Our Big Blue Broken Windows Cities

"One final point which is the oddest of all. Many who are stuck living in these filthy war zone type cities, would love to see change and improvement. But they keep voting, year after year, for the same folks who broke the cities in the first place. Go figure."  

Okay - fire up the time machine. Go back to 1967 and pick out some folks at random. Then set the time machine to bring them to 2019. Drop them in any of our big blue cities. Do you think they would believe what they see? I don't. I think they would be begging to be put back into the time machine and taken back to 1967. 1967 was a year where nothing was perfect, but pretty darn close.

In 1967, if my parents had booted me out of the house, and I had no place to live, let's suppose I pitched a tent on the sidewalk. That would be my new home. That would have lasted about a day at the most, before the police removed me from the sidewalk and taken me to a place like the YMCA. The folks at the YMCA would have tried to help get me on my feet.

Or better yet, let's suppose the Mayor of Minneapolis or St. Paul declared his or her city be open to certain types of law breakers. That the police were not allowed to turn law breakers over to federal officials. You can't imagine it, because in 1967, it would have never happened.

What has happened to our larger cities? Many say gentrification. I agree with that up to a point. I also agree when we don't allow law enforcement to enforce ALL LAWS on the books, outlaws start to rule the day. In other words, "broken window" policing was started for a purpose. Nip the small crimes in the bud, or soon they will become larger crimes. Then why can't we still practice "broken window" policing in many of our larger cities? Sit tight when I bring this one up - the "Hippies" of 1968 and beyond.

Having lived through that era, I am convinced that is when the wheels really started to come off. The "free love" movement, the desire to sit by a pond and smoke a joint, rather than work generation. Soon the "generation of love" started to produce offspring. Those offspring were brought up the wrong way by their parents, the later day "Hippies". Soon the "Hippies" and their offspring started to weasel their way in local, state and federal government. Flash forward to today. Our larger cities have been run by these people for decades, and the results have been tragic. How so? As a starter, police are vilified instead of revered. 

History lesson over. How do we fix our cities? How do we return them to the greatness they once were? Fifty years ago, walking down the streets in our larger cities was never 100% safe, but not as dangerous as walking in a war zone, as they are today. That being said, here are my fixes:

• Police in every city, large or otherwise, are empowered to enforce ALL laws on the books. 
• Homeless camps on the streets in every city shall be determined to be illegal and a sanitary threat to citizens. The city shall provide adequate and legal housing for all. I know this sounds like a simplistic solution, but the path cities are on right now is a dead end. Time for something new.
• City leaders will no longer have the right to ignore federal laws. Failure to obey federal laws will result in the removal or possible incarceration of city leaders. In other words, kiss the sanctuary city, or state idea goodbye.
• All drug usage will be illegal on the streets in the city. 
• Urination, defecation or littering on a city street is a crime and shall be punishable as such. 

Now comes the bad news. In my mind, I cannot come up with a scenario where any of these fixes will take place. The rot of corruption and liberalism runs way too deep in too many of our cities. In other words, what we have, is what we have. Those who don't mind living in social entropy will continue to flock to our larger cites, those who hate social entropy will stay far, far away.

One final point which may be the oddest of all. Many who are stuck living in these filthy war zone type of cities, would love to see change and improvement in where they live. But they keep voting, year after year, for the same folks who broke the cities in the first place. Go figure.