Thread by @pauldirks

This column on defunding police is intellectual pap. Maybe there are arguments out there for it, but this is something a 14 year old justice warrior would write. Short thread.

nationalpost.com/news/calum-mar…

Argues that experts in mental health or social work can deal with situations often dealt with by police. And what if they are not initially successful and there's escalation and violence? You are putting people in harm's way, in many cases women.

There seems to be an underlying optimism here that people are basically good and just need a little help now and then. Where is the evidence that people are basically good? Can someone point me to a society without police where the poor are not regularly and severely oppressed?

Specifically in regard to public drug use, what world is this guy living in that a substance use professional intervention is going to stop the drug user? If it were that easy we would put 1000 professionals on the street and largely eradicate drug use.

Never before in my life have I understood the American preoccupation with guns. Beginning to now. Because someone's got to defend my family. These people are living in a white ivory-tower upper middle-class bubble with no notion of the history of civilization.

I could be wrong. Show me examples of a non-policed society with law and order where women, children, and the poor don't suffer as a result. OK, done my rant. I am just absolutely shocked that this would run in National Post.