With a deeply held belief that law and order is essential for a functioning society, it’s unnerving that as a nation, we are now seeing the highest spike in murder rates in decades. Of further concern is the lack of fortitude from Democrats to address this problem. Not surprisingly, this is largely occurring in Democrat-run cities.
Frequently, the left falls short in acknowledging the significant levels of violence against people and property occurring across the country, including in Portland, Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco. Democrats have spent years defunding, disarming, and demonizing law enforcement while progressive prosecutors in places like New York City are picking and choosing which laws to enforce. Additionally, activist judges are releasing repeat offenders on little or no bond, and in communities like the one I represent in Central New York, fatally flawed bail reform laws have put dangerous criminals back on the streets and prevented judges from considering public safety when making critical bail and pretrial release decisions.
If Democrats wanted to address the crime crisis, we would see them taking action, but right now they seem to care more about deflecting. The truth is that violent criminals are emboldened by soft-on-crime policies and a lack of consequences. Progressive prosecutors across this country are intentionally disregarding their duties to represent the people and protect our communities. They are disregarding the law and putting criminals back on our streets.
As a former federal prosecutor, I can tell you that those who eventually become hardened criminals do not begin by committing felonies. Allowing property crimes and misdemeanors to go unchecked breeds a culture of permissiveness, leading perpetrators to eventually commit more serious offenses. In major cities, there continues to be large-scale, organized smash and grab style thefts. Crimes like these must be taken seriously.
But this is not only an issue specific to low-level crime. There has been a troubling pattern of lawlessness across the United States. Over the past year, I have spoken to law enforcement in several cities and communities across the country. I was consistently told that progressive prosecutors and a pervasive antagonism towards police stoked by the left is contributing to brutal increases in violent crime. Criminals feel emboldened by the defund-the-police movement while cops are continuously restrained by woke politicians.
After decades of working hand-in-hand with law enforcement officers, I can say with certainty that they are facing some of the toughest working conditions I’ve ever seen. Many are opting to take early retirement or pursue other careers due to the difficult nature of the job and lack of public support. Tragically, a record number of police officers were killed in the line of duty last year while doing their jobs and working to keep our communities safe. Make no mistake, anti-police rhetoric has contributed to this dangerous environment and played a major role in fueling America’s crime wave.
No matter your political party, support of local law enforcement needs to be a priority. As a nation we must hold our elected officials accountable and make sure our police departments are well-funded and supported by their prosecutors.
Don’t look now my Democrat friends but you have lost total control of your party. Whether your panacea is defined as socialism, liberalism, communism or nirvana, the “Everything’s Free New World” is the same bunch of lies, pandering and magic snake oil. It has never worked and never will but there will always be a parasitic appeal to freeloaders and the lazy.
We are surrounded with sickening evidence of liberal failure as lawlessness is sweeping across America. Because liberals are blind to raw evidence, let me start off by stating emphatically that the death of George Floyd by a rogue policeman is inexcusable! Was that clear enough? Liberal mayors and governors refused help to control lawlessness. They permitted criminals, not legitimate protestors, to destroy property and assault police. Now they want to defund police. What abject, total stupidity! And now your presidential candidate has called police the enemy!
In the exact same slippery slope as a woman’s right to abort a baby has now become the “right” to perform a post birth abortion in several states, cowardly liberal mayors and governors refusing to support their own police force has morphed into anarchy, lawlessness and unrestrained chaos. Do they seriously think that their wacko fringe minions will protect them? Now that I think about it, they have their own personal security so everyone else be damned. Not exactly the panacea they promised is it?
A daughter took to TikTok in hopes of attracting people to her family’s restaurant, Lee’s Noodle House, in Santa Rosa, California. What happened next was the last thing she expected. CNN affiliate KGO has the story.
What’s the solution? The rule of law should apply to everyone: Clinton, Comey, Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and every single protestor that breaks the law. Jail isn’t enough in my opinion. Anyone that attempts to dismantle America and the divinely inspired Constitution should be rewarded with a yearlong vacation in Afghanistan or Zimbabwe. If that doesn’t prove what a bunch of absolutely ignorant spoiled brats they are then they literally don’t deserve to live in the greatest country on earth. I will go so far as to repeat a great phrase from my era, “America. Love it or Leave it.” Another angle is “Go back home and burn your own stuff down.” Better yet, castrate the money source trucking in bricks, matches, bottles and protestors.
As long as I’m out in left field, how about supporting the 99% of those that protect us. I’m not afraid to say it, “All lives matter.” It doesn’t matter the color of your skin, the shape of your nose, the number of limbs you possess, your sexual orientation, your address, being toothless, brainless or even helpless in that sacred location in the womb! We are all God’s children. So, I invite you to drop your hate and let’s try and save America and freedom for our posterity.
Wake up, America. We are being led down a path by these liberal Democratic politicians where I don’t think we want to go. Do you really want to go down a path of lawlessness and anarchy they are letting this country become?
You have to be aware of what’s happening in most of the major U.S. cities with all these crazies. They think they have the right to destroy private property, burn businesses, steal private property, and killing, injuring and running over with vehicles our police officers. The police work for all citizens and are paid by our tax dollars to maintain some form of civility in society.
New York City has over 35,000 police officers paid for by the citizens with extremely high taxes. The Mayor Bill de Blasio will not let them do their job and stop the burning and looting of businesses while at the same time being injured by these lawless fools.
This same scenario is playing out all across the United States in Democratic-controlled cities.
Liberal prosecutors won’t even prosecute this bunch of lawless anarchists. In fact, they let them out so they can join back in with the lawless crowd.
One of the first agendas all Democratic politicians wants is strict gun control of all law-abiding citizens (no assault weapons, limit magazine capacity, etc.). In short, they want to handicap your ability to protect yourself and property. Now just look at what’s happening. The citizens of New York City have had very strict gun control for years. As a result, what do they have to protect themselves and their property with? They paid all those high taxes to fund the large police department they have. Now the police are not allowed to protect the city of New York by an idiot Democratic mayor.
On June 2, a 67-year-old owner of a gun store in Philadelphia was staying in his store, armed with a Bushmaster M4 .223 assault rifle because the previous night’s attempted break-in. (One of those bad, ugly, black guns according to liberal Democrats.) As four lowlifes broke in and confronted the owner inside his store, it did not end well for the one with a handgun. A second one was hit and later showed up at a hospital with a gunshot to his shoulder. The sad part of all this is the other two escaped unharmed. If these four knuckleheads had been successful and stole several guns that would have ended up on the streets of Philadelphia, how many lives would have been lost as a result?
No normal person condones what happened in the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Nor would any normal person condone the violence, burning, looting of private property and assaulting and killing of our police officers and private citizens. We have laws to address what happened in Minneapolis and everyone should know the laws are working as they should.
This bunch of liberal Democrats want to restrict your right to protect yourself and property while at the same time talking about defunding the police. Are they crazier than one can even imagine? They are letting parts of this country become sabotaged by a bunch of anarchist and lawless idiots. They don’t want to offend them in any way because this is their base and Democratic voters.
May 2020, the FBI background checks say a 750,000 increase over May 2019. The one thing the liberal Democrats are extremely good at — gun and ammunition sales.
The subway system in the nation’s capital no longer enforces fare rules and just lets people jump the gates. Reckless drivers blaze through red lights and pedestrian crossings without any consequence. Working-class moms can’t let their kids out in their neighborhoods for fear they might get shot. Mentally ill men who assault women and kill their dogs can terrorize city parks with no accountability. Major health care corporations that openly defraud Medicare to the tune of billions of dollars suffer no serious punishment. An immoral president who foments insurrection against his own country and then steals national security secrets is continually shielded by an entire political party.
America suffers from a raft of lawlessness that is eroding social cohesion and democratic norms. From the little crimes to the big crimes, an epidemic of excuse-making by political elites allows lawlessness to run rampant while good-hearted and law-abiding citizens get played for suckers in America’s eroding social contract.
On the one side, Democratic activists excuse all sorts of violent crime in American cities as either a fiction or something people must deal with to advance an opaque notion of social justice. They simply don’t care about rising violent crime and want to change the subject to something else. On the other side, Republican activists empower a corrupt leader who actively sought to overturn an election he lost while committing myriad other criminal abuses of power. They simply don’t care that their party leader is a crook who sold out his own country. Both political parties allow tax cheats and other corporate scofflaws to operate freely and skirt regulations without legal recourse while cracking down on small businesses and individuals who make any mistake at all. Political elites simply don’t care to take on the malefactors of great wealth except in fake populist ads come election time.
To America’s ideological and political elites, the law is just something for the little people to naively believe in or a partisan cudgel for battering opponents.
The problem of course is that the rule of law and the social norms that underpin it are vital components of a free and democratic society. If Americans cannot trust one another to behave decently and honestly—and can’t rely on the authorities to enforce laws and regulations when people cross the line—then the country will continue its slide into a dysfunctional state of anger, resentment, and mutual loathing. Nothing good happens in this state of despair. People make bad decisions when they are scared and cynical about all public and private institutions. Extremist solutions gain ground as a means to address the chaos. Life in a world without effective government and the rule of law quickly becomes “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
But rather than accept this pathetic situation, it’s time for the little people to fight back and say no more excuses. Citizens must demand genuine law and order in all of our communities and at the highest levels of American industry and government. Don’t support or vote for any leader or political party that doesn’t fully believe in applying the rule of law in an equal and fair manner.
This means, local leaders need to provide their citizens with clean and safe public spaces and stop anti-social behavior in parks, subways, and on street corners. Police need to arrest people who commit violent crimes and flood neighborhoods with guns and drugs—and prosecutors need to make sure these people go to jail for a long time. Public officials need to punish corporations that defraud the government or pollute our environment or exploit workers, through heavy fines and criminal penalties for executives that allow this behavior. Federal courts need to ensure that presidents of any party don’t abuse their executive powers when taking actions not authorized by legislation, and shut down these actions until proper congressional authority is in place.
In American democracy, no one is any better than anyone else. We are all equal in the eyes of the law. But our social contract only works if Americans treat each other decently, obey the law, respect people’s individual spheres, and work cooperatively with others to improve the quality of life for everyone. It only works if public authorities uphold established laws and ensure that people at all levels of society are held responsible for their actions when they violate these rules and norms.
Critics are right: our democracy is in a fragile state. So concerned Americans, regardless of party or background, must band together to demand that street-level violence in our communities is stopped and elite lawlessness in our institutions does not go unchecked.
Accountability for all is essential to maintaining the social contract.
Resources
thehill.com, “The far left has perpetuated nationwide lawlessness and the Biden administration is complicit.” By John Katko; hjnews.com, “Liberal lawlessness sweeping our nation.” By David B. Kerr; somdnews.com, “Wake up America, we don’t want anarchy and lawlessness.” By Donald L. Wallace; liberalpatriot.com, “Lawlessness Erodes Solidarity—and Democracy: Society can’t hold together if bad actors on the streets and at the highest levels of business and government go unpunished. It’s time to stop making excuses for them.” By John Halpin; youtube, “”Taking Away Your Rights” – Lawless Liberals.;