Letters to the Editor
JackSparx
Published Letters: 403 Editor's Choice: 16
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Joan Walsh is proud to sit at the black table. Even if everyone there leaves.
[Read the article: How the long primary battle helps Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Salon Fan, people return to Salon is similar to the reason they rubberneck at car wrecks. There's a certain fascination to see how much farther Walsh will link the fortunes of the site with her racial obsessions. And despite Walsh's distancing language (very similar to Clinton's "as far as I know"), it is definitely her own obsession with Obama.
Walsh is always challenging us to "discuss" race relations in America, but she never uses anything Clinton says on race as the springboard. It's always some little thing Obama (or his wife) said, and for a very long time, it was Obama's background or simply his looks. At the same time, Walsh spends almost no time discussing Obama's policy initiatives that do not touch on race. At one point she even ran newreel clips from the sixties of black men getting beaten, chiding him for not being more like a sixties racial activitist.
I don't know much about Walsh, but it's hard not to engage in dime-store psychology (and only fair, because that's what she's doing to us). In college, a time she refers to in her column today, there were two kind of white girls that had black boyfriends. There were those who happened to have. Those girls genuinely liked their men, which relaxed the issue of the racial divide. Actually liking someone has a lot of power.
And then there those girls who seem compelled to have to have a black boyfriend, for whom the skin tone rather than the person seemed to matter most. Like Walsh, this second set of white girls had constant complaints about their men, constantly harped on racial slights perceived or otherwise, reduced the relationship to black-white.
Obama bugs Walsh, just bugs her. It's interesting, if uncomfortable, to watch. Walsh wants to be the white girl bravely sitting at the black table. But Obama is the black kid who sits at all the tables. She wants to get him back to the black table so she can sit with him, and give him a piece of her mind on race relations.
Like, why doesn't he have a white girlfriend?
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Did the terror logic start with "hate crimes"?
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's interesting to read so many wealthy liberals argue that routine property crimes are terrorism if they are committed with environmental intent. That's a big opening for right wingers.
So many of the right's ideas seem to have come from the left. I wonder if the pedigree for the terror logic isn't the hate crimes legislation from the 80s and 90s. In those cases, political or other intent repugnant to liberals resulted in sentence enhancements.
We seem to be sliding down the slippery slope very quickly to thought crimes. At least the hate crimes laws still required that the underlying crime be proven using standard investigative techniques. Now we have categories of crimes where constitutional methods of evidence procurement no longer have to be followed.
And we now have yet another expansive field of sentence enhancement based on mental states or intent that cannot ultimately be known. We are punishing not just criminal acts, but criminal thoughts.
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Amerigo knows my mental state!
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Yes, and really if a bunch of Arabs set fire to a few Texas oil wells to protest American carbon emissions, they should get probation and community service?"
Nope. And neither should environmentalists (white, Arab, or otherwise) if they set fire to oil wells. If by "Arabs" you mean "foreign nationals waging war on the US" then different rules should apply.
"If I kill a cop with my getaway vehicle leaving the scene of a bank robbery, then it is the same as any other accidental vehicular manslaughter where a pedestrian steps into the road unexpectedly?"
Nope, they should not be treated the same.
"In fact punishment for crimes has always taken intent into account, as far as the court can perceive it. One-size-fits-all punishments like deportation for stealing a loaf of bread have always been found to be unsatisfactory."
Actually, people are being deported for petty crimes. My local jail has been the starting point of such deportations. I'm not sure why you brought that up, but we agree that it is unsatisfactory. But to address your larger point: yes intent can matter to an underlying crime. It is criminal per se to want to kill someone, and that may be an acceptable element to differentiate accidental or intentional homicide. It is not criminal per se to oppose biotechnology or abortion or integration, etc etc.
"Crimes such as terrorism or killing cops are generally seen as particularly egregious because they are aimed at subverting democratic processes, the rule of law, and the machinery of law enforcement."
Holding political opinions IS the democratic process and the rule of law should not be opposed to holding those opinions. The "machinery of law enforcement" is subservient to democracy, not above it.
Environmental intent may be used in trials to help prove that a crime like arson occur (by showing motivation). That is legitimate. But we are talking about creating new crimes and penalties that target environmental intent.
"The above poster is either a high-schooler having fun, or is mentally deranged."
Ah. In the Soviet Union they placed political dissenters off to mental institutions. I assume you approve?
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Correction....
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I meant: "It is criminal per se to murder someone (with intent to kill them)."
I didn't mean it was criminal per se to want to kill someone. Or Amerigo might be in prison for his thoughts about me...