Ha! Polish whoopee cushion. This guy kills me.
In debates with readers, colleagues, college audiences, et al. the monitor on my internal respect-o-meter flat-lines every time I hear someone say, for instance, "better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished."
Part of the reason Jonah sells so well to the Irony-Free crowd, I suspect, is because he is one of them. Throughout this column he demonstrates an inability to think metaphorically. Wow, that was a reasonable point. Let me restate that. Jonah Goldberg is an ignorant fuckwit that can't understand Any Philosophical Argument. And apparently he only knows Liberals who can't back up their arguments, which is understandable.
In order to explain what I'm talking about let me repeat my objection to this phrase.
It's not so much that this isn't true. Maybe it is. Maybe it is better that ten confirmed rapists and murderers be set loose on the streets to murder and rape again rather than lock up one innocent guy along with the ten menaces to society. Maybe we will all accept it as the price of liberty when your mother is subsequently raped or your son is shot because, hey, better the rapists and murderers go free than the unlucky go to jail.
Oh, such a pretty Strawman, but wait, he's just getting started.
But, it seems to me, there's an argument to be had here. Isn't there? Let me provide a very quick-guided tour of the obvious. According to the best social scientists and criminologists, career criminals commit a great many crimes over their lifetimes. Indeed, that's why we call them "career criminals" — they've made a career of it. Career accountants have, in all likelihood, prepared many tax returns and we can expect them to prepare many more. So it is with career criminals who've committed many crimes: We can expect them to commit many more. This is why I call prison "the bad people place."
"The Bad People Place." I think we all now know the intellectual level of Jonah. Would you like a ba-ba with your ideology, you fuck? Now, I know there are plenty of liberals out there that think Everyone can be rehabilitated. Most of us know better, but many of us take a position between the extremes of "Hugs Solve Everything" and "The Bad People Place". We're called "thinking adults." It's becoming a very select group, unfortunately. But Please, Jonah, Do continue your, ahem, 'argument'.
So, anyway, if you say "better ten guilty men go free than one innocent be punished" — or some variation of that — all I expect from you is an argument.Why is it better?
It's Better because it encourages people to have the Best Legal System possible. It's setting up an Ideal. No one expects us to meet it, but it is something to Strive for. To make things, you know, Better. Of course, as a Conservative you're mainly interested in keeping things the Same, not necessarily Better, a philosophical difference between us to be sure.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the principle: We should err on the side of protecting the innocent rather than punishing the guilty. Fair enough. But quite often — too often — when people throw out this old adage, they seem to think the principle settles the argument when in fact it only sets the stage for it.
Again, I'm taking Jonah at his word here. All the Liberals he knows are undoubtedly idiots. That's why he knows them. And again, I don't think he understands the principle.
For instance, how come it's better that ten guilty men go free? When we translate the principle to reality, we've got to pick a threshold number. So why not say it's better that 50 guilty men go free? Or, say, two guilty men? Is 10 a special number? Or is it just easy to say? Or haven't you thought about it all? Most often, people haven't thought about it all.
Hellllllooooo, Strawman! I missed you. Again, setting up an ideal. But notice the movement here. "Liberals want ALL Criminals to go FREEEEE! OHH NO! They are Blinded by Ideology..." Oh, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself...
So let me ask you, why not set free two million guilty men? After all, we all know that some number of innocent people are in prison right now. Therefore, if we maximize the principle of erring on the side of the innocent we should let everyone out of jail because we know someone doesn't belong there.
Ok, here we go. "Liberals want ALL Criminals to go FREEEEE! OHH NO! They are Blinded by Ideology..." Unlike, of course, Jonah Goldberg.
The point is we live in a society where we have to make choices about how much error we will permit in any given system, because no system will ever be perfect. It's fine to say that we should err on the side of the innocent. The real work comes when we have to decide how we're going to do that and still keep murderers and rapists in prison.
You know, it just occurred to me. Jonah isn't currently in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Why do I feel that if that were the case this column would be of a far different tone.
CLICHÉ APPEAL
I know this is an old peeve of mine, and I apologize for repeating myself. But you have no idea how many people write me to explain why I am a heartless ogre and fool, using only clichés as their proof. (Speaking of clichés, are cardiacally endowed ogres less mean?) They'll say, "unless you've walked in a man's shoes" or "unless you were there" then "you have no right to judge."
Wow, the last time I saw this many Strawmen I was.. Ok, I've never seen a strawman, but I grew up amongst crop fields. Maybe we just didn't have crows. Yeah, that must be it.
Without recycling another argument, let me just say, this is a nice principle too. Experience is useful, sure. But "unless you were there, you have no right to judge" is still a pretty dumb thing to say 90 percent of the time. I've been neither a slave nor a slave owner; am I therefore deprived of ever offering an opinion on slavery? Can I never criticize a professional football player, president of the United States, policeman, or gay prostitute because I've never been any of those things, either? Should we get rid of juries entirely since we usually don't allow murderers and thieves to decide the fate of murderers and thieves? Anyway, you get my point.
First of all, Jonah, I hate to break it to you, but you're what I like to call an "Indian Killer." It doesn't mean you would kill an Indian now, what I mean, is that if you were around in the 1840's, you would've been killing Indians and/or defending Slavery. I know you think you're a good person, but people like you can only recognize the correct moral position once it's been well established by people who's balls are bigger than your head. So, just continue to collect your check by trashing your opposition and enjoy the 21st Century, you fuck. (It's been a few paragraphs since I called him a fuck.)
I think some people assume clichés are akin to mathematical proofs; some Pythagoras did all of the heavy lifting ages ago, proving that this or that cliché is true and therefore nobody needs to re-check his math. So when someone says "who are we to judge?" everyone in the room nods as if it's in fact true nobody can judge anybody just as everybody nods when your math teacher plugs in the Pythagorean theorem to solve a problem up at the black board.
Again "some people" think a lot of things. And, Yes, you have to push back against them. Like, "some people" think Supply-Side Economics permit ALL tax breaks. "Some People" think Insurance companies should profit off of people afraid of getting sick. You can find "Some People" who think all sorts of stupid shit.
But let me be clear. My problem isn't with clichés themselves. As a conservative, I have to have more than a little respect for the pearls of wisdom contained in phrases like "why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?" There are millennia's worth of Hayekian trial and error built into the trite phrases your mother or grandmother uses. No, my problem is with people who accept clichés without reflecting on what exactly they mean. In a sense, clichés become an ideology all of their own. And since we accept cute phrases like "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" uncritically, clichés can be far more pernicious than ideology.
I have to say, I don't necesarily disagree with any of this, but he's still a fucking asshole, "As a Conservative, I have more than a little respect for pearls of wisdom". Allow me to retort, Fuck You. Goldberg is a pseudointellectual at best and he is in no position to be talking about 'wisdom', particularly when the underlying, unspoken, postscript on that little statement is "unlike liberals". But I also love that the "pearl" of wisdom Goldberg picks out is the Milk/Cow cliche. Ladies, you like fucking? Are You a Moron? You'll Never Land a Husband! No man has EVER married a woman he's already Fucked! Are you a Moron and a Whore?! Pearls before swine.
FREEDOM DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY
Let me give you the example that made me want to write this column in the first place. Because I'm skeptical about slippery-slope arguments, because I've argued that America is largely immune to becoming a totalitarian state, and because I don't particularly care if Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh, or Richard Reid ever get a lawyer, a lot of people keep telling me that when one person loses his freedom we're all a little less free.
Wow, what a coincidence, because I think THIS is the paragraph that made me want to write this post in the first place. If you want to understand how far the right-wing has fallen just read the above paragraph, read it and let it soak in, read it in horror and shame and weep. Jonah, when our forefathers set up this country the idea that EVERYONE would have protection under the law was a rather revolutionary idea. I know you and your fuckhole friends don't believe in habeus corpus anymore, but that makes YOU and your friends Evil Idiot Scum, not us. Padilla, Lindh and Reid all deserve their day in court. It affects ALL of us.
This is really some of the worst rhetoric of the Right at the moment. Now, I'll admit, there have been bad decisions in America's judicial history (Bush v. Gore comes to mind), and some of these bad decisions have come from an overtly liberal reading of laws. There are more constraints on cops now, personal freedoms and such, that must make convictions harder. But only in Jonah's World, are ALL the Criminals going free. We have an INSANE incarceration percentage in this country. People are NOT going free, obviously, otherwise they wouldn't be in fucking Jail. But even with this, America's most Popular Solution to Any Problem, Jonah and his ilk are not satisfied. Habeas Corpus, what a bitch. How DARE you request Charges, Evidence and a Lawyer, YOu FUCKING HIPPIES!
You wouldn't believe how many famous people have offered or repeated this observation. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Eli Wiesel, Captain Jean Luc Picard, as well as countless politicians have said something to the effect of "we are only as free as the least free among us."
It sounds nice, of course. Unfortunately, it's also a crock, factually, logically, and morally.
Wow. Wow. Jonah Goldberg is a dick. I mean, "Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Eli Wiesel".... And CAPTAIN FUCKING PICARD? You are aware that Captain Picard is Fictional, are you not, Jonah? Let's see, three people who have suffered more than most anyone on earth, Heroes to Millions, vs... Fictional Starship Captain. Logically and Morally wrong. Ghandi. Dr. King. Jonah, you are a fuck, I really can't say that enough. This is wearing me out. It's pointless and it's making me tired and angry. I'm not being funny. But I will try to power through.
First, facts and logic: Remember how we all agreed at the beginning of this column that there's undoubtedly an innocent person in prison right now? Well, he's not free. Are you only as free as him?
You know what? The Article goes on, but I think I've made my point. My point is that Jonah Goldberg is a soulless fuck. If you've made it through this far and think Jonah is somehow NOT a soulless fuck, well, my blog may not be for you. I'm good with that, it's your life. I don't have the energy. Here's a link to the original article, if you really must finish it. He basically goes on like this, taking perfectly fine and understandable expressions of the finest aspects of humanity.Taking them, calling them cliches, taking them to their worst extremes and then dismissing them. He's a horrible person. He's a painful person. Watching him use words like 'facts' and 'logic' literally makes me ill. He sells thousands of books. And we all have to live with him and his kind, like it or not.
Anyway..
