City Park Closures and the Public Good

Well, here come the bleeding hearts again. Railing against closing our city parks in an effort to reduce flagrant, nighttime drug transactions, activists like park feeder Bill Myers, former city attorney Bob Myers, ‘60s throwback Jerry Rubin and council members Abdo and Vazquez tell us it is all a conspiracy to drive the homeless from Santa Monica. They ignore the rights of residents to take logical and practical action to protect themselves from property crimes, violence and filth that cling to drug traffickers like molasses.

They argue that drug sales will be dispersed throughout the city while ignoring the fact that this alone may reduce its lucrative reward to suppliers and make the “deals” more difficult to conceal.

None of this matters. Providing a safe haven for drug dealers in order to protect the homeless from the evil motives of the larger community is in keeping with their misguided view that the greater community must be punished for what these superior moralists perceive as societal neglect.

But their own motivation is, itself, highly suspect. Keeping a large homeless constituency out in plain sight serves the real agenda of these bleeding hearts. It advocates the use of moral reprimand, shame and guilt to preach the politics of envy. Their goal is to remake government and the economy with themselves in control--social engineers making daily decisions as to how we will live, raise our children and use our hard-earned resources. Their politics were on display for decades in Russia and Eastern Europe.

But what is most interesting is the unwillingness of these superior moral thinkers to reveal their real agenda while falsely accusing others of having one. For the majority in this community the main issue is simple; it is public safety.

KIP DELLINGER