With #AbolishPolice getting more attention given recent protests, The End of Policing by Alex Vitale from a few years back might be getting another look. It does not spell out -- as some do -- the alternatives to our current system of police and punishment. So, e.g., what do we do not only for relatively easy cases (sure, decriminalize drugs or sex work) but things that everyone generally accepts as criminal (e.g., rape or murder).
The book provides a general refutation of the idea that police are there to protect us, arguing the modern police department was basically formed to hold down outsiders. It then provides a look at various areas (e.g., drugs, schools, mental health and border security) where police basically worsen the situation. And, like atheists who find liberal Christians and the like basically part of the problem, "reforms" (e.g., drug courts or diversity in police departments) are seen as of limited value at best. The "alternatives" tend to focus on taking police out of the picture.
I think the book (a little over two hundred pages) makes some good points, but found it too one-sided. Such will be the nature of such works, sure, but at some point it bothered me. I am by nature a hybrid: tend to find things are not easily split by black/white, even if there are some firm lines to draw. So, yes, I think the traditional idea of God is misguided, but also think simply saying the whole thing (or "religion") is bogus is as well.
Anyways, to toss them in, read a few other books to finish off the summer season (RBG dying basically led us into the fall -- what will it wrought?!). The Indomitable Florence Finch, by a former Democratic politician turned history writer, talks about a Filipino-American who resisted the Japanese during WWII. It is particularly good since it has a range of focus, including her former boss as he survives a long internment. The Unexpected Spy by Tracy Walder is about her experience in the CIA (mildly redacted) and FBI (where she suffered sexism), she ultimately ending up being that history teacher she early on dreamed of being.
Also, not as new, is a book on the French Jewish socialist and prime minister, Leon Blum by Pierre Birnbaum. It's from a collection of short Jewish histories that includes one about Louis Brandeis that I read. Blum's life spanned from the 1870s until 1950, so he survived among other things imprisonment during WWII, if in better quarters than most Jews. Book is a bit academic, but was a pretty good summary of someone new to me.
Finally, began the new season with a re-read of a 1969 book that is really a report by The Community of Psychiatry and the Law entitled The Right of Abortion: A Psychiatric View. I found it in a used book store. It argues that abortion should be the choice of a woman, treated as a medical procedure. The discussion overall holds up, down to a reference to a then minority viewpoint that IUDs don't actually stop implantation but fertilization itself. Ditto talk of post-abortion trauma being basically a myth and that the whole issue is ultimately a personal religious choice.
A timely read with RBG's death and the chance that the person to be nominated will have a very different view on the subject.
The book provides a general refutation of the idea that police are there to protect us, arguing the modern police department was basically formed to hold down outsiders. It then provides a look at various areas (e.g., drugs, schools, mental health and border security) where police basically worsen the situation. And, like atheists who find liberal Christians and the like basically part of the problem, "reforms" (e.g., drug courts or diversity in police departments) are seen as of limited value at best. The "alternatives" tend to focus on taking police out of the picture.
I think the book (a little over two hundred pages) makes some good points, but found it too one-sided. Such will be the nature of such works, sure, but at some point it bothered me. I am by nature a hybrid: tend to find things are not easily split by black/white, even if there are some firm lines to draw. So, yes, I think the traditional idea of God is misguided, but also think simply saying the whole thing (or "religion") is bogus is as well.
Anyways, to toss them in, read a few other books to finish off the summer season (RBG dying basically led us into the fall -- what will it wrought?!). The Indomitable Florence Finch, by a former Democratic politician turned history writer, talks about a Filipino-American who resisted the Japanese during WWII. It is particularly good since it has a range of focus, including her former boss as he survives a long internment. The Unexpected Spy by Tracy Walder is about her experience in the CIA (mildly redacted) and FBI (where she suffered sexism), she ultimately ending up being that history teacher she early on dreamed of being.
Also, not as new, is a book on the French Jewish socialist and prime minister, Leon Blum by Pierre Birnbaum. It's from a collection of short Jewish histories that includes one about Louis Brandeis that I read. Blum's life spanned from the 1870s until 1950, so he survived among other things imprisonment during WWII, if in better quarters than most Jews. Book is a bit academic, but was a pretty good summary of someone new to me.
Finally, began the new season with a re-read of a 1969 book that is really a report by The Community of Psychiatry and the Law entitled The Right of Abortion: A Psychiatric View. I found it in a used book store. It argues that abortion should be the choice of a woman, treated as a medical procedure. The discussion overall holds up, down to a reference to a then minority viewpoint that IUDs don't actually stop implantation but fertilization itself. Ditto talk of post-abortion trauma being basically a myth and that the whole issue is ultimately a personal religious choice.
A timely read with RBG's death and the chance that the person to be nominated will have a very different view on the subject.
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Thanks for your .02!