Republicans are for "small government" unless they control the state and it is a local gov.
this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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25% of a city budget to police? Wtf?
A lot of towns and cities spend way more than that.
If two-thirds of a populace is opposed to something, and their government approves it anyway. Then their government is illegitimate.
The issue here is what to do when you have multiple levels of government. One government entity may be against a policy, but a larger government entity which includes the smaller entity may be for a policy.
This case is regarding police funding, but this could apply to school or welfare programs as well.
Yes, that's capitalist "democracy" for you. Almost everyone agrees on increased funding and auditing to public healthcare, education, pensions and welfare in general, and yet we see all western capitalist countries heading in the opposite direction for the last 20 years.
Yeah, and I know this sounds trivial by comparison, but we had something similar here recently and it was a proposed ban on fox hunting that the government scooched away that the populous were wildly in favour of.
I have to say that if 25% of my city's money was being spent on police I'd be making them earn their fucking money and you may infer from that what you will.
Imagine the opportunity cost. And guess who lost the most in that trade? The most vulnerable.
Seems pretty legit to me. Must be if people aren't up in arms about
"People weren't willing to throw their lives away in the people grinder machine, that means they fully support the people grinder machine"
Unironically yes. People should learn what it means to permit their government to ignore their wishes.
People should, but I'm kind of tired of all the keyboard warriors thinking that lack of blood on the streets equals lack of action and explicit approval, especially when they have no skin in the fight themselves.
It's some of the most absurd shit. "I don't see you actively hunting down child abusers, so you must be a pedophile" ass opinions.
It's easy to call for others to die for a cause, and that's a large part of what led to the situation we're in now. People sitting back and sentencing others to pay for their desires.
And I am sick of americans pretending nothing can be done and that their stupid nation is somehow different then the rest of the world. Do you know how fucking frustrating it is watching a nation collapse and try to take the world down with it all while the same people that expected people in the middle east to rise up and fight their oppressor sit on their fat asses and get offended when anyone asks literally anything from them? We all world wide have skin in this game, and you are all sitting around stating that the fucking self proclaimed world police does not concern us?!
Like wholly flying fuck sticks, but if your are being told often enough that a real nation would be full on in revolt to tire you out.... YOU MIGHT BE PART OF THE ISSUE.
People forget that the people and the government are the same fucking thing.
not at that size, no. yes they all have addresses and put their pants on one leg at a time, but they are capitalists before anything else, including the people who voted for them.
which means they are no longer human - they are pieces of shit.
Rich out of touch morons with the best benefits and healthcare on earth are not my people
Way to misinterpret me.
We the people ARE the government. We only elect representatives. But all this (look around), it’s ours.
You haven't been involved with politics at a local level, have you? Just the bullshit going on with flock surveillance cameras being pushed through is a good microcosm of how politicians don't face consequences for failing to follow their constituents will.
Hey this happens in Canada too. In BC, the capital city has 23% of budget go to VicPD. The city has tried turning down budget increase requests, then the province stepped in and forced them to do it.
Yep, the state loves to control the two largest metropolitan areas. They also own St. Louis' police. They want full control over the cities because we're the cash cows for the state, despite all the lip service paid to farmers and rural people, who all depend on the money we generate here for their welfare.
It's a remnant of Civil War-era law and unlikely to ever change.
Yep we damn well didn't want to give the pigs anymore than they already get. And you aren't wrong about the situation in St Louis. People don't even understand how that shit can be like that. It's completely fucked up in the eyes of most the rest of the world but in Missouri it's just Tuesday.
Yup, I hate the KCPD.
It wasn't that long ago that they were just letting break-ins happen because they wanted to make Jackson County Prosecutor look bad and try to kill her reelection hopes, all for having the temerity to criticize the shitty job that cops do here. I see them when I'm out walking the dogs a lot and they're always friendly to my face, but I keep in the back of my mind that these people are a piece-of-refuse gang and they'd happily shoot me and my animals in the head if it were convenient for them.
Remember the cardinal rule, friends: Don't talk to cops. Ever.
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Alright, well I guess this transit expansion is going under the police file. I hope you like driving buses, cops.
But more seriously...
Adding insult to injury for Kansas City, local officials will have no say in how their money gets spent by the police department—even as they are required by the state to pour more funds into it.
Talk about a corruption machine.
Guess how much police overtime will go up now.
Missouri is a very corrupt state. Besides what you just mentioned, which is true, we also voted in an anti-gerrymandering law in 2018.
Before it could go into effect, the Conservative Party got a repeal of the law onto the ballot with very shady text to trick voters into repealing their own votes.
Wow, scumbags
Yup.
All we get is one seat on the state commission that runs our police, which is filled by the mayor. We are effectively powerless to regulate the police in any meaningful way.
Why can't the city just put all sorts of social services under the police department. Heck do the whole city and everyone gets better pay and benefits.
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I wonder if you couldn't start hiring social workers and garbage collectors under the police's budget. Pitch it in some ridiculous but slightly connected way. Garbage collectors could be 'gathering evidence' as the law allows garbage to be searched without warrant, and social workers could be some sort of 'post-incident contact follow-up-ers.' Hell, expand it to wildly mildly connected things, like roadwork and bike paths, you know, to make the cops able to get around faster.
Social workers, Crisis intervention teams, psychologists and a whole lot more. Police work doesn't necessarily just consist of shooting people. But I guess in the US that's a radical viewpoint.
Policing in the US rose largely out of slave patrols. You can’t just tell them to hire social workers and expect any change. The problem is so deeply rooted and systemic that you have to eliminate the entire concept of police and start from the ground up.
If I was in charge of replacing the police, part of the changes would be limits on serving as an officer and other roles. This would encourage fresh blood to replace the old, and help prevent corruption: Former police officers can end up under the batons of their successors, if they don't ingrain good values into the next generation.
By breaking up the career and authority of police officers into discrete chunks, we can also prevent power accumulation via social bonds among them. Something like:
1 year of academy -> 3 years as officer -> 1 year paid remedial education -> 3 years as officer -> 1 year paid remedial -> 3 years as officer, etc.
While we would lose raw efficiency due to elections, education requirements, and so forth, I think something like this would help prevent police from becoming a vile cornerstone of society.
Those things are separate from police in the US. Probably intentionally.
Well see the police budget is now 99 percent this new peoples internal affairs that get anti tank weapons and are hired to follow cops around there are ten with gins pointed at cops at all times under the logic that policibg makes you good so were just policing the police so they're more efficient and good
The problem is the KCPD doesn’t report to the city. They don’t have to do what the mayor says so they just do what they want.
It’s gross and they end up paying out a lot in lawsuits.
Oh they privatized trash pickup. It sucks. Cost more and you never know when they will get there. It has improved marginally in recent years. But even just a year or two ago. They would regularly not show up till the day after pick up was supposed to be. Often well after sunset. I'm guessing they were probably purposely understaffing. Abusing their employees to nickel and dime the contract for every cent they could get.
And if there's one thing our dip shit state legislature is against. It's having competition for privatized services. Especially after the Kickbacks they get.
I was wondering the same, malicious compliance. You could do a lot under the guise of pre-crime prevention.
Give every sanitation worker a badge and a gun. Call them the police anti-littering squad or something.
I wonder how much of that 25% is being spent to pay for lawsuits it settled or lost? I'm sure that's not just an LA thing.
"Small government" red states love doing stuff like this. The state of Indiana passed a law banning 'no turn on red' signs, just to spite Indianapolis.
These states are run by rural losers who resent the fact that they depend on the predominantly blue cities for all their economic activity.
Yes, we are in the rare situation of not being in control of our police department. They do not report to the mayor and he has very little say in how they behave.
Gotta pump up those urban crime stats.
I think it's time to show the government why the right to govern is given by the consent of governed.
Precursor to the Kansas City QZ?
Who tf invited u to my fever dream?
How in the hell is America considered a democracy?
Who still thinks this? America is and probably always has been some mix of authoritarian, oligarchy, fascist, kakistocracy.
Fair point. But we still had a semblance of representation before the destruction of the vra and the beginning of the tyranny of the minority.
Having any police is a social program, as is any other government work.
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