Of all the dopey ideas...
As I see it, there are really only two ways "the army" could help Toronto battle gang violence:
Of course, this assumes you could overcome the formidable legal and political obstacles to both plans of action. Let me know when you see those winged pigs overhead.
To all our readers outside of The Centre of The Universe (a.k.a. The Greater Toronto Area), welcome to the sorry state of municipal politics around here. The line for incompetents forms to the left, nutcases to the right.
Update: OK, you know you're a few Fruit Loops short of a box when Mel freakin' Lastman is calling you insane - and he's right:
Someone needs to remind the good councillor to keep up on his meds.
- Cordon off the affected neighbourhood to eliminate infiltration or exfiltration, then sweep every single house, car, and public place inside that boundary. That would have the unique effect of uniting both civil libertarians and social justice advocates in opposition to the CF.
- Forcibly enlist anyone suspected of gang involvement, and let the training system grind the crappy attitudes, habits, and behaviour out of them. Which would have the same general effect as the first item, in terms of the attending shitstorm.
Of course, this assumes you could overcome the formidable legal and political obstacles to both plans of action. Let me know when you see those winged pigs overhead.
To all our readers outside of The Centre of The Universe (a.k.a. The Greater Toronto Area), welcome to the sorry state of municipal politics around here. The line for incompetents forms to the left, nutcases to the right.
Update: OK, you know you're a few Fruit Loops short of a box when Mel freakin' Lastman is calling you insane - and he's right:
"We're not an army state. What the hell is he talking about?" Mr. Lastman said in a phone interview from Florida. "[Calling in the army for the snowstorm] was about help in moving people, getting people out so they could eat, so they could get a bottle of milk, so they could get to the hospital this is insane what he's saying."
Someone needs to remind the good councillor to keep up on his meds.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 2:56 p.m.
4 Comments:
There are ways to clean up crime in any large city, without involving the Armed Forces.
Toronto might want to study the way Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York during his two terms as Mayor. (And prior to that, as US District Attorney for New York, he led in the successful efforts to crush the Mafia "Five Families" of New York)
Reform from the top of the Police Department, getting rid of deadwood and promoting energetic reformers; implementing and sticking to a Zero Tolerance policy for crime-actually prosecute AND imprison criminals, particularly gang bangers; get more cops out of cars and in foot patrols of particularly crime-prone neighborhoods, communicating with the residents; put as much pressure on judges as possible to stop the revolving door treatment of criminals and start handing out real jail sentences.
As a result of these and other policies, overall crime rates were more than cut IN HALF from the start to the end of his two terms as Mayor.
There's much more to this, to describe how he lead in taking New York from the murder capital of the US to one of the safest cities in the US. Google for the fascinating and educational story of this.
(He also streamlined Municipal Government, taking on and beating the unions in bitter battles in doing so. He REDUCED tax rates in the city, courted business, was instrumental in bringing business and jobs into New York.)
I have lived my entire life within 1 hour of TO in 4 different cities/suburbs. Up until a few years ago I would always make a point of taking at least a weekend with the family, stay in a downtown hotel, visit a tourist attraction or 2, do some shopping etc. I haven't done this for at least 4 years, and avoid even doing any business there when possible. Not because I think there is any danger, but because I'm afraid stupidity might be contagious. Do you wear a filter mask?
This was clearly a rhetorical attempt to guilt the city politicians into helping out more seriously and less an actual request for troops.
The guy is clearly feeling overwhelmed and like no one is taking him serious... this got him into the news cycle for a couple of days. Good for him, good for his constituents.
dave: he also conducted an affair on the public dime, and stood by his chief of police who just got indicted by a grand jury.
Giorgio is an ex-NDP MPP, and has a long history of floating hilarious unworkable ideas. My personal favourite was to turn the Toronto Islands into a red-light district.
That would have been worth supporting just to see the frothy reaction it would have generated from the already-twitchy island-dwellers.
Other knee-slappers are spending $73,997 on his 2003 election campaign -- a seat for which he was acclaimed, having no opponents registered on the ballot.
He does good work with the Toronto Zoo, but is otherwise prone to coming up with pie-in-the-sky nonsense on a regular basis.
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