'Defund the police' activists aren't living in reality

The idea that we should strip police departments of all funding and come up with a better way to maintain law and order is picking up steam in the wake of George Floyd’s death. But, like so many of the far-left’s policies, "Defund the police" is not realistic.

Why not, you might ask? After all, we the taxpayers pay law enforcement to protect our communities, and if it cannot do that, why should we continue to pay for services we’re not receiving? And, if past reforms haven’t worked, what more can we do besides getting rid of the problem entirely?

These questions are important, but the answers are not as simple as activists would like to think. The fact is that defunding the police, which activists hope will ultimately lead to the total abolition of police, will create more problems than it will fix. And to understand why that is, we need to ask why law enforcement exists in the first place.

Police departments are supposed to protect and serve their communities, and they do so in a variety of ways. They field emergency calls, respond to urgent situations, and imprison those who violate the laws. But on a more fundamental level, our law enforcement agencies exist to protect our lives and liberties from, well, each other.