The Civil Rebellion

The American Thinker ^ | October 28, 2010 | Rick Rinehart

[Scanian]

One of the more satisfying conclusions I've reached as a participant in American life for nearly six decades is that we've grown into being a fairly kind, forgiving, and empathetic citizenry. Everywhere I travel, I find people striving to be helpful. I see complete strangers acknowledge each other walking down the street or standing in an elevator. Eating dinner out alone, as I often do when I travel, seems to bring about magically ephemeral friendships purchased with the currency of nothing more than the exchange of a first name. It's been a long time -- years, really -- since I've encountered anyone who was "downright mean."

Of course, it was not always so. Growing up in the New York area in the 1960s and 1970s, one always sensed that both anger and fear, if not pervasive, then certainly just a racial incident or a mugging away, could on their own suspend our freedoms, if only temporarily. Indeed, before I even reached the age of fourteen, I had already witnessed a knife fight just off Fifth Avenue in New York and been chased through Grand Central Station by an openly aggressive pedophile. Even in those anxious moments, the last thing I would have sought was the help of a complete stranger, who back then might have been one of those classically scornful New Yorkers who just didn't want to "get involved," as the great cop-out of the time went.

So what's changed over the last forty or fifty years? The obvious explanation is that life in the United States is demonstrably better now than it was back then. Abject poverty is so rare that it's practically become anecdotal, and even statistical poverty has a middle-class look to it when the availability of myriad social services is taken into account. Real racism still exists, but it is isolated, its practitioners swiftly exposed and silenced.

[gusopol3]

I can’t say I agree with his premise. Maybe it was just getting out of New York City?

[Sherman Logan]

NYC itself has changed. It’s gone from being the most dangerous big city in America to being one of the safest.

[rlmorel]

Maybe...but I believe that he is accurate when he says that people can “afford” to be nicer. Hard times bring out the worst in strangers, that much is pretty clear.

I also think that he is correct in his assessment of the Tea Party movement and their “relationship” with the media.

[rlmorel]

And that is true...it certainly wasn’t Koch, Bloomberg or their like that brought that about. I am not a Presidential fan of Giuliani, but he was right as a mayor for a city like that.

Personally, I still avoid the place like the plague, I never stop when I drive through. But that is just me...

[Lion Den Dan]

Hard times bring out the worst in strangers, that much is pretty clear.

I am sorry for you in your ignorance of hard times and the way in which strangers interact. Your view seems taken from Hollywood and not life experience.

[yldstrk]

yeah, I dunno about that

[LibLieSlayer]

This article WAS true before 2007... it is just a snapshot in time now.

LLS

[Oceander]

All depends on what part of the city you're in. Also, the "safest" part was the doing of the Giuliani administration, and even though what they did was good enough to have lasted this long, the edges are beginning to unravel (again) because of Emperor Bloomberg's failure to continue the same policing strategies Giuliani started.

Furthermore, I have heard straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak (i.e., a friend of mine who just retired from the NYPD), that there is pressure to simply drop charges or reduce charges to the minimum available in order to manage the crime statistics that get reported.

The example I was given was this: a gang of 5 teenagers decides to mug people in a particular neighborhood. They do so by having one of their group approach a victim directly and confront him or her, with the remaining 4 forming a loose circle behind the victim and standing about 10 to 15 feet away from the victim. When the cops (in this case, my friend and his partner) caught this group and took them in for booking, the only individual charged was the one who did the actual confrontation - apparently, the desk sargeant's "reason" for not charging the others was that they were too far away from the victim to have actually "mugged" him, which simply begs the question.

I wouldn't buy the "NYC is the safest city" line. It's certainly not back to what it was in the 70s, but it's on its way there.

[Vanders9]

I think it would be more accurate to say that hard times bring out the best AND the worst in people.

[Vanders9]

Well, all I can say is that as a visitor to your fair nation most Americans were extremely nice, helpful and polite. Quite unlike the stereotype often presented in Europe (one aided and abetted by your own Audiovisual industry, curiously enough).

Having said that, I didn't like New York at all. I found it very oppressive. Mind you, the only time I was there was 15+ years back.

[jazzlite]

...”NYC itself has changed. It’s gone from being the most dangerous big city in America to being one of the safest”...

Thanks to Giuliani.

[Scanian]

NYC has changed a bit for the better, according to many. I haven’t been there in 5 years myself and I noticed positive change at that time.

Some people like to characterize the recent history of NYC as “BG”(Before Giuliani) and “AG.” “G” made quite a difference on the streets with his law enforcement policies.

[ladyL]

I went to the Backster School of Lie Detection located 1/2 block off of Times Square in 1972. The school was for 6 weeks and I stayed in a small hotel right off the Square.

There was a Nathans on one corner and a Coffee Shop on the other, breakfast and dinner. I used to laugh and take the “Hostility Rating” in the Coffee Shop each morning.

New Yorkers were mean and not friendly at all. Of course that was hooker haven and I had to learn to walk to class with my eyes down or be solicited at least once during the walk. Times Square was truly filth and squalor.
I grew up under Mayor Daley in Chicago and NEVER SAW ONE PROSTITUTE IN MY LIFE. He ran a family friendly city and kept it clean. NYC was pretty bad in the 70’s.

[Caipirabob]

watch “The Road” some time for a good assessment of human nature in a crisis.

[rlmorel]

Will do. Thanks for the suggestion...

[rlmorel]

I agree with your statement more than my own...:)

But, I am a glass half-full kind of guy...

[Lion Den Dan]

watch “The Road” some time for a good assessment of human nature in a crisis.

This makes my point exactly. "The Road" is no more reality than I am Zero's daddy. Read some history; how prisoners of war acted, how soldiers treated each other when all seemed lost or was lost, how civilians treated each other when fleeing invading armies.