Victim shaming is wrong, as when someone blames a woman for getting raped if she’s wearing the “wrong” skirt or blouse. Here’s the latest horrible victim shame game: blame car makers for making their cars too easy to steal.
It sounds ludicrous, right? But that’s exactly what liberals running the city of Milwaukee want to do. The Wall Street Journal editorial board reports:
Car thefts in Milwaukee have tripled in the last two years amid a broader descent into public disorder. But rather than chase down the thieves, Democratic aldermen want to sue Kia and Hyundai for making cars that the politicians say are too easy to steal.
More than 10,000 car thefts were reported in Milwaukee last year. About half of those arrested are juveniles age 16 and older, many of whom post their joyrides on social media. When public schools shut down, teens find non-gainful employment. Yet former mayor Tom Barrett, who left office in December, said that only about 2% are prosecuted.
Rather than blame the permissive policies of Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, city aldermen are side-swiping Hyundai and Kia, whose cars reportedly made up 66% of those stolen in the first half of 2021. Some Kias apparently can be broken into through the back window without setting off an alarm.
Several aldermen have encouraged the city attorney’s office to sue the South Korean auto makers for allegedly causing a public nuisance by making their cars too easy a target for thieves. They say the stolen cars are often involved in reckless driving and are diverting police resources.
In a press release last month, Milwaukee Alderman Khalif Rainey claimed the auto makers “are directly responsible, in my view, for the drain on police and other city resources that have been sadly directed to deal with the rash of vehicle thefts and the havoc those thefts have brought to our city.”
To recap: these big-city liberals won’t keep our schools open due to irrational COVID-induced panic and refuse to discipline wayward students on the streets. And instead of getting them back in school and/or teaching them better behavior, these liberals would rather punish car manufacturers because the city bosses want to defund police. What will this do to the price of cars? More regulation means higher prices, which especially hit poorer families the hardest.
These new costs come even as record-high inflation is hitting families with a vengeance. Used and new cars are already in shortage because of supply chain problems with computer chips for cars.
Victim shaming is wrong, and it often involves pointing the finger in the wrong direction. Instead of these Milwaukee liberals shaming car makers, why don’t they do the adult thing and protect car hijacking victims instead?