It truly is a clown world that we are living in isn't it? Chicago is the butt of a lot of jokes when it comes to crime statistics and big example of how a ban on firearms has no effect on the ability of criminals to get them. Well, I have been to Chicago a few times and know a few people that live there and they say that crime is very localized to certain parts of town. Be that as it may it seems completely backwards to me that when car theft rises in the city that you are in charge of maintaining law and order in, that you would sue the companies that make the cars.... yet that is exactly what Mayor Brandon Johnson is doing.
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I don't remember the name of the previous mayor of Chicago but I do recall that she didn't look very human and it was just extremely surprising to me that the people of that city would continue to keep her in office despite the fact that at least from afar, everything seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket there.
Conservatives and especially Libertarians like me have a really difficult time relating to liberals and while this guy might just be an outlier nutjob is there really anyone out there that thinks it is appropriate to sue a car manufacturer because carjacking and car theft is out of control?
According to the few stats I bothered to look at the amount of Kia and Hyundai cars that were stolen went from 500 in the first half of 2022 to 3350 in the second half of 2022. To me, the 500 is an unacceptable amount of theft as well. So why are they suing Kia and Hyundai? Well according to Mr Johnson it is because of their "failure to include engine immobilizers and this disproportionately impacts low-income Chicago residents."
You know what else disproportionately impacts low-income Chicago residents? Out of control crime.
I may come across as a right-wing asshole in situations like this but where I live we have virtually zero crime of any sort, carjacking or otherwise. Of course we don't have anywhere near the population that Chicago does but I'm talking about percentages, not just raw numbers. I don't even know anyone that knows anyone that has had their car stolen and I have lived in this area my entire life.
Engine immobilizers didn't even exist during most of my time on this earth and I feel bad for humanity that this is something that some people like Brandon Johnson believe that this should be "standard equipment" on a car and if the car doesn't have it, that it is appropriate for the city to sue whoever made the car.
To be fair to Mr. Johnson the basis for the lawsuit claims that Hyundai and Kia claimed that their lower end cars contained "advanced safety features" and his claim is that this was deceptive. I don't know how "safety" started to relate to car theft though.
Before anyone accuses me of white supremacy for any of this have a look at the populations of Chicago and where I live, New Bern Both of these places have a similar African American percentage of the population (New Bern is actually around 4% higher) so that isn't the issue here. Perhaps the problem is that crime goes relatively unchecked in Chicago? Maybe we should take a look at that instead of blaming the manufacturer of a product that is frequently stolen.
Imagine if we applied this same logic to other things frequently stolen such as shoplifting candy among children. I did this a time or two when I was a kid and I think most people also probably did. Should we have sued Hershey for not making their chocolates theft-proof? I just don't understand politicians these days.
Brandon Johnson is getting a lot of pushback on this and I think it is very much deserved. Eventually Chicago is going to have to admit that they have a very serious crime problem.
Between the Chicago mayor and the New Mexico governor, I think we are seeing the Democrats have stepped beyond lines even their ardent apologists and activists can stomach for now.
yeah, the New Mexico thing was shocking and I saw that a judge, a democrat appointed judge, stepped in and negated her emergency decree because it was unconstitutional.
The county sheriff said, basically, "yeah, we're not gonna enforce that because it's completely unconstitutional and wrong." Even hoplophobe extraordinare David Hogg said it was going too far.
It would make more sense for the mayor to be sued for not maintaining law and order than for the mayor to sue car manufacturers.
I agree. Chicago, or at least parts of it are horrendous as far as crime is concerned as has been that way for a very long time
Democrats have lost all capacity for reason, and have knee-jerk, party-mandated reactions to everything. It's frightening. This one is pretty funny though. Mr pass-the-buck.
Someone was pointing out to me that this isn't the first city to do this and the pathetic thing is the other city won the suit. Just zero responsibility taken for crime patterns that have existed for many years.
Absolute joke as he cannot point figure at the rise in crime due to a certain race behind the crime and why he was elected. This is avoiding the obvious and what makes this such a joke. Call it for what it is and not looking for a scapegoat.
I bet it is tough to be a mayor in a place like Chicago when the answer to this problem would be an increased police presence in certain parts of the city. The fact that these parts of the city consist of a certain demographic could just be a coincidence but that doesn't change the fact that they actually KNOW where the crime is taking place, they are just not allowed or don't want to do anything about it.
Police need to rule the streets and this is obviously not happening. Lower police force numbers equals higher crime rates and that is no genius at work with that observation.
And here I thought we were all done with crazy Mayors after that last one who was voted out of office? Wasn't Johnson supposed to be a breath of fresh air compoaied to her. I guess we'll just have to wait and hope that over time, he rises to the occasion, or just crashes and burns like the others. Joe Rogans classice intervew with Billy Corgan ofThe Smashing Pumpkins, told me a lot about crime in Chicago that surprised me.
I'll have to look up that interview with Billy Corgan, sounds interesting. Thanks for the tip!