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Posted on 08/23/2006 7:21:50 PM PDT by Gordongekko909
The general mindset of the political left is similar from country to country and even from century to century.
The softness toward dangerous criminals found in such 18th century writers as William Godwin and Condorcet has its echo today among those who hold protest vigils at the executions of murderers and who complain that we are not being nice enough to the cutthroats imprisoned at Guantanamo.
The specific issues change from place to place and from time to time but the mindset remains remarkably similar. What is also different from country to country and from one era to another is the amount of resistance encountered by the left, which determines how far they can go in practice.
The United States has always been more resistant to the left than most European countries have been. Often we can see where the American left is headed by seeing where the European left has arrived.
A new book on crime in Britain shows what happens when the mindset of the left prevails throughout the criminal justice system. That book is titled "A Land Fit for Criminals" by David Fraser.
Within living memory, Britain was one of the most law-abiding nations on the face of the earth. When Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew visited London right after World War II, he was so impressed with the honesty of the British and their respect for law and order that he returned home determined to make Singapore the same way.
Today it is Singapore that is one of the most law-abiding nations in the world while Britain's crime rate has risen to the point where, for the first time, it now exceeds the crime rate in the United States.
What happened in the intervening years was the rise of the British left's dogmas about crime to complete domination of the country's legal system and its political and media elites.
Today, a burglar caught in the act by the police in Britain is almost certain to get a warning. If he has previous burglary convictions, he may get a sterner warning. But he is unlikely to face anything so draconian as being put behind bars.
Burglary has been described as a "minor" offense by leaders of both the Conservative and Labor parties in Britain. Rare cases where burglars are put in prison are criticized by the media.
The left's ideology on crime, including their disdain for property crimes, has spread across the political spectrum to all who wish to be considered up to date. That ideology is essentially the same on both sides of the Atlantic but in Britain it has achieved far greater unchallenged dominance.
Among the dogmas of the left is that putting people in prison fails to reduce crime and that the social "root causes" of crime must be dealt with to prevent it beforehand and that "rehabilitation" through various programs "in the community" are more effective than locking up criminals.
None of this is new and the rationales for it go back at least two centuries. What is remarkable is how mountains of hard evidence to the contrary have been ignored, evaded, or simply lied about, on both sides of the Atlantic.
David Fraser's book "A Land Fit for Criminals" examines that evidence at length and exposes the fraudulence of the claims used to try to justify continuing to be lenient to criminals as crime rates have soared in Britain.
There are similar mountains of evidence against the left's crime dogmas in the United States and this evidence is similarly ignored, evaded or lied about by those on the left. It is just that the left faces stronger opposition here so that it has not achieved the pervasive dominance that it has in Britain -- yet.
In both countries, ideologues have the support of "practical" politicians and bureaucrats who simply do not want to spend the money needed to build and maintain enough prisons to put career criminals away for many years.
Those weighing costs and benefits define "costs" as government expenditures. But the costs paid by the public, just in economic terms, vastly exceed the cost of more prisons. But that does not count for either the ideologues or the "practical" politicians and criminal justice bureaucrats.
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"Often we can see where the American left is headed by seeing where the European left has arrived."
Ain't that the truth!
To the liberal, the only moral absolute is that condemning evil is wrong and tolerating evil is right.
They are the only good argument I can find for abortion.
What a writer! Just try to add or remove so much as one word to or from any of his essays without ruining it-can't be done...
I wonder what exactly it is that seems to make Europe inherently more leftist than the States? Have we been to the left of them at any time in recent memory?
It is the same mind set that makes them for gun control. They do not care a wit if someone is murdered because they did not have the means to defend themselves. Your life is owned by their so called common good.
It is so sad that england is going to the dogs.Mr Sowell nails it as usual again.I hope the people in America wake up in time to nip this nonsense in the budd.
I call the leftists' support for abortion "things sorting themselves out on their own."
One need only look to our neighbors to the north.
They would rather ten innocent people be murdered than one guilty person be put behind bars or executed.
I've wondered that, too. If you figure it out, let me know.
I'm in my third year of law school, and I model my writing style on his. My professors LOVE it. But then, how could they not? Parsimony and simplicity are the best ways to get your point across.
"I wonder what exactly it is that seems to make Europe inherently more leftist than the States? "
Proximity to europe and communists?
They're making a lot of improvements up there under Prime Minister Harper.
It's got to be more than that. There were no communist countries until 1917, which seems too recent to cause something this fundamental.
( No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
Criminals going to jail? Oh noes! O_O
Dr. Sowell is right again. The UK is ahead of us on ignoring property crimes but they're leading us down the path. Police in many cases all but ignore them here.
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