What should get more funding?

[Quixote1818]

Poll question: What should get more funding?

[illinoisprogressive]

1. I would gladly pay for the first three as they are so important to a healthy person.

For young parents or first timers to have the mystery taken out and know what they are doing before the baby comes home would be so good. To have counseling for those families in trouble would stop so much pain and problems. Everything is equally important to the health and well being of people and make for a better society.

[Quixote1818]

2. If I were running for president, those three things would be top priority

right behind getting us out of Iraq and cutting CO2 emissions and cleaning up the corruption.

[MADem]

3. I prefer the first three myself, but this is kind of a bogus poll

Because more police programs, if done right, can reduce crime--community policing, the "midnight basketball" that Bush insulted Clinton about, those sort of things are good, especially in 'touchy' neighborhoods.

I don't particularly like more prisons, so putting that in with the cops question makes me vote no on that one. If we let the nonviolent drug 'offenders' (who were they offending, I wonder?) go free, we'd have loads of room in prisons.

And putting the prayer in school in with the cops and prisons was totally unfair. What do additional police programs, some of which are aimed toward crime prevention, have to do with prayer in school? Likewise with prisons?

I just don't see this as a real poll. It's more like a "What do we believe?" exercise.

[Quixote1818]

6. What I was trying to do was demonstrate a Thoreau quote

Thoreau wrote: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to every one hacking at the root".

The answers on the top deal more with "hacking at the root" of evil. The answer about prisons and cops has to do with "hacking at the branches" of evil. I am simply asking where we should be putting most of the money. Sure it's important to have cops and prisons but where do we want most of the money to go?

I think it's a fair poll.

You were right about leaving out the part about prayer. It was stupid for me to include that part.

[MADem]

7. Well, Midnight Basketball and Community Policing hack at the root.

They foster an alliance between public safety officials and the communities they serve. The police are not the enemy--they keep neighborhoods safe, they respond to emergencies like car accidents, emergencies where people need assistance (lost child, missing senior, vehicle broken down on highway, for example), they protect people who are threatened by violent situations, and they perform important and needed public services, like traffic management, and crowd control and assistance at large gatherings.

Bad police may be the enemy, but good police aren't. And good ones ARE the majority, we just don't hear about them. They're as necessary as roads in the conduct of our daily lives. So to put police in general in an entirely negative light is just untrue and unfair. If your kid wanders off, you love the cop who brings the child home.

[Quixote1818]

8. I agree but the question is how do we best solve society's problems?

Right now we have to have plenty of police because we have so many violent criminals etc. Adding more Police may cut down some on this problem but in my opinion it just puts a band aid on the deeper, underlying, psychological problems that come from years of pain and from being brought up by parents who didn't have the skills to raise children.

I have no problem with police, and I think Midnight Basketball is a great program. I am just sick of politicians getting elected by acting tough and putting temporary band aids on massive societal problems. These are programs that may take 20 years to show results and that is why politicians don't have the courage to implement them.

[MADem]

9. Actually, we don't have plenty of police. That is not true.

Assholes tossing your bags at the airport are not police, though they fall under the TSA/DHS law enforcement umbrella.

In many cities, the cops who were cut when the Clinton community police and midnight basketball programs were decimated were NOT restored, even with the post-911 DHS plus-up monies. And a shitload of our police from departments all over the US are over in IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN, because a lot of them are in the Reserves. We have fewer police now, when we have greater need of them.

"Get tough" politicians are another kettle of fish altogether. Nixon ran on "Law and Order" and Reagan did that 'Get Tough' bullshit as well. We saw how well they did...

But police and firefighters shouldn't be blamed because politicians fear monger, rile people up, and otherwise behave badly. It's just not fair to link them. The cops just want to do their job, and if they're doing it well, and their cities and towns are Mayberry-peaceful, they have TIME to enjoy one of those donuts everyone makes fun of them for munching. That's the ideal scenario for them.

If we had living wage/full employment across the board, and fewer layoffs, outsourcing and so forth, everyone would have money, they wouldn't need to steal, they wouldn't need to resort to violence.

If we had free or low cost secondary education, people could pull themselves up in the world--education always uplifts. We'd be more competitive as a nation, too.

There are a load of things we can do to make society better. Better parenting and coping skills are important, and so are good schools, good health and dental care, decent and dignified care for seniors, the terminally ill, those with chronic conditions and so forth.

There's a lot we can do, but don't. Imagine if we could get all that war money back...

[Bluebear]

4. Can we have 1-3, more cops and no prayer?

[Quixote1818]

5. I took out the prayer part. nt