A Stitch in Haste

I was finally all prepped to record some video and shoot some pictures of Diamond at the new dog run, now open after a seemingly excessive period of construction and landscaping.

I wound up documenting a less-than-festive scene:

Standing dumbfounded at the splashy pool (a particular favorite of Diamond’s), cruelly thrown over an unclimbable fence, my only thought regarding the cretins who did this, surely in a drunken youthful stupor the night before, was: “What did the dogs ever do to you?”

I would think that even among thugs there is a standard of conduct, by which I mean a minimum threshold of thuggery. Stated differently, if one is going to rebel, destructively, against society, then fine — rebel against society (which, you have no doubt concluded, somehow wronged you first). Steal, vandalize, disrupt, whatever. But I repeat: “What did the dogs ever do to you?”

—

Meanwhile, one of the reasons that hoodlums have such a field day along this particular strip of green space — relentlessly marking their territory with graffiti, overturning trash cans, vomiting on the sidewalks and so on, is because I have never, not once, seen even a nominal police presence there — and I have lived here for six years and been walking Diamond along this walk for over five, at all hours of the day and night. Never a police officer walking or on a bike, no auxiliary volunteers, no park staff. No one. Which is precisely why the thugs congregate there — they know they won’t get caught.

How sad is that? New York City politicians and bureaucrats, always patting themselves on the back about how liberal, progressive and “enlightened” they are (i.e., never reluctant to spend taxpayer money on any and every warm-fuzzy-feeling social program to make the city “more livable”) can’t seem to find the time or money to perform the most basic function of government: the night watchman state.

(Finally, and not essential to my core point: This is the Upper East Side, where a disproportionate — perhaps a flat-out majority — of the city’s tax revenues are generated. But when it comes to a modest stretch of green space and a dog run, obviously comparative tax burdens mean little or nothing.)

—

One post script on the way home:

Filed under: DiamondBlogging, Libertarianism, New York City & State