“Defund the Police” often means precisely that. Many who spout that actually want the police to be completely defunded. Others want police budgets cut and resources to be reallocated toward social programs they think will reduce crime in the long run.

Now, I have no issue with reducing crime by addressing the root causes of it. It’s something I’ve long advocated for, after all.

There are just two problems. One is that we’re really not sure of what those root causes actually are. Everyone has a theory, but there’s not really enough hard data to back anyone’s up to a sufficient degree.

Second, the idea of defunding the police to pay for this fails to acknowledge that any such programs will take years to yield results, so there will be fewer resources for police to deal with the existing crime but the programs meant to mitigate that fact are still years from potentially showing any results.

In other words, it’s dumb.

More than that, though, anyone with half a brain knows it’s dumb.

In Seattle, the city council decided to do it anyway. The police chief showed that not everyone there lacks a functioning brain.

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best has officially resigned after the Democrat-controlled Seattle City Council voted on Monday to slash millions of dollars from the Seattle Police Department’s budget.

News broke within the around 9 p.m. PST that Best was expected to resign tomorrow and about 30 minutes later she had reportedly submitted her letter of resignation to the Seattle Police Deparment.

“Chief Best has been an outspoken critic of the council’s plans to cut SPD’s budget, citing concerns over public safety in a scenario where the department is forced to lose personnel,” KIRO radio reported. “She has served as SPD’s police chief since 2018, after moving through the ranks as an officer, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, and deputy chief.”

Let’s also keep in mind that this is Seattle, home of the CHOP. In other words, this is a city that has such little control over what’s going on there that Antifa tried to create a whole new country within the city’s borders.

Now they’re determined to cut the police budget to such a significant degree, all because of the anti-police animus that’s so fashionable among the leftists that make up Seattle’s political elite.

What’s worse is that when crime increases as a result of these cuts, we all know these same dipsticks will begin complaining about how the real problem is guns or whatever else they can think of, rather than acknowledge that they might have screwed up royally.

Frankly, I don’t blame Best for quitting. She said that she felt personally targeted. After all, the cuts included a 40 percent pay cut for her, which is far beyond a reasonable cut by anyone’s estimation. That suggests it’s nothing more than an attempt to appease the kind of mob that made up the CHOP but that’s more spread out in the city.

I don’t blame Best for quitting. It’s the only real move she had left.

Now, if the rest of the department would follow suit, we’d start to see how quickly the council can rethink their decision.