The American Left

[ToddStarnes]

The left in America is fundamentally broken for a variety of reasons. One key reason is that liberals have a tendency to jump to conclusions that reinforce their worldview.* Recent examples that jump out to me are listed below. These are, of course, mostly "viral" social media trends of one form or another, but they reflect an increasingly myopic and militant viewpoint on the left that is encouraging me to continue my boycott of national American leftists until the base, which now often sets the tone for national discourse, comes to its senses/is assimilated into the work place where I can berate them into submission.

(1) "Three black teenagers" versus "three white teenagers". The knee jerk reaction that this reflects widespread societal racism is off, in my opinion. (a) Conservative websites love to run these stories and get huge traffic and (b) black teenagers commit crimes at a higher proportion than white teenagers. This results in a skewed and exaggerated effect with regard to something with as little context as Google image searches.

Yes, the media loves a good black on white crime. But the media also loves a good cop on black crime. They're showing what sells, and for a motivated and increasingly significant media market what sells is scaring white people with stories of black crime. These racist consumers are a minority with outsized influence in the "market" (in this case, the Google images results).

(2) The Stanford rapist. Again, knee jerk reaction that this ruling shows that rape is acceptable and "rape culture" exists. No consideration of the fact that incarceration is itself an evil act that has to be justified by the circumstances. The court in this case determined that the suspect was not likely to reoffend and that incarceration would not be a net benefit to society when taking into account the circumstances of the incident, the individual's lack of a criminal record and his life achievements, and the costs (in tax dollars and to the defendant) of incarceration. This makes sense! This is the approach we need to be taking more often and it should be recognized as an instance when incarceration, which should be used only when necessary, was treated as the option of last resort.

Liberals fall all over themselves over this incident and want to end the judge's career over it, but where were they, for example, when Sam Ukwuachu was sentenced to 180 days for what was undoubtedly a far more violent and aggressive sexual assault? http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/01/opini ... .html?_r=0

Did they ignore this because this was a black man, the current victim of choice for the left, whereas Brock is a white rich guy, the current target for the left? Is this the justice and color blindness liberals pontificate on?

(3) Every police shooting. Recently, a man was shot dead by police officers in Manhattan. He had started an argument with a patron at a store and escalated it to the point others felt the need to call the police. When the police arrived, the man grabbed a knife and allegedly "brandished" it toward police officers, at which point he was shot. Liberals promptly concluded the police were wrong and at fault for the man's death. No consideration of the known facts or patience to wait for the rest of the facts to be revealed. Just an immediate, knee jerk reaction that the police were wrong. Is this another example of liberals' self-proclaimed fairness?

And of course there's the obvious and well-known problems with young liberals (trigger warnings, safe spaces, etc.). No need to extrapolate here. We all know that bullshit is bullshit.

It's frustrating. We all know that conservatives in America are basically completely dysfunctional and broken and will have little to offer the nation for the next 4-10 years, minimum. This means it's up to liberals. They're our only hope for competent, thoughtful, deliberate governance at the moment. We liberals have to do better than this or else the country is left with no chance for the leadership we desperately need.

*Conservatives do too but I consider them beyond saving.

[John Galt]

I got in an argument at work today about this. Actually was pretty bad as I try to not do that but one person at work he just states things and he started talking about the Stanford guy... his entire position was basically that it was unfair that he got lenient treatment. It wasn't that the crime deserved more, it's that others got worse so he should too.

While I might think rapists deserve the chair i was more annoyed at him for this than anything else so I argued with him at length: individual cases should get individual punishments. One size fits all is terrible because they end up being horribly more punishing for almost all people so that it is "fair" to the horrible individuals that actually deserve the type of punishment that sentencing guidelines put out.

What is fair? I don't know the facts of the case. I wasn't there, when it happened or when it was tried. But I do think we should err on the side of the defendant always. If the guy is deemed a threat to society, remove him. If not, let's find other punishments.

Now I did say I approve of capital punishment for rapists. Not all rapists, but i think someone who is a serial rapist deserves to be punished like that. Someone who has the same mindset as a first degree murderer. This kid is a real asshole buy I'm not sure that he deserves the book thrown at him because I don't know the specifics. And frankly neither does anyone else who didn't listen to all the testimony and review all the facts. Does this lead to some cases being 'lenient' and others not? Yes. But that doesn't make it necessarily wrong in how the sentences were does out. But that's what some people argue, that each crime committed should have a check box and if it meets the crime it should result in the same punishment. The justice system will never change if we have this mindset.

[spacemonkey]

Both far left / right are no good. Moderation works for other things besides drinking.