07 Feb A Shining City Upon a (Dung) Hill
Yesterday, we read a fascinating story from the Daily Mail about people who used to be called “illegal immigrants” and their misadventures in the City that Never Sleeps.
Migrants are getting fed up with the hustle and bustle of New York City, and are leaving for Canada on buses paid for with taxpayer money.
As migrants arrive in NYC, National Guard soldiers have been stationed in the Port Authority bus terminal to hand out free tickets for shuttles heading upstate towards the Canadian border.
City Hall sources said the move was part of a ‘re-ticketing’ plan to help migrants work their way to Canada, according to The New York Post, where president Justin Trudeau has been outspoken about building a haven for people in need….
Those buses travel as far north as Plattsburgh – just shy of the Canadian border – where local van and taxi services bring them the rest of the way and drop them where Canadian police can gather them….
Migrants get dropped steps from the Canadian border, where they cross and are apprehended by Canadian police.
If you’re anything like us, then your first reaction to this probably is: “Ah. We get it. When Republican governors do it, it’s the equivalent of Nazi death trains, and the political and media establishments lose their minds for weeks about the inhumanity of busing migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. But when a Democrat does it…well…umm…crickets…” Seems about right.
Unfortunately, that’s not the story here. Indeed, that’s not a story anywhere, ever. The media and political double-standard for Republican and Democrat behavior is a pretty worn-out theme by now, one of those things everyone knows about, everyone on the Right complains about, and nothing is ever done about.
If we told you that last week, we learned from electronic messages that the child of an American president sexually harassed his former receptionist (19 years his junior) and refused to send her her final paycheck until she agreed to let him watch her shower over Face-Time, you’d probably think we were making it up – because that’s indescribably vile and you never heard about it! But we didn’t make it up. It’s true. You just didn’t hear about it because the presidential offspring in question is named Hunter and not Don Jr.
Anyway, you get the point: when Republicans do something it’s pure evil, but when Democrats do it, it’s just the way things go. Ain’t no new news here.
The Daily Mail continues with the story of the migrants leaving the Big Apple, however, getting to the bigger story:
Numerous migrants traveling to Canada reported being disgusted by the conditions they faced in NYC, where they felt at risk from homeless people and drug users.
‘I wanted to live in New York because I thought it would be a better future for my daughters,’ said 33-year-old Peruvian Susy Sanchez Solzarno, who was traveling with her family. ‘But as the days went by, I saw insecurity, many homeless people, many people who shout and are disrespectful, and many people on drugs.’
‘I am going to Canada for the safety and future of my girls,’ she told The Post. ‘I only ask God that everything goes well and that Canada is not like the United States.’
Manuel Rodon, a 26-year-old from Venezuela, said he was kicked out of the Times Square hotel where he’d initially been housed and sent to a shelter where he felt unsafe.
‘A lot of the Americans used drugs there,’ Rodon said. ‘I feel like Canada will be safer. It is a much quieter country than America.’
How’s that for a kick in the pants? Yesterday – the day the Mail published this piece – was Ronald Reagan’s birthday. And his/John Winthrop’s City on a Hill has become, in many cases, a place from which migrants from Peru and Venezuela (Vene-freaking-zuela, for crying out loud!) can’t wait to escape.
This didn’t happen by accident, of course. America’s cities didn’t turn into human garbage dumps overnight or by chance. This was done purposefully and unapologetically. And it is still defended and celebrated by most of the political establishment today.
Ironically, 41 years ago next month, two men – James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling – introduced Americans to their ideas for a better, more civilized way to run police forces, to obtain the consent of communities in law enforcement, and to keep crime to a minimum in otherwise dangerous and decimated neighborhoods. They wrote:
[W]e must return to our long-abandoned view that the police ought to protect communities as well as individuals. Our crime statistics and victimization surveys measure individual losses, but they do not measure communal losses. Just as physicians now recognize the importance of fostering health rather than simply treating illness, so the police—and the rest of us—ought to recognize the importance of maintaining, intact, communities without broken windows.
We, as a nation, but especially New York, DID, in fact, return to that long-abandoned view. And the city and the nation fought crime effectively and flourished. But only for a brief moment. Before long – indeed, even as community-based policing was still in its infancy – activists and federal politicians, none of whom were from those communities, strangled it in its crib. And we can all see how that worked out.
The profound irony in this is that Wilson is, today, ridiculed by the Left as both a failure and the advocate of racist ideas, neither of which is remotely true.
If the state of our cities – the violent crime, the drug use, the looting, the shoplifting, etc. – isn’t enough to convince our political leaders that “decriminalization” is a poor substitute for community-based law enforcement, then perhaps the fact that even immigrants from Venezuela find New York disgusting will.
We can hope anyway.
