Uncivil Society

Gangs of New York 
takes place in New York City during the Civil War. Its plot concerns the war between Irish and nativist gangs for control of lower Manhattan. Both lose, leading to the rise of Tammany Hall, whose innovative manner of conflict resolution laid the foundation for modern New York. The ward heelers replace the warlords and the rigid identities of immigrant and nativist are dissolved. That’s how New York was tamed.

Bayou Renaissance Man writes about the latest crop of wild animals appearing on the streets of your city. I left a comment:

Depressing. I blame the War-On-Drugs for many of our problems. Were things better when the Mafia was distributing the drugs instead of just fronting the money to the blacks? Or maybe the drug business has just gotten so big and the murderous culture of big-money drug-dealing has expanded so much that large sections of many large cities have gone to hell? If you want to have a civil society, you need to have civil rights, which means not fucking with people over chickenshit things like drugs.