August 27, 2017

"Madison do-gooders haggled over shootings police stopped."

Writes Chris Rickert in The Wisconsin State Journal.
Madison’s mayor and City Council spent valuable time this spring and summer feuding among themselves and with local activists over how to respond, ahem, quickly to a rash of shootings.

Madison Police Chief Mike Koval on Aug. 9 announced plans to round up those suspected in the violence and two weeks later announced that the shootings had largely stopped — at least for now....

Meanwhile, the latest incarnation of Madison’s softer-side approach to alleviating violence — a 15-point-plan by a group called the Focused Interruption Coalition — is just getting underway, more than a year after it was proposed...

I have no idea whether the people targeted for this kind of non-law-enforcement attention have enough better angels left for the attention to make any difference. These are people, after all, who apparently haven’t been helped in any meaningful way by any of the millions in donated and taxpayer dollars spent every year on welfare, community development and educational programs....
I got there through David Blaska, who writes "Welcome to the dark side, Chris Rickert."
[Rickert] is throwing off the Madison liberal torpor. Renouncing the creed of collectivism. Escaping the Cult of Victimhood.... Brother Rickert, you will be called a racist. Comes with the territory.... Yes, Chris Rickert, you are ruined in Madison.
Blaska observes that the on-line headline — my post title — does not appear in the print version. There, it's — incredibly — "Peer support, policing not either-or."

38 comments:

Wince said...

If they really wanted to help isn't there a monument they can knock over or a grave they can piss on?

traditionalguy said...

This is all because Admiral of the Ocean Seas Columbus invaded America. Damn racist Italians.

Meade said...

The city's racist name is itself a monument to the slave master who crafted the 3/5 clause in the constitution. James Madison was also a traitor to his country, Great Britain.

Fernandinande said...

Gosh darn those heavily armed white supremacists.

Meade said...

Unlike Washington, Madison didn't even make provision to free his slaves upon his death. Dolley inherited and then treated the slaves very harshly.

Big Mike said...

@Meade, that's women for you. Oh, hello Professor!

Big Mike said...

You could rename your city after its current mayor. "Soglin, Wisconsin" sounds appropriate for a state capital.

And UW-Sog reads marginally better than UW-Mad.

robother said...

The headline equivalent of "nothing to see here, move on."

Mark said...

Blaska must not read Rickert much. He has gone to the conservative side on and off for 5+ years.

Sebastian said...

"incredibly" Why? This appeared in a "mainstream" paper, didn't it?

Ann Althouse said...

"@Meade, that's women for you. Oh, hello Professor!"

What's the feminist perspective on the sexism experienced by the female slaveowner.

Fernandinande said...

The coalition is currently looking to the city to provide them with $3 million over the next three years to fund the initiatives detailed in the 15-point plan.
...
The first two initiatives focus on providing low income persons between the ages of 18 to 35 with peer support coaches and a peer support hotline. The estimated cost for the initiative is $240,000.
...
In the second year of the plan, the recommendations focus on alternative sentencing for first-time offenders and removing offenses from the Wisconsin Court System Circuit Court Access.

++

So far the detailed 15 point plan is:
- make it easier for criminals to communicate with their peers, namely other criminals.
- don't punish criminals.

Isn't this the town where that one victim-guy got probation for "armed home invasion"?

Ann Althouse said...

@Sebastian

Yeah, "incredibly" AKA predictably.

What's incredible is the headline in the on-line version (which could be easily changed, so why wasn't it?).

It's interesting to see a newspaper trying to succeed at different levels, with local paper subscribers and also a desire for web traffic. I'm sending web traffic now and so is Blaska. So they're getting a read on what works that I'm influencing.

MadisonMan said...

One of my kid's friend's Dad is a Police Officer. He's been putting in 12-h shifts all summer, and that's nowhere near his usual gig. Increased policing might have had an impact.

Bob R said...

"What's the feminist perspective on the sexism experienced by the female slaveowner[?]"

Intersectionality is a cruel mistress.

ga6 said...

If one of my sons did not live within an hours drive of Madison I would recommend that the Mayor and States Attorney adopt the Baltimore attitude toward increased violence on the streets. This is known informally in my former trade as "tag and bag" enforcement.

"State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby admits more stringent policing policies save lives, but says that's not "the way forward."

http://www.dailywire.com/news/20181/baltimores-leaders-admit-they-know-how-reduce-james-barrett?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=082417-news&utm_campaign=benshapiro

rhhardin said...

There's hardly a weekend free of shooting around me. People spend a lot of money on ammunition.

Backyard rifle ranges.

Sebastian said...

'It's interesting to see a newspaper trying to succeed at different levels" Incredibly AKA predictably, I agree. But sadly, your influencing may not change their behavior much.

n.n said...

Some ends justify more than others. Stability, justified. Life, unjustified.

Fernandinande said...

What's the feminist perspective on the "women must be able to choose to have as many, or as few, children as they want and also have someone else foot the bills for their choices" welfare systems which many people blame for the destruction of the black family and the subsequent social pathology including high crime rates?

mockturtle said...

"Meanwhile, the latest incarnation of Madison’s softer-side approach to alleviating violence — a 15-point-plan by a group called the Focused Interruption Coalition — is just getting underway, more than a year after it was proposed..."

I thought for a moment I was reading The Onion.

MaxedOutMama said...

I'm glad they DID check the killings. In the end, a government that doesn't do that is no government at all.

Comanche Voter said...

I can spot the flaw in the story right now; it claimed that City Council time is "valuable".

Moondawggie said...

"33 wounded, 6 fatally, in weekend shootings in Chicago.
Which Confederate General statue inspired the violence this weekend?"

...priceless

Jupiter said...

"These are people, after all, who apparently haven’t been helped in any meaningful way by any of the millions in donated and taxpayer dollars spent every year on welfare, community development and educational programs...."

The Amish?

walter said...

Yes Mock,
Maybe they need to assemble a focus interruption council to look into the focused interruption coalition. The delay probably has to do with the decrease in allowable vocabulary. you know.."If you can't say something nice.."

wild chicken said...

"Wow, this do-gooder shit really works!"

..said no one ever

Gojuplyr831@gmail.com said...

There asking for $3M over three years. Their first proposal costs $240,000. How much of that remaining money will be spent on committee members - salaries, staff, office expenses, daily lunches at the finest restaurants, first class airline tickets to study what other cities have done, etc?

Ah, what the hell. Just give them the money. I'm sure they have the best of intentions and that's what really counts here. Everybody can go home feeling good about themselves.

Jupiter said...

"How much of that remaining money will be spent on committee members...".

You mean, on "services". Paying someone half a million dollars to help someone else find a minimum wage job that they quit after a week is called "providing services". Poverty is, in fact, the road to wealth for many of our fellow citizens.

Jupiter said...

Perhaps "road to wealth" is not quite right. Rather, poverty is the necessary precondition of wealth. Black poverty produces white wealth. Of course, the reality is that both sides of that transaction are useless parasites, and provide nothing that anyone would willingly pay for.

walter said...

"Little Debbie's snack-cake competitor does indeed draw its name from the former First Lady. Brand founder Roy Nafziger was allegedly a big fan of Dolley Madison, so when he introduced a line of cakes that were "fine enough to serve at the White House" in 1937, he tweaked the spelling of the First Lady's name and slapped it on his marketing materials."

Woke foke know what to do...

Big Mike said...

What's the feminist perspective on the sexism experienced by the female slaveowner?

One of the Civil War histories I've read (McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom IIRC) quoted a letter written by a female plantation owner to the effect that she was the only white woman for twenty miles and she was pleading to have her plantation overseer (who had been conscripted) back again. Not sure what a modern feminist would think of her blatant effort to apply white privilege to her situation.

Jupiter said...

"Not sure what a modern feminist would think of her blatant effort to apply white privilege to her situation."

I believe your pure or garden-variety feminist -- Sheryl Sandberg, say -- would regard her situation as one of empowerment. The desire for the return of the overseer is a form of false consciousness, an internalized glass ceiling. She should have realized that as a strong woman, she is just as capable of oppressing and exploiting a parcel of Negro slaves as any man. An intersectionalist feminist might find some troubling nuances in that critique, with regard to the racial dynamic. But I think we can take it as established that a woman should, and indeed must, have all the desires, and only the desires, that men have. Women are in no way different from men. They are merely in every way better than men. Except black men. Well, and black women, of course, are exactly like white women in every respect, except that their experience is so different no white woman could possibly comprehend it. It's complicated, really. Really complicated.

Mr Wibble said...

Bring back the whipping post. A lot of this crap would go away if young idiots learned early that criminal behavior had painful consequences.

Jupiter said...

Mr Wibble said...
"Bring back the whipping post."

I don't know, I have a feeling that might trigger certain people's delicate sensitivities. I guess they probably wouldn't mind as long as it was on private property.

Gahrie said...

The city's racist name is itself a monument to the slave master who crafted the 3/5 clause in the constitution

Sorry,as a history teacher I can't let this go by. In fact I just taught this in class, and I told the kids that most people in college, including the teachers would ignorantly tell them that the 3/5th Compromise was an insult to Black people. In fact, the 3/5ths Compromise was good for Black people because it weakened the power of the slave states.

Todd Roberson said...

@Mr Wibble

I'm not sure about the "whipping post", but one thing we could use a little more of in society is shame.

Shame is a very strong social regulator of behavior, but one that we have essentially outlawed in the United States.

Curious George said...

"Moondawggie said...
"33 wounded, 6 fatally, in weekend shootings in Chicago."

Apparently Chicago only has a 14 point plan.