Victims... and Victims

My personal, political, and cultural philosophy, when distilled to its lowest common denominator, is that I focus on individuals. Individual rights, equality under the law, protection for individuals against "tyranny of the majority," and so on. This is rooted in Enlightenment values and is the essence of our form of government.

Such a viewpoint clashes with identity politics and modern progressivism, which when distilled to its lowest common denominator focus on groups. The groups to which you belong matter more than you do as an individual. The groups to which you belong determine your social value, specify the degree to which the government is to care about your rights, and also specify the political views you are expected to espouse. Deviating from the expectations for your group leads to shunning and other forms of social castigation.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that I criticize the progressive Left quite a lot on this blog. While libertarian views have some overlap with liberals and some overlap with conservatives, I find very little common cause and a whole lot of fundamental dissonance with the Left.

One such dissonance is in the matter of victimhood, and I am reminded of this every time I read another "thug punches elderly pedestrian" story in the local newspapers.

In the individualist view, "victims" are persons who are harmed by others or whose property is damaged or taken by others - including the government in both cases - and who are to be afforded recourse through the law and the system that enforces it. Every individual is presumed and treated equally, with neither preference nor disfavor.

Over on the Left, that sort of victim is subordinate to "victims of society." Since persons with certain demographic identifiers are deemed more oppressed by society than those of other identifiers, those "oppressed" are granted preferential status, and equality is dismissed in favor of a binary "oppressor vs oppressed" worldview. At any given time, an individual can be an oppressor or an oppressed, based on the identity markers of whoever is on the other side of the interaction.

Thus, the groups that are deemed more oppressed get preferential treatment, even when they violate the rights of others.

This is why people with penises are granted access to spaces traditionally reserved for women, such as rest rooms, locker rooms, abuse and rape shelters, women's prisons, and women's sports.

This is why unrepentant recidivist criminals end up back on the street so quickly, with progressive prosecutors not giving one whit for the victims of personal and property crime. Some gangbanger plays knockout game on an old man? Sorry, old man, you're outta luck.

This is why vandals and looters who are of favored identity or who hold favored political views are given free passes, in the name of social justice, while the owners of the damaged or stolen property get no justice and no compensation. Even when they destroy their own neighborhoods and the businesses of people of their own demographics.

This is why minors who are detransitioning after being coaxed into life-altering chemical or surgical changes by the trans industry are dismissed, ignored, or vilified.

This is why some victims of natural disasters get less attention and assistance than others.

This is why Daniel Penny and Kyle Rittenhouse were aggressively prosecuted while countless career criminals get barely a slap on the wrist.

This is why we hear progressives argue that a homeowner should not be considered justified in using a firearm to protect his family against home invaders, because those invaders are 'probably just hungry.'

There's a certain irony in people who claim to champion victims blithely dismissing or actually blaming the victims of those victims they champion. Irony and hypocrisy, but hypocrisy is as we all know no vice in the pursuit of noble ends.

Managers in restaurants develop a stock repertoire of answers and comebacks after dealing with the public for a period of time. One that I've borne witness to many times is the comeback when someone accuses the manager of racism. It's a variant of, "you're not black, you're green." As in "you are the money you spend here, and it's my goal to make sure you keep spending your money here." It's disarming and it's effective, and I even know of one instance where the customer laughed and replied "I knew you were a pimp!"

When we treat every person the same: as individuals, and with baseline respectful behavior until and if experience suggests otherwise, we have a happier existence and a more pleasant society. We may not get equal outcomes, but we will get broadly good outcomes. Free and egalitarian societies prosper.

When we treat people and draw conclusions about them based on their skin color, on the other hand? There's a word for that. Same for gender, or orientation, or ethnicity, or any of the other identity markers that the Left grants preference to. We may think we can impose equal outcomes, but we won't get them. In their stead, we get division, rancor, and a crab-antic scramble to step on each other for gain at others' expense.

When we write laws to punish those who violate individuals' rights (personal and property), we move toward a more egalitarian society. When we ignore the victims of those violators, we contribute to society's unraveling.