Posted on 02/12/2020 4:16:43 PM PST by Kaslin
Idiot conservatives were doing the idiot thing this week, screaming “racism!” in response to an old tape of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg defending stop-and-frisk, one of the policies that drove New York City murder rates down to Mayberry levels. They weren’t being ironic.
In the 2015 tape, Bloomberg makes the blindingly obvious point that if “95% of murders and murder victims are young male minorities” -- as is true in New York City -- then police should be questioning about 95% young male minorities.
To stop crime, he said, you "put a lot of cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods.”
Bloomberg further explained that frisking young black and brown men for minor crimes is how you keep guns off the streets generally: “And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them. And then they start, they say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to get caught.’ So they don't bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.”
Does anyone with a functioning frontal lobe disagree with this? By pursuing the wacky idea of having cops frisk kids in high-crime areas for minor offenses like turnstile jumping, Mayor Rudy Giuliani cut the murder rate from more than 2,000 per year to about 600. No one thought it could possibly go any lower -- and then Bloomberg got murders down to an unfathomable 300 or so per year.
Giuliani and Bloomberg did more for young minorities than all living Democrats combined. In New York City alone, at least 20,000 more black men are alive today than would be under the genius crime-fighting ideas of prior administrations (and The New York Times).
Unless liberal elites are pursuing a secret plan to reduce the black population by allowing young black men to kill one another (that would make a great movie by Jordan Peele!), stop-and-frisk is nothing to apologize for.
Well, guess what? Bloomberg apologized for it. He began his presidential campaign with a repudiation of his signature accomplishment in order to please a handful of black activists and a lot of white liberals. For that, he deserves the contempt of all men of good will.
Why not attack him for the gutless apology? Is Bloomberg sorry for saving so many black lives? Does becoming a Democrat make basic math incomprehensible? Is he a pandering coward? Can we trust anything he says?
But small-bore conservatives did what they always do: Give up winning a war in order to land a quick blow in a skirmish. They called Bloomberg’s earlier, logically insuperable point “RACIST!”
Great, so now conservatives are adopting the absolute worst aspect of liberalism -- calling everything “racist."
As I wrote in 2016, when the media were going through their quadrennial demand that the Republican candidate for president “disavow” David Duke, these “racism” orgies never have anything to do with black people. It’s part of the Fabulous White People competition, where black people are the chips.
If anything, the urge to call other people "racist" has only gotten stronger since then, so I'll quote myself:
“Sad people with meaningless lives [are] suddenly empowered to condemn other people. I beat you in blacks yesterday; I'm going to beat you in women today. This is what makes them feel superior to other people, especially other white people. It's not about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.; it's just a self-actualization movement for people with emotional issues."
Why are conservatives leaping into this game? For the teeny-tiny pleasure of taking a cheap shot at Bloomberg, they are endorsing the idea that anyone who 1) grasps basic math and 2) is opposed to gun crime is a “racist.”
Our entire public dialogue will soon be nothing but white people calling one another “racist,” as if we’re trapped in an eternal Democratic presidential debate.
At the New Hampshire debate last Friday night, Tom Steyer -- hedge fund manager and Hero to Black People Everywhere -- kept hammering Joe Biden about some “racist” remark made by South Carolina State Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a Biden supporter.
“One of the leaders of Joe Biden’s South Carolina campaign,” Steyer said, “made racist remarks about someone associated with our campaign.” Steyer then repeatedly called on Biden to “disavow” the remark and the man who made it. “Be on the right side,” he implored.
The story: Harpootlian had tweeted that another South Carolina Democrat, state legislator Jerry Govan, flipped his support from Biden to Steyer after being paid “almost $50,000” by the Steyer campaign. Calling Steyer “Mr. Moneybags,” Harpootlian concluded, “This is what happens when billionaires get involved ... They don't have to persuade anybody, they just buy them."
I’ve assembled a panel of black judges to rule on Harpootlian’s racism, and their response is: Keep reading. Get to the racism part.
Nope, that’s it! Govan is black, so pointing out that Steyer paid him $50,000 and got his endorsement is “racist.”
I would have gone with “anti-Semitic” m
I understand what it is. I also understand timing.
Why in goodness sake would any of us wade into the mud to defend Bloomberg at a time like this.
***********
Because we need to defend what is right, and Bloomberg was doing the right thing. Are our opinions on issues going to change according to who is running for office? Conservatives would be hobbling themselves if they tried to defend law enforcement after the election when they criticized it before the election.
Ann doesn’t get strategy.
+1
Trump treats his political adversaries like Conan treated his enemies. We like that because conservatives have been bullied for decades.
But he shouldn’t have called Bloomberg racist for stop and frisk. I don’t think he was specifically targeting minorities even though minorities were likely stopped more. And look at the results: crime remained very low in NYC. Bloomberg simply adopted Giuliani’s own tactics.
We should hold liberals to their own standards. Nothing wrong with knocking them off that high moral ground they think they stand upon to overlord everyone else.
Wading into an argument about race between two democrats. Real political genius right there. Reminds me of some other instances of the right snatching defeat from the jaws of sure victory.
When possible let them defeat themselves. No need to jump in that mud.
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