Category: crime and punishment

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crime and punishment ideological culture

Democrats: Dissonance on Self-Defense

Kenosha, fire, Rittenhouse

The Kyle Rittenhouse case, which I talked about on my podcast, This Week in Common Sense, reveals a deep divide.

One side thinks young Mr. Rittenhouse is guilty because he clearly sided with property-owners by cleaning up graffiti, putting out fires, caring for the riots’ victims . . . and carrying a big, scary-looking rifle; the other points to the facts of the altercation between Rittenhouse and the three men he shot, judging the shootings self-defense.

On Monday, the lead prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, insisted that “You lose the right to self-defense when you’re the one who brought the gun,” despite that not being Wisconsin law. Rittenhouse also wasn’t the only one with a gun.

While the prosecution tried to undermine self-defense by declaring that Rittenhouse had instigated the whole scene, the media relentlessly feeds a general prejudice against the idea that citizens should be armed and for the notion that we must rely upon the police alone. 

Dissonant with this, however, were the months of leftists excusing, when not cheering, “protests” turned violent in which not only property was destroyed, but people were killed. To top off this cultural license to mayhem, progressive mavens pushed the opposite of state protection: let the mob run riot.

Followed by “defund the police.”

The leftist/statist argument seems to be: You mustn’t protect yourself with deadly force, instead relying upon the state — except when we (the left) riot, then no protection for you!

This is a recipe for civil war or tyranny or both. 

Not civil peace.

Meanwhile, as Rittenhouse’s jury deliberates, everyone assumes that leftists itch to take an acquittal as another excuse to riot.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment judiciary

Constitution-Free Zones?

police, freedom, constitution

Depending on the constitutional provision we’re talking about, probably every state is (or is at risk of becoming) a “Constitution-free zone.”

The present case: a court ruling that a dissident judge says is turning Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi into Constitution-free zones with respect to the crimes of federal officers.

On February 2, 2019, Texas mechanic Kevin Byrd was almost shot at by Ray Lamb, a Homeland Security agent. Lamb was not acting in self-defense. Byrd had been asking questions about a car accident in which the mother of his child was injured. A drunk driver was involved: Lamb’s son.

Called in by Byrd, the police initially detained Byrd, not Lamb. Fortunately, the assault had been videotaped, and Lamb was soon arrested instead. Unfortunately, the police let the matter drop.

Byrd sued in federal court. But he was stymied by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that federal officials like Lamb have absolute immunity, not merely qualified immunity, from prosecution for things like shooting at innocent people.

The Institute for Justice is now representing Kevin Byrd in the litigation. The hope is to get the U.S. Supreme Court to accept the case for review and then determine that, no, federal officers are not entitled to terrorize at will and without legal consequences just because they’re feds.

Fingers crossed. 

The Supreme Court hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory lately when it comes to holding police and other officials accountable for wrongdoing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture Regulating Protest

“He’s Got a Weapon!”

trans, protest, Dave Chappelle

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.

—Voltaire

Our enemies are ridiculous. So why do they seem to be winning?

For today’s lesson, catch the pro-trans protests outside the offices of Netflix. Trans activists and a few of Netflix’s own trans employees were protesting the occasion of the online streaming giant’s “platforming” of comedian Dave Chappelle, whose latest special, The Closer, took a few digs at the huge influence that the tiny trans “community” has on American cultural and political life. 

Chappelle referred to the way J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, was treated online for defending biological women, declared himself a feminist on “Team TERF,” and talked about a trans friend of his who committed suicide after defending him online in a previous comedy special trans-fracas. 

Did Chappelle say something untrue? Unfunny? Doesn’t matter. What he said, protesters proclaimed, was hurtful.

Each of us will judge all that in our own way. But we should be able to agree on one thing: the way the small protest mob treated one counter-protester was not truthful but very ridiculous. 

Relevant details: a man attended the event holding aloft a sign saying “We Like Dave” on the obverse and “Jokes Are Funny” on the reverse.

A protester on the trans side of the divide tore up his sign, leaving him holding the naked stick, then shouting, “He’s got a weapon!” The crowd echoed, “He’s got a weapon!”

Activists these days often say “speech is violence” and “words are weapons.” Here, they violently rob a man of his speech and declare what’s left of his attempt a literal weapon. They think they are clever. But they are merely ridiculous.

Not funny like Dave Chappelle.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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To Emancipate

John Brown, slavery, revolt

On this very day 162 years ago, federal troops re-captured the armory building at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, where John Brown and what was left of his raiders were holed up. 

Brown and 21 men — 14 white, seven black — had arrived on Oct. 16, 1859, to seize weapons to arm the slave revolt they attempted to spark. Even before federal troops arrived, townspeople and militiamen had trapped Brown.

Battling against the raiders, a Marine and four townspeople lost their lives, including the town’s mayor and a free African American. Ten of Brown’s men were killed, five escaped, and seven were captured, tried, convicted and executed, including Brown. Two enslaved African Americans who joined Brown also died in the fighting. 

Though the raid itself was a failure, it heralded that slavery could not stand.

“Until this blow was struck, the prospect for freedom was dim, shadowy and uncertain,” Frederick Douglass spoke decades after the Civil War ended. “The irrepressible conflict was one of words, votes and compromises.

“When John Brown stretched forth his arm the sky was cleared. . . . and the clash of arms was at hand.”

School kids learn that Brown was something of a madman, and indeed he was accused of atrocities in Kansas and elsewhere. But how long must a person allow a crime as serious as the enslavement of 4 million people to continue before taking up arms?

“It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave,” argued Henry David Thoreau in “A Plea for Captain Brown,” adding, “I agree with him.”

Peaceful democratic means are always preferred over violence. But had I been on John Brown’s jury, I would have voted to acquit.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment too much government

Government Loves Anarchists?

antifa, violence, anarchy

Some of my best friends are anarchists. But theirs is a curious anarchism, for unlike the caricatures of anarchists of old, who — theorizing that since, in their minds, all states are illegitimate, they had free rein to shoot, bomb and monkey wrench the State and its supporters — my anarchist friends are friendly and non-violent. 

They know they cannot achieve the kind of peaceful, stateless-but-lawful society they want with destruction.

Today’s best-known anarchists, however, aren’t like my friends. They are “Antifa,” and believe in initiating force. Together with Black Lives Matter, these “anarchists” upped the level of chaos to fever pitch during the months leading up to last November’s presidential election.

And they haven’t exactly stopped.

What do they hope to accomplish?

Well, don’t ask the FBI. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t keep track of them. 

Spencer Brown, writing at Townhall, explains: “In a congressional hearing last week titled ‘Confronting Violent White Supremacy (Part VI): Examining the Biden Administration’s Counterterrorism Strategy,’ FBI Assistant Director of Counterterrorism Timothy Langan said that the Bureau doesn’t consider Antifa to be an ‘organization,’ and as such does not have specific information on the group’s activities.”

This is how the FBI and the left in general can say that the biggest domestic terrorist threat is “right-wing extremism.” 

The idea is, apparently, if you don’t look at the data — even define it out of existence — you cannot report on it!

Why would the FBI join Democrats in averting their eyes from anarchist (as well as Marxist and racist) violence?

Perhaps the de facto policy at play here is anarcho-tyranny, where the government lets violent crime run rampant. Why? So government actors can leverage chaos and public anxiety to increase government size and scope.

Do politicians and functionaries use Antifa “anarchists” to increase their power?

Never let a crisis go to waste.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment local leaders

Charges Dropped

Shannon Joy, arrest, School Board, Covid, protest

The best part of the story — not counting Shannon Joy’s pluck and defiance — is how promptly the prosecutor dropped the bogus charges of “criminal trespass” against her.

The Rochester mom and radio talk show host had been handcuffed while attending a Fairport school board meeting this August. Her dastardly deed consisted of wearing a mask wrong.

Joy figures that board members were sick and tired of her vocal criticism of their policies — she has a platform outside of board meetings — so, in collaboration with others, the board had staged her arrest with malice aforethought.

To supporters at the courthouse, Joy spoke of “bully tactics sometimes employed by school boards and superintendents who don’t want to hear from parents about their children’s education.”

The county’s policies about masks are less than uniform. PJMedia’s Megan Fox points out that in Monroe County and other nearby counties, people are not required to wear a mask “except in public schools, government buildings, and some doctors’ offices.”

Irony and hypocrisy were not eschewed by arresting officers. One cop teaming up to handcuff Shannon Joy was not wearing a mask. Another wore her own mask in the same under-the-chin fashion for which Joy was being hauled away. These officers did not, however, arrest themselves.

“How is this America?” Joy tweets above an arresting image of the arrest.

Well, it’s not the Mayberry America. It’s not the best America. But at least there was a refreshing return to common sense in her courtroom victory.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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