New York Post columnist Bob McManus has penned a piercing indictment of the de Blasio and Cuomo Administrations:
You say you didn’t like stop-and-frisk? Well, how do you like duck-and-cover?Stop-and-frisk was a front-line NYPD safe-streets policy for two decades. So was broken-windows policing. As were the flying squads of anti-crime cops. They’re all gone now. Perhaps you think New York is better off without them?...
This new darkness isn’t a random, natural malevolence — unpredictable, unavoidable and thus demanding no accountability. It’s the result of a deliberate unstitching of arguably the most sophisticated and successful anti-crime strategy ever implemented in this nation....
All that is history now. The de Blasio administration dismantled a winning strategy, one element at a time, and the results are clear: New York is not Chicago — 77 shot, 14 dead over the holiday — but it’s careering in that direction.
New York, city and state, has been hard at work disassociating crime and punishment for some time now — and bragging on it.
Please read it all. McManus allows that the policing practice of stop-and-frisk was “Imperfect and prone to overzealous application.” Indeed, it was Constitutionally dubious, but made mandatory by other Constitutionally dubious ordinances that infringe on the law-abiding citizen’s right to go armed. Those ordinances guaranteed that the law-abiding citizen would be unarmed, whereas one already minded to break the law would carry whatever armament he thought he could get away with. Stop-and-frisk was the response to that imbalance...and in the context of New York City, it worked.
The rash of shootings and other felonious crimes has been made possible by the termination of stop-and-frisk, in combination with New York’s hostility to private firearms and the Cuomo Administration’s removal of bail requirements for those accused of “non-violent” offenses.
Chessplayers will tell you: a bad decision will often give rise to other bad decisions...to “justify” them. In the argot of the game, “one lemon leads to another.”
The deep thinkers who hailed de Blasio’s and Cuomo’s moves are strangely silent just now. Regret for the policies that have elicited such carnage? None. Expressions of responsibility for the deaths and other losses? None. As Glenn Reynolds has observed, “The left is always blaming its enemies for people’s deaths, but never takes responsibility for the people it kills.” Nor is there much chance that the pernicious policies will be reversed; politicians don’t often allow that they’ve erred.
Extortionate taxes and fees, stifling regulations, intrusive state and local governments, a welcome mat for illegal aliens...and a complete lack of citizen security. This is the Empire State in the year of Our Lord 2020. It’s why I’m preparing to get out.
Yet Andrew Cuomo has been mentioned in connection with the presidency. It is to laugh.
The Declaration of Independence states explicitly that governments exist to secure the people’s rights: “to effect their happiness and safety.” Maybe the political elite tried to squelch our celebration of the Independence Day just behind us because there was too great a danger that we would remember that passage. It’s worth a spot of thought. Why pay taxes or observe a plethora of laws and regulations if there is no increment to our happiness and safety – indeed, if the net consequence is both less happiness and less safety? Not too long ago, the worthy Ace of Spades had a few thoughts of that sort:
The cops have decided to make us each fight for our own lives.
There is no help coming but self-help.
So what the fuck do you expect us to do? Just... go along with any street vigilante who decides to subject us to an involuntary, physically-coerced struggle session?
Just say, "Ah well, the permanent brain damage I suffer from this savage gang-assault is a small price to pay for the cause of ending White Supremacy?"
Fuck you. That's false imprisonment -- and people are allowed to use a reasonable amount of force to free themselves from it.
This is getting very dangerous. People have no choice but to resort to self-help -- force -- to defend themselves, and they're going to start doing so.
And don't count on having a lot of SJWs on the jury to convict them for defending their lives.
I’ve been saying this – typically with regard to the ongoing race war – for some time. If the Big Apple precedes the rest of the country in this manner, I suppose it will just be another “first” for the City That Never Sleeps. But I don’t expect New York City to be alone in this for long.
If you reside in a major American city, this is reality for you right now. If a major American city is within an hour’s driving distance of you, you don’t have long to wait. Prepare yourselves.
The thought of leaving So Cal breaks my heart, and not a little. I've been here for fifty seven years. My roots are deep, and I love this place. Or I did. I lived the California Dream: surfing, motorcycles, cruisin' the boulevard, hiking the hills and canyons, partying everywhere from Haight Ashbury to Ensenada. I worked doing everything from busing tables, scrubbing toilets, to selling surfboards, fixing appliances, to teaching high school in the inner city.
ReplyDeleteThe realization that it's all gone is hard to grasp. The change happened slowly, incrementally, imperceptibly... and then rapidly. Every year the streets get more crowded. Every year the demographic shifts farther, and farther into multicult. Our town was typical: mostly white, with a good percentage of Mexican-American. Of course, there was some occasional friction along the edges, but it was very rare. People got along. I used to draw criticism in comment sections when I'd bring up the fact that people here in the Southland really got along quite well, despite the diversity. Being an "Angelino" subsumed most of our individual differences.
It isn't like that now. The huge influx of foreign nationals have balkanized the cities. Strip-mine developments have shoved high density housing and section8 tenants into formerly relaxed, and quiet neighborhoods like mine.
We narrowly escaped the recent chaos here in this little corner. Even so, I see virtue signalling whites post blak live murder signs in their front yards in hopes of avoiding the kristalnacht.
So we're getting out. At first my wife and I were planning to fix up the house, and see what the real estate market looked like in another year. Oddly enough the chaos has spiked housing prices in our neighborhood. Now we're looking at selling "as-is" and heading for a modest dwelling in a resort/retirement town way north and west of us. I have an old high school pal who lives up there, and he encourages us to come. I'm sending my wife up on a scouting expedition in the very near future.
JWM
As you might already know, Francis, two of the links at the beginning of your "ongoing race war" article are dead, and 10 mm Auto's link has also been deleted. Oldfart's link describing unprovoked attacks on cyclists in Portland is still live.
ReplyDeleteJust more suppression of badthink by Our Betters.
"Indeed, it was Constitutionally dubious, but made mandatory by other Constitutionally dubious ordinances..."
ReplyDeleteMy take as well. But I have to say that it is all too easy to throw up the hands and go ahead with each new infringement, never stopping to correct the fundamental problem. Police state tactics, in isolation, and without digging too deeply into them, are pretty attractive. Always a nice quick fix.
Oh well, that's what revolutions are for - getting to the fundamentals.
This problem mostly affects the largest cities - NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia. and Washington, DC - that have Democratic mayors who are weak AND whose minorities are Black. Not all cities fall into that category. Some of the cities called 'second tier' cities - Pittsburgh, Cleveland, among others - have Dem mayors and council, but also have the clout to impose order on the unruly, and still get re-elected.
ReplyDeleteOthers - Phoenix, LA - have some Blacks, but also others - Asian, Latino - that have, in the past, aggressively resisted intrusion into their neighborhoods by rioters.
Most of the more spread-out cities - the ones not listed above as most vulnerable - are more spread out, making direct assault on the neighborhoods less of a problem, and relatively easy to defend. They would be mostly affected by control of the public utilities - water, power, transportation - by rioters. And, while I'm not military, I understand taking control of those assets is a specialty of theirs.
Short-term, a lot of chaos, supply disruption, and loss of money.
Long-term, that will depend on the resolve of the states and feds.
When all this started in MN I thought it would run it's course in a couple of weeks but we are now at 50 some days straight, with no end in sight. If I lived in a town with a population of 50k and over I would be putting my home on the market and beating feet for a nice small quite town. Montana, Utah, Wyoming are going to start getting crowded, prices will skyrocket, buy now and avoid the rush because in a year those prices will boom. Our population is at about 10/12K and we had our march from the high school to the courthouse, 9 blocks, circled the courthouse said bye and everyone went home. So I'm in an odd little section of my state so I'm staying put.
ReplyDelete