Occupy those Democrat Cities!

 

Street Crime, law and order has been a sure fire way to whip up the middle class dating back way before George H.W. Bush invoked Willie Horton 37 years ago, as the symbol of how Democrats coddle dangerous criminals while Republicans are strong, macho men who keep them in check.  

Willie Horton was released from jail only to promptly murder someone and that, Bush said, was all the fault of his Democratic opponent who was soft on crime and wanted to free dangerous Black males to prey on vulnerable White women because all the Democrats care about was not violating Mr. Horton's civil rights.

Randy Newman's "Rednecks" slyly punctured the idea that tough, white guys could prevent violence in the cities of Roxbury (Boston), Chicago, Cleveland, East St. Louis and San Francisco by simply unleashing rednecks to go about "keeping the Niggers down."

Because there is always a racial element to this theme, Democrats have been leery of joining in the cry to punish and suppress the criminal element for fear of being seen as just another force of "keeping the Niggers down." So the Republicans have made this issue their own, not being afraid as being seen as being anti Black.

But, of course, there is another dimension to all this when you go beyond talking about increased police activities, or police tactics like "stop and frisk" which targeted young Black males, who, after all, statistically were more likely than other groups to be carrying weapons and committing crimes with those guns in the inner cities where they lived and you go to the option of simply stationing armies with powerful war weapons and tanks on street corners or patrolling neighborhoods.

Armies in neighborhoods have been tried and failed in other settings, most notably Ireland, where, during "The Troubles" British troops were deployed to violent streets of Belfast and ordinary street crime, robberies, non politically inspired murders did not decrease. In fact, Professor Google tells us conventional crime actually increased during the time regular police, who at least knew the neighborhoods and the people living in them were replaced by military patrols. And getting cooperation from local community folks identifying who done it and when and where and maybe why was forfeit once the troops arrived. 

There has been the feeble defense that this deployment of troops to the Black inner city is not actually about "keeping the Niggers down," but it is an enlightened, compassionate and welcomed effort to protect minority folk from the depredations of criminals in those neighborhoods, because, actually, the majority of victims are minority folks, law abiding, innocent people caught in the cross fire and preyed upon by criminals who could be contained if only we'd send in the troops. No, we're not playing the RACE CARD, we are protecting the minorities! This is all for their own good! This sounds to Mad Dog like the lame excuse that we are only sending our troops into the Sudetenland because those nasty locals are harassing and murdering and raping German speaking local citizens who need the German army to protect them.  Despots always need a victimized group to protect. 

There are actual ways of studying what drives violence, gun deaths in certain parts of cities. The most famous study was "The Boston Miracle" where professors, criminologists actually tried to understand what drove killings in Boston, and they discovered the vast majority were driven by small "crews" who sold and distributed crack cocaine. These were young men, less than 1% of the city's population committing more than 60% of homicides.

The researchers were surprised it was not poverty, per se, but macho stuff, being disrespected, drug marketing territory violations and insults which drove murders. Interventions from government guided by this understanding with buy ins from police dropped the murder rate precipitately in Boston and the tactics were embraced and used in other cities with similar results.

Of course, for many cities government by Democrats, street crime has been drastically reduced, most often confined to certain neighborhoods.

Exceptionally, criminals stalk affluent people in rich neighborhoods, car jacking, murdering or raping, but if you are talking about policy, that is a rule by which resources are guided, you would not deploy your anti crime units be they police or army to patrol rich White neighborhoods. You put them where the crime is. As Willie Sutton said, when asked why he robbed banks: "Because that's where the money is." Yet another Willie instructing.

Then you get the exceptional case, like the horrific murder of a young Ukrainian woman on a bus by a deranged Black man, who was caught on video stabbing her in the neck fatally, for no apparent reason--there was no reason beyond his schizophrenia. And now Trump has his new Willie Horton. This happened in Charlotte, North Carolina, a blue city in a Red State. The mayor is a Democrat, which is reason enough to send troops with bayonets, tanks and cruise missiles to Charlotte. 

Send in the National Guard!