Something's New in the Neighborhood

And I'm not so sure I like it.

I like Greg Gutfeld - sometimes.  He's clever, but not especially funny.  However, he is quite smart and passionate about the issues that interest him.

Last Friday, he commented on the changes that have come about at the community level in the country in recent years.  I can't recall it exactly, but I'll paraphrase and Greg gets credit for painting a very clear picture.  I confess to embellishing.

This doesn’t apply everywhere but you’ll get it if you live in or near a city like San Francisco, LA, Philadelphia, Portland, Oakland, NYC, Atlanta, Cleveland, Seattle, Minneapolis, and the famous for it—Chicago. But wherever you reside, you can relate, and it’s spreading like the flu.

Suppose you live in a nice house on a nice street.  The houses on your street and the other neighborhood streets are also nice and well kept up and your neighborhood is clean and safe for your family.

One day, about three years ago, a neighbor about 5 doors down sold his house.  It too was a nice house, well kept up, freshly painted and with an attractive lawn.  But since the new guy moved in, things have changed.

• The new owner stops taking care of the lawn. The front of the house looks like an abandoned property.

• He throws a lot of parties that run most of the night.  Lots of loud music, people were yelling and a few times you've heard gunshots coming from the back yard. You call the police but by the time they get there, everyone has gone.   They talk with the owner and then go away.  The owner invites some friends to live in the house and others to camp on the lawn.

• A car full of guys drives by and puts a few bullets through the neighbor’s windows in the middle of the afternoon while your kids are playing in your front yard.

• Members of the newly formed neighborhood gang who were shot to death in the “new” duels, are replaced by the few thousand gangsters who have slipped through the “secure and closed” border to the south.  (Don’t start me on this.)

• You go to the drugstore to buy some aspirins ( which are locked up). While trying to find the customer help button, you are shoved aside by a bunch of guys shoplifting Tide laundry soap and cosmetics.  When you get back to your car, you find a window was broken so someone could ravage your glove compartment.

• The police come out for a 2 for one call and they tell the drugstore owner that there wasn’t enough Tide to break the $900 felony limit and with three guys participating, they reduced the theft per each, below that amount.  Nothing is done.  They tell you to call your auto insureance company. Rinse. Repeat.

• The understaffed police department defends their slow arrival because they are understaffed.  This is probably because no one wants to work in law enforcement due to the increased risk of being shot at and then being personally sued for defending themselves.  In addition, they figure it isn’t worth the effort because the elected and then reelected prosecutors won't prosecute. Maybe we need a 50 recurrance incident law to keep a criminal off the street.

• A famous NYC prosecutor says he worries when his kids take public transportation and blames state legislators for the problem. Gee, I guess he’s off the hook.

• Businesses in the neighborhood begin to shut down, either because fewer people feel safe to shop there, the insurance won’t cover the shoplifting losses or employees, fearing for their safety, won’t work there anymore.  Drugstores and supermarkets disappear, even the hoity-toity Whole Wallet supermarkets.  Shortages of stores mean prices go up.

• Larger companies complain that their employees won’t come to work because the neighborhood is unsafe, dirty and are drug dens.  The larger companies move to safer, lower taxed, envirnmentally safe states.  Win-Win. Unfortunately, when they move, their tax base and the higher paid employees’ tax base goes with them, but they are able to leave vacant buildings and take away the customers of small businesses in the neighborhood to further exacerbating the cycle.

• The city thinks the homeless camp in your neighborhood is a good idea, so to keep it filled, they provide direct deliveries of food, cash and drugs with sufficient paraphernalia to your neighbor’s lawn.

• The move to other states by those that can afford it, also lowers tax revenues for the city who still won't or can't add to the police force, so they try a few more social programs as opposed to those that actually work. Suffering levels increases among residents.  Blaming levels increase among the political class. Resistance to programs that have proven to be effective are resisted by progressive supporters.

• You consider moving to another city, but the value of your house has decreased below the price you paid for it.  Plus, the Inflationary Non-Inflationary Bill has trippled the homeowner interest rate making it harder to sell. You’re also not sure you can find another job in the new city. You’re stuck.

This doesn’t mean much if you are distantly uninvolved, but the spread is coming soon to a corner near you and if you can't wait, you can drive to it in a few minutes. 

There are some things that can be done.  Find out who the politicians are who are supporting stuff you don’t like and vote them out or ask them to publish their home addresses and supply buses to move your neighborhood problem to their neighborhood.  We could then see if they like to live with what they’ve approved.

I’ve seen, in recent weeks, some turning of the worm.  Residents in Oakland are beginning to complain at city meetings.  A trial of a notable official’s kin, where both single minded sides of the defense lawyers and the government prosecutorial fixers were reversed by a competent judge.  A few cities are beginning to react to the loss of their tax base.  Some state police are being temporarily sent to recalcitrant cities (but they will never replace trained, competent and community-supported local departments).

We are entitled to demand positions of candidates at all levels before we vote them in at the next state, local or national election.  Citizens can make them do that.  If the candidate begins to sound stupid, maybe he is.

We can vote for people who are not life-long politicians but rather have lived in and conquered civilian life before they make laws that might weaken it.   We can install term limits in government bodies like house, senate, city council, etc. to keep title shifting to a minimum.

We can nip problems in the bud as they occur and not give them time to root, fertilize them with governmental support and grow into the neighborhoods described in this post.

This is not a new thing.  We’ve had several periods of lawlessness in our history but not so much facilitated by governmental actions.

Rise up.  Ask questions.  Vote the offenders out.

Best,

Bob

P.S.  I’m sure many of you disagree.  If so, and you have better ideas or defense of the status quo, please leave a comment.