One thing I’ve learned in a fairly long life is that there are certain people who refuse to play by the rules. Every human society seems to have stumbled across these common-sense strictures. They include things like “Contribute to your society or tribe.” “Learn how to do useful, constructive things.” “Work hard.” “Be nice.” “Don’t do bad stuff.” “Respect the ground you stake out for your home. Don’t pollute it with filth.”
These are simple rules. Even animals, in their limited way, understand them. Humankind has always abided by these rules, which have allowed us as a species to create our civilization. But, as I said, there’s always been that small cadre of individuals that has refuses to respect them.
Usually, this has not posed a particular problem for humankind. The misfits are small enough in number that they can be relegated to the margins where they can levy the least amount of damage, and regulated by whatever forms of policing society has devised.
However, every once in a while this cadre metastasizes, becoming too numerous to ignore. They then present a threat to societal stability and human happiness. The question is, what do we do then? Throughout most of history, societies have known how to control these plunderers of our wellbeing—with harshness; but harshness tempered with mercy. That is the definition of Justice.
In recent decades in America, this traditional balance—harshness tempered with mercy—has become unbalanced, which means Justice no longer prevails. A timidity of spirit has overtaken America’s ability to take care of itself from internal attack. I don’t mean attack from the kind of terrorists who tried to overthrow the government on Jan. 6, 2021—we’re actually doing pretty well on that front. I mean terrorists of the criminal-thug type: the feral crooks who are preying upon Oakland as well as the homeless people who have rendered portions of our city unlivable. We have lost the will to control these people—to apply the solutions we know work, because they’ve worked throughout history.
Why is this happening? It’s complicated, but two words can supply the answer: misguided compassion. The great American novelist, Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead) treated the myth of compassion as central themes in her books. Rand said, “I regard compassion as proper only toward those who are innocent victims, but not toward those who are morally guilty.” By this, she referenced the rules I described above: people who reject those rules are “morally guilty,” and thus not entitled to our compassion. By declaring war on our collective values, these outsiders have voluntarily situated themselves beyond our compassion, beyond any reason for us to worry about them. Progressives, who claim “compassion” is the essence of their political philosophy, don’t realize the concept of “misguided compassion.” You can feel compassion for a rattlesnake, but that won’t stop it from biting you.
On this topic, here’s something Carroll Fife wrote me through twitter: “[I] think that we can decrease little ‘c’ crime with deep investment in public ed, living wage work, affordable housing & healthcare to start.” Note Fife’s peculiar phrasing, “little ‘c’ crime.” Fife, who surely must comprehend how out of the mainstream she’s fallen by her tacit defense of criminals and her more overt support of illegal encampments, now tells us there are two kinds of crime: “Big ‘C’” and “little ‘c.’” Of course, Fife can’t defend murder, rape or home invasion (can she?), so what does she mean by “little ‘c’ crime”? Burglary? Robbery? Carjacking? Auto theft? Mugging? Car break-ins? Purse snatching? Shoplifting? Crashing a stolen truck into a store and ransacking it? Stealing a bicycle? Unless Fife can explain differently, I must suppose that all these actions are “little ‘c’ crimes” in her book. Are you prepared to live with those crimes just because Fife claims they’re “little”? They may be little to her, but they’re not little to their victims. Moreover, Fife is blackmailing us: Unless we come up with the billions of dollars (“to start”) she demands for her pet projects, she apparently is warning us she’ll continue to aid and abet “little ‘c’ crime.”
This is the essence of our disagreement with our woke sisters and brothers. Fife claims compassion for the morally guilty. We, on the other hand, want the morally guilty, especially if they’re habitual offenders, isolated, sidelined and punished. It’s time for us to drive back the dangerous onslaught of the morally guilty, including their protectors like Carroll Fife, because, if we don’t, our future is toast.
Steve Heimoff