11-26-2020, 04:23 PM
Yes, I am tough on crime. I am for stringent law enforcement, and I once made my case for LGBT rights on the observation that whatever makes LGBT life more acceptable to more people makes life safer for us all. I have been gay-bashed, and it is not my fault that I didn't seem masculine enough to someone who threatened me with a beating. It is that tormentor's sick belief that he could beat me on the assumption that I am gay that is so wrong. It would be very wrong if I were gay.
We are better off if the police shed any reputation for inexcusable brutality. OK, self-defense and the defense of others are both often more brutal than the crime that it stops. Sure, pull a gun on a cop and expect to die, especially because cops now have the advantage over armed criminals due to bullet-proof vests. (Criminals convicted of killing police were once a large proportion of people executed for first-degree and capital murder; criminals are more likely to die in an attempted shootout with the police so that they never face lawful execution. I'll take the survival of the cop anytime. The perception that the police are inexcusably brutal makes people more likely to escalate violence, which is the opposite of what we want to see when we call upon the police in a potentially-dangerous situation. Black Lives Matters is not about making criminals more likely to avoid arrest and prosecution.
Drugs? I hate them.
Do the crime, and do the time... whether one robs banks at gunpoint or does illegal pump-and-dump stock frauds.
We are better off if the police shed any reputation for inexcusable brutality. OK, self-defense and the defense of others are both often more brutal than the crime that it stops. Sure, pull a gun on a cop and expect to die, especially because cops now have the advantage over armed criminals due to bullet-proof vests. (Criminals convicted of killing police were once a large proportion of people executed for first-degree and capital murder; criminals are more likely to die in an attempted shootout with the police so that they never face lawful execution. I'll take the survival of the cop anytime. The perception that the police are inexcusably brutal makes people more likely to escalate violence, which is the opposite of what we want to see when we call upon the police in a potentially-dangerous situation. Black Lives Matters is not about making criminals more likely to avoid arrest and prosecution.
Drugs? I hate them.
Do the crime, and do the time... whether one robs banks at gunpoint or does illegal pump-and-dump stock frauds.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.