Killing libraries is not about saving money, it’s about restricting knowledge. Beware the leader that doesn’t want the people to read.
If the city cares about aaving money theu would be buying useless military hardware for the NYPD. Tokyo, Seoul, Jakarta, and Osaka all do fine without blowing massive amounts if the municipal budget on military gear for their police departments. The NYPD "officially’ had a 2022 budget over $5billion with aroind 36,000 officers. That’s comparable to the entire military budget of Romania. Hell, the NYPD has field offices in 6 foreign countries.
So you’re telling me that if we just started grinding cops into a fine powder we’d not only save on their salaries and benefits, we’d also save on the amount of equipment they need and could fund things like libraries and social safety nets? And that we could sell that fine powder for uses such as food for heads, surgery, delousing, cosmetics, bomb disposal, firepower, and head transplants and fund even more things?
I’m not saying we should be grinding cops into a fine powder. I’m saying let’s take a look at where we could save more money while helping more people.
Torgo’s Police Powder is certainly not a thing we should turn those fucking pigs into. No sir. And if someone tries laying this at my feet I’ll deny it.
You’ll have to spend some of those savings on industrial dehydrators though. It can be very difficult to get the texture of the powder right when you start grinding all willy nilly.
I mean, I dunno, ACAB and fuck tha police and all that jazz, but 5 bil for 36k is 138k/each, and that’s not too unreasonably bad for NYC cost of living vs the inherent danger and work regime of the job as a police officer in such a populous city.
They’ve got 55 police per 10,000 residents. That’s more than twice as many as LA per capita with a 3% decrease in violent crime per capita. That tells me we could, but definitely shouldn’t, grind up one fifth of them into a fine powder freeing up a whole bunch of money in the budget. NYC does seem to have a significantly smaller property crime rate than the national average but that number is suspect. How much of that is them just not dealing with property crime and not filing the paperwork?
And that $5b? That’s not their whole budget, that’s their personnel budget. Total budget for FY2025 is closer to $11.9b/yr. Their salary is closer to 80k/yr/officer on average.
Can’t they just sell one of those sound-weapon equipped tanks from the NYPD to cover the entire library budget?
Idk, Uvalde police might need it to cover up childrens’ screaming next time.
I mean, I’m more okay with heavily arming librarians than heavily arming cops I guess?
You don’t understand though, that’s millions we could throw at building another stadium for a private individual to own and profit off of!
DON’T YOU CARE ABOUT THE POOR BILLIONAIRES!?
It’s shocking to see the assault on libraries across Appalachia. Sad to see it’s a broader problem. For as little finding as they require they provide critical services. So many nasty politicos trying to win some points with the lowest common denominators of humanity must see them as an easy target.
Yeah, across the whole country even, I think people have been discouraged from reading in general. (Heck, it’s hard to feel like you have time to just sit and read a book…Audiobooks FTW…)
But I’m convinced this recent anti-library culture-war push is absolutely just a big PsyOp by private and public owner-class types.
Making it about drag queens and racy books on the surface is an easy way to rile up the uneducated, to remove public free access to information without commercial motive.
Further discouraging education by cutting off access to cultural and community events, outreach, and collections is a great way to isolate people back down to consumer-individuals and grow the hate-base.
Libraries are absolutely under attack for being easy targets too, you’re right. And often from the inside! Our local library district has an immensely corrupt board and executive staff. It’s likely seen as an easy stepping stone to pad a resume for big CEO jobs or public office. They can get away with a lot without many people really looking too hard…
is absolutely just a big PsyOp by private and public owner-class types.
Bro, I think people just don’t ready physical books anymore lol
Libraries offer far more than just books. They often double as community centers and offer lots of free services that could really help lower income demographics. They actually also offer audiobooks a lot of the time.
Besides all that, of all government services that are available, they’re cheap as fuck to operate comparatively speaking. The only reason to target libraries is because it gets the mouth breathers thumping. Nobody burning books (metaphorically and literally) has ever been on the right side of history.
Nah they definitely still do. But reading stuff takes time, and many people in the US just don’t have that time to dedicate. So many people have to work long ass hours, and then they come back home and do you think they want to read? If they have a family or have a significant other, I think it far more likely that they would think it’s the best usage of their time to spend time with them, and in alot of ways it is. Lack of leisure time is the problem.
Do you think that company owners want to pay more or less for employees?
Do you think you would pay more or less for an employee that doesn’t have any other good options for a job?
What is the best way to expand your job options?
Companies and politicians are absolutely incentivized to keep a good portion of the populace stupid. Critical thinking and education are detrimental to both, except where you provide some service that requires it.
Adams sucks and it’s embarrassing that people here elected him.
It’s hysterical to hear right-wing commentary about how New York Democrats are socialist Marxist communist hippies when the reality has much more goose-stepping to it.
