Kent gives Marc Howard the benefit of a doubt when he marks up to laziness, rather than deceit, Mr. Howard's claim that most of those to be released under Plata will be more-or-less harmless people.
I don't know Marc Howard, so Kent might be right. Still, I have my doubts. Lying about the facts has become a standard part of the Left's debate inventory, along with its first cousin, smearing the opposition.
What paricularly arouses my suspicion is the breezy contempt Howard uses in introducing his soothing "information" about the prospective releasees (emphasis added): "[Conservatives'] panic-stricken reaction conveniently ignores the fact that more prisoners are incarcerated as a result of property, drug, public order, and other crimes than of violent crimes--and presumably the former would stand to benefit from early release."
Notice that there is no such thing as legitimate concern -- only "panic-stricken reaction." Notice also that conservatives "conveniently ignore" -- guess what -- exactly the "fact" that isn't a fact at all (and that would therefore be a really good candidate to, ummmm, get ignored!) Notice further that the thousands of inmates to be released are presumably of the harmless variety -- said presumption being based on -- well, what?
Answer: willful blindness and wishful thinking. Kinda like "hope and change," to coin a phrase. Except it gets worse, because (a) presuming that thousands of release decisions will be made correctly by the very system whose years of colossal ineptitude required such decsions to start with would seem, uh, moderately stupid; and (b) within the last 48 hours, we learned that California, without the haste and pressure of a court order, nonetheless released to non-revocable parole hundreds of criminals with "a high risk of violence." But not to worry, now that it has the courts breathing down its neck, and many times the number of release decisions that must be made, California will, we can all presume, be releasing only Mr. Nicey.
I respectfully suggest that the better presumption is that California residents do what I did the day I graduated from Stanford Law School, i.e., move to Virginia.
You have to admire the left sometimes for its sheer audacity. Yeah, release tens of thousands who have made their way to California prisons, and public safety won't be affected? Common sense tells you that's just nuts.
I'm a Democrat and a liberal on most issues. However, I agree with federalist that common sense tells one that innocent Californians will undoubtedly get murdered and raped as a result of this release. It seems to me that the long-term or permanent incapacitation of violent offenders ought to be something everyone left, right and center ought to be able to agree upon (like, say, declaring war on Japan after Pearl Harbor). It's a matter of basic security--the most essential duty of any government.
I don't know exactly why so many Democrats (though clearly not all) have ended up being so deluded about the clear danger of recidivism among violent felons. I don't think it's always been this way. Whereas, my criticism of some Republicans on this issue would be limited to their taxophobia. By gum, if anything's worth paying more taxes for, it'd be keeping violent criminals off the street. Sometimes, you just have to pay more taxes for things (and you're not always going to have enough revenue by merely cutting some wasteful programs).
yankalp, the problem in California (a) isn't Republicans and (b) is that tax rates are high enough to make people want to leave.