Seattle's Violence Problem - It's Political

Seattle WA

Description

I read an article today about a spate of violence in a major American city during a 24 hour period this weekend: 6 separate shooting incidents, 7 victims shot, and 4 victims dead. For a minute there I thought I was reading about Chicago or Los Angeles. But no. This occurred in Seattle, a city that suffered through a 61% increase in homicides in 2020, and which is on track to repeat that performance this year. For those of you not so good with math, that will leave Seattle with a murder rate 260% higher than it was just two years ago. These are official City of Seattle statistics, not numbers I’ve conjured out of thin air. Meanwhile the Seattle Police Department is seeing an exodus of officers either retiring or leaving for greener pastures. Apparently there was no need for the Seattle City Council to reduce the police budget by $50 million dollars; the men and women in blue are self-deporting all on their own. I wonder if Mayor Jenny Durkin (D) is still referring to the violence and mayhem occurring in the city as the Summer of Love 2.0? Take a little peak under the hood at the Seattle City Council if you really want to see something akin to madness. It is now painfully obvious that the left's policies of decriminalizing a whole host of illegal behaviors, relying on hair brained 'restorative justice' schemes instead of accountability and punishment for criminal behavior, and most obvious of all the defunding (and vilification) of police, are not working. All of this is clearly making crime worse and costing lives. Because... surprise, surprise, police are not in fact the cause of criminal behavior in our society, and drastically reducing their presence in crime-plagued neighborhoods only causes crime to skyrocket. All of this in spite of what voices across the spectrum on the left assured us as they hurtled us down this road based not on science or data, but on pure speculation and ideological nonsense. Criminals acting like criminals, and taking advantage of a lack of police presence? Say it ain't so! Gee, who could of failed to see that coming? The entire left in this country, that's who. And who is harmed most by all of this? The poor and minority communities that the left claims to be so passionately advocating for. We already see the left - with increasing desperation - trying to frame this as an issue of gun violence rather than a colossal failure of the criminal justice and policing reforms that they have advocated. But most people see that this makes no sense. There were already tens of millions of firearms in this country for decades prior to the recent spike in violent crime. Gun ownership soared in the United States between 1995 and 2015 and yet we saw crime - especially violent crime - greatly reduced during this period. Who in their right mind can't see that there's something else going on here than the simple prescription of 'gun violence'? As if it is the guns themselves that are out there murdering children in the street, rather than the criminals actually taking aim and pulling the trigger. The issue of crime will be a major millstone around the left's neck in the coming midterm election, and beyond that to the presidential election of 2024. The immigration crisis, soaring inflation, and a moribund economy will also take center stage. Democrats were able to avoid major electoral consequences in 2020 for their disastrous public safety policies and their clear support of BLM and antifa violence in cities across America, because, A) the scale and intensity of the increase in violence was not yet blindingly apparent, and B) orange man bad. They will not be so fortunate in 2022 and beyond. Of course they will still have the ideological and completely broken press in America covering for them, as well as the major tech companies carrying their water for them and censoring the views of millions of Americans – apparently in collaboration with the Biden administration. But Americans are increasingly onto the scam, and it’s paying diminishing returns. Americans are increasingly discovering alternative sources of information that actually present facts and intelligent, credible analysis rather than the ideological blather you get from virtually the entire corporate media ecosystem in this country. These sources include wildly popular podcasts, digital magazines, and sites like Substack, Patreon, etc. These are really starting to move the needle, and if you aren’t familiar with these new alternatives then you are strongly encouraged to explore them. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the ratings for CNN, MSNBC, and the broadcast news networks over the past six months. They are tanking. The left broke it, and now they have to buy it. I'm not telling you to vote Republican, but I am telling you that you would be insane to vote for Democrats.