Just a data point in your favor: Through my biz connections I know a family in Boston of two parents and 3 younger adults. All are as woke as woke can be. All endlessly complain that the political left is not nearly left enough. And back when the slogan first emerged, all were strongly and unambiguously in favor of defunding the police.…
Just a data point in your favor: Through my biz connections I know a family in Boston of two parents and 3 younger adults. All are as woke as woke can be. All endlessly complain that the political left is not nearly left enough. And back when the slogan first emerged, all were strongly and unambiguously in favor of defunding the police. And it was not, "by defunding we really mean reallocating the funds to improve policing." Oh no. It actually went the other way. "Defunding" was too mild for these people. They were openly for abolishing the police.
They have university degrees. They are intelligent, but their intelligence is directed towards dishonest and evasive argumentation, which they consider a virtue. Think Ezra Klein and then multiply. When the facts pile up against them, they simply go quiet and become unresponsive. I'm about 1000 miles away, so this works.
And they have a utopian view about this: They really think that cops **cause** crime. They see the whole criminal justice system as being a machine for entrapping anyone who struggles to survive and "has to" to break a law to get by. They are fully in support of, for example, simply ignoring thieves who are hungry or need new clothes. They are convinced that without criminal penalties, no one would be panicked into killing or injuring anyone during the course of a crime. This is how they explain away the recent increase in violence and murders.
They are not at all unique -- there must be millions of people who think this way.
"And they have a utopian view about this: They really think that cops **cause** crime. They see the whole criminal justice system as being a machine for entrapping anyone who struggles to survive and "has to" to break a law to get by."
Haha, yep. I mean, we could have a conversation about how to better provide for people on the margins who really don't have enough food to eat or clothes to wear. It's certainly true that not all of these people are simply lazy and more could be done to support them. But the idea that everything would be fine if we just let people run wild and stopped the mean old police from enforcing the law is why an increasing number of people are talking about communism as if it's a good idea.
I forget quite how he put it, but Thomas Sowell once observed that there's this idea that people are good and systems are bad. And if we get rid off the systems, people will naturally organise themselves into structures that are fair and good. But they can only think this way because they've lived their whole lives cocooned within systems that insulate them from the worst aspects of human nature.
If they'd spent even a few months outside of their privileged little bubbles, seeing how life is for some people in other parts of the world, or reading the histories of people who tried to do away with these systems, they'd be cured of their delusions immediately.
Just a data point in your favor: Through my biz connections I know a family in Boston of two parents and 3 younger adults. All are as woke as woke can be. All endlessly complain that the political left is not nearly left enough. And back when the slogan first emerged, all were strongly and unambiguously in favor of defunding the police. And it was not, "by defunding we really mean reallocating the funds to improve policing." Oh no. It actually went the other way. "Defunding" was too mild for these people. They were openly for abolishing the police.
They have university degrees. They are intelligent, but their intelligence is directed towards dishonest and evasive argumentation, which they consider a virtue. Think Ezra Klein and then multiply. When the facts pile up against them, they simply go quiet and become unresponsive. I'm about 1000 miles away, so this works.
And they have a utopian view about this: They really think that cops **cause** crime. They see the whole criminal justice system as being a machine for entrapping anyone who struggles to survive and "has to" to break a law to get by. They are fully in support of, for example, simply ignoring thieves who are hungry or need new clothes. They are convinced that without criminal penalties, no one would be panicked into killing or injuring anyone during the course of a crime. This is how they explain away the recent increase in violence and murders.
They are not at all unique -- there must be millions of people who think this way.
"And they have a utopian view about this: They really think that cops **cause** crime. They see the whole criminal justice system as being a machine for entrapping anyone who struggles to survive and "has to" to break a law to get by."
Haha, yep. I mean, we could have a conversation about how to better provide for people on the margins who really don't have enough food to eat or clothes to wear. It's certainly true that not all of these people are simply lazy and more could be done to support them. But the idea that everything would be fine if we just let people run wild and stopped the mean old police from enforcing the law is why an increasing number of people are talking about communism as if it's a good idea.
I forget quite how he put it, but Thomas Sowell once observed that there's this idea that people are good and systems are bad. And if we get rid off the systems, people will naturally organise themselves into structures that are fair and good. But they can only think this way because they've lived their whole lives cocooned within systems that insulate them from the worst aspects of human nature.
If they'd spent even a few months outside of their privileged little bubbles, seeing how life is for some people in other parts of the world, or reading the histories of people who tried to do away with these systems, they'd be cured of their delusions immediately.
Sowell is really worth listening too. I'm half-way through "Wealth, Poverty and Politics" and have others lined up. The man knows the world.