On August 26th, 2016, I was scrolling blank-minded through Twitter on my iPhone when a tweet caught my eye. I scrolled past it initially, but back tracked when I recognized the word “Chicago” in a tweet authored by ex-Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade. Was D-Wade hyped to replace real-life Mr. Glass, Derrick Rose, starting for the Chicago Bulls this season? I had to know his opinion on how good my favorite basketball team was finally going to be. Alas, no. However, as I read the tweet I got equally, if not more passionate, as I would have for the latter situation. The tweet said this: “My cousin was killed today in Chicago. Another act of senseless gun-violence. 4 kids lost their mom for NO REASON.” As it turns out, Nykea Aldridge was walking her baby in a stroller when she got caught in some crossfire. She was not the intended victim. Two brothers were arrested for her murder, and confessed to attempting to murder a rival gang member. Turns out (this is not even a surprise to me, and I grew up in the 1600s) the homicide rate in Chicago is high, and has been for a long time. 511 is the total homicide count so far this year, according to the Chicago Tribune, already 20 more than the total number of homicides in 2015, and it’s only September. The murder rate may have peaked at 943 in 1992, but the overall gun violence and general crime rates in Chicago have been on the rise in recent years, and this year happens to be the highest since 1992, after a long trend upwards starting, suspiciously, in 2011, when Rahm Emanuel took office.
I’m not here today to talk about guns laws in Illinois or how bad of a mayor Rahm Emaneul is (wait, yes I am), though both of those things I would qualify as deserving of public discourse. I want to propose that the historically high crime rate in Chicago is violating the citizens of Chicago’s natural right to life, liberty, and even property in a more roundabout way. A typical citizen of Chicago may not have to worry about their safety on a regular day-to-day basis, that is if they stick to safer neighborhoods and certain more well lit parks after dark. One would assume the Dwayne Wade, who grew up in the Chi before abandoning all of Illinois for Miami, would have a cousin who would qualify as a typical citizen of Chicago. The fact that Nykea Aldridge’s murder was motivated by a gang rivalry which she had nothing to do with qualifies this as a problem which effects the entire general public of Chicago, thus effecting their right not only to life, but also the liberty to just take your newborn child on a stroll with you, or whatever you happen to want to do on the public streets of Chicago. This problem also effects people’s liberty to live wherever they want. Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, each with their own unique identity, culture, and demographics. Generally people live in the neighborhood most suited to their background because of the enjoyment which comes from having a close-knit community inside a city of millions. This is a liberty which I consider everyone as being born with: to live where they choose. As well, certain neighborhoods tend to have less expensive property than others, however those neighborhoods also tend to have much higher crime rates. In fact, it’s directly related. If people cannot feel safe living where they must live then this also infringes on a person’s right to liberty.
Murder is already illegal, though. So what would the solution to this problem be? Normally I would say that naturally murder is a crime which would be punished by the government which it happens under and then the public would in tern be deterred from doing that crime. It seems though, in the case of Chicago, either the government is not doing an adequate job of punishing this crime and thus deterring the public from it, and thus the punishment for certain crimes in Chicago should be raised in severity, or the government is not taking enough preliminary steps to stop the crime in the first place. Policy already exists on both ends of this. Either way, however, the problem is that the government is not trying hard enough to enforce policy already in place to protect its people and I suggest that government (I’m talkin @ you Rahm) has become tyrannical and thus deserves to be reset through revolution.
http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/homicides
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/28/us/chicago-dwyane-wade-cousin-nykea-aldridge-killed/