The crime rate is way up. What is the best way to prevent crime in America?

Every politician wants to be known as “tough on crime.” No one wants to be seen as “soft on crime.”

The Republicans especially like to rage at crime, especially when the criminals are poor and/or black — not so much when the criminals are white and Republican.

You don’t hear the same Fox News outrage when it comes to Trumpers Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Steve Bannon, and all the other traitors who defended and/or attempted what previously was unthinkable in America –a coup — so unthinkable, that many people still refuse to believe the crime they have seen actually occurred.

We also don’t hear much from Republicans regarding gun control while guns are used in thousands of crimes, annually,

Even a respected judge is not immune to “soft-on-crime” criticism. Here are excerpts from a Fox News article written by none other than Sen. Josh Hawley, who as a coup encourager and thus a traitor to the U.S., is not the best one to complain about criminals.

Supreme Court nominee Judge Jackson’s soft-on-crime sentences are disturbing By Josh Hawley

“While serving on the Sentencing Commission, she (Judge Jackson) supported eliminating the existing child pornography mandatory-minimum sentence.)

(She opposes all mandatory minimums as being blind to circumstances, and substituting generalizations for specifics.)

“Those views carried over to Judge Jackson’s time on the bench. Over and over again, she handed down sentences well below the congressionally endorsed Sentencing Guidelines recommendations.}

(Not to mention the many times all judges do that — it’s the purpose of using human judges rather than robots — and the many times she handed down sentences above those guidelines, but why quibble about facts when you are a mean-spirited Trumper writing for Fox News?)

“Unfortunately, Jackson is not the first judge to do that.”

Right, judges normally impose a range of punishments.

“But she stands out because she also consistently sentenced child pornography offenders below even what liberal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., were seeking.”

(It wasn’t consistent, and prosecutors always ask for the maximum. In most cases, judges look at circumstances and don’t grant the maximum the prosecutors seek. All of Hawley’s shrieking is about normal judicial procedure. The notion that Judge Jackson encouraged child pornography stretches credulity.)

Hawley knows all this, but he is a renowned liar writing for Fox. They are Trumpers, and we expect nothing less from them.

But even the most softhearted, squishy Democrats have no idea what “tough on crime” really means:

The Washington Post
The 5-Minute Fix
By Amber Phillips with Caroline Anders

Crime is looking like it’s going to be a big issue in November’s midterm elections — and that has Democrats on the defensive.

“We must invest in our police departments,“ said Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), a former police chief who is running for Senate in Florida.

Ask virtually anyone, winged right or left, about being tough on crime, and you will hear such suggestions as:

• More police
• More money spent on policing
• More laws
• Tougher judges
• Longer jail sentences
• Harsher jail conditions

Everything has to do with increasing the punishment for committing crimes and nothing for reducing the cause of crimes.

Republicans especially are interested in punishment, especially of the aforementioned poor blacks:

It (crime) has been fed and fueled in multiple ways by the Democratic Party’s far-left turn,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said of the country’s recent crime wave.

Strange, how Mitch seems unconcerned about a mob of people attacking the nation’s capital, attempting to overthrow the United States government, and even causing deaths and injuries. And for certain, he is not worried about gun crime.

To Mitch, criminals are street, not white-collar, criminals, who are born bad and born black.

Syracuse Police Handling of 8-Year-Old Black Boy Reminds Us How Anti-Black Blue Lives Can Be

From 2019 to 2020, the homicide rate in the United States jumped nearly 30 percent, according to FBI data, marking the largest increase since we started keeping track of those stats. 

Third Way, a Democratic think tank, found that cities (run by Democrats and GOP-led) in red states were hit harder by the 2020 murder surge than blue states were.

Democrats who have been recently elected as mayors in liberal cities such as New York and Seattle have campaigned on being tough on crime.

“There is little doubt that the sheer stress and strain of the pandemic, not to mention the economic dislocation, helped to push up homicide rates,” criminologist Richard Rosenfeld told Witte.

Democrats are nervous about getting tagged as anti-police — again. This time, they’re already campaigning on more funding for police departments.

And none of this “tough on crime” blustering addresses the root cause of most street crime: Poverty. Poverty is the mother of crime.

Yes, crime has many parents — that “stress, strain, and economic dislocation” to name three. But walk through a wealthy area, any wealthy area, and you will fear street crime far less than you would in an impoverished area.

Republicans are adamant in their desire to apprehend and punish street criminals. But while apprehending and punishing after the fact may be their focus, Republicans have no desire to address prevention.

They are adamant in their opposition to gun control, to keep guns out of the hands of potential criminals, and to reduce the lethality of the guns being sold, which would have a significant impact.

Similarly, Republicans vote against anti-poverty benefits, i.e.  Social Security for All, Medicare for All, School lunch programs, housing aid, food aid, college for all, and the myriad other easily affordable (by the federal government) programs that would reduce poverty and crime in America.

The right dismisses them all with one word, “socialism,” then blindly continues to chatter on about the need for tougher police and harsher sentences.

(White-color crime and political crime are OK, except if found on a Biden laptop)

Even the Democrats have been dragged into the false rhetoric:

“Fund the police,” Biden roared at his State of the Union address this spring, to bipartisan applause.

Yes, fund the police. We do need well-trained, well-paid police. Digging recruits from the bottom of the barrel, and then without training, setting them loose on the public, is no way to be tough on crime.

Fund the police, but also fund the people.

Our Monetarily Sovereign federal government, having the infinite ability to spend dollars, also has the infinite ability to cure poverty in America without levying one cent in taxes or causing inflation.

There is a reason why poor areas of the country endure more street crime than do wealthy areas. It’s not that poor people are innately more dishonest. They simply have less money and less of what money can buy. 

They have the same desires the rich have, but fewer means of satisfying those desires. So they steal. It has been the same for time immemorial. 

We can curse the darkness by arresting a hungry kid for stealing food from a grocery store, and locking him up forever, or we can light a candle by giving him food, shelter, and reasonable hope for his future.

For some reason, we lately have shown a greater desire to beat down than to lift up, and that truly is wrong. It is wrong morally and it is wrong as an effective solution.

Beating down may satisfy the blood-lust of the mob, but it will not reduce crime, and it will turn on the innocent.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

1. Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
2. Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics. Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps: Ten Steps To Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone
3. Social Security for all
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
5. Salary for attending school
6. Eliminate federal taxes on business
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 
8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.
9. Federal ownership of all banks
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY