Victims of Victimhood

To understand modern politics from the Left's perspective, you need to put on a pair of their ideologically-colored glasses. Filtered through those lenses, the world becomes a binary place, where everyone is either an oppressor or a victim of oppressors, and every human interaction, no matter how voluntary or mutually beneficial, is tainted by power imbalances.

Yes, it is that simple.

You can protest all you want. You can insist that you are not an oppressor, or that you are not a victim, but your failure to recognize either of those states is, to them, proof of how "systemic" this oppressor-oppressed duality is.

It also exposes one of the consequences of this worldview: that you, the individual, do not matter. Your relevance lies solely in service to the duality and to your identity group(s). This is why apostates, such as any black or brown person, or any woman, or any LGBTQetc person who dares hold a view that is contrary progressive orthodoxy is singled out for extra hatred. If you're a black conservative, you are a traitor to "your people."

The "better than thou" folks that put forth this duality have also assumed an obligation to do something about it. One way they've done so is through their version of criminal justice reform.

Libertarians have long contended that we over-incarcerate in America. With cause. America has the fifth highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, ranking behind only El Salvador, which has built "prison cities" in its fight against drug gangs, and such bastions of liberty as Cuba, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan.

Something isn't working right, and I will delve into that problem in a future post (hint, it has to do with victimless crimes, policing for profit, and the War on Drugs).

Today, I'll focus on the aphorism offered by H. L. Mencken:

The progressives’ remedy to over-incarceration is simple, direct, and plausible: Stop prosecuting people for crimes.

Why?

Because, per the "disparate outcome proves systemic bias" theory, the fact that minorities are over-represented in our prison system is not only proof that the criminal justice system is biased against minorities, it implies that minorities aren't committing the crimes they are being locked up for.

This is very broad brush, but that's how our Best-and-Brightest think, sad to say.

So, we end up with "reforms" such as non-prosecution for a litany of lower-level crimes and the elimination of cash bail. We end up with unrepentant recidivists knowing what crimes they can get away with and adjusting their behaviors accordingly. We get "don't shoplift more than $950 at a time and you'll be fine" and revolving doors at the criminal courts.

Nowhere is there any consideration of removing victimless behaviors from the criminality books, or even making the distinction between crimes that harm others and crimes that don't, which is the first thing libertarians talk about when it comes to reform.

And, crucially, there is no consideration for the victims of the un-prosecuted crimes.

Indeed, the self-proclaimed champions of victims everywhere turn a blind eye to the victims of crime. Whether it be the recipient of a "knock out game" sucker punch, the family whose house was burglarized or car was stolen, the subway rider who gets worse service and higher fares because so many toll jumpers are excused, or the shopkeeper who has to raise prices, lock everything up, or go out of business due to rampant shoplifting, actual victims are given short shrift in favor of people deemed "victims of systemic oppression." If the State purportedly does something bad to you, you become a favored child. If someone who the Best-and-Brightest ranks as higher on the grievance scale than you violates your person or your property, sorry, you're out of luck.

This is completely upside-down. The first role of a representative government in a free society is the protection of individuals' rights. Social justice, other than that fostered by equal treatment under the law and a blind and independent judiciary, is not a proper role of government.

Yet, here we are today, with people in power abandoning that first role in favor of a Bizarro World excusing of the perpetrators of crimes against others, crimes that the State is obligated to prosecute if society is to function.

As Mencken noted, their simple, direct, and plausible solution is also wrong.

Abandoning actual victims to the predations of people deemed "victims of society" is such a twisted idea, it could only have been conceived by people who have never been victimized.