^^^^^^
Tiger Man's mention of judicial reform when it comes to non-violent offenders brings up another issue.
How much has the conservative "lock 'em up!" mentality led to the whole country thinking this way...including feminists who now apparently think a mere accusation of sexual assault means "OMG! He's guilty!"
We're seeing this a lot now regarding the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. And it's getting insane.
In the New York Times, a law professor just wrote that "credible allegations" should be enough to disqualify Kavanaugh (summary on Twichy here). Meanwhile, the Washington Post is claiming that withdrawing his nomination will "prevent future rapes." Huh? (Twichy link here).
This is not the way "the left" thought in its 1960s-70s heyday. What happened (in my opinion) is that in order to appeal to the populace, the left adapted the Police State mentality of the right -- starting with Bill Clinton's 1994 crime reform bill.
Somewhere along the line, both the right and left began ignoring due process in the cultural sense (note that I said cultural -- I'm talking about belief systems, not the law per se).
So on the right, we had local sheriffs and politicians celebrating the police's "no knock raids" and money-wasting "stings" where they enticed ordinary citizens into crimes. Their motto was " "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear."
Yeah, because false arrest and/or imprisonment NEVER happens (sarcasm). This, in my mind, led to the "accusation culture" we have now, because it put people in the mindset that somehow we're all guilty of something. The left and right have become two sides of the same coin.
Tiger Man's mention of judicial reform when it comes to non-violent offenders brings up another issue.
How much has the conservative "lock 'em up!" mentality led to the whole country thinking this way...including feminists who now apparently think a mere accusation of sexual assault means "OMG! He's guilty!"
We're seeing this a lot now regarding the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. And it's getting insane.
In the New York Times, a law professor just wrote that "credible allegations" should be enough to disqualify Kavanaugh (summary on Twichy here). Meanwhile, the Washington Post is claiming that withdrawing his nomination will "prevent future rapes." Huh? (Twichy link here).
This is not the way "the left" thought in its 1960s-70s heyday. What happened (in my opinion) is that in order to appeal to the populace, the left adapted the Police State mentality of the right -- starting with Bill Clinton's 1994 crime reform bill.
Somewhere along the line, both the right and left began ignoring due process in the cultural sense (note that I said cultural -- I'm talking about belief systems, not the law per se).
So on the right, we had local sheriffs and politicians celebrating the police's "no knock raids" and money-wasting "stings" where they enticed ordinary citizens into crimes. Their motto was " "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear."
Yeah, because false arrest and/or imprisonment NEVER happens (sarcasm). This, in my mind, led to the "accusation culture" we have now, because it put people in the mindset that somehow we're all guilty of something. The left and right have become two sides of the same coin.