My simple mind has been stewing over a few topics lately, and the different world views that make understanding these things a challenge. Maybe my lack of understanding is directly linked to my failure to know the goals behind the modern administration of such things. Let’s dig.
Some of our larger cities are crime-ridden war zones. Gang violence is unchecked, homeless camps abound, and city streets are now the equivalent of open-air illicit drug parlors and free-range restrooms. Local stores are at the mercy of shoplifters, to the point where many businesses are simply abandoning the formerly profitable areas. How did this happen? These are not age-old conditions—much of this lawlessness and filth are a very current phenomenon. What caused these third-world conditions to occur?
This is a multi-faceted problem, but with an underlying single reason. First, the facets. In the not-too-distant past, we all lived under a single dynamic. The police of a given area did just that—police the area. If a cop spotted criminal behavior in progress, or such behavior was reported by a citizen, whether it be theft, assault, indecency, property destruction, trespassing, illegal drug selling or using, whatever, the cop felt quite confident he could make an arrest, the potential criminal would be jailed pending posting bail, and the criminal, if found guilty, would be suitably punished for said crime. The cop felt like he had support from the legal, judicial, and penal systems, along with the political and public communities. This dynamic WORKED. The public at large felt safer, and businesses felt comfortable, knowing that the criminal element would be mostly removed from harming THEM, at least for a reasonable time frame.
But this dynamic no longer exists in many cities. Why? For some time now, public policy is shifting from enforcing the law to whom is impacted by those laws. If an unusually large percentage of incarcerated folks are non-white minorities, it MUST be because the law is bad! Therefore, we must eliminate racist ‘bail’. We must forgive shoplifting, since we don’t know how much the thieves NEED those items. We must encourage illegal drug usage and sale, since they may be minority-dominated. We must return suspected criminals to the streets (to do criminal stuff again) because, as many are minorities, they simply are caught up in an obviously corrupt, racist system. Frequently, the potential criminals are back on the street before the cop’s shift is over. And public urination and defecation on our streets is simply because those poor homeless folks don’t have any easy alternatives. The rise of ‘tent cities’ is not the fault of those choosing to live there, it is society’s shortcomings that create such homelessness. So, the Prosecutors do not prosecute such crimes, and the judicial system doesn’t sentence such criminals to any meaningful penalties. The end result, from the cop’s point of view: why even arrest?
Our porous Southern Border, where literally MILLIONS of people have crossed illegally in the last couple of years, is a sterling example of the city crime problem, writ large. Not only do we not prosecute illegals (the few that are ‘caught’), we actually PROMOTE their activity, sending such folks via bus or plane, at taxpayer expense, no less, to the US interior! And those ‘that got away’? There is ZERO effort to locate them and punish them for breaking our immigration laws. Many States and cities consider themselves ‘sanctuary’ areas, where the illegals are not only welcome, but their legal fees may be also taxpayer funded. Some States are actually considering granting illegals instate tuition rates to State colleges.
While it is supposedly illegal to hire undocumented immigrants, looking the other way is the reality of many businesses. After all, if you pay in cash, you don’t have to pay minimum wage, match FICA, or even provide an OSHA-decreed safe work space. Note that many politicians couch the current system as ‘asylum’ seekers, yet most do not even apply for asylum.
This entire catastrophe of immigration has numerous National costs. Our education, heath, traffic, legal, and social services networks are stretched beyond effectivity, for those that never paid taxes to support those systems. Since we have no vetting at all for those entering, we have no clue what diseases, criminals, or even terrorists are among them. MS-13, the notorious violent criminal gang, now has a presence in nearly all 50 States. The rise of human and drug trafficking over that same time frame is not coincidental. The cartels love us for providing a steady income stream to them. A few hundred thousand die due to Fentanyl poisoning? Runaways are sold into sex slavery? No big deal. Why is this allowed? Because we should allow anyone and everyone into the US, because their home countries are messes, and climate change, or something.
So, how do our failing cities and immigration policies tie together? There are existing laws and statutes to prevent every single negative thing from happening, in both cases. The police and the Border Patrol agents are helpless when the District Attorneys and political establishment simply do not want those laws enforced. The motives for non-enforcement may be varied, but I contend that motive doesn’t matter. Do your job, enforce the laws, and clean up our cities and border. And that would make complete sense, if the political system was intent on keeping citizens safe. But the new crop of political and legal folks simply do not care of the health and wellbeing of the citizens that elected them. If they did, they would change their priorities 180 degrees. Instead, they are content to destroy our way of life, while enriching their own, at our expense. The simple dynamic of the past, that worked (for the most part), has been replaced by what sounds good—H/T to Thomas Sowell.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article! Feel free to add comments (good or bad) in the box below. In addition, there is a link at the bottom of the article to view other items I’ve written at Global Liberty Media. Enjoy!
