Greetings, Dear Reader,
I really do feel like I’m living in bizarro land sometimes.
No, liberals and conservatives who hate Flock cameras are not in agreement. Good lord.
WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, FLOCK OFF
Eighteen days after a CCTV camera recorded Iryna Zarutska dying in a massive pool of her own blood, future Mayor of Seattle Katie Wilson wrote that surveillance cameras were dangerous because “the Trump administration” would use them to harass “vulnerable” members of the public.
“Turning on more cameras won’t magically make our neighborhoods safer,” she wrote.
She’s right. The CCTV camera on the train that night did zilch to prevent Decarlos Brown Jr., a serial violent criminal with no fewer than 17 serious run-ins with the law, from slashing Zarutska’s throat and killing “that white girl.”
She’s also correct in assuming that, depending on the executive, such means of explicit public surveillance could be used for all sorts of nefarious purposes.
In the months after she made that statement, as the race for mayor heated up, several local reporters sought to get clarifying comments from her. Crime in Seattle was a growing problem. Certain crimes had even been caught on camera and led to charges. Was she not at all concerned about the safety of her citizens?
Wilson largely dodged the questions, which only made them ring louder in the public discourse.
Conservatives scoffed at the “foolish libs” like Wilson. At the time, conservative discourse on cameras was primarily focused on how bodycams had backfired tremendously for liberals who’d expected them to show rather frequent examples of police brutality. Instead, they consistently showed irrationally intransigent, painfully stupid, stupendously entitled people escalating what would otherwise have been routine encounters into full-blown violent felonies. The police were more often than not saintly in their patience, leading average viewers to celebrate when obnoxious “DINDU NUFFINS” would eventually get bodyslammed.
All this to say: The whole charade was a massive PR failure for the “Defund” Dems. They’ve learned! The row over Flock cameras, at least for liberals, is almost exactly the same.
They’re not concerned with stopping crime. After all, they’re right, cameras don’t stop crimes. The real effect they want to stop is the post-Zarutska effect. Recall, the public was whipped into an absolute frenzy watching peaceful Iryna collapse in her own blood. People dug into the liberal criminal justice structure and found judges with crackerjack box credentials and no law experience. They found (Soros) prosecutors willing to let violent extremists back out into the public.
The real problem is downstream of the crime itself. If we actually locked up the people who do the crimes, there would be far fewer crimes (doubly so if we deleted them from the gene pool by running 10,000 volts through their bodies).
We conservatives may have similar concerns about the abuse of Flock cameras, but we are not the same.
Have you guys already forgotten Covid? Do you remember police banging on church doors because someone simply observed too many people attending mass? Do you recall maniacs assaulting people in grocery stores over failure to wear a mask?
Imagine this: You’re raking your lawn outside maskless and suddenly police pull up. They want to know why you aren’t following Covid guidelines. How’d they know? There’s a Flock camera on the utility poll next to your home. It pipes info to AI that automatically recognizes faces without masks and alerts the police.
If you want to stop crimes, start imprisoning people for long sentences. Hell, I’d be for publicly caning people. Let’s whip Decarlos Brown’s heinie between the under and main cards of a UFC match on Saturday night.
That would undoubtedly send a message: The social cost for being violently anti-social is back in action!
The way to stop crimes is to actually stop them. Stop decriminalizing public nuisances, like smoking pot or booting heroin in plain view of the public. You want “harm reduction” for addicts? I can’t think of a better program than 180 days in jail.
Put cops on the streets and empower them to arrest people. Put prosecutors in office who actually prosecute people. Put judges on the bench who sentence them properly.
What about missing children, Flock and its conservative supporters might ask. You’re attempting to tug on my heart strings, but it won’t work. You want fewer trafficked children? Seal the border. Arrest and deport MS13 and Tren de Aragua. Stick the heads of convicted pedophiles underneath the guillotine blade on live TV … but only after the caning.
Get completely medieval. Then film that. I’m game for it!
The problem isn’t too few cameras, it’s too many invertebrates in the justice system.
Get rid of the softies and you’ll get rid of the crimes.
WHAT I’M READING
Outdoor Retail Giant Sues Trump For Shrinking Two National Monuments
The admin’s been making moves with national parks and monuments.
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EXCLUSIVE: New Poll Shows Majority Of Texans Oppose Flock Cameras
Not surprising. Still telling.
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Woah.
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