After noting a poll that found that most Chicagoans are disturbed by what’s happening in their city and distrustful of city government, the New York Times turns to readers for their opinions:
CHICAGO — After a new poll of Chicagoans showed that they are deeply dissatisfied with the direction of their city, distrustful of their police force and divided along racial lines, people here and around the country weighed in on social media.
Some expressed shock at some of the most painful findings in the survey from The New York Times and Kaiser Family Foundation: More than 80 percent of African-American residents said it was at least somewhat likely that the young people in their neighborhoods would end up victims of violent crimes, and about the same number said it was likely the young people would go to jail. Far fewer white residents had those expectations about young people in their neighborhoods.
Others spoke of similar entrenched racial and economic problems in their own cities, suggested ways to improve relations with the police, and opined on leadership in big cities.
Some pointed to longstanding allegations of corruption in Chicago, the nation’s third largest city.
Chicago’s 12 step program hasn’t even begun, presumably because the city hasn’t hit rock bottom yet. Will Chicago’s voters recognize that there’s a problem and its nature while there’s still a chance for the city to escape Detroit’s fate?
The familiar nostrums—higher taxes, more police officers on the street, etc.—won’t solve Chicago’s problems. We’re going to be paying for what’s either managerial incompetence or corruption (or both) for decades.
The Chicago Superintendent of Police and the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools both earn upwards of $250,000 per year. That would be worth it if they weren’t corrupt or incompetent. Given the recent track record, we’ve had both. Will paying more within the painfully inbred worlds of big city policing and education actually help? Or just make the agony more expensive?
Single party rule, party loyalty really, is what facilitates that managerial incompetence and corruption. Yet I bet there will be no change. Madigan and a broke, declining state? How ’bout them Cubs. Rahm and a dead Laquan McDonald? Who? And just think, one of the most excreble human beings on the face of the earth is the national Dem Party presidential candidate and odds on favorite under contorted theories of least worst alternatives. Don’t even get me started on the other guy.
A frequent commenter was crowing here about a year ago that the left had “won.” It probably surprised him that I acknowledged that indeed, since probably 1965, the left had basically been winning. It seems to escape him that despite record debt and tax financing of record spending, the country has relatively little to show in the way of effective public goods like education, infrastructure, public safety mechanisms or elimination of the plight of the poor. And yet I am starting to see here and there acknowledgment of what I’ve pointed out numerous times: we are reaching national debt capacity.
The last few years have been nothing but a crescendo of public policy failure. The much discussed income inequality, race relations, financial distress, sometimes irretrievable, in major cities and nationally, slow economic growth in output and income and of course suspect actions with respect to our foreign neighbors. When you are basically winning a debate and the right to dictate and implement policy, you also have to own the results. So if you like the current state of affairs, congratulations. But I would note that Hillary Clinton is running on curing the same social ills that politicians have been promising to cure for certainly all my memory, Bernie Sanders has had an impact by doubling down on just giving away things people want, and Donald Trump has struck a chord by just wanting to burn it all down. Apparently they are a lot of people who find this brand of winning rather unappealing.
I’d call the lefts victory a pyrrhic one, except I think power for powers sake is the goal, along with just neurotic busybodyism, and rarely is it true improvement of the human condition. Too many excuses made (and votes yet to be made) for awful results under the flag of hooray-for-our-side to believe that.
But there is a bright side. Transgenders can take a dump in the bathroom of their choice. Now that’s progress, and elimination of an existential threat to mankind. Not quite achievement of total consciousness, but good enough to go on certain administration’s vital to-do list……