Community

There was a bit of excitement a couple of weeks ago in the suburb where I have lived since the spring of 1995. I should make it clear that this is a working-class to middle-class suburb on the north-eastern fringe of San Antonio, a city which has pretensions to being Democrat-run and a smidge on the libby-lefty side. After all, this place did spawn Julian Castro, of whom I am convinced there is a picture in that Great Universal Dictionary in the sky next to the definition of that German word which means “a face in need of a good punching”. San Antonio may be well stocked with representatives of the lunatic left, but we are pretty far from being Austin, and the fact that one cannot throw a rock in this place without hitting at least four retired colonels and a dozen retired senior NCOs (Army and Air Force, primarily) – well, that keeps a ration of sanity in play. I’ve only spotted two signs for Beto “Blotto” O’Rourke lately, for whatever that counts for.

The houses in the development tend to be small, and relatively affordable for people with moderately-paid jobs or a retirement income; I’d guess, from observing the various lawn signs over the years, that just about all are lived in by owners. Most of the houses are well-cared cared for; a few have spectacular gardens. The trees planted by the original developers are all well-grown, now. There are only a handful of rentals. The talk among the neighbors is that the neighborhood is desirable, in a quiet, unspectacular way, being close to various bases, good public schools, and shopping centers. I’d guess that the racial makeup of the neighborhood tracks very closely with the national average, with a tilt towards slightly more Hispanics; this is Texas, after all.
We have pretty much the same kind of petty crime that happens everywhere, or so I suspect; teenagers egging cars, theft of packages from mailboxes and doorsteps, drunk driving, and speeding; for a time six or seven years ago there were rumors of a peeping tom. The most spectacular crime was a double murder almost six years ago … and then there was last week’s ruckus. A deeply substance-addled moron took it into his head to work his way along the street (a well-traveled and well-lit street which traverses the subdivision), breaking into cars parked in driveways, looking for items of small value to steal. We suspect one of the rental houses is tenanted by a free-lance entrepreneur dealing in illicit recreational substances. Just about everyone on the street adjacent suspects this as well. No one will be the least surprised when they are busted by the police, except possibly the absentee owner of the house; likely this home-based enterprise was what drew said moron into the neighborhood to start with. Although the guy did think far enough ahead to station is equally substance-addled girlfriend act as lookout, he began this burglarious project at an hour when people were beginning to get up, go through their early morning routine, and depart for work. One of the vehicles broken into was the work truck of a guy who installs cable TV, from which he grabbed a bunch of tools and gear. And then, he went to the front door of the house where the truck was parked – and tried to steal the doorbell camera! Which resulted in a lovely picture of our Suburban Criminal Mastermind, with a stack of stolen items in his other hand. He didn’t get the doorbell camera, BTW, but the picture was posted on the Next Door Neighborhood app almost at once, so most of the neighbors were following this saga with appreciative interest.

The owner of the work truck, and another neighbor whose vehicle had also been broken into, gave chase almost immediately, the aspiring Criminal Mastermind vanished down a side street, outdistancing the pursuers for a time. They eventually found him, passed out on a lawn, hog-tied him with an extension cord, and called the police – who when they arrived were generally appreciative to find their job of apprehending a suspect already accomplished. This interlude was the talk of the neighborhood, naturally; we even had a television news crew visiting again. I’m fairly certain that if word has gotten around, it will be a while before another free-lance, substance-addled moron sees breaking into vehicles as the solution to his cash-flow problem.
And the reason that I am ruminating on this small incident? By coincidence, it was the very week that Victor Davis Hanson wrote,

“I live on a farm beside a rural avenue in central California, the fifth generation to reside in the same house. And after years of thefts, home break-ins, and dangerous encounters, I have concluded that it is no longer safe to live where I was born. I stay for a while longer because I am sixty-five years old and either too old to move or too worried about selling the final family parcel of what was homesteaded in the 1870s.”

The rest of his post outlined some of the awful, unchecked and unpunished criminality over the past twenty years which has led him to that sad conclusion: vandalism, destructive trespass, rampant looting of practically everything not nailed down … everything. And local law enforcement seems unwilling or incapable of remediating the situation. VDH’s community has reverted to a lawless jungle. It is no longer a self-organizing, functional place, where neighbors can look to each other, and to local authorities for defense and redress. When the lawless element can intimidate and overwhelm the law-abiding – indeed, when the authorities appear to take the side of the criminals – the law abiding will leave. With sadness and regret, but they will leave. My community still functions – and for that I am grateful.

11 thoughts on “Community”

  1. CA was quite sane and well functioning until the late 1990s. And then within a decade it had gone completely over the edge. Don’t think it can’t happen to TX.

    One guardrail is that there is no income tax, and the legislature can’t impose one. That cutoff of money source will help prevent too much lefty lunacy.

    I know this will never happen, but what TX should be doing is leading a push for a constitutional amendment to abolish “one person one vote” rules for state legislatures. It is the red state most at risk from the overwhelming bias towards urban centers in distributing political power. If the state senate was based on counties, not population, then as Houston & Dallas continue to grow in size relative to the rest of the state, they won’t be able to dominate the entire state legislature. I don’t know any other bulwark strong enough to withstand rural/urban growth disparities.

  2. Billionaire Steyer has funded a couple of initiatives to try to make Arizona into California.

    The rich internationalist left is trying to make all states into uniparty, preferably with unsustainable taxes and regulation.

    I still have not figured out why they do this.

  3. Someone I know here a bit north of the Seattle area found a drug addict on his back porch last week. The encounter ended with the addict face-down on the porch, waiting for the police to arrive. He left his stolen motorcycle on the street, and had a bunch of warrants out. They arrested him and took him away, but as it turned out later, did not book him. The jail will not take people “with heroin or meth in their system.” The police do not know where he now is. My friend a day later found the addicts backpack on his roof, full of pill bottles and a machete. So it looks like drug use is a “get-out-of-jail-free” card. We’re almost on our own.

  4. This is what the Left means when it speaks of “human flourishing” and “moral progress.” I guess we’d all better get used to it. It’s all part of the Brave New World they’ve concocted for us, and they’ve already made great progress in shoving it down our throats.

  5. “We’re almost on our own.”

    Yes and this is why Arizona feels pretty good these days.

    I have my CCW card in my wallet, although I don’t actually carry a gun. I have one in my car.

    I have a Colt .45 in my bedside table and our little street has only six houses.

    People are spread out and the scenery, not the ocean that I spent so many years on, is pretty and worth looking at.

    Our home is on an acre and would cost almost ten times what we paid, if it was in California.

    It is almost finished.

    Lots of wildlife around. The neighbors have seen deer. We had a big bobcat in the yard last February. The six foot walls did not inhibit it.

  6. In a lot of ways we are on our own – as the first defense in our neighborhoods. At at least the authorities are not yet up to prosecuting individuals who take the initiative against thieves and aggressive trespassers, as they seem to be doing in England these days.

  7. Over the last several months Sgt Mom has posted several essays that left me pondering the data she provided. It seemed to me that she testified to not only hearing second hand but directly witnessing results of an invasion. These results did not lead to merely inconveniences, some even major. Instead they not only immediately involved threats up to the level of lives lost, but predicted that level as a probable outcome in coming years. Given her awareness of history, her experiences of other cultures, and what I gather about her worldview from reading her posts, I tend to give her summary a lot of weight.

    Meanwhile Mike K’s comments on Kalifornia bring chuckles of agreement. Tho growing up in So Cal and very much appreciating all of its pluses, providential circumstances (job changes) brought me elsewhere. Now, tho my reasons for a change of state (pun for the physics savvy) differs from Mike’s, I concur with his decision to avoid enduring much less supporting left coast lunacy.

    Then there are the comments of Death 6, of Subatoi, of AVI, and of a few others.

    Makes me wonder if the country really is approaching a flex point, a knee in the curve, and identifiable direction change.

    With all that in mind, a few moments ago I read about an interesting bet (link below). Perhaps worthy of discussion.

    https://www.econlib.org/a-bet-on-civil-war/

  8. Roy Kerns Says:
    September 5th, 2018 at 2:51 pm

    I rather suspect that it will involve 4th generation warfare, with most of the participants non-state actors, and 5th generation warfare where specific individuals and groups are targets for elimination by any means necessary.

    It is not going to be pleasant. And it will not be very far in the future.

    Subotai Bahadur

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