I don't care about defunding the police. Taking away funds from police departments across the country only means better accounting tricks are required to pay Paul... Peter!
The people we need to defund are the rich. They've had their chance to use their excesses in cash long enough. It's time to pass the buck. And if the next man or woman who receives that cash proves to be a hoarder as well, back the Brinks truck up to their mansion and disperse those funds yet again.
Though I say with the mindset of a non-billionaire, I also see this issue through the eyes of a Human being. As such, I do feel justified in saying that "There should be no billionaires as long as there is one child, woman or man in the World without Food, CLEAN water, clothing and shelter... And while we're at it throw in healthcare, because one cannot pursue Happiness (as per the Declaration of Independence) if one can go bankrupt when one becomes ill.
Now, it is not my intention to say all billionaires are bad. I can name one See Chuck Feeney who gave away all of his money to charities while he was still alive. Other billionaires like Warren Buffett have claimed that Feeney was their hero but have only committed to giving away their own billions after death.
Feeney, however, sought to use his money as a force for change while billionaires like Bill Gates have used their money to own more farmland than anyone else in America. So, not only does Gates have more money than almost everyone in the US, but he controls our food supply.
The Waltons, who own Walmart bought life insurance against the lives of their most vulnerable employees until this scheme was exposed. This same family's business also received close to one (1) million dollars per store in subsidies because the wages they paid were insufficient for life. These subsidies come from your pockets, my pockets and every other taxpayer's pockets.
Then there are the billionaires like Jeff Bezos, whose company chose to station EMTs outside their warehouses instead of air conditioning them, and had their employees peeing in bottles as to not get docked for bathroom breaks.
And, then there are the really bad billionaires like the Sackler family who control Purdue Pharma and are responsible for the OxyContin epidemic that kills as many people in one year as the Vietnam war killed in ten years... BTW, that figure is 64,070 overdoses every years
While there may be more good billionaires out there, I can honestly say that I have never heard of them. I can also say that the actions of these benevolent aristocrats that keep such low profiles as to appear to have no net positive affect on the World should offset the actions of someine like Harold Simmons (I will leave that discovery as your homework). Hint - it has something to do with water.
Suffice it to say that there are countless instances of millionaires and billionaires committing acts against Humanity and few that come close to balancing the scales. Perhaps the decision to use their money for good or evil should be a decision made by those impacted most by their wealth. Maybe, the millions forced into poverty by our nation of inequity should determine how best to use the money squandered on sustaining a nation that is growing evermore divergent from the ideals upon which it was founded.
We've seen the America that the Oligarchs have planned for us. It looks a lot like feudalism which looked a lot like indentured servitude, which looked a lot like slavery. If this sounds hyperbolic, consider the following: The amendment that abolished slavery (the 13th) does not encompass anyone convicted of a felony... Look it up then ask yourself why has America's prison population doubled since Biden's 1994 crime bill while the rates of crime have dropped? This sounds counterintuitive until you discover that private prison corporations make 10s of thousands of dollars from the work done by a prisoner making less than a dollar a day.
When your Society prioritizes profits over people, freedom becomes worthless and life becomes worth less, day by day.
Today's RAD dictionary word is
ChurchinState noun
When people have continued faith in politicians who never keep their campaign promises while ignoring the compassion exhibited in most holy texts. Example: All US president in recent memory claimed to believe in some form of Christianity while dropping bombs across the planet, yet people never call them out on their policy of murder in the name of Human rights and the countries they are "helping" never seem to recover from America's assistance.
