३० डिसेंबर, २०२१

"At least a dozen cities have set homicide records this year. The scale of the killings is recapitulating the worst moments of the United States’ 20th-century urban crisis."

"And if we can’t stop it, we’ll also end up with the kind of over-the-top political response that we have spent decades regretting. That was the era when Bernhard Goetz, the 'Subway Vigilante,' became a New York folk hero for shooting a group of young men who demanded $5. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton left the presidential campaign trail to be home for the execution of a severely brain-injured convict. A few years later, as president, Clinton would help spearhead passage of the infamous 1994 crime bill, which ended up dogging both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden during their presidential runs because the modern era blames it (somewhat unfairly) for mass incarceration. The younger progressives who called out Biden and Clinton tend to view the law-and-order politics of that era as pure sadism — or else as a racist, 'New Jim Crow' backlash that served to keep Black Americans separate and unequal.... Crime control is arguably a prerequisite for many items on the progressive policy agenda. Want people to support higher immigration? Reassure them that foreign gangs are not going to reassemble on American streets. Want people to move to dense, walkable urban neighborhoods where their carbon footprint will be smaller? Those neighborhoods won’t be very attractive if there are many criminals walking around, too. And of course, people are most likely to support a reformist criminal justice agenda when crime is low. If many people you know have been victimized, you tend to err on the side of keeping offenders in jail."

२०० टिप्पण्या:

Ralph L म्हणाले...

No, it was distorted politics that allowed crime to take over many streets.

Rocketeer म्हणाले...

She says distorted, I say informed.

She’s really become quite idiotic.

TJ म्हणाले...

Well since democracy dies in darkness, I'm sure the WaPo has highlighted any similarities in those cities outside of the obvious "urban" nature of them...nope.

Lem Vibe Bandit म्हणाले...

The pandemic mandates can't be helping.

Lem Vibe Bandit म्हणाले...

I believe "distorted" to mean the political reaction, 3 strikes yer out, and other methods, (stop and frisk) now believed draconian.

Mr Wibble म्हणाले...

She’s really become quite idiotic.

She lives in Washington D.C. and will never leave.

Achilles म्हणाले...

"Distorted?"

No.

Affected. Influenced. etc. Citizens wanting crime reduced is normal.

"Distorted" is Soros dumping millions of dollars into AG races and getting marxists in control of institutions that are supposed to be supporting the social fabric of the country.

Mr Wibble म्हणाले...

Said "brain-injured convict" wasn't brain-injured when he committed his crimes, murdering two people, including a police office while pretending to surrender. His injury came from trying to blow his brains out, so why should we have been hesitant to help him finish the job?

mikee म्हणाले...

Goetz didn't shoot the subway criminals over their demand for a $5 monetary donation. He shot them because they threatened him with great bodily harm, even death, while holding a weapon ( a screwdriver) up to him if he did not comply with their robbery. Goetz might even have avoided conviction, if he hadn't shot one criminal again after he'd stopped their robbery. So there's a problem in the first lines of McArdle's story.

As to the young progressives and their view of law & order issues: the young progs are full of baloney, and want to be free to rampage without consequences. If others are allowed to do the same, well fine, as long as the progs get what they want for themselves. I suggest they get what they deserve for their actions, good and hard, either from the state or from their fellow citizens if the state won't stop their depredations.

McArdle finds it a "distortion" of politics to suggest stopping criminals from their chosen occupation. May her mugging be a mild one, just enough to convince her of the utility of crime control.

Achilles म्हणाले...

"Distorted" also means people outside the DC tribe being elected.

McArdle sold out and has no soul. It is what you have to do to work for a publication as pathetic as the Wapo.

Mr Wibble म्हणाले...

They want you living in pods, eating bugs, afraid to go outside because of the violence on the streets. Those criminal thugs are their foot-soldiers.

Temujin म्हणाले...

Writes Megan McArdle in "Street crime has distorted our politics before. If we don’t get it under control, it will do so again"

She's got it exactly backwards.

She continues, ""And if we can’t stop it, we’ll also end up with the kind of over-the-top political response that we have spent decades regretting."

Again- it's the over the top progressiveness of our political class, media, big tech, academia, and Hollywood that has brought on, not only this level of crime, but the gutting of Civil Society. How they cannot see their own handiwork in the cities they live in, the policies these very people praise, is beyond me. It seems to me that they only have their 'Come to Jesus' moments when it occurs to them that they might lose an upcoming election- very badly.

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

Meghan McArdle's mind goes immediately to Bernhard Goetz and vigilantism and doesn't ask where and who the Bonnie and Clyde and Pretty Boy Floyd of today's crime wave are. When Hollywood (or whatever Asian film industry replaces it) gets around to making nostalgic movies about the Biden era, will they find some charismatic bandit to represent our age, or is it all small-scale (under $950) shoplifting? Another difference: the FBI won't be the heroes anymore.

Paul म्हणाले...

Reap what you sow wokes.... reap what you sow. You voted them in... and this is what you got.

Lots of luck.

Ambrose म्हणाले...

“a group of young men who demanded $5” - she makes them sound like Salvation Army Santas ringing the bell in a street corner. Our elite just don’t get it.

BothSidesNow म्हणाले...

Overall, the article's point that increasing crime rates will influence politics, and not in a traditionally "progressive" direction makes sense, albeit should be pretty obvious. The reference to the 1994 crime bill as "infamous" however, is simply lazy. The bill was widely backed by the Black Congressional Caucus, Bernie Sanders voted for it, and crime rates fell. Thousands of people are alive today because of the drop in the murder level, and a high proportion of those people are Black. Yet the left wing of the Democratic Party seems to want to be the party of crime and disorder. In D.C., with a higher murder rate, the D.C. council is focused on making sure that people serving time for murder can vote while in prison, that they can have their sentences reduced after a period of time, that when they are released they will not be asked about their status, etc etc etc.

I lived in New York in the early 1980s. It was not pretty, and the burden of the high crime rate fell ever so much more heavily on the poor and working class people living in neighborhoods far from the Upper West Side and other nicer New York environs. I remember thinking that there had to be a reason that the City was simply abandoning these neighborhoods to chaos, and wondering whether it was a plot by real estate interests to force people to flee the affordable housing in the city for more expensive digs in the suburbs.

That was before the Berlin Wall fell, and there still existed an avowedly left-wing country
in almost western Europe, i.e. East Germany. Another thought I had at the time was why the left wing in the US was okay with crime and disorder, and contemptuous of efforts to address it, while a true left wing country existed that would not have tolorated such disorder for a New York minute. Bizzare thinking, perhaps, but I still do not understand why it is considered "progressive" or leftist to be unbothered by crime.

Ficta म्हणाले...

I think I'm reading a different piece than most commenters so far are responding to. Yes, it's a bit of a weird article that wanders perilously close to Fox Butterworth territory at times, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the intended audience. I think Goetz was a hero, but McArdle is trying to get through to people who very much don't. She's desperately trying to signal to the Millennial/Gen Z left that they won't get any of the things they want if they don't stop behaving like idiots. The main point of the article, I think, is that crime control is the basic purpose of government, everything else is secondary, and she's trying to slip this absolutely uncontroversial fact that everyone should know, past the mental defenses of some very silly people who grew up in a land that was quite unlike anything the world had ever seen before and that they believe to be the natural order of things, the starting point on the road to their utopian visions, rather than the fragile endpoint of millennia of slow improvements to Western civilization.

sean म्हणाले...

McArdle always becomes unusually fatuous when discussing crime. It was the "distorted" policies of the 1990s which brought crime under control, and I note that our new mayor Eric Adams proposes to bring back some of them. Does McArdle have some "progressive" alternative means to reduce crime? We'd all love to hear the plan.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"'Distorted' is Soros dumping millions of dollars into AG races and getting marxists in control of institutions that are supposed to be supporting the social fabric of the country."

Talk about distortion! That statement is just delusion (or a lie, or plain stupidity). There are no Marxists in control of any government institutions in the USA.

Interested Bystander म्हणाले...

I'm sorry but Bernhard Goetz shot up a group of kids who threatened to stab him with a screwdriver. It was a lot more than just asking a guy on the subway for $5. I call BS.

gilbar म्हणाले...

as people have pointed out here before
the purpose of the police, is to protect the criminals
If the police don't do their job, criminals get shot

The same is true with laws; if laws don't do their job, folks make things HARD on crooks

Mike Sylwester म्हणाले...

About three months ago, I began watching a documentary television show called The First 48, which is broadcast on the Arts and Entertainment (A&E) cable channel. This has become my favorite TV show, by far.

Real detectives are filmed investigating real crimes. (These are not re-enactments.) A lot of time is devoted to the detectives' interrogations of witnesses and suspects.

The large majority of cases involve Blacks -- Black victims, witnesses and murderers. And many of the detectives are Blacks.

Almost all of the crimes involve drugs and pistols.

This superb show's depiction of our country's murder problem is vivid, fascinating and thought-provoking.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

The left refuse to acknowledge the big plan to get left-wing AG's & DA's installed.

'Nonsense', they decry!

chickelit म्हणाले...

Not impressed. No solutions are offered. Why even write such a piece?

Jake म्हणाले...

Reformist criminal justice policies are more palatable when crime is low? It's a shame that reformist criminal justice policies ensure crime is high.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...
There are no Marxists in control of any government institutions in the USA.

Robert? i asked you this before (and i'm not trying to upset the Professor's Christmas Truce)
You've said that many people are moderates; Who do YOU see as Left Wing?
[note, i'm NOT asking who you think is a Marxist; I'm asking Who in America, you see as left wing?]

happy new years eve eve

Jake म्हणाले...

Crime at Record High despite Lax Enforcement of Laws. LOL.

hombre म्हणाले...

Given that the first responsibility of government is, or ought to be, the protection of its citizens, it is puzzling that Megan thinks that addressing that issue “distorts our politics.”

It is the insane belief held by lefties for decades that criminals are victims and their victims are nothing that has distorted our politics. Or has applauding when the guilty go free (unless they are white conservatives) become an undeformed way of thinking?

Howard म्हणाले...

It's an emergent property of pandemic prohibition.

chickelit म्हणाले...

Mr Wibble said...She lives in Washington D.C. and will never leave.

A drop in her property value might convince her to get real about things. But otherwise, she's a basket case.

Birches म्हणाले...

Mcardle's ability to persuade has long since passed. There's too much throat clearing in her columns to try and make them palatable to the WaPo readership. The Left still hates her, but the right (who used to champion her) tired of being badmouthed. I don't find her sincere anymore.

Butkus51 म्हणाले...

Mommy and Meghan voted for it. Now shes going to enlighten us.

I loved the, "everybody knew what Epstein and Ghislaine were doing, but we didnt know how to stop it" thing.

Talk about a clueless family.

Gospace म्हणाले...

I was in HS in suburban NJ when Bernie shot some hoodlums who deserved what they got. No one I knew at the time objected to his rightful actions.

TJ म्हणाले...

No solution...

Like the mural on my walk to work today says "NO COPS IN SCHOOLS". My question every time I see it is: who WANTS cops in schools? NOBODY. So, WHY are cops in schools...nevermind.

Mike Sylwester म्हणाले...

Following up my comment at 10:35 AM

The show is called The First 48, because most of the murders are solved within the first 48 hours following the crime. Sometimes it takes longer to find and arrest the murderers, but their identities have been determined within the first 48 hours.

Closed-circuit televisions (inside stores, at parking lots, on residential homes, etc.) provide a lot of the clues and evidence to the detectives.

Even more useful, are the cell phones that the various culprits own -- and the social-media sites that the culprits maintain. The detectives take possession of those phones, which contain many phone-call occurrences, text messages and photographs. The detectives also study all the messages, photographs and friendships on Facebook, etc.

And, the cell phones also enable the detectives to determine the culprits' physical locations at key points of time.

All this is fascinating. I highly recommend that everyone watch this show.

BUMBLE BEE म्हणाले...

Goetz vs a screwdriver? Screwdriver not a lethal weapon? I, (and several hundred people), watched a mugging take place using a six inch piece of clothes hanger held to the corner of the victim's eye. Let God sort 'em out.

Michael K म्हणाले...

She used to be so sensible. That was her "before DC" phase. I used to read her columns all the time. No more. No common sense.

Just some rando on the interwebz म्हणाले...

The left's complete indifference for crime victims (many of them poor minorities)boggles the mind.

Moondawggie म्हणाले...

Ficta, good point.

I also think Megan is simply trying to reach the typical Baizuo WaPo subscriber, and get them to realize they will lose power unless they address the crime issue.

It's unfortunate that in order to reach them, Megan has to initially reassure them their world views are morally correct, and then persuade them that their policies are failing in the real world.

Unfortunately for Megan, I don't think her efforts will be successful.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"The left refuse to acknowledge the big plan to get left-wing AG's & DA's installed."

What left? What "big plan?" What left-wing AGs and DAs?

Lem Vibe Bandit म्हणाले...

The argument that, if murder rates continue to rise, we are going to bring back draconian methods to combat it is not a very good argument. The way i see it, it's an argument for bringing back what worked. It's like Matt Taibbi's argument that if the democrats don't get the parents/school issues right, that it will bring back Trump.

Right now, my sense is nobody is looking to the past, to what happened before, as a guide for anything. That's my number one take away from wokeism, today's zeitgeist.

Mr Wibble म्हणाले...

The show is called The First 48, because most of the murders are solved within the first 48 hours following the crime. Sometimes it takes longer to find and arrest the murderers, but their identities have been determined within the first 48 hours.

Closed-circuit televisions (inside stores, at parking lots, on residential homes, etc.) provide a lot of the clues and evidence to the detectives.


The reality is that if someone is killed, they were likely killed by someone whom they knew. It's not some grand mystery. "Ooooh, a known drug dealer with a history of violence and a lonstanding feud with a rival dealer was found gunned down in the street. Will we ever be able to determine what happened?!"

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

The Democrat party is the criminals BFF. Here in Washington State, the state legislature passed laws last year making it harder for police to do their jobs and removing 2nd degree robbery as a strike in our 3-strikes law (permanent lock up for criminals with three strikes). Now, Tarra Simmons and David Hackney have introduced a bill to remove drive-by murders as an aggravated murder count. Because the current law is, wait for it, "Racist...!" No mention that 80% of these shooting are done to minority Washingtonians.

Democrats hate minority Washingtonians. They want chaos. The love criminals.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

999$ free stuff at any San Francisco retail chain.
But by all means, don't blame the corrupt whack-job pro-crime left.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

Cook - The fact that crime has spiked to unprecedented high levels in democrat run cities is just a happy coincidence.

Mr. Ostrich.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"You've said that many people are moderates; Who do YOU see as Left Wing?
[note, i'm NOT asking who you think is a Marxist; I'm asking Who in America, you see as left wing?]"


In US government at this time? Virtually no one I am aware of. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claim to be leftists and use leftist rhetoric and perhaps hold some leftist ideas, but their votes are generally mainstream Democrat...which is not leftist.

Ice Nine म्हणाले...

>That was the era when Bernhard Goetz, the 'Subway Vigilante,' became a New York folk hero for shooting a group of young men who demanded $5.<

Only $5! That is some heinous vigilantism!

BTW, Meg, what is the exact dollar amount at which protecting oneself from being stabbed by thugs is acceptable?

Static Ping म्हणाले...

It is good to see that Megan can detect the obvious. Too bad she only does so because it is getting in the way of her agenda and not because the policies being pushed are incredibly stupid to the point that anyone who supports them knowingly has disqualified themselves from ever being taken seriously and should be forever banned from any sort of authority. Still, this makes her better informed that most pundits, which says more about the current quality of our "elite" than anything.

Clyde म्हणाले...

What’s this “we”? I regret nothing! The past couple of years have shown that if a jurisdiction doesn’t punish crime, then the criminals get the message that it’s open season on honest, decent folk. That’s what has happened in blue cities and blue states like New York and California. Not coincidentally, those two states have the highest out-migration over the past year.

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

R.L Burnside / The Criminal Inside Of Me

gilbar म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
gilbar म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...
After gilbar asked.. You've said that many people are moderates; Who do YOU see as Left Wing?

In US government at this time? Virtually no one I am aware of.


Thanx Robert; i wanted to make sure i understood you
happy news years eve eve

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

It is sad to see what has happened to Ms. McArdle since she began her journey through leftist news organizations. In this essay's excerpt, she gets cause and effect backwards, literally completely backwards. What she writes is no more intelligent than the observation by many lefty writers from the late 90s through about 2014 that it was illogical for the US to have so many men incarcerated since crime was way down from the early 1990s.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Mike Sylwester said...

About three months ago, I began watching a documentary television show called The First 48, which is broadcast on the Arts and Entertainment (A&E) cable channel. This has become my favorite TV show, by far.
Real detectives are filmed investigating real crimes.


i watched my 1st episode (season 7 ep1), and it's clear that RULE #1 should be;
if you've committed a murder (or, if you haven't); do NOT talk to cops without your lawyer


i guess RULE #2 should be: do NOT bring your cell phone with when committing nefarious acts*


nefarious acts* gilbar's public statement is that he, in no way, condones nefariousisms

Joe Smith म्हणाले...

And now we've gone in another direction entirely:

"To Promote Racial Equity, Washington State Democrats Push to Reduce Penalties for One Serious Crime"

Wokeness is now parody...

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

Rule#3 I got from being an alternate juror on a felony murder case- don't write letters from lockup to your girlfriend describing your crime.

Guy Fehmer म्हणाले...

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

John henry म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...

What left? What "big plan?" What left-wing AGs and DAs?

Chelsea Boudin?

DA for shithole San Francisco

John LGBTQBNY Henry

hombre म्हणाले...

Cook: ‘What left? What "big plan?" What left-wing AGs and DAs?’

Denial: “Denial is a defense mechanism in which an individual refuses to recognize or acknowledge objective facts or experiences. It’s an unconscious process that serves to protect the person from discomfort or anxiety.” (Psychology Today)

John henry म्हणाले...

Chesea not Chelsea

Rory म्हणाले...

"Bizzare thinking, perhaps, but I still do not understand why it is considered "progressive" or leftist to be unbothered by crime."

It's because progressive philosophy is rooted in Soviet disinformation stretching back 90 years. It's intended to bring down liberal democracy.

Bilwick म्हणाले...

Ms. McArdle no doubt agrees with that bubble-headed prosecutor in the Rittenhouse case that everybody takes a beating sometimes, so if the young men who confronted Goetz wanted to beat him up for not giving them the money they demanded, no biggie. Better he takes a beating than endanger the lives of those young men, who know doubt would have stopped with just a few noogies.



Bilwick म्हणाले...

I meant "no doubt" rather than "know doubt." Typed it, too.

What's emanating from your penumbra म्हणाले...

I think a lot of people agree that having effective crime reduction policies is important, not only for the obvious reason that people want to feel safe, but also because if crime levels exceed a certain societal tolerance, the odds of an overreaction increase, which could reduce everyone's liberties. So while perhaps McArdle's examples of past overreactions are suspect, what I take as her main point is correct.

By the single most important, objective and dispositive standard, leftist / Democrat policies and cultural norms vis a vis law enforcement have failed us. Those who refuse to acknowledge this simple and undeniable fact should be removed from power.

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

I was excited to see the WaPo headline "This is the Worst Economy We Ever Had." It quickened my pulse and made it seem as though life were worth living after all.

When I clicked on the article I saw that it was by Dana Milbank and the headline was actually, "This is the Worst Economy We Never Had," and the dark clouds blotted out the sun again.

wendybar म्हणाले...

You can THANK Regressive Progressives for it all. THEY wanted this. They are getting it good and hard. Congratulations suckers.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

Crime pays when you're a leftist Nazi Antifa thug. One of Nancy's brownshirts.

Portland Antifa rioter charged with assaulting police has case dismissed after 30 hours community service

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

Bizarre thinking, perhaps, but I still do not understand why it is considered "progressive" or leftist to be unbothered by crime.

Equity means some people get free passes. You don't see this toleration of crime in more homogeneous societies.

Michael K म्हणाले...


Blogger Robert Cook said...

"The left refuse to acknowledge the big plan to get left-wing AG's & DA's installed."

What left? What "big plan?" What left-wing AGs and DAs?


Hilarious.

1. Chesea Boudin, the red diaper baby of terrorist parents raised by Bill Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn.
2. George Gascon who is turning LA into a shithole.
3. Krasner in Philly
4. Kim Foxx in Chicago
5. Whatshername in St Louis
6. The Madison WI guy.

All given big, huge, donations by Soros and other lefty billionaires.

I know. Lefties can't be billionaires but these people seem to do it as a hobby.

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

Chelsea Boudin

Autocorrect wants us to think that Clinton's daughter's real parents were in the Weather Underground.

hombre म्हणाले...

Back in the day of the “Biden Crime Bill” pre-Soros metro Democrat DAs teamed with Republicans to shame recalcitrant Clinton era Democrats to support the bill. When it became apparent that the bill coupled with state mandatory sentence laws led to reduced crime Democrat claimed credit for it.

Part of the reduction in crime was likely attributable to the appearance that criminals had lost the patronage of their Democrat sponsors and enablers among the ruling class. We now see a new wave of that patronage and sponsorship coupled with a corresponding increase in crime accompanied by Democrat stupidity (E.g., “It’s because of Covid.”).

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...
There are no Marxists in control of any government institutions in the USA.

We have socialists in charge in major cities, like Seattle. Socialists are just wannabe Marxists. The worst socialist in Seattle is Kshama Sawant. She uses her socialist army to intimidate her opponents. She was part of the cabal to defund the Seattle PD. Nearly 300 police officers have quit. Like Portland, crime rates, especially murder, are way up.

Seattle elected a Republican City Attorney, Anne Davidson, last November. Now the city council is demanding that she report quarterly to them on what's she's been doing. They never did that to the current city attorney, Pete Holmes. Holmes is one of these officials who have never met a criminal that they wouldn't call friend.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Okay, so New York is at 460 murders for the year, down slightly from last year (479 through 12/26). Up from a couple years ago (when the Hannitys of the world declared that the election of Bill Deblasio and the end of stop and frisk would return us to the bad old days), but it is still 79% lower than 1990 (2262 murders). I couldn't get through the fire wall, but what twelve cities did have record murder rates? Even Chicago, unless it has a really bad couple of days (and really bad, over 200 murders), is not going to exceed the 1991 rate. New Orleans looks like it will win this year, but again still as not as bad as the late '80s and early '90's.

Jersey Fled म्हणाले...

Cookie:

Just to correct the record, Achilles said "institutions", not "government institutions".

Achilles म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...

"'Distorted' is Soros dumping millions of dollars into AG races and getting marxists in control of institutions that are supposed to be supporting the social fabric of the country."

Talk about distortion! That statement is just delusion (or a lie, or plain stupidity). There are no Marxists in control of any government institutions in the USA.

You are usually seemingly sincere.

It would require a level of stupidity to actually believe this that I do not think exists in concurrence with the ability to type complete sentences though.

Howard म्हणाले...

So taking Robert Cook's point, Republicans aren't right wing either. They are mostly just mainstream moderates very similar to Democrats except for a couple wedge issues to give the appearance of a difference.

This is exactly what Trump exposed and exploited. Where is the Trump cheat code from the democrats?

Two-eyed Jack म्हणाले...

I can still vividly remember the moment in kindergarten that, while doing the Homie Pokie, I realized that left and right were dependent upon individual orientation rather than part of a larger shared framework like north and south.

So perhaps there are no leftists in power in America, if that's what it's all about.

MadisonMan म्हणाले...

The Madison WI guy

Moi?

(Seriously -- what Madison WI guy?)

Anyway, this article reads as a Democratic Party ideals are making it hard for Democrats to be elected kind of thing.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"Just to correct the record, Achilles said 'institutions,' not 'government institutions.'"

What other institutions are headed by "Marxists?" I can think of the Communist Party USA and...that's it. And CPUSA has no influence within our nation.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

The fact that crime has spiked to unprecedented high levels in democrat run cities is just a happy coincidence.

This statement is simply a lie.

walter म्हणाले...

David Dorn not available for comment.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"Cook: ‘What left? What "big plan?" What left-wing AGs and DAs?’

"Denial: 'Denial is a defense mechanism in which an individual refuses to recognize or acknowledge objective facts or experiences. It’s an unconscious process that serves to protect the person from discomfort or anxiety.' (Psychology Today)"


Got nothin', eh?

hombre म्हणाले...

Freder: “... but again still as not as bad as the late '80s and early '90's.”

Assuming Freder’s data is accurate, what is the point, that all these dead people are no big deal given the push for some leftist “greater good?”

Lefty homicide policy illustrated: Black lives matter when blacks are killed by police. No lives matter, including mostly black lives, if they are killed by criminals or abortionists.

RonF म्हणाले...

It is a basic human right to be able to defend one's life, health and property. Since it is not desirable (for many reasons) for everyone to be a law unto themselves we as a civic body create laws and then create, train and provide authority to law enforcement officials.

What we have seen in many major cities is that the civic authorities there have decided to have their law enforcement officials stop enforcing the laws and stop protecting people's lives, health and property to the extent that the laws provide. But what they have failed to realize is that while the authority to do so was delegated to them the ultimate responsibility and right to do so was not. The people retain that, so when the civic authorities withdraw their protection the inevitable reaction of the public is to take the necessary steps to exercise their responsibilities and rights themselves.

Apparently this comes as a surprise to the authorities. Why I have no idea. If they want people to stop taking up arms to defend themselves and their property there is one and only one way to stop that - enforce the law. Will this result in a sharp uptick in the number of people incarcerated? Absolutely. But the solution to that is not an issue of law. The solution for that is for people to stop having fatherless children that they cannot support, as the vast majority of violent offenders in our cities are young men with no fathers.

Jersey Fled म्हणाले...

Cookie:

"Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors said in a newly surfaced video from 2015 that she and her fellow organizers are “trained Marxists” – making clear their movement’s ideological foundation,"

From the NY Post in January, 1920.

She shortly thereafter resigned from the organization.

Big O's Meanings Dictionary म्हणाले...

feigned ignorance - definition

An act of pretending, typically used to avoid answering a question.

example:

"What left? What "big plan?" What left-wing AGs and DAs?"

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

What other institutions are headed by "Marxists?"

I would argue most major corporations in this country are ruled by Soviet style Marxists. An all-powerful CEO, a "Politburo" of appointed lackeys beholden to no one (other than the CEO), and party members (stockholders) who have a meaningless vote (since the Board can generally ignore the shareholder votes) that they are duped into believing counts.

hombre म्हणाले...

Cook: “Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claim to be leftists and use leftist rhetoric and perhaps hold some leftist ideas, but their votes are generally mainstream Democrat...which is not leftist.”

Oh. I keep forgetting. It may not be theat Cook is in denial. It is just that those we see as left wing wackos are neither lefty enough nor wacky enough to fill the bill for Cook.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

It is a basic human right to be able to defend one's life, health and property.

So you believe health care is a basic human right?

MadTownGuy म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...

[Quote omitted for brevity]

"Talk about distortion! That statement is just delusion (or a lie, or plain stupidity). There are no Marxists in control of any government institutions in the USA."

George Gascón would like a word.

He’s Remaking Criminal Justice in L.A. But How Far Is Too Far? (New York Magazine)

"Gascón was telling his new staff that they had been not guardians of the public, as they might have believed, but rather agents of harm. He backed up his words with an even more confrontational set of directives, delivered to every employee in his office over email before he even finished speaking, at 12:02 p.m. Gascón’s orders touched nearly every aspect of the criminal-justice system. He mandated an end to seeking cash bail, the death penalty, the sentence of life without parole and the prosecution of anyone younger than 18 as an adult. And in a rare, if not unprecedented, move by an American prosecutor, Gascón declared his intent to effectively end very long sentences — in pending cases as well as new ones — for some of the most serious crimes, including murder."

Also, the Secretary of State Project, disbanded after its mission was accomplished.

If you're going to argue that George Gascón and the Democrats elected with the aid of the SoS Project are not leftists (and Marxist in their outlook if not by outright affiliation), you're either mistaken or willfully ignorant.

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

Tell us honestly, Freder- do your rhetorical tactics work anywhere you try them?

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Assuming Freder’s data is accurate, what is the point, that all these dead people are no big deal given the push for some leftist “greater good?”

The point is this entire thread is based on lies.

Gahrie म्हणाले...

You can't solve a problem until you define it. Tell your average Lefty that 50% of violent crime in the U.S. is committed by around an easily identifiable demographic. Then tell them it's young Black men. They simply refuse to believe you, call you racist and refuse to look at the evidence.

(By the way, the base problem is a lack of fathers)

Narr म्हणाले...

I'm late, but as I recall Bernie Goetz was a folk-hero all over the country, not just NYC.

I'll go read comments now.

Gahrie म्हणाले...

Here's another basic problem.

Crime becomes a problem, and people get fed up. The politicians pay attention, and they start locking criminals up. The number of people in jail goes up, and the amount of crime goes down.

Your average Rightwinger sees no problem here.

Your average Leftwinger says: "There are too many people in prison. Crime rates are low, we should let people out of prison."

Then of course the crime rates unexpectedly and unexplainably, goes back up.

Gahrie म्हणाले...

Bizzare thinking, perhaps, but I still do not understand why it is considered "progressive" or leftist to be unbothered by crime.

Because it allows you to ignore the fact that 50% of violent crimes are committed by young Black men. They're mostly killing each other, so no one gives a shit.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Crime becomes a problem, and people get fed up. The politicians pay attention, and they start locking criminals up. The number of people in jail goes up, and the amount of crime goes down.

Do you have any evidence that this correlation (and of course correlation does not prove causation) is correct? If so, provide a link.

Michael K म्हणाले...

Your average Leftwinger says: "There are too many people in prison. Crime rates are low, we should let people out of prison."

This is known as the "Fox Butterfield" fallacy. Butterfield was a reporter for (what else?) the NY Times who wrote a series of articles trying to understand why crime rates were low with lots of people in prison. This is known as The Fox Butterfield fallacy. It resulted in the present practice of not enforcing the law.

Michael K म्हणाले...

Because it allows you to ignore the fact that 50% of violent crimes are committed by young Black men. They're mostly killing each other, so no one gives a shit.

My reading suggests that, while black m ales are 4% of the population,. they commit 70% of the violent crime.

Loren W Laurent म्हणाले...

At 12:28 PM Freder Frederson said...

"I would argue most major corporations in this country are ruled by Soviet style Marxists. An all-powerful CEO, a "Politburo" of appointed lackeys beholden to no one (other than the CEO), and party members (stockholders) who have a meaningless vote (since the Board can generally ignore the shareholder votes) that they are duped into believing counts."

Add in their HR Departments pushing CRT and I'm not seeing much to disagree with here.

-Loren

Gahrie म्हणाले...

but again still as not as bad as the late '80s and early '90's.

Yet.

Gahrie म्हणाले...

My reading suggests that, while black m ales are 4% of the population,. they commit 70% of the violent crime.

My numbers are a couple of years old. I would not be surprised to find they had become even worse.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Megan McArdle used to have a brain. Either Trump, or the required response to Trump by anyone who wanted to write for WaPo, destroyed it.

"And if we can’t stop it, we’ll also end up with the kind of over-the-top political response that we have spent decades regretting.

Speak for yourself

That was the era when Bernhard Goetz, the 'Subway Vigilante,' became a New York folk hero for shooting a group of young men who demanded $5.
And we all know that criminals never escalate their demands, especial young male criminals who have a defenseless victim to play with. This kind of crap is the sort of dishonest idiocy McMegan used to not do

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton left the presidential campaign trail to be home for the execution of a severely brain-injured convict. A few years later, as president, Clinton would help spearhead passage of the infamous 1994 crime bill, which ended up dogging both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden during their presidential runs because the modern era blames it (somewhat unfairly) for mass incarceration.

The horror! A Democrat had to act like he wasn't pro-criminal in order to get elected! We can't go back to that!

The younger progressives who called out Biden and Clinton tend to view the law-and-order politics of that era as pure sadism — or else as a racist, 'New Jim Crow' backlash that served to keep Black Americans separate and unequal....

The younger progressives are brain-dead morons who live in safe and secure environments, and want to deny that to everyone else.

Crime control is arguably a prerequisite for many items on the progressive policy agenda. Want people to support higher immigration? Reassure them that foreign gangs are not going to reassemble on American streets.
The younger progressives would rather just call them "racists", and have the President use his "pen and phone" to violate immigration law and the public's desires

Want people to move to dense, walkable urban neighborhoods where their carbon footprint will be smaller? Those neighborhoods won’t be very attractive if there are many criminals walking around, too.
So drive up the cost of gas and cars, so they can't afford to live anywhere else. Gee, aren't both of those happening under Biden?

And of course, people are most likely to support a reformist criminal justice agenda when crime is low. If many people you know have been victimized, you tend to err on the side of keeping offenders in jail."

Much more fun to just call them racists, and ban them from social media

So, aside from being dishonest, McArdle's major problem is she's pretending the Left respects the law, democracy, or anything else that gets in its way

David Shor posted less than 18 months ago that violent protests hurt Democrat election chances. he was cancelled from his job, . What in the world does she "think" has changed?

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

(By the way, the base problem is a lack of fathers)

And sending all those fathers to prison solves the problem exactly how?

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

BothSidesNow said...
The reference to the 1994 crime bill as "infamous" however, is simply lazy. The bill was widely backed by the Black Congressional Caucus, Bernie Sanders voted for it, and crime rates fell. Thousands of people are alive today because of the drop in the murder level, and a high proportion of those people are Black. Yet the left wing of the Democratic Party seems to want to be the party of crime and disorder.

And poverty, which is why they hate the 1996 welfare reform law, because it actually helped people get off welfare and improve their lives, without giving jobs to the Democrat voting and contributing "social workers".

Reality check: Democrats don't want life to be better for ordinary Americans

gspencer म्हणाले...

We don't have a race problem.

Rather, we have a problem race.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

(By the way, the base problem is a lack of fathers)

And btw, what exactly is your policy solution to this problem?

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

He mandated an end to seeking cash bail, the death penalty, the sentence of life without parole and the prosecution of anyone younger than 18 as an adult. And in a rare, if not unprecedented, move by an American prosecutor, Gascón declared his intent to effectively end very long sentences — in pending cases as well as new ones — for some of the most serious crimes, including murder."

And what do these policies have to do with Marxism (or even Communism for that matter)? If anything, nominally "Marxist" countries love locking people up, the death sentence and long prison sentences.

Unknown म्हणाले...

Freder: “... but again still as not as bad as the late '80s and early '90's.”
I'll never understand why people seem to think there is some acceptable level of crime, let alone violent crime.

Violent crime should not be tolerated in any society, and it should be countered with the harshest and swiftest penalties.

Josephbleau म्हणाले...

I think what the author is worried about is the swing of the pendulum. When you slowly try to boil a frog it takes a while for him to notice, but he won’t just sit there, he gets pissed off and gets out of the pot and comes looking for you. Politics is cyclic. In my view, when things are good people have time for compassion and forgiveness. According to human nature, this leads many to get greedy and violate norms because they can. After an induction period compassion goes away and punishment becomes popular again and times get good. The cycle takes about 30 years. We seem to be at peak compassion now.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Rather, we have a problem race.

Well, it's not like they came here of their own free will. White people have no one to blame but themselves if there is indeed a "problem" race.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...
"You've said that many people are moderates; Who do YOU see as Left Wing?
[note, i'm NOT asking who you think is a Marxist; I'm asking Who in America, you see as left wing?]"

In US government at this time? Virtually no one I am aware of. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claim to be leftists and use leftist rhetoric and perhaps hold some leftist ideas, but their votes are generally mainstream Democrat...which is not leftist.


So, in other words you're a lying fruitcake.

There's a "left", a "center", and a "right". When you define "the center" as including the extreme Left end of the Left wing Party, what you're doing is trying to destroy language and ability to discuss

Which you only do because your ideas are such shit that any honest discussion makes that obvious.

Every person to the political Left of the median US voter is "Left"

Every DA / AG supported by Soros is "Left".

If you can't discuss things honestly, then FOAD. This is not Mao's China, we do not define American politics by CCP, positions, we define Tham by American positions

Stop being such a pathetic ass. Every single Democrat politicians is part of the "Left". Because they're for damn sure not a part of the Right.

Because not "centrist" or "Right wing" Senator would have supported many of the Biden nominees who got confirmed thanks to every single Democrat supporting them.

Louie the Looper म्हणाले...

Freder asked, “but what twelve cities did have record murder rates?” A simple google search for “cities record homicide 2021” turned up numerous articles, some citing 16 cities, and some 12. The sites include MSN, ABC News, Yahoo News and others that aren’t Fox News.

Take a little effort before throwing around accusations of lies. Sheesh. And don’t respond until you read a few of the articles.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Violent crime should not be tolerated in any society, and it should be countered with the harshest and swiftest penalties.

Have you ever considered that state sanctioned violence could increase the risk of violent crime?

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

And sending all those fathers to prison solves the problem exactly how?

Change the welfare programs to ban welfare to unwed mothers. That's tough love, but the kids need a father to grow up into men instead of feral adults. The men in the family must work to receive welfare benefits, the more they work, the greater the benefits. If they work a government job, they get half the minimum wage; working in a private sector job, they'd get the full minimum wage, but government would pay half for a few years. Finishing the high school education would be mandatory for both mom and dad.

Crime is high in the black neighborhoods because of the 70% bastard rate. No fathers to provide guidance. No fathers to provide love to their kids. The kids are just throw away biological artifacts of lust. No wonder the boys join gangs and turn into violent criminals. Blame LBJ for his welfare programs and the destruction of the black family.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Freder asked, “but what twelve cities did have record murder rates?” A simple google search for “cities record homicide 2021” turned up numerous articles, some citing 16 cities, and some 12. The sites include MSN, ABC News, Yahoo News and others that aren’t Fox News.

And if you look at those stories, while there may be a record number of murders, the murder rate is still well below the rates of the late '80s. The overall murder rate in the country has dropped 40% since. If I were a pansy-assed liberal I might even argue that the explosion in gun ownership might be responsible in the recent rise in murders, and that we need much better gun control in this country to reduce murder rates.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Freder Frederson said...
>It is a basic human right to be able to defend one's life, health and property.

So you believe health care is a basic human right?


Are you really that stupid?

I have the right to defend my life from you.

I do not have the right to force you to do something for me, at no pay, and without your consent.

The later is what's required for health care to b a basic human right.

There is no such thing as a "positive right", which is to say no one has a right to demand actions or things from others.

All rights a "negative rights", which mean the right to demand that you not do something.

"Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins"

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Freder Frederson said...
(By the way, the base problem is a lack of fathers)

And sending all those fathers to prison solves the problem exactly how?

And btw, what exactly is your policy solution to this problem?


1: The "fathers" we're sending to prison aren't there anyway. They screw the girl, she gets pregnant, they leave her.
2: 1996 welfare reform: stop rewarding girls / women for getting pregnant with babies they can't support. It worked well, which is why the Democrats have worked so hard to destroy it

gspencer म्हणाले...

Read this wonderful story of a minority father who loved his son so much that he drove his son (Abel) to Abel's date with destiny. And drove him away too.

If only all minority fathers had such dedication to their sons.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10354935/Cops-hunt-14-year-old-armed-dangerous-boy-fatally-shot-three-teens-Texas-week.html

Now Abel did take the lives of three would-be recipients of the Fields Medal, but such is the price when a father loves his son so much that he would act as his son's getaway driver.

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

Have you ever considered that state sanctioned violence could increase the risk of violent crime?

Those who commit those violent crimes would be in prison and no longer able to commit violent crimes against the general population. They could still commit violent crimes against their fellow inmates, but everyone else could walk downtown at midnight without fearing being mugged or murdered. QED.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Change the welfare programs to ban welfare to unwed mothers.

So how many children are you willing to starve to death and how many mothers are you willing to be forced into crime to achieve your social engineering goals?

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Freder Frederson said...
Freder asked, “but what twelve cities did have record murder rates?” A simple google search for “cities record homicide 2021” turned up numerous articles, some citing 16 cities, and some 12. The sites include MSN, ABC News, Yahoo News and others that aren’t Fox News.

And if you look at those stories, while there may be a record number of murders, the murder rate is still well below the rates of the late '80s. The overall murder rate in the country has dropped 40% since.


Why yes, the policies that McArdle iw whinging about, like the 1994 crime bill, greatly cut the murder rates, especially of black people.

Now the Democrats are undoing those policies, and demonstrating that only criminal "black lives" matter, and only when they're being killed by someone other than another black criminal.

You may be so psychotic that you don't care about the increases in murders, and won't care until they've gotten as high as they were in teh 80s and 90s.

But the rest of us, being decent human beings, don't like seeing people being murdered, and don't want to continue following the policies that are leading to those increasing murders.

Compare murder rates between the last two years, post Floyd, to the two years before that. If you're a decent human being, or if black lives actually matter to you, then increases in teh murder rate bother you, and you want to stop them.

If not? Not

Gahrie म्हणाले...

(By the way, the base problem is a lack of fathers)

And btw, what exactly is your policy solution to this problem?


Just for the record, 75% of Black children, and 25% of White children, are raised without a father in the home.

First, the base problem is cultural. My efforts in this area would be to try and restore the role of church in Black culture, and the second would be to try and encourage popular cultural influencers to counterprogram thug culture.

However there are some changes that could be made policy wise. The first would be to change welfare. Right now welfare encourages single motherhood because it rewards it financially. I would institute changes instead that rewarded intact families with more money. (First rule of government: You get more of what you subsidize.) The second would be to bring back neighborhood policemen and beat cops to the city. Get 50% of police out of their cars (electric bikes?) and interacting with their communities. Lastly spend lavishly on inner city sports programs, with incentives for doing well in school or having a steady job. Not only will the sports keep kids off of the streets, it will provide a venue for families and communities to interact positively with each other.

My best solutions are to support fathers, stop subsidizing single motherhood, and do what can be done to restore fellowship to our communities.

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

So how many children are you willing to starve to death and how many mothers are you willing to be forced into crime to achieve your social engineering goals?

It's called private charity. Black Lives Matter could actually step up to the plate and provide support. So could all the left-wing foundations that screech about all unfair life is.

It's not up to the taxpayer to support anti-social policies. ENOUGH.

Gahrie म्हणाले...

Well, it's not like they came here of their own free will. White people have no one to blame but themselves if there is indeed a "problem" race.

Granting for the sake of argument that there is a "problem race" and that it is Black...

Can't you see how patronizing and racist this thought is? You can't hold people responsible for their behavior because of the actions of people long dead? How are White people today responsible for how Black people behave today?

(by the way, no one of us came here by our own free will...I don't recall anyone asking me if I wanted to be born and to choose what circumstances I would be born into. And by the way an ever increasing percentage of Black Americans did come to the United States of their own free will, and thousands more do every year, many illegally.)

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Why yes, the policies that McArdle iw whinging about, like the 1994 crime bill, greatly cut the murder rates, especially of black people.

Correlation is not causation. And if you are looking for a more pronounced correlation, you need to look no further than the reduction in blood lead levels, which more closely correlate with the drop in violent crime than incarceration rates. In fact, the cities that have retained persistently high violent crime levels (e.g., New Orleans, Baltimore, etc.) are exactly those that have older housing stock and higher levels of lead contamination.

Achilles म्हणाले...

Freder Frederson said...

It is a basic human right to be able to defend one's life, health and property.

So you believe health care is a basic human right?

You have the right to take care of yourself with any resources you can acquire.

As soon as you tell someone they have to provide a service for free or for a price you force them to accept that is slavery.

Chris Lopes म्हणाले...

"
Robert Cook said...
There are no Marxists in control of any government institutions in the USA."

Yes, but that's only because true Marxism has never been tried. [/Sarc]

Achilles म्हणाले...

Unknown said...

Freder: “... but again still as not as bad as the late '80s and early '90's.”
I'll never understand why people seem to think there is some acceptable level of crime, let alone violent crime.

Violent crime should not be tolerated in any society, and it should be countered with the harshest and swiftest penalties.

No. This is obviously wrong.

False flag level wrong.

TJ म्हणाले...

Lead? But it was used everywhere before. Did it still correlate with increased violet crime? Is this not the definition of "correlation is not causation"?

Gahrie म्हणाले...

Why yes, the policies that McArdle iw whinging about, like the 1994 crime bill, greatly cut the murder rates, especially of black people.

Correlation is not causation. And if you are looking for a more pronounced correlation, you need to look no further than the reduction in blood lead levels, which more closely correlate with the drop in violent crime than incarceration rates


Just to be clear here, you are attempting to argue that locking up more criminals for longer periods of time has less of an impact on crime rates than ANYTHING else?

The reason it's called commonsense is because the "elite" have none.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Why yes, the policies that McArdle iw whinging about, like the 1994 crime bill, greatly cut the murder rates, especially of black people.

Actually, murder rates were dropping before the 1994 crime bill (which was only signed in Septemeber of 1994) was passed (crime peaked in 1991), so the correlation between reduced crime and the 1994 bill is tenuous at best.

Achilles म्हणाले...

Freder Frederson said...

Change the welfare programs to ban welfare to unwed mothers.

So how many children are you willing to starve to death and how many mothers are you willing to be forced into crime to achieve your social engineering goals?

This is obvious straw man bullshit.

But Freder makes it clear just how empty his positions are by posting a comment like this.

People have made it abundantly clear the reasons for reforming welfare. You just choose to be a dishonest asshole.

But every regime supporter at this point has to resort to dishonest crap like this because nobody supports what they are doing.

Crime, looting and murder are not popular except with billionaire hedge fund managers who made their early money turning Jews into the Nazi's and people dumb enough to support democrats.

They are just smart enough to make dishonest arguments though.

Jim at म्हणाले...

If the system won't deal with the increased crime, the citizenry will.

Choose wisely, leftists.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Crime, looting and murder are not popular except with billionaire hedge fund managers who made their early money turning Jews into the Nazi's

You state this lie (I assume you are referring to George Soros) and accuse me of being dishonest.

Rich

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

So how many children are you willing to starve to death and how many mothers are you willing to be forced into crime to achieve your social engineering goals?

1 - Marry the father. DUH!
2 - Sign a parenthood contract with the father for the father to provide child and "spouse" support.

The mother would not get ANY support directly from the government. The father MUST work to receive benefits. End all something-for-nothing benefit plans. Benefits require WORK.

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

So how many children are you willing to starve to death and how many mothers are you willing to be forced into crime to achieve your social engineering goals?

Fathering a child requires child support. Child support could be direct because of marriage or indirect because of child-support payments. If the father won't do that, the courts will step in and order support. Just ask Hunter Biden about that. Why should the poor be exempt from that basic requirement?

Maynard म्हणाले...

look no further than the reduction in blood lead levels, which more closely correlate with the drop in violent crime than incarceration rates

Actually Freder the most robust correlation is the size of the age cohort that commits the most crimes.

I would be interested in the studies you cite that correlate blood lead levels with crime. There may be something there, but not what you imagine.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Just to be clear here, you are attempting to argue that locking up more criminals for longer periods of time has less of an impact on crime rates than ANYTHING else?

Your reading comprehension sucks.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

Those criminals just don't seem to be getting with the Progressive program! Maybe it's time to consequence them. Ya think?

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

I would be interested in the studies you cite that correlate blood lead levels with crime. There may be something there, but not what you imagine.

Here you go

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Actually Freder the most robust correlation is the size of the age cohort that commits the most crimes.

And while you are asking me to provide proof, I noticed you made this assertion with no support either.

Howard म्हणाले...

The hard libertarian heart of social darwinism is a necessary evil such that the plebs can keep up paying the ever expanding Davos billionaires vig.

The best part is half the primary beneficiaries manifest strong adherence to the bootstrap prior.

I am become tool.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Freder Frederson said...
Why yes, the policies that McArdle iw whinging about, like the 1994 crime bill, greatly cut the murder rates, especially of black people.

Actually, murder rates were dropping before the 1994 crime bill (which was only signed in Septemeber of 1994) was passed (crime peaked in 1991), so the correlation between reduced crime and the 1994 bill is tenuous at best.


The Democrats signed on to the 1994 Crime bill (Dems controlled the House, Senate, and presidency w/ large majorities) because the Republicans were doing it, it was working, and it was popular with the voters.

There were lots of State law changes before teh 1994 crime bill. The success of those changes (see peak in 1991) was why the 1994 law happened.

You fail

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

There were lots of State law changes before teh 1994 crime bill. The success of those changes (see peak in 1991) was why the 1994 law happened.

Link please.

And btw, why do you insist on spelling "the" "teh". You trying to be cute? It is actually quite annoying.

Bruce Hayden म्हणाले...

BTW. Welcome back to Cook and Freder. By far, in my mind, our two best leftists. My view is that they are some of the few whom we have seen who argue here honestly and thoughtfully. Most of us disagree with their facts and conclusions, but I think that they both bring value to the discussion.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

OT:

Boulder is surrounded by fire.. Superior is on fire. The petsmart might be on fire - filled with live animals. I am sick to my stomach.


https://www.9news.com/article/weather/severe-weather/multiple-grass-fires-boulder-county/73-d98c59a1-480e-47cc-b2b3-8a82baca0a58

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

102 mile an hour winds.

Narayanan म्हणाले...

. That was the era when Bernhard Goetz, the 'Subway Vigilante,' became a New York folk hero for shooting a group of young men who demanded $5.
--------------
this is saying in effect the young men and Goetz were negotiating =>>>
'Goetz to supply on youth demand $5' v /youth to supply without Goetz asking for it $5+ worth of beating up./

so who decides the [+ increment] is the societal constructed component of decision making?

MadTownGuy म्हणाले...

Michael K said...

[Blogger Robert Cook said...

"The left refuse to acknowledge the big plan to get left-wing AG's & DA's installed."

What left? What "big plan?" What left-wing AGs and DAs?]

"Hilarious.

1. Chesea Boudin, the red diaper baby of terrorist parents raised by Bill Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn.
2. George Gascon who is turning LA into a shithole.
3. Krasner in Philly
4. Kim Foxx in Chicago
5. Whatshername in St Louis
6. The Madison WI guy.
"

Hey, I'm a Madtownguy (now expat in PA) but I'm not that guy. You might be thinking about Ismael Ozanne, Dane County DA, but he probably didn't need any help from Soros to get elected in deep red Dane County.

Original Mike म्हणाले...

"BTW. Welcome back to Cook and Freder. By far, in my mind, our two best leftists. My view is that they are some of the few whom we have seen who argue here honestly and thoughtfully."

Freder? What are you smokin', Bruce?

tommyesq म्हणाले...

What left? What "big plan?" What left-wing AGs and DAs?

I think Robert Cook is not actually a left wing nut, but instead is simply using the Socratic Method on us.

n.n म्हणाले...

Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) breeds adversity. Some, Select [Black] Lives Matter

rcocean म्हणाले...

Journolists and the Power Elite are always being astounded that locking up criminals lowers crime. Whenver they learn that, they forget it as quickly as possible, so they can go back to letting criminals back on the streets.

Ultimately, the power elite doesn't care about crime. They're INSULATED. Its only hurts the "Little people". that's why McCredle is so upset that anyone brings it up or wants the Government to do something about it.

And I'll believe McCredle cares about "brain damaged" killers being executed, when she starts writing columns about all the innocents dying of malnutrition and disease in Yeman, Syria, and Afghanistan.

Joanne Jacobs म्हणाले...

"Teach your son not to kill my son," say yard signs in Cincinnati neighborhoods hit by teen-on-teen murders. Most shooters and victims are black. Mother whose 16-year-old son was killed walking to a store has posted a sign, but fears there will be no "justice" for her son.
https://bit.ly/3JsXdue

Bystander म्हणाले...

Avoid the legal nets
That entangled Bernie Goetz
Just shout “Help, help, police!”
Like Kitty Genovese.

exhelodrvr1 म्हणाले...

Robert Cook,
Time for you to make a list, because you're obviously out of ideas.

takirks म्हणाले...

Statement:

Violent crime should not be tolerated in any society, and it should be countered with the harshest and swiftest penalties.

Question which does not address the point:

Have you ever considered that state sanctioned violence could increase the risk of violent crime?

I don't know, but have you ever considered the proposition that "state-sanctioned violence" is an essential part of reducing private violence?

You might want to familiarize yourself with the term "vigilante", and examine the history thereof. People resort to vigilantism when they recognize that the offenses by others against them are not being addressed, either due to an absence of "state" to do it, or because said state has failed to do the job that the general public thinks it should. This is why the idiot class that thinks they're doing the criminally-inclined favors by not prosecuting them, cutting down on their punishments, and releasing them before completion of their already perceived-to-be-inadequate-by-the-victims sentences are insane.

You're not going to achieve some paradise of amity and peace with those ideas of coddling the criminal; instead, you're going to create a hellscape of people who won't bother calling the cops, won't bother waiting for prosecutors to do their jobs fairly, and who will impose their own form of personal "justice" on the malefactors. Mob action ain't out of the question, and if you've ever been in a country like, say, Mexico? You'll be familiar with little incidents like this one:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46145986

Guatamala:

https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/27/americas/guatemala-girl-burned-mob/index.html

Venezuela:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/sickening-footage-shows-suspected-thief-7542535

That's the world you want to create, friendo: One where the general public doesn't trust the "justice system" to work, and where the mob takes action while authority stands by, ignoring it rather than wind up set on fire right alongside the criminals.

Once you lose the public trust that criminals will be dealt with, people cease trusting the "system" to deal with them, and they start taking actions on their own. Without realizing it, your ideas are training people that the "justice system" does not deliver justice, nor does it dissuade the criminal from preying on them. Once enough believe that, it's a short damn step to things like I link to.

And, in the end? All of you high-on-the-horse moralizers decrying "punishment" in today's America? You ain't seen anything, yet--Wait until the full effect of your "initiatives in reforming justice" work their way through the culture.

I honestly don't give it much more time before judges and prosecutors like the ones that let Darrell Brooks walk free after committing violent crime after violent crime start to face the improvised and unrestrained wrath of the general public. Once the dam breaks, a lot of those "Soros prosecutors" are going to wind up dangling from both figurative and (likely...) literal lamp posts.

Self-created disaster, though... Y'all have been mucking around with the "justice system" for over a century, now--And, you are all about to reap the whirlwind you sowed back in the "good old days". Do not expect the average person to have one whit of sympathy for you or the criminals you protect.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Freder Frederson said...
ME: There were lots of State law changes before teh 1994 crime bill. The success of those changes (see peak in 1991) was why the 1994 law happened.

Link please.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/03/fact-check-1994-crime-bill-didnt-bring-mass-incarceration-black-people/3250210001/
In 1980 alone, state and federal prisons posted a 12% increase in the number of inmates, with an average yearly increase between 1980 and 1994 of 8.7%. In 1989, the federal and state inmate population swelled by a whopping 13.5% as 84,764 new inmates joined the prison ranks.


By contrast, from 1994 — the year the crime bill was passed — to 1995, the inmate population increased by 6.7%. The annual increase then dropped steadily for the next six years, from 5.1% between 1995-96 to 1.1% between 2000-01.


Democrats didn't come up with the ideas in the 1994 crime bill, they took things that were already working at the State level, and brought them to the Federal level

And btw, why do you insist on spelling "the" "teh". You trying to be cute? It is actually quite annoying.
Because I'm a shitty typist and don't catch all my errors

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

Vigilantes were active in 1850s San Francisco when the city and state governments were weak. William Tecumseh Sherman lived there and was asked to join the vigilance committee but declined. The committees were formed to fight rampant violence and were short lived as regular law enforcement was able to take over.

The Democrats are playing with fire in their zeal to decriminalize society. Today's vigilance committees may not be short lived; their first arrests will surely be the Democrat/Socialist officials who created the need for their existence.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"Ultimately, the power elite doesn't care about crime. They're INSULATED. Its only hurts the 'Little people.'"

It actually serves their purposes: it provides an excuse for them to clamp down ever harder, expanding the police agencies at the local and federal levels into ever-greater violent and vicious agents of repression against the American people. It undermines the possibility that oppressed working (or unemployed) Americans across the political spectrum might find common cause and join together to demand the people be served. Presently, the plutocrats continue to use our government for their own profit while their bought-and-paid-for factota in Congress and the White House tell us it is "too expensive" to provide for the people's needs (e.g., cheap or free* education for all, cheap or free* healthcare for all, updates to and maintenance of public infrastructure, clean air and water, etc.).

*("Cheap or free" meaning it has been pre-paid by all of us through our collective tax payments, just as we all presently pay for roads, highway, bridges, reservoirs, dams, etc., as well as the monstrously bloated, expensive and useless military and for the futile deaths, destruction, torture and misery wrought by that overblown and useless military.)

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"You might want to familiarize yourself with the term 'vigilante,' and examine the history thereof. People resort to vigilantism when they recognize that the offenses by others against them are not being addressed, either due to an absence of "state" to do it, or because said state has failed to do the job that the general public thinks it should."

Vigilantism is also an explosive expression of contempt for the rule of law by people who employ violence for immediate gratification of their heated passions and hatreds or to revenge perceived offenses against them and their prejudices and anti-social notions of what is"right," (e.g., segregation, slavery, oppression of people based on race, gender, caste or social/economic groups, etc.).

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

Vigilantism is also an explosive expression of contempt for the rule of law by people who employ violence for immediate gratification of their heated passions...

That describes antifa perfectly.

hombre म्हणाले...

Freder: “Do you have any evidence that this correlation (and of course correlation does not prove causation) is correct?” Thus, proof is not possible, correct, Freder?

Data confirming the correlation between increases in prison populations and reductions in crime abounded in the 1990s and early 2000s compiled by states and the NIJ. Additionally, reductions in crime were readily visible in places like New York City where crime reduction measures were in place. No other plausible explanations were offered for the reductions which were counter to the demographics at the time, that is, increases in high crime age groups.

Of course data and experience are of no value to people who cannot learn. The relationship between correlation and the inference of causality in formulating criminal justice policy is adequate in the absence of alternative explanations for the correlation. It is not medicine.

Oh, shit! I just read a later Freder (1:41 p.m.). Violence is caused by (correlated to) “lead contamination.” Logic: Removing violent offenders from society is likely to result in a reduction in violent crime. Lefty logic: Removing lead based paint from old houses is likely to result in a reduction in violent crime.

It is unfortunate that this type of ignorance is no longer laughable. It is simply too destructive.

narciso म्हणाले...

so called antifa is terrorism, against law enforcement, private businesses, ordinary citizens, and that's not an accidental choice as we see an actual terrorist who bombed the capitol building as one of the organizers,

Drago म्हणाले...

rcocean: "Journolists and the Power Elite are always being astounded that locking up criminals lowers crime. Whenver they learn that, they forget it as quickly as possible, so they can go back to letting criminals back on the streets."

It was precisely this topic that led long time NYT moron lefty "journalist" Fox Butterfield to so embarrass himself that it became a long lasting meme: the Fox Butterfield Effect, wherein a lefty once again, as always, reverses cause and effect or "non sequitors him/her/xer-self" into Logic 101 Failure Oblivion.

Drago म्हणाले...

You often see idiot leftists, particularly socialists/marxists diving headfirst into Economic Stupidity by failing to comprehend basic human motivation exemplified by, for instance, the Laffer Curve.

I cant wait for the usual lefty/LLR idiots to now chime in on that! A fun time is sure to be had by all!

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

antifa are definitely terrorists. But ask them, they'll tell you they're on the side of the angles. They're against fascism, you see. Of course, they have no clue on what fascism is. But they are the good guys, so they have to take the "law" into their own hands to save society. They know that they have to destroy the village in order to save it (old Vietnam War justification).

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

angels. Always have trouble with those two words.

takirks म्हणाले...

"Vigilantism is also an explosive expression of contempt for the rule of law by people who employ violence for immediate gratification of their heated passions and hatreds or to revenge perceived offenses against them and their prejudices and anti-social notions of what is"right," (e.g., segregation, slavery, oppression of people based on race, gender, caste or social/economic groups, etc.)."

Textbook definition of a phenomenon not understood by the person writing the definition. Vigilantism does not come out of a vacuum, from some deep well of bigotry. You'll find cases where there were "vigilante" lynching of blacks back in the old days that were performed on those blacks by other blacks... In retribution for crimes committed against other blacks.

A case in point, from Clayton Cramer's website:

https://claytonecramer.blogspot.com/2020/03/black-lynch-mobs.html

Vigilante action comes when the general public loses faith and trust in the legal system. It then acts on whatever prejudices it might have, which is why those "strangers" in Mexico got set on fire for kidnaping children for organ transplant. Who is responsible for these things happening? In the final analysis, it's the "authorities" that violated public trust and failed to curb the lawless.

You create an environment where the criminal and lawless operate with impunity? Do not act all surprised when the usually "law-abiding" recognize that fact, and begin to take advantage of it, themselves. At some point, all those people suffering under the authority of feckless idiots like Chesa Boudin are going to recognize that there's only one path back to a civilized lifestyle, and it does not lie through dialing 911 when someone defecates on their sidewalk. It's going to take awhile for the habits of civilization to wear through, but wear through they will, and once that happens? I strongly suspect that you'll see property owners casually killing the people crapping on their sidewalks, and you'll further see nobody willing to testify against them, or vote on a jury to convict them, should they somehow manage to be prosecuted in such an environment.

I don't think these people really understand the role that law enforcement really plays: It's not to benefit the average law-abiding citizen; it's to protect the criminal against capricious, inconsistent, and excessive punishments levied by those who catch them in the act. When people stop calling the cops, and "handle things on their own", that's a way-station along the road to hell...

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

Antifa Nazis are the good guys. Like Joe Rosenbaum. Good guy. Child rapist.

Gator म्हणाले...

Not sure if mentioned above, but Richmond city (even after the monuments were taken down) have a 15 year+ record in homicides.

Michael K म्हणाले...

Freder has been on a roll today.

The main challenge in measuring the effect of lead on crime is that lead exposure is highly correlated with a variety of indicators related to poverty: poor schools, poor nutrition, poor health care, exposure to other environmental toxins, and so on. Those other factors could independently affect crime.

Yes, but lead paint has been pretty thoroughly removed, even from the housing of the poor. What explains to recent crime explosion since lead won't explain it?

Tolerance of crime by leftist DAs and those who fund and vote for them.

It's related to the reason there are no carjackings in AZ or TX. Everybody has a gun. The rare exception was the leftist Mayor of Tucson a few years ago who was carjacked in front of his house. The thief knew that with all those "Black Lives Matter" signs in front of houses, there was little chance the victim would be armed.

Narayanan म्हणाले...

I think Robert Cook is not actually a left wing nut, but instead is simply using the Socratic Method on us.
----------
his avatar should have facial and scalpal hair to be really convincing Socraticisms

his nose could serve as Pinocchio-meter

Narayanan म्हणाले...

The main challenge in measuring the effect of lead on crime
--------
simple test would be to measure the weight of bullet fragments imbedded in perpetrators

Original Mike म्हणाले...

Police forces shrink, those that remain become tentative, DAs don't prosecute, crime rates climb, but correlation is not causation. Correlation and a good theory is pretty much all we have to decipher why things happen. If it weren't, why measure anything?

But, …lead paint. I guess there was some undetected release of lead paint over the last year.

Howard म्हणाले...

Nazi Antifa FBI false positive attitude is a completely overtaken Delta force slim fit workout friends and family responsible for getting the bulletproofing and then continuing to be there for you people as well as a buffer to get back to our place for a week or so.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

For those interested, the twelve cities to which McArdle alludes are (in descending order of number of homicides) Philadelphia; Indianapolis; Columbus, OH; Louisville, KY; Baton Rouge; Albuquerque; Portland, OR; Tucson; Rochester, NY; Toledo, OH; Austin, TX; and St. Paul, MN. As of December 8 the total number for St. Paul was 35, essentially a rounding error for the likes of Philadelphia, New York, or Chicago, but nevertheless it is a record year for them. Milwaukee joined this group in December, and they beat their old record (set in 2020) by 30.

madAsHell म्हणाले...

Is this white people killing white people?

Didn't think so.....

Chris Lopes म्हणाले...

"Howard said...
Nazi Antifa FBI false positive attitude is a completely overtaken Delta force slim fit workout friends and family responsible for getting the bulletproofing and then continuing to be there for you people as well as a buffer to get back to our place for a week or so."

I think Howard is having a stroke.

Drago म्हणाले...

Chris Lopes: "I think Howard is having a stroke."

6 years worth of his lies collapsing in real time for all the world to see has reduced Howard to Full "Truinternatialdepressure" Mode.

Mutaman म्हणाले...

"You often see idiot leftists, particularly socialists/marxists diving headfirst into Economic Stupidity by failing to comprehend basic human motivation exemplified by, for instance, the Laffer Curve."

Old Mr Trickle Down

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-98ff28bc0ba95dbf905b8ded4dab38f6.webp

Tina Trent म्हणाले...

Let's cut the bullshit about Clinton executing a severely brain damaged criminal. Ricky Ray Rector was not brain damaged when he shot three men in a bar, killing one of them, hardly his first violent crime. He was holding his mother and sister hostage to lure police to their death. When one cop, a childhood friend, came in, Rector murdered the cop. He shot him in the back. Then he shot himself. That's how he was brain damaged. But at no point during his multiple murderous acts was he brain damaged.And despite his self conflicted injury, his IQ was 70 and two trial judges found him competent to sit trial.

Tina Trent म्हणाले...

The 1984 crime bill was a funding bill. States were finding that small numbers of prolific offenders were committing most serious crimes. Stop them from going free so easily again and rates would drop precipitously. D N A trapped thousands of serial stranger sex offenders by around 1990-1. That explanation the waves in the stats.

If you know nothing, say nothing.

Bilwick म्हणाले...

"Trickle Down"--still the favorite put-down term among economics illiterates after forty years!

Tina Trent म्हणाले...

Even in Howard's case, I always presume it's my cheapest-of-its-type reading pad that is having the stroke. It not only insists that words spelled correctly are wrong: it completely changes words and phrases after I have moved on from them.

For example, my post about Ricky Ray Rector removed the word "purportedly" and changed "inflicted" to "conflicted." Found poetry, this is not. However, I for one would feel better if Howard chewed an asprin and took his blood pressure.

The pad of evil changed this to "Howard chewed an aspiring and took his blood prematurely."

Don't do that.

Jeff म्हणाले...

So how many children are you willing to starve to death and how many mothers are you willing to be forced into crime to achieve your social engineering goals?
1. You announce that no welfare benefits will be awarded to unwed mothers of children born after a certain date 9 months in the future.
2. Any children born to unwed mothers after that date are the mother's problem, not mine or yours. Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything, we're just saying that the taxpayers are no longer going to reward this particular irresponsible behavior.
3. If these irresponsible women can't or won't be financially responsible for their children, they put them up for adoption.

takirks म्हणाले...

I don't see why you put the onus on the women with all that. Let us not forget that a large part of the problem is that we have simultaneously taken responsibility away from the fathers, given it to the state, and then wonder why nobody cares about family unit formation. Who needs a man, when the state welfare agencies are there to provide?

The fault, as with a lot of this crap, comes down to overly-indulgent male "leaders" choosing to enable the dysfunctional behavior of those feckless little girls they see as helpless daughters. Of course, too, there's the fact that they're usually also the same sort of exploitative pricks who've fathered children out of wedlock that they refuse to support, sooooo... Yeah. Put the burden on the state, which will then tax the hell out of those who don't participate in the creation of this problem, in the first place.

The kids aren't at fault, here. It's the parents. So, make BOTH parents responsible--You want public aid for your illegitimate kiddoes? Lady, you'd better be naming names so they can go after the fathers. And, if those "men" won't support their kids? We had solutions for that, for years--Chain gangs. Or, better yet, organ donation.

In large part, the problem stems from having the improper cues set in the environment. There are no downsides to popping out kid after kid--Someone else will be paying the bills. The reward cues are there; there are no cues telling people that they'll pay the price themselves, so they keep on doing this crap, because in the world we've created, pumping out dysfunctional criminals is a rewarding proposition. You want to change the environment, so that the cues encourage productive, responsible behaviors rather than the diametric opposite. One way you do that is make it clear that fathering a child is a one-way unavoidable ticket to indentured servitude to pay off what raising that kid costs the taxpayer, and if the only thing you're economically useful for is serving as a subject for medical experimentation...? Oh, well--Ya should have wrapped that rascal.

Of course, the other way out should be that if you refuse to support your kids on your own efforts, and require the rest of us to take care of them? Then, you either sever yourself from any participation in the welfare system, or you subject yourself to whatever demands the rest of make on you to make fair return to the public fisc. It isn't unreasonable to say "Yeah, you're pumping out kid after kid that you can't support, so we're gonna demand that you pay some of that wealth you've siphoned off back, or we're going to cut you off...".

When you've got an expanding economy supported by an expanding population, you can tolerate some of this stuff going on. Contracting economies and populations cannot support such generosity without causing severe pain on those who are behaving responsibly and productively. It is an utter travesty that taxpaying family units have to budget and carefully consider whether they can afford to raise children, while the parasite class just keeps on increasing their tax burden and forcing them to deal with higher crime rates. As a society, we are either going to have to address these issues, or just acquiesce our collapse as our self-created barbarians tear everything down around our ears.

Cruel, but true. Y'all want a smaller population, that means a contracting economy, and less fat in the budget to spend on these social luxury items like your "social conscience". Raw fact is, we're on an essentially unsustainable path, and that path means we either shed the parasites or we let them destroy everything for the rest of us.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Mutaman said...
"You often see idiot leftists, particularly socialists/marxists diving headfirst into Economic Stupidity by failing to comprehend basic human motivation exemplified by, for instance, the Laffer Curve."

Old Mr Trickle Down


Phoning it in, loser.

Reality: Laffer is right, that at the extremes you get essentially no revenue, and that therefore there must be inflection points.

Is it a curve, or does it have significant discontinuities? We don't know
Where is / are teh inflection point(s)? We don't know.

Is it a basic understanding of human nature that the Left tries to ignore?

Yes it is. That, we know

takirks म्हणाले...

Most ideologies, whether of the left or the right, tend to fail when it comes to comprehending basic human nature. The only difference in that failure is the direction/inflection of it, and the magnitude.

Ideology, of any nature, is a flawed tool to work with. When you say "ideology" in the first place, you are proposing a theoretical construct, and idea-palace. If you work from ideology, you're trying to impose an idea on reality, and ideas do not necessarily correspond. You cannot work from the ideated to the real; you have to work from the real backwards to inform your ideas. Ideologues of every stripe invert that; they propose, God disposes.

What has to be done is to honestly observe what is going on about you, creating a baseline of actual fact. Then, you attempt to work out ideas about what is going on, as to causative factors. Nearly all ideologues get to this point, but they then stop--The reality-required next step in the process is to observe what actually takes place in the real world, once the theorized changes are imposed. Do they result in the desired outcome you theorized they would, or do they actually turn out to be the second- and third-order effects of the perverse incentives that you really put into place...? If they do not work, you have to honestly acknowledge that fact, and then continue working on your hypothesis until you've got something that results in your desired outcome, and you can replicate it. If you cannot, you're simply playing games with theory. The Hawthorne Effect is a real thing, and something you need to take into account whenever you seek to commit social reforms... Which should really be seen as crimes against humanity, in most cases.

The problem with nearly all extant ideologies is that they stop with the hypothesis phase, and what few make it to initial implementation usually never go past that point--Generally, because they tend to collapse the society they're tried in. Attempting to impose necessarily limited human ideas onto essentially chaotic systems is never anything likely to result in success.

The real problem with any of these ideas is that ideologues tend to be very limited monomanic assholes, assholes who do not have the flexibility of mind to function in the face of contradiction of their ideas. This blinds them to the failures, and prevents them from thinking around the actual product of their efforts. You see this all the time with social reformers, because they have this image of how the world works, and they cannot bring themselves to see the reality of anything. They will deny anything that is observably a result of their ideas being implemented, generally doubling-down on the things they blamed as causative factors and inputs--Which are generally irrelevant in the first place, having been ideated as a result of their ideological blinders.

Observe. Think. Change. This is the process that we've generally used to implement social change, but what we need to do is add a few steps: Observe. Think. Set objectives and metrics. Change. Observe again. Assess. Reiterate, if necessary (which it nearly always will be...) and try again, this time with different changes. Keep your mind open to the idea that what existed might well have been a result of natural immutable rules of nature that don't like being violated, like trying to get little boys not to play with weapons or weapon-like things while little girls generally like playing with other things entirely.

Mutaman म्हणाले...

"Is it a curve, or does it have significant discontinuities? We don't know
Where is / are teh inflection point(s)? We don't know."

Want to translate that into English,Sparky? Where exactly were you educated?

FIDO म्हणाले...

Megan is supposedly a Libertarian and supposedly her principles are very diametrically opposed to everything that the Democrats have done since Obamacare.

She has voted for Democrats in essentially every election of course. Principles, what are they really?

She is an economist so she may understand 'revealed preference'. She may, of course, not want to apply what that actually means to her choices.

I, meanwhile, do not view a law and order Republican administration with the same abject horror her and her voting record clearly sees that result.

Drago म्हणाले...

I knew Mutaman could not resist posting taking the Idiot Lefty Bait...and he did not disappoint.

He doesnt even know what the Laffer Curve is, how its constructed nor what its based upon nor how its been demonstrated in the real world over and over.

He only knows that he must post something, anything, no matter how moronic...and so he does.

He's a walking talking Fox Butterfield/Dunning-Kruger-ite.

And it shows.

Mutaman म्हणाले...

"He doesnt even know what the Laffer Curve us," (sic)

Trump University education-can't do a thing about it.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Mutaman said...
"Is it a curve, or does it have significant discontinuities? We don't know
Where is / are the inflection point(s)? We don't know."

Want to translate that into English,Sparky? Where exactly were you educated?


I was educated in multiple places where they taught calculus. Apparently you weren't.

For something to be a "curve" means it has to smoothly move up and/or down. If you have a line that tends towards a Y value of 1 as X approaches 3 from below (i.e. 2.8, 2.9), but it's Y value is 4 when X is 3, that's a discontinuity.

In terms of the Laffer Curve, which points out that increasing teh tax rate past a certain point lowers tax revenue, as people choose not to work when the rate's so high, we don't know if there are psychological barriers such that, for example, tax revenue increases as you approach 50% taxation, but if you hit or exceed 50% it takes a huge drop, because knowing the government is going to take more than half of what you make just shrives people to do less,

The the inflection point(s) are the places where increasing the tax rate actually starts lowering the tax revenue (or causes it to go up again, if it had previously been headed down).

What was the last math class you passed, Sparky?

Mutaman म्हणाले...


"I was educated in multiple places "

Nuff said.


https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3d29f434a5662426751871c5697788b459a77bbad1d785794646e38cdad93579.jpg

Drago म्हणाले...

Mutaman: "Trump University education-can't do a thing about it."

Stanford actually.

You know, its not a requirement that you continue to post comments that further expose your ignorance...but I can see its the primary element in your "skill"stack.

Drago म्हणाले...

Exit question: how long will mutaman continue to pretend the made up and completely unrelated (to the Laffer Curve) democratical "trickle down" talking point is valid?

If we take the hoax dossier, hoax collusion, hoax insurrection, hoax Rittenhouse, hoax Smollett, hoax Covington Catholic lies, to name a few, as instructive, my guess would be....forever.

Such are the AOC inspired "economists" like mutaman.

Also note, mutaman knows better than to actually attempt to describe what the Laffer curve demonstrates because...well, its obvious, isnt it?

Nichevo म्हणाले...

Freder Frederson said...
The fact that crime has spiked to unprecedented high levels in democrat run cities is just a happy coincidence.

This statement is simply a lie.

No, Fredo, it's sarcasm.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Mutaman said...
"I was educated in multiple places "
Nuff said.


Apparently Mutaman's "education" never extended past grammar school, which explains why he doesn't know any real math