Liberal Self-Delusion and CAPS Beat 2431

CAPS Beat 2431 in Rogers Park had a low turnout at its March 19 meeting - or so I am told. I'm one of the couple of thousand people in the neighborhood who did not attend, but this was told to me by one who was there. I have no reason to doubt that person's account. The account given to me by my acquaintance was that there was only one neighbor in attendance for most of the meeting, until another neighbor walked in quite late. Not much was accomplished at the meeting, but then that seems to be par for the course regardless of the attendance. Self-Deluded Liberals: CAPS meetings are frustrating. To be simplistic, they usually (but certainly not always) consist of neighbors whining to the police and the police whining back. What I find most interesting, as a conservative in a heavily liberal neighborhood, is that a CAPS meeting here can be filled with neighbors who are self-described liberals yelling and screaming things that offend even my Rush Limbaugh-tempered ears. The words "scum," "bums," and "trash" are liberally (pun intended) used to describe the hoodlums and trouble makers in the neighborhood. "Why can't the police do more?" the aging hippies ask. "Why are there so many trouble makers coming into Rogers Park?" they whine. To a conservative the answers to these questions are painfully obvious: Decades of government policies taken from the Left. Ask yourself the same above questions and be honest. The police "can't do more" because their hands have been tied - by liberal lawmakers and judges who have frequently administered slaps on the wrists of offenders when a kick in the head would have been more appropriate. "So many trouble makers are coming into Rogers Park" for a number of reasons: Liberal laws and liberal judges have not prosecuted many offenders, or have imposed such light sentences that they are quickly back on the streets. Also, Alderman Joe Moore just loves Section 8 recipients - they make up a huge portion of his voter base. Don't misunderstand me. I believe that the majority of Section 8 people are just good folks trying to get by and improve their lot in life. But, sadly, concentration of Section 8 recipients seem to have more bad seeds per capita than the general population. And Joe Moore has privately stated that he feels "there aren't enough" Section 8 people in the 49th Ward. After the CAPS meeting is over, those Liberal neighbors will go out and vote for more liberal judges, more liberal lawmakers, and call the police "pigs." I Admit It: I No Longer Attend CAPS Meetings What's the point? There are good groups such as 2411 that have ongoing email discussions, which provide good information and alerts to fellow neighbors. But that information exchange is entirely outside the loop of any CAPS structure and does not directly involve the police. In other words, any group of concerned neighbors can email each other about community alerts, whether they are involved in a CAPS group or not. I stopped going to CAPS meetings several years ago after realizing that the model was broken. For the most part, they are nothing more than venting sessions, where primal scream therapy outweighs proactive police work. There is an adversarial relationship, it seems, between the neighbors who attend CAPS meetings and the police. Just as many people wrongly call 911 for non-emergency reasons, many neighbors get vocal about problems at CAPS meetings that really don't belong in that forum. A problem with a noisy neighbor in the next apartment, for example, should not be wasting the time of the police and others in a CAPS meeting. On the other hand, the police are often not forthcoming with information that could be useful to the neighbors. CAPS Beat 2431 meets at 1530 W. Morse Avenue, a narrow and cramped little room that is anything but inviting. To get to the front door often means walking past or even through groups of trouble makers. Their next meeting is April 17.