Once upon a time we had a President who said, “Elections have consequences.” That is a true statement, one of the few he made. There have been many calls from people stating that defunding the police is nutso, crazy, wacko, dangerous. Is that for us to say? The people elected these officials and they should live with the decisions they made.
The dichotomy between Republicans and Democrats regarding the police could not be more pronounced. Republicans support the police, but not police unions. Democrats support police unions, but not the police. This is the essence from which this issue radiates
Jacob Frey is the Mayor of Minneapolis. He was elected Mayor at the age of 36. One could say that if he is qualified; why should he not have the office? If he understands the city and the people who voted for him, then why not? Frey had been a resident of the city eight years when elected its mayor, four years when elected to the city council. Frey was elected to the city council on the basis of his overwhelming support of 3,722 residents. His four years on the city council and his vast knowledge of Minneapolis gained from his residency to date of eight years propelled him to being the Mayor after four rounds of elections. There wasn’t anybody who had a deeper grasp of the history of the city than someone like Frey? He beat Raymond Dehn — someone who had lived his entire life in the area and was 60 years old at the time. He had the same political leanings as Frey, but the city chose this man-child. Elections have consequences.
Who would have thought that Mr. Frey would be the centrist in the room if compared to his city council? The president of that city council, Lisa Bender, makes Mr. Frey look like a U.S. Senator from Mississippi in political ideology. Bender at least grew up in the vicinity of Minneapolis. Her breeding was not good enough, so she went off to UC Berkeley and worked stints in San Francisco and New York to build her pedigree. She took office at the ripe old age of 36 with her vast worldly experience. To give you an idea how sound her mind is she commutes all year long on a bicycle … in Minneapolis. Just let that sink in.
Bender leads the 13-member city council. There are twelve members of the DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party). Instead of having a token Republican like the Los Angeles City Council, Minneapolis has a token Green Party member. That district must have thought the DFL too radically conservative.
You may be familiar with Bender. She has been rounding up a veto proof faction of her council to defund the police. She also obtained some national fame for telling the world on CNN that to expect the police to come to your home because there is an invader at 2 A.M. is a matter of white privilege. She must have received droves of donations from New York’s Upper East Side after she said that. Elections have consequences.
We are having a national debate about defunding the police. Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez has called for a $150 million reduction in Los Angeles Police Department funding. Los Angeles has about 9,000 police officers to cover one of the geographically largest cities in the world. The ratio of police to residents is 1 to 433 which is one of the lowest ratios of a major city already. The mayor, Eric Garcetti, has jumped on this bandwagon after getting up from kneeling to his new overseers. The people of Los Angeles elected these people. Elections have consequences.
Why should any outsiders make arguments against these changes? These elected officials duly won their elections. Republicans have argued with total validity that people have been trying to undermine the presidency of Donald Trump. They argue against that; why should they argue against these people living with the decisions of their elected officials? Let’s see how that works out for them.
The city of Seattle has elected Jenny Durkan as Mayor over another Democrat. The Republican voter results for almost 20 years has been less than 20% in Seattle. In a six-city block zone now called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), the Mayor has pulled out her police force and allowed local residents to erect barriers and take control of the area. There has been no violence as of yet, but there are clearly people in the area armed with what was previously characterized as “military style assault weapons” by the elected officials in Seattle. Mayor Durkan has let militant protestors take over control of a portion of her city. Rumor has it that Durkan met with the protestors to give them a piece of her mind and gave them three more city blocks. Elections have consequences.
What the rest of us need to focus on is how these people got elected in the first place. How did we allow these people to take over our school system and indoctrinate our children? How did we allow these people to take over our colleges and further indoctrinate our children? How did we allow these people to take control of our national press? How did we allow our pulpits to be taken over and indoctrinate our religious services? We have allowed them to release criminals from jail in a wholesale manner. We have allowed them to change laws saying thefts of just below $1,000 are not really a crime. They are taking over political offices across the country particularly prosecutors’ offices where they are not prosecuting criminals. We have allowed our elected officials to cower on bended knee and apologize for their white privilege. We allowed them to take over a major portion of one of our most prominent cities, yet have not heard a peep from the residents. We have allowed all this and the cascade of evolving decisions continues with new justifications.
Here is why we should not allow that, as so aptly stated by Pastor Martin Niemoller:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me