Cheap Seats 2016Anarchy - 05/18 By Rich Trzupek
Somewhere, Emma Goldman is looking down at what’s happening in America’s big cities and the old anarchist is smiling. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Goldman championed defiance of established authority and if that meant some people lost their lives along the way, so be it.
Murder rates are spiking across the country as lawlessness increasingly takes over in inner-city neighborhoods – neighborhoods where police activity is down due to “the Ferguson effect”.
Though FBI Director James Comey avoids using the term, he acknowledged that “viral videos” are playing a role in the carnage as part of an interview published in the New York Times last week.
“There’s a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime — the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’” he added.
Except it’s not a perception, it’s reality. A friend of mine who is a retired cop commented that he would never join the force today, a sentiment that undoubtedly reflects the sentiments of many old-time police officers and the disillusionment of cops serving on the force today.
According to Vocativ, one police officer was quoted as saying, “Confrontation equals getting indicted, put on the front page or [the Police Chief] will bury you. As far as I’m concerned, we’re done working.”
In big cities across the nation crime rates are up, cop calls are down and there’s carnage in the streets. Over 1,200 people have been shot in the city of Chicago so far this year, an increase of fifty six percent over last year. The Windy City, along with Baltimore and Washington, are at the top of the roll of dishonor: big cities where crime is getting out of control.
Not surprisingly, all three are led by liberal Democrats whose only solution to the problem is to figure out ways to keep firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, while calling cops on the carpet if some punk with a cell-phone catches them being too mean to his buddy.
It’s a ridiculous state of affairs and I can hardly believe that the innocent people who live in the worst of the neighborhoods will continue to put up with the situation much longer.
America prides itself as a nation where no one is above the law. Today, in cities like Chicago, D.C. and Baltimore, there is no law in wide swaths of the urban landscape, unless you count the drug lords, which is pretty much saying the same thing.
This is where political-correctness gets you. This what happens when race-baiters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson manipulate situations to fit their own agenda and ignore the facts. This is the end result of persecuting cops like Darren Wilson in the media when they lawfully defend themselves from thugs.
It’s a disgrace and we should all be ashamed.
There are no perfect police departments, just as there are no perfect public works departments, or grocery stores, or boy-scout troops. Every organization has its flaws because they are made up of people, and every person brings some kind of baggage along with them.
But, we need public works departments. We need grocery stores. We need organization like the boy-scouts and girl-scouts. And we damn well need police officers doing their jobs. So the next time you’re tempted to pull out your cell-phone and threaten a cop for doing it, take a moment to think about what your life would be like if he or she wasn’t there.
rich@examinerpublications.com
www.threedonia.com
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