I’ve dedicated a lot of time to reading books from a wide range of authors with vastly different opinions on a variety of issues that we face today. On top of that, I’m passionate about reading books by people I think I disagree with and often invite them on my podcast to chat about their books, beliefs, and ideas. Something that’s become very clear is that we’re all having different conversations, which leads to confrontations although we actually agree on most things. One shining example of this is the defund the police movement, and it was made even more apparent in the recent Bari Weiss conversation with Rob Henderson on the Common Sense podcast.
I’ve only been somewhat familiar with Rob Henderson, but when I read his guest piece on the Bari Weiss Substack this morning and then listened to their conversation, I could relate to him a lot. Bari’s interested in Rob’s idea of what he calls “luxury beliefs”. These are beliefs that the wealthy and privileged hold that would negatively affect the lower class.
After struggling with a drug and alcohol addiction that almost killed me, I was able to get sober in 2012 and learned the importance of finding similarities rather than differences. Rob lived a rough life bouncing around from foster homes, being abandoned by his adoptive father, and struggling with his own internal demons as a result. His life was much different than mine, and I’d say it was worse, but I could definitely relate to some of how he felt and how he views the world now through a different lens than most.
I grew up with an alcoholic mom, lived barely above the poverty line most of my life, and battled extreme depression, anxiety, and addiction. Now that I’m in recovery and have an amazing life with my son back in it, I’m passionate about helping others. So, like Rob, I see all of this culture war nonsense and the luxury beliefs being a massive waste of time while people are suffering in the United States and around the world.
With how much I relate to Rob and how he was shocked at the way his Yale classmates perceive the world, I knew something was wrong when I heard him and Bari discussing the idea of defunding the police.
If I were to sit down with Rob and ask him if he thinks we need more social workers to help children like himself, I’m sure he’d agree. If I asked him if he thought we could reduce crime by providing more people with the mental healthcare and addiction treatment services they’d need, he wouldn’t object. If we were to discuss what could help kids stay on the right track, I’m positive we’d come up with ideas for more community services to help parents and children.
Now, why am I so confident that Rob and I would be on the same page, and probably Bari as well? Because I’ve had this conversation dozens of times with guests on my podcast who are against defunding the police. I’ve spoken with people who take issue with the BLM movement and all of the woke culture war stuff going on, but they agree that resources, mental healthcare, and addiction treatment are needed.
And that’s the problem because this is what defunding the police means.
Defunding the police and abolishing the police are two very different things, and only a minority of people are fighting for the latter. The issue isn’t the idea; the issue is the branding. I’ve worked in marketing and branding for years, and the second I saw the disconnect between the term “defund the police” and what it actually means, I realized someone messed up royally.
John Oliver did a full episode on this last year during the protests where he broke down what defunding the police actually means. In short, it means taking some, not all, of the funding that goes into policing and shifting it to the services we discussed above. Police are meant to keep us safe, and there are some really violent people out there, so that’s great, but the majority of people being policed aren’t violent. And there are many who are violent that we can prevent from committing violence if we had more resources.
Rob Henderson is absolutely right that poverty-stricken areas have higher rates of crime, so they don’t want to get rid of policing. The reality is that these people would also agree that there are solutions nowhere to be found in their communities. They want solutions to keep their kids of the streets. They want childcare, social services, mental healthcare, and addiction services.
Although I’m on the fence about certain aspects of harm reduction, it’s a fact that crime rates go down in areas with methadone clinics. You don’t need to rob people for dope money if you’re being treated with methadone. And how many people are currently in prison due to mental health and substance abuse issues?
The police budgets are almost as bloated as our military budgets, and once we recognize that, we can be honest and move some money around. If we took some of the money being used to give police tanks and military gear and moved it to these other resources, we’d see much better results.
Police are not trained mental health professionals. There is little to no police training for de-escalation or how to deal with suspects who are suffering from mental health issues. That’s totally fine because police have a lot on their plate. All we’re asking is to shift some of the money to people who won’t bring a gun and handcuffs to a situation that may be better suited for a therapist or a social worker.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about opportunity costs and how much time we waste talking past each other due to having different conversations. I don’t think Rob or Bari would say it’s a bad idea to provide better resources to these communities. But how can we do that without raising taxes? We shift some money around.
I’m no economist, but I’d almost guarantee we could pay police officers the same wages by providing them with what they need to do their jobs and eliminating some of the tactical gear they take to low-risk calls.
But until we start recognizing what we agree on and get past the terrible branding of “defund the police”, we’re going to continue to be locked in a stalemate. So, let’s agree on some definitions, find some people who understand human psychology and branding, and let’s come up with some solutions that we clearly agree on.
I’ve been working on organizing all the books I’ve read, and I have multiple lists of books on becoming a better thinker. There are lists for education, social issues, critical thinking, self-deception, and biases. For the rest of the categories, click here.
I’m always open for a conversation and to be shown what I might be missing or where I may be wrong, so feel free to email me at TheRewiredSoul@gmail.com