Civilization Was Nice While It Lasted

They were told not to get involved. Call the police. So they don't get involved. And the police are too far away to do any good. Manhattan street-brawl murder is a surreal sign of what's to come

New Yorkers witnessed a surreal sight last week, an alien scene that made residents question the city’s future livability.

No, not wildfire smoke that turned the sky orange but a slow-motion murder unfolding in a Manhattan crosswalk as rush-hour passersby went about their day.

Call the police on two minority men? You are a Karen of the first order and will be canceled, up to and including losing your job. A couple of years ago we were told that knife fights are a normal thing and there is no reason to call the cops. (See the Karen reason above if you do call the cops.)

And there is probably a portion of "Criminal Justice Reform" blame to this incident.

The criminal justice system failed: The alleged killer is barely a year off a one-year prison sentence, incurred when he … repeatedly stabbed someone in Manhattan.

He should have been charged with attempted murder, but a one year sentence says "Plea Deal" to me. Because putting violent criminals in jail is unfair. (And too much damn work for the likes of a Manhattan DA!) Now he's going to be charged with murder. Unless there is another plea deal offer in the works.

So violent fights in the middle of the street, in the middle of rush hour. Yeah, that is perfectly normal in modern America, or something.

Of course if you ask anyone (on the Left) they will tell you that Crime Is Down™. Pay no attention to the 2 murders in midtown that happened in broad daylight this year. Believe what the Left tells you to believe.

Major felony crime citywide through mid-May was nearing 20-year records, 42% above 2019 levels.

But we are reprimanded: We should not believe our eyes.

So some don’t — and walk on.

As always, things like this bring to mind "The Second Coming" by W. B. Yeats. (Text after the break.)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

It was written in 1919, after the First World War.