What hath Liberalism Wrought, Part......?

Is it time now for us to re-deploy from Chicago??

Chicago working to prevent repeat of deadly weekend

By DON BABWIN
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO (AP) -- Police planned to increase patrols and put SWAT officers and specialized units on the streets over the weekend, a show of force aimed at deterring violence like the three dozen shootings that left nine people dead last weekend.

"Weather permitting, we will have our helicopter up," said police spokeswoman Monique Bond, who said Thursday night was relatively quiet, with only four shootings, none fatal.

Meanwhile, religious leaders said they had persuaded some churches to open their doors in the afternoons and evenings to protect people from gunfire.

"We just picked up about four more churches in Austin (a neighborhood on the city's West Side) that's going to open their doors as a safe haven," said Ira Acree, an activist and pastor of the Greater St. John Bible Church.

On Friday, Mayor Richard Daley took the unusual step of calling together more than two dozen officials from the police department, schools, social service agencies and religious groups for a City Hall summit on the violence. Afterward, he said it was just the start of a continuing dialogue about how to combat violent crime.

And, in turning the attention to where it needs to be, Mayor Richard Daley took a courageous step:

A fired-up Daley blasted the gun industry and called on parents and adults to do their part by intervening to help troubled youth and by working to keep others on the right path.

Way to go, Dick. Way to stick it to those guns. We all know that they all sprouted legs and pulled their own triggers.

And Tio Hardiman, executive director of CeaseFire, an anti-violence group, said young people need help finding alternatives to the streets.

"We need to go right to the corners and find out what some of these young people want to do, identify some employers that are willing to hire maybe 30 from this neighborhood, 30 from another neighborhood and try to get them hired somewhere so then we can get them off the corners."

But Daley said joblessness does not justify violence.

"When the killing is done, you still don't have a job, in fact, it greatly decreases the chances that you ever ... will have a job," he said.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Instead of pointing the bony finger of indignation at the gun industry, why not look at yourself and other liberals in the mirror, Mayor Daley? Ever since the dawning of the Great Society, the State thought that they would be more fit to parent kids via taxpayer money than would their biological fathers.

Now the State may be good at plowing streets, picking up garbage, and repairing highways, but by now you should know that it sucks at fatherhood.

As my good friend, Steve Gottwalt, is fond of saying, "The best welfare program is a job, and the best social program is an intact family."

Yet, Pelosi, Reid and other liberals, with allegiances ever-invested in the Nanny State, think it's a good idea to take even more money from the local economy and "invest" even more of it in "government fatherhood" programs that have clearly been failures from day one; ironically lessening the chances even further that these youths will get jobs; even if they don't pull a trigger.

As I noted in my very first post on this blog, I saw the ugly effects of the Great Society, and of liberalism in general when I grew up in the Chicago area in the 1960s and 1970s.

And let me tell you folks, it ain't gettin' any prettier.