By Steve Otto
If there is one thing, I am sick and tired of, it’s the knee jerk reaction that Americans (USA) have and haver always had against crime. Because of this hysteria over all kinds of crime, this country has some of the most draconian laws ever devised. For years now, the USA has had the largest percent of its people in prison, than other country in the world. And yet for most of our elected leaders, in both parties, no one seriously tries to hold onto common sense and stop all the idiocy when it comes to passing stricter laws, designed to put more people in jail than ever before.
For what ever reason, Americans vote like jerks when it comes to crime. And the mainstream press in this country never misses a chance to get on the hysteria band wagon.
We can see this now with the attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). She has supported movements to defund police and under all the pressure, not only from Republicans but from members of her own party the political establishment and the mainstream press has relentlessly attacked here, accusing here of supporting and ignoring the rising murder rate.
According to the Washington Examiner:
“Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is worried about the rising number of homicides. Not because of the surging violence, of course, but because it threatens to derail the “dfund the police” movement.
“We are seeing these headlines about percentage increases,” she said earlier this week. “Now, I want to say that any amount of harm is unacceptable and too much, but I also want to make sure that this hysteria — you know, that this doesn't drive a hysteria and that we look at these numbers in context so that we can make responsible decisions about what to allocate in that context.”
And if things go as they have in the past, we can expect a lot of hysteria driven idiotic over reactions to rising crime that will do way more harm than good. That has been what we’ve seen in the past. Examples of really bad laws include “Three strikes you’re out” and laws that allow for a person who is involved in a crime, such as burglary, to be charged with first degree murder if some one is killed during the crime. For example, there was a case where three people broke into a house, the owner heard them and shot one dead. The other two survivors were charged with and convicted of first degree murder, even though none of them even had a weapon,
Laws like these are just stunts that politicians use to make it look like they are tough on crime. They use these tricks to get the support of voters who really know little if anything about crime and criminals. So petty thieves get a life sentence for a crime they really didn’t commit. But politicians care only about furthering their careers. To actually fix the crime problem is ignored so that authoritarian politicians and the pundits who support them can use these stunts to further their careers. They do far more damage than good and this is the most authoritarian country on Earth when it comes to the treatment of criminal suspects.
Now we have AOC who has stood up for common sense solutions and a rejection of the kind of stunts that other politicians use to further their career, at the expense of others. Many of her fellow Democrats have buckled under and given in to all the fear and hysteria. Most Democrats are afraid to stand up for their own convictions. Many originally supported the “defund the police” movement. But the minute Republicans and their pundits go on the attack, most Democrats turn tail and run. They won’t stand up for their own ideas. They just assume whoever jumps on the “get tough on criminals” band wagon will come out a winner and those who, as AOC said, “that this doesn't drive a hysteria and that we look at these numbers in context so that we can make responsible decisions”.[1] That seems reasonable enough, but that won’t stop the attacks that are sure to mount up. As we all know AOC is a member of DSA and some right-wingers already call here “a dirty communist.” This is a country were raw greed drives a lot of politicians and pundits. AOC will have to stand up to these people and luckily I think she has the guts to do just that. We have needed to debate this country’s treatment of crime for the last 30 years and finally someone is doing that.
Fascism and authoritarianism does not make us safe!
[1]The above article has a video that is a good example of the hysteria. They use words like “explosion on crime” and “we need a crackdown on crime.” The blame the whole rise on crime on the political activist who have called for defunding the police. They completely ignore the increase in guns that the Republicans have pushed for the last 20 years.