Some cities have “National Gardening Week”, or “Adopt-a-Cat Weekend”, or “Let’s Clean up the Park Day”. Not Baltimore.  They’re more basic. Last week, Baltimore had “Please don’t kill anybody weekend”.

Yep, it’s true. Sponsored by Baltimore Ceasefire, a general plea was issued that “no one kills anyone” during the 72-hour weekend. The “ceasefire” didn’t last long, of course, with three people shot, two fatally. I guess the gangs, thugs and street murderers didn’t get the word. As a result, the city managed to keep up with its “one-murder-per-day” pace in 2017. With 223 days so far in 2017, Baltimore’s homicide total this year is 219, another record high. And on Thursday, Baltimore saw seven shootings and three deaths in 24 hours.

After that, some clueless Baltimore politicians propped themselves up and said the city needed a “cultural change” no need for a “political change.” Haven’t Baltimore leaders, who should be impeached for misconduct, shown themselves to be flat wrong in everything they touch?

The common denominator for wrongdoing in Baltimore is political leftists generally, and the Democrats specifically. Baltimore is like most large American metropolitan cities: it has been run for 50 years by Democrats. Baltimore is a Democrat failure and a Democrat problem, not an American problem. Barack Obama won Baltimore with 88 percent of the vote. A Democrat political machine controls the city, the police, the schools, and the unions. All this means there is no hope that the citizens of Baltimore are in a position to solve their self-inflicted problems.

You would think that, as time passes, what is factually conclusive would become obvious to all. But not in Baltimore. Everyone knows who the culprits are in Baltimore, and it’s not private discrimination, income inequality, police brutality, or even demographic trends. What created Baltimore’s ghettos was government—federal, state and local. Governments passed racial laws, politically correct policies, and regulations that pushed black Americans into poverty. A half-century or more of purposeful public policy has led to the riots in Baltimore, and the street killings, and the impoverishment of its black population.

A significant event happened in Baltimore in 1967. The city government was taken over by a long line of Democratic mayors who have been in power since then, inflicting their policies and ideas on the city. All the members of Baltimore’s city council are Democrats. For 50 years, Baltimore has suffered under an always-expanding public sector. Private businesses have been engulfed by smothering government regulations and taxes. Bond financing by governments stuck future taxpayers with devastating long-term expenses.

Corruption and blatant cronyism have marked most of the city’s political administrations over the years, starting especially in 1971. Money was squandered on lavish government salaries, payments to cronies, major cost overruns and no-bid contracts in the housing sector, and 13 federal convictions and other incarcerations didn’t solve the problems. During the 1990s, 120,000 people left Baltimore.

A left-wing culture and noxious government dependence has caused the rot in Baltimore (and other major cities in America). Democrats and their grievance campaigns have successfully imposed a dependence culture, and created the city-wide belief that “somebody owes us something”. And anger is the result when you believe you are not receiving what you are told you’re owed. As bad, the mainstream media has gone along with it, reinforcing the imagined victimization. Hence the riots, looting, property destruction and killings.

Conditions will not change in Baltimore until voters bring in accountable leaders. But that will not happen any time soon. Meanwhile, anarchy, chaos and more murders will be the news in the city. As Breitbart News suggested two years ago, the citizens of Baltimore should “buy more guns until you can move to a city not run by those who see rioting as part of the Master Plan.”

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John R. Smith

John R. Smith is chairman of BIZPAC, the Business Political Action Committee of Palm Beach County, and owner of a financial services company. He is a frequent columnist for BizPac Review.

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