PrintJanuary 13, 2011
The Sick and the Dead
A close reading of Sherriff Clarence Dupnik's recent statements suggests that he and Jared Lee Loughner may suffer from similar degrees of delusion. The sheriff has leveled charges of racism, bigotry, and conspiracy without evidence or argument. Indeed, the entire state of Arizona has been indicted by the Tucson Sheriff as a "Mecca [sic] for prejudice and bigotry."
Clearly, political operatives and a sympathetic media would like to stem the recent Democratic electoral hemorrhage by laying the criminal violence in Tucson at the feet of conservatives and Republicans. But by any historical or contemporary measure, any attempt to link conservative politics to violent crime is bound to backfire.
For a century, from the end of the Civil War (1865) to the Johnson administration (1965), the Democratic Party was the institutional support system for Jim Crow laws, state-sponsored segregation, and much of the depredations, including lynching and violent property confiscation, that plagued rural African-Americans. The Republican Party, in contrast, was a distinct product of the abolitionist movement. When Jim Crow lost its chokehold on Dixie, the Democrat plantation migrated to big cities.
Today, majority black urban constituencies are registered majority Democrat. Most big-city mayors and legislators are Democrats also. Violent crime rates, in many of these liberal sinecures, are multiples of the numbers in flyover country. Two of the "most dangerous cities in the world," Detroit and New Orleans, have been run by Democrats for generations. Some cities such as Miami and El Paso have never had a Republican mayor. Understandably, Chicago, the "most corrupt city in America," does not submit crime statistics for national comparison.
The poverty and bankruptcy rates of Democrat cities show similar numbers. Large urban public schools are violent prep schools for large, violent, rural prisons where might makes right. Even a Democrat president will not consign his daughters to the hazards of "public" schooling in the nation's capital. If there is a link among violence, social pathology, and any political party, the overwhelming statistical evidence points left.
Contemporary anecdotal evidence is also overwhelming. The Puerto Rican nationalists who tried to assassinate President Truman, a Democrat, were leftists. They were pardoned by a Democrat president. The man who successfully assassinated President Kennedy was a communist. The city of Chicago was besieged by violent leftists during the Democratic National Convention in 1968. The violent police response was authorized by a Democrat mayor. Almost all of the arson, violence, and urban riots of the 1960s and 1970s was sponsored by the professional left and committed by overwhelmingly Democrat constituencies. Indeed, recreational arson may still be a Halloween tradition in long-suffering Democrat cities like Detroit.
The vast majority of apologists for Islamic terror and violence also hail from the academic and political left. Indeed, President Obama and Army Chief of Staff George Casey took to the airways to caution against any rush to judgment when a Muslim officer, Nidal Malik Hassan, massacred fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009. No similar cautions have been offered in the wake of the Arizona tragedy.
On a personal level, the evidence is even more disturbing. Take the Michael Vick case, where the president publicly commended the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles for giving Vick a second chance. Recall that Vick, a Virginia Tech dropout, when not chucking a football, used to amuse himself by raising fighting dogs. When the dogs wouldn't kill, Vick would kill the dogs -- often with his bare hands. Obama's favorite quarterback was convicted of several felonies before migrating to the "city of brotherly love" for millions. No such civility is shown to Sarah Palin.
Indeed, Sarah Palin has become ground zero for a metaphorical war. Sandra Bernhard says that Govenor Palin should be "gang raped by my big black brothers" when Palin comes to Manhattan. It's not difficult to understand Palin's gun metaphors or "reload" rhetoric when confronted with such threats. Loose cannons like Rahm Emanuel, John Kerry, Democrat members of Congress, and the president himself are also guilty of violent hyperbole.
Emanuel recently referred to ObamaCare opponents as "f--king retards." Only an expert in rhetorical excess could mix two metaphors in two words and offend three liberal constituencies. That's assuming the first term applies to men and women...surely the second word captures a portion of both sexes.
Democrat John Kerry joked on television about shooting Republican George Bush. Hard to believe Boston Democrats think assassination jokes are funny. Democrat Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia ran a political ad where he literally used a rifle to shoot the odious Cap and Trade bill. And the president, never one to miss a teaching moment, uses violent metaphors like "bringing knives to gunfights."
So we are left with several questions for the head of the free world. If that psycho pathetic animal abuser were some cracker quarterback from Wisconsin, would he merit the president's public sympathy? And if judgments should be reserved on serial killers like Nidal Malik Hassan, shouldn't Mrs. Palin be given the benefit of a doubt? And if we are to be concerned with virtual rhetoric on the right, shouldn't the president show similar concern about actual violence among his constituents?
In 2009, the District of Columbia alone had 150 rapes, 144 homicides, 8,071 violent crimes, and 28,456 crimes against property. Yet in the last election, 90% of D.C. votes were cast for Democrats. The District is another city that has never had a Republican mayor or legislature.
When local and national Democrats try to attribute criminal mayhem to their opposite numbers, they breathe life into yet another violent metaphor -- the circular firing squad.
The author was born into the Democratic Party in the Bronx and retained that affiliation until he became an adult. He also writes at Agnotology in Journalism and G. Murphy Donovan.
