Backlash to the murder of George Floyd started off promisingly. It was a moment to mourn the passing of an innocent man, and to take stock of the militarization of police forces in the United States, Canada, and beyond. It didn’t take long however for the discussion to move from the need for major police reform, to being highjacked by the radical left into an agenda of race and bizarre social experimentation..The opportunity was too good to turn up for liberals and their more radical partners to lecture people about how most of them were racists, and needed to bend to their latest trendy proposals.. Justin Trudeau kneelPrime Minister Justin Trudeau kneeling at a Black Lives Mater demonstration .Sometimes police kill people. Sometimes necessarily, sometimes unnecessarily. Sometimes the officer and victim are of different races. Sometimes not. Sometimes police brutality is influenced by race, sometimes it isn’t..None of this nuance matters to those taking advantage of this man’s murder to push a different agenda though. As peaceful protests descended in many cases into riots and looting, the message transformed from reasonable (and sometimes thoughtful) proposals for reform and accountability, into a bizarre call to “defund the police”..The libertarians among us were intrigued at first. There is little that government does that people (individually or corporately) can’t do better. The anarcho-capitalist branch of the libertarian movement has long called for doing away with the state-monopoly on violence in favour of private police forces, contracted by paying citizens, or on a fee-for-service basis. It’s a bit pie-in-the-sky, but is essentially, “defunding the police”.. George Floyd-Derek ChauvinPolice Officer Derek Chauvin uses a controversial knee-hold on George Floyd, leading to his death .Westerners wishing to push back against Ottawa’s overreach into the provinces are also keen to do away with the RCMP, replacing it with provincial police forces. This is not “defunding” in any sense, but “reallocating funding” from a force controlled by the federal government, to smaller forces controlled by provincial governments..“Defunding” the police seems a strange position for socialists to hold however. The very existence of the modern welfare state relies upon the implicit use of force to collect taxes to support it. Canadians who do not pay their taxes, promptly receive a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) informing them that they are in arrears, and that a penalty has been assessed. If the deviant non-taxpayers still refuse to budge, they face up to two years in prison..And many taxpayers have moral grounds to be a conscientious tax objector. Taxes fund wars, and yes, police. Taxes on the more productive are redistributed to the less productive, which some may view as theft. Taxes paid by Westerners are shipped eastward, often to prop up hostile governments in other provinces.. Democrats kneelUS Democratic Party Congressional Leadership kneeling, wearing Ghanan Kente cloth .Without police to show up at the door, it’s impossible to force people to pay taxes, and it’s a good bet that many a taxpayer do not feel that they get good value for their money. Without police to enforce tax collection, many would decide that they would rather get an effective 40 per cent raise on their paycheque..Without the police, who would the federal government send to kick in the doors of gun owners and seize otherwise legal firearms?.“Defund the police” fits better with hardcore libertarians wanting to be left alone, than with socialists demanding more state power.. Trudeau-Gun BanPrime Minister Trudeau announcing his party’s plan to ban new categories of firearms. .But when we scratch the surface of the new “defund the police” crowd however, it doesn’t take long to discover that they mean no such thing. By “defund”, they do not mean defund, at least in any English sense of the word..When pressed, “Defund the police” advocates say that they still wish there to be an organization with a state monopoly on violence to enforce the law. It would just be called something else, and accountable to the people which it serves..Unraveling the onion of ideological language, it sounds a lot like a typical municipal police force, with extra funding to deal with addictions and mental health..University of Toronto-Mississauga sociology professor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, gives “defunding” an interesting new definition..“[It’s] a reallocation or a reassignment of certain tasks and functions that we recognize that the police aren’t performing very well, that there are negative outcomes to their involvement in those activities such as increased risk for the use of violence and potential for criminalization..“A large part of the problem is for individuals who are suffering mental health crises, and for those around them, the police are often the quickest point of contact or seemingly the most sensible resource to call.”.To those who follow the Webster’s English dictionary’s definition of “defund” (“to withdraw funding from”), this is a perplexing argument..When I say, “defund the CBC”, I mean “defund the CBC”. As in, “withdraw funding from the CBC”. Not reorganize the CBC with new management, departments, and functions. Not decentralize the CBC with elected local newsroom managers. I mean, “defund the CBC”.. Sell the CBC-Libertarian Party“Sell the CBC” signs from the Libertarian Party, outside of the Calgary CBC headquarters .Defund is a wonderful word, with a wonderful definition. Like many words in the English language, post-modernists are attempting to redefine it to mean something else entirely..Minneapolis’s city council has voted to “defund” its police department. We’ll get to watch – hopefully from a safe distance – how well that works out for them. Liberal Minnesota isn’t much of a Second Amendment state, and so it’s a good bet that if they truly did “defund” their police department, Minneapolis’s streets would be dominated by gang lords with illegal guns..In the ANTIFA hotbed of Seattle, police vacated the Capital Hill neighbourhood, after which the terrorist organization seized six blocks and declared it independent of the United States, under the name “Capital Hill Autonomous Zone”. A sort of far-left Confederacy, or American Paris Commune if you will.. Capital Hill Autonomous ZoneA banner declaring the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone .As such communes do, they almost immediately ran out of communal food, and pleaded with the City of Seattle for “Vegan meat and soy.” Soy armies don’t march on empty stomachs..It didn’t take long for organizer/rapper Raz Simone to establish himself as a kind of warlord, imposing his will at the point of a gun. Whatever uniform they wear, whatever title they call themselves by, the man with the gun is the police..Camden, New Jersey, “disbanded” its police department seven years ago. The department fired 250 officers, and ended up hiring 411 replacements, in addition to another 120 “civilian clerks”. Within its first year of operations, excessive force complaints were more numerous than any other in the state..Of course, Camden didn’t actually “defund” its police. It’s slapped a new coat of paint on it, and added to its payroll under a new name. Areas like the “Capital Hill Autonomous Zone” may have more literally “defunded” the police, but have replaced it with a gangland warlord. It’s unlikely that it will survive as long as its Paris Commune predecessor did..But none of the half-baked, language-bending proposals take away from the fact that there are real problems in policing. Most police officers are good men and women, and are responsible with the use of force. But like any job that comes with authority – from the police, to the military, to nightclub bouncers – it will attract schoolyard bullies wishing to flex their muscles with the sanction of government. There is no cure-all answer to this, but there are several practical measures that can be taken.. Lethbridge Police-Storm TroopererLethbridge Police assault a woman in a Storm Trooper costume .Local police forces do not require military armoured assault vehicles, which to the uninitiated, look like tanks. Riot police in far too many cases in the United States have used excessive force against peaceful protestors. Even in much less serious circumstances, police use excessive force far too casually, as they did in beating up a Star Wars Storm Trooper in Lethbridge, Alberta just a month ago. Public awareness of and accountability for these cases – and of George Floyd – came from civilian cellphone cameras. It’s long past due that all on-duty police offers in the field should be wearing body-cameras..The “defund the police” activists mean no such thing. They are proposing a renamed police force. And the ANTIFA terrorists are up backing warlords to do the policing for them. No matter what we call them, the man with the gun, is the police. So long as there are police, there will be abuse. The practical response is to demilitarize the police, and impose real consequences when they cross the line..Derek Fildebrandt is Publisher of the Western Standard and President of Wildrose Media Corp. dfildebrandt@westernstandardonline.com
