The Age of Obama: Rising Crime; Topless Hookers Rubbing Up on Tykes in Times Square; Cop Assassinations

Via Instapundit, Powerline catches the New York Times in a rare moment of noticing actual news.

The Times:

Murder Rates Rising Sharply in Many U.S. Cities

By MONICA DAVEY and MITCH SMITHAUG

MILWAUKEE --Cities across the nation are seeing a startling rise in murders after years of declines, and few places have witnessed a shift as precipitous as this city. With the summer not yet over, 104 people have been killed this year -- after 86 homicides in all of 2014.

More than 30 other cities have also reported increases in violence from a year ago. In New Orleans, 120 people had been killed by late August, compared with 98 during the same period a year earlier. In Baltimore, homicides had hit 215, up from 138 at the same point in 2014. In Washington, the toll was 105, compared with 73 people a year ago. And in St. Louis, 136 people had been killed this year, a 60 percent rise from the 85 murders the city had by the same time last year.

Law enforcement experts say disparate factors are at play in different cities, though no one is claiming to know for sure why murder rates are climbing.

"Disparate factors" is "expert" nonsense-talk for "I don't want to get into it, as it runs contrary to my partisan political interests."

Meanwhile, Times Square was transformed in the 90s and 00s from a cesspit of porn and jerk-off booths into a vibrant, money-making tourist zone.

You will not be surprised that many on the left have romanticized the knife-point muggings of the old Times Square and whined that we should return to that period of gritty authenticity, abandoning this Disney-fied bourgeois pit of commerce.

Well, they're starting to get their wish, courtesy of Bill DiBlasio.

Susan L. M. Goldman:

We knew DeBlasio would return New York to the 70s. We just didn’t think that return would involve topless women shaking it for tourists' tips. Folks in the y0s were respectable enough to keep that kind of show behind closed doors. Today it isn't just a show, it’s a "social justice movement." This "movement" is defended by feminists, no less, who feel it is a woman’s right to walk around topless in public. Offering to exchange photographs for tips. With pimps hanging over them. Sorry, I mean "bodyguards" "protecting" them in exchange for 30% of their "earnings." Life, liberty and the pursuit of boobs for cash. Seriously it's in the Constitution. Check it out.

Offering to show your breasts for money is a minor form of prostitution, and should be -- actually is -- illegal. Even if you think this should be generally legal -- which I'd fully agree with -- there is a third path here that respects both the sex-worker's desire to sell her body for money and the public's right to not have a hooker's tits shaken in their kids' faces.

In France, prostitution is, as it has long been, perfectly legal, but open, crude solicitation (raccolage) is illegal. That is, you can prostitute yourself, and you can even stand on the streetcorner in areas known for the skin trade in hookerish clothing, but there is a limit as to how overt you can be about your solicitation.

I would say that walking around with your knockers out, asking for money, would be a violation of this sort of law.

I realize New York City doesn't have this law -- but it should, and it should enforce it. If you want to decriminalize prostitution, fine, but at least insist the business be conducted with a reasonable amount of respect for families out sightseeing with their kids. *

Meanwhile, the radical members of #BlackLivesMatter (which may or may not be all of them) are chanting about killing cops and wearing t-shirts glorifying cop killers.

Meanwhile, cops keep being murdered in cold blood.

The "experts" would say, I suppose, that "disparate factors" are responsible for this. Who knows why it's happening. It's all just a mystery that will not admit of further investigation.

* Even accepting arguendo NYC's position that women have the right to expose their breasts, there are many things which are legal as personal actions but subject to state intervention and regulation when they become commercial actions.

And then there are time, place, and manner considerations -- long considered valid restrictions on free speech. Not what you say -- or here, show -- but where and when you can show it.

Sure, I like go-go bars as much as the next man (assuming the next man doesn't particularly like go-go bars), but what goes on inside a private establishment with blacked-out windows is far less of a concern for public morals than if that establishment decided to take its business to the streets.

It bothers me that this is going on in daylight. With these people knowing the Disney store is just a few doors down, and kids are in pilgrimage to that store.

If this were happening after 10 pm at night, I'd shrug and say "That's New York; no big deal to have a little bit of Time Square's famous sleaze back."

But this is happening with kids around.

That bothers me, a lot.

posted by Ace at 01:36 PM

| Access Comments