Remember your "History and Moral Philosophy" Class Lessons...

Ever read Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers? 

There's a passage in the book, when the protagonist relates a conversation from his History and Moral Philosophy Class.

"Yes Rico, law-abiding people stayed away from downtown Indianapolis and the Indiana Black Expo because of the risk of being attacked by packs of black people."

A conversation detailing the collapse of democracy in the XXth century, when law-abiding people "hardly dared go into a public park at night":

Mr. Dubois was talking about the disorders that preceded the breakup of the North American republic, back in the XXth century. According to him, there was a time just before they went down the drain when such crimes as Dillinger’s were as common as dog-fights. The Terror had not been just in North America — Russia and the British Isles had it, too, as well as other places. But it reached its peak in North America shortly before things went to pieces.

“Law-abiding people,” Dubois had told us, “hardly dared go into a public park at night. To do so was to risk attack by wolf packs of children, armed with chains, knives, homemade guns, bludgeons . . . to be hurt at least, robbed most certainly, injured for life probably — or even killed. … Murder, drug addiction, larceny, assault, and vandalism were commonplace. Nor were parks the only places — these things happened also on the streets in daylight, on school grounds, even inside school buildings. But parks were so notoriously unsafe that honest people stayed clear of them after dark.”

… “Mr. Dubois, didn’t they have police? Or courts?”

“They had many more police than we have. And more courts. All overworked.”

“I guess I don’t get it.” If a boy in our city had done anything half that bad . . . well, he and his father would have been flogged side by side. But such things just didn’t happen. …

 More police. More courts. All overworked.

All incapable of maintaining law and order.

After reading this passage from Heinlein's Starship Troopers, perhaps a big gulp of XXth century misery (courtesy of 2013 Indianapolis) is necessary to wash down the harsh truth of what a civilization where
law-abiding people "hardly dared go into a public park at night" is a nationwide phenomenon. [Erika D. Smith: Don't let fear of young black men hold us back, Indy Star, July 22, 2013]:

Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief.

Indiana Black Expo’s Summer Celebration is over. And contrary to what many people predicted — or at least feared — there was no unspeakable act of violence in the middle of Downtown.

Unsupervised teens didn’t brawl outside of Steak ‘n Shake or Circle Centre Mall. Gang members didn’t have a shootout along the Downtown Canal. Parents didn’t have to grab their kids and dodge stray bullets.

Instead, for the third year in a row, Expo organizers, police and an army of volunteers mostly kept the peace. I say “mostly” because one teenager was shot by accident in a Downtown parking garage in the wee hours of Sunday morning. But in general, Summer Celebration was so peaceful that it was almost shocking.

On Friday night, after the O’Jays finished their set at the annual free concert, people picked up their coolers and chairs and quickly vacated the American Legion Mall. Some people even left early. On Saturday night, the same thing happened after the Jill Scott concert at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse. The streets were empty — not just of people there for Summer Celebration and the after-parties, but of everyone else. Last weekend was not normal in terms of foot traffic. Downtown was a ghost town with blocked-off streets.

This is both good and bad. The violence of Summer Celebration is mercifully gone, but so is the vibrancy. What’s more, the event is sucking the vibrancy out of Downtown. And that’s sad.

 A fear of young black men is healthy. It is natural. Based on the facts of life in Indianapolis, a healthy fear of blacks keeps white people safe and out of harms way (considering the "social breakdown" in Indianapolis is only found in the black community). 

Honest, law-abiding people will stay clear of cities which host events that are unsafe; honest, law-abiding people will abandon cities populated by a people who make cities unsafe.

Heinlein was onto something when he wrote Starship Troopers.

Remember: in 2013, things are going to pieces.