert funding from their local police forces toward social services and communities in need.

Nine Minneapolis council members a veto-proof majority have opted for the more radical measure of dismantling the local force and replacing it with a new model of public security. Mayor Jacob Frey, however, said he does not support the full abolition of the police department.

Its unclear which option Minneapolis will choose. However, Council President Lisa Bender told CNN that the council is against the idea of having no police department in the short term. Rather, she said it is looking to shift police funding toward community-based strategies.

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a University of Toronto expert on policing and racialized law enforcement, says its important to distinguish between the different terms used when it comes to police reform.

I think theres some confusion between defunding the police, disbanding police and police abolition, he said.

The concept of police reform exists on a continuum, according to Voisin, and depends on each communitys notion of public safety. For some, it could mean redirecting funds away from the police to community organizations that can better respond to the needs. For others, it could mean redirecting funds with the aim of dismantling over time and replacing (the force) with other types of community policing, he said.

WHAT IS POLICE DEFUNDING

Defunding the police recognizes that were giving funding to the police to perform functions that theyre not necessarily well-positioned or well-equipped to perform, Owusu-Bempah said.

Weve been asking them to do more and more over time and there are organizations and agencies that are better equipped to do some of the tasks that police are doing, he said, referring to issues arising from mental illness, poverty and substance abuse.

Voisin thinks that defunding police helps to keep the force accountable.

When their budget continues to grow and becomes unchecked, it leads to the development of what we call the super cop, the militarization of police, which is arming the police to deal with social issues, he said. You cant really deal with these social problems through increased policing.

Redirecting funds toward what Voisin calls some of the structural drivers of crime and mental health poverty, unemployment, homelessness, race-related racism can create a much better outcome, he said. Its part of a larger conversation that the public-policy approaches around public safety have not been equally serving all communities.

DISBANDING AND ABOLISHING

The idea of disbanding or abolishing police forces falls on the more radical end of the spectrum when it comes to police defunding.

The words are synonymous in some way, said Owusu-Bempah, in that they both advocate for the closure of certain police departments. The difference lies with what comes after.

Camden, for example, chose to close its local police force due to serious institutional problems within the existing police agency at the time, he said. However, they did not eliminate policing altogether. Rather, with the help of the county police force, the city changed the way policing was conducted, via retraining and a raft of new policies.

It was acknowledged that, essentially, they just need to disband police and start again, he said, whereas the term abolish would mean the permanent removal of police altogether.

Closing down a police station is feasible in different contexts, Owusu-Bempah said.

In Toronto, he said, smaller communities could replace policing with a more civilianized and non-weapon-carrying force that might try and maintain order in a more informal way.

Continue reading here:
Calls to defund and dismantle police forces are growing, but what exactly does that mean? - National Post

Protesters march in New York to demand an end to police violence after George Floyds killing at the hands of a police officer. (Ragan Clark / AP Photo)

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As The Nations designated liberal hand-wringer, I admit Ive been concerned about the rapid spread of the demand to defund the police, which sociologist Alex S. Vitale argued for persuasively in our digital pages last week. I have worried that its radicalism jeopardizes the growing mainstream support for police reform in the wake of George Floyds apparent murder by Minneapolis police two weeks ago, and the subsequent police violence against those protesting that crime. It has, of course, become a simplistic gotcha question for some reporters and news anchors to shoot at Democratic politicians, especially since a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council pledged to disband its police department Sunday.Ad Policy

But Ive decided to calm down and trust the wisdom of the activists, as well as some of the leading politicians, whove been working on this issue far more closely, and with far more on the line, than I have. There is right now a productive tension between liberalism and radicalism, as well as establishment insiders and activist outsiders, the kind we talk about in history: labor unrest in the 1930s (and earlier) helping to lead to New Deal reforms; civil rights unrest in the 60s culminating in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.

Of course, the white backlash to 60s civil rights progress, as well as sometimes-destructive protest and rising crime, led to the election of Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reaganand now Donald Trump. And some of us older folks are still living in the shadow of those traumas.

Ive come to realize part of the problem is that much of the liberal Democratic establishment came of age politically, as I did, in the shadow of the Reagan revolution, when Republicans came to dominate not only policy but language itself, especially around crime, welfare, and the role of government. After Republicans won the White House in five out of six elections, with a brief pause for Jimmy Carter, some Democrats worried that theyd never get it back. President Bill Clinton led us out of that wilderness, partly by making the many compromises with the dominant GOP worldview that progressives now loathe, or at least lament. But even Barack Obama, like me, graduated from college into cramped, fearful Reagan-era political activism. That partly accounted for his (justified) fear of a GOP backlash and (futile) determination to work with Republicans. Now, some of us cringe at every slogan that might potentially frighten off the elusive swing voter, from Medicare for All to Abolish ICE to, now, Defund the police.

But remember when Abolish ICE was going to doom Democrats in 2018? And they took the House?

Even Scott Walker, not the GOPs brightest bulb, framed the issues on Twitter this way Sunday night:

Thus making reform the default conservative position. (Georgetown public policy professor Don Moynihan immediately demonstrated the authoritarian Walkers deep hypocrisy.)

But the ever-centrist Politico Playbook reported Tuesday morning that some congressional Republicans say they are seriously considering whether they can support any of the police reform tenets of the bill proposed by the Democratic House along with Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker on Monday. Senators Mitt Romney and Tim Scott are said to be looking at what they might back, and even some House Republicans are, too. Politico reports:

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The low-hanging fruit for Republicans includes a ban on chokeholds, declaring lynching a federal crime, creating a national reporting mechanism for police officers who get in trouble and beefed-up training programs for law enforcement. Republicans are even holding open the possibility that they could rework liability protections for police officers.

Ill believe it when I see it, but its not nothing.

Im not going to pretend I dont still worry about the slogans being confusing and potentially chasing away Americans who are otherwise open to serious police transformation. (So does Senator Bernie Sanders, by the way.) But I also worried that the violence on the fringe of the George Floyd protests last week would alienate the publiconly to see public support for the demonstrators, and police reform, soar in that same period. Part of that is thanks to cops themselves: The violent police riots we saw in cities from New York to Minneapolis to Austin to Los Angeles opened the nations eyes, belatedly, to the lawlessness of too many of the men and women who are paid to enforce the law.Defund the Police

And I think liberal and progressive Democrats are mostly handling the question well. The Views Meghan McCain tried to corner Senator Kamala Harris on Monday by professing support for police reform but opposition to defunding the police, and insisting that Harris say whether she supports that demand, yes or no. Harris did something deftI think she learned a lot from her failed presidential campaignand turned the question around on McCain: How are you defining funding the police? Of course, McCain couldnt answer. Noting that many cities spend more than one third of their budgets on police, Harris said she thought the actual task was reimagining how we do public safety in America, which I support. Incidentally, thats the same formulation used on Sunday by Representative Ilhan Omar, who is to Harriss left. For now, Im going to let those running for and holding public office sort it all out.

And theres a lot to sort out. Even those who profess to support defunding the police mean different things. For many, it starts with demilitarizing urban police forces by not investing in the armaments of war. For others, its putting significant chunks of police budgets into social services treating homelessness, mental health issues, and substance abuse. It can also mean disbanding police forces, as the Minneapolis City Council seems to envisionbut even that proposal remains admittedly vague. And though he only uses the word reform, Minneapolis SEIU leader Javier Morillo laid out seven tough moves to break the power of conservative, often brutal police unions that have blocked attempts at change in many cities, including his own.

In an interview last week, The End of Policing author Vitale acknowledged this:

Im certainly not talking about any kind of scenario where tomorrow someone just flips a switch and there are no police. What Im talking about is the systematic questioning of the specific roles that police currently undertake, and attempting to develop evidence-based alternatives so that we can dial back our reliance on them. And my feeling is that this encompasses actually the vast majority of what police do. We have better alternatives for them.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden, elected to the Senate in 1972, grew up in the shadow of Nixon, which was in some ways more withering to the political soul than Reagan, especially on racial issues. Biden says forthrightly that he doesnt support defunding the police. Of course he doesnt. But the former vice president is coming along on these and other issues. Can we move him to systemic questioning of the roles police perform? Or even reimagining the police? Well see where Biden lands.

The only remaining worry I have is if it becomes a litmus test for activists, and they spurn a presidential candidate like Biden who wont go that faryet. But Ill worry about that later. Ive finally realized: Its time for those of us who grew up in the shadow of the Reagan revolution either to shut up and listen, or exit stage left.

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Liberals: Dont Be Afraid of Calls to Defund the Police - The Nation

Dave Rubins recent Dont Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason documents the YouTube personalitys intellectual journey from a Young Turks firebrand to a self-described classical liberal and an unlikely hero of the political right. Rubin hails from what has been termed the intellectual dark web, made up of individuals from the left and right who have found themselves on the wrong side of current political whimsmost notably in regard to free speech, race theory, or gender politics.

These individuals include Jordan Peterson, Brett Weinstein, Sam Harris, and Ben Shapiro, all frequent guests on Daves wildly successful YouTube channel and podcast, The Rubin Report. Rubin prides himself on giving a platform to diverse viewpoints, championing a classical liberal perspective he differentiates from the newer regressive left.

While Rubin agrees with many of the issues conservatives are most vilified forfree speech, freedom of religion, Second Amendment rightshe continues to term himself a classical liberal. In Dont Burn This Book, Rubin shows us why he and others who have left the left still consider themselves liberals, lending itself to a broader conversation about liberal and conservative thought.

Dont Burn This Book isnt a dense treatise. Much of what Rubin is discussing are ideas are both conservatives and liberals have been hashing for centuries. The book isnt a manual of new ideas, but an entreaty to return to the old ideas of the left before it turned, as Rubin puts it, regressive.

Chapter 3, entitled Think Freely or Die, spends more than 40 pages outlining a middle ground on hot topics of the day, decrying the vilification of those who hold the slightest different view from current woke trends, discussing free speech, Second Amendment issues, abortion, American exceptionalism, immigration, and more.

According to Rubin, todays liberals, no longer accept that all men are created equal. He writes, While liberalism aims to produce hard work and pride around a common cause, our new, negative worldview spawns only jealousy and grievance. By contrast, classical liberalism returns to the roots of liberalism, rejecting authoritarian leftism.

Before his political awakening began, Rubin says he was, solidly pro-choice, but has recently begun describing himself as begrudgingly pro-choice. While hes upset with the way the left has fetishize[d] abortion, he still supports the right of women to have an abortion before the 12th week of pregnancy. However, Dave concedes that the unborn child is a human life and argues, What may seem to be a logical inconsistency is a well-thought-out position.

Daves reasoning for his position on abortion skews liberal. He says the 12-week cutoff point for abortions is the optimal compromise between observing the rights of the individual (primarily the mother, then the baby) and the necessary role of public policy, which protects our freedoms in the first place. Dave ranks the right of the mother to choose her destiny above the right of the unborn child to live his or her life.

Liberals arent immoral, but they typically place individual freedom over other moral considerations. In this case, a womans right to free herself of responsibility and the physical and mental toll pregnancy and subsequent motherhood leaves her with trumps the fact that life is sacred. At the same time, Rubin tries to balance this position with the recognition that taking an innocent life is immoral.

In the pro-life debate, conservatives and liberals often talk past each other. Liberals see an individuals potential for self-actualization infringed upon and nothing else. Conservatives see the murder of a human life and nothing else. Rubin recognizes this classic conflict between the liberal and conservative mind, saying, My libertarian side says that government should have nothing to with this decision, Rubin explains, but my realist [or perhaps his conservative] side says the state has a duty to protect the life of the unborn.

Abortion is not the only aspect where Daves classically liberal positions highlight the age-old differences between conservative and liberal thought. Dave, a married gay man, doesnt see why someone who cares about individual liberty would be against same-sex marriage.

While he tolerates religious positions on the issue, an individuals right to act in accordance with that position, he makes a too broad sweep over why some of these individuals also believe the government would be remiss in recognizing same-sex marriages as such. But according to the classical liberal tradition, if individual liberty is all that principally matters, then why would anyone care if a same-sex couple may marry?

If you believe in individual rights, he puts it, then, great stuff, youre on the right path. Rubins explanation of the classical liberal, or libertarian, reasoning for gay marriage is woefully simplistic. Its not that Christians and other religious individuals think their religious beliefs should be foisted upon the rest of the nation, but that up until very recently most agreed that government plays a role in shaping the moral compass of the nation through families.

The idea that the state has a role in protecting moral ends is inherent to conservatism. In the case of abortion, to the conservative this means protecting human life at the expense of a womans claimed right to choose. In the case of gay marriage, this means protecting a certain model of the family as the most conducive to a virtuous society, at the expense of homosexual couples ability to marry.

Liberals have often been ridiculed for being so open minded their brains fall out, which, while unhelpful as a serious point of political argument, makes a salient point. The liberal tendency is to look to the future and the new to such an extent that they forget the roots that have held together Western Civilization for so long. Thankfully, Rubin has the good sense to avoid that pitfall, dedicating a whole chapter to praising American excellence and the values of Western civilization.

As Rubin finds that the left has abandoned true liberalism, Rubin, who is by no means a conventional conservative, has found an intellectual home on the right. While the principles of free speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of thought arent exclusively conservative or liberal (both sides have their bittersweet histories), its also no accident conservatives have been the ones doing the conserving of age-old civil liberties.

In Chapter 5, Rubin recounts the story of how conservative radio host Larry Elder changed his mind on systemic racism on his YouTube show and podcast The Rubin Report. Instead of digging in his heels, Rubin used the interview as an opportunity to open minds, including his own. [W]hether I liked it or not, he writes, this devastatingly embarrassing moment was everything The Rubin Report was meant to be aboutpushing personal and political growth through conversation.

Maybe conservatives could learn from this. Just as liberals tend to look towards the future and the new to the detriment of the tried and true, conservatives tendency to focus on what has been rather than what could be, often blinds them from considering differing viewpoints. Rubin and The Rubin Report are a testament to how people of goodwill on both sides can stand up for the other sides right to say what they think, even when they dont agree.

Sarah Weaver is a graduate student at Hillsdale College. You can read more of her work as well as contact her through her website at sarah-weaver.net. Find Sarah on Twitter @SarahHopeWeaver.

Originally posted here:
Dave Rubin On Where Liberals And Conservatives Can Agree, And Can't - The Federalist

Canada is almost smack-dab in the middle of the freest spending six months ever by any federal government.

Even in the build-up to D-Day during the Second World War, when all the Allies were buying ships, tanks, bombs, guns and planes to defeat Nazi Germany, Ottawa never spent money like it has in the middle of this pandemic.

And its being done almost entirely without Parliamentary oversight.

The Liberals who only have a minority have largely governed without opposition for the past three months and intend to continue doing so for at least three more.

Despite the unprecedented spending, we have seen no budget this year. Finance Minister Bill Morneau hasnt even tabled official spending estimates, so it is impossible to know where all the money is going.

Now the Liberals intend to force a vote on $150 billion in special spending on June 17 after only four hours debate and without amendments.

After that abbreviated debate and arbitrary vote, Parliament (such as it is) will be suspended until at least Sept. 21.

The pretend Parliament on June 17 will culminate three months in which governing in Canada has mostly consisted of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau descending the steps of Rideau Cottage in Ottawa to give a daily news briefing, followed by a handful of softball questions from reporters handpicked by the PMs communication staff and disproportionately selected from Quebec.

In March, Parliament shut down out of fear of spreading the coronavirus. After a month of that lockdown, the only meetings of MPs have been a 30-member committee that is limited to asking questions solely about the pandemic.

Remember, too, during the early weeks of the pandemic, the Liberals sought to vote themselves extraordinary power to tax, spend and borrow without recourse to Parliament until the end of next year.

They have managed all these moves with a minority because the NDP and Bloc Quebecois let them get away with it.

So where is the outrage from the chattering classes? Or are most commentators, networks and academics just so Liberal-friendly they cant bring themselves to criticize Dear Justin?

I saw a meme the other day that said, If Justin Trudeau ate a dog on Parliament Hill, the CBC headline would be Trudeau makes Canada safer for cats.

In 2008, one month after a federal election left Canada with a Tory minority under Stephen Harper, the Liberals and NDP conspired with the Bloc to push the Conservatives out and install their own coalition instead.

Then-Governor General Michaelle Jean agreed to grant Harpers request to prorogue Parliament. That sparked one of the greatest festivals of wailing and shrieking in modern Canadian political history.

The Harper government was called illegitimate and unconstitutional by all manner of scholars and pundits.

Concordia University political scientist Brooke Jeffrey accused Harper of dismantling Canada, while her colleague at the University of Alberta, Lori Thorlakson, insisted Harper had made Canadas Parliament the weakest of the weak.

Several academics banded together to pen an open letter insisting no other P.M. had so abused power. And The Economist magazine editorialized that the danger in permitting prime ministers to end discussion any time they choose, is that parliaments then become accountable to them rather than the other way around.

Whether you agreed with those positions on Harpers moves or not, you have to ask, Where is the similar level of outrage this time around?

Surely the danger of a six-month suspension of Parliament during a pandemic and unprecedented spending is just as great a threat as Harpers two-month prorogation.

But I guess it doesnt bother as many academics and journalists when its the Liberals crushing Parliamentary procedures.

See the article here:
GUNTER: Where's the outrage at the Liberals crushing Parliamentary procedure? - Toronto Sun