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This week's review of the news is more wide-ranging than usual, starting with the question of whether the release of Top Gun: Maverick will turn out to be one more small indicator that the backlash against the cultural left is gaining steam. After all, the left hated the original Top Gun in the 1980s, because it was said to be an emblem of Reaganite jingoism, and since the sequel involves attacking a nuclear installation of an unnamed country that is surely meant to be Iran, well. . . Meanwhile, along the way, Lucretia makes reference to getting event tickets from "Ticketron," drawing derisive snorts from Steve, who wonders why the MCU people haven't made Ticketron a wingman for Iron Man or something.
When it comes to mass shootings, we observe a rule of not commenting for at least 48 hours, for the simple reason that early reports are often wrong, and usually incomplete. And in fact we still lack a number of important details about the Uvalde shooting. We do our best to offer a few observations that have so far not received much airing.
But the central topic of the episode draws from the fact that our Claremonster friends are back in the news, with critical articles out this week in the New York Times, National Review, and other publications, not to mention an internal food fight that has broken out inside the family. (Film at 11!) So we decided, Psaki-like, to "circle back" to the nub of the problem—the historic difficulties of how to understand the principle of equality in American life. Maybe the left has done us a favor by openly rejecting equality in favor of equity, which is not the same thing. The left's version of equity turns out to be a rejection of equality rightly understood just as much as slavery did. Just how does the left's endlessly expanding demands for redistribution, which requires taking what Person A has earned to give to Person B who didn't, differ from Lincoln's description of the core dynamic of slavery: "You work, and I eat"?
Finally, a listener makes the nearby suggestion for how we should step up our single-malt game. Who's up to take a collection to buy this bottle? Too bad we can't sell raffle tickets through our nearest Ticketron outlet at Sears.
And given the lede to today's show, the exit music is rather predictable.
Hosted by Steve Hayward, with guest "Lucretia"
Discussion (4)
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From what I’ve read, to qualify for loan forgiveness the applicant must work in a government or nonprofit job. I think this is a rationale to assert that the program is geared toward those with lower paying (read: non commercial) jobs. Unfortunately, few people know how fat public salaries have become.
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Higher education doesn't develop human capital.
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No big mystery in Uvalde.
The police knew that they would be crucified if anything went wrong, so they were paralyzed.
It’s just a local instance of the Ferguson Effect.
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When I began prosecution in 1975, the police had no body armor; it didn't exist. Cops carried six-shot .357 magnum revolvers with no speed loaders, mostly loaded with .38 special round-nose, and were lucky to carry 12 loose rounds in a dump pouch on their duty belt. There were no AR-15s, no other rifles, and few shotguns. The Narcs carried .45s and a sawed off side-by-side 12 gauge seized earlier from a criminal. Raids were carried out of the back of a ratty pickup truck. SWAT teams only existed on television. There was no such thing as a "ballistic" shield. The cops wore a cheap polyester shirt, a badge, and carried a nightstick and a big brick of a radio that only worked half the time. Tasers were science-fiction, not reality.
Modern doctrine has led to over-reliance on tactical teams. Police administrators have been forced to balance the fact that any felon who survives a shooting, or the family of a decedent, will immediately be wined and dined by flying squads of out-of-state plaintiff's lawyers while the local clergy lead protests and camp in front of the police department. The best interaction is one where the criminal, confronted by an overwhelming tactical appearance, surrenders without a shot: "best" judged not by lives saved, the correct metric, but by demonstrations and lawsuits avoided. The goal is not arresting perpetrators, but rather getting through the year without a lawsuit that drains the city treasury. The result is that any moderately serious police action that could be handled by two officers now takes a half dozen or more.
Sentencing guidelines, the revolving prison doors, and the realization by criminals that they have the upper hand with a vocal constituency, have altered the attitudes of the "criminal professionals" that confront the police. While violence against officers and resisting arrest was considered counter-productive, that is not now the default position.
Crazy people were in mental hospitals, most of which were closed here circa 1978. Community Treatment never materialized.