This is actually how western society implodes. The ruling elite are so captured by their ideological talking points they can’t see reality when it slaps them in the face. Anyone who dares challenge this nonsense is ruthlessly attacked. Meanwhile, chaos ensues and engulfs the entire community. Those with options simply move out, the ruling elite carry on in their gated communities and everyone else suffers.
That’s the nightmare scenario, and it a gotten closer to reality since 2020. It doesn’t have to end up like that, but for us to avoid that, the ideologies and toytown activists have to be challenged.
Yes, I remember the same thing. When things get personal, they always demand special treatment for themselves, right? We are all equal, but some are more equal than others–to paraphrase Orwell!
I doubt all of society implodes. Reasonable people can only take so much before they throw up their hands and cry uncle. People will simply vote with their feet and a form of natural selection takes hold whereby some areas thrive while others decline. Ordinary folks, productive people, workers, businesses, etc. will follow the lead of police in simply abandoning the lawless zones. Those people who have the means and the will to relocate to more hospitable locales do so, as indeed several of the officers did. Businesses will close and never reopen, leading to a blight of abandoned buildings to become refuges for all sorts of criminal activity. Street gangs and organized crime will find refuge and thrive, and perhaps even begin to dispense their own more brutal forms of justice. The very lowest rung of society stuck in generational poverty will, of course, remain stuck in their unpoliced neighborhoods, which begin to resemble the ghettos of Rio or the bombed out ruins of Baghdad or Kabul more than an American city. The criminals will get what they want, places without rules, discipline, law, or police. Politicians and voters in more productive places will get tired of seeing their tax dollars wasted on bad neighborhoods that never seem to get any better and they’ll simply cut funding. Voters will demand their money go into local coffers, and they’ll eventually get what they want, one way or another. Viewed from a different angle, ‘defund the police’ could simply be pragmatic thinking. Why spend money policing people who hate the police and don’t support them. Leave them be and let them figure it out.
Some people can’t afford to “vote with their feet”. Their jobs, family, etc., or lack of health and financial resources tie them to their location. There they stay, and suffer.
Yes, I believe I mentioned that. The most vulnerable and poorest, those in the cycle of generational poverty, will be stuck where they are. They’ll suffer most from poor leadership and the stupidity of neoliberal ideology, and they’ll probably keep voting Democrat anyway.
Samuel Ross
3 months ago
Dare I say that Seattle got what it richly deserves? Brew a bitter drink, drink a bitter brew, my friends. Drink, drink deeply! Until you vomit up the vile poison you brewed for yourself. Then perhaps good sense will dawn upon you again.
Daniel Lee
3 months ago
I feel terrible for the police officers, but have absolutely no sympathy for the people of Seattle, who have (and continue to) elect these anti-police and pro-criminal politicians who are destroying the city. They deserve the chaos they voted for.
I am in complete agreement. I also have no pity for the businesses that choose to remain. The Nordstrom flagship department store has been robbed a number of times this year according to media reports, and just last month an 18-year-old woman was arrested for large-scale, organised theft. It’s clearly not an environment that’s conducive to business.
The people of Seattle will be just fine without your sympathy.
Douglas H
3 months ago
Thanks, that’s a strangely moving article.
You only become a true adult when you realise that cops are the same as everyone else: overwhelming decent people, fallible and (in their case) doing a tough job.
Not so the “An Garda Síochána”, or Guardians of the Peace as the Irish Police are so ludicrously called.
They almost universally behaved liked the Gestapo during Lockdown, and deserve to be plunged into the “Pit of Eternal Stench” for the rest of eternity. Seattle’s misfortune pales into insignificance compared to the damage inflicted by the wretched ‘Garda’!
Really? Worse than 20 years ago? Where are you thinking of?
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 months ago
George Floyd should have been electrocuted in 2009 following his conviction for “aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon”.
It would have saved everyone a great deal of trouble, as we can now see.
The chair for armed robbery you say. After that, perhaps England could have re-instituted public hangings and occasional beheadings too. Then we’d have sense and order–as long as nothing else medieval, theocratic, or retaliatory was unleashed by that state-sponsored bloodthirst.
I think advocating the death penalty for Floyd as if that would have preemptively solved things here in the US was unfunny or severe, depending on how serious you were. As usual, full marks for lack of emotion though.
‘We’ have tried indulging these ‘people’ for well over half a century and it hasn’t worked.
So let us return to the ‘good old days’ and remember it is ‘cruel to be kind’. It only encourages them, sadly.
Probably something to do with the way he was brutally murdered in public by the police who would have gotten away with it were it not for the video evidence and the global outrage.
Although I am sure there are commenters here who will claim he deserved it. They are nothing if not predictable.
Jeremy Bray
3 months ago
It might have been nice to have an update on how things have subsequently developed in the roughly 9 months that have past since the publication of this article.
Bob Smalser
3 months ago
Seattle has a long tradition of being Libertarian, not Leftist. The decline began when San Francisco Bath House Culture moved here in sufficient numbers to win the vote.
Interesting. I did not know that. Do you recall when this happened? I worked in Seattle from 2002 until 2005, and I didn’t like it back then as I already saw the writing on the proverbial wall. I remember the relief I felt when we left in August 2005.
Katja Sipple
3 months ago
I worked in Seattle for a few years back in the early 2000s, and I disliked the place even then! As an Englishwoman, I wasn’t so much affected by the weather, but the people were unfriendly and aggression from homeless people was already a problem. I remember telling my husband that this city would decline within the next few years. He didn’t believe me at the time, but he remembered my prediction from 15 years earlier in 2020, and asked me how I had known. I responded that the decay was already just under the surface, and whenever the veneer of civility cracked a bit, the ugliness and desolation seeped out.
Emre S
3 months ago
Reminds me of the story of the Pilgrims. In the first few years they wanted to set up a pure society where everyone produced as much as they could, and took as much as they needed. After many starving year after year, they decided such utopia can’t continue. This like the story of Seatle above, is a story of American exceptionalism.
Are you referring to the first known importation of slaves one year before the Plymouth Rock landing, or making a saner point about the comparative lack of religious fervor/utopianism in the earlier colony?
What? Obviously Utopian tosh was a complete waste of rations, and slavery was the perfect solution to an economic conundrum.
‘They’ knew ‘whites’ were far too feeble to work, and if say Dahomey or wherever was able to supply suitable ‘Bucks’ they would have been mad NOT to accept.
Remember Profit & Plunder were the keys words for 17th century Adventurers!
This comment is dressed in a kind of stereotypical, cruel Imperial detachment. So I’ll just say I think I see your point underneath the provocateur’s helmet.
I think you speak a version of truth as you see it, but not from some place of oracular or objective reality. Pretty much the same for me. I don’t agree with your ruthless sense of pragmatism (to put it mildly)—which is unpalatable and just wrong to my ears. But sometimes I’ll bite. Thanks for the exchange as well.
Graeme McNeil
2 months ago
I was in Seattle just a few weeks ago. A wonderful city!
I’m guessing most of the commenters here have never actually been there. That would explain the stupidity of some of the comments.
This is actually how western society implodes. The ruling elite are so captured by their ideological talking points they can’t see reality when it slaps them in the face. Anyone who dares challenge this nonsense is ruthlessly attacked. Meanwhile, chaos ensues and engulfs the entire community. Those with options simply move out, the ruling elite carry on in their gated communities and everyone else suffers.
That’s the nightmare scenario, and it a gotten closer to reality since 2020. It doesn’t have to end up like that, but for us to avoid that, the ideologies and toytown activists have to be challenged.
Is my recollection correct that the Mayor of Seattle did a U-turn when the mob threated her neighbourhood?
Yes, I remember the same thing. When things get personal, they always demand special treatment for themselves, right? We are all equal, but some are more equal than others–to paraphrase Orwell!
No, I think you just made that up.
I don’t think so
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/after-a-full-month-of-protests-demonstrators-bring-march-to-seattle-mayors-neighborhood/
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/06/after-defundspd-speech-in-front-of-her-home-durkan-calls-for-city-council-to-investigate-expel-sawant/
I doubt all of society implodes. Reasonable people can only take so much before they throw up their hands and cry uncle. People will simply vote with their feet and a form of natural selection takes hold whereby some areas thrive while others decline. Ordinary folks, productive people, workers, businesses, etc. will follow the lead of police in simply abandoning the lawless zones. Those people who have the means and the will to relocate to more hospitable locales do so, as indeed several of the officers did. Businesses will close and never reopen, leading to a blight of abandoned buildings to become refuges for all sorts of criminal activity. Street gangs and organized crime will find refuge and thrive, and perhaps even begin to dispense their own more brutal forms of justice. The very lowest rung of society stuck in generational poverty will, of course, remain stuck in their unpoliced neighborhoods, which begin to resemble the ghettos of Rio or the bombed out ruins of Baghdad or Kabul more than an American city. The criminals will get what they want, places without rules, discipline, law, or police. Politicians and voters in more productive places will get tired of seeing their tax dollars wasted on bad neighborhoods that never seem to get any better and they’ll simply cut funding. Voters will demand their money go into local coffers, and they’ll eventually get what they want, one way or another. Viewed from a different angle, ‘defund the police’ could simply be pragmatic thinking. Why spend money policing people who hate the police and don’t support them. Leave them be and let them figure it out.
Some people can’t afford to “vote with their feet”. Their jobs, family, etc., or lack of health and financial resources tie them to their location. There they stay, and suffer.
Yes, I believe I mentioned that. The most vulnerable and poorest, those in the cycle of generational poverty, will be stuck where they are. They’ll suffer most from poor leadership and the stupidity of neoliberal ideology, and they’ll probably keep voting Democrat anyway.
Dare I say that Seattle got what it richly deserves? Brew a bitter drink, drink a bitter brew, my friends. Drink, drink deeply! Until you vomit up the vile poison you brewed for yourself. Then perhaps good sense will dawn upon you again.
I feel terrible for the police officers, but have absolutely no sympathy for the people of Seattle, who have (and continue to) elect these anti-police and pro-criminal politicians who are destroying the city. They deserve the chaos they voted for.
I am in complete agreement. I also have no pity for the businesses that choose to remain. The Nordstrom flagship department store has been robbed a number of times this year according to media reports, and just last month an 18-year-old woman was arrested for large-scale, organised theft. It’s clearly not an environment that’s conducive to business.
The people of Seattle will be just fine without your sympathy.
Thanks, that’s a strangely moving article.
You only become a true adult when you realise that cops are the same as everyone else: overwhelming decent people, fallible and (in their case) doing a tough job.
Not so the “An Garda Síochána”, or Guardians of the Peace as the Irish Police are so ludicrously called.
They almost universally behaved liked the Gestapo during Lockdown, and deserve to be plunged into the “Pit of Eternal Stench” for the rest of eternity. Seattle’s misfortune pales into insignificance compared to the damage inflicted by the wretched ‘Garda’!
Nicely said, Douglas. Cops are amongst the best of us, ready to put their lives on the line so you and I can walk safely through our lives.
Are you including those cops who indiscriminately murder people of colour and expect to get away with it? Just for clarification you understand.
Soros, and all is going according to plan.
London is getting on board too – my old neighborhoods are worrying to walk at night.
Really? Worse than 20 years ago? Where are you thinking of?
George Floyd should have been electrocuted in 2009 following his conviction for “aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon”.
It would have saved everyone a great deal of trouble, as we can now see.
The chair for armed robbery you say. After that, perhaps England could have re-instituted public hangings and occasional beheadings too. Then we’d have sense and order–as long as nothing else medieval, theocratic, or retaliatory was unleashed by that state-sponsored bloodthirst.
‘We’ both need to evaluate what is a Capital Crime.
No need for your emotional nonsense about medieval “bloodththirst” on this particular occasion.
I think advocating the death penalty for Floyd as if that would have preemptively solved things here in the US was unfunny or severe, depending on how serious you were. As usual, full marks for lack of emotion though.
Thank you, but ‘you’ do need to get a grip of your homicidal feral class and stop feeling guilty for PAST injustices, just we in the UK need to .
‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’ as we used to say.
I’ll suppress any emotional reaction and admit that I agree with you there.
‘We’ have tried indulging these ‘people’ for well over half a century and it hasn’t worked.
So let us return to the ‘good old days’ and remember it is ‘cruel to be kind’. It only encourages them, sadly.
I agree to the extent that kindness is not identical with softness or indulgence, to put it mildly.
Well said. The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
He was not a good person, and I don’t understand the martyr cult that developed around him.
Probably something to do with the way he was brutally murdered in public by the police who would have gotten away with it were it not for the video evidence and the global outrage.
Although I am sure there are commenters here who will claim he deserved it. They are nothing if not predictable.
It might have been nice to have an update on how things have subsequently developed in the roughly 9 months that have past since the publication of this article.
Seattle has a long tradition of being Libertarian, not Leftist. The decline began when San Francisco Bath House Culture moved here in sufficient numbers to win the vote.
Interesting. I did not know that. Do you recall when this happened? I worked in Seattle from 2002 until 2005, and I didn’t like it back then as I already saw the writing on the proverbial wall. I remember the relief I felt when we left in August 2005.
I worked in Seattle for a few years back in the early 2000s, and I disliked the place even then! As an Englishwoman, I wasn’t so much affected by the weather, but the people were unfriendly and aggression from homeless people was already a problem. I remember telling my husband that this city would decline within the next few years. He didn’t believe me at the time, but he remembered my prediction from 15 years earlier in 2020, and asked me how I had known. I responded that the decay was already just under the surface, and whenever the veneer of civility cracked a bit, the ugliness and desolation seeped out.
Reminds me of the story of the Pilgrims. In the first few years they wanted to set up a pure society where everyone produced as much as they could, and took as much as they needed. After many starving year after year, they decided such utopia can’t continue. This like the story of Seatle above, is a story of American exceptionalism.
Remember further south in Jamestown Virginia, (founded 13 years earlier in 1607) more pragmatic principles were in action………Thank God!
Are you referring to the first known importation of slaves one year before the Plymouth Rock landing, or making a saner point about the comparative lack of religious fervor/utopianism in the earlier colony?
Both.
Yikes! You rarely disappoint.
What? Obviously Utopian tosh was a complete waste of rations, and slavery was the perfect solution to an economic conundrum.
‘They’ knew ‘whites’ were far too feeble to work, and if say Dahomey or wherever was able to supply suitable ‘Bucks’ they would have been mad NOT to accept.
Remember Profit & Plunder were the keys words for 17th century Adventurers!
This comment is dressed in a kind of stereotypical, cruel Imperial detachment. So I’ll just say I think I see your point underneath the provocateur’s helmet.
Well, be my guest, but you know I speak the truth, unpalatable as it maybe to ‘modern’ ears.
Anyway thanks for the chat but it’s of to bed for me!
I think you speak a version of truth as you see it, but not from some place of oracular or objective reality. Pretty much the same for me. I don’t agree with your ruthless sense of pragmatism (to put it mildly)—which is unpalatable and just wrong to my ears. But sometimes I’ll bite. Thanks for the exchange as well.
I was in Seattle just a few weeks ago. A wonderful city!
I’m guessing most of the commenters here have never actually been there. That would explain the stupidity of some of the comments.