Minneapolis Lunacy: A Recipe for Disaster

 

This morning my blood ran cold when I heard the latest recommendation from the Minneapolis City Council: disband the police department. Sundance at the Conservative Tree House explains the background for this action:

The term ‘community policing’ has been used for several years by groups advocating for radical changes to law enforcement; however, behind the innocuous phrase is really a much more serious agenda.

If each community can determine the enforcement of law, then essentially all communities can eliminate the underlying law itself. Remove local enforcement of law and the local community can independently assemble a social structure separate from all other binding contracts that frame a larger societal compact.

This is not the community-oriented policing that Rudy Giuliani instituted in New York. These actions, instead, would be the perfect recipe for lawlessness and chaos.

Spearheading this action is Jeremiah Ellison, the son of Minnesota Attorney Keith Ellison, a Muslim activist and far Left advocate:

Jeremiah Ellison, the son of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and a representative of the city’s Ward 5, explicitly led calls to ‘dramatically rethink’ how the city keeps its people safe.

‘We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,’ he tweeted. “And when we’re done, we’re not simply gonna glue it back together. We are going to dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response. It’s really past due.’

Lisa Bender, president of the city council, sent out this warning:

On Wednesday she posted a thread about how a ‘white person’ should think about dismantling the police.

‘If you are a comfortable white person asking to dismantle the police I invite you to reflect: are you willing to stick with it? Will you be calling in three months to ask about garage break-ins? Are you willing to dismantle white supremacy in all systems, including a new system?’ she said. ‘I mean this quite sincerely & seriously: just look at recent conversations about City-funded neighborhood organizations to understand how explicitly we would have to work to establish alternative systems that do not replicate the same problems. White ppl need to show up for this.’

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Ms. Bender is telling the white people in Minneapolis that if the deprived black people attack the homes of the white community or commit any other offenses, get over it. Pay back is tough.

The city council is due to vote on this issue today.

Published in Policing
This post was promoted to the Main Feed by a Ricochet Editor at the recommendation of Ricochet members. Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 131 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. M. Brandon Godbey Member
    M. Brandon Godbey
    @Brandon

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    It may be a sign that the lunacy of our times has entered the Hoyacon household, but I almost would like see this happen. There would be unfortunate consequences, but, every so often, I’m tempted by the prospect of progressives being confronted with the fallout from their wacky ideas.

     

    In the federalist America of my dreams all the the progressives move to 25 states and all the conservatives move to the other 25 states and they get to enact all their dream policies.  Take away the federal government’s ability to print money and force policy on states and progressivism get’s real untenable real quick.  

    • #61
  2. JamesSalerno Inactive
    JamesSalerno
    @JamesSalerno

    M. Brandon Godbey (View Comment):

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    It may be a sign that the lunacy of our times has entered the Hoyacon household, but I almost would like see this happen. There would be unfortunate consequences, but, every so often, I’m tempted by the prospect of progressives being confronted with the fallout from their wacky ideas.

     

    In the federalist America of my dreams all the the progressives move to 25 states and all the conservatives move to the other 25 states and they get to enact all their dream policies. Take away the federal government’s ability to print money and force policy on states and progressivism get’s real untenable real quick.

    The parasite cannot survive without the host.

    • #62
  3. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    Great post Susan. I was almost ready to post about this end the Police Nonsense myself.  It is really important and people have to understand what this is really about.

    I am surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but one must understand that the Left wants chaos. Ending the police guarantees chaos in a huge way.  

    The Left  wants an revolutionary atmosphere were all the positive public institutions are questioned and eventually discarded in favor of a Leftist oriented mob rule which quickly begets a nasty thuggish Marxist Dictatorship where there are no rights. At all.   Chaos is best way to initiate and foment a revolutionary atmosphere that will lead to the Left’s dream revolution.   Ending the police is the means to Chaos and Chaos is best vehicle to lead to revolution and the end of our Republic. 

    That is also what much of the Pandemic Lockdown is about; bring about chaos. This end the Police nonsense is intricately intertwined with pushing the disruption of our rights through a lockdown.

    I know some of the libertarians here want to talk about reform and such and about how dismantling the police as we know them in some sort of enlightened process, but this process once it gets started  is going to move quickly downhill into street warfare, mayhem and chaos. No doubt about it.

    Earlier today I was watching  a youtube video about St. Patrick. Patrick grew up in Britannia, an advanced, productive, imminently civilized  colony of Rome in what we now called England just as the Roman Imperial Guard was leaving Britannia as the Roman Empire collapsed.  Barbaric Irish marauders took him as a slave as Irish slave raiding parties increased exponentially as the Guard left.  Patrick was a slave for 6 years in Ireland in a barbaric society that had no towns, nor roads, no industry, no learning and was  bereft with infighting among the clans  before he escaped  back to Britannia. But Britannia in the six years he was gone  became   engulfed in almost total chaos. Civilized society  had dissolved quickly after he left  and in the next few decades, the Britains, except for a few  peoples in Wales, Cornwall and northeast Britain  were enslaved almost totally by  Angle, Saxon and Fresian mercenaries they had brought to Britain to protect themselves.  Britannia society was decimated. Very quickly. This is what happens when civil order is not defended by something like a police force.

    • #63
  4. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    Limestone Cowboy (View Comment):
    And we’d better be prepared for an outflow of refugees.

    Exactly why such an “experiment” would help no one. Evidently, few Democrats learn from their mistakes when they abandon the cities and states they despoiled. Evidently, few journalists learn from events and report the failures of Democrat policies. 

    People would learn what happened to the once American city by watching it happen again in their own towns after Democrat “refugees” settle there. 

    My deepest condolences to Lileks and others who are watching their towns burn and bluster. I pray for a swift resolution.

    • #64
  5. DonG (skeptic) Coolidge
    DonG (skeptic)
    @DonG

    Every society has a police force.  You can defund it or disband it, but another force will rise up to fill the vacuum.  It is a law of nature. 

    • #65
  6. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    Unsk (View Comment):

    comment retracted

     

    • #66
  7. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    philo (View Comment):

    Hoyacon (View Comment): It may be a sign that the lunacy of our times has entered the Hoyacon household, but I almost would like see this happen. There would be unfortunate consequences, but, every so often, I’m tempted by the prospect of progressives being confronted with the fallout from their wacky ideas.

    I want to see the elected government of Minneapolis do exactly what the citizens of Minneapolis want them to do. (No almost about it.) Ditto for LA (and any others). The results, both near and far term, from these little laboratories of democracy will provide critical feedback to the rest of the nation. Cities are born, cities die (sometimes by their own hand). The ugly consequences will play out as they should. (Note: No bailouts with federal dollars.)

    Doug Watt (View Comment):

    Let me move on from the fact that the Minneapolis Police Department needs some serious reform. Every country has police officers. Even Switzerland has police officers.

    The actions of one MPD officer is horrific. Watching the looting, assaults, and arson in the aftermath of that action is just as horrific. The vast majority of Americans have never been involved in a truly violent incident. There are no rules when you are involved in a violent incident. It is not an Olympic sport. I’ve been in involved in wrestling matches, and in out and out fights. I came close to having to pull the trigger three or four times.

    If you want Kabul, Baghdad, and Syria good luck to you, you will need it. There are predators out there, and when they run out of things to steal, or someone to rape in their neighborhoods they will seek out new hunting grounds. Rape, pillage, and burn is not always conducted in that order.

    Wouldn’t it be more like the Balkans? The tribal territories are better delimited in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to some extent still are in Syria. When the state gets weak, the tribes still are a stabilizing force. The Somalis in Minneapolis may be ahead of the game.

    • #67
  8. Housebroken Coolidge
    Housebroken
    @Chuckles

    Unsk (View Comment):

    Great post Susan. I was almost ready to post about this end the Police Nonsense myself. It is really important and people have to understand what this is really about.

    I am surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but one must understand that the Left wants chaos. Ending the police guarantees chaos in a huge way.

    The Left wants an revolutionary atmosphere were all the positive public institutions are questioned and eventually discarded in favor of a Leftist oriented mob rule which quickly begets a nasty thuggish Marxist Dictatorship where there are no rights. At all. Chaos is best way to initiate and foment a revolutionary atmosphere that will lead to the Left’s dream revolution. Ending the police is the means to Chaos and Chaos is best vehicle to lead to revolution and the end of our Republic.

    That is also what much of the Pandemic Lockdown is about; bring about chaos. This end the Police nonsense is intricately intertwined with pushing the disruption of our rights through a lockdown.

    I know some of the libertarians here want to talk about reform and such and about how dismantling the police as we know them in some sort of enlightened process, but this process once it gets started is going to move quickly downhill into street warfare, mayhem and chaos. No doubt about it.

    Earlier today I was watching a youtube video about St. Patrick. Patrick grew up in Britannia, an advanced, productive, imminently civilized colony of Rome in what we now called England just as the Roman Imperial Guard was leaving Britannia as the Roman Empire collapsed. Barbaric Irish marauders took him as a slave as Irish slave raiding parties increased exponentially as the Guard left. Patrick was a slave for 6 years in Ireland in a barbaric society that had no towns, nor roads, no industry, no learning and was bereft with infighting among the clans before he escaped back to Britannia. But Britannia in the six years he was gone became engulfed in almost total chaos. Civilized society had dissolved quickly after he left and in the next few decades, the Britains, except for a few peoples in Wales, Cornwall and northeast Britain were enslaved almost totally by Angle, Saxon and Fresian mercenaries they had brought to Britain to protect themselves. Britannia society was decimated. Very quickly. This is what happens when civil order is not defended by something like a police force.

    We may have our hopes and our dreams but I think we all know this and we all are laboring to keep the wolf at bay.  

    • #68
  9. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Every society has a police force. You can defund it or disband it, but another force will rise up to fill the vacuum. It is a law of nature.

    MS 13, Crips, Bloods. La Eme. In some places veterans, or cops and retired cops.

    • #69
  10. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    M. Brandon Godbey (View Comment):

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    It may be a sign that the lunacy of our times has entered the Hoyacon household, but I almost would like see this happen. There would be unfortunate consequences, but, every so often, I’m tempted by the prospect of progressives being confronted with the fallout from their wacky ideas.

     

    In the federalist America of my dreams all the the progressives move to 25 states and all the conservatives move to the other 25 states and they get to enact all their dream policies. Take away the federal government’s ability to print money and force policy on states and progressivism get’s real untenable real quick.

    Deciding who gets the sofa when nations divorce tends to be bloody.

    • #70
  11. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Every society has a police force. You can defund it or disband it, but another force will rise up to fill the vacuum. It is a law of nature.

    But not a tradition of English common law that we’re so used to.

    • #71
  12. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):
    Wouldn’t it be more like the Balkans? The tribal territories are better delimited in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to some extent still are in Syria. When the state gets weak, the tribes still are a stabilizing force. The Somalis in Minneapolis may be ahead of the game.

    Even unifying under sharia would be seen as better than different laws and different enforcers and different policing “ethics” encountered block by block or neighborhood by neighborhood.

    • #72
  13. Addiction Is A Choice Member
    Addiction Is A Choice
    @AddictionIsAChoice

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I don’t see an end for all this violence and confusion, because in real life, the Left won’t give up.

    If their goals weren’t so sickening, their zeal would almost be admirable.

    • #73
  14. Lockdowns Are Precious Inactive
    Lockdowns Are Precious
    @Pseudodionysius

    The Scarecrow (View Comment):

    And I thought Robocop was just a movie.

    Life is a movie. And they’re very precious.

    • #74
  15. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    I don’t think community policing means that local communities determine the law.  And the Minneapolis council member talking about disbanding the Minneapolis Police Department seems pretty vague on the details. 

    Does this really mean no more police presence in Minneapolis?

    Not necessarily.

    For example:

    In 2012, Camden [NJ] saw a record-high murder rate that rivaled national rates of the most dangerous countries….In the face of this violence, Camden did something quite radical: It disbanded its 141-year-old police force. In its place, the surrounding county formed a new police department that it wants to expand to other jurisdictions outside the city. The Camden County Police Department rehired most of the laid-off cops, along with nearly 100 other officers, but at much lower salaries and with fewer benefits than they had received from the city.

    With better outcomes:

    After a particularly deadly year in 1995, Camden’s Cathedral of Immaculate Conception began illuminating one candle for each homicide victim. In 2012, the year ended with 67 candles—a rate of about 87 murders per 100,000 residents, which ranked Camden fifth nationwide.

    But on New Year’s 2018, just 22 candles were lit: The city’s murder rate fell to its lowest since 1987. The number of annual killings has been in decline since 2012; so have robberies, aggravated assaults, violent crimes, property crimes, and non-fatal shooting incidents.  

    So it might be a good thing.  ??

     

    • #75
  16. Lockdowns Are Precious Inactive
    Lockdowns Are Precious
    @Pseudodionysius

    • #76
  17. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    Do any of these folks recognize that one logical consequence of the proposal is the armed citizenry that they fervently oppose?

    OMG–I’m sure they don’t. Or the next vote is to reject the Constitution and take our guns. Right?

    No police and no private ownership of weapons. What could possibly go wrong?

    As previously mentioned, this is precisely the strategy that made Detroit the city it is today.

    • #77
  18. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Zafar (View Comment):
    I don’t think community policing means that local communities determine the law.

    Nobody in the next community over necessarily cares what you think.

    • #78
  19. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Every society has a police force. You can defund it or disband it, but another force will rise up to fill the vacuum. It is a law of nature.

    Disagree. Another force doesn’t rise up to replace the police. Multiple competing forces rise up to replace the police. They are called “gangs”.

    • #79
  20. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

    The Scarecrow (View Comment):

    And I thought Robocop was just a movie.

    You should wish that their proposal was to merely privatize the police department.

    • #80
  21. Misthiocracy got drunk and Member
    Misthiocracy got drunk and
    @Misthiocracy

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    Or the next vote is to reject the Constitution

    Now, how is this done if the Constitution guarantees every ‘State’ a republican form of government? Exactly what powers do municipal governments have that distinguishes that local government from individual local residents and where do they get that power?

    The powers-that-be have already declared that vandalism, theft, and arson are legitimate forms of protest. Do you really think that such folk will dare to oppose municipalities that rebel against the Constitution?

    • #81
  22. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    Crime rates only go up if crimes are reported and recorded. If you stop answering 911 calls and make sure the citizens patrol only bring back good news (assuming they venture out at all) you have a crime-free city. No reporter or social scientist in his or her right mind is going to wade into what’s left to check your reported outcomes.

    One can almost smell the success on the way. If Minneapolis does this I will be expecting royalties or a consulting fee.

    • #82
  23. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    Do any of these folks recognize that one logical consequence of the proposal is the armed citizenry that they fervently oppose?

    OMG–I’m sure they don’t. Or the next vote is to reject the Constitution and take our guns. Right?

    Without cops, who’s gonna take the guns?

     

    • #83
  24. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    Crime rates only go up if crimes are reported and recorded. If you stop answering 911 calls and make sure the citizens patrol only bring back good news (assuming they venture out at all) you have a crime-free city. No reporter or social scientist in his or her right mind is going to wade into what’s left to check your reported outcomes.

    One can almost smell the success on the way. If Minneapolis does this I will be expecting royalties or a consulting fee.

    Wow. Yup. Of course that will happen. 

     

    • #84
  25. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Housebroken (View Comment):
    If you’re a police officer in Minneapolis – avoid the rush: quit, and move out now.

    There aren’t many – stats say 92% of the cops live outside of the city. 

    There’s no way this leads to an unarmed  “civil enforcement authority” or whatever they call it. They’re talking about a different model of policing, where you send in a social worker or mental health worker first, instead of sending in a cop who might not have the training or sensitivity or patience to deal with someone in crisis. Then you send the armed cop after the social worker was stabbed. 

    I could be wrong; they could be that nuts.

    • #85
  26. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Stad (View Comment):
    With all due respect, love, and admiration for James Lileks, the HWX guys, and other residents of the city: go for it. Show the rest of the country what life in a major city without a police force would be like.

    Yeah, no. We just had a flaming – literally – example of what you get when the cops are absent. Even if the example results in destruction and anarchy and the loss of a great American city, it wouldn’t stop the Left from attempting to implement the idea elsewhere. It would just mean Minneapolis hadn’t done it correctly

    I’m going to call my city councilperson on Monday. As a Member of the Media, I might get a call back. I will have some questions. I’ll report back when I get some answers.

    • #86
  27. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker
    • #87
  28. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    Do any of these folks recognize that one logical consequence of the proposal is the armed citizenry that they fervently oppose?

    OMG–I’m sure they don’t. Or the next vote is to reject the Constitution and take our guns. Right?

    Using what police force?

    • #88
  29. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    James Lileks (View Comment):
    There’s no way this leads to an unarmed “civil enforcement authority” or whatever they call it. They’re talking about a different model of policing, where you send in a social worker or mental health worker first

    I think the thinking on the part of the generally deluded is that cops are brute-force symbols of patriarchal oppression, and social workers will be able to enter a violent domestic scene and bring words of compassion and enlightenment to resolve the conflict.  What those who are above these deluded people think, the anarchists and anti-fa, is that they will functionally affect semi-autonomous banlieues.  Those that fund the violent extremists think, this will bring about the destruction of the Western Judeo-Christian society and use violence to control the lower classes.

    • #89
  30. Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing) Member
    Sisyphus (hears Xi laughing)
    @Sisyphus

    [Never mind.]

    • #90
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.