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The Problem Is Never Reality, It's Talking About Reality

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I noticed this item on SL&P, from which I'm excerpting three paragraphs in the middle:


[C]onservatives have taken a harsh line on Black Lives Matter, a movement that includes calls for overhauling law enforcement and justice policies. Led by Fox News, conservatives have accused the protest movement, without basis, of inciting violence against police officers.  Trump accused Black Lives Matter this week of "looking for trouble" and suggested they were being "catered to" by Democrats.


The rhetoric has spread beyond Trump, which is of particular concern to criminal justice reform advocates. A few high-profile police deaths have prompted candidates like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) to blame the Obama administration for, as Walker put it, "a tendency to use law enforcement as a scapegoat." New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has called for the return of stop and frisk, vowed to crack down on marijuana legalization, and blamed "liberal-leaning mayors and cities" and their "lax criminal justice policies" for the stabbing death of a former intern in Washington, D.C.


"There are two things that are troubling," said Inimai Chettiar, director of Justice at the Brennan Center. "One, that people are saying that there is a crime wave now and they're implying that crime is going to be going up as a permanent trajectory -- which is wrong -- and that second people are blaming criminal justice policies and particularly policing policies for this."...


Where to start?

The thing that jumps out at you is the use of language in this piece.  Thus, we get the gauzy phrase, "...Black Lives Matter, a movement that includes calls for overhauling law enforcement and justice policies."


Notice the omission of specifics about what these "overhauls" are going to be. Maybe it's best if we don't ask.


Not to miss a beat, the article continues, "Led by Fox News..."


Fox News has zip to do with it, but is red meat to the intended audience, so gets tossed in.  This is from the same bunch that will accuse those opposed to sentencing "reform" of being "anti-intellectual."


"...conservatives have accused the protest movement, without basis, of inciting violence against police officers."


No basis here, for example.  When the BLM contingent chants, "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon," what they really meant to say was, "Thank you, officers, for the risks you take."  But I will concede that BLM, although it is starting to slip on this score, does more typically look to others to say out loud the more outrageous stuff.


The piece continues, "Trump accused Black Lives Matter this week of 'looking for trouble' and suggested they were being 'catered to' by Democrats."


Now why would anyone think Democrats are catering to BLM merely because two of their candidates (including the one now leading in both New Hampshire and Iowa) cow-towed when BLM shouted down their campaign speeches?  One of them, Gov. Martin O'Malley, went so far as to apologize for saying, "All lives matter."  Still, I have to agree that this isn't exactly catering.  Groveling would be more like it.


"There are two things that are troubling," said Inimai Chettiar, director of Justice at the Brennan Center.
 

Well, yes, "troubling" is one word we could use when policemen are shot dead in the street, e.g., this very recent episode among numerous others. But...........wait............Ms. Chettiar is not referring to police assassinations. Instead, as she notes, "One, that people are saying that there is a crime wave now..."


Please note, the problem is not the nationwide murder surge, The problem is that anyone has been saying that there is a nationwide murder surge.  More murders, well, look, stuff happens.  But if these Archie Bunker-types start noticing it, well, yes, that's the problem.


You cannot make this up.


"...and they're implying that crime is going to be going up as a permanent trajectory."


That's just fabricated.  I've been paying attention to this subject (as readers might have noticed), and absolutely no one has implied that the surge in murders is "permanent."


Note also that this is used as a way to downplay the murder spike and belittle those with the temerity to bring it up. 

"... which is wrong..."


Someone needs to tell me how Ms. Chettiar knows how long the spike will last.  She certainly doesn't say.


"...and that second people are blaming criminal justice policies and particularly policing policies for this."


Now why would anyone think there's a relationship between police aggressiveness  --  or forced passivity  --  and crime? Must be more of those anti-intellectual wahoos, for example, this one.  What would the police commissioner know about crime, compared to the Brennan Center?










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