A recurring theme of the left’s is that they — the leftists — aren’t any more radical or different than leftists have always been, and that it’s the right-wing conservatives who have shifted radically away from the political center. Nothing could be further from the truth. Take for instance, the current view the left holds of law enforcement.
According to the left, police routinely patrol inner city America in search of people of color to kill or place in mass incarceration. The situation is so bad federal oversight – or complete abolition of local police departments – is required. It’s notable the rise of Antifa occurred around the same time such suggestions emerged. (In the left’s imagination, if police departments went away would Antifa become the de facto enforcement arm of left-leaning local governments?) How did the left feel about law enforcement say, almost thirty years ago?
If what the left is saying is true, thirty years ago there should have been plenty of pop culture – the left all but dominates pop culture – references to increased federal oversight or abolition of local police departments. There are of course no such references. That’s because thirty years ago, the left was actually complaining about a LACK of police presence in urban communities! The then-far-left rap group Public Enemy even made a song about it, “911 is a joke in your town”, which came out in 1990. Check out some of the lyrics:
“Now I dialed 911 a long time ago, don’t you see how late they’re reacting, they only come and they come when they wanna, so get the morgue truck and embalm the goner, they don’t care cause they stay paid anyway”.
And the refrain:
“So get up, get, get down, 911 is a joke in your town, get up, get, get down, late 911 wears the late crown”
Such language was the left’s complaint with not only law enforcement but all emergency services back in 1990 – that there wasn’t enough to go around! Yet today, the left’s demands are quite different.
Tell me again who drifted far from the political center?
Image: CCO Creative Commons; https://pixabay.com/en/police-crime-scene-blue-light-850054/
