Wave of stupification

As those who know me well can attest, getting angry at the letters page is one of my favourite activities. Nowhere is the absurdity and abject stupidity of the average member of this misbegotten species more prominent than in the letters page (well, talk radio is probably worse, but I don’t pay attention to that crap. Okay, anonymous internet commentators are pretty bad too, but, since that would fuck with my thesis, I’m just going to ignore them.) I love letters pages and the like because they illustrate why democracy is such a terrible idea in a society made up of drooling half-wits. By giving people a public forum in which to proclaim their stupidity for all to see, they show that human beings cannot be trusted to manage their own affairs. (And thus, a paradox: without such democratic forms of communication, we might soon forget the ignorance, self-absorption and blindness of our fellow man and start to demand they be given a voice. There’s also the argument that allowing stupid ideas to be exposed to the world negates their power, but I think the current state of the mass media and a supermarket checkout aisle featuring 15 different magazines with the same six or seven spoiled, drug-and-venereal disease addled “stars” on their covers disproves that idea. Stupidity unchecked begets more stupidity. But anyway…)

Today’s funny pages produced a couple of fine examples of the genre. I should stipulate that I’m talking specifically about the Edmonton Journal, as the Sun’s letters page content is about as erudite as a wet fart; stunning, I know.
The letters in question were prompted by a recent triple homicide at a downtown Edmonton nightclub. This nightclub is-how shall I say it?-frequented by a demographic with a higher statistical probability of committing or being victimized by violent crime. On Saturday night, someone bush-league gangbanger wannabe got tossed out and decided to come back to the bar and start shooting, killing three random bystanders. Civilized stuff. But let’s go to the letters page and see who gets blamed? The “kids”? A youth culture that glorifies violence? Males aged 18-29?

Nope. Let’s go to the tape

“Downtown no place for nightclubs, bars.”

Another three slayings at a downtown bar in Edmonton. How surprising given that it has been happening almost weekly for months now.
…
Edmonton used to be a safe place to live. We’re rapidly losing that sense of safety, and there is something truly grotesque in this latest bloodbath happening as it did in the shadow of one of Edmonton’s largest churches.

Presumably, getting killed away from a house of worship is not as bad. But I want to address the idea that these murders indicate Edmonton is getting less safe. Now, if you go by the numbers and not the headlines, you’d see the overall crime rate in Canada fell from 1991 to 1999 and has been relatively stable from 2000 to 2005 with a few ups and downs along the way. In fact, in 2005, the national crime rate dropped five per cent. “But wait,” you cry. “Homicide was up four per cent in 2005, following a 13-per-cent rise the year before. Aggravated assault was up 10 per cent and assaults with weapons were up five per cent. And a much of that increase was due to an increase in such crimes in Toronto and Edmonton!”

True. But that leads me to the question: who is it, exactly, that’s affected by crime (either as victims or perpetrators)?
If you look at the murders in both T.O. and Edmonton, many are gang-related and most of them involve young men (the notable exceptions being the crazy sonofabitch who is murdering streetwalkers and the all too frequent incidents of domestic violence that lead to murder). The same holds true with violent crime in general. In other words, there are very few examples of so-called “random acts of violence”. What we’re talking about is what a sociologist or criminologist would call “high-risk groups”. If you’re a member or close associate of such a group (say, low-income, minority males aged 18-25), your chances of committing or being on the receiving end of a violent criminal act are statistically greater than that of someone not in the group (say, a soccer mom in Terwilliger Towne.) Violent crime is simply not a broad social problem. For the majority of us, the streets are quite safe.

But that’s not the really stupid part. That would be this:

“Nightclubs of this type really have no business in the heart of the city. We’ve seen what happened to Whyte Avenue with its preponderance of bars. Do we really want this downtown, where we are trying to encourage people to live and businesses to set up?”

I’m not sure what they mean by “nightclubs of this type,” and I’ll agree to a point that bars are killing Whyte Ave. (more on that in a bit). But they don’t leave it at that.

“I would encourage government to make alcohol the next ‘tobacco’ and run it right out of public spaces.”

Public spaces? Lady, bars are private spaces. Unlike enlightened Europe and, uh, Las Vegas, booze in public is a no-no. As for banning booze, well, it’s been done, remember? The word "prohibition" ringing any bells? And we know how prohibition helped curb violent crime, right?

After that pearl, and a brief caveat about “good” bars and nightclub patrons, we’re presented with the crown jewel of the stupid.

“Let’s face it: these bars do not contribute anything to society and are a magnet for misfits. If you want to watch the game over a beer with your buddies, do it in your own home.”

Thankfully the writer already refuted her argument earlier by bringing in the example of Whyte Avenue. People tend to forget that back in the day (I’m talking 20-odd years ago when The Princess was a rundown porno theatre), Whyte Ave was a shithole. There were a number of factors which contributed to its revitalization, such as the preservation and renovation of historic buildings, the creation of pedestrian friendly streetscapes and small business-friendly development policies, policies that allowed for the establishment of more up market watering holes. Any smart urban planner (well, both of them) will tell you that the best way to revitalize an area is to bring in young people with money. And guess what? Young people with money like to drink. Whyte Ave would never have become a destination if it turned into a dead zone after all the clothing stores and knick knack shops shut down for the night (like downtown today). And the fact that the people responsible for maintaining Whyte Ave have forgotten the formula that made the place successful and attractive in the first place (hint: it’s called balance, people) does not mean a lively bar scene contributes nothing to society. On the contrary: the evidence shows it contributes a lot.

Now, I wouldn’t have quite as much of a beef with this person if they were merely calling for the city to be smart about what kind of bar it allows into the downtown core. I would also agree that some of the dodgier establishments downtown need to go. But once you start turning newspaper headlines into broad generalizations unsupported by fact to justify a bunch of sour-faced, meddlesome, anti-fun, statist policies, well, you’ve proven yourself stupid enough to make the letters page. Kudos, dick. I hope that one ends up on your fridge.