Big Cities

Conservatives have long warned that the leftist impulse to erase and destroy the past won’t stop with erasing only the “villains.” It won’t stop with simply taking down monuments to Confederate soldiers, or slaveholders, or “settler colonialists” as the anti-Israel crowd labels them. Of course, many now-contentious historical figures weren’t thorough-going villains except as judged by modern woke standards, but try explaining that to a leftist.

During the Black Lives Matter hysteria of the early 2020s, America lost its collective mind and stood idly by while vandals and university chancellors alike removed or destroyed dozens of historical monuments. Back in 2022, CNN reported that more than 70 monuments depicting men from the Confederacy had been taken down.

And who can forget the glee with which liberal media pictorially reported on the melting down of a Charlottesville, Virginia, statue of Robert E. Lee?

The conservatives were right.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is even more Lori Lightfoot, his predecessor, than Lightfoot was herself, plans to remove the statue of our nation’s founding father, George Washington, from City Hall. Maybe it’s public pushback, or something else, but media are now reporting that the Johnson administration may be backing down. Frankly, it’s hard to believe there’s enough patriotic outrage in the U.S. in year 2024 that Johnson would get any blowback at all, but if there is, it can only be a good thing.

Of course, since contrived black grievance (not to mention rampant black narcissism) sells so well, Johnson reportedly wanted to replace Washington with a “black Chicagoan.”

What is clear is that many Americans are tired of this insulting nonsense, and they’re expressing it on social media with humorous sarcasm.

User Joseph Michael reminds us that Republicans were right, including the Uber-Republican himself.

Ouch, Uncle Paul! It’s funny because it’s true.

Whose statue do you think will fall next? Tell us in the comments!

Blue state governments hate you more than you know if you’re a taxpaying, revenue-generating citizen or small business. No, it doesn’t make any sense that governments would work to make everything harder for the very people who fund their overreach, but they do.

British business professor Stafford Beer coined the phrase, “the purpose of a system is what it does.” It explains why systems like governments, bureaucracies, and policies so often produce outcomes that have nothing to do with their stated purpose.

Beer’s formula is perfectly illustrated by the San Francisco code department’s persecutory actions against small businesses. Everyone knows the city by the bay has turned into a city-sized outdoor bathroom and 21^st century opium den. Crazed drug addicts, the homeless with their tents, and thieving criminals have made the streets unwalkable and the city unlivable.

They’ve also made it almost impossible to run a business. But the city itself is the biggest villain. When the eyecare practice Pacific Vision Foundation discovered they were losing business because patrons could not get past the homeless tents on the front sidewalk, PVF found a solution. They installed beautiful flower planters on the sidewalk. It worked; the tents went away. But then the city’s department of public works, the same city that refuses to clear out the vagrants, sent PVF a code violation citation for not getting a planter permit.

The city continues to punish small businesses for the actions of criminals. Check out this news clip about a corner store that’s thinking of closing shop. After criminals busted their glass doors, the city came down on the store for the code violation of not fixing the damage fast enough.

California used to be the golden land of dreams and opportunities, but those days are gone and people are noticing. Here’s some online reaction.

“Anarcho-tyranny” is a great way to describe how states like California are run.

We like the way Aphealia thinks.

Suppose you have to laugh!

At one point in the video below, the man filming says, “Seattle is lost.”

The same could be said for so many major American cities. Once bustling and beautiful, Democrat-run cities have declined into open-air prostitution markets, drug dens, and places to lie down and die for the addicted and destitute.

This short video from Johnathan Choe at the Discovery Institute starts out looking like it will be funny.

And to be fair, the beginning does give a chuckle. The nearly naked woman in the beginning could be metaphor for the modern American mind. She asks the videographer, “What you recording for?”, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to dress as a budget-grade working girl in broad daylight in front of the self-serve coffee bar at a mini-mart.

Because it is normal, now, isn’t it, in too much of America? In just 10 to 15 years behavior that would have had someone arrested for public indecency or lewdness is not only tolerated, but defended and “celebrated.” Employers are telling survey-takers that young people, recent college graduates, are the hires they most regret. Companies say Gen Z graduates can’t manage the basics like making eye contact or dressing appropriately for work. It is no surprise that the woman depicted in the video believes her “professional” attire is suitable for a public store with children present.

But when we go outside with the camera, the picture gets darker. A woman standing in the parking lot appears to be bent over awkwardly in a way that indicates hard-drug use. Behind the chain link fence next door a man is kneeling with his head on the ground while the camera man asks if he’s all right, and if he needs help. It’s sadly pointless; he’s completely incoherent and does not appear to know who he is or where he is.

Senator John Thune pointed out three years ago that a big part of the problem is the Black Lives Matter-inspired “defund the police” movement. “American communities are less safe today than they were a year ago. Crime rates have surged since ‘defund the police’ became a rallying cry,” he wrote.

In the intervening years, little seems to have improved. Drug overdose deaths have quadrupled between 2002 and 2022. This writer can confirm that the New England city where he lives—often depicted in tourist post cards—now has no-go zones filled with drug users, prostitutes, hypodermic needles, and human feces on the ground in areas that used to be middle-class neighborhoods.

The left insists that it has a bigger heart and cares more for the downtrodden than anyone. If that is true, why are so many people literally dying in the streets?

You have to see and hear it to believe it. Some night see this article as highlighting the lunatic fringe… but it’s actually the mainstream left at this point. Take a gander at this clip from a recent mayoral candidate debate in San Francisco.

Mayor and candidate London Breed asks candidate Mark Farrell to show his fealty to the cult of LGBTQ+ by naming three drag queens from the city to prove his “street cred” in supporting the LGBTQ+ community.  

Apparently, this is the second time in as many weeks that Breed tried to corner Farrell for insufficient enthusiasm about men in dresses. At the first mayoral debate the week prior, Farrell “couldn’t” name his favorite San Francisco drag queen. Their names are so absurd he probably could’ve said anything, like “Sister Princess,” and it would’ve been believable. And for anyone who doesn’t believe me, there’s a drag queen named “Sister Gay Bitch Milkshake” – so yes, anything really would do.

At the second debate, Breed said, “You were at the debate last week and couldn’t name any drag queens on your own.” She then offered Farrell a “chance to redeem” himself by naming three “LGBTQ advisors for [his] campaign,” and then three drag queens from the city by the bay.

Farrell responded predictably by trying to burnish his LGBTQ credits. Farrell said he, a straight white male, put forward city legislation to reimburse gay couples who were taxed by the federal government on their health insurance benefits. “I’m incredibly proud of the support I have from our LGBTQ community,” he said.

You have to feel for a candidate like Farrell a little, even if you’re watching the performance with secondhand embarrassment. No one who wants to get elected in a place like that has much choice but to kowtow to the “queer” community. But do you have to say things like “I’m super pro-LGBTQ,” Mark? As the kids say, “cringe.”

Twitter/X users, of course, have no such loyalty.

Paul questions mayor Breed’s priorities:

User Alan Sea got a laugh out of this writer:

Maybe Farrell should hire J. Perry to write his speeches—Perry sounds like a crowd-pleaser!

Admitted: we’re closing with this one just because it’s naughty.