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“Conservatives” Against Cops, for De Blasio
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On January 5, 2015 @ 10:24 am In The Point | 91 Comments
There have been a rash of articles on conservative sites siding with Bill de Blasio against the police.
The articles appear to be an extension of an effort by some libertarians to make common cause with the left on the Garner death. The places they appear were mostly part of such an effort.
It’s hard to believe that’s a coincidence.
So while the articles claim that they’re opposed to the police actions against Bill de Blasio because they hate unions, it seems as if they’re opposed to the police because they were hoping to Rand Paul their way into some anti-authoritarian alliance with the left.
That plan made about as much sense as the Hitler-Stalin pact. The left’s alliances are strictly one way, as Rand Paul and the Koch Brothers will learn, just the way that McCain and Chris Christie learned.
But let’s cut to the chase.
1. Unions are not the issue here.
While police are represented by a union, their grievance is political, not financial. This isn’t about salary or benefits. It’s about working in an environment in which the people threatening your life are endorsed by the political authorities.
The police would be doing the same thing if they weren’t in unions. So the unions are a distraction and a non-issue.
2. The police are not a threat to democracy
Democracy is not just the act of voting. It’s also everything that happens between votes. The police, like any other group, have the right to oppose a politician. That’s democracy. Opposing their right to do so is undemocratic.
3. The police action mostly involves “broken windows” policing
This is the stuff that their critics on the left and right both hated. Now those same critics are attacking police for something they didn’t want them to do anyway.
4. If you don’t live in New York, why are you even grandstanding about this?
Honestly.
I live in a blue state and a really blue city. A lot of conservatives have no idea what happens in our area. It’s why they were gushing over Christie while ignoring what local conservatives were telling them. They didn’t want to hear it.
They didn’t want to hear when people like me were saying that De Blasio was the big leftist threat, not Weiner.
Now they don’t want to hear what New Yorkers like John Cardillo are saying, who is actually a conservative and an ex-cop.
When I write about local politics, I try to get a sense of what local conservatives are thinking. When you don’t do that, then you’re just another version of the establishment echo chamber, even if you’re operating out of Georgia or Virginia.
New York conservatives, and yes we exist, actually have to live with this. You don’t. If you don’t live here, then at least have the decency to listen to those of us who do instead of throwing us under the bus to make way for your bromance with the left.
We’ve actually lived through the worst of Al Sharpton. We’ve seen what happens when the left, the real left, begins running a city into the ground. We’ve seen the crime, the violence and the urban decay. We know what’s at stake here. And you don’t.
You want to get your drug legalization on? Do it in your backyard. You want to endorse hatefilled racist mobs screaming obscenities. Do it in your community. You want to make common cause with Al Sharpton? Invite him over to community organize your neighborhood.
Don’t play the old leftie game of messing up somebody else’s area for your social experiments. When you do that, you show that you aren’t conservatives. You’re leftist hypocrites.
You’re not going to have to live with what happens here. We do.
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