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Join Jim and Greg for one of the craziest Three Martini Lunches we’ve ever had! First, they dissect the ludicrous push to defend and dismantle police departments and react to Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender suggesting crime victims who would normally call the cops need to understand their privilege by not having police come. They also hammer public health “experts” for declaring that the racial justice protests are more important than stopping the coronavirus, but other protests should not go forward, and stay-at-home protests are rooted in white nationalism. And they chronicle the New York Times fully surrendering to the woke mob.
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All Lives Matter!!
I wish the New York Times were the only business surrendering.
To re-use the expression about “free” health care: If you think (especially black) neighborhoods are unsafe NOW, WITH/BECAUSE OF police, just wait and see how unsafe they are WITHOUT police.
Greg appears to swallow the notion, put forward by a cracked* Minneapolis Councilwoman, that having somebody able to respond when you call 911 is white privilege.
I couldn’t find statistics on this, but it’s likely blacks call 911 more often than whites, given how crime-ridden black communities are.
Rememberjimgeraghtyisalwayswrong: “Bender” on Futurama is not a “killer robot who had no compassion or care for anybody else.” He is a beer-swilling, cigar-chomping oaf, a working-class robot with a sentimental streak a mile wide.
*Or maybe crazy like a fox. By saying things like this, she builds up her stock of “anti-racism capital”, which she can draw on when, down the road, she is inevitably accused of being racist or insufficiently progressive.
A rational reading of “defund the police” might be to open up the industry to competition, with private security companies hired by cities or communities to patrol various neighborhoods.
A security company that did a bad job would be fired, and a different company hired, something you can’t do today.
N.B.: Some companies might specialize in handling inner-city neighborhoods.
And the inner-city neighborhoods could afford to pay them… how?
He seemed to “mellow” later in the show, but…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qBlPa-9v_M
There were others, but I can’t find them on youtube.
@kedavis — “hired by cities or communities”; or, in other words, the same way inner city neighborhoods pay for police services now. The only difference is, they would no longer be stuck with a permanent monopoly.
P.S.: The reply function isn’t working. This is a reply to #6.
Reply works for me.
Police departments are paid for city-wide by city-wide revenue including various taxes. Do you think those inner city neighborhoods have enough of a tax base to pay for their own security/police? My guess is under the current system they are heavily subsidized.
Exactamundo. Just the way the services are paid for now. Mind you, it’s virtually certain the private alternative will be more effective and with lower costs.
The reply problem I have is intermittent.
They’re in effect subsidized now because it’s basically invisible. But if you have swanky neighborhoods like Brentwood paying for their own “police” because they have the money, and then Compton or whatever says “hey, pay for ours too!” what do you think the response will be?
(Actually, MY response would probably be “Hey, you don’t WANT police, remember?” But I mean in practical terms…)
Listening to some commentators backpedal, apparently “defund” means something other than “defund.” Webster had it all wrong with this definition. Also, pointing to Camden, NJ as a success story must come as a surprise to anyone who’s recently been to Camden, NJ. Your chances of being a crime victim there are 1 in 62.
Something else people should keep in mind, even if a city did get rid of their police department, do you think the city would refund that money back to the taxpayers? HAH!
As in the above clip, Bender may occasionally dream about killing all humans, but he never actually does it, instead saving human lives on many occasions.
Nope, Jim Geraghty is still wrong. Bender has many reprehensible characteristics, like stealing everything that isn’t nailed down, and much of what it is, and worst of all harboring a secret ambition to become a folk singer.
I think Brentwood and Compton are small cities a couple of hundred miles apart.
But setting that aside, in all cities I know of, paying taxes is not voluntary. So the swanky folks may resent how many of their tax dollars are being fruitlessly poured into poor neighborhoods, to pay for things like public schools and police services. But they can’t do much about it.
Guid Laird! Not that!
It wasn’t a great example, but still made the point. And a lot of taxation is by county, Brentwood is in Los Angeles county along with several other cities. There’s also the statewide revenue picture. And the “City Of Los Angeles” has both rich and poor areas.