I was struck over the past couple of days by two headlines. From Mexico:
And from Chicago:
You can read both articles for yourselves at the links provided.
The trouble is, this wasn't an isolated weekend for Chicago. Tijuana's violence was unusually high last weekend; Chicago's wasn't. Every weekend there are not just dozens or scores, but hundreds of assaults, armed robberies, and the like. It's unusual for shooting casualties to be in single digits there on any weekend of the year.
Why does the city tolerate this? Why do the authorities there not step in and do something about it? It's all because of political corruption. The "urban underclass" in Chicago are a reliable voting bloc, made so by "community organizers" who hold them in thrall, manipulating them into voting for the political machine in return for dribs and drabs of handouts. That political machine, on a local and a national level, has manipulated the "urban underclass" into permanent dependency, destroying family structures, undermining local autonomy, creating a permanent bureaucracy to do nothing but administer the welfare system set up to keep the voters under control. In the process, matters such as crime and violence become nothing more than levers to be pulled, to manipulate voters all the more.
That's aided in part by a law enforcement system that was allowed to get away with abuses for far too long, and had become inured to criticism (remember the Homan Square atrocities?). The "urban underclass" have been revolting against such police malpractice - and justifiably so - but in doing so, the pendulum has now swung the other way. The so-called "Ferguson Effect" and their ill-judged use of force against members of the "urban underclass" has led to unprecedented scrutiny of Chicago police, so much so that they're now apparently unwilling to carry out normal policing duties in many of the worst-affected parts of the city. Sadly, this has given freer rein to the violent elements in those parts . . . and led to headlines such as that above.
Outsiders look at America's crime rates and shudder, pointing fingers at the so-called "gun culture" and other factors as reasons for the appalling statistics. However, if you took out the inner-city crime figures for the biggest 50 cities in the USA, our crime rates would be negligible compared to the rest of the world. Crime in America is overwhelmingly an inner-city "ghetto culture" problem. If you don't believe that, read these mainstream (i.e. not extremist or "fringe") articles:
Crime: The Inner-City Crisis
Family secret: What the left won't tell you about black crime
Why police can’t fix urban America’s violent crime problem
Race and Rising Violent Crime
Family secret: What the left won't tell you about black crime
Why police can’t fix urban America’s violent crime problem
Race and Rising Violent Crime
If those aren't enough to convince you, read the FBI's crime statistics for yourself, then narrow them down by location, race, etc. The numbers don't lie.
Chicago appears to be a basket case as far as criminal violence is concerned. The only answer that will work is to remove the violent criminals from society . . . but there doesn't appear to be the political will to make that happen. Yet another reason to get out of Chicago, and get out of Illinois, which permits, tolerates and ignores Chicago's crime - because the voters of Chicago dominate the state, including elections for state representatives. The Chicago political machine therefore has influence out of all proportion to what it should have; and if it suits the Chicago political machine, for whatever reason, to leave its dangerous animals unchained, then unchained they shall be.
Peter
11 comments:
I know a bunch of cops that work the South Side of Chicago.
They blame it on more than drugs. It is a culture. And yes, it it racial.
It will get worse as the temp goes up.
Blaming the "gun culture" for Chicago where they have some of the strongest anti-gun laws in the country shows how stupid this is.
These shootings are not happening with legal guns.
I think I read a piece recently where it stated that if you took the top *five* violent cities (IIRC Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans, & another I can't recall atm) out of the picture the U.S. crime statistics would drop to negligible numbers.
Anyone who thinks saying this is an inner-city "ghetto culture" problem is wrong needs to do research.
John Lott did a 2017 article that said just over half (54%) of the counties in the US had no murders whatsoever. 2% of the counties had 51% of murders. The news-headline about "increase in murder rate" that we hear all the time is for a small handful of neighborhoods in a few cities. Five neighborhoods in Chicago accounted for a third of the nationwide "increase in murder" for 2016.
In all fairness, while there were 21 deaths in TJ, there were only 5 in Chicago. No mention of how many were wounded in TJ although I bet it was a bunch.
If you look at heyjackass.com you'll see that Chicago's "gun violence" is mostly localized to a few neighborhoods. Then those neighborhoods and cities become the rationale for infringing everybody's Second Amendment rights.
As the top political echelons of Chicago become more and more African-American, , a lot of people, including a lot of blacks, are leaving Chicago.
But don't worry, there's a solution: Ugo Okere, a Democratic Sociaist candidate for alderman in Chicago says ""Democratic socialism, to me, is about democratic control of every single facet of our life."
As an earlier inspiring Socialist politician said: "everything for the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State."
Peter B quotes the DemSoc alderman: "democratic control of every single facet of our life."
Of course ol' Ugo doesn't mean /his/ life. So, what Chicago - and Baltimore, etc - is, is a prototype of the way some of us want the rest of us to live.
What really should be looked at is total wounded.
My guess is trauma care in Chicago is much better than tj, hence the lower murdered rate.
After the L.A. Rodney King riot, the politicians told the police to back off on criminals.
A big name trainer did a ride-along with the LAPD after the riots, and asked if they were doing anything differently. The cop explained that prior to the riots, if they saw a gangbanger hanging on a streetcorner, they would run them in. After the riots, they would simply wave as they drove past.
Apparently, the politicians worked hard to hide the increase in crime following the disengagement of the police. I don't know if the police ever got the okay to go back to being proactive. I suspect not.
Don't forget about the summer "wildings" that happen every weekend.
I have published an essay analysing why African-American urban communities have such a long history of elevated homicide rates.
https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/09/bravado-in-the-absence-of-order-homicide-and-race-talk/
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