Land of Oz

Murders

I just read where Seattle has a record setting murder rate lately. I've read that about other big cities and know it's happening in our town. In fact, the Chief of Police here said that crime hadn't changed much from last year - when in reality we've had more violent crimes the first half of this year than in all of last year. On a side note, you have to wonder what kind of job the Chief is doing if he can't get his stats any closer than this. Ah, for the days of Chief Jack Mannion and his COMSTATs.

Anyway, why is violent crime going up in so many places? I have a somewhat off-the-wall theory about this. Based on no facts in particular, it goes like this: Over the past few years, it has become more and more common for violence to be condoned by the highest in the land as long as it's directed towards the "right" people. Nowadays, torture, invasions and imprisonment without due process is seen as the American way. After all, if it's good enough for the president it must be good enough for the rest of us - right?

So, I think that this constant bombardment (pun intended) of publicity that makes it OK for violence against the "right" people is getting its point across. The one, probably unintended, side effect of this is that more and more people are coming up with their own definition of "right." After all, if the president says it's OK to invade some country for some made-up reason, why shouldn't someone else say it's OK to rubout some guy who disrespects them? I mean, it's the same thing really, right? Country to country on the one hand and person to person on the other. Some country/guy does something I don't like so I'll take of it/them. Why not? Might makes right! After all, they don't have any rights as long as they're the "right" person.