There is no shortage of bad reactions to the death of George Floyd while he was in police custody, beginning with its magnification into a symbol for grievances to which it has no direct connection. Thanks to the internet, his death has been used to justify everything from removing statues to changing corporate logos to arson, looting, and rioting to the establishment of “autonomous zones” in a few of America’s most progressive cities. And that’s just for starters. Public property has been destroyed or vandalized, our very history re-written, movies have been proscribed, TV shows cancelled, people have been fired from their jobs, and many of the basic freedoms that we enjoyed just a few months ago have been revoked.
We suppose that one’s opinion of all this depends on one’s point of view, but to us much of this is a massive overreaction that has punished innocent people and weakened the ideals and institutions that were supposed to have united us. It takes a special kind of logic to pretend, as the activists do, that Americans can somehow be united by ripping apart those very symbols that have united us since the Declaration of Independence.
All the progressive activists in America, it seems, have been, are or will be repudiating their history, and they have the freedom to make that choice. What they do not have is the freedom to force all of the rest of us to make the same choice, to repudiate our history.
Several places have cut or are in the process of cutting billions of dollars in funds that had been earmarked for the police. It is ironic that most of those places are the same places where murder rates have skyrocketed in the last two months, with most of the victims being Black Americans who were killed by other Black Americans. One would think such circumstances would result in a push for greater funding, for more protection, for more law enforcement, and for more respect for the police officers who put their lives on the line every day.
The progressive leaders of our progressive cities in our progressive states controlled by progressive governors have determined that their police forces should be “defunded,” due to a handful of incidents in their own progressive police forces, usually led by progressive chiefs of police. Now some of this movement is little more than semantics, with a police force by another name; but many seem to be seriously considering responding to 911 calls, not with police, but with community activists, social workers, counselors or similar professionals. They forget that the police always first try to talk the situation down – they do not go in shooting. They also have forgotten that in the George Floyd case, and almost every similar incident in the past ten years, that if the perpetrator had peacefully surrendered, or not resisted, there would have been no incidents at all.
Crime rates have been plunging nationwide for years – with the exceptions of murders in, you guessed it, those progressive cities with progressive mayors, city councils and police chiefs. Violent crime in 2018 was lower than it was in 1990 – by nearly 50%! This decline coincides with additional funding for police, and with an increased number of legally possessed firearms.
Let’s face it – the most important reason for enforcing laws against violent crime is to protect the innocent and the peaceable. Ordinary people of all races, of all income levels, of all walks of life, just want to feel safe in their day-to-day lives. The career criminal, the street criminal, the gangs, prey on the vulnerable and the unprotected. It stands to reason that providing fewer assets to the police, or less support to the police, will result in a greater number of victims. And, statistically, most of those potential victims are residents of the progressive-led cities and metropolitan areas. One other item to keep in mind – we do not have a national police force, but we have thousands of police forces that are locally-controlled. In most cases this has been very successful. The major problems, and the increasing murder rates, occur in those cities whose mayors are the most progressive.
Defunding the police would be a mistake, and it would do the most harm to those very people that its advocates claim to support. Let us remove the “bad cops.” Let us support the good ones – who are the vast majority of law enforcement officers. Let us increase training and let us put the bad guys behinds bars. Those things, and not “defunding the police,” will result in a safer, more peaceful society.