Posted on 07/19/2025 8:12:17 AM PDT by MtnClimber
A growing culture of Third Worldism—the belief that you’re entitled to use public spaces without any responsibility to care for them—is corroding civic life in cities.
Immigrants from poor countries like my own, Venezuela, often joke that Americans complain too much about “First World problems.” Back home, we don’t worry about microaggressions; we’re too busy figuring out how to put food on the table or stay safe from crime and government censorship.
But here’s the irony: increasingly, Americans aren’t complaining enough about Third World problems. Trash-strewn streets, loud music in public, brazen shoplifting, rising disorder, and a general decline in civility are becoming common in major U.S. cities. In New York, the problem is hard to miss.
Lately, even moderate liberals have joined conservatives in voicing concern. The far Left, in turn, shrugs and says, “Move to the suburbs”—as if this is just how cities are supposed to be.
They’re not. In fact, in Venezuela, we have a name for this disorder-justifying mindset: Third Worldism. It’s not about race, nationality, or even poverty. Third Worldism is the belief that you’re entitled to use public spaces without any responsibility to care for them. It’s the idea that you can do whatever you want, no matter how it affects others—littering without shame, blasting music at fellow citizens, shoplifting, jumping turnstiles, refusing to pay the bus fare, defacing property, and ignoring rules meant to keep the commons usable for everyone.
The attitude behind these behaviors marks the true dividing line between the First and Third World mindset. It isn’t wealth alone that keeps cities livable. It’s culture: the rule of law, cleanliness, safety, and a shared civic compact. When residents uphold these norms, urban cores thrive as centers of prosperity and genuine diversity. When the compact breaks down, the result is social collapse and segregation.
I’ve been struck by how this compact has broken down in New York City. Around the world, Gotham is seen as the ultimate symbol of First World success. Yes, it’s crowded and messy in the way big cities are—but it has worked. Until recently, most people followed the rules well enough to make life functional for the millions who share these tight spaces. The subway, the streets, and the parks belonged to everyone because there were legal and unspoken limits on how to use them.
Today, acknowledgment of those limits is waning. Lawmakers effectively decriminalized shoplifting, and retailers have closed down stores or locked up products behind glass in response. Streets and subways have become dirtier and more dangerous. Panhandling and aggressive behavior go unchecked. Neighborhoods are forced to accept encampments or unsafe shelters. Heroes who save strangers in public transit, like Daniel Penny, face bogus charges while criminals go free.
I remember seeing Columbia University students jump the turnstiles at the 116th Street subway station. They did it not because they were poor but because they were entitled, and because it was socially acceptable. The one time I politely stood up to someone violating social customs on the subway—a middle-aged woman playing loud videos on her phone—she threatened to kill me.
Though an immigrant myself, I’ll admit it: the recent migrant crisis has made these problems worse. Not all immigrants are the same. Before the Biden administration’s border surge, Venezuelans arriving here were mostly middle-class professionals escaping socialist devastation. They saved money, planned their moves carefully, and observed the cultural norms that make living in a First World society possible.
But the recent wave of migrants—most arriving illegally—lacked that same preparation or willingness to assimilate. I’ve seen this difference firsthand in New York City shelters, where groups of young men from Venezuela fight among themselves. It pains me to say it about my compatriots, but they’re importing the same social habits that helped wreck our native country.
The point is not to oppose immigration but to demand more selective immigration policies and stronger enforcement of civic norms, for newcomers and native-born Americans alike. After all, many of the worst violations of public order are committed not by immigrants but by native-born citizens.
Third Worldism thrives when rules aren’t enforced—when stealing isn’t punished, streets aren’t cleaned, litterers aren’t fined, and no one says “stop.” To allow these behaviors isn’t compassion. The people who suffer most when public order breaks down are the poorest residents who can’t afford to move away, the small business owners whose businesses die, and the transit riders who must endure harassment and unsafe situations because they can’t afford to own a vehicle.
If America wants to remain a First World country, it must take seriously the habits and values that make “First World problems” possible in the first place. We should aspire to live in a society where people’s biggest complaints are petty and privileged—because that means that their basic needs are being met. To get there, we must reject Third Worldism.
That means governments must enforce public rules, and so must we. It means restoring consequences, legal and social, for antisocial behavior. It means expecting newcomers to adopt long-established American norms, not reshape them for the worse. And it means rejecting the cultural relativism that excuses bad behavior in the name of empathy or diversity.
I came to America for the rule of law, safety, freedom, and opportunity. If those disappear, what’s left to distinguish us from the places that people like me fled?
. . . But only if their skin color isn’t white.
Guarded, walled, gated, and secure buildings, with their fellow elites, while we have ANTIFA, BLM, and 50,000 NGO-NFP rent-a-mobs to deal with, zero bail initiatives, defund the police consequences, open borders as a relief valve for third world country criminals, psychiatric nut-jobs, and covert terrorists to mingle with.
Then the media and news organizations tell you that's your burden and should be proud of it. All the while they are burning the place down to make housing for the "problem people" and make you pay for it all.
A cangue (/kæŋ/ KANG), in Chinese referred to as a jia or tcha (Chinese: 枷) is a device that was used for public humiliation and corporal punishment in East Asia and some other parts of Southeast Asia until the early years of the twentieth century.
Frequently translated as pillory, it was similar to that European punishment except that the movement of the prisoner's hands was not as rigorously restricted and that the board of the cangue was not fixed to a base and had to be carried around by the prisoner.
Although there are many different forms, a typical cangue would consist of a large, heavy flat board with a hole in the center large enough for a person's neck. The board consisted of two pieces. These pieces were closed around a prisoner's neck, and then fastened shut along the edges by locks or hinges. The opening in the center was large enough for the prisoner to breathe and eat, but not large enough for a head to slip through. The prisoner was confined in the cangue for a period of time as a punishment. The size and especially weight were varied as a measure of severity of the punishment.
I think the author means why don’t more Americans care.
Those of us who do care, care plenty.
Look at AOC’s district for an exemplar of progressive leadership.
Coming soon to all of NYC.
Yes, they want to let the whole world in and give them social benefits paid for by US taxpayers. It’s bankrupting us, straining our resources and is not sustainable. If you come here, you better be able to provide for yourself, practice the local manners, be on your best behavior, and bring something to America besides sh—. A lot of people just can’t do that. There no reason we have take in the world’s trash. That’s just words on a statue in NY harbor that are being used against us. They like saying “things change”. Well, this isn’t 1900 anymore.
Statistics show crime is going down in cities where Homan and his team of heroes are removing illegals. There really IS a difference between people who come here legally and people who break in - and the values those two group show makes all the difference. Its the same with an invited guest and a thief... the fact both come into your home does NOT make them the same. Legal immigrants are tell us first and foremost that they respect our laws. BIG DIFFERENCE.
You have 72 hours to agree to penalty room time by spending your first eight hours of penalty time in one of our penalty rooms, or your case will be handled by the DA and you can face jail.
A penalty time room system eliminates the need to provide a public defender, judge, health care and food to an offender. The offender can keep his/her regular job as well.
A shoplifter might have to spend eight hours plus one hour per ten dollars of goods stolen in program penalty time room within say 30 to 60 days of arrest.
Statistics show crime is going down in cities where Homan and his team of heroes are removing illegals. There really IS a difference between people who come here legally and people who break in - and the values those two group have show us makes all the difference. Its the same with an invited guest and a thief... the fact both come into your home does NOT make them the same. Legal immigrants are telling us first and foremost that they respect our laws. BIG DIFFERENCE.
Third world? I thought this article was about blacks.
The author is a conservative who has stated that socialism destroyed his country. I doubt he ‘voted’ for that destruction, as he was only months old when it began.
There's a huge differene between people who come here legally and people who don't. Someone hwo 'waits in line' is different than a person who pushes their way to the front. A person invited to your home is different than a thief who breaks in. One causes chaos and the other is welcome. Democrats try to blur the lines because they welcome the evil ones... A dope pusher isn't a pharmacists either... A person who breaks into our country tells us many things about themselves from that choice and most of them are bad.
These days you are likely to get into more trouble for noticing a problem than creating it. Expecting better from one’s neighbors is “White Privilege”
“They can’t see the big picture.” Those people, more and more, lack empathy. If it doesn’t affect them directly, like you said, they don’t care-if they did, they would stand up against it, whatever it is. The only way to teach someone how to be empathic towards others, is to introduce them to God. Yes, atheists can be empathetic, they just need to be shown and accept where that comes from. There’s my pitch for God today.
Maybe it is because our LEOs are handling it and because of that we are able to start to rebuild our lives after Crime Boss Joey’s handlers almost destroyed America.
We care, but at this stage we can only complain to TPTB who seem disinterested.
Now, declare an open season with no limit and see what happens.
Hear hear!
Perhaps a progressive income tax on lifetime government-sourced income is in order:
First $1 million - 0%
....
Almost every adult would have an incentive to make the private sector functional.
Heavily Armed?
“The Perils of Designer Tribalism”. Roger Kimball, The New Centurion (2001). Kimball’s essay discusses the west’s emerging love affair with the “noble savage”, third worldism and Pascal Bruckner’s “Tears of the White Man, Compassion As Contempt. https://newcriterion.com/article/the-perils-of-designer-tribalism/
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