Life is a remarkable experience.\u00a0 We interact with our \u201cfellow humans\u201d in a myriad of different relationships.\u00a0 And society tries to regulate the expectations we have for these interactions.\u00a0 For instance, if we go to a fast-food restaurant and ask for a hamburger we\u2019re expected to react to problems within a prescribed range of actions.\u00a0 So, if the order taker tells you that they are only serving breakfast at the moment and not burgers, you are supposed to smile and shrug your shoulders or shake your head and walk out the door or even complain bitterly and ask for the \u201cmanager.\u201d\u00a0 What you\u2019re discouraged from doing is pulling out an Uzi and spraying the building with 9mm bullets.\u00a0 That was the reaction of Michael Douglas\u2019s character in \u201cFalling Down.\u201d\u00a0 Now, he didn\u2019t actually shoot anyone but he was definitely behaving outside of that range of behavioral expectations.\u00a0 And similarly, we have societal expectations for most reasonably common scenarios that play out in the big world we live in.\u00a0 \u201cFalling Down\u201d was a fable to show us how the world can get out of hand.\u00a0 The protagonist was a law-abiding \u201cgood guy\u201d who saw dysfunction all around him and allowed it to infect his mind.<\/p>\n
But of late there has been a breakdown in the mechanisms that are supposed to regulate these interactions.\u00a0 In the \u201cold days\u201d (let\u2019s define that as before Barack Obama became president) people who stepped over the lines into criminal behavior were handled by the police and they were allowed to use lethal force in the case where someone was committing violent crime.\u00a0 But then we got the federal government stepping in and accusing local law enforcement of racially motivated murder when they dealt with violent sociopaths like Michael Brown.\u00a0 And this only accelerated after the George Floyd riots in 2020.\u00a0 And now we\u2019ve reached the point where certain areas of the country no longer have effective policing to deter violent crime on their streets.\u00a0 Examples would be areas of Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City where prosecutors and judges typically release repeat violent offenders immediately back onto the street after booking them for their crimes.\u00a0 The people who live in these areas are constantly in fear for their lives in their own neighborthoods.<\/p>\n
Alternatively, there are areas of the country where law enforcement is now reversing this trend and bringing order to the streets again.\u00a0 Florida and Texas are highlighting their efforts to make their streets safe again.\u00a0 In support of this effort, they are cooperating with ICE agents who are removing illegal aliens from their jurisdictions.\u00a0 And this is having a very noticeable effect in reducing the kinds of crime associated with gang activity and drug trafficking.\u00a0 After all many of these illegals are cartel members from Mexico and the rest of Latin America.<\/p>\n
And it is encouraging to hear about locales that are pushing back against chaos.\u00a0 But the fact that crime-ridden cities are exposing American citizens to third world criminality is not something that should be tolerated.\u00a0 Donald Trump has tried to use ICE to infiltrate and clean up sanctuary cities.\u00a0 But it\u2019s woefully insufficient for the problems being addressed.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve reached a point in our history where we have to admit that we cannot assure the safety of law-abiding citizens.\u00a0 That makes us a third world state.<\/p>\n