Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Crime and Punishment

  • Is There Such a Thing as Racial Profiling?

    One of the tactics of leftists is to manipulate and misuse language for their own purposes.  Thus they make up words and phrases and hijack existing ones. 'Islamophobe' is an example of the former, 'disenfranchise' an example of the latter.    'Racial profiling' is a second example of the former.  It is a meaningless phrase apart…

  • The Deep Meaning of Ferguson: The End of the Rule of Law

    Ferguson is of course just one instance.  But it is emblematic.  As usual, Victor Davis Hanson gets it right: In the Ferguson disaster, the law was the greatest casualty. Civilization cannot long work if youths strong-arm shop owners and take what they want. Or walk down the middle of highways high on illicit drugs. Or…

  • ‘Spengler’ on the Criminal Rights Movement

    David P. Goldman talks sense about Ferguson and the liberal-left threat to civil society and the rule of law: The argument of what now might be termed a “criminals’ rights movement” is that the police should not have the right to use force against felons whose crimes do not reach a certain threshold. What that…

  • Self-Control and Respect for Authority

    If Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri fame had been properly brought up to have self-control and to respect authority he might be alive today.  Police have the authority to issue commands in certain circumstances as when people are violating laws by, say, walking in the street.  Cops are often rude and arrogant.  No doubt about…

  • Ferguson

    I have been asked my opinion.  But before opining it would be better to wait until we know or at least have a clearer idea of what exactly transpired between Michael Brown, the 18-year-old black male, and the white police officer Darren Wilson. We know that Brown is dead and that the officer hit him…

  • ‘The Punishment Must Fit the Crime’

    In my various defenses of capital punishment (see Crime and Punishment category) I often invoke the principle that the punishment must fit the crime.  To my surprise, there are people who confuse this  principle, label it PFC, with some barbaric version of the lex talionis, the law of the talion, which could be summed up…

  • Capital Punishment and the Difference between Conservatives and Leftists

    The difference springs to the eye by comparison of this morally sane piece by Peter Hitchens and this one by Hendrik Hertzberg. Hendrik makes no mention of the crime, the victim, and her horrible death. Instead, typical leftist that he is, he invests his interest in the perceived underdog without any consideration of why the…

  • Why We are ‘Obsessed’ with Guns and Executions

    Keith Burgess-Jackson explains in response to a moronic missive he found in the NYT: To the Editor: Dear America: Not that I expect to persuade you, but just so you know, most of the rest of the world regards your obsession with guns and executions as barbaric. Don’t say you weren’t told. VINCE CALDERHEADNairobi, Kenya,…

  • Kitty Genovese, 50 Years Later

    Kitty Genovese was murdered on yesterday's date 50 years ago.  Many of us who are old enough to remember it, do.  But why do we remember it?  And what was, or was made out to be,  the meaning of that event? I now hand off to Nicholas Lemann, A Call for Help.  Among the fascinating…

  • Once Again: The Importance of Self Control

    A post from last year applicable to the Michael Dunn case.  Like Trayvon Martin, Michael Dunn has ruined his life by failing to exercise self control. ………….. There is so much to learn from the Trayvon Martin affair.  One 'take-away' is the importance of self-control.  If Martin had been taught, or rather had learned, to control…

  • Profiling, Prejudice, and Discrimination

    Everybody profiles.  Liberals are no exception.  Liberals reveal their prejudices by where they live, shop, send their kids to school and with whom they associate.   The word 'prejudice' needs analysis.  It could refer to blind prejudice: unreasoning, reflexive (as opposed to reflective) aversion to what is other just because it is other, or an unreasoning pro-attitude…

  • Homo Homini Lupus

    A 28 year-old Gypsy girl from the Tene Bimbo crime family 'befriends' an 85 year-old single man, marries him, and then poisons him, causing his death, in an attempt to steal his assets.  The two were made for each other, the evil cunning of the woman finding its outlet in the utter foolishness of the…

  • Trial of the Century?

    It was on this date in 1995 that the verdict in the O. J. Simpson murder trial came down: not guilty!  To refer to this proceeding as the trial of the century ought to offend anyone with a modicum of historical sense and a concern for the English language.  It is on a par with…

  • Zimmerman Again

    Bill Whittle on Zimmerman According to this report, the 'white Hispanic' 'racist' emerged from hiding to rescue a family from an overturned vehicle.  What a raaacist! Related articles Piers Morgan on the Zimmerman Case On the Zimmerman Acquittal

  • Roderick Scott, the Black George Zimmerman

    Black man shoots and kills white 'child' and is acquitted.  The Zimmerman case with colors reversed.  Here is how the piece ends: This is what’s wrong with the culture of New York State.  Our state values victims over victors.  It enshrines passivity over direct action to preempt or thwart criminal activity.  It excuses the acts…