[mshanowitz]

Since the beginning of time, civil societies have had police and a justice system. I know it's in the old testament.

Society needs an authority to turn to to resolve disputes or injustice and to maintain order, the alternative is chaos.

That authority may not be perfect, it may have certain biases that need to be worked on, but without it, disputes will be won by the superior marksman.

[Loughla]

Absolutely, 100% with you on that.

I guess, then, at the heart of the 'defund the police' movement is an attempt to move toward working on those biases.

That is what is lost in much of the conversation - we need to fix certain things in the policing of the US - because people immediately turn to 'what will we do if there are no police'.

I guess, how do we turn the conversation from 'defund the police' to 'fix this shit' without losing people along the way?

I don't have answers for any of this.

[ip26]

I wonder if busting the police unions would be a place to start.

Allegedly the unions have positioned themselves as the chief obstacle to any & all reforms.

[akimball]

Justice system, yes. Police? Not so much. Find an Old Testament reference to a police force, if you wish to be credible on this point.

[mshanowitz]

https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9980/jewish/Cha...

Deuteronomy 16:18

[username90]

Police and military was the same thing. Today we have decoupled them for many good reasons.

[ip26]

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_police