Crime

John Marvin Weed stood his ground as his assailants encircled him. He had already been pummeled and was bracing himself for more. Weed was with family that day, enjoying Maryland's Great Frederick Fair when a young man asked him for a dollar. When Weed refused, the young man and his brother attacked. In a video of the incident, Weed appears calm, hands low at his sides, as the brothers taunt him. Mild-mannered and middle-aged, Weed was a builder; he helped with his hands. 'He gave so much love to his young niece and nephew, four-wheeler rides, playing in the pool, reading bedtime stories, and so much more,’ said Weed's sister, Lori Hawkins.

Walk along the leafy streets of any neighborhood in so-called 'brownstone Brooklyn' — Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights — and you’ll see 'Defund the Police' in many a home window. Owners of $3 million brownstones proudly proclaim their agreement with a fringe policy, designed to remove resources from police squads, as a solution to police violence. How exactly less funding for police will result in better policing is unclear, but virtue signaling of the kind that has rich people pushing for fewer resources for poor people doesn’t get tangled up in the details. The details are specifically grim. The New York Post reported on Monday that 'between Monday, June 29, and Sunday, July 5, the city saw 74 shooting incidents with 101 victims'.

Crime-ridden Baltimore finally dodged a bullet this week. The bullet, in this case, was former mayor Sheila Dixon, who nearly became mayor again, despite resigning from office a decade ago when a jury found her guilty of misdemeanor embezzlement. Perhaps this loss can undo the curse of the Baltimore mayor’s office.Considering the string of scandals plaguing recent mayors, curse may not be a strong enough word. Decide for yourself: 2010: Mayor Dixon, who assumed office in 2007 after Mayor Martin O’Malley was elected Maryland governor, resigns after soliciting gift cards from a wealthy developer that were intended for poor children but were used on shopping sprees while she was city council president. City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake assumes the office.

One of the best rules of thumb to emerge from systems theory is Stafford Beer’s famous statement: the purpose of a system is what it does. It doesn’t matter what the designer intended, or what the individual participants think they’re doing; the end result is all that matters. It’s a useful thing to bear in mind when we consider the objectives of the Black Lives Matter protesters, because right now the movement is beginning to look an awful lot like a machine for the abolition of police departments. It is frankly dizzying how rapidly the aims of the movement seem to have shifted from reform to destruction.

That LEGO set or Louis Vuitton bag you’ve always wanted can be yours free if you just wait for the next black suspect to die in police custody. That’s the lesson so far from the riots in Minneapolis, Portland, Atlanta and elsewhere following the death of George Floyd. Arson and luxury looting are not the most obvious ways of fighting racism or police brutality, but at this point riots are a ritual. ‘Antifa’ means bourgeois bolshevism — college-educated mock revolutionaries performing to a predictable script. This is the most sterile rebellion any country has ever seen. Far from terrifying the establishment, it reflects exactly what is taught in schools and preached over the airwaves and in respectable op-eds.

COIVD-19 has turned us all into prisoners: draconian lockdown orders, solitary confinement, monotonous food, limited fresh air and exercise, irregular phone contact with the outside world. More than half of Americans believe the stress and isolation is harming their mental health. Now imagine living in a real prison during this epidemic.America’s prisons have become COVID hotspots due to overcrowding and poor hygiene. Inmates who were meant to serve months or years for nonviolent offenses now face a potential death sentence. It’s impossible to keep prisoners six feet apart. Prisons are last in line for supplies of soap, hand sanitizer and paper towels. At Rikers Island in New York City, hundreds have tested positive.

The election of Donald Trump has, of course, unleashed the latent racist which lurks within millions of Americans. We know this because enlightened opinion keeps telling us so. The New Yorker, for example, ran a piece in November 2016 declaring ‘Hate on rise since Trump’s election’, and quoting a list of incidents collected by the Southern Poverty Law Center – including the experience of a girl in Colorado who was allegedly told by a white man: ‘Now that Trump is president I am going to shoot you and all the blacks I can find’. TIME magazine, too, ran a story in the same month announcing ‘Racist incidents are up since Donald Trump’s election’.