https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/04/29/should-we-just-let-it-burn-n2588663 (Archive)
My town’s not getting burned down because the rich coastal liberals with “Hate Has No Home Here” signs on their exquisitely landscaped front yards will never put up with that nonsense here in Shangri-Lib. In a very real way, the chaos that the liberals are creating by handcuffing other people’s cops – do you think my cops will ever get the order to stand down? – is not my problem. And, unless you are still living in some Democrat hellhole, it’s probably not your problem either.
So, why again when some big blue city that hasn’t had a Republican mayor since phrenology was the pseudo-science of the day – as quackery goes, head bump interpretation is way less damaging than weather paranoia and flu panic – suffers self-induced ritualized convulsions upon the death of yet another felon should the rest of us care?
But we will care, at least for now, because we are nice people and we think all Americans should live in something like peace and prosperity. It’s hard to get through our heads that not all of our countrymen feel that way. The chaos, violence, and misery that some Americans exist in is actually their choice. It’s a choice that liberals make, and they can make that choice because blue city voters inexplicably elect liberals who choose chaos.
The libs tried giving people money. That failed. Astonishingly, handing people free cash does not magically make things better. Then they tried improving the economies in these places by importing a bunch of foreigners to take all the entry level jobs. Astonishingly, that did not work either. Their current experiment is to make the cities woker by not arresting criminals who make the cities unlivable and releasing the few who are in jail. And – you are not going to believe this – that has also made things worse.
So, even though we do want to help – for now, because eventually there will come a point where non-blue city dwellers just shrug and say, “You’re on your own” – it’s not really clear what we can do gently. About 29 years ago this week, a bunch of soldiers and I tried to make Los Angeles safe again for a few weeks when we deployed in the Rodney King riots. It was quite an interesting time for a suburban guy who never ventured into the tougher parts of South-Central to be rumbling through it with an M16A1 rifle and a basic load of ammo. I got an up-close look at the reality of liberal misrule, though it was largely obscured by flames.
The people of the inner city loved us. They did not dig the LAPD, but they loved the Guards' citizen-soldiers, particular because many of our troops – my unit was 3rd Battalion, 160th Infantry based in smoldering Inglewood, for people who know the geography – were from the affected neighborhoods. And they took no guff. Many carried their own weapons and (allegedly) engaged in firefights with gang members with their own pieces so they did not have to account for spent Army rounds. The official combat tally was low. A Salvadorean drug dealer got his head blown off trying to run down some guardsmen at a road block – legend has it that the investigation consisted of some LAPD detectives rolling up, asking what happened, saying “Oh, okay,” then driving away. Also, rumor has it that a fleeing rapist got free gender reassignment surgery with a 5.56mm round. At other times, so it has been said, the guardsmen just beat the crap out of gangsters, who learned not to screw with the Army guys.
The locals were not heartbroken at this, not at all. Of course, this was before cell phones and total camera coverage, but the people were pretty happy about the thugs being driven away for a while. One lady told me how happy she was that her kids could play in the park now that the drug dealers were gone thanks to us. She hugged me, and people fed our troops while on patrol.
Maybe this was not politically correct, but it was sure as hell morally correct.
So, there is an answer to the violence. It’s called law and order. In extreme cases, like riots, it consists of massive, overwhelming force. But that’s a choice too, and one our gutless elite is not willing to make. They’d rather let the body count rise. They could end the murder spike tomorrow by backing the cops and dumping the leftist-bought prosecutors for real DAs. They could shut down riots and gangs and drug houses by simply shutting them down.
But they won’t.
And their constituents are not ready to force them to, not until the violence gets intolerably bad (and the liberals can tolerate a lot), or until the thugs push their luck by pushing into the suburbs and scaring the Trader Joe’s chardonnay mommy set.
Then it’s on like Donkey Kong, folks. To them, dead people in the ghetto are a statistic. Crime in the rich suburbs? That’s a crisis.
It’s all fun and games until it affects the white libs calling the shots. Word was that, during the riots, Beverly Hills – a liberal bastion – had its PD just shut the city off from people of color for a few days. If you had melanin, you weren’t getting in. And don’t hold your breath waiting for the BHPD to be defunded even today.
So, the question is not whether we normal people should just let the cities burn. In fact, we have no say in it unless we mobilize and invade. That’s not happening anytime soon. No, the question is whether the liberal establishment will tolerate this crap, and the answer is that it will until it gets scared. But then, all bets are off.
My town’s not getting burned down because the rich coastal liberals with “Hate Has No Home Here” signs on their exquisitely landscaped front yards will never put up with that nonsense here in Shangri-Lib. In a very real way, the chaos that the liberals are creating by handcuffing other people’s cops – do you think my cops will ever get the order to stand down? – is not my problem. And, unless you are still living in some Democrat hellhole, it’s probably not your problem either.
So, why again when some big blue city that hasn’t had a Republican mayor since phrenology was the pseudo-science of the day – as quackery goes, head bump interpretation is way less damaging than weather paranoia and flu panic – suffers self-induced ritualized convulsions upon the death of yet another felon should the rest of us care?
But we will care, at least for now, because we are nice people and we think all Americans should live in something like peace and prosperity. It’s hard to get through our heads that not all of our countrymen feel that way. The chaos, violence, and misery that some Americans exist in is actually their choice. It’s a choice that liberals make, and they can make that choice because blue city voters inexplicably elect liberals who choose chaos.
The libs tried giving people money. That failed. Astonishingly, handing people free cash does not magically make things better. Then they tried improving the economies in these places by importing a bunch of foreigners to take all the entry level jobs. Astonishingly, that did not work either. Their current experiment is to make the cities woker by not arresting criminals who make the cities unlivable and releasing the few who are in jail. And – you are not going to believe this – that has also made things worse.
So, even though we do want to help – for now, because eventually there will come a point where non-blue city dwellers just shrug and say, “You’re on your own” – it’s not really clear what we can do gently. About 29 years ago this week, a bunch of soldiers and I tried to make Los Angeles safe again for a few weeks when we deployed in the Rodney King riots. It was quite an interesting time for a suburban guy who never ventured into the tougher parts of South-Central to be rumbling through it with an M16A1 rifle and a basic load of ammo. I got an up-close look at the reality of liberal misrule, though it was largely obscured by flames.
The people of the inner city loved us. They did not dig the LAPD, but they loved the Guards' citizen-soldiers, particular because many of our troops – my unit was 3rd Battalion, 160th Infantry based in smoldering Inglewood, for people who know the geography – were from the affected neighborhoods. And they took no guff. Many carried their own weapons and (allegedly) engaged in firefights with gang members with their own pieces so they did not have to account for spent Army rounds. The official combat tally was low. A Salvadorean drug dealer got his head blown off trying to run down some guardsmen at a road block – legend has it that the investigation consisted of some LAPD detectives rolling up, asking what happened, saying “Oh, okay,” then driving away. Also, rumor has it that a fleeing rapist got free gender reassignment surgery with a 5.56mm round. At other times, so it has been said, the guardsmen just beat the crap out of gangsters, who learned not to screw with the Army guys.
The locals were not heartbroken at this, not at all. Of course, this was before cell phones and total camera coverage, but the people were pretty happy about the thugs being driven away for a while. One lady told me how happy she was that her kids could play in the park now that the drug dealers were gone thanks to us. She hugged me, and people fed our troops while on patrol.
Maybe this was not politically correct, but it was sure as hell morally correct.
So, there is an answer to the violence. It’s called law and order. In extreme cases, like riots, it consists of massive, overwhelming force. But that’s a choice too, and one our gutless elite is not willing to make. They’d rather let the body count rise. They could end the murder spike tomorrow by backing the cops and dumping the leftist-bought prosecutors for real DAs. They could shut down riots and gangs and drug houses by simply shutting them down.
But they won’t.
And their constituents are not ready to force them to, not until the violence gets intolerably bad (and the liberals can tolerate a lot), or until the thugs push their luck by pushing into the suburbs and scaring the Trader Joe’s chardonnay mommy set.
Then it’s on like Donkey Kong, folks. To them, dead people in the ghetto are a statistic. Crime in the rich suburbs? That’s a crisis.
It’s all fun and games until it affects the white libs calling the shots. Word was that, during the riots, Beverly Hills – a liberal bastion – had its PD just shut the city off from people of color for a few days. If you had melanin, you weren’t getting in. And don’t hold your breath waiting for the BHPD to be defunded even today.
So, the question is not whether we normal people should just let the cities burn. In fact, we have no say in it unless we mobilize and invade. That’s not happening anytime soon. No, the question is whether the liberal establishment will tolerate this crap, and the answer is that it will until it gets scared. But then, all bets are off.
