Murder, Mayhem, And Violence In America - Why Can't We Be More Like Norway?

The murder rate in the United States is almost ten times that of Norway, and the rate in most violent cities in America, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit, is much, much higher. Granted, we are not El Salvador and Honduras whose rates beggar comparison; but then again America is supposed to be a developed country.  One expects murders, gang killing, rapes, violent assaults, and assassinations in Central America and in the sinkholes of Africa, but not here. 

 

Just a few years ago the Nation's Capital, Washington, DC had a murder rate of over 60 per 100,000 approaching Third World levels.  Jamaican crews and local-hire gangs killed each other regularly and randomly - turf wars, vendettas, and long-standing market share squabbles were only the loudest bang-bang episodes in the city's ghettoes.  Individual murders, accidental drive-by shootings, family disputes, and playground fights added to the total.  

The current Mayor and City Council added to the violence by raising the thresholds for crime - what once were felonies are now misdemeanors, and police have been instructed to act with consideration, compassion, and tolerance - 'Too many black people have been killed and we don't want you adding to the body count', said city officials, opening ghetto doors and saying, 'Free at last'.  Not surprisingly the crime rates skyrocketed, and households in once secure areas of the city started triple locking their doors. 

Liberal jurisdictions are reconsidering 'Defund The Police' initiatives, but the damage has already been done.  Inner city communities already dismally dysfunctional are having a field day now that there were few restraints on violence and criminal behavior and the endemic inviolability of violence, always 

 

Serial killings, mass murders, and assassinations of high public figures are common.  In recent memory there have been attempts on the lives of Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, Ford, and now Trump.  Lesser known Presidents, McKinley and Garfield were targeted.  Perhaps the most remembered political murders in US history was that of Abraham Lincoln. 

Nothing seems to work.  Liberal Congressional representatives cry for gun control, but the country is awash in illegal arms, and a ban would only enrich the traffickers.  More importantly, the problem with extreme violence in America is the intent.  Ever since the days of the Wild West, disputes have been settled violently.  In those times cowboys wore six-shooters on their hips, as much a part of their outfits as ten-gallon hats.  The vast prairies and range lands had no civil justice system, so the settling of the West was only a question of who got their first and who had the most firepower. 

So, are the inner-city murderers heir to the outlaws of the Old West?  Is there something internally permissive in America about the use of violence to settle disputes over wealth, territory, or women? Yes and no.  There most certainly is violent, quick-on-the-draw mentality that has only gotten worse since Billy the Kid.  Al Capone was certainly the heir to or at least a sharing partner in America's bloody justice.  The killings in Chicago were far more extensive than any in the wide open spaces of the West. 

It is no coincidence that the Godfather movies have been such perennial favorites - not only are they great stories, but are all about honor, natural justice, and the pursuit of power.  Killing someone in revenge for their murder of one of your family was not only justified, but necessary.  The movies appealed to a natural primitivism and the suggestion that we all are like Don Corleone. 

And so we are, but the comparison does not stop with the Don.  Human beings have settled affairs with violence since the first human settlements, from the first jawbone of an ox to the most advanced military assault weapon.  Peace is only a coincidental, temporary construct conditioned by circumstances.  Norway until recently has been a small, culturally homogeneous country influenced by Luther and the Church, and encouraged to share with neighbors because they were all alike.  

The famous Pax Romana had nothing miraculous to it.  The Roman Empire was simply unmatched on the battlefield and brilliant at managing conquered territories.  It was a question of military and administrative genius - a rare combination, and as history has shown, a one-off, an anomaly. 

So it is not that America is violent, the world is violent.  Human nature is violent.  Violence diminishes as parity increases.  The US and the Soviet Union never went to war because of 'mutually assured destruction'.  Peace in European Medieval and Renaissance Wars resulted either when one adversary was defeated or when there was a stalemate. Killing of American Indians stopped only when they were all dead or in reservations and no longer a threat to Westward Expansion. 

Violence in America's slums continues because, unlike El Salvador which has enacted a military, extra-judicial sweep of its most violent areas and incarcerated thousands or the regime of Duarte in the Philippines which did the same thing, the United States still believes in compromise, thus allowing the inner cities to continue to fester.   If there really were a zero tolerance policy to the criminality of Anacostia, one of the worst inner city areas of Washington, crime would stop.  Right now there is neither stalemate nor victory. 

Progressives contend that restrictive measures are not the answer.  Black people must be understood.  After all, they still suffer from systemic racism - i.e. the ills of slavery and Jim Crow are still with us today.  That of course is whistlin' Dixie.  It has been over 250 years since the end of the Civil War, seventy since the end of most segregation, and sixty since the Civil Rights Act.  The dysfunction and incivility of the inner city has nothing to do with legacy but an endemic ethos of entitlement fostered and encouraged by progressive policies.  

Inner city violence is not because of racism, but at least in large part due to an erosion of majority values, an ethos of me-too aggressiveness, and permissive onlookers.   Decades of 'compassionate consideration' have shown no results, and the ghettoes of Washington are still ghettoes 

Serial killings, mass murders, and assassinations are a white thing in America, and there have been no good explanations for it.  It certainly stems from the same American ethos of violence, explored above - i.e. that Americans have always settled affairs at the end of a gun - but why should whites gravitate to this particular resolution of grievances?

 

Cynics joke that black people have enough on their plate with all the killings and mayhem in the ghetto; but their criminal psychopathology might be of the same order but expressed differently. Most all mass murderers have a history of serious mental disturbance - abusive parents, sexual failure, dismal visions of themselves, etc.  Black killers may have the same levels of psychopathology, but dealt with and expressed in different ways. 

As far as the Pax Romana balance is concerned, once again with opening of the doors of mental institutions and letting the madmen loose has only increased the chances of social violence.  Plus the fact that under the new progressive aegis of 'inclusivity', the mentally ill are considered no different than anyone else, so special surveillance would be intrusive and an abridgment of their civil rights. 

Go figure.  The would-be assassin of Donald Trump was a fucked-up white boy just like all the rest, so the tale continues. 

Violence in America? On the whole when you consider Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler; or in the context of El Salvador and Honduras; or the lawless, murderous capitals of Africa; or the decapitating brutality of ISIS and its clones, we are a relatively tame place.  

 

This is by no means to explain away or justify it.  God knows, I triple-lock my doors at night too.