Over the past couple of years, thanks in large part to actions by Democrats — or, more accurately, inaction — we find ourselves in some places feeling unsafe due to some serious matters that affect us all, like crime.
And while crime climbed, what was our Democrat-dominated Legislature most concerned about?
Defunding the police, trying desperately to disarm citizens and letting just about everyone out of jail without bail or charges at all, so things got worse.
The Democrats produced a bunch of poorly thought out police reforms, which made policing more difficult. That, along with continuously bashing them as a whole. It all has made recruiting difficult.
Add to that the demand that they get the COVID-19 jab or be fired, and things they have done don’t seem to be going in the right direction. Now, we find out from some studies that the vaccine, and masks for that matter, really didn’t make much difference in many of the people who were not at risk.
One of my favorite anecdotes was in King County a while back where the police were pursuing a kidnapping suspect. He called 911 to report an illegal police chase and wanted it to stop.
In short, the inmates are calling the shots here thanks to foolish policies being thought up by people who are nothing short of partisan. Their decisions are picked up by criminals as a green light to continue committing crime.
If you have a few hours and like to read legalese and gibberish to sleep, I suggest you pull up the bill as they wrote and passed it; there's lots in there for everybody. One my favorites is a plan to reduce punishment for gun crimes. This beauty passed the House but wasn’t brought up in the Senate for a vote. But there is another session coming, and given the mindset of the current crop of Democrats, it makes perfect sense. Harass legal gun owners (because they can) who have committed no crime or done nothing wrong, but thugs that do use a gun in a crime should get out early?
There are so many stories daily of suspects in liberal cities being let out even for violent crimes, committing more and making more victims.
As a young deputy, the justice system used to be described as adversarial in that there was a prosecutor and a defense attorney to present a case and a judge or jury would render the verdict. It looks to me like in too many places the victims are no longer of much concern to the system or adversarial. It often feels like they are on the same team. It’s much more important to create a utopia where you eliminate crimes (by canceling the crime), jails, prisons and cops, and we'll all just get along.
Except all their liberal utopian thinking experiments have failed and sadly Portland and Seattle are proof. Even sadder is that both of these formerly fun cities to visit are too close to us and a straight shot here (no pun intended) on Interstate 5.
Our legislators, especially our Democratic ones, need to look around and see what these policies are doing. It’s not good. If they can’t see that through their partisan lenses, then we need new ones. And an election is coming.
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My family and I had the opportunity to visit Little Bighorn and Mount Rushmore a couple weeks ago after our clever elected officials got gas prices and inflation under control — OK I’m kidding of course. It doesn’t appear they have any interest in that. But if you take an electric car, you should probably put a system in place to be towed by a horse. There are a lot of nice folks in the midwest, but I didn’t see many charging stations between towns, which could be quite a ways.
But I really recommend a visit to both. Reading about the imperfect men carved on Rushmore who did amazing things in a different time is insightful.
The mistake that’s made today is looking for perfect men. They don’t exist, but you can still find great men.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@gmail.com.
