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.

Yep. Most governments are 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.

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.

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,

Core concept, really.

A lot of towns and cities spend way more than that.

All those armoured tanks they buy aren't cheap.

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.

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.

No, they're still for small government...as in they close down a tightly regulated and budgeted govt agency to outsource it to their buddies private company which exists solely to generate a profit.

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.

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.

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

Wouldn't be surprised if the bus thing was the real goal all along