There’s an old military saying that you’ve seen in these pages before. “Once is happenstance; twice is coincidence; three or more times is enemy action.” It’s often attributed to Ian Fleming, from his James Bond novel “Goldfinger”, but it’s far older than that. I’ve seen similar sentiments expressed in eighteenth-century writings. Basically, it means that if the same thing happens, with similar results, too many times, it’s not accidental or coincidental. Instead, someone’s out to get you, and you need to do something serious about them before they do.
I find myself repeating that saying when I consider the catastrophic results of liberal, left-wing, progressive government in so many US cities and states, particularly in the so-called Rust Belt and on the East and West Coasts. It’s particularly visible in urban areas. So many of them exhibit precisely the same signs of decay and incipient social collapse that I’m beginning to think it can’t be coincidental, or even accidental. I’m more and more convinced that the loony left is actually planning this, as a way to make the citizens of those cities more and more dependent on their (ineffectual) governments just to survive the dystopia in which they live.
Consider Tucker Carlson’s scathing criticism of San Francisco (which visitors to that city, people I know and trust, tell me is entirely justified).
Then think about that in the light of:
- The homelessness crisis (and all its associated evils) in many West Coast cities.
- Urban blight and decay in many Rust Belt and East Coast cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and so on.
- Institutionalized corruption in city administrations, where to get anything done it’s not so much what you know as who you know – and how much you pay them under the counter.
- Catastrophic financial maladministration, resulting in pension plans that aren’t fully funded, budgets that are inadequate, taxes that are exorbitantly high, and spending skewed towards politically correct causes rather than the real needs of the people.
- Deliberately dysfunctional laws such as New York’s catch-and-release policy, turning sometimes violent offenders loose without so much as bail on the grounds that anything else would be “unfair” or “racist”.
- City education departments that automatically pass students to the next grade, year after year after year, when they’re functionally illiterate and unable to add so much as the change in their pockets to give you a total.
- Health care, where city hospitals’ emergency rooms are overwhelmed with drug-seekers and psychological or psychiatric basket-cases – so much so that they’re forced to raise charges on the rest of us by ten to a hundred times, in order to pay for the care of itinerants who don’t have a penny to their name.
Even a cursory Internet search will reveal incident after incident illustrating those realities. Are you starting to get the picture? Those crises are repeated, time after time after time, in almost every major city and state in the USA with a left-wing, progressive administration. Why? How could it be possible for so many of them to exhibit precisely the same catastrophic failings, all at the same time, if it were not a deliberate strategy?
I’m not sure why it would be a deliberate strategy. To my mind, anyone with any sense would be reaching for the tar and feathers, and riding out of town on a rail any and all politicians responsible for such conditions . . . but clearly, I’m not in the majority on that.
Why have the populations of these places not risen in revolt at having this dystopian catastrophe inflicted on them? Can anyone answer me that, please?
Peter
The parable in the Gospel of Matthew (ch 13) goes as follows: Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. … He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.
Civilization is not a natural state and did not arise pleasantly. Some people want it, some adapt to it fairly readily, some only with pain and punishment, and some not at all.
All that is required for civilization to fail is for us to lose the will to enforce it. The decay we see around us has as its proximate cause the belief that happiness and the good life spring spontaneously from the human mind.
When the pain of dissolution gets strong enough we will again be willing to pay the price for civilization to flourish, but first we must re-learn the lesson.
I'm not sure why it would be a deliberate strategy.
There are people out there whose goal is the "total transformation of the United States of America." As Stalin's henchman "Iron Lazar" Kaganovich said, "Why wail over broken eggs when we are trying to make an omelette!” As is typical on the Left, "trying" is critical and justifies the bloodshed. You don't have to produce the actual omelette.
Homelessness: the network of state mental institutions was deliberately destroyed. The catch and release policy is the result of similar thinking, likewise driven by a political agenda.
That, plus the destruction of lower class employment by the Great Society coupled with Teddy Kennedy's overhaul of immigration law. Like Labour's immigration policy in the UK it was intended to replace enough of the citizenry with a new client class to ensure a perpetual Democrat majority. Deliberate strategy.
FDR:
"All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public-personnel management. The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people."
Despite this view, collective bargaining was transplanted into public service.
The pension fund crisis is one result; more opportunities for corrupt officials getting theirs at the expense of their employers is another. Probably stupidity, but I don't think enemy action is completely out of the question.
Plus 1.
Can you think of a better way to destroy America from within?
It's a deliberate, well thought out plan to undermine the American spirit and destroy America. The fact that the original plotters are all dead and gone means only that the plot was deep and its mechanisms remarkably successful. They created a social virus that infects minds and souls, and it does nothing but spread itself and destroy.
Plus 1.
It's a basic world view problem about wealth and society.
The left sees the base state of the world and people as being wealthy and civilized, with internal forces that try to damage these natural states.
The right sees the base state of the world as poverty and savagery, with external forces that try to eliminate these states.
Both sides are right in some ways but wrong in others. Further compounding this is the base unit of society. One side sees the individual or small nuclear family as the base unit to focus on, the other side sees the base unit as the expanded family or village as the base unit. However the way the left tends to go haywire is there is no upper limit to the base unit.
On the right you can't go any lower then the lone individual. On the left the sky is not the limit. So we see the left have base units of city, state, nation, world government, every living creature on the planet, all life in the universe, all life including those in other universes, all life in all possible universes and throughout time etc. etc.
So we basically have the two movies on one screen problem as Scott Adams keeps saying. Who owns and decides what to do with the wealth in a society, and at what level of society is that decided.
Distilling all the conflicts down to base conflicts then explains the dystopian trend in cities. It is unfortunately not intentional.
Duh. You can't overthrow a happy and well adjusted society…
Transient squatters have occupied one of large parks in our town. I don't need to describe the filth, crime, and blight. They are drunks, tweakers and junkies and thieves. Most of you have seen this kind of thing first hand.
Our city council held an emergency meeting to try and deal with this. I attended. Holy Cow, was that an education. While council members discussed possible options, the city attorneys were there telling us what the law will actually allow us to do.
I'll sum it up. We're screwed.
I read a lot. I thought I had some understanding of the situation my city faces. I had absolutely NO IDEA. The state and federal laws are both written to stack the deck wholly and totally against the citizens, and in favor of the bums.
I heard the chief of police tell us just how constrained the officers are. Quick example: An officer approached a transient in the park and asked for some ID. The bum dived into his illegally pitched tent, zipped it up, and refused to cooperate. The cop had no choice but to walk on. Why? Lawfare. It turns out one SJW on the city council has called in the "homeless advocacy groups". They came out, and educated the transients on just what their rights are under Boise. Now our town is in their cross hairs. One false move and we're on our way to court where it will be evil right-wing property owners vs, the innocent downtrodden poor.
If you are now living in a town where is is happening you need to get off your butt one night, and sit in on your city council. Trust me it will be an education.
Now I realize that the bums have the law, the state, and the feds on their side. The citizens are tap dancing in a minefield when it comes to taking action.
Screw Iran; Trump needs to make war on California.
JWM
Catch and release was put in place for a simple reason, at least as I see it. The NY SAFE Act didn't net very many gun registrations. No one has the appetite for house-to-house searches-they know that will end badly for the searchers. So they allow the criminals to criminal, knowing that they will get bolder. Eventually they start getting shot. Even if your gun is illegal, will you use it to save yourself? Of course you will. Then they got you and your gun all nice and tidy.
And you won't be released.
This is all very true, but to really get to the answer, find out where one can't shoot up or poop up or place one's tent.
The answer is only in walled (actual walls or enforced vapor walls) leftist enclaves of the rich. That's right. The 'university professor' district, or where the elite live.
Try pooping on the street in front of Oprah's estate. Or the Clinton's.
Try setting up a tent in front of Bernie's house.
Try open-air drug sales or shooting up in front of DeNiro's or DeCaprio's.
Try anything remotely uncivilized near any of our leftist politicians' places, things or family.
And suddenly you'll find all these supposed laws allowing crime and grime being ignored and said criminal and griminal (new word, criminally grimy) being taken off to the nearest jail and the local prosecutor who's dropped everybody's cases suddenly prosecutes to the full extent of whatever they want to.
Yeah. Let's all poop and drop needles and smash DeBlasio's car windows and see how quickly he'll scream and get everyone involved arrested and prosecuted.
Yeah… Downfall of civilization. Why do these people (the leftist elite) want us to fail? What possible gain could they make in causing everyone to lose?
Beans for the win. You said it!
JWM
It's an extension of the Cloward-Pivens hypothesis. Do everything you can to tear down freedom and capitalism. Statists look at the US and hate us because we are a free people. The plan to corrupt and destroy us has been ongoing since Marxism started.
Peter, have you forgotten what you were? There is indeed a real strategy, and it comes from the Adversary. In our pride, our people have forsaken Jesus, and are suffering accordingly.
The lawyers and politicians deceive themselves, saying that they are protecting the rights of those homeless while filling their pockets with lawsuits and graft. The law is used to protect the guilty and attack the innocent, more and more often. The schools are used to teach lies as truth, and truth as lies, with the media to keep it going. Crisis after crisis, with the solution always to give the ones in power more. Those in power get rich, and are above the law, rigidly enforced upon the common people, selectively enforced upon criminals.
It won't change until we do. We have been long afraid of having our livelihoods and liberty removed for standing up against evil. I include myself in this. America will continue to decline until enough of us decide that we have had enough.
When I was a kid, my home town still burned witches. They were probably hippies, but same difference, really.
The cops and fire department showed up the next morning, exclaiming sadly at how awful it was, but what can you do when it's already done?
A couple of major drivers:
Courts – 9th circuit is responsible for the Boise debacle, and the Supreme Court refused an appeal. As Trump gets more judges approved, this will help.
Mental Health – lots of crazy people on the streets.
Drug Abuse
Decriminalization
Prisons that don’t reform
Government unions
Lawfare
Colleges brainwashing students, with a Leftist viewpoint, along with all of public education.
Billionaire money putting in District Attorneys that are useless.
Redistributing that creates safe districts. And in Ca going away from city wide council votes, to area, that create more left candidates.
Rise of black lives matters, where policing is seen as racist
A sad documentary is Seattle is dying.
All the snake-pits you named have been run by Democrat's for 40-50 years, or more. Atlanta has been for over 125 years… And it shows….