by Robert M. Traxler
There is no crime crisis in our nation; if you mention crime statistics going, up you are accused of being a racist, sexist, homophobe. Just look at the numbers, they say, crime is going down.
Defunding the police is not defunding the police, it is “reimagining policing.” If you do not know what that means then you are too ignorant to ask. Cutting millions from more than a dozen large city police forces will cut crime and make them more responsive to the poor and minorities, and make their neighborhoods safer; how, you ask? Easy; just “reimagine” policing: decriminalize hard addictive drugs, make narcotic sales legal or misdemeanors akin to jaywalking.
Make retail theft under $950 a non-reportable crime. Take the police out of high crime areas so they witness fewer crimes, making fewer arrests, and magically you have reimagined policing and cut crime while cutting the budget. Proof positive that the progressives are wiser and better equipped to protect us than law enforcement professionals. We are seeing more victims of criminal activity, mostly poor and minorities, but we must believe crime is reduced or be called harsh names by the socialists.
I spent years teaching law enforcement courses at a community college. My favorite was a 101 course, introduction to law enforcement. Teaching the history of law enforcement, studying what worked and did not in history and learning from decades of successes and failures, provides insight into what needs to be done to protect and serve a society.
The left will tell us that having fewer police is a good thing and will cut crime; history differs, but who cares? Progressives are the smart ones who are experts on all issues. Enforcing lesser included offenses before they metastasize into larger more violent crimes, the broken windows theory of criminal justice, has worked throughout history, but apparently not today; go figure.
The midterm elections will be a referendum on the “defund the police” movement, the “reimagine policing.” Again, whatever in the hell those broad terms even mean, like many things woke, it means whatever the woke person saying it wishes it to be at the time. We need to understand that not reporting or redefining a crime does not eliminate the victims; it does not prevent the pain or hurt the victim feels, it does not heal the physical and psychological wounds of crime victims, but emboldens and enables the criminal to harm more people.
A very politically incorrect, un-woke thing to say, true, but not allowed in our reimagined society.
The good folks in the media, news and social, will start a full-court press on the “fact” that crime is going down, and that the Republicans are lying when they tell you it is not, just as the midterms near. Around one month before the election, the social media billionaires who donate tens of millions to the Democrats will ban posts that they deem lies and are not truthful when they refer to crime going up, all in the name of banning hate speech. It is an unenlightened concept, but no one has a comparable platform to question them.
Stores should provide their own security; they are all rich oppressors of the proletariat, and the people should not fund their perceived problems with retail theft. Illegal drug use is not a police issue but a social issue, and needs to be addressed by the health care system.
f a criminal robs or assaults a victim, it is society’s fault, not the poor oppressed victim of capitalism who commits the violent crime out of his/her necessity to live, or feelings of oppression by the bourgeoisie. People primarily commit retail theft to eat and feed their families; they are victims, not criminals, and should not be incarcerated but assisted.
The government should not be concerned with retail theft ,but go after the billionaire criminals on Wall Street. Not Silicon Valley billionaires of course, as they are sufficiently woke, and not social media billionaires, as they are big donors to the progressive/socialist cause.
Yes, many corporations are liberal; just look to the “Earth First!” group, incorporated nearly 30 years ago, and hundreds of others. Always remember that we must believe the lessons of history, but only the politically correct lessons, common sense be damned.
My Opinion.
Interesting perspectives, Mr. Traxler.
But I’ve read elsewhere that each year, the United States spends more money per capita on our police, on our jails and prisons, and on our criminal justice courts, than any other country in the world. I’ve also read that the USA leads the world by far in the number and percentage of our citizens who are incarcerated. No other country comes close to our personal gun ownership, to the total number firearms available to us, to our annual firearms injuries and deaths, and to our number of shooting deaths by police, per capita. Perhaps we lead the world in our number of “bad guys” per capita, too!
Compared to standards in other developed countries, it’s alleged that law enforcement officer training in the United States is much easier to complete, and requires fewer hours of in-class and field training. In our country, former law enforcement officers who were dismissed for poor performance or misconduct easily find new jobs open to them at other police agencies.
Whether these points are all facts or fallacies, “woke” or “un-woke,” if there’s any grain of truth to them, then why is crime still even an issue in our country? Could it be possible that the law enforcement standards, methods and history that you taught back in those kinder, gentler days of yesteryear may no longer be adequate for today’s more complex and crazy world? Are the old ways plus more money for more police really still the best and only answers to our crime problems?
Several years ago prior to his passing, it was my good fortune to spend a fascinating few hours with Mr. Alan Ott, the retired former president, CEO and Chairman of Chemical Bank. In years past Ott was well known in our state as “Mr. Midland,” reflecting a lifetime of community, regional, and statewide leadership, awards, honors and achievements. The many pearls of wisdom he shared with me that day included a caution that throwing more money down the same hole to solve old problems is seldom the best or wisest solution. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.” Some food for thought.
Merry Christmas to you, sir, and to your Town Broadcast colleagues and readers.
Mr. Bergeron,
Yes.
And a Merry Christmas to you and yours.
So after reading your opinion about crime and the medias role would you condemn fox news personality Jesse Watters for advocating the assasination of Anthony Fauci ?
Mr. Gar Annable,
Hope you and yours have a Merry Christmas.
The paragon of truth per the Town Broadcast, “SNOOPS” a left wing bastion of truth telling said this is false. So no, I will not.
A quick fact check will save a good bit of retelling false reports.
Thanks for the comment.
I believe you might want to recheck your fact. From politico, “Now you go in for the kill shot. The kill shot? With an ambush? Deadly. Because he doesn’t see it coming,” Watters said.
Fauci — who is President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser and has served for 37 years as director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — on Tuesday described Watters’ remarks as “horrible.”
“The only thing that I have ever done throughout these two years is to encourage people to practice good public health practices: to get vaccinated, to be careful in public settings, to wear a mask,” Fauci said. “And for that, you have some guy out there saying that people should be giving me a kill shot to ambush me? I mean, what kind of craziness is there in society these days?”
Fox News declined to comment on the record on whether it endorses Watters’ remarks or plans to take disciplinary action against him. Fox News also did not respond to a request for comment on Fauci’s critique of the network. And yes a Joyeux Noel you.