One of the main political issues that has come out of the Black Lives Matter movement is the Left Wing based Defund the Police movement. The issue was defeated on the ballot in Minneaoplis this week and many of its elected supporters were defeated all over the country. This was a true victory for the mainstream, moderate Democrats.

For the mainstream (me), the issues with policing are not really about giving the police forces less money as much as creating or modifying the duties of non-uniformed, non-armed municipal entities to handle jobs currently performed by uniformed, armed police officers. Great idea, difficult and expensive to implement. The reasoning is that, for instance, if routine traffic enforcement or welfare checks were handled by unarmed municipal agents, they would be less likely to escalate into deadly conflicts. These conflicts are often to deadly to members of minority communities.

Republicans usually hear Defund the Police as being loud, obnoxious threats to law and order.

Meanwhile Republicans (the legislatures and governors of Republican governed states) are making quiet yet more insidious threats to law and order and are in fact moving policing duties away from armed, uniformed officers to not just other municipal agencies but to vigilantes in the community. This is clearly a movement away from law and order toward law and disorder.

The governing bodies of the State of Texas have made most abortions illegal. The state gives all citizens the ability to sue in civil courts anyone who performs or aids in the performance of an abortion and for damages that can be upwards of tens of thousaands of dollars. This is pure vigilante justice. Harkens back to hanging trees and law west of the Pecos. Enforcement of this law is not the domain of law enforcement. Republicans are changing the duties of police forces.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanagh this week pointed out that federal courts are unlikely to give injunctive relief for Texas's new anti-abortion law. The reasoning is that injunctions need to be served and envorced against named individuals. Typically federal court injuntions in similar cases are served to and enforced upon state Attorney's General who oversee law enforcement in a particular state. In the case of the Texas anti-abortion law the Texas Attorney General is not given power to enforce the law, nor are any specific law enforcement entities. Texas has made this a civil issue. It is the duty of private citizens ... read vigilantes to enforce the law through civil actions. Unnamed vigilantes cannot be enjoined from taking action.

Regardless of Justice Kavanaugh's assertion, and even without immediate injunctive relief, the courts can and should find the Texas law unconstitutional for so many reasons, if only because creating a system of vigilante justice violates every tenant of the fourteenth amendment.

And with this Republicans are in reality furthering the cause of Defund the Police. They want to turn policing responsibilites over to mob rule and vigilantism