Jobs? Spending? Or Will 2012 Be a Law and Order Election?
For now, the violence at Occupy Oakland and Occupy Atlanta seems fairly self-contained. But the whole Occupy scene, and the latest rumblings in the drug war, and Europe's deepening woes, and the turmoil in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan -- it all got me thinking: isn't there a darker, more potent issue lurking beneath the deficit drama and the jibber-jabber on jobs?
Are we beginning to pick up on a fear that our unemployment and spending woes merely prefigure a looming loss of public order? Isn't our government's strained relationship with the rule of law drawing that fear out into the light? And isn't Obama especially weak -- even as he quietly deports large numbers of illegal immigrants -- when it comes to the complaints of America's increasingly pessimistic populists?
To get us thinking about the answers, I paint a bleak picture over at The Daily Caller.
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May '10
Re: Jobs? Spending? Or Will 2012 Be a Law and Order Election?
There's a voice in the back of my head whispering, "It's the economy, stupid."
Edited on Oct 27, 2011 at 4:47pmJul '10
Re: Jobs? Spending? Or Will 2012 Be a Law and Order Election?
To those of us who remember the 'Sixties this doesn't seem like much. There was the Cold War and MAD on top of everything else back then. This is the farcical stage of the historical cycle.
Aug '10
Re: Jobs? Spending? Or Will 2012 Be a Law and Order Election?
Nope. America is an armed nation, remember? The minute OWS protesters start ravaging private businesses or homes like they ravage public parks, they will long for the days when police lobbed tear gas at them.
Their antics in the public space are not calculated to attract public support. Unless you think there is a danger that regular law and order citizens, the 91% of the work force still working, the 53% of people who still pay taxes, will suddenly pick up an anarchist streak... it will just be another case of minor protests outside the Democratic convention, and riots outside the GOP convention. Then it's back to focusing on the economy.
Nov '10
Re: Jobs? Spending? Or Will 2012 Be a Law and Order Election?
OWS is one thing; it is what Ann Coulter has reminded us to call The Mob. She says that when the Mob arises, what we really need is forceful suppression of it. I wish our public servants had the will for that.
The other question you raise, "Are we beginning to pick up on a fear that our unemployment and spending woes merely prefigure a looming loss of public order?" sounds sort of like the Left's idea that crime is caused by poverty, an idea that I don't really buy.