Guy W. Farmer: America’s unlivable cities

I was born in Portland, Oregon, but thank God my mother got me out of there when I was a baby. Next, she took me to Seattle, where I had a happy childhood. Today, however, these are two of America's unlivable cities.

I certainly made the right decision when I decided not to move back to Seattle last year in order to be closer to my family — my daughter and 16-year-old twin grandsons. They live in the formerly peaceful Seattle suburb of Bothell, where a police officer was shot to death last month. My daughter has been placing flowers on a makeshift memorial at the downtown Bothell corner where 32-year-old rookie policeman Jonathan Shoop died in the crossfire of a deadly exchange of gunfire with a mentally deranged man. You didn't read much about Officer Shoop's tragic death in the mainstream media.

You don't read about violent assaults that injure, and even kill, police officers because those incidents don't fit the mainstream media narrative, which goes something like this: "Jack-booted federal stormtroopers attacked and brutalized peaceful protesters in downtown (fill in the city) last night. Protesters shot off colorful fireworks to honor the memory of the late George Floyd, a Black family man who was brutally murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer etc. etc."

Translation: "Federal law enforcement officers used appropriate force to repel a group of violent anarchists who attempted (yet again) to burn down the federal courthouse. The rioters threw bricks, Molotov cocktails and feces-filled balloons at federal officers, some of whom were injured by flying debris." That's what's been going on in downtown Portland and other major cities around the nation for the past two months, making some of those cities virtually unlivable.

As U.S. Atty. Gen. William Barr told Congress last Tuesday, "Peaceful protests have been hijacked by violent agitators" who are carrying out "an assault against the government" — that's you and me, folks — in cities including Seattle, Portland, Oakland. Minneapolis, Kansas City, Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., and several more. All of the mayors of those cities just happen to be "progressive" Democrats, some of whom actually side with violent agitators against their own police departments.

The progressive mayors of Minneapolis and Portland have vowed to defund the police, a stupid and very dangerous idea. That's why we need to keep a close eye on Gov. Steve Sisolak and the Democrat-controlled Nevada Legislature when it convenes in another special session to consider "criminal and social justice policy reform reform," among other issues.

I mentioned Washington, D.C. among cities where violent rioters have wreaked havoc against federal law enforcement officers and federal buildings. Mayor Muriel Bowser supported "peaceful protesters" who were attacking federal police.

Writing in "Human Events," longtime D.C. resident Daniel Turner, executive director of an organization that advocates for American energy jobs, explained why he decided to leave the District. After writing that he paid "lots of taxes," Turner said "all I asked in return was relative safety and to be left alone to enjoy the city." But now, he continued, "we have riots, vandalism and looting. 'Protesters' set fire to an historic church and tear down statues. ... What am I paying for? A defunded police force? More murder? More violence?"

Today, from his new home in the Virginia countryside, Turner writes that he "might as well be in another country -- deer at dawn and stars at twilight." That's what we enjoy here in Carson City, and why Seattle friends are looking at property in Idaho, and why I'm glad I didn't move to Seattle. Yes, after more than 50 years in Carson, home means Nevada.

Guy W. Farmer has been a Carson resident since 1962.