The “Defund the Police” Movement

I noted a few days ago the renewal of the movement to abolish the police.  The movement seems to have a refurbished name, to wit, “Defund the Police.”  But, not to put too fine a point on it, it’s all the same nonsense.

Let’s take the “Defund” movement at its word rather than try to substitute more subtle versions (e.g., “reform”) it might have embraced but didn’t. “Defund” means “defund.” To defund an organization means to deprive it of the means to act. When the police cannot act, their core function will no longer get done.

And what is the core function of policing? To prevent crime and, when prevention fails, to capture criminals and bring them to face the consequences imposed by law.

Contrary to a bunch of dodges you’re going to hear, the Defund movement is not about drug legalization or regulatory reform or qualified immunity — battles that have been going on for years. So-called reformers don’t need to defund the police to do any of that. They need to win their arguments in Congress and the courts.

We need to wake up and look at what’s in front of our faces. The reason the Defund movement has currency right now goes arm-in-arm with the other major “movement” taking place right now, to wit, the abandonment of the rule of law and the destruction of civic life brought about by rampant rioting, looting, arson, assault and theft. We have the police, acting in our behalf, to fight such behavior. The Defund movement is exactly what it says it is: A movement to decommission the police so they will lose that fight.

We need to ask ourselves this: When the police lose it, who’s going to win it? And when the rioters and arsonists and muggers win, what is your life going to be like?  For that matter, what is civilized life going to be like for any of us?