The Black Sista Network Now Running Baltimore

By Robert Wenzel

It is always good to see government officials harassed and thus the state's attorney of Baltimore, 35-year old Marilyn J. Mosby, must be applauded for the charges she has brought against the six police officers involved in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray.

Marilyn J. Mosby

The announcement of the charges is likely to have marked an important turning point in the city. The sista network is now in charge.

In addition to Mosby as the state's attorney, the city has as its mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

But the network extends well beyond government officials. CNN has been featuring, during its extensive coverage of the Baltimore situation, one of their legal analysts, the former prosecutor, Sunny Hostin. The half Puerto Rican/ half black former prosecutor has been getting more face time to massage the Baltimore message than even Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper.

She is inevitably introduced by the two anchors as "a close friend of the mayor," or "a very close friend of Marilyn Mosby."

Sunny Hostin

And no 21st century power sista network could be complete without Judy Smith lurking in the background. The hit network television series Scandal is based on this former George H.W. Bush administration press aide, turned fixer, who has handled Monica Lewinsky, actor Wesley Snipes, NFL quarterback Michael Vick and Sony Pictures Entertainment after its 2014 cyber attack.

She is now a crisis adviser to the city of Baltimore.

 Judy Smith

The ladies are smart and media savvy, and bringing the quick indictments was a brilliant stroke. But here's the problem. There is no indication that anyone in this group understands the first thing about basic economics or the underlying causes that result in urban primitivism. Indeed. the network is very much a pro-government group. What the residents in and around Freddie Gray's neighborhood in Baltimore need is not more government. or even different government, they need less government. The residents need to understand that no one is going to care for them other than themselves and that they need government shackles removed in many ways from minimum wage laws to child labor laws (if you can throw rocks at policemen into the night, in my book you can work) to get them started on the road to helping themselves.

The indictments and the slick way that it will be portrayed by these savvy gals is going to send the wrong message to the black communities of Baltimore and around the country, that good government with the right people in charge is the solution. It's not. 

The Nobel prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek in his book, The Road to Serfdom,warned about the dangerous desire among the masses for "can-do" political leaders after a crisis:

It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough "to get things done" who exercises the greatest appeal...What they will seek is somebody with such solid support as to inspire confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants. It is here that the new type of party, organized on military lines, comes in.

The sistas will spin the can-do nature of their running of things and, sadly, the citizens will buy in. But the answer can never be more government or "better" government. Government is a net taker and freedom reducer, always and everywhere, and that is the last thing the citizens of Freddy Gray's neighborhood need pressed upon them more efficiently.

What they need is freedom from government. Freedom from minimum wage laws and child labor laws. Freedom from compulsory education laws, which throws them into a pit that breeds urban primitivism and, like the rest of us, freedom from oppressive taxation.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher at EconomicPolicyJournal.com and at Target Liberty. He is also author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics