Category: Crime and Punishment
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Newtown and the Bipartisan Police State
This article, by Anthony Gregory, is well worth reading although it gets off to a somewhat rocky start: I think the most conspicuous problem is the glorification not of guns or fictional violence, but of actual violence. America is a militarized society, seat of the world’s empire. The U.S. government is always at war with…
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If Everyone Goes Straight to Heaven . . .
. . . then heaven is a joke, and so is this life, and there is no ultimate justice, hence no God. Mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. has died in prison. Good riddance. I read the book by his son, Frank Jr. and came away impressed by him for courageously 'ratting out' his father: family loyalty…
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When Guns are Used to Thwart Crimes . . .
. . . it is rarely news, and it is never big news, unless the liberal media can put a 'vigilante' spin on it. Remember Bernie Goetz. the NYC subway gunman? As I reported about a year ago: Bernard Goetz, mild-mannered electronics nerd, looked like an easy mark, a slap job. And so he got…
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The New Jim Crow Again
Daniel M. writes: Coincidentally, I'm currently a TA for a class in which significant portions of this book have been assigned (a philosophy of law class, focusing on legal punishment). Alexander's main focus in the book is not incarceration (and related phenomena) in general, but the War on Drugs in particular. An important part of…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Rodney King and Henry Hill
Tonight I permit myself a bit of Schadenfreude (or is it righteous satisfaction?) at the passing of the 'motorist' Rodney King and the 'businessman' Henry Hill. Calling King a 'motorist' as so many knee-jerk liberal journalists did from 1991 on is like calling the mafioso Hill a 'business man.' In 'honor' of these two sorry…
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“I Have Nothing to Hide”
This is an entry from the old blog, first posted 28 December 2005. It makes an important point worth repeating. ………….. In an age of terrorism, enhanced security measures are reasonable (See Liberty and Security) But in response to increased government surveillance and the civil-libertarian objections thereto, far too many people are repeating the stock phrase,…
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Liberals and Leniency
One of dozens of reasons not to be a liberal is that liberals have a casual toward crime. The best writer on this topic that I know of is Theodore Dalrymple. His latest is Leniency and Its Costs. Get thee hence! I feel sorry about the decline of the mother country, but I'm glad that…
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A Pithy Summary of the Trayvon Martin Case
Here: The liberal narrative about the [Trayvon Martin] case is now destroyed; it had nothing to do with finding out the truth, whether a trigger-happy vigilante murdered Trayvon Martin, or a desperate neighborhood watchman saved his head from being pounded to smithereens by pulling out a gun and shooting his assailant, or something in between.…
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“Tookie” Williams Executed
From the Powerblogs archive. Originally posted 13 December 2005. As you all know by now, Stanley "Tookie" Williams was executed at San Quentin, California at 12:35 AM PT. I take no pleasure in this man's or any man's death; but I do take satisfaction from justice's being served. I simply do not understand how anyone…
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In Defense of Profiling
Even Jesse Jackson does it! This following is excerpted from the NYT piece, The Color of Suspicion (emphasis added) Why a Cop Profiles This is what a cop might tell you in a moment of reckless candor: in crime fighting, race matters. When asked, most cops will declare themselves color blind. But watch them on the job for…
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The Trayvon Martin Case and the Growing Racial Divide
Utterly outstanding analysis by Victor Davis Hanson. I have but one quibble. Hanson writes, Millions of so-called whites are now adults who grew up in the age of affirmative action, and have no memory of systemic discrimination. To the degree some avoid certain schools, neighborhoods, or environments, they do so only on the basis of…
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Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” Law Irrelevant to Trayvon Martin Case
This is one of the points made by Mona Charen in her excellent column, If Obama Had a Son: We are now engaged in another fruitless shouting match about whether young black men are being hunted on the streets of America and whether "stand your ground" laws are dangerous. But as the estimable Ann Coulter…
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Why Do Progressives Love Criminals?
A symposium with Theodore Dalrymple et al. Excerpt: Dalrymple: That leftists regard the criminal justice system as criminal and therefore regard criminals as “primitive rebels” against an unjust system is, I suppose, right, though few of them would openly admit it. They tend to see the proper function of the criminal justice system as being…
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Would You Want Your Murderer Executed?
Excerpt: Americans should be able to declare what they want the state to do on their behalf if they are murdered. Those who wish the state to keep their murderer alive for all of his natural years should wear, let us say, a green bracelet and/or place a green dot on their driver's license or…
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American Digest
A tip of the New Year's hat to the proprietor of American Digest for his link to my recent post on the paradoxes of illegal immigration. Via his site I came to the Powerline post, A Week's Worth of Self-Defense. For repelling a home invasion, and separating soul from body in a manner most efficient,…