I have been pondering Joseph Heller’s quote for the better part of a day. We are living in Chicago, an insane city. A city where wrong is right and right is wrong. In a town where crime is not criminal, victims or their families are blamed for their victimization. It is an upside-down topsy turvy city.
We live in a city where elected officials value criminals and their families over crime victims and public safety. Our elected officials use reckless political abandon to protect criminals from the justice system. According to our betters, criminals and their families are the victims of an oppressive social systemic institutionalized system- whatever that means. The crime victims are tolerable collateral damage until the system changes.
The victims and their families do not count. There is no justice in Chicago. There is only the insanity of violent crime, murder, looting, robberies, carjackings, and the revolving door of injustice.
“Too often we hear news of shootings across Chicago, this continuous activity makes us habituated to these types of scenes. This is NOT something we should have to be accustomed to… Please don’t let her die in vain. No more innocent kids should be killed. Mayor Lightfoot needs to make Chicago safe” (Melissa Ortega family statement/Chicago Sun-Times)
This is the insanity of elected officials doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
“Words cannot describe the pain I am feeling. On Jan. 22, I lost my greatest treasure in life. I lost my princess. She was the reason why I got up every morning. Everything I did, I did for her,” Melissa’s mother wrote. (Fox 32 Chicago)
Our elected officials are sociopaths. They have weak or no conscience. They have a total lack of empathy and the ability to stand in the victims’ or their familys’ shoes and understand how they feel. They do not care. The politicians’ empathy lies with the criminals. They care more about their feelings and welfare.
“In speaking to other mothers who’ve lost children to gun violence, Gregg said those grieving parents want justice but also to have their child’s story told and not forgotten.” (Angela Gregg, mother of 4-year-old murder victim, Mychal Moultry/Chicago Sun-Times)
We live in a city with an insanely silent population. There is no hue and cry over the rampant criminality from the populace. There are no mass protests, shutting streets and neighborhoods down over the two-year violent crime waves. Children, including toddlers and infants, were murdered or seriously wounded. The apathy of the populace is palpable.
“We came in search of the American Dream we so famously hear of, but instead, I get to live a nightmare for the rest of my life,” the statement from Melissa’s mother said. (Fox 32 Chicago)
It appears our good citizens are docile, drugged residents of Chicago’s insane asylum. The news media is self-medicating in their insanity. How else does one explain their silence? They, too, believe criminals are victims of something or other. They promote the insane policies that are causing bloodshed and murder on our streets. Their editorial board’s silence is consent. They consent to sacrifice victims, especially children, for the greater good of the criminals.
“No mother should have to bury their own child. Violence shouldn’t be something we grow accustomed to. As a community, we failed Melissa. As a city and state, we failed Melissa. As a nation, we failed Melissa,” Melissa’s mother said. (Fox 32 Chicago)
Sane people living in an insane society wonder if there is a cure. The mental health community is silent on our socio-political insanity. They have no answers and no clues. Maybe they are not the experts they claim to be.
What does a sane man do in an insane society? Every citizen should be asking that question. What to do?
“Thou shalt not be a victim
Thou shalt not be a predator
but, above all,
Thou shalt not be a bystander”
(Yehuda Bauer/Holocaust Historian)
It is past time to stop being bystanders. We should loudly raise our sane voices against the insane elected officials. It is time rational people demand the sociopathic politicians reverse course. It is time the victims and their families’ welfare trump the welfare of the criminals.
Silence is consent. If you are silent, you consent to murder, shootings, robberies, carjackings, looting, and other crimes plaguing Chicago. If you are silent, you consent to the murder of children.