Monday, May 30, 2011

Societal Collapse

Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, and now Miami Beach...

Shootings Rage In Holiday Celebration

Imagine if you had to live there? This is the Crockett and Tubbs neighborhood of South Beach, made famous years ago in Miami Vice. It's beautiful people and pastel buildings; white sand beaches and azure blue waters; leggy blondes in bikinis and cigarette boats; Ferraris and high-rollers. Not any more apparently.

Gay Activist Writes Serious Letter to The Citizens

He's right of course. We should have a reasonable expectation of security in our homes, our neighborhoods, our towns and our businesses. We shouldn't exist in the equivalent of a third world ghetto with trash in the streets and lawlessness threatening our lives.

Apartment Video Captures Mayhem

This is roughly 4:00 AM! Listen to the racing engine of the motorcycle, the noise in the street and then watch the apparent "termination with extreme prejudice" of one of the instigators. Details aren't clear, but it is obvious that this is not civilization or stability.

Is It Stereotyping?

Lawlessness is developing as a culture in America. It's becoming a jungle and the only conclusion is that Hobbes was right. It's going to be "nasty, brutish and short."

Think it is just Florida? Not so fast:

DNC Convention Host City Disrupted

4 comments:

Six said...

It's still amazing to me how many people, and especially political leaders, refuse to understand the problem and effectively deal with it. Let me give you an example from my personal experience.

A few years ago my city decided that a Mardi Gras celebration was a good idea. The first year was rowdy with vandalism, public drunkenness and many arrests. We complained and warned but were ignored. The second year of the event consisted of violence, public (and underage) nudity and ended with a 5000 person riot. That's riot in the strictest definition of the word. At one point there was a standoff between us and them with many in the crowd throwing rocks, broken pottery and glass at us (I ended the night in the ER getting 5 stitches from a pottery shard). The businesses suffered extensive vandalism and theft. People were hurt, some badly, and lives were negatively impacted, some for years afterward. It was a disaster.

By the following day the business owners (those who suffered damage), the citizenry and us were calling for an end to the event. It took 6 months to convince the city leaders that trying again was a bad idea and even then we weren't completely sure some on the council weren't going to go behind our back and sanction it again until just days before, a full year after the debacle. It was an incredible struggle to make them understand the cost of allowing such an event was an order of magnitude higher than any revenue realized. Short term and localized versus long term and city wide.

The makeup of the crowd was overwhelmingly young, college aged and younger. Some of the girls were as young as 15. This behavior doesn't come about in a vacuum. Societal norms encourage it and lack of parental teaching and control permits it.

an Donalbane said...

Not exactly Norman Rockwell, huh?

nzgarry said...

I'm saddened to read this as I worked in Miami back in the '90's and had a lot of fun times on South Beach.
It's interesting to read Sixes comment. The students at our Otago University have a start of semester party each year which ALWAYS turns into a riot situation. It seems the freshmen consider it a right of passage to confront the local police with similar behaviour.
Also we have a problem with young people refusing to pull over and the ensuing car chase often kills someone.
The liberals blame the cops for chasing these miscreants in the first place (surprised?).
What on earth is wrong?.

MagiK said...

When Adult juveniles go rampaging they should be legal fair game for anyone with a spotter scope and ammo.

The message being, act like animals...be treated like animals.

I know I know too over the top....until they kill someone...oh wait its already happened.