a. I live and work in Philadelphia. I've been here for about 10 years, previously living in the surrounding suburbs. Increasingly embarassed, dissasisfied, and sad for a city that I very much love and enjoy - I am attempting to write something concrete, something that makes people think about what's going on here. Since our newspapers have fallen into the trap that seems to plague our government, we don't have a journalistic voice asking hard questions, probing and digging at the details. That's on each of us. Here are my thoughts.
b. All governments must maintain legitimacy. In democratic government the democracy itself is what maintains the legitimacy poltically, but all governments must maintain some law-and-order to be legitimate. In philadelphia - the citizens are living in a gotham like city where the corrupt and the criminal are given free passes at the cost of taxpayers. The combination ofThe rules must be applied fairly for a democracy to exist. Unfortunately as we all know, they are not here.
c. I lay out below how philadelphia lacks an actual legitimate government
b. When I talk about law abiding citizens from here on out I mean this: People of philadelphia who live or work here who want to enjoy their lives in peace, without being harassed by the government, powerful institutions, criminals, deadbeats, drug dealers or users, etc. The people on your block who you know, the old guy who reads the newspaper at the diner, or the lady who works at the diner. Just regular people who live, contribute and make Philadelphia an awesome and unique place to live.
1. "Philadelphia" as a political machine does not serve the every day citizen. Instead, a series of large stake holders have our entire city in a choke hold. We have a population larger than Pennsylvania at it's inception, yet we are represented by a mayoral-city council system, instead of an upper and lower house that Pennsylvania has! In truth, philadelphians lacks local representation in any meaningful way. A mayoral-city council system is about as close to an oligarchy still be able to call it "democracy". The design of this system benefits entrenched powers, and hurts the very people they are supposedly there to serve. Does philadelphia serve you? The good citizen?
2. Anarcho-Tyranny is a term that has been bandied about, but I will state my definition explicitly. It is not that there is no government, it is that the state is NOT able to protect the good citizens rights, to provide a basic quality of life, to let them be healthy, and productive, and sleep well at night. In contrast, the seemingly do the oppsite, make it oppresive and hard through regressive taxes, pushing business away, enforcing all sorts of sillyness.
3. And those willing to be criminals or live on the edges of society? Or even just skirt a few rules? They live in an ungoverned state, unafraid of repercussions or responsabilities. Tax cheats, stop-sign-rollers, drug dealers, robbers, murders and thieves aren't all that worried.It is not uncommon to hear people recommend avoiding getting any permits instead of doing things the right way. Why? because the good citizen, even while trying to do the right thing will suffer trying to comply with the ridiculous city rules. Instead - people ignore it.
4. So to restate, it is a a of government in which the good citizen lives in fear of government , while the criminals run amok without fear of repercussions. The state continues to oppress citizens while seemingly ignoring the problems.
5. Philadelphia is roughly in a state of Anarcho Tyranny. Citizens are provided 'services' at a shockingly expensive rate, with shockingly poor results. In truth, the bare minimum or less has been seen and expected as the philadelphia way. We expect corruption, we expect poor services, we expect raised taxes. And we should not expect any good services lest we be asking too much of our noble city workers, unions and elected officials. Meanwhile, crime is up, murder is up, taxes are up, roads aren't fixed, trash pickup is sometimes at best, streets are blowing up because our gas pipes are so old and so on and so on and so on.
6. Philadelphia as a political organ seems to only be hurting tax payers because they're unable to deal with actual problems without upsetting their nice apple (gravy train) cart. The apparatjik is unable and unwilling to make meaningful change.
7. A recent example was PGW (Q1 2021) announcing a 15% hike in water bills. Why? Because some people aren't paying. The obvious solution is not to shut down water for these delinquents, but to raise the price for everyone else. This change helps PGW, but does not help the citizens who pay their bills.
8. Another example is the subway system, where riders and workers are routinely mugged and attacked by roving bands of miscreants. The subways are full of human shit, piss, and humans who lie around and look like shit. The cars are filled with drug addled wankers who make it unbearable and dangerous for everyone else.
9. Philadelphia's response? Put a homeless shelter in our biggest most important subway station. You'll find homeless drug addicts showering in the public bathrooms, or hustling for money in the bathrooms, or just masturbating at the urinals. When pressed, the city apparatjik says we need to do more to help the 'as-risk' population. What the city refuses to admit is that very population is what is making the subways risky!
10. Another common complaint is the lawless and reckless behaviour of illegal motorcycle gangs in the city who do not follow any road rules, are aggressive, rowdy and have attacked and harassedgood citizens left and right. The city has a stand-down on doing anything about these roving gangs of dirtbikes, because it's 'too dangerous' to chase criminals. There is no rule of law, when it comes to the streets.
11. In philadelphia, rights protected by the constitution in some cases are not protected. The most obvious way is the stonewalling from the police regarding the right to carry firearms. They have been repeatedly sued for failing to issue permits to law abiding citizens who undergo background checks. Do you think gangbangers give a shit about carry permits? No. But someone who works late and has to walk home through the hood? I'm guessing they don't want a felony for carrying a weapon. The philly police's Gun Permit Unit routinely takes longer than they are legally allowed to. In contrast, montgomery county, or bucks, or delco, are all typically issued the SAME DAY after a NICS (run by the FBI) background check. If you have an issue, or a threat, are you willing to wait 45 days for the government to issue a card to carrry a gun? Unfortunately you have to unless you want to get in big legal trouble
12. This was again litigated during the Corona-bullshit where they shutdown the entire GPU and stopped issuing permits. Their argument was 'well we don't technically start the timer of 45 days until you submit it, which you do in person, and since you can't do it in person, there's no timer. This retarded braindead bullshit is making people vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. FUCK the police commissioner and the GPU for routinely making it hard for law abiding, good citizens to carry guns for self defense, especially after topping out at 500 murders in 2020. Say it with me: "Philadelphia has a pattern of hurting it's citizens, and helping it's anti-citizens".
13. Over the last year our cities commercial corridors were absolutely ravaged by looters while the city stood down. This is not an argument for or against BLM. I view BLM as a reactionary movement to percieved injustices. The day much of this looting occured was started with huge peaceful protests across the city with thousands marching. Then the sun went down and all hell broke lose. The city was unable to enforce law in order and it was citizens businesses who were hurt. Parts of west philly, germantown, the business districts downtown on walnut and chestnut, pharamcies all over the city and more were shuttered, then ransacked and destroyed. And what did the city do? Nothing. Nothing to stop this. This is not about BLM, this is about the city being able to quell rioting and destruction of property with reckless abandom.
14. We like our jokes about the gravy-seals and the south philly trumpers who dressed up in fatigues and carried AR-15's around their neighborhood, but the fact that a literal militia was required to spring up out of nowhere and defend a neighborhood is absurd in philadelphia. The rioters and looters were a bit smarter than the LA riots because I have no doubt the gabagool squad was looking for a fight.
15. Of course in the meantime of these riots threating our city, Mayor Kenney decides that we should take down a statue that has been up for decades and decades. Do I really care about the statue? No. But does the government continually misstep and bown down to those who threaten violence and illegal activity if their demands are not met? yes.
16. Another incident in South Philly - and it's clear that city hall does NOT give a rats ass about the old guard of south philly who has lived there for gernerations - was the suprise introduction of a legalized crack house in the same building as a preschool. The old governor showed up, with a bunch of rich white women claiming fancy degrees, did a press conference and decided for us that we wanted this in our neighborhood. NO. If you have ever been to Broad and Passyunk, you know it's already shitty because of homelessness and drug users.
17. Luckily the entire community stood up and cried "BULLSHIT". I was happy to be there to protest with my fellow neighbors. My sign - "Kenney Fucks Kids" garnered particular support.
18. Local take out chinese spots have been dealing with crime for decades. These places serve as an oasis in food deserts deprived of access to cheap and nutritious food. Due to the high level of crime, robbery and petty theft, many have installed bullet proof glass and other measures to protect their family business. Those families who many times work all together in the kitchen to provide a way of life. The cities response was to declare not the crime racist or bad, but for the city to declare that bulletproof glass be illegal and racist. This helped nobody.
19. these are all just examples of how the city - makes life hard for those who seek to live and exist peacefully in the city and ignore those who cause the problems. I am sure we can continue listing items ad infinitum but the point is clear I think.
Not random texts I claim no copyright. Random texts, I do not claim copyright.