Category: crime and punishment

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crime and punishment ideological culture media and media people

Invasion of the Wrong-Lesson Snatchers

A seeming lone gun nut sends threatening, ricin-laced letters to New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and U.S. President Barack Obama.

“What’s in this letter is nothing compared to what I’ve got planned for you” is a typical line. “. . . Anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face. The right to bear arms is my constitutional God given right.”

Hmm. Perhaps one difference between the letter-sender and most Americans who support the right to bear arms is that the latter would never prepare threatening poison-laced letters?

That’s merely common sense, though; and some editorialists and other opinion-lock-and-loaders lurched to another “obvious” conclusion. Clearly, they intimated, we have a gun nut allied in his nuttiness with Americans who also cite the Second Amendment provided by the gun-nut Founding Fathers.

Guilt by association is a fallacy in any case. But there were at least two motives for writing such a letter. One, to assert a right to bear arms in so wacky and threatening a way that, presumably unbeknownst to one’s wacky self, one proves that one should be allowed nowhere near guns. Two, to frame an estranged, pro-gun-rights husband.

Shannon Richardson, an actress best known for playing a zombie on TV, told the FBI that her pro-gun-rights husband was probably the culprit. But mounting evidence soon pointed to her, not her husband. Uh oh . . .

My conclusion? Many opinion-bearers should be a little more thoughtful and a little less zombie-like when taking ideological aim.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment insider corruption

IRS Case Closed! The End! Letsmoveon!

Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings says it’s time to stop investigating the latest IRS shenanigans. According to him, closed-door interviews with IRS staffers prove that no White House or other Washington officials were involved in targeting the applications for tax-exempt status of conservative groups for special obstructionist attention.

Whew! Crisis over.

But the congressman is ignoring a few things.

For example, history. Everything we are now learning (visit TaxProf Blog for the latest news roundups) indicates that this latest shocking scandal only confirms what we already knew about the Internal Revenue Service. The outfit does not play nice. It is not animated by unwavering concern for truth, justice, and even-handed enforcement of its welter of wretched regulations.

More immediately, the congressman is ignoring the fact that the IRS’s ideological targeting is not resolvable into the actions of one or two frazzled clerks in Cincinnati. (Even if some reporters have valiantly striven to show, in the words of the San Francisco Chronicle, “How One Overworked IRS Worker Ignited the Tea-Party Targeting Scandal.”)

We know that many DC-based officials linked to the targeting of conservative groups quit, were transferred, or were put on administrative leave right after the scandal broke. We know that IRS employees in Cincinnati have testified that the DC office especially requested Tea Party files. We know that DC lawyers both reviewed the intrusive questionnaires sent to Tea Party groups and drafted many of the questions. Etc. All irrelevant?

Come on, Cummings.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability crime and punishment ideological culture

Ding Jinhao Was There

Boys will be boys. And tourists will be tourists.

Not long ago, a graffito was spotted on an ancient Egyptian wall — a stone relief, with pictographs and representations and the whole gamut of ancient Egyptian art — photographed and then posted to the Internet, where it got more than 100, 000 comments.

It was soon discovered to have been scratched into the wall by a 15-year-old lad from Nanjing: his mark read “Ding Jinhao was here.” And then came the firestorm. Though the BBC tells us that Egypt’s ministry of antiquities has dubbed the scratchmarks “superficial,” the “controversy comes days after Wang Yang, one of China’s four vice-premiers, said . . . that the ‘uncivilised behaviour’ of some Chinese tourists was harming the country’s image.”

Welcome, China!

Previously, the world had been blessed with the Ugly American, the Annoying European, and the Over-Photographing Japanese — tourists from wealthy or up-and-coming countries not uniformly presenting their respective nations in the best possible light as they tramped abroad.

In this case, though, it’s worth noting that most of the scandal is confined to China itself. The bloggers’ ire was primarily an in-group thing, and even the government (especially the government?) has gotten in on the shame game bandwagon, trying to needle tourists to behave themselves. (So much so that the desecrating teen’s father pleaded for the critics to let up — “too much pressure,” he said.)

As an I-try-not-to-be-ugly American, I appreciate the Chinese concern for manners and image — honor, really. And hope that all their graffiti remains easy to repair, and that the concern for national honor doesn’t go too far in over-reaction.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment education and schooling

Arrested Development

Former Atlanta schools superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 other school employees, including high-level administrators, principals and teachers, were recently booked in Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail after being indicted on 65 criminal counts. The charges included racketeering, theft, conspiracy, making false statements and witness tampering.

Just four years ago, Hall was the National Superintendent of the Year. Now, she faces 45 years in prison for having allegedly snagged almost $600,000 in bonus income for higher test scores achieved through fraudulently changing students’ test answers.

And this, the nation’s largest-ever cheating scandal, may prove only the highest shard of a proverbial large floating mass of frozen water.

But instead of condemnation, some of the nation’s leading “education experts” seem bent on excusing the cheaters.

“What we do know,” Washington Post education writer Valerie Strauss pointed out, “is that these cheating scandals have been a result of test-obsessed school reform.”

Dr. Christopher Emdin of Columbia University Teachers College reminded readers at the end of a recent Huffington Post column, “I am not saying that educators and school officials who cheat on tests or conspire to cover up cheating should not be reprimanded.”

Just “reprimanded”?

Award-winning teacher Steven Lin explained  that “environments such as that alleged in Atlanta present the classic sociological phenomenon of ‘diffusion of responsibility,’ along with a host of other flaws regarding the compartmentalization of job descriptions within bureaucracies.”

You mean they suffer from “peer pressure”?

Nevertheless, I still think it’s more than sorta bad to cheat.

And I agree wholeheartedly with the “controversial” remark by George Washington University Dean Michael Feuer: “It’s not the test that made them cheat.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture

Marathon Men

Prior to identifying the Boston Marathon bombers, upstanding members of the inane wing of the left intelligentsia fell all over themselves to express their earnest hope that the malefactors would turn out to be male right-wingers.

When the bombers turned out to be a couple of American lads who just happened to hail from Chechnya by way of Dagestan, and were Muslim, to boot, the disappointment was palpable. The burning desire to demonize white male tax protestors (read “Tea Party”/”militia” types) morphed into a defense of Islam and Muslim Americans at large . . . which is good, but why the defense of one set, but hatred for the other?

Now the “moral” conversation has switched to debating whether the surviving malefactor (the elder of the two brothers was killed in a shootout Thursday night), whose first name is Dzhokhar, should have been Mirandized (he was not) or even Guantanamoed (he hasn’t been so far).

Such is the state of ethical debate, today.

The story has overwhelmingly dominated the news. Why? Folks in general, including those on the inane left, like to hate bad guys. We’re fascinated by the story — more so, say, than the Texas fertilizer plant explosion that occurred the same week — because of the human element, the intent.

The malign intent.

But what the exact intention of these malefactors was, I don’t really know. What did they hope to accomplish? What could they achieve for Chechnya by killing Americans near a marathon finish line?

Once again folly and evil find intimate connection.

Maybe in some of our reactions, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment free trade & free markets

The Union Label

Uniting together to form mutual aid groups is a very old idea. Workers do it; professionals, too — even consumers. It’s usually a great idea, contributing a lot to human welfare.

But what we call “labor unions” have a problem: They tend to be, well . . . violent.

Why?

One of the main practices of unions has been (though it need not be) the monopolization of labor into a union-run pool, disallowing non-union workers from taking jobs in targeted plants, businesses, industries, what-have-you. Labor legislation in America and elsewhere generally shores up and regulates that power — which, by definition, is thuggish.

So we’ve come to expect thuggishness from existing unions. Members of unions feel they have the right to exclude non-union workers, and they will intimidate, threaten, and attack both “scabs” (competing workers) and “evil businesses.”

Which now includes a Quaker meeting place expansion project.

In one of the best-titled stories of recent times, “Union Workers *Probably* Torched a Quaker Meetinghouse Over Christmas,” we learn that an under-construction building was torched this holiday season, and that the culprits were “almost certainly” union members.

To call them “disgruntled” would be to euphemize. To attack a Quaker meetinghouse takes quite a bit of . . . well, you fill in the blank.

In one sense, unions are doing nothing different than hundreds of other organizations do, seeking special privileges from government. But unions continue to use the basic tactics of force when the “rule of law” fails them.

That they would do so even against another group known for the heritage of peace and non-aggression and even non-retaliation is breathtaking in its . . . honesty?

I’ll let you pick your own word.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment folly national politics & policies

Shooting from the Hip

Wearing his I’m-Not-Partisan-No-Not-Me hat, President Obama has again declared war on partisanship, telling congressional Republicans to “peel off the partisan war paint.”

To be partisan in a bad way is not merely to belong to a political party and more or less support its program. It is to cling to party at the expense of Doing the Right Thing.

Unless, that is, it’s about opposing the program of a president determined to be partisan at the expense of Doing the Right Thing.

I often disagree with both parties. But let’s say that a representative of one party is marginally more reluctant to destroy our wealth and freedom than a representative of another party. Then I prefer the slightly more responsible stance of the former — and wish it were tougher and more consistent — even when the latter engages in name-calling and abuse of the former.

Demanding “perspective,” President Obama declares that he and the Congress should “not put ourselves through some sort of self-inflicted crisis every six months.” And I wholeheartedly agree. These crises happen because their spending programs always go up and up and up, even when a few “cuts” get made.

But the president doesn’t stop there. He explains they must “allow ourselves time to focus on things like preventing the tragedy in Newtown from happening again, focus on issues like energy and immigration reform. . . .”

Um, sir, please do not suggest that an unimpeded path to fiscal ruin is the only way to prevent fiscal ruin, or can somehow enable policymakers to prevent crazy gunmen from killing people. Please.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment

When It’s Smart to Play Dumb

In 1993, I was in Russia to witness Boris Yeltsin’s first referendums, which was perhaps the high point of Russian democracy.

Along with the sweep of history, I also remember boarding a midnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg and being accosted by some kind of Russian gendarme. This fellow berated me in words none of which I understood. I could tell he wanted something from me (money, probably). So I stood there looking bewildered and playing dumb — my specialty — until the guy finally lapsed into frustrated silence and I could walk away. Another Russian later told me that it was indeed a shakedown attempt.

The incident came to mind when I heard about a recent attempted robbery down in Tampa. Three masked thugs spilled into a Chinese restaurant and demanded the contents of the cash register. According to a brief report, the trio “left empty-handed after the restaurant workers who only spoke Cantonese couldn’t understand what the English-speaking suspects were saying.” At one point, a gun went off when the would-be robbers banged the cash register with it.

The report states that the “botched robbery” was caused by a “failure to understand English.” Well, maybe the workers knew little English. But they knew what the robbers wanted. The workers played dumb. More basically, they refused to cooperate.

Risky. I’m not saying you should try this at home. But sometimes being too dumb to be victimized is the smartest thing you can do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture

Ends, Means, Evils

Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian who used bombs and guns in a terrifying killing spree a little over a year ago, got what he wanted: He was judged as a political terrorist and not insane, sentenced to prison for ten to 21 years, Norway’s unbelievably minimum “maximum” — with the state’s option of keeping him confined indefinitely if judged too dangerous for release.

Which sounds rather “clinical” to me. Even without a ruling of insanity, Norway appears to treat its murderers as madmen.

But as one survivor of the Utoya massacre explained, “I believe [Breivik] is mad, but it is political madness and not psychiatric madness.” Exactly.

“Madness” is some sort of loss of self-control, a dangerous instability; “insanity” legally defines that subset of madmen who cannot distinguish between right and wrong. It is pretty obvious that though Breivik is deeply off his rocker, his condition is the result chiefly of bad ideas channeling base impulses.

And yet . . .

Breivik’s terrorism — like all others — justifies killing innocent people to serve a political goal. In doing so, the terrorist’s ideology becomes de facto insanity, rendering the terrorist incapable of recognizing his own evil.

In this case, his ideology also kept the terrorist from seeing the actual consequences of his horrifying violence. Breivik’s politics is of an extreme anti-Muslim nature. It has surely been fed by the rise of radical Islamic terrorism. But killing 77 people, including scores of non-Muslim teenagers, doesn’t exactly serve to rally European “militant nationalists” to an anti-Muslim pogrom. Mad. Wanton. Feckless.

But just “evil” will do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment national politics & policies too much government

Programs for Peace

Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey, calls himself a “social media enthusiast,” and recently engaged Reddit.com’s public, for whom he clarified his stance on drug prohibition:Cory Booker

The so called War on Drugs has not succeeded in making significant reductions in drug use, drug arrests or violence. We are pouring huge amounts of our public resources into this current effort that are bleeding our public treasury and unnecessarily undermining human potential. I see the BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars being poured into the criminal justice system here in New Jersey and it represents big overgrown government at its worst.

Yes. Recreational drug prohibition has been and continues to be a horrifying example of “big overgrown government at its worst.”

My only qualm comes with the good mayor’s next sentence:

We should be investing dollars in programs and strategies that work not just to lower crime but work to empower lives.

The biggest reduction in crime would come from ceasing to criminalize peaceful behavior; the biggest relief from the drug war’s horrific consequences would be the war’s cessation itself. People “empower” their own lives, through peaceful work and family life. Are more programs really necessary? Wouldn’t individual freedom and personal responsibility be enough?

We don’t need “big overgrown government at its best.” We need streamlined, accountable government . . . that protects all peaceful folk. That would be far better. “Bestest.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.