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Where’s the GOP Law-and-Order Candidate?
Where’s the GOP law-and-order candidate?
Is there a GOP law-and-order candidate? Murders in Atlanta are up 32% since mid-May. Murders in Chicago are up 17%, and shootings 24%. In St. Louis, in the aftermath of Ferguson, shootings are up 39%, robberies 43%, and murders 25%. In Baltimore, scene of the worst urban riots in two generations, law and order is in extended meltdown, with 32 shootings over the Memorial Day weekend alone. As Heather Mac Donald’s disturbing column in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal makes clear:
The most plausible explanation of the current surge in lawlessness is the intense agitation against American police departments over the past nine months. Since last summer, the airwaves have been dominated by suggestions that the police are the biggest threat facing young black males today. A handful of highly publicized deaths of unarmed black men, often following a resisted arrest—including Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y., in July 2014, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014 and Freddie Gray in Baltimore last month—have led to riots, violent protests and attacks on the police. Murders of officers jumped 89% in 2014, to 51 from 27.
Left-wing politicians have been waging a war on cops that’s left civil society imploding in many major cities.
America is now waiting for the one member of the burgeoning field of Republican presidential candidates who will speak up for our embattled men and women in blue—and for the fundamental principles of law and order.
The president, the past and present attorneys general, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have been accusing the criminal justice system of systematic racism and blaming cops — not the rioters or shooters — for the growing violence. In effect, they’re putting a bullseye around our law enforcement officers’ necks.
In short, Democrat politicians aren’t just foes of the “broken windows” approach to law enforcement; they’re now cheering on those breaking the windows.
This is a case crying out for a Republican counterattack. It’s time for one of those White House aspirants to take the fight to the enemy, namely progressive liberalism’s perverted social vision in which it’s the police who are the problem, and even violent felons are merely victims of an “unfair” socio-economic order.
So where is the candidate who is going to speak to police associations to tell them they are our nation’s heroes, not our disgrace?
Where’s the candidate doing a press conference with Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee to point out that homicides in that city are up 180% from last year and that the real victims of the collapse of law and order are the poor and the working class?
Where’s the candidate standing with Rudy Giuliani and former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to blast Bill de Blasio’s abandonment of “stop and frisk” and the state attorney general’s plan to appoint a state prosecutor whose only job will be to prosecute cops who dare to use deadly force against perpetrators?
Where’s the candidate taking it to Hillary for endorsing the Al Sharpton line that the police act out of racial bias, not out of a desire to protect life and property? Who’s going to call her to account for fomenting racial tension in hopes of getting votes?
Where’s the candidate who’s going to inner cities and barrios to talk to ordinary people for whom the drunks, prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, and muggers that liberals embrace actually pose an existential threat? Where’s the candidate that knows that an effective police force is the thin blue line standing between civilization and chaos—and between life and death?
For any Republican candidate looking for an issue that will appeal to black and Hispanic working families, this is it. Being the candidate advocating for law and order is an electoral strategy that works. It’s also the right thing to do.
So, where’s the GOP law-and-order candidate for 2016?
Published in Policing
the more laws there are, the less order there will be
the reverse is also true
Great thought. You’re right, and I completely disagree on this being a losing issue. (I bet that comes from the libertarians, who are partially anti police anyway.) This is a huge winning issue, and would be a natural for any of the Governors: Jeb, Perry, Walker, Kasich. Huckabee has been wishywashy on law and order, so would not work for him. Jeb and Perry have solid law and order records.
And your evidence for that is what? Where? I have said before, Libertarians and Liberals come from the same philosophy, just implemented differently.
Let me remind people what the father of conservatism had to say on the subject:
And let me also remind what the greatest mayor of my lifetime had to say as a corollary to Edmund Burke on how he accomplished the dramatic reductions in crime by the heavy handed enforcing of broken window laws, including stop and frisk:
Because the preservation of civil society demands you care.
Broken communities become like those broken windows, they spread the contagion of lawlessness out into wider and wider circles, until it’s outside your door.
My point is that this is a cultural issue, not just a policy issue.
Quite right. Burke understood: how a society sees its laws is as important as the wealth it creates: maybe more so. The presence of large pockets of lawlessness and chaos in American society, especially its cities, is a corruption that ultimately affects all of us.
Statutory laws maybe, the rule of law no.
Let me get this straight. You want a candidate like Jeb or Rick, while running for President, have a federal policy or stand on local jurisdictions -I thought hat’s what Democrats do – – but anyway, you want them to pick an issue, “law and order” that most minorities believe (rightly or wrongly) that they are being singled out and over policed, where they believe advocates of this law and order is thinly disguised racism, when these folks vote Democrat already by almost a 20-1 margin, you are going to save them from themselves and think this is a political winner?
All the while holding the paranoid notion that stealth ‘libertarians’, who don’t much like police, are the ones who are formulating these arguments to discourage Republican candidates from seizing this ‘winning’ issue?
PS I can’t believe Rudy said that, it must be out of context. Even out of context, them’s chilling words.
“The GOP base voters mostly don’t live near the rioters anymore.”
Most in 1968 didn’t, either. But the violence doesn’t stay in the inner cities or Democrat-run cities; it’s a contagion, not a social event.
Spoken like a true Rand Paul voter. As far as I know, Rand is the only GOP candidate who has sided with the rioters in Ferguson.
Sided? Really? Can I get a quote?
You need to think less about policy, and more about leadership on this issue.
You are probably correct about the need for the feds to back off, but it’s also about getting liberals to back off, as well, with their romanticized view of crime and criminals–and their vilification of law enforcement which I’m finding in this blog spot some our libertarian buddies share!
After Katrina a significant amount of folks from New Orleans – a lawless city – came to Houston. The greatest percentage were hard-working and honest folk. They thrived in Houston.
As for the thugs and gangstas? They soon discovered Texas does not hold with “catch-and-release” for criminals. There was an upward blip in crime until the malefactors were caught and jailed or left Texas for communities more willing to cater to their proclivities.
That is the ones that were not shot and killed by honest Texas citizens defending their lives and property left. The contagion of lawlessness did not spread. It was contained and eliminated. By the local citizens and local officials, without Federal intervention.
The preservation of civil society demands you care about your neighborhood, but a representative government depends upon people taking responsibility for their own neighborhoods, and accepting the consequences of their actions for good or ill.
Seawriter
It would also be good to have one who knows that no society can survive without the rule of law, or can survive politicians who encourage its overthrow–and a president who can articulate that view across the racial spectrum.
What’s with the name-calling? This is something liberal Democrats do. Note, I’m not calling you a liberal Democrat, in case you have trouble making certain distinctions – which I suspect.
I have had many debates with leftists Democrats, and the moment I support a cause that is somewhere to their right, they say something like “so you’re a Republican?” and proceed to vilify me as one who walks in lockstep with every Republican issue they have ever encountered. I won’t argue with such a person because they are small-minded and insincere.
This is being done continually by some people here. Libertarian is a dirty word to these folks and they use it as both a smear and a way to hide from logical dissent.
Just like if I stand for the second amendment or defend George W from unfair attacks, or say something negative about Obama, these folks claim I’m some label and proceed to dismiss my arguments on that basis.
I do not identify myself as a libertarian. I have not voted for a Democrat since John Glenn ran for Senate and I regret that vote. I voted for Reagan and both Bushes.
You can either listen to dissent as it is, or claim people like me are ‘libertarians’ and keep yourself from addressing the issues.
Arthur Herman, where are your limits regarding federal authority? What serious problems do you believe must be handled strictly at the local or state level?
Rudy said that and he’s repeatedly said stuff like that. He was my mayor (I live in NYC) and he was called a dictator. And he did a great job!
There is currently federal assistance to police across the country. Reagan supported it and so did Clinton if I remember. A lot has to do with the Attoney General. There is coordination and funding assistance. Yes, I support that, especially giving the police the latitude and equipment to do their jobs. Didn’t Rand Paul decry the over arming of the police?
Three Felonies a Day reflects part of the reality of the law.
Civil asset forfeiture is the law. Should we enforce and expand that?
The EPA? The law. Obamacare? The law (and the source, as is becoming all too common, of regulation and administrative rule.)
Selective enforcement is a necessity of Big Law and Big Regulation. As more and more laws and regulations accrete, selective enforcement becomes tyranny. IRS and the Tea Party anyone?
Maybe the central issue isn’t law and order, but the reach of the administrative state which kills liberty under the color of law.
“Law-and-order” is a glib slogan. The reality is much messier.
Clinton initiated the 100,000 cops on the street thing. It was yet another way the federal government could get into local politics. I don’t remember Reagan on that subject.
Rand Paul did, yes. While we need a good and strong police force in every community, we don’t need tanks and military equipment. There’s a difference. This is not an anti- police position. Nor does it need to be a ‘libertarian’ position.
If you believe that no President will ever become a tyrant, then it all seems quite benign. If you believe as I do, that one could, (not Obama of course, noooo) then you might be more wary.
Crime went away as an issue because of what Giuliani and company did to crush it.
Maybe younger conservatives and libertarians need to read up on what happened. NYPD Battles Crime by Eli Silverman covers it from an academic perspective. The Crime Fighter: Putting the Bad Guys Out of Business by Jack Maple with Chris Mitchell tells the story first hand, along with accounts from Giuliani himself, and police commissioners Bratton, Safir, Timoney, and Kerik. You might also want to check Heather MacDonald‘s many articles, including those in City Journal.
Crime is up because we’ve forgotten these lessons learned in the 1990’s. Violent crime, and the phony media charade of the Soros-sponsored riot “activists” strike me as nationally viable 2016 campaign issues.
Other crimes like entitlement fraud, political abuse of the IRS, identity theft, criminal abuse of the immigration system, etc. may or may not be ideal campaign issues, but should be forcefully addressed by the next Republican-appointed Attorney General.
I’ll be more interested in what libertarians have to say about law enforcement after one of them runs a major city.
The words “Federal Asset” should scare your poop right out of its holster.
Curious how you come up with the Baltimore riots being the worst in two generations. Do you mean in just Baltimore?
if laws were limited to primarily the prevention of violence and theft, there would be more order
I don’t recall tanks ever being suggested for local police. From what I remember Rand Paul was decrying the body armor, shields, helmets, and upgunning.
That’s part of the Libertarian silliness, that we are an inch away from tyranny, and therefore every freedom, not matter how self-indugent, must be cultivated. Everything I’ve suggested was already part of pre-1960s America. Were we a tyranny then?
Thank you. Part of the reason I’ve been so critical of Libertarians since joining Ricochet is because this new generation on the right has drifted into a radical freedom ideology, which was never part of conservatism.
I have been voting for conservatives probably before you threw your first baseball. In any case I’m not sure you understand your terms or that you can discern the difference between a constitutional conservative and a liberal hiding behind the term ‘libertarian’. There are all kinds of ideologies, but you seem to think there are only two, your ‘conservatism’ whatever that is, and everyone else.
Someone who thinks freedom, or ‘every freedom’ is “self indulgent” is reading from some strange set of talking points that don’t reflect reality, much less our Founders ideas and the Constitution.
You seem to be of the opinion that our government is some benign positive force that can grow and have limitless powers all for our own good. That laws and policies enacted will change once the problem is solved. I invite you to look at the history of repealed laws in this country and get back to me.
Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
Here in black and white is you reading what isn’t there. Exaggerating words and then riffing off of them may work in conversation when you are debating your high school mates, but here we can see what I said, and what you said in response.
Who said we are an “inch away from tyranny’? I have not said we are a tyranny, so your question, “Were we a tyranny then?” Is inapplicable.
Yet, things have changed. I was alive in the 60’s and I read the paper every day. I remember those times and I read the paper today. Things are vastly different when it comes to freedom in this country. Even the most moderate Republican can see the danger that Obama has taken too much executive power for himself and the Presidency. You don’t think so?
Libertarian silliness? Obviously you have a feeble grasp of the Bill of Rights.
A radical freedom ideology? You mean like what was posited in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights?
Traditional conservatism has no place for a radical freedom ideology. Its roots come from the divine right of kings. Its inheritors are today’s “progressives.”
Modern American conservatism is rooted in classical liberalism – the liberalism of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. It was a radical freedom ideology when it emerged. The Republican Party, when formed, was rooted in abolition of slavery and the primacy of the citizen over the state. It was a radical freedom ideology back then.
A republic cannot work if its citizens do not take responsibility for and accept the consequences of their actions. It cannot work unless government has limited and specific powers. Since the alternative to a republic is either mob rule or tyranny -neither of which I find desirable – I will continue to maintain the government’s power must be limited, and that communities (not the Federal government) set the standards by which they wish to live. If they set good standards they prosper. If they choose poorly they do not. It is the price of having a representative government.
I am not a libertarian – I am a republican (lower-case R).
Seawriter
Where did I say there are only two kinds? Where did that come from???
The Constitution is not a Libertarian document. Just the opposite. It presents a process for which laws are to be implemented, laws which curtail absolute freedom. The Bill of Rights were added just so some rights could not be intruded upon. Otherwise everything else is up for legislative judgement. For instance, taxation is constitutional, even a 90% level of taxation as was in the 1950s. In NYC, we have rent stabilized apartments, meaning landlords are regulated in how they adjust rents on their property. In NYC we had until recently stop and frisk laws, which madeNYC the safest big city in the country. There are laws that force people into social security and medicare, all constitutional. In fact Obamacare forces people to buy insurance, deemed constitutional. Now I don’t necessarily agree with all these but they are constitutional. I repeat, the constitution is not a Libertarian document. In fact the Revolutionary War was not faught over liberty, but over legislative representation.