By Ann Coulter
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Back in September, The New York Times promoted Bill de
Blasio's mayoral candidacy with an editorial titled, "Don't Fear the
Squeegee Man." The editorial informed readers that crime wouldn't get
worse under de Blasio because "policing is far better than it used to be,
thanks to innovations by Mayor David Dinkins." (Emphasis added -- the
Times was not being sarcastic.)
Under the policing "innovations" of Mayor
Dinkins, the annual murder rate in New York City rose to an all-time high of
2,245 in Dinkins' first year in office. After four years of hard work, the
murder rate had dropped by about 10 percent, to a merely astronomical 1,995 per
year.
In Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's very first year in office,
the murder rate fell 20 percent. The Times acknowledged the dramatic drop in
crime with an article titled, "New York City Crime Falls But Just Why Is a
Mystery." By Giuliani's last year in office, there were only 714 murders
in the entire city, a drop of 64 percent from Dinkins' personal best. By
continuing Giuliani's aggressive crime policies, Mayor Michael Bloomberg got
the murder rate for 2012 down to 419 in a city of 8 million people.
But at the Times, they think we've been living in hell
since Giuliani's election, and the most urgent priority for the next mayor is
to get back to Dinkins' New York.
They're not alone. (Thus de Blasio's election.) In 2001,
Richard Goldstein of The Village Voice announced on MSNBC'S
"Hardball," "I feel less safe today in New York City than I did
20 years ago." This was a position Goldstein developed after taking a vow
to never leave his apartment, allow visitors, read a newspaper, watch TV or
listen to the radio.
A couple of weeks ago, the Times ran another item
downplaying the coming crime surge under Mayor de Blasio. Former hedge fund manager
Neil Barsky wrote a column mocking his fellow 1-percenters for fretting about
the new mayor with this advice: "Calm down." (I find few balms as
soothing as being told to "calm down.")
Reluctantly, Barsky admitted (17 times) that he is a very
rich man. As he explained, he, too, enjoys the city having been turned into a
"a millionaires' playground" and having a mayor who is "one of
us." (Bloomberg's not one of me, buster.) He sniffed that he found
"this affluent angst more than a bit overwrought."
They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
Liberal zealots view de Blasio as a breath of fresh air
because he's stuck in policies of the 1960s. That's when Americans were assured
by brain-dead liberals that if we could just improve criminals' self-esteem,
crime would disappear. You'll see!
The result? The violent crime rate quadrupled.
We never got an apology on behalf of the tens of
thousands of Americans who were murdered, maimed, raped and robbed as a direct
result of liberal law enforcement strategies -- much less the show trials these
people deserved.
Liberal activists just waited out Giuliani and Bloomberg.
Now they're ready to retry all the old ideas. Mayor-elect de Blasio recently
met with convicted criminals to get their views on policing policies. Wow! Look
at de Blasio's new ideas!
The ex-cons actually complained to de Blasio that they
don't like being watched so much.
The left simply refuses to believe that locking up
criminals has any effect on crime and insists we just need to explain to them
that committing violent felonies is wrong. (New York Times headline from Aug.
10, 2000: "Number in Prison Grows Despite Crime Reduction.") It's
strange because liberals totally understand cause-and-effect when it comes to
... well, um, nothing.
Suggesting that the "1 percent" – such as
himself -- are the most terrified of a de Blasio mayoralty, Barsky claimed that
the massively rich have been the primary beneficiaries of record-low crime
rates in New York -- "those who can actually afford its housing, attend
concerts in Lincoln Center, eat in its fancy restaurants and pay for parking to
boot."
That could be said only by someone who has never been the
victim of a violent crime. Could someone please mug this guy?
The rich in New York are always the last to experience a
spike in crime. They might not even notice when the murder, rape and robbery
rates go through the roof under de Blasio -- for the very reasons Barsky names:
They can afford expensive neighborhoods, paid parking and concerts at Lincoln
Center.
It's the poor and middle-class New Yorkers, unprotected
by doormen, chauffeurs and ticket-takers, who will be the first victims of de
Blasio's innovative new ideas on policing.
The non-1 percent live in neighborhoods that aren't the
province of multimillionaires, with doormen standing guard every 15 yards. They
park their cars on the street, eat lunch in public parks and attend free
concerts -- all of which are also open to criminals. New-wave Brooklyn is about
to become crime-wave Brooklyn.
For a newspaper that claims not to be worried about
rising crime rates under de Blasio, the Times sure dedicates a lot of ink to
assuring us that it's not going to happen – and if it does, it won’t be de
Blasio’s fault. In anticipation of a return to the glory days of David Dinkins,
let me be the first to say, I told you so.
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