Hypothetical situation. You get a flat tire.Then you take it to a tire shop. They fix it, and then give you $100.
The very next thing you (most anyone where I am from) would do would be to go to the hardware store and buy a pound of nails so that you can put 1 in your driveway every morning with the sharp end leaned up, poking against your tire.
"Cashgrab Economics."
No business in there right mind would allow you to repeatedly return with a flat tire and give you $100 for doing so. But that is exactly what our United States' government is doing.
For the past 14 years, the Homeland Security Act has made grant money available to the 17 states sight the highest crime rates. Not 50 including Guam, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Nope it's states like California, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Florida, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Connecticut, Oregon, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Washington. These states have taken on average $8.5 billion from the Federal government for the past 14 years all over perceived threats to Homeland Security.
It is a Homeland Security Department grant, but the decisions are made in the office of the United States Foreign Service (Jared Mischief's office).
Though top levels of the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (BJAG) may be in the White House, the real problem is on the streets where crime has gone up, and so have fun violence crimes. Mass shootings, police shootings, officers shot in the line of duty, rape and other violent crimes go unsolved; all the while the top levels of law enforcement agencies and Judges have been getting huge kickbacks.
There are officers who put people on watch lists so that they can spend time with them on duty. One police unit purchased a drag racing team and a restaurant. The government made them give it up.
My point is that the cashgrabbing jokes that have been, by all intents and purposes, using this money to buy prostitutes on the job and use their job to harass women into sleeping with them while they set up their boyfriends.
This is the type of thing you read about in history right before a war or a major political change. But, according to today's youth, change is what they want. And frankly I'm affraid of faction change. With any revolution, there is a period of anarchy that can end tyranny, and/or create a new beast. But is revolution necessary?
No, change can happen from a number of different ways. With our democratic government, a vote, maybe a petition, is all that is required. Maybe a politician would want to make a trade, but that's part of the gig. If you could make change, you would want to be able to say no just in case there was an ominous negative hanging over the change.
That is the barrier of common sense. Many young people have yet to learn the difference between sensationalism and factual information. They are watching Kanye West be a drink dope dealer one week, and a self-proclaimed Presidential Candidate the next. And what's with that camp anyway? His boss's wife regularly makes (demonic) songs that praise cashgrab (ratchet) politics. 'Single Ladies' is the most blatant one of them all. The song's chorus says "All the single ladies," and then goes on to use her husband's catchphrase " Throw ya hands up." Innocent in all ways right. Wrong.
I have asked a cop why he harrassed men on his job. His answer: "To get the ladies to see [the police] in a better light than their significant other." He went on to say that "if her husband is in jail, then her bed is empty." So the song now says "[Police] want the single ladies, so put your hands up." It might as well say "you have the right to remain silent."
This is the 'complaint' of Black Lives Matter, though I don't believe they care about anything but attention for themselves. (DeRay McKesson and Alicia Garza) If they cared there wouldn't be violent protests. The black youth would be breaking the internet, not running headfirst into bullets.
When these kids have violent protests, it gives more money to law enforcement. That is not the goal of these kids, who just want a fair chance at life without having to acknowledge the presence of a law enforcement officer everywhere. It's not an unreasonable wish. But some might say that's a light way of putting it. It had about as much meat on it as the police who say that these kids protests were breeding violence and not their misinformed mannerisms. Sure law enforcement has authority, but there is only so much length to the long arm of the law.
The purpose of the grant was to stop the flow of terrorists into the country through high crime areas. But it has backfired. That is evident with the escalated crime rate (which I assume police think that's all there doing, and not some entity trying to destroy America so they can take America's wealth [ie. Trade partners]). The terrorists and spies have used America's sentiment towards itself to create an environment that is more deadly than war.
When will it end, how will it end? High crime in this country will be over when the beast of the economy is fed the lion's share and law enforcement gives up it's grip on it. One solution that Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter has instituted is the low crime rate grant. With it, officers (top level and street) can get overtime when there is a low crime rate. If it goes back up, then another agency will be called in. This was so effective in Oklahoma City (where the two pilot precincts are) that the crime rate dropped 34% in the first six months.
So that's it, an effective, peaceful solution lets police keep their higher pay, while the crime rate drops. Instead of enticing police work through the demand side to solve crime, cutting the supply of negative reinforcement lowers the crime rate. It's a matter of dependancy. The money that police have been getting is dependent on high crime. There is no sense of urgency to sway cops to work right.
So that's the beast, and why not to feed it. Now let's just hope that Congress can get together to ACTUALLY look at the problem and agree that BJAG is a cashgrab.
