First Post 1/2

I’m going to do my discussion post about the excerpt of “Why not socialism” – specifically in regard to Cohens reaction to conflict with egalitarian principles. From this, I will establish why we must abolish the police for reasons of police enforcing the symptom, not the reason. Then, I will further establish the abolishment of all third parties, as they further envelop our society with inequalities that they impose.

When conflict arises within the camping trip, Cohen describes egalitarianism as response: “There are plenty of differences, but our mutual understandings, and the spirit of the enterprise, ensure that there are no inequalities to which anyone could mount a principled objection (Cohen, 1).” Cohen, in this quote, solidifies the idea that conflict derives from inequalities. This idea is the driving force behind movement to abolish the police; Instead of fighting crime with violence – fight it by solving their inequalities. The police, as it stands, are fighting the symptom,not the reason. Eventually, as we fight the reason, we will be able to shift all monies away from the funding of police, and we are able to push towards meeting the goal of an egalitarian society, thus removing the necessity of crime altogether.

An example of the police fighting the symptom are the stop and frisk laws imposed by New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg. There are two glaring problems with laws like this. The first problem is that the laws are racist. They focus their efforts on searching black and brown men for no reason other than their skin color. Obviously, this further enforces socially constructed inequalities, strengthening the institutional glass ceiling that is within our marginalized communities. The second problem is after the arrest; if they are found to be breaking the law, the time spent in jail negatively impacts their creation of wealth. This not only impacts themselves, but their family; what if the man arrested was the main income? This problem becomes exponential when a federal law is broken, and they receive the label of a “felon” – effectively disenfranchising them from society – removing their right to vote and their right to work. We must remember that these men break laws forthe creation of wealth tobecome equal and receive the comforts of which everyone else has, and these frisks and arrests only further subjugate them into crime.

Because of this, we must cease the police enforcement of crime, and rather enforce crime with our community. Within these at-risk areas, invest into schools, extracurricular activities, rehabilitation, arts programs, community centers, mental health resources – do not make it a crime for an individual to work towards equality. The abolition of police coincides with the abolition of inequalities (specifically inborn) – one does not come before the other.

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First Post 2/2

This does not end with the police, though. As a society, we are too lenient with who we give power to – resulting in reactionary emotions from the statement “abolish the police.” For example, we instill representatives within our democracy to decide on decisions for our behalf, and we instill police to instill power and enforcement of laws on our behalf. The problem with these third parties is that they do not have the best interest for the people -- millions of dollars are poured into campaign contributions and lobbying with go against the interest of the common will. For example, Obama Care started off as public healthcare for all – but it was quickly whittled down through the heavy hand of insurance interest groups. Assuming a public option wasa desire for all, I would call for a direct democracy. There is no meddling or interference possible with the abolition of representatives. The same is true for the police, they are used to instill punishment when individuals are forced to break the law in order to collect the wealth to become equal and receive the comforts of which everyone else has, and the arrests only further subjugate them into crime. I believe the same could be true for every single third party who claims to have the interest of the public in mind.

I say, to remove inequalities, we must take the power into our own hands, and to enforce crime with our enforcement of community. We must enforce democracy with our community, not from representatives. These are only a Third parties are entities which are blocking our achievable of equality; in order for any of these methods Cohen speaks about, we must abolish the power we have given to them and redistribute it into our communities.

Second Post (this is where the guy makes the well what about rapists argument)

Hello,

I agree that we should put more money into all the things you mentioned, but to abolish the police would be suicidal, at best. We can't just think of the people who steal things to get rid of the inequalities. Without police, who would deal with the rapists, murders, human traffickers, etc...? All the people who do harm because they want to, not because they feel they have to because of inequality. You could go with the argument that everyone could/should carry guns to protect themselves. I would agree, because I do carry a gun with me in case something goes down and I can't rely on police being somewhere the exact minute that something may happen. But, I also am worried that I may have to use my gun. I don't want to kill anyone and I certainly don't want to live with the aftermath of doing so. Another problem with everyone carrying a gun is not everyone is qualified to handle shooting a gun. Washington was the easiest state I have been to to apply for a conceal carry permit. All I had to do was pay them 45 dollars and give them my fingerprints. That's it. No proof of any formal classes or weapons handling of any kind. That scares me knowing how many people are out there with a hidden gun that have no idea how to actually use one.

I did a quick Google search on Stop and Frisk Law. I know that with laws, they are very wordy and I don't want to read the entire thing, so I found an excerpt. Overview. A stop-and-frisk refers to a brief non-intrusive police stop of a suspect. The Fourth Amendment requires that before stopping the suspect, the police must have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed by the suspect. Now, I'm sure there is more to that, but I highly doubt it says anything about stopping only black or brown people. That is up to the officer's discretion, which yes, they could be racists and only stop them because of the color of their skin. But I'm sure that black and brown people are not the only ones to be stopped based on this law. Then you mentioned "The second problem is after the arrest; if they are found to be breaking the law, the time spent in jail negatively impacts their creation of wealth". I get that they may have been unjustly detained and searched, but they were found to be breaking the law. Who knows what they had on them. They may have had d****, weapons, stolen property, etc... Just because they were trying to break systemic inequality doesn't make it right. They may have even taken what they had from another person of equal inequality. Those d**** may have been sold to a child who could've died from those d**** if the officer hadn't stopped them first. That weapon may have been used to kill an old lady because they wanted her purse and she didn't want to give it to them.

All I'm saying is having a police force is necessary. What is not necessary is racism and that is up to the individual officer. There's no foolproof test that can be taken to find out if the next police officer candidate is racist. In theory, what you proposed would be great. A world without police with everyone getting along would certainly be ideal. I also Googled how many countries that do not have a police force. It said that there were two established countries where a police force didn't exist. Switzerland and The Vatican. Now, I've been to both places, lived in Switzerland for a year, and I can tell you that is false. What you wrote was very interesting to me and made me think a lot about things. So thanks for the good discussion.

Third post (my rebuttal)

Hi,

Nice post and thanks for the response.

First, I'm going to respond to your statement about "We can't just think of the people who steal things to get rid of the inequalities. Without police, who would deal with the rapists, murders, human traffickers, etc...? All the people who do harm because they want to, not because they feel they have to because of inequality." You continue on, stating that protection of self with a firearm is necessary for these types of people if we are to abolish the police force.

I agree whole heartedly that there are people who harm because they want to - not out of desperation. However, I would disagree with your reaction towards using firearms against these people; I am actually fairly strongly anti-gun, and I would not argue for the use of firearms. Using firearms in this scenario is attacking the symptom, not the reason. Unprovoked violence is often a symptom of mental illness. Attacking the provoker only rids of one mentally ill & deranged person; it does not systematically remove them from our society. Within my ideal society, we would enforce the community to rid of the unhinged violence. We would do this by preventing the unhinged violence, through several community outreach programs. If they still become unhinged, we would not place them into a prison to forever remove them from society (as this is again, attacking the symptom,) we would remove them from society to rehabilitate so they can integrate into society again.

The same argument goes towards your support for stop and frisk laws; these laws are only removing individuals from society, it is not removing the cause of the individuals to act this way. Therefore, it is a self perpetuating loop, and crime will exist forever until we remove the reason.

In regard to your last point, the abolishment of police does not exist in modern society because we have not reduced inequalities to the level needed. For example, let us look upon the state of inequalities in regard to race within the United States. We have removed de jure socially constructed racist laws, but we have not reduced the social stigma which brought upon those laws in the first place. Upon that, we have not reduced the wealth burden that the laws instated upon African Americans. Upon that, we have not removed the inborn inequality -- the institutional wealth passed down in white families which was built upon the enslavement of Africans. We have a long way to go; there is no arguing against that.

100%. I always recommend 13th on Netflix. Can really open normie’s eyes.

I agree, ofc. As commies we understand the societal factors that cause crime etc. but your average American thinks that “the criminals and gangs” will go around murdering people without police and prisons to stop them.

So you do propose a form of “rehab” for the very small percentage of society who would still commit unhinged violence even within an egalitarian society? I agree there and think this can be reassuring to skeptics.

I thought this as little as a few weeks ago. After some more reading/researching I'm not so sure. Mental health institutions likely need to be dismantled and can't be looked at as a solution for crime

As they exist now they are quite problematic, yeah.

avi hard

imo most mental health problems originate from inequality during childhood from some way. if we nip inequality at the bud of a childs life, there will be no unhinged violence, thus no need for rehabs at all. synopsis is correct; they are akin to prisons.

mental health issues almost always originate from a bad environment, and that bad environment originates from inequalities. here's an example:

if i am a mother who is in poverty and works two jobs and is unable to breast feed my child, my child is most likely going to be traumatized from that neglect and end up with mental health issues.
if i am a son of that mother, and i am an alcoholic due to the trauma from my mothers neglect, and i have children of my own and i beat them, they will get those mental health issues passed down.

there's many ways these things arise; usually from inequalities, i believe.

Yes, 100%. But what restorative justice measures do we propose in the rare cases where murder still happens?

abolitionism = communism

What do you do in the intermediary period though? As in addressing those who were born before the changes were made yet were impacted previously? Improving economic conditions and reducing inequalities will surely help some if not most (by taking that burden off), but there are bound to be people with mental health issues leftover.

The root cause a***ysis of crime is inequality, so hopefully these anomalies would not exist in the first place.

However, I know for sure there would still be rehabilitative institutions in place to help treat people with mental illness (who would commit these crimes). These rehabilitative institutions must act secondary to the removal of inequalities all together.
First, we must remove the inequalities ( in this case, barriers to mental health rehabilitation). Then, we must give them that rehabilitation. In theory, this will nip those "rare cases" at the infancy of the child, removing the entire notion of justice, as it does not need to exist.

The idea is switching from the notion of justice to switching to the notion of rehabilitation. I think however, if justice is desired, it would be up to the community who is decided themselves. I don't think there is a clear cut answer to this, and I'm interested to know what you think.

I’m pressing on this issue because I believe it’s a question without a good answer. We can establish a fully communist society and root out 99% of crime but when a murder is still committed, what is to be done?

Leaving it to the community is the best answer I can think of. Have the entire affected community involved in the decision making process.

currentaffairs.org/2020/06/isnt-right-wing-populism-just-fascism
Good article although I wish he went deeper in on Saagar

Krystal was mad pressed over this article lol

Link?

currentaffairs.org/2020/06/debating-the-right-versus-collaborating-with-them

He wrote another article on their rebuttal, the link is in there

right wing populism can eat my frog ass

They really called Trump's election a "working class uprising"?

Wtf

"Here’s a scenario: A socialist meets a fascist in a bar.

FASCIST:
The liberals are destroying this country!

SOCIALIST:
I know!

FASCIST:
They’re so weak. And elitist. They don’t care about the workers.

SOCIALIST:
Oh, it’s so true.

FASCIST:
And of course the media is complicit. They never tell the truth.

SOCIALIST:
Never!

FASCIST:
Meanwhile, illegal immigrants are taking our jobs and destroying the ethnic majority.

SOCIALIST:
Wait, what the f***?

Ball says Rising tends to focus on the areas the populist Left and Right agree on. The book is similar: A lot of it is targeted at corporate Democrats, “identity politics,” and the media. Ball and Enjeti’s unified “populism” is what happens if you try to forget the nasty bits of the Right and just focus on a shared disdain for liberals. And it’s possible to say that the socialist and the fascist at the bar “have a lot in common,” since they agreed until they disagreed. Ball says this about me: She notes that I admitted I agreed with 80 percent of what Saagar says in the book. But this is only because a conscious effort is being made not to talk about immigration, climate change, racism, d**** (Enjeti wants the government to crack down on pot users), etc. This isn’t window-dressing, and these aren’t side issues. These are matters of life and death for millions of people. When it comes to climate change, it’s a matter of life and death for the whole planet."

Snapped

Krystal talking about collaborating with right-wing populists as if it's like anarchists working with Marxists lmao

His whole point about the hills owner being a trump guy and using the rising as a way to open up left leaning populists to trump style right wingers got me seeing Krystal as a grifter tbh