Posted on 03/12/2019 3:46:20 AM PDT by reaganaut1
...
In Baltimore, you can tell a lot about the politics of the person you’re talking with by the word he or she uses to describe the events of April 27, 2015. Some people, and most media outlets, call them the “riots”; some the “unrest.” Guy was among those who always referred to them as the “uprising,” a word that connoted something justifiable and positive: the first step, however tumultuous, toward a freer and fairer city. Policing in Baltimore, Guy and many other residents believed, was broken, with officers serving as an occupying army in enemy territory — harassing African-American residents without cause, breeding distrust and hostility.
In 2016, the United States Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division concurred, releasing a report accusing the city’s Police Department of racial discrimination and excessive force. The city agreed to a “consent decree” with the federal government, a set of policing reforms that would be enforced by a federal judge. When an independent monitoring team was selected to oversee the decree, Guy was hired as its community liaison. This was where she wanted to be: at the forefront of the effort to make her city a better place.
But in the years that followed, Baltimore, by most standards, became a worse place. In 2017, it recorded 342 murders — its highest per-capita rate ever, more than double Chicago’s, far higher than any other city of 500,000 or more residents and, astonishingly, a larger absolute number of killings than in New York, a city 14 times as populous. Other elected officials, from the governor to the mayor to the state’s attorney, struggled to respond to the rise in disorder, leaving residents with the unsettling feeling that there was no one in charge.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
As for tariffs I would like to see an across the board 2% import tariff to start.
I know LOL, the best pick-up Ram 1500, only about $70,000. Don't know many people who want a $1,000 monthly car payment for 6 years.
Those factories could have been sold to foreign makers but there was no motivation to do so. Just shutter them and throw all the workers out on the street. So now they, and their descendants, riot and burn CVSs.
I drive a 2004 so don't ask me.
20% not 2%
These cities can be fixed, IMO, but like with Venezuela, the remedy will be drastic. Cut local property taxes most of the way. The city government becomes all-volunteer, except for the police, who should be compensated for what they do. Abolish all local gun control laws. Let organizations like the Salvation Army run the social services — they will be much more efficient, and they’re mostly volunteer. Privatize the school system, preferably non-profit, so that poor parents can still send their kids there, with their own money or state vouchers.
And for Pete’s Sake, get rid of the race hustlers and come down hard on all the crooks, including those in the government.
In the middle of the 20th Century, Black people, in spite all of their hurdles and handicaps (segregation, etc.), were the most competitive people in the country. The way has only been downward ever since. Time to reverse that.
What these cities need is INDUSTRY. Everything else is BS.
You’re right. Baltimore is just another symptom of the real problem. It isn’t spirituality. It isn’t income inequality. It isn’t lack of education. It’s racial pandering.
Once industrialized cities are now economic deserts. That is the real problem.
Driving companies out of business and out of the country through over-regulation, high taxes, and unions certainly had its day. I hope Trumpism can last beyond Trump.
Manufacturers weren't driven out they left to seek cheaper labor knowing they could import product back into USA duty free because congress and both parties are corrupt and have sold out the American worker. This is what you Republican Free Traitors™ wanted so quit blaming the victims. You got your cheap coolie made toaster ovens now pay up, pay the taxes and support these cities and shut up about it. You're lucky this crazed drug addled horde doesn't hunt you down like the vermin you globalists really are.
Somehow I knew exactly what you were going to post.
You did not disappoint.
Around 2006 I attended a DNC fundraiser, as my wife was in the lobbying business and went to these things for both and all sides. I always had to promise my wife that I’d behave and mostly shut up, but we got into a conversation with an O’Malley aide, at that time Mayor of Baltimore and then running for governor.
I couldn’t help it, but having lived in central Baltimore in the early 90s and then visiting the city around that time, I was appalled at its deterioration, I asked this kid why things had gotten so bad. I meant it as an honest question.
He went off on me. My wife smiled and pulled me away before I could swing back.
It was very clear that under O’Malley Baltimore went the way of NYC under Dinkins or Big Bird today, and it’s tragic. This douchebag was only thinking about his political career and couldn’t give a damn for the residents of that once great city. I lived near the war-zone of North Ave, and while not great, there were businesses, vibrant city interactions and a feeling of safety. By 2006, I wouldn’t get out of a car on those streets I had lived on. I can’t even imagine what it’s like today.
Thank you douchebag leftists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
