In my last blog I discussed the impact of the “progressive” approach to matters of Law and Order. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to keep up with the daily flow of evidence suggesting the utter failure of that approach.
This past Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was filmed helping others clean up the thousands of empty boxes and various other forms of debris strewn across and around a railway site in L.A. They were there as a result of the looting of railway cars which has apparently become a daily feature of life in that city. In an interview shortly thereafter, he suggested the area looked like something one might expect to see in a Third World Country. “What the hell is going on?” he asked!
On Friday, Fox News reported that a third N.Y. City police officer had been shot in just the third week of 2022. Republican politicians as well as members of law enforcement have suggested N.Y. Democrats’ 2020 “cashless bail” reform which simply sets free “non-violent” offenders who can’t afford to raise bail, is at least in part responsible for the noticeable increase in the city’s crime rate. Bruce Blakeman, a Nassau County Republican, suggested wryly: “I would say criminals have more rights than victims in the State of New York.” Paul Di Giacomo, President of the Detectives Endorsement Association, concurred, saying it “doesn’t take a rocket scientist” to see the negative impact of the “cashless bail” piece of legislation. Validating that point, Fox reported that last week in Nassau County the police confiscated more than 100 weapons from those not legally entitled to own them, approximately one third from individuals recently released from custody without bail.
Gavin Newsom’s seeming surprise at the lawlessness so evident in and around L.A. is remarkable. His policies are at least in part responsible. That he, as seems to be true of so many on the Left, literally lives in a dream world, led him to ask in the aforementioned interview why Republicans were seeking to profit from his state’s decline into anarchy. He simply did not get the connection between his politics and their repercussions in the Real World! Equally ironic is the concept of “cashless bail,” a policy endorsed by those apparently unaware that the monetary burden of bail was intended as a deterrent to those contemplating criminal activity. “Cashless bail” is an oxymoron! Unfortunately, as I have stated throughout these blogs, Irony is an abstraction lost on “progressives” apparently proud to be “guided” by their feelings.