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Sowell: Paying the Price
Creators Syndicate ^ | June 2, 2015 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 06/01/2015 1:14:55 PM PDT by jazusamo

Baltimore is now paying the price for irresponsible words and actions, not only by young thugs in the streets, but also by its mayor and the state prosecutor, both of whom threw the police to the wolves, in order to curry favor with local voters.

Now murders in Baltimore in May have been more than double what they were in May last year, and higher than in any May in the past 15 years. Meanwhile, the number of arrests is down by more than 50 percent.

Various other communities across the country are experiencing very similar explosions of crime and reductions of arrests, in the wake of anti-police mob rampages from coast to coast that the media sanitize as "protests."

None of this should be surprising. In her carefully researched 2010 book, "Are Cops Racist?" Heather Mac Donald pointed out that, after anti-police campaigns, cops tended to do less policing and criminals tended to commit more crimes.

If all this has been known for years, why do the same mistakes keep getting made?

Mainly because it is not a mistake for those people who are looking out for their own political careers. Critics who accuse the mayor of Baltimore and the Maryland prosecutor of incompetence, for their irresponsible words and actions, are ignoring the possibility that these two elected officials are protecting and promoting their own chances of remaining in office or of moving on up to higher offices.

(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: doj; holder; obama; politics; racehustlers; racialism; sowell; thomassowell
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1 posted on 06/01/2015 1:14:55 PM PDT by jazusamo
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To: abigail2; Amalie; American Quilter; arthurus; awelliott; Bahbah; bamahead; Battle Axe; ...
*PING*
Thomas Sowell

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2 posted on 06/01/2015 1:16:36 PM PDT by jazusamo (0bama to go 'full-Mussolini' after elections: Mark Levin....and the turkey has.)
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To: jazusamo

The mayor and the state prosecutor both acted like “community organizers” instead of doing the jobs they were elected to do, not unlike our chief executive. And I wouldn’t be surprised at all, if both had experience from that background.

Residents in Baltimore learn first hand of being ‘community organized’ on the national scene. A shame that they elected these of their free will.


3 posted on 06/01/2015 1:22:17 PM PDT by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
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To: Sir Napsalot

Amen to that.

I think Dr. Sowell nailed it on those two, they’re both climbers and don’t give a hoot for the residents, only their next positions.


4 posted on 06/01/2015 1:26:38 PM PDT by jazusamo (0bama to go 'full-Mussolini' after elections: Mark Levin....and the turkey has.)
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To: jazusamo

I’ve said it before... I’ll say it again.

POLICE.... find a new career!

Too many of you are nothing more than revenue agents (traffic tickets), a significant fraction are dim witted, trigger happy bullies, and the only crime you prevent is when a career criminal is temporarily jailed awaiting their cycle through our corrupt, “revolving door” “”criminal justice”” system.

Politicians hate you but love using you, you don’t earn $hit for a salary, you have HUGE targets on your backs, and a significant fraction of the population don’t want anything to do with you.In many areas of the Nation, you stand a good chance of serving more time in prison for defending yourself than the average criminal you arrest.

Seriously.... go back to school and find another way to make a living. Your wives and children will sleep easier.


5 posted on 06/01/2015 1:29:14 PM PDT by clee1 (We use 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile, and 2 to pull a trigger. I'm lazy and I'm tired of smiling.)
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To: jazusamo

Don’t you mean Clymers?


6 posted on 06/01/2015 1:39:03 PM PDT by sparklite2
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To: jazusamo

I am enjoying hearing about all the crime in Baltimore. I hope the residents keep it up. Burn, baby, burn. Keep on shooting. As for the police, keep safe.


7 posted on 06/01/2015 2:36:55 PM PDT by rcofdayton (.)
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To: jazusamo; All


8 posted on 06/01/2015 2:39:35 PM PDT by maine-iac7 (Christians are as Christians do. By their fruits...)
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To: sparklite2

It does fit.

Sowell is a national treasure.


9 posted on 06/01/2015 2:40:08 PM PDT by marktwain
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To: maine-iac7; All

And 43 were murdered this past weekend.

Silence from the leaders, the community and the press...

Apparently, some black lives don’t matter’


10 posted on 06/01/2015 2:41:47 PM PDT by maine-iac7 (Christians are as Christians do. By their fruits...)
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To: sparklite2

Yep, that too.


11 posted on 06/01/2015 2:57:04 PM PDT by jazusamo (0bama to go 'full-Mussolini' after elections: Mark Levin....and the turkey has.)
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To: maine-iac7

Black lives only matter if it can further someone’s political career.


12 posted on 06/01/2015 3:04:10 PM PDT by just me (GOD BLESS AMERICA Amen)
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To: jazusamo; All

John Derbyshire’s “the talk” (originally published in Taki’s Magazine). pay attention to #10

“There is much talk about “the talk.”

“Sean O’Reilly was 16 when his mother gave him the talk that most black parents give their teenage sons,” Denisa R. Superville of the Hackensack (NJ) Record tells us. Meanwhile, down in Atlanta: “Her sons were 12 and 8 when Marlyn Tillman realized it was time for her to have the talk,” Gracie Bonds Staples writes in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Leonard Greene talks about the talk in the New York Post. Someone bylined as KJ Dell’Antonia talks about the talk in The New York Times. Darryl Owens talks about the talk in the Orlando Sentinel.

Yes, talk about the talk is all over.

There is a talk that nonblack Americans have with their kids, too. My own kids, now 19 and 16, have had it in bits and pieces as subtopics have arisen. If I were to assemble it into a single talk, it would look something like the following.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

(1) Among your fellow citizens are forty million who identify as black, and whom I shall refer to as black. The cumbersome (and MLK-noncompliant) term “African-American” seems to be in decline, thank goodness. “Colored” and “Negro” are archaisms. What you must call “the ‘N’ word” is used freely among blacks but is taboo to nonblacks.

“There is a talk that nonblack Americans have with their kids, too.”

(2) American blacks are descended from West African populations, with some white and aboriginal-American admixture. The overall average of non-African admixture is 20-25 percent. The admixture distribution is nonlinear, though: “It seems that around 10 percent of the African American population is more than half European in ancestry.” (Same link.)

(3) Your own ancestry is mixed north-European and northeast-Asian, but blacks will take you to be white.

(4) The default principle in everyday personal encounters is, that as a fellow citizen, with the same rights and obligations as yourself, any individual black is entitled to the same courtesies you would extend to a nonblack citizen. That is basic good manners and good citizenship. In some unusual circumstances, however—e.g., paragraph (10h) below—this default principle should be overridden by considerations of personal safety.

(5) As with any population of such a size, there is great variation among blacks in every human trait (except, obviously, the trait of identifying oneself as black). They come fat, thin, tall, short, dumb, smart, introverted, extroverted, honest, crooked, athletic, sedentary, fastidious, sloppy, amiable, and obnoxious. There are black geniuses and black morons. There are black saints and black psychopaths. In a population of forty million, you will find almost any human type. Only at the far, far extremes of certain traits are there absences. There are, for example, no black Fields Medal winners. While this is civilizationally consequential, it will not likely ever be important to you personally. Most people live and die without ever meeting (or wishing to meet) a Fields Medal winner.

(6) As you go through life, however, you will experience an ever larger number of encounters with black Americans. Assuming your encounters are random—for example, not restricted only to black convicted murderers or to black investment bankers—the Law of Large Numbers will inevitably kick in. You will observe that the means—the averages—of many traits are very different for black and white Americans, as has been confirmed by methodical inquiries in the human sciences.

(7) Of most importance to your personal safety are the very different means for antisocial behavior, which you will see reflected in, for instance, school disciplinary measures, political corruption, and criminal convictions.

(8) These differences are magnified by the hostility many blacks feel toward whites. Thus, while black-on-black behavior is more antisocial in the average than is white-on-white behavior, average black-on-white behavior is a degree more antisocial yet.

(9) A small cohort of blacks—in my experience, around five percent—is ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us. A much larger cohort of blacks—around half—will go along passively if the five percent take leadership in some event. They will do this out of racial solidarity, the natural willingness of most human beings to be led, and a vague feeling that whites have it coming.

(10) Thus, while always attentive to the particular qualities of individuals, on the many occasions where you have nothing to guide you but knowledge of those mean differences, use statistical common sense:

(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.

(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.

(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).

(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.

(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.

(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.

(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.

(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.

(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.

(11) The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites. The least intelligent ten percent of whites have IQs below 81; forty percent of blacks have IQs that low. Only one black in six is more intelligent than the average white; five whites out of six are more intelligent than the average black. These differences show in every test of general cognitive ability that anyone, of any race or nationality, has yet been able to devise. They are reflected in countless everyday situations. “Life is an IQ test.”

(12) There is a magnifying effect here, too, caused by affirmative action. In a pure meritocracy there would be very low proportions of blacks in cognitively demanding jobs. Because of affirmative action, the proportions are higher. In government work, they are very high. Thus, in those encounters with strangers that involve cognitive engagement, ceteris paribus the black stranger will be less intelligent than the white. In such encounters, therefore—for example, at a government office—you will, on average, be dealt with more competently by a white than by a black. If that hostility-based magnifying effect (paragraph 8) is also in play, you will be dealt with more politely, too. “The DMV lady“ is a statistical truth, not a myth.

(13) In that pool of forty million, there are nonetheless many intelligent and well-socialized blacks. (I’ll use IWSB as an ad hoc abbreviation.) You should consciously seek opportunities to make friends with IWSBs. In addition to the ordinary pleasures of friendship, you will gain an amulet against potentially career-destroying accusations of prejudice.

(14) Be aware, however, that there is an issue of supply and demand here. Demand comes from organizations and businesses keen to display racial propriety by employing IWSBs, especially in positions at the interface with the general public—corporate sales reps, TV news presenters, press officers for government agencies, etc.—with corresponding depletion in less visible positions. There is also strong private demand from middle- and upper-class whites for personal bonds with IWSBs, for reasons given in the previous paragraph and also (next paragraph) as status markers.

(15) Unfortunately the demand is greater than the supply, so IWSBs are something of a luxury good, like antique furniture or corporate jets: boasted of by upper-class whites and wealthy organizations, coveted by the less prosperous. To be an IWSB in present-day US society is a height of felicity rarely before attained by any group of human beings in history. Try to curb your envy: it will be taken as prejudice (see paragraph 13).

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

You don’t have to follow my version of the talk point for point; but if you are white or Asian and have kids, you owe it to them to give them some version of the talk. It will save them a lot of time and trouble spent figuring things out for themselves. It may save their lives.


13 posted on 06/01/2015 3:35:04 PM PDT by dynachrome (We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.)
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To: clee1

You would be the first to scream if you needed police and they didn’t come soon enough or do what you thought they should do. Broad brushing the police just assists Obama, Holder, the Mayor, the prosecutor and their ilk. How much was the ticket you received recently?


14 posted on 06/01/2015 4:34:35 PM PDT by Pirate Ragnar (Libs put feelings first and thought second.)
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To: dynachrome

That was *really* good. Thanks for posting it.


15 posted on 06/01/2015 8:58:20 PM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: dynachrome

That was *really* good. Thanks for posting it.


16 posted on 06/01/2015 8:58:43 PM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: jazusamo

Great post!


17 posted on 06/01/2015 9:07:48 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: dsc

Derbyshire was dropped from National Review because of that “racist” column.


18 posted on 06/02/2015 3:20:46 AM PDT by dynachrome (We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.)
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To: dynachrome

“Derbyshire was dropped from National Review because of that “racist” column.”

I often say that people who should never be in charge of anything are in charge of practically everything. Looks like that now includes NR.

I miss Bill Buckley.


19 posted on 06/02/2015 8:37:50 AM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: jazusamo
In her carefully researched 2010 book, "Are Cops Racist?" Heather Mac Donald pointed out that, after anti-police campaigns, cops tended to do less policing and criminals tended to commit more crimes.

What? What? Heather MacDonald discovered positive and negative incentives 'work'? What's next - dog's salivating when they hear a bell?

20 posted on 06/02/2015 10:00:28 AM PDT by GOPJ (If the MSM stops lying about conservatives, we'll stop telling the truth about them.)
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