Category: crime and punishment

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency moral hazard responsibility too much government

Half a Win Is Better than None

Terrebonne Parish, Sheriff, Jerry Larpenter, free speech, First Amendment, abuse, ExposeDAT, Jennifer Anderson

Jennifer Anderson criticized her local sheriff. Her family’s home was raided in 2016 by the sheriff as a result.

Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter’s reaction to criticism was ugly and unconscionable, but it hasn’t been allowed to stand. On the other hand, the sheriff hasn’t been adequately punished, either. 

Jennifer Anderson’s pseudonymous blog ExposeDAT criticized various public figures in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, including with respect to the business relationships between Larpenter and others. Bridling at the criticism — which had to do with assessment of publicly available facts — the sheriff submitted warrants to Facebook and AT&T to track down the identity of the blogger. Then he sent men to raid the Andersons’ home and grab computers and cell phones. 

The Andersons fought back, suing in federal court. They wanted the raid and seizure and search of their private stuff to be declared unconstitutional.

Finally, this September, the Andersons reached an undisclosed settlement with Larpenter out of court. According to its terms, the Andersons aren’t allowed to discuss it any detail. But their attorney says the settlement is “a victory for citizens’ right to be critical of their elected officials without fear of retribution.” U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk has said that “Jennifer Anderson’s speech [in her blog] falls squarely within the four corners of the First Amendment.”

All that’s fine, but why hasn’t this sheriff also at least been kicked out of his job for his blatant abuse of power? 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture local leaders media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers property rights Regulating Protest responsibility

Alt-​Comparisons

Antifa, violence, Berkeley, free speech, fascists, alt-right, alt-left

“There is no comparison,” concluded Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan, after spending her entire column doing just that, i.e. comparing Antifa, the so-​called “alt-​left,” with Nazis and white supremacists, the so-​called “alt-​right.” 

When Trump spoke about Charlottesville violence on both sides, Sullivan argued, “He was comparing things that aren’t the least bit equal, neither in scale nor in intent.”

Sullivan trumpeted statistics compiled by the Anti-​Defamation League. The U.S. had 372 politically motivated murders between 2007 and 2016, with 74 percent committed by right-​wing extremists and only 2 percent by left-​wing extremists.* 

Yet, those perpetrating 2 percent of such slayings can legitimately be compared to those perpetrating 74 percent — and also likened to thugs who beat down opponents in the street (thankfully without murdering them). 

All of the above use violence to achieve political goals.** Some are more deadly than others, but the violent actions of all should be condemned. 

Sullivan acknowledged that “it’s safe to say that most news consumers, if they know anything about antifa, know what the president has told them, and what they’ve gleaned from the club-​wielding protesters shown endlessly on TV …”

Are citizens not supposed to take note of the violence in living color right before their eyes?

And why are folks uninformed? Could the mainstream media’s failure adequately to cover, say, previous Antifa rioting at Berkeley and elsewhere have something to do with it?

Lastly, Sullivan called on the media “to resist conflating [Antifa] with liberal groups.” Agreed. And let’s have the same fairness in not conflating Nazis and the KKK with conservatives. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

*  By the process of elimination, “moderate extremists” are apparently committing close to a quarter of all political killings. 

** I’ve not drilled down into these stats, or figured out what, precisely, qualifies as “political.”

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Accountability crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility too much government

Google: Disagreement

Google, censorship, Boycott, Competition, free market, be evil

Once upon a time, Google penned a stern note to self: “Don’t be evil.”

What you regard as avoiding evil, though, depends on what you regard as doing good. 

Does Google think it’s “good” to fire someone for offering reasoned objections to vapid pieties about why there are more men than women working as programmers, and about how to fix the problem? Assuming it is a problem.

If the answer is yes, then it’s up to more reasonable people to say, “No, Google, stomping on candid internal discussion of your (bad) politics and policies is not ‘doing good.’” 

Alas, some Google critics push for a “remedy” worse than the problem: government force. They want government to impose new prohibitions and mandates on large private firms that help people to spread their opinions.

I don’t necessarily agree when a firm — Google, Twitter, PayPal or anybody else — stops providing services to persons expressing views that managers and HR departments disdain. Yet I may agree. No one is morally obligated — and no one should be legally compelled — to help spread the views of others. 

I certainly refuse to distribute any installment of “Common Sense” guest-​authored by The Anti-​Paul-​Jacob Club.

When market actors make bad decisions without violating anyone’s rights, others have many powerful and peaceful means of opposing those decisions. Criticism. Boycott. Competition. 

But we shouldn’t seek to outlaw the decision-making. 

The right to freedom includes no guarantee that one will always do the right thing as others see it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism

Loco Micro Repression

Close but no cakewalk prize.

Modern social justice advocates sometimes come up with legitimate complaints … only to wander off terra firma and into cloud-​cuckoo land.

“Microaggressions” is one of these airy wanderings, and Katherine Timpf has spotted another in the ever-​growing catalog of social justice beefs:

The size of our society’s chairs is now being considered a “microaggression” against overweight people, according to a guide released by The New School, a private college in New York City. 

Proponents of this cause, Timpf notes, insist that “Microaggression is not ‘Micro’ in Impact,” and that the best response to faux pas, slights, indelicacies, and what-​have-​you is snitching to the administration and intervention from same. Quite overbearing, if you ask me. During my too brief college stint it would have been considered an insult — a microaggression? — to think that young adults could not handle minor affronts such as so helpfully listed at The New School.

But let’s get real here. Microaggressions do not justify treating adults as children and setting up college administrators as in loco parentis tribunals — much less Molotov cocktails, sucker punches or bike locks in socks. At best, as has been pointed out elsewhere, Ned’s microaggression justifies Zed’s microretaliation. Nothing more.

So how does one micro-respond? 

Manners; etiquette.

In olden times, a well-​mannered person, when snubbed or otherwise insulted had the option of responding with a cutting remark … without any actual cutting, without even raising the tone of his or her voice. 

Activists and collegians really should look into it.

And not bring up chair size: the micro-​chair/​macro-​posterior issue has too many “microaggressive” jokes built into it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies Regulating Protest responsibility U.S. Constitution

Saturday’s Violence

police, violence, Charlottesville, white supremacist, Nazi, protest, counter protest, law and order

After delivering the final address at the Liberty International World Conference in Puerto Rico, Friday night, I learned that there had been violent clashes between white nationalists and counter-​demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

A dozen people required medical treatment after being sprayed with mace. 

Then, after traveling to the airport with new friends from Kazakhstan, China, and socialist-​torn Venezuela, I began my eight-​hour trek home. I had the subject for my weekend column, I decided: the lack of reports of even one arrest. 

Last I checked, dousing folks with a chemical agent was a crime. 

“Men in combat gear, some waring [sic] bicycle and motorcycle helmets and carrying clubs and sticks and makeshift shields,” the Washington Post reported as I landed for my connecting flight home, “fought each other on the downtown streets, with little police interference.”

By the time I touched down in Washington, DC, James Field had driven his car into a crowd of counter-​protesters, killing Heather Heyer and seriously wounding many others. A searing and sobering event.

My column, mostly written in transit, focused on the police response to political violence. From Trump rallies last year to the events at UC-​Berkeley that “shut down” planned speeches … to attacks on Charles Murray and others at Middlebury College … to this Saturday’s events in Charlottesville, policing has been tepid at best.

People have a right to speak, to assemble, to protest, to let out a primal political scream. Our governments must protect that right, without regard to viewpoint, by preventing and policing against acts of violence. 

When violence succeeds without consequences — garnering tons of attention for its perpetrators — we are likely to see more violence.

Government is not doing job one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment folly ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

Excepting Responsibility

Google, memo, sexism, discrimination, responsibility, guilt, justice, crime

Responsibility: demand it of others, expect it demanded of you.

So you might think that those who try to redress old grievances with compensatory (“reverse”) discrimination would be a bit more careful. 

Yesterday I wrote about the bizarre Google Memo case, wherein an employee was fired for (basically) warning of a groupthink ideological monoculture at Google … thus proving him right.*

Last weekend I wrote about racial quotas in college entrance. 

In both cases, there’s this idea that moderns in general and white males in particular must “accept responsibility” for the past.

And the evidence is undeniable: Our pale-​faced ancestors — or more likely a very small percentage of other white people’s ancestors — held human beings in bondage. So, too, did almost all peoples around the world; slavery’s old. Here in these United States, after our bloodiest war, our forebears ended that ancient crime. Then there was another century of Jim Crow discrimination, with systemic violence committed against blacks in many areas of the country, often with government acquiescence or involvement.

Harvard and other educational institutions are trying to right those wrongs. 

But there’s a problem: the principle behind their affirmative action schemes is lunatic: Each person of one race bears responsibility for the crimes committed by any person of that same race.

Far better is individual responsibility. Individuals have every right to compensation for any harm another has caused them, certainly. But folks have no right to create new harms against innocent people who happen merely to be of the same race or gender as those who have caused them past harm.

Justice is supposed to be blind, not crazy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The author, it is worth noting, addressed this monoculture in his title, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber.” I wonder if being proven right by one’s enemies compensates for job loss.

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