Great passage in the Washington Examiner from Tim Carney about the rise and fall of good men, weak men and bad times. He cited an old saying: “Strong men lead to good times. Good times lead to weak men. Weak men lead the bad times.” This saying turns out to be deadly accurate in analyzing what happened in our biggest cities over the last few decades.
Weak men in the 1970s and 1980s allowed violent crime to run rampant in our cities. These bad times led to strong men in the nineties, such as Mayor Rudy Giuliani (regardless of his post-mayoral activities) being elected who implemented tough policies against violent criminals, which eventually led to good times.
But good times led to complacency and a tendency to forget the bad times. Thus, it led to weak men like Mayor Bill de Blasio coming to the fore. And these weak men led to horrifically weak policies that decriminalized shoplifting and transit fare evasion, as well as acquiescing to homeless encampments — all eventually leading to dystopian bad times in our cities.
But hope remains, because the bad times that we’ve experienced over the last few years will lead to strong men and women who will bring back the good times.
And when that happens, let’s hope that we don’t become complacent again and let weak men such as de Blasio destroy the good times that we recreated.