Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction Message Board

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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction

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To: Sully- who wrote (70605)	4/2/2009 12:38:05 PM
From: TimF	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) of 90947

What did they expect? The murders of four police officers in Oakland, California by a wanted parole violator with a long record has generated predictable reactions. Naturally, there are calls for more gun control, like this plea for passage of a renewed ban on "assault weapons." (California already has a draconian ban on "assault weapons" as well as strict laws making it a crime for an ex felon to be in possession of any gun. Advocates of tougher laws can't seem to get it through their heads that laws are lost on lawless people.) Another approach is to advance arguments like this that ex-felons are "desperate" -- so employers must be made to hire them. If you think this view is laughable (or hard core leftist fringe), think again. Oakland's current Mayor Ron Dellums ran and was elected on such a platform. Many cities are busily implementing policies which amount to affirmative action hiring for felons, and there have been legislative attempts to make "discrimination" against people with criminal records illegal. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter pushed a plan promoting the hiring of felons, and President Obama is described as sympathetic to their plight. I realize that no rule is right all the time, but isn't it possible that not all of these felons are good people? I mean, what if some of them are just downright bad? Or is that not considered possible by the John Lennon Imagine crowd? The problem here for me is that there's nothing to debate. Some people think that there are bad people who should be locked up, while others don't think there is such a thing as a bad person, and that prison is immoral. (In the words of the prison abolition group "Critical Resistance" the idea is to end "society's use of prisons and policing as an answer to social problems." Sorry, but if someone wants to break into my house to rob me, that is not merely a "social problem.") Oakland's deliberate policy of not making arrests has only caused crime to go up. My reaction (then and now) is along the lines of "What did they expect?" There's no real room for rational argument, though, between people who think the evil actions of an evil individual are society's fault and those who think it is the blame and fault lie with the individual wrongdoer. Something like this happens, and it only causes them to re-emphasize and re-assert their beliefs. Maybe a threshold question could be along the lines of whether there are bad people in the world. classicalvalues.com

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