Baltimore is a Dump!

And for as long as I can remember, Baltimore has had the reputation of being a "bad neighborhood".  I don't drive by the city often but I can't help but see it from Interstate RT-95 when I'm on my way back from somewhere else. I always take a long look at the place.

And I shudder. Who can imagine living there?

Baltimore Maryland is a perpetual welfare city. According to the national census, Maryland is the country's richest state with a median income of $69,272.00 per person so imagine what that means when you factor in the poorest city in the country! 

Did I mention that the current Mayor of Baltimore, Bernard Young, is a Democrat? I think the last Republican to run the city was in 1967. 

The last Mayor of Baltimore, Catherine Pugh, also a Democrat, was forced to resign due to a corruption scandal involving a children's book she 'wrote" and coerced the city school system to purchase. It wasn't much of a book but it was a hell of a crime.

Maryland also has a Democrat for a Governor, Larry Hogan. I don't much about him since, I really don't pay much attention to the state in general since I would never think of setting foot there for any reason. It's just a name on a map to me. Sorta like say, Suriname, a place that might as well be on the moon. The only time you hear of such places is when bad things happen there. 

Way back in the late 1980s I had a co-worker who was originally from North Carolina but he and his young wife moved to Baltimore, to start their life together. He was not familiar with the place but thought, since they were in their early 20s, that the city was a place they could build a life together.

But there was no work. Neither could get a job. Their money quickly ran out and they applied for public assistance. They were assigned an apartment. When they looked at the place, it was filthy, in a run-down building in a seedy area of the city. But they were stuck and had to make the most of it. The place was roach infested. When they started to clean the place up, he told me, there was a taped up cardboard box in a corner of the room. When he picked it up, the bottom fell out and "about 2000 cockroaches" hit the floor and scattered in all directions. He and his wife shared their first Baltimore freak-out during their eventful but short stay in that building. There was more but you get the picture. 

What that lead to was the two of them frantically calling any relative and extended family member they could recall in the hopes that one of them would let them stay with them for even just a little while. One of them, who worked with me, told them that if they could get there, they could stay with him for as long as it took to get settled. He told me they each packed one bag and went straight to the highway and thumbed the first truck that would take them closer to Massachusetts and farther away from Maryland. 

When the truck driver dropped them off at our towns highway rest-stop on Interstate RT-495, he drove off with their luggage and disappeared into the night. But that incident did not offset the relief they felt for finally getting out of Baltimore. 

Since that time Baltimore has gotten worse. 

Baltimore is a city of stark contrasts, the have's and the have-nots, empty buildings that serve as drug shooting-galleries a block away from a posh neighborhood, poor schools and poor people a block away from good schools and rich neighborhoods. Employment in much of the city is public employment since businesses are reluctant to move in. 

People who live in Baltimore will tell you that there are a lot of great places to go there, museums, restaurants, art centers and other attractions. 

But they will also warn you to be aware of your surroundings when out and not to walk and talk on your cell phone in public since this automatically makes you a target. They will also tell you to simply expect things to be stolen off of your porch and to not leave items visible in your car when you park. They will mention that your home insurance should cover break-ins. Everyone there will acknowledge that the crime rate is very high punctuated by a lot of shootings. 

In 2017, there were a reported 343 murders in Baltimore but the good news is that it dropped in 2018 to 309. 

But that could be anywhere in the country, right? 

Since the Freddy Gray incident, where six Baltimore policemen were put on trial for the negligent homicide of Mr. Gray whom they left unsecured with his hands cuffed behind his back in the police vehicle and who subsequently died as a result of falling against the door handle, arrests have gone down and crime has gone up. 

People there warn you not to come. Don't take my word for it, Google "Moving to Baltimore" and see what that gets you. Oh, there's some fake news out there but you'll know the real stuff when you read it. 

All the money Baltimore gets in Federal Aid doesn't seem to help things. That's because the money isn't there to actually help people, it's good jobs at good wages for the people who dole it all out. Those are the people the money is for.

Nothing seems to get better in Baltimore.  

Baltimore, MD: A City With No Future

I met a couple once years ago that had traveled to Obscurity, MA where I live. They had previously lived in Baltimore. They had left because of the crime, the poverty and lack of jobs. And this was in the 1980s.

They didn't have two nickels to rub together and she was pregnant and the story they told of their treatment at the hands of Baltimore's Social Services Department and the squalid conditions they had to endure made me vow never to set foot in the place. They finally resorted to packing one suitcase each and heading for the highway. They literally stuck out their thumbs on Interstate RT 95 to get out of town and when the trucker who picked them up and drove them to the Massachusetts line dropped them off, he drove off with the rest of their suitcases, which was what was left of their worldly possessions. It's a story you never forget. 

Baltimore was NEVER a good place to live as far as I could tell. Never wanted to go there and I didn’t even like to drive by it on my way to somewhere else. 

Baltimore represents all that is wrong with the welfare state. Like any of the crappy big cities like Philadelphia, PA, Cleveland, OH, Camden, NJ or Washington, DC, they'll give you what you need to survive but that ain’t living. And in order to get the money to fund these respective welfare states, they tax and regulate away real opportunity. Then they wonder why nobody wants to open a business in Baltimore. The money has to come from somewhere. It’s a Socialist Paradox. They take your opportunity and give you welfare and food stamps because, well, you can't find a job but there are no jobs so you quit looking and just take the short money and lump it. 

There are plenty of stupid people in Baltimore. They have voted for the Social Democrats for decades and nothing ever seems to get better and they can’t figure it out. It must mean that they aren't throwing enough money at the problem. It must mean that GOVERNMENT is not doing enough!

Anyone who stays in Baltimore and thinks it’s going to get any better is a FOOL. It hasn't and it won’t. If you stay there the odds are very good you will never get anywhere in life. You have to get your ass out of Baltimore or you will only ever get what the government gives you. You’re a slave to the State. What’s the difference who your Massa is? You still have a Massa!

No opportunity, no future. The government can’t give you a future. They can’t manufacture a job without taking from others with jobs and putting the burden on THEM to support you. Without self-reliance, you can never be free. You own yourself so now what are you going to do with yourself? You going to go loot a chain drug store? That’s your future? You're just waiting for the bullet. 

And it looks like the local police force are all too happy to help you out with that final exit. Yes, it seems that one of the six policemen or perhaps ALL of the six policemen tried to twist poor Freddie Gray’s head off for being, for the most part, a wise guy. It is not up to the police to decide the Mr. Gray’s fate like that, it’s for the courts and all six of them should be arrested and tried. Only in this fashion will the truth come out.  Will it happen? Most likely no, since we still have an unapologetic unaccountable police force and this is starting to lead to some big problems nationally.

But that has nothing to do with why Baltimore is a DUMP.  A dump made worse by recent lawlessness permitted if not condoned by the Leftist Mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who mistakenly believed that by letting these home-grown Hooligans run rampant in the city streets unchecked that it would somehow lessen the damage in the long run. Did you see all those cop cars burning? With all the technology in those cruisers, they must cost $70,000 apiece. Where is the money to replace them going to come from? Oh, they’ll just raise taxes on businesses and property owners so no worries there.

And people are calling the cops and none are coming. If the mayor let’s this sort of mayhem happen when unrest breaks out, who is going to invest in Baltimore? Like we will see in Ferguson, businesses and people will be on the move…out of town.

And it will be a good move. Life is too short to hang around waiting for change that never comes. Better to walk away and seek opportunities elsewhere. Or they can stay and take the short money and waste their lives on a Baltimore street corner, dealing drugs and “Fightin’ the Power”.

Good luck with that.