Again, a little history lesson will show why this is the case. The totalitarian states of the last century, such as the USSR, were based on two seemingly contradictory ideas: that future society will be classless and non-violent; and that to achieve this goal, society in the present must employ the most extreme means of enforcement, including concentration camps and capital punishment. There is a logic at work here. To achieve utopia, human nature must be remade. And what is a better way to do so than by violence? When you severely punish non-violent “hate crimes” but let actual felons go free, it is because you believe that the latter are victims of racism or poverty, while the former possess a poisonous mindset that needs to be stamped out. I do not accuse progressives of hypocrisy. They are worse than hypocrites: they are true believers.
"A state with a huge and complicated regime of laws which are rarely or selectively enforced is the worst of both worlds. It doesn’t maintain safety or protect commerce or association… yet the laws technically exist as tools for the powerful to use against enemies or marginalized individuals."
Indeed. What if I told you that a hypothetical state official spent massive amounts of taxpayer funded resources to bring a civil action against a political enemy with a never before charged offense in which no victim either complained or suffered any harm whatsoever. What if I told you that the almost uniform response by opponents of the defendant was a pious invocation that "no one is above the law." What if I also told you that a different agent of that same state simultaneously criminally charged that same political opponent with a misdemeanor bookkeeping offense at a company he owned (one also rarely/never previously prosecuted) and argued that it somehow transformed into a felony on a theory that the alleged bookkeeping discrepancy was done in order to influence an election. What if I then told you this case was somehow assigned to a judge whose daughter was then employed by a literal political opponent of the defendant and no one viewed that as problematic or even noteworthy.
You would conclude that this was some sort of wildly imaginative political novel set in some hypothetical fascist country, because this could never happen in America, right?
The progressive left are fish in a barrel. But we can't take our eyes off the progressive right, which has a different M.O. The very concept of a progressive right probably seems strange at first blush, but we might contrast it with the liberal right, which will also strike some as strange. Stir in the populism and we have the fault lines of a fracturing West.
I live in Spokane. What’s interesting about this is that none, and I mean NONE, of my left leaning, MSM watching family members or friends knew about this at the time. Zero. I was horrified when it happened because it felt so authoritarian and heavy handed. They were my son’s age and it was silly. What really ticked me off was the two tier policing. Tax payers and small business owners like me have to follow laws, pay our own way, shoulder an ever increasing, crushing tax burden. Our entire downtown is painted in rainbows on the street funded by US. Where we walk and drive. Businesses are fleeing in droves because our downtown is flooded with mentally ill, drugged up zombies. Property crime is through the roof. My teens and their friends are afraid to leave their cars parked on the street during at their high school downtown because they are being broken into and stripped of parts. My business has literal human feces in the walk way and the problems are spreading into formally “safe” nice areas. We can’t get police support when our cars are looted on the reg. But THIS, this was worth arrest and prosecution. And half the city didn’t even know it happened. It was covered nationally on the right but locally most people had no idea, but more importantly didn’t care. I was livid. I sent my son to college out of state. WA is lost. The city council responsible for this destruction was just re elected comfortably Tuesday.
Again, a little history lesson will show why this is the case. The totalitarian states of the last century, such as the USSR, were based on two seemingly contradictory ideas: that future society will be classless and non-violent; and that to achieve this goal, society in the present must employ the most extreme means of enforcement, including concentration camps and capital punishment. There is a logic at work here. To achieve utopia, human nature must be remade. And what is a better way to do so than by violence? When you severely punish non-violent “hate crimes” but let actual felons go free, it is because you believe that the latter are victims of racism or poverty, while the former possess a poisonous mindset that needs to be stamped out. I do not accuse progressives of hypocrisy. They are worse than hypocrites: they are true believers.
Excellent. Well argued and on point. Worth the subscription cost.
Thanks Garry… both for the subscription and the praise. It means a tremendous amount.
"A state with a huge and complicated regime of laws which are rarely or selectively enforced is the worst of both worlds. It doesn’t maintain safety or protect commerce or association… yet the laws technically exist as tools for the powerful to use against enemies or marginalized individuals."
Indeed. What if I told you that a hypothetical state official spent massive amounts of taxpayer funded resources to bring a civil action against a political enemy with a never before charged offense in which no victim either complained or suffered any harm whatsoever. What if I told you that the almost uniform response by opponents of the defendant was a pious invocation that "no one is above the law." What if I also told you that a different agent of that same state simultaneously criminally charged that same political opponent with a misdemeanor bookkeeping offense at a company he owned (one also rarely/never previously prosecuted) and argued that it somehow transformed into a felony on a theory that the alleged bookkeeping discrepancy was done in order to influence an election. What if I then told you this case was somehow assigned to a judge whose daughter was then employed by a literal political opponent of the defendant and no one viewed that as problematic or even noteworthy.
You would conclude that this was some sort of wildly imaginative political novel set in some hypothetical fascist country, because this could never happen in America, right?
Well said.
The progressive left are fish in a barrel. But we can't take our eyes off the progressive right, which has a different M.O. The very concept of a progressive right probably seems strange at first blush, but we might contrast it with the liberal right, which will also strike some as strange. Stir in the populism and we have the fault lines of a fracturing West.
I live in Spokane. What’s interesting about this is that none, and I mean NONE, of my left leaning, MSM watching family members or friends knew about this at the time. Zero. I was horrified when it happened because it felt so authoritarian and heavy handed. They were my son’s age and it was silly. What really ticked me off was the two tier policing. Tax payers and small business owners like me have to follow laws, pay our own way, shoulder an ever increasing, crushing tax burden. Our entire downtown is painted in rainbows on the street funded by US. Where we walk and drive. Businesses are fleeing in droves because our downtown is flooded with mentally ill, drugged up zombies. Property crime is through the roof. My teens and their friends are afraid to leave their cars parked on the street during at their high school downtown because they are being broken into and stripped of parts. My business has literal human feces in the walk way and the problems are spreading into formally “safe” nice areas. We can’t get police support when our cars are looted on the reg. But THIS, this was worth arrest and prosecution. And half the city didn’t even know it happened. It was covered nationally on the right but locally most people had no idea, but more importantly didn’t care. I was livid. I sent my son to college out of state. WA is lost. The city council responsible for this destruction was just re elected comfortably Tuesday.