You are a proud member of a group. Your group believes in living a virtuous life and spreading those beliefs onto the non-believers. The leaders of your group constantly announce viewpoints that you should live by. They recently told everyone that whenever you want to toast bread your toaster should be set to the highest level, and you will always be assured that your toast will come out perfect. Not under done nor burnt. You enthusiastically follow this new directive. Every day you have a piece of toast for breakfast. You are confused because now every day your toast comes out burnt. You go to the group leaders looking for help. You are told that the directive is correct but maybe the ambient temperature in your kitchen is causing the issue. Or maybe you are just using the wrong type of bread. Regardless of the refinements that you make the result is always the same – burnt toast. This latest failed directive reminds you of other directives from the leaders that have yielded outcomes that are not what was guaranteed. At this point you need to decide whether you want to flee the group and live in reality or take a leap of faith and continue following the group directives. Many will remain as group members because it gives meaning to their lives. In just a short time they will convince themselves that the toast is actually not burnt and live the rest of their lives happily eating burnt toast convincing themselves that it just perfect.

We spend too much time with allegiance to political parties and individual politicians. It is always about policies and the provable outcomes of those policies.

  • Godwins_Law
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    1 year ago

    I’m interested in the data behind police budgets and crime in recent years if you’ve got a good source.

    • cre0@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Source: he’s pretty sure he read it in a magazine or on website somewhere a while back.

      See also: his butt

    • Mickey7@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      though I’m sure it exists I do not have a link to specific data. but I did see something just the other day about Austin, Texas. It showed basically a cut of one third in funding and approximately a doubling in crime. But the specific percentages are not critical because this is a common sense issue. Less cops more crime. Then add to it that in cities that do defund the remaining police force realizes that the city administration does not “have their back” while they are doing their job. So police there are less inclined to do their job because they fear the possible illogical retribution for simply doing their job.