by Mike Whitney, The Unz Review:

The leaders of Black Lives Matter want to “defund the police”. They think “systemic racism” and “police brutality” are so bad that police budgets must be cut dramatically in order to reduce the number of cops on the beat. They believe that fewer cops will move the black community closer to their goal of racial justice.

This is the basic theory behind the idea of defunding the police. There’s only one problem with the theory, it’s wrong. Simply put: Blacks don’t want fewer cops. Here’s the scoop from Newsweek:

“A majority of Black Americans have said they want police presence in their area to either remain the same or increase, despite recent protests over police brutality, according to new polls.

A Gallup poll conducted from June 23 to July 6 surveying more than 36,000 U.S. adults found that 61 percent of Black Americans said they’d like police to spend the same amount of time in their community, while 20 percent answered they’d like to see more police, totaling 81 percent. Just 19 percent of those polled said they wanted police to spend less time in their area.

Black Americans’ responses to the question were nearly on par with the national average, in which 67 percent of all U.S. adults said they wanted police presence to remain the same and 19 percent said they wanted it to increase.” (“81% of Black Americans Don’t Want Less Police Presence Despite Protests—Some Want More Cops: Poll”, Newsweek)

Why isn’t this on the front-page of the New York Times?

Well, because the facts don’t jibe with the media’s political agenda, right? From the very beginning, the only people supporting this crazy idea have been the lying media and their wacko-BLM allies. As you can see, the idea has no base of support among the black community because the majority of blacks are no different than the majority of whites. They want to be safe in their homes and in their neighborhoods. They want to know that they can walk to the corner grocery store without be beaten senseless with a 2×4 or shot-dead by some junkie gangbanger who needs money for his fix. The average guy is not worried about “systemic racism”, that’s way above his pay-grade. The average guy just wants to be safe. That’s it. That’s not my conclusion, that’s the opinion of the more than 80% of the blacks who took the survey and stated they wanted as much or more “police presence” as they have now.

So, the matter is settled. The majority has spoken and democracy should prevail, right?

Wrong. Because BLM is led by fanatics that have no regard for the will of the people. And why should they, after all, they know better than everyone else. And they can count on the help of their mainly-white supporters in Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis, to ignore the majority opinion and push ahead with their nutso “defunding” agenda.

In Seattle, the Mayor actually allowed part of the city to be taken over by the mob and turned into its own sovereign state called CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Zone). The liberal mayor figured this new “police free” zone would signal the beginning of another “Summer of Love” like Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s. Unfortunately, CHOP was plagued with violence from the very get-go and three people were shot dead in violent encounters in the first two weeks. In other words, Seattle has already experimented with “police free” zones and they have incontrovertible proof that they don’t work. No matter. Seattle is moving ahead with its defunding idea regardless. After all, facts don’t matter to these people. What matters is ideology, liberal ideology.

And you wonder why we call them fanatics?

In Minneapolis– another bastion of liberalism– the City Council just created “a department of community safety and violence prevention,” with a director who would have “non-law enforcement experience in community safety services, including but not limited to public health and/or restorative justice approaches.”

“Restorative justice”? In other words, the department will be staffed with over-educated social workers in thick-rim glasses who ‘ll be dispatched to domestic violence scenes where they’ll engage the bloody couple in “crystal” therapies and chanting? And this is supposed to move us all closer to racial justice?

Wouldn’t it be easier to reform the system? Wouldn’t it make more sense to simply remove the overly-aggressive or racist cops and let the rest do their jobs? Do we really need to reinvent the wheel? Let’s remember, the vast majority of African Americans want to be safe and secure. Not one of the 36,000 adults that were surveyed asked for “restorative justice” which is clearly a remedy that emerges from that bottomless wellspring of white guilt. That’s not what ordinary people want. They don’t want to be patronized; they want security. Check out this excerpt from an article by Thomas Friedman:

“Among those opposing this change (in Minneapolis) is a budding coalition of Black and white community leaders from North Minneapolis, the historical home of the Minneapolis Black community. They are unnerved by the notion of dismantling the police force for a vague alternative at a time when their neighborhood has experienced a surge in gang shootings, lootings and drug dealing…

On Aug. 18, this coalition — four Black and four white families from North Minneapolis — filed suit against the City Council and the mayor, Jacob Frey, to compel them to maintain the legal minimum of police officers on the Minneapolis force. The families contend that the Council’s actions have driven out too many police officers and curtailed the hiring of replacements, endangering their neighborhood….

The State Legislature, they also argued, “must change arbitration rules that too often demand bad cops be rehired after being fired for abusive policing.”

But they added: “We will not sacrifice the safety of our community in the pursuit of the City Council’s lofty goals with no plan to back them up. In the months since George Floyd’s murder, we have seen an explosion in crime and homicides….

This is the bottom line: “By charter the Council must maintain a per capita force in the mid-700s of active duty officers. While this is not enough for our needs, we worry that the Council’s naïve intent is to take us well below this number. And we are not having it. If the leadership of the city cannot muster the wisdom to keep us safe, it must muster the compliance to obey the law that is designed to do so.”…

“We have to be able to say both that Black lives matter and that protests that turn violent cannot be allowed to tear up our city”…(“For Biden to Win, Listen to Minneapolis”, New York Times)

See? Even Tom Friedman “gets it”, so why is this an issue?

It’s an issue because BLM has made it an issue, so the Democrats and media are playing along. The Dems don’t want to alienate a core constituency this close to the general election so they’re going along with this farce. Are you surprised? Heck, it took Joe Biden three months to even speak out against the rioting, looting and arson. That tells us that Biden puts politics above everything, even public safety. Which is why his public approval ratings have been falling like a stone. Check out this article from the Washington Times:

“President Trump’s approval rating among Black voters jumped by 60% during the Republican National Convention even as Democrats and progressives sought to brand the Republican president as racist.

A HarrisX-Hill poll released Friday showed Mr. Trump’s net approval with Black voters from Aug. 22-25, which included the first two days of the RNC, rose to 24%, up from 15% in the pollster’s Aug. 8-11 survey.

The poll also found his approval rating among Hispanic voters during the same period increased slightly from 30% to 32%, while his support among White voters decreased by the same margin, ticking down from 54% to 52%.” (“Trump’s approval rating with Black voters soars by 60% during RNC: poll”, Washington Times)

True, the Times does suggest that Trump’s surge among black voters has more to do with the Republican convention, but his approach to the BLM riots have certainly helped him. Unlike Biden, Trump does not check the direction of the wind before he makes a decision. He displays the type of moral clarity and strength that people expect from their leaders in times of crisis. Trump has never vacillated on his offer to deploy the National Guard to Democrat-run cities to quell the rioting and violence. Like him or hate him, Trump is a resolute leader who is willing to use an iron-fist to reestablish order. Many people believe that those harsher measures are now necessary to keep the country from slipping deeper into the abyss of anarchy and ruin. In fact, steps should have been taken long ago. We should never allow our cities to be incinerated by hooligans. Check out this excerpt from USA Today:

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