The “defund” label is perhaps the worst marketing of any social movement ever. Nearly everyone would agree with the main nominal ideas - more oversight, less violent responses, more accountability and moving resources away from militarized police and towards social work, specifically psychological interventions.
It’s so bad the tinfoil hat me often thinks it’s an op by the military industrial complex to ensure one of their biggest cash cows never faces budget issues.
>The “defund” label is perhaps the worst marketing of any social movement ever. Nearly everyone would agree with the main nominal ideas - more oversight, less violent responses, more accountability and moving resources away from militarized police and towards social work, specifically psychological interventions.
It's a motte and bailey. The sentiment behind "defund the police" goes well beyond the set of things most people agree with, but its proponents retreat "we actually agree on 95% of the issue" when challenged.
Yes, we do. But the remaining 5% is completely unacceptable.
"Defund the police" means different things to different people; for some, it's "literally abolish the police", but many others it's "implement common-sense budget reforms". For others somewhere in between. The "common-sense budget reforms" group is vastly larger than the first, and I have no idea why they adopted the slogan, or why they continue to defend it. For most, I don't think there's a "motte and bailey" strategy (or indeed, any strategy), just well-intentioned people slapping themselves in the face.
The whole "defund the police doesn't actually mean defund the police" defence is silly , and it makes it appear more people are in favour of "defund the police" than they actually are.
You are summarizing, with near perfect accuracy, the motte and bailey.
“Defund the police” actually does mean “defund the police”, and this despite attempts to dress it up as the more reasonable position that is incidentally held by a significant portion of the American public.
Even if we want to play fast and loose with semantics and interpretation, that particular formulation is chosen because it reflects an extreme position. It is a phrase that conveys (in the most general and imprecise terms) the sentiment of “I support the radical solution”. By construction, it points to a set of beliefs held by radical minority.
The motte and bailey consists in both (1) focusing on the slight differences in opinion between radicals and (2) focusing on the reasonable beliefs that the average person might share with radicals, while ignoring the unreasonable ones that are not shared. Thankfully, most people see through this, if only on a gut level.
The confusion is not accidental; it is intentional.
You are, at best, repeating a dog-whistle of a slogan. At worse, you are playing semantic games. In all cases, I would encourage you — under the charitable assumption that you are not an extremist — to prefer a turn of phrase that more precisely conveys your actual beliefs, rather than one that aims to confuse the issue and radicalize thought. As a bonus, it’ll elevate the level of discourse and make for an interesting discussion.
> You are summarizing, with near perfect accuracy, the motte and bailey.
Certainly not; there is an enormous difference between "I am saying one thing but my secret plan is another thing" and "using a bad slogan that's easily misinterpreted".
I don't like this whole "motte and bailey" kind of stuff in the first place; it's guessing at people's motivations and poison for reasonable constructive solutions or compromises. If everyone keeps guessing at people's motivation and what's in their heart of hearts we'll never get anywhere with anything.
> You are, at best, repeating a dog-whistle of a slogan
I'm not "repeating" it; I'm saying it's a bad slogan, but also adding some nuance because sure, here are some people who mean it literally, but for many others it's "just" a phrase. I wish people would stop using it, yes, but I'm also not going to dismiss the entire argument or movement just because they're using a bad slogan.
What they are summarizing isn't a motte and bailey. The logical fallacy is, rather, that you can immediately dismiss anybody who warmly references the "defund" slogan, by attributing to them all the weirdest things defund true-believers say. No, you cannot. There are no cheat codes in these discussions.
I know several people who see the news about crime at the moment and think the police need larger budgets and that the recent lawsuits about police brutality in the news means police are hamstrung when it comes to apprehending anyone. They also make jokes like "How do you expect a social worker to stop a bank robbery"
It’s so bad the tinfoil hat me often thinks it’s an op by the military industrial complex to ensure one of their biggest cash cows never faces budget issues.