We love honest debates about public policy prescriptions here at the Allegheny Institute. We, of course, advocate for policies that are fair and offer equal opportunity under the law and impose the least burdensome taxation and regulation possible.
That, however, can be a tall order in a continuing climate of ever-expanding government, and at all levels. But it is an impossible task if lawlessness is allowed to proliferate.
Indeed, the City of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County have, and with increasing regularity, sought to impose prohibitions, restrictions and/or mandates that have no warrant under the applicable laws.
Other times, the rule of law simply has been declared a dead letter. Think of the county’s decade-long refusal to reassess properties for taxation purposes and its red-herring rationalizations for not doing so. It is nose-thumbing at the state Constitution at its worst.
But an even greater problem is increasingly rearing its ugly head – lawlessness of societal violence. Nearly every day, we wake up to stories of the latest shootings from the night before. The city, et. al, has become nothing less than a shooting gallery.
It is no hyperbole to call this current state of affairs The Wild, Wild West. And lest we forget, some parts of the city have become open public restrooms and drug shooting galleries.
Even the absolute best public policies cannot succeed in such a deleterious environment of sheer lawlessness and disorder. Who in their right minds want to live, work and do business in such a dangerous and fetid atmosphere?
We all can argue until the cows come home about the root causes of the predicament in which Pittsburgh now finds itself – whether it be the demise of the family unit and/or public policies that exacerbated that demise, or this, that and so many other things.
But the here and now of those ramifications is that law enforcement at every level must step up its game. For without enforcement of the rule of law, we have nothing.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
