Welcome to Buckxit (Ben Hendren/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
More and more Americans are desperate to redraw their country. In California and Texas, campaigners want their states to secede. In the Pacific Northwest, farming communities in Oregon’s rural, red counties want to split and form part of a reconfigured state called “Greater Idaho”. One recent poll found that 40% of Biden voters and 50% of Trump voters would rather blue and red states break apart and go it alone.
And nowhere does this sort of reconfiguration stand a better chance of success than in Atlanta, where an organised and well-funded group of residents is pushing for Buckhead, the city’s wealthiest neighbourhood, to break away from the de facto capital of the South and form a municipality of its own. But while ‘Buckxit’ may be a local campaign to create a city of just 80,000 residents, it also goes to the heart of the challenges facing cities — and the Democrats who run them — across America.
In Buckhead, as in so many places across the country, calls for secession are being driven by one factor: crime. “We feel like we’re living in a war zone,” says Bill White, who is running the campaign. White says the problem has driven many Buckhead residents out of town. “They’re not leaving because of the potholes,” he tells me. “It’s crime, crime, crime.”
Atlanta is one of the many major American cities that has seen violent crime spike in recent years. Between 2019 and 2020, the city’s murder rate rose by 62%. The problem has worsened further this year; as of June, the city’s homicide rate was up by another 58%, while in the first half of 2021, shootings rose by 40%. Meanwhile, the number of arrests has nearly halved. The city’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, once a rising star in the Democratic Party who was even talked about as a possible Vice-Presidential pick for Joe Biden, has been chastened by the crime explosion on her watch and is not seeking re-election.
Were Buckhead to go its own way, it would take with it a fifth of Atlanta’s current population and threaten to do real damage to the city’s finances. According to one estimate, Atlanta would lose 38% of its tax revenue were it to gain city status. David Sjoquist, Professor of Economics at Georgia State University and an expert of public finances, predicts grave fiscal consequences from Buckxit, as well as a tangle of lawsuits over a move that is without precedent; no neighbourhood in Georgia has ever broken off to form its own city. “Atlanta would be much worse off,” he tells me.
Buckxit, then, has the potential to be fiscally ruinous for a major American city. And Atlanta’s political and business elite are firmly opposed. Bottoms argues that Buckxit would not solve the city’s problems: “Even if an impermeable wall were built around this proposed new city, it would not address the Covid crime wave that Atlanta, the state and the rest of the nation are experiencing,” read one recent statement. “That is why the measure is opposed by many residents and the business community. A better use of this energy would be to work together to address the challenges facing our city, not divide Atlanta.” Every candidate in the crowded field to replace Bottoms agrees.
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SubscribeSo let me guess – Democrat strongholds who bend the knee to BLM, want to defund the police, treat them like the enemy yet still expect them to go out every day and face heavily armed criminals who like to run around shooting people while claiming they’re victims of oppression – are now wondering why normal decent citizens want to get the hell out? Quelle surprise!!!
Yes. I agree with you as well. We are saying the same things. There is a problem. Somebody has to solve it. I can’t think of any politicians who have the guts to do so.
My issue with this discussion is that it is talking only about the problem, constantly defining the problem, picking the right words… But the same problems are still around us and are getting worse.
At the end of all this discussion today we will have comfortably decided that the problem is The Left. Then everyone will feel good. Problem solved.
Wrong. The left are currently in control of the narrative. But the wheel will probably turn eventually and I will resist the follies of that too. Right now the left IS the problem. but I think we largely agree on a lot.
As I said yesterday. The real issue is that our political world will now stumble from crisis to crisis – driven by the arrival of a new generation who do exactly the opposite of the previous lot. This extremism is dangerous.
I have also said many times that education and government is controlled by the unions, not the politicians. Ex-civil servants agreed with me. The BBC is controlled by union activists. As above, the activists are more dangerous than the governments.
Someone close to me is a teacher. She goes to union meetings and never speaks. Everything is agreed before the meeting. Someone else was a member of the Fire Brigade Union but refused to pay the political levy – it was an option.
It appears that politicians have for decades ignored the unions in the schools teaching our children leftist dogma. Are we now seeing the fruit of this?
Yes. Trotskyists took over teacher Training Colleges in the late 1960s and much of local government in the cities especially the education, housing and welfare departments. Pre 1960s one had to be honest and hardworking to obtain a council house and one would be expelled if one was a bad neighbour. Post 1960s it was based upon need, and the feckless are the most needy of all. Basically the Trotkyists undertook slumification.
I really feel like this comments section could do with a little less of Chris Wheatley
And here we come to the wonderful peak of UnHerd. Free speech is free speech as long as we all agree.
Over and out.
And that’s your 12th contribution on this one article today. I fear you’re suffering from over-exposure here sir, the principle of free speech shouldn’t be abused
Whose counting? I wasn’t aware of it until it was pointed out. Getting to the truth is not a matter of looking to the majority. One is free to ignore anything they do not agree with.
What are our individual free speech rations for the day? Are they consistent or do they change based on availability?
The sad part is that while it seems funny when you say it, the left are not going to see the joke at all.
But to sort a problem you have to at least know what the problem is to start with. Even when you have a solution you will meet plenty of opposition from the left. The thing is they are really fighting for their lives and the outcome is not apparent. I don’t think people are feeling good about this.
Yes, the Somewheres wanting to protest against the Anywheres – a bit like the Brexit referendum.
There’s much talk of civil war and/or secession in American news media these days. I don’t buy into either possibility because of the enormous practical barriers. But wealthy enclaves of major US cities splitting off and forming their own municipalities is certainly feasible though difficult.
And the ‘elite’ mentioned in this article are not the billionaires–the famous 1%. They’re the top 10 to 20% of US earners: professionals and people who built successful small businesses. The ones who will see their taxes rise under Biden while the billionaires will likely escape significant taxation once again.
The future of the US may be such local fragmentation and an increasingly ungovernable country where everyone goes their own way. Perhaps that’s what American civil war in the 21st century looks like.
Go their own way? The photo at the head of this article would have made a great little album/LP cover, some time ago now: Atlanta City Blues, or say, When You’re In Love With A Beautiful City (You know It’s Hard) by … Debtor Hook.
Or a great book cover “The Last 5 Cops in Atlanta”.
Okay, now that’s funny.
See my post below where I ask the question, “Who is responsible for this situation and don’t they also carry the responsibility for resolving it?”.
I don’t think Biden and co want to sort it. In a strange way judging by their behaviour they appear to want to mess it up. Isn’t that what marxists have always done before taking over?
Biden isn’t a Marxist; he’s an elderly liberal with no policies – except spending public money – to tackle the USA’s dire problems, crime among them.
And if he had the answers, his fellow-Dems would prevent his implementing them.
Much like Corbyn, Biden is beholden to the more radical elements within his party. To oppose them would result in a split much like we’re now seeing in the UK Labour Party with the Momentum group attacking anything Starmer says (although both groups in that scenario appear to be largely useless and unelectable).
Biden is an old man, he can afford to kick the can down the road for a couple more years but his successor is going to have a fight on their hands to try and steer the Democrat party back towards the centre
Insightful comments but I DO see the dissolution of the US (good), and a Civil War coming (bad, but perhaps inevitable). US is too big to govern, as is, arguably the EU, which is also close to splitting but not close to Civil War.
Some in the EU want to kick out Poland for various and sundry reasons, and the EU is simply too big and too unwieldy to govern. It also seems to lack “common values,” which indicates a split. The UK left. Maybe Scandinavia will leave, the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary, and Czech form some type of Central European alliance. Might be better. The unified EU lacks a common currency with many countries, i.e. Poland, Sweden, Denmark, but Greece and Finland both have the Euro? How does that make sense?
I don’t see how the dissolution of the US could be anything but disastrous. Since 1945 the US was the world’s most powerful country. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t too bad for most of the world. Standards have risen; life got better in most places.
If some country has to be the ‘world’s most powerful’ then which should it be? Does a world led by Russia appeal? China? India? Saudi Arabia?
The US has some lousy politicians but a great constitution. Its possible replacements just have lousy rulers.
Maybe. But I don’t want to be a citizen of a country where I hate half the country and vice versa. I see the continuation of this hatred as the worst possible result. Let’s call it a day.
And why is it so great to be “the world’s most powerful country?” The old-timers who served in the Korean War talked about how absolutely dirt poor Korea was–look at it today? China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty; the US had a “war on poverty,” but tens of millions–maybe 100mm+–live in poverty. Real poverty. And US infrastructure–REAL infrastructure crumbling. Bridges falling down or about to–no exaggeration. I’ve always felt that the discussion should be something like this:
To rebuild this road/bridge/power grid, it will cost $3billion, the equivalent of 1 week in Iraq, 10 days in Afghanistan…..
But US is a world leader, superpower, blah, blah, blah…..
There were studies a year or so ago that 30% of America (I think, a huge %, even if I am slightly off), would have real trouble coming up with $400 for an unexpected expense. The expectation was always that the next generation would be better than their parents. Game over. The next generation has zero expectation of that, and in many cases, is financially dependent on parents in 20s, 30s, 40s, even beyond. Younger guys live in the basement watching porn and playing video games because the new reality has kept them there. If a teen tries to kiss a girl and she doesn’t want it, he can be arrested for “sexual assault.” Easier and safer to watch porn. This is what the left has wrought.
And yet we are importing millions of desperately poor people every year–have you seen the Southern border? Education in NYC costs $28K/per year per child–maybe more with Corona $ thrown at the schools–yet the “product” is abysmal.
I simply don’t want to pay for any of this. I would prefer that the US–or whatever comes after–be more like Switzerland. Neutral, prosperous, common values even though 4 different languages and cultures. But all Swiss.
All empires decline. There is a reason that people speak Portuguese in South America and parts of Asia. There time is over, and the US is in steep, steep decline.
I may be early, but I’m not wrong. Lock and load.
Korea is an excellent example.
The south, under the wing of America, has a good standard of living, healthcare, press etc.
In the north people eat grass while the dictator executes anyone who gives him a funny look.
That was my case.
The irony is that (much of) America does NOT have the things you mention: good standard of living, healthcare, press, etc…..
Getting dramatically worse….
The North may be starving but the South is racing towards extinction. And their main cultural products seem to be Marxist films and androgynous boy bands.
Point made.
Perhaps we can trade with the eastern Europeans if they do leave? Their morals are far more acceptable to me than the EU’s. They know what marxism is and never ever want it again. They would do a lot of good in the right theatre.
As I mentioned in another one, the best approach is to limit the degree to which anyone tries to govern the whole country. That was how it was initially set up. By design, most of the governance was supposed to happen at the level of state and below. This trend of putting more and more governance powers at the federal level is a great driver of the problems. As I said elsewhere, it basically means that people in one area have to do things the same way as people 3,000 miles away want to do them. Even when the country was first founded and much smaller in territory and population, that concept couldn’t work (and you couldn’t even be 3,000 miles away from other citizens and still be in the country back then…). Let’s just go back to the feds focusing mostly on big issues like international affairs, interstate crime, ensuring that all states respect the rights of their citizens, and probably some regulatory issues that the modern world has made inevitable. Trying to force a single solution for so many problems on 330 million people is destined to create a lot of resentment. But even when the population was only a few million the founders saw that problem coming and tried to design a system to avoid it.
Bang on – devolution makes the most sense and would relieve a lot of pressure.
I would argue the best approach is to return to the federalism of the Constitution. It’s worth remembering the country was already very divided when it was born. In fact our current constitution is actually the second one, and it came about because initially it was looking like the whole project might fail.
The current one was very well designed, with specified powers to the federal government, and each of its three branches having their own specified role in using those powers. Everything else was to the states. It was for the simple reason that even back then the founders knew it would be difficult to find national solutions to so many issues due to the wide difference in opinion among regions, so the best solution was to let most things be decided at a local level.
Throughout the 20th century, however, more and more power has been creeping to the federal level, and to the executive branch in particular, mostly through the proliferation of federal agencies (almost all of which fall under the executive). This of course just raises the stakes on issues like presidential elections, supreme court justice confirmations, etc., and is one of the reasons these create so much more controversy than they used to. Putting more power at state level by default takes it away from the president and his branch, and also gives localities more ability to do things the way they want and not have to conform to how people 3,000 miles away want to do them. And that should mean less tension over a lot of things. It won’t perfectly cure it, of course. People in CA want to throw a fit if GA decides you have to provide an ID to vote (which ironically, NY requires to eat in a restaurant, but their former governor said it was wrong to require it for voting), even though this law does not affect them. But it will always be a smaller portion of the population who get upset over issues that don’t directly affect them. Putting too much power at the federal level means too many decisions affect everyone, and I think is one of the great contributors to modern division.
““Even if an impermeable wall were built around this proposed new city, it would not address the Covid crime wave that Atlanta, the state and the rest of the nation are experiencing,””
haha – Covid Crime Wave, come on….Covid Plandemic Response Crime Wave – I believe that. This social and economic dividing across USA is the goal of the current administration.
I know Atlanta – and so Decatur, Candler Park, Druid Hills, Emory, Inman Park, Ansley, and Midtown would want to close ranks and succeed as a new city if they could.
The Left is causing such division, hostility, crime, racism, welfare dependence, that Law Abiding people all across USA will be trying to collectivize and form communities where they control the Schools, Police, and Government.
A Conservative is just a Liberal who got mugged by reality. And this administration, via their Plandemic responce is mugging all the Liberals who have something to lose. The Inflation will destroy the Middle class and workers who save. The Debt created will likely cause a depression, and the money given out is addictive, and now this UBI kind of life style cannot be stopped – yet it will bankrupt the Country – so hard times are coming.
Divide and conquer? The well-educated Chinese and Japanese, if they were told by their boss, say, that they could choose to spend a few months working and living next year in either the USA or Germany, and that they could bring their family with them, they would choose Germany, I imagine, wanting to steer well clear of America. It’s a disaster for America, for what it has stood for, to see it going adrift as a result of the incompetence, resentment and spitefulness of the Left. (Even the hard Left in Germany are somewhat proud Germans). I don’t know if you agree with me. And I don’t know if any top economist worth his or her salt would disagree much with your outlook. Is the Left in America under some kind of illusion that the rest of the world is only waiting for America to prostrate itself in humble contrition in order for the world to move on? That nothing less than an experiment in completely transforming America’s society will do as a means to satisfy the rest of the world’s expectations of America? Is this how lowly half of America thinks of itself? The absurdity of it all is growing monthly.
I think you may be right. I’m thinking of re-emigrating back to Europe. America feels like a powder keg about to explode. The problem is I have more work opportunities and on a higher pay range than I would be back in Europe. On the other hand that might not mean much given the soaring rate of inflation here. Grocery and gas prices are scarily high at the moment, and the IRS wants to monitor any money transfers over $600. It just feels weird here, yet I’m also cautiously optimistic. I sense many Americans are sincerely fed up with the current state of affairs and maybe some positive changes are in the way. Although things may get worse before they get better….
I’m a Yank in Europe. I agree with your analysis but share none of your optimism. Many Americans are fed up, but the centre cannot hold….
Americans tried to stop it and voted in Trump and look how they were demonised for it. In the UK the British people resisted and voted to reject the globalist EU. Look how they have been treated. The globalist far left in an unholy alliance with globalist corporatists have infiltrated all our institutions and managed it almost entirely unchallenged for years and now they’ve reached critical mass. When democratic elections are considered illegitimate if they give the ‘wrong’ answer and the media become the mouthpiece of an ideology we’re in trouble.
Excellent analysis, but I’m beginning to think that the 2020 elections were not free and fair. First, my vote from abroad did not count (though I “voted” weeks in advance, did everything right.). Apparently there are 11mm Americans abroad. Second, there is no balanced news in America, only woke propaganda spewing forth on ALL social media and mainstream media except Fox. Without a free press there can be no real democracy.
Consider Twitter, and The Post story on the Hunter Biden laptop. At a time when this really matter, when it could show how fundamentally corrupt Sleepy Joe and his family is, all discussion was banned as “fake news?”
I saw an interview with Curtis Yarvin and he posed this excellent question: If The New York Times, NPR, FB, Twitter and all the rest were suddenly made government employees in a MINISTRY OF TRUTH, would anything change?
Consider the answer….
Isn’t it similar over here with the BBC, Independent and Guardian etc?
Just a point. It was very interesting to listen to Trump when he was campaigning. He mentioned over and over the word ‘Democracy’. Biden followed in his speeches.
The Trump definition of ‘democracy’ was the majority in an election. So, if Trump won by having a larger share of the vote, he wanted to follow the popular remit. This is dismissed on UnHerd as ‘Populism’ and considered to be the lowest of the low.
The Biden definition (also BJ and Labour) was to spend energy and time looking at the rights of minorities.
This is a very important distinction now because such a large number of the electorate are old. That makes a difference. Where I come from people always vote Labour “because of Margaret Thatcher”. That means an old population, which is bad for the future.
Where I come from people have always voted Conservative “because of Margaret Thatcher”. But not for much longer, I fear
We could do with her now
Why ? She was a brilliant Demolition Girl – but she couldn’t build, and didn’t.
She should have become a Baroness in 1985.
No we couldn’t. They always say that the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. The problem with Thatcher was that she eventually ran out of state owned assets to sell to mask her economic incompetence.
She destroyed entire towns and cities with her policies, many of which haven’t recovered to this day. The selling of council houses without building replacements has led to the younger generation handing over large parts of their salary to private landlords with little hope of owning a family home. Her deregulation of finance has seen asset prices soar and productivity and wages stagnate.
Yes there have been numerous politicians since who should have changed course but none of them did so they’re equally to blame, but most the problems mentioned started due to her reforms
Good summary thanks
Maggie made a massive impression but the conservatives of today are partly left as well and are not holding the values previously held.
I vote for the Conservatives because of 1960/70s corrupt Trade Unionism!
Margaret was a beacon of morality!
Same here but I won’t vote for my Tory MP with the history she has.
In some ways, yes. In other ways no.
And I don’t remember the Eighties being moral at all.
I don’t know any old people who vote Labour personally. Young people coming from the Universities tend to be leftwing but then they can change when they get older and have thought things through.
= they become selfish, weary and rich.
Yes it is very frightening. I read in my bible that evil will wax worse and worse at the end and many will fall away (from Christ) because of lawlessness.
Yes indeed – but obviously that’s much wider than British politics and society.
Britain has been consecrated to Selfishness since about 1957.
Lawlessness is often in the heart; and often not criminal – eg divorce, fornication, sharp practice in business.
But all of them against the biblical law.
Spot on, but very frightening also.
It will all be decided at the ballot box provided the left don’t interfere again with the voting.
I actually know Atlanta quite well as a frequent visitor. What hits you in Atlanta compared to California or Chicago or New York is the degree of segregation in the city. It seems that only black people use the subway, blacks sit on one side of the park and whites on the other, there is a decent market which is black only.
Who is responsible for this? The people who are responsible carry a similar responsibility for trying to solve the problem, don’t they?
I am getting a bit sick of ‘The Left’, ‘The Left’, in every post. Why not talk about real people instead of some fictitious group?
When I took my wife with me on one visit she was wasting time in the city centre and went to visit the park and watch children playing in the fountains. She, of course, was on the ‘wrong’ side and was watching the black children. When a little girl came out of the water my wife said things to her like, “Was that nice? Are you cool now?” She would do this anywhere in the world. The father came over smiling and she said to him, “What a beautiful little girl.” He took his hat off and said, “Thank you, ma’am”. He was very embarrassed.
If the world in Atlanta is black vs white or rich vs poor, who is responsible? Not the Left or the Right but real people. Only real people can solve the problem and those people must have the means to do it.
Buckhead is a terrible name for a city.
How virtuous you and your wife are! How wonderful! I’m amazed that your story did not end with a sort of rainbow coalition, where your wife joined hands with the man and his daughter and sang Kumbaya! Perhaps in the next post.
Note: there is no segregation. Segration means, by definition, when the government forces division on people of different races. If people freely choose to live with others who look like them, how is that segregation?
You ignore the irredeemable corruption in America’s black-governed Democratic mayor cities–Atlanta, Chicago, Baltimore, New York (De Blasio is a sort of Rachel Doziel). Your sick of talk of “the Left,” but I’m sick of what the Left has done to America…..
We are not virtuous. We were visiting and my wife is what she is.
It is very easy to blame The Left because it is faceless. It is quite clear to me and is clear from my post that this whole mess has been caused by rich white people, the very people who now want to run away to play by themselves.
Oh, The Left, The Left! Maybe The Left will come to get us at Halloween.
“….this whole mess has been caused by rich white people?”
Don’t know where to start. I disagree. I hate the posh as much as the next non-woman, but your comment/s is simply ignorant, yet entirely representative of the left. You put everything in racial terms (white people are bad, black people are good [of course I should write Black people…]), yet ignore my argument–no segregation, because these are individual choices. So much easier to blame rich white people. Are you one? Or one half (white but not rich?) If so, do you flagellate yourself for being an oppressor?
The broad sweep of your comments reveal the hatred, and reveal why the US is headed for Civil War. I agree that you are not virtuous, but clearly you long to be seen as such. And ponder, for the moment, that your wife’s situation could have ended very differently, given the epidemic of black on white crime in America, though this often goes unnoticed.
Tessa Majors. Google her.
You are obviously so bitter that you haven’t bothered to read anything.
I was a visitor to Atlanta. It was the first time for my wife. She went to sit in the park; there were a few other people about. There were no signs telling her where to sit. She is not a Saint, she just sat down for a rest.
I have not put anything in racial terms. I grew up in a area surrounded by people of all races, in the Midlands. I know what racial issues really mean.
I was reacting to the essay above. Rich white people want to separate from Atlanta to form a city called Buckhead. This is what we are discussing. I think you should try to be calm.
My statement, my comment, my contribution I will repeat-
Somebody is responsible for the situation which has led to this separatist movement. I think the onus is on the same people to try to solve the problems.
I have not put anything in racial terms…..
YET “the whole mess has been caused by rich white people….”
Cheers, mate. No bitterness here. Tres calme. Made my day! You seem to have no sense of irony, but parody!
Thanks for making me laugh out loud!
Middle class people, hardly rich.
I agree – similar dynamic in NZ -now a vast gap opening up between haves and have nots because nothing has been done to address that for 30? 11 years ago a brave Labour leader attempted to bring in a capital gains tax to stop the housing boom /crisis – voted out by a populace , who again, did not give a xxxx for any equity in society and now ten years later rents are 75% of a low wages income and ALL NZ’s motels are packed with the new homeless not to mention those living in cars and garages. And the average house price in NZ has hit 1 million in a country where the average family income for 50% of the is less than 80k…
IE , as you say little to do with race, lots to do with sheer naked greed and now those greedies want to live in walled towns – not unlike Sth Africa-and we know what is happening there.. You are hoping that those who caused and benefitted from this are going to be part of the solution – their solution is to build walls. I cant help feeling supportive of the ‘barbarians’ as they scale those walls……..
People are free to live near those who are like them. This is very true. I had to leave Leyton in London because of the loud music going on every night. I chose to live near people like me. It doesn’t mean I am anti black it’s just recognising a cultural difference in certain activities. I think most people are like that whatever their race.
Absolutely
I agree. However the people who frame our public debates and policies are also responsible.
Yes, of course. But clearly the wrong people get the job. There is in the UK a magazine called Socialist Review. Last year they asked all readers the question, “Can the Parliamentary Labour Party help us with our aims?” A resounding ‘No’.
They pinned their hopes on activists, people who actually did things, not politicians or pundits (UnHerders?) who just spoke about doing things.
Here you have the danger of a site like this. People sit at their computers and pontificate. They are eloquent, well-read and clever. Let’s think of a Bogeyman to blame for all of our problems!! The Left, The Left…..
Or the bogeyman of the ‘far right’ or ‘rich white people’? Who are the ‘wrong’ people in your eyes?
Jesus just listen to yourself. You are pontificating on a site like this and complaining that the left might be given a hard time when the left is currently in complete control of all our institutions. The Tory government is an anachronism (under siege from all sides and, to some, barely distinguishable from the left) because the little people put them there. The ones that people like you probably think are too stupid and racist to have a vote.
I am listening to myself. I am not saying that the Left is being a hard time. Politically, I lean a long way to the right. I am saying:
If everyone on this site agrees that the Left is to blame, what good is that to anyone? A few hundred people ‘talk’ and all agree, plenty of upticks, goody, goody.
The people here should be using their awesome powers to suggest alternatives, not to just agree.
I am an old person but I am aware of one thing – old people have too much power in the world today and should not be making decisions for the future. Somehow we need to find an acceptable way to keep old people out of decision-making.
I voted for Brexit. Most of my (old) friends voted for Brexit. My wife (eternally young) voted to remain. What I do know is that older people maybe shouldn’t have voted in the referendum.
I repeat about Buckhead. The people with the money (older) can afford to put a concrete wall around Buckhead, with a moat and drawbridge. They can have hundreds of men with pikes stationed on top of the walls. But is it useful?
I think I’ll write a book and call it, “Waiting for the Barbarians”.
I disagree with you about old people. Yes, they tend to lean more conservative but that’s because they have accrued the wisdom of experience.
My concerns for the young are not about limiting them or getting my way, but about how their natural desire to do good and their propensity to rebel against contemporary mores is being used against them by a cynical elite. When you’re young you fully believe that, if not for a few bad actors, the world can be transformed into a Utopia. As you get older, you realize that one man’s utopia is another man’s hell and so you develop a live and let live mentality (horse for courses and all that). This used to be the position of ‘the Left’ but this is no longer the case. My worry for the young is that they are contributing to a system that looks for governmental parental figures to get rid of ‘the bad guys’ (basically anyone who doesn’t affirm their world view), and to create laws and punishments for those they disagree with them, failing to realize that this form of weaponized politics can and will eventually be used against them when they are no longer useful. It’s a pattern that has been repeated many times throughout history. Basically, we should be aiming for increased personal freedoms tempered with personal responsibility. What’s happening instead is that the brain-sickly imaginings of youth are being used to force through a totalitarian agenda, a rainbow police state if you will, a f*scist ideology masquerading as a civil rights movement.
wow, what an obtuse statement and ageist as hale. old people aren’t going to be here long so they should get no say in the future. i’ve never heard the like and am appalled. ever heard of the concept of wisdom? that doesn’t come from the young. buckhead didn’t create any crisis in atlanta and honestly since you don’t live here and obviously jumping to conclusions from one fng visit, it is apparent that wisdom has not blessed you in your dotage.
see my comment above – but really what would the solutions look like – as I said above the solutions in NZ were already looking too late 10 years ago – and now there are NO solutions that can fix it no matter how much money Jacinda might throw at it (not her fault but an impossible fix ) – nor the new housing fixit minister in the UK. The gap is now too big and many people , and, of course the young, have missed out forever. You are not reading any solutions because there are not any and the horse has well and truly BOLTED
Yes, but The Right is in charge of the Economy and has been for four decades.
true , and in NZ, they have caused our version of calamity-with the support of 50% + of the population – which of course is what has happened in the States. It is all about selfishness and little concern for equity in communities which is very short sighted because eventually people get angry, vote for trump, and start storming the citadels of power – a lot like the twin towers really (that may get me into trouble……)
You only have to read about the Soviet Union’s history and their opression of eastern Europe to be wary of the left. Not to mention N Korea, China etc. I could go on. There is a valid reason for being wary of the left.It always leads to dictatorships and gulags, torture etc. You obviously are not read up on these things.
I’ve taught in American high schools. The self-segregation starts even before then, with black children sitting on one side and white on the other. I’ve graded a lot of papers both at high school and college level. Almost every paper I receive from black students (particularly women) is about police brutality, legacy of slavery, or black feminism. It’s drip-fed to them from a really young age, either by their parents or their elementary school teachers. Their papers are usually so one-sided, full of conviction and ‘lived experiences’ where they’ve been wronged.
I don’t hold this against them in anyway way. They’re a victim of their education. Many of them are very smart, but have been told all their lives that the system is against them, which is not necessarily untrue, but not in the way they are told. Unfortunately this sense of victimhood follows them around all their lives and has become a fundamental part of their identities, which makes it a very hard topic to discuss, especially in the current climate where there is more sympathy for criminals than for someone who blurts a clumsy comment about race.
Yeah my brother teaches uni in Sacramento and observes that the bright black students have to appear to be not so interested and not get too higher marks otherwise they are pilloried by their mates etc. He says it looks like a strategy of doing just enough to get to the next education level and then to exit their cohort if possible – hardly a situation supporting ‘getting ahead’,
The people of Germany are also getting fed up too though. There has been increasing unrest for years that ‘temporary’ Gastarbeiters didn’t go home but are now voting how Erdogan tells them to, they took in millions of so called refugees with the result being increased crime, increased threat of terror attacks and the now recognisable pattern of Muslim grooming gangs and sexual assaults. The German taxpayers are paying through the nose for them and everything else the EU demands and if they dare complain they’re called far right and Nazis.
Cheryl, thank you for your many excellent contributions to this discussion. You have said what needed to be said!
I have many friends in Germany after I worked there for a while. I think that Germany is going the same way as the USA but more slowly.
The advantage for the UK over the USA (and probably Germany) is that we have tighter control over guns. This means that we will follow the USA but at a slower pace of decline.
Chris – I am not a gun person in the sense of keeping one for defense. I am actually expert with firearms, but just have old ones, put away.
A wile ago a friend asked to borrow some 30.06 ammunition from me to deer hunt because all the stores were sold out, and so I dug through the attic and found my box of gun stuff and found I only had 10 rounds, which I gave to him.
I then decided to buy another box (20 rounds) as having a gun and no ammunition is pointless and it took almost a year of occasional looking for some when in places which sell it – and never found any. Finally I went to a gun shop, a large one, and they had it, and a limit of two boxes of ammo per customer.
That is how ammunition is in USA, since covid. The factories keep churning it out, but it is sold so fast the shelves stay empty….This tells something of the mood in USA about how well things are going.
When in UK as a youth I got my shotgun certificate at 17, or 18, when allowed – I grew up around them and they were normal to me in UK – but the huge difference – in USA it is a right, and defense is allowed. In UK if you said you wanted one for defense you would be prohibited from ever owning a firearm.
I am very much for the 2nd Amendment. I believe self defense is a right, and the weak are entitled to a level field in that way.
Maybe it’s the exact opposite and we would be in a better condition with guns in the hands of the right people. Here no one has guns except, for example, the rival Chechen and Arab gangs who are having shootouts in the streets (most recently in Dijon). If the state will not handle this, we can do nothing because we are unarmed and powerless.
To bring everything to a head we need a Trump or a Trump-clone for the next election.
yah i had to laugh at that too. the riots and crime are all a result of lockdown? really?
Today educated conservatives and progressives of all races have internalized what the purpose of college is, as defined by Joseph Sobran decades ago:
“The purpose of a college education is to give you the correct view of minorities, and the means to live as far away from them as possible.”
“I know Atlanta – and so Decatur, Candler Park, Druid Hills, Emory, Inman Park, Ansley, and Midtown would want to close ranks and succeed as a new city if they could.”
Decatur has been its own incorporated municipality for nearly two centuries and is actually older than Atlanta. A portion of Druid Hills in Dekalb County which includes the Emory and CDC campuses is the newest part of the city of Atlanta, having been annexed in 2017 in response to petitions for annexation into the city by both Emory University and the CDC the previous year. As far as the other core neighborhoods you mention, they are as deep blue as it gets and they are thoroughly Atlanta through and through and readily identify as such. They constitute a significant portion of the city’s political and institutional power base and simply exert their influence to change whatever they may be unsatisfied with. That’s actually the case for Buckhead as well which is why the secession effort is being lead by a NYC carpetbagger instead of someone with actual roots in the neighborhood that is thoroughly invested in the city. The city’s newly elected mayor has made crime reduction, particularly in Buckhead, a top concern and has demonstrated it in concrete ways. That’s probably why a recent poll showed a majority of Buckhead residents do not favor secession, just as prominent Buckhead civic and business groups from the very outset.
Excellent news! It is sometimes said that the people who are most against Trump’s wall live in gated communities. Something like that going on here.
Also, I disagree that “calls for secession are driven by one factor: crime.” Let me add another: hatred. The level of hate in America is off the charts. Half of America simply hates the other half. This is not exclusively about race–though that is part of it–and since so many Americans have guns this is a very volatile mix. One of the BLM riots could easily become Ft. Sumpter, and we’re off to the races….I understand it’s a thing now for some to fly a “black flag,” which indicates that “no quarter will be given.” This is neighbor sending a message to neighbor that when the shooting starts I will kill you. And the left is equally guilty, with their BLM signs and No Human Is Illegal, showing their neighbors that there are no common values across American society.
FACT: Atlanta is a supremely corrupt city. The black elite may have done well–when the airport was redone, hundreds, perhaps thousands of blacks became millionaires, some legitimately, most because of “set-asides,” which you might call “positive discrimination.” But the government has been fundamentally and irredeemably corrupt–as it has been in many major American cities, ALL with Democratic mayors, and all with levels of corruption that would make India blush. Does anyone think that the decline of America just happened? America had huge strategic advantages after WW II and then suffered from extremely bad leadership for at least the last 50-60 years, and it has gotten exponentially worse lately. Joe Biden is part of that problem, though he was on the tail end before he became woke.
For American society to work at all, there must be what was called “steam release” in THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, where an Al Sharpton like guy had to be bribed so there would not be riots. But those days are over, in that lawlessness is the norm, and the law has been re-written to make some things not crimes. Look at shoplifting in San Francisco, Chicago, New York–essentially legal and run by organized criminal gangs.
This “urban divorce” is a sign of the times, and perhaps a precursor to the coming Civil War. I would like a peaceful dissolution of the US, but I see Civil War coming. Lock and load!
It’s likelier to be a Civil Clusterf**k than a Civil War. Disorder, some violent, but no armed conflict – people in 1861 had the necessary principles and courage, we don’t.
As for the situation in the USA (and to some extent here) St Paul got it right in his Letter to the Romans:
“All have sinned and fallen short of the goodness of God”
I think I’d want to secede if my mayor was called Lance Bottoms
Superb! Thanks for that, it was all getting really intense and apocalyptic.
yeah – I wonder if he gets BOILS down there – imagine having to sign in at the clinic – ‘what is your name sir…. lance bottoms …and what is your condition…i need a boil lanced …..on my bottom !!!!! I am confused sir….
Gawd where would we be without humour-even if it has to be black, – or without alcohol etc
America looks as if it’s falling to pieces. That great country appears ready to topple under Biden. The principles it was founded on are being walked upon. A country cannot exist under lawlessness even though cowboy films make it seem romantic. So sad.
but in cowboy films they are the law. the criminals mostly go down especially the depictions back in the day.
In American cities today, It’s all about crime and the rise of it. We left NYC after 35 years because the quality of life had diminished. We are older older and more concerned for safety. It was time to leave.
In San Francisco, 22 Walgreens (Boots) stores have closed because of theft; the city passed an ordinance that you can steal up to $950 and not get arrested. So now there are crime syndicates who are exploiting this by organizing professional thieves and then they resell the products on-line.
Same in London, the police will not prosecute a shoplifter if the value of the goods stolen is less than £50.00. Or any traveler (Gypsy)
Several years ago a retail business owner in Leicester told me that they were closing (partly) because although they paid high business rates to the City Council they refused to replace a decayed wooden bench seat directly outside the shop’s front door.
Plus BREXIT for taking back control.
So if a community believes that ‘the powers that be’ are more interested in political stunts and manoeuvres then looking after the services they provide for the people that pay for them… then people will vote with their (political) feet. Democracy by departure, as it were.
What do you mean “law abiding”? They are 60% Democrat. They will elect the same kind of politician that they voted for that wrecked Atlanta in the first place. It doesn’t matter how many police they hire if they’re not allowed to do anything.
I do not believe so. The 60 percent Biden vote is not evidence of left wing lunacy. Trump is divisive and boorish in his own right and was effectively demonized in the run-up to the 2020 election. I believe that explains a fair percentage of the 60.
The population of Buckhead have seen crime soar and murder rates double. They complain only to hear that they are privileged racists. They are told to bury their dead, pay their taxes and to shut up.
I do not see them voting for more of the same.
“A year of plague”? Good grief.
considering so many BIPOC want safe spaces away from the dreadful ‘oppressors’, why would anyone have a problem with this?
I love Mayor Bottoms description: “the Covid crime wave.”
How much do you want to bet that the vast majority of the perpetrators of the crime surge are black? And I mean at a percentage far higher than the black Atlanta percentage of 51%.
Apparently the virus induces spikes in criminal behavior primarily among only one segment of Atlantans.
This is a Covid symptom that should be investigated. Perhaps a new, special vaccine can be developed to deal with it.
lets not worry about race here, it makes the tone way too Britbart, and no one can tolerate their BTL post style.
Perhaps Atlanta, and other cities, should consider the Italian Renaissance idea of having an outsider as their Podestà.