‘Smoldering Society’

Mann’s column is so full of wrong-headed ideas that the title should be “Fuel for a Smoldering Society.”

Mann tells the city to stop contracting-out union jobs, raise the minimum wage to $8 for any company doing business with the city, prevent the INS from deporting striking workers, take an anti-racist stand by voting against Dick Riordan, and advises us that Chief Willie Williams’ community policing idea will pit neighbor against neighbor.

Contracting out jobs to private industry has proven to be a significant money-saver to cities.

Asking firms that do business with the city to pay no less than $8 to anyone they employ would not only artificially raise the price on all services, it would also reduce the number of entry-level job opportunities the city so desperately needs.

Preventing the INS from deporting striking workers means fewer jobs for legal residents and also serves to encourage more illegal immigration and the subsequent additional welfare load on the city.

Why would voting against Dick Riordan be taking an anti-racist stand? Why does Mann imply Riordan is a racist without offering any proof?

Community policing means that the law-abiding citizens will be able to utilize the police to protect them from criminals. If that means telling the cop on the beat where the drug dealing and gangbanging is happening, then good riddance to those neighbors who get arrested.

The key to understanding where Mann is coming from is in his embracing of the 1960s War on Poverty. In case he hasn’t noticed, that didn’t work. We lost that war.

JIM KIPPEN

Huntington Beach