We were all bummed after the City Council voted to defund the Oakland Police Department on Thursday. Of course, everyone knows they did it despite a vast majority of Oaklanders wanting more cops, and despite the warnings from around the country that defunding is inevitably associated with a spike in crime.
But that didn’t stop the defunders. They don’t care about facts (which, curiously, aligns them with Trumpers). They don’t care about the public safety threat to Oaklanders. No, the only thing they care about is their “woke” ideology. Defunding the police is the latest obsession of the social justice warriors, and so that’s what they do.
This is not to suggest that they’re not sincere. I believe that they honestly believe they did the right thing. They actually think that cops don’t prevent crime. Since you can’t prove a negative, it’s impossible to prove that cops do prevent crime. But that’s why we have common sense: to figure stuff out using reason based on experience. Put it this way: Let’s say there was one cop for every citizen of Oakland; probably there wouldn’t be very much crime, if any. Then, let’s say there were no cops in Oakland, and no Alameda County Sheriffs’ officers; probably, there would be a great deal of crime. So doesn’t it make sense that the more cops there are, the less crime there would be?
It makes sense to me, and I’m sure it makes sense to a lot of you, too. So why wouldn’t it make sense to Carroll Fife and Nikki Fortunato Bas? Well, now we have to venture deep into the political weeds. Both Fife and Bas live in Districts in which defunding is popular among the voters. Now, consider Loren Taylor and Treva Reid, who both voted against the defunding. Taylor is District 6, and Reid is District 7. In other words, heavily Black districts, and it is the beleaguered Black citizens of Oakland who are most against defunding the police, for obvious reasons. So Fife and Bas are responding to their constituents, and Taylor and Reid are responding to theirs.
Nothing wrong with that; it’s how politics works. Years ago, then Senator, later President John F. Kennedy wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage. It celebrated politicians who had gone against their own political interests to do the right thing. JFK admired such people, and believed he was one, himself. We’re certainly not dealing with profiles in courage with Bas and Fife. They have catered to the dumbest, lowest political clamoring in their Districts, which makes them craven.
But back to being bummed by the City Council’s dumb move. As a Sinatra fan, I’ve always liked his song, Pick Yourself Up, an exaltation of his grit and determination. Here are some of its lyrics:
Now, nothing's impossible I have found
For when my chin is on the ground
I pick myself up, dust myself off [and]
Start all over again
That’s what we’re doing: starting all over again. We took a day off to lick our wounds, but now we’re back in the fight, and we’re in it for the long haul!
Steve Heimoff