Author Page for Scott Lemieux

Drug War v. Civil Liberties II

Radley Balko has a terrific article about no-knock warrants, which does a particularly good job of outlining the way that the War On (Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs has been used to eviscerate civil liberties. Particularly important is the that the potential for destroying evidence provides an “exigent circumstance” for unannounced searches, which effectively removes any barrier to such searches at all:

As the name indicates, a “no-knock” raid occurs when police forcibly enter a private residence without first knocking and announcing that they’re the police. The tactic is appropriate in a few limited situations, such as when hostages or fugitives are involved, or where the suspect poses an immediate threat to community safety. But increasingly, this highly confrontational tactic is being used in less volatile situations, most commonly to serve routine search warrants for illegal drugs.

These raids are often launched on tips from notoriously unreliable confidential informants. Rubber-stamp judges, dicey informants, and aggressive policing have thus given rise to the countless examples of “wrong door” raids we read about in the news. In fact, there’s a disturbingly long list of completely innocent people who’ve been killed in “wrong door” raids, including New York City worker Alberta Spruill, Boston minister Accelyne Williams, and a Mexican immigrant in Denver named Ismael Mena.

[...]

With those two clauses, Souter effectively dismissed the common-law principle that announcement protects the innocent from an unjustified home invasion and instead instructed police to treat everyone named in a drug search warrant as if they were already guilty. What good is an announcement if police aren’t required to give you sufficient time to answer the door? Under Souter’s reasoning, it’s difficult to understand what purpose the announcement requirement put forth in Wilson serves at all, other than offering a quaint, ceremonial homage to a time when the Fourth Amendment was more than a mere formality.

There’s also a lot of good stuff in the article about the militarization of police forces. Balko also preemptively explains why Glenn Reynolds–in his never-ending quest to establish himself as the blogosphere’s most statist “libertarian”–is wrong to argue that the exclusionary rule should not be used as a remedy in such cases. While it sounds nice on paper, and while I’m all for creating full liability and removing legal immunities in cases of no-knock searches, as Balko points out “monetary damages against police in such cases are unheard of.” By allowing the police to use illegally seized evidence, Reynolds’ remedy would leave large incentives to continue the illegal behavior in place, and given the vanishingly small chance of winning significant damages it’s highly unlikely that innocent victims (who are overwhelmingly likely to be poor, unaware of favorable changes in civil law codes, etc.) will sue the police. Making no-knock (or other kinds of unconstitutional) searches illegal but permitting the state to use any evidence gained from them is functionally indistinguishable from just making them legal.

And for a tragic account of the awful potential consequences of “no-knock” searches, remember Balko’s terrific work on the horrifying case of Cory Maye.

Drug War Discrimination

Some new data:

The American Civil Liberties Union is accusing federal prosecutors of ethnic bias in a sting last summer in which South Asian owners of convenience stores in Georgia were charged with selling household ingredients that could be used to make methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug.

In a legal filing, the A.C.L.U. said yesterday that prosecutors ignored extensive evidence that white-owned stores were selling the same items to methamphetamine makers and focused instead on South Asians to take advantage of language barriers.

The sting sent informants to convenience stores in six counties in rural northwest Georgia beginning in 2003 to buy ingredients that can be used to make the drug– ordinary household items like Sudafed, matches, aluminum foil and charcoal.

[...]

Documents filed by the A.C.L.U. yesterday include a sworn statement from an informant in the sting, saying that federal investigators sent informants only to Indian-owned stores, “because the Indians’ English wasn’t good.” The informant said investigators ignored the informant’s questions about why so many South-Asian-owned stores were visited in the sting.

Other filings said prosecutors had several tips that more than a dozen white-owned stores were selling the same ingredients, but failed to follow up on them. According to a sworn statement from a witness, law enforcement officials tipped off a white store owner about the investigation and recommended ways to avoid scrutiny.

The War on (Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs: where civil liberties and equal protection go to die.

Eric Muller is also correct in noting the problems with U.S. v. Armstrong. The Supreme Court has created a nice Catch-22. One the one hand, defendants need evidence of individualized discrimination, not just evidence of systematic discrimination. On the other, because of Armstrong, for all but the most deep-pocketed defendants obtaining evidence of such discrimination is made much more difficult. Justice Stevens, in his (shamefully solo) dissent in Armstrong explains:

Finally, it is undisputed that the brunt of the elevated federal penalties falls heavily on blacks. While 65% of the persons who have used crack are white, in 1993 they represented only 4% of the federal offenders convicted of trafficking in crack. Eighty eight percent of such defendants were black. During the first 18 months of full guideline implementation, the sentencing disparity between black and white defendants grew from preguideline levels: blacks on average received sentences over 40% longer than whites. See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sentencing in the Federal Courts: Does Race Matter? 6-7 (Dec. 1993). Those figures represent a major threat to the integrity of federal sentencing reform, whose main purpose was the elimination of disparity (especially racial) in sentencing. The Sentencing Commission acknowledges that the heightened crack penalties are a “primary cause of the growing disparity between sentences for Black and White federal defendants.”

The extraordinary severity of the imposed penalties and the troubling racial patterns of enforcement give rise to a special concern about the fairness of charging practices for crack offenses. Evidence tending to prove that black defendants charged with distribution of crack in the Central District of California are prosecuted in federal court, whereas members of other races charged with similar offenses are prosecuted in state court, warrants close scrutiny by the federal judges in that District. In my view, the District Judge, who has sat on both the federal and the state benches in Los Angeles, acted well within her discretion to call for the development of facts that would demonstrate what standards, if any, governed the choice of forum where similarly situated offenders are prosecuted.

[...]

The majority discounts the probative value of the affidavits, claiming that they recounted “hearsay” and reported “personal conclusions based on anecdotal evidence.” But the Reed affidavit plainly contained more than mere hearsay; Reed offered information based on his own extensive experience in both federal and state courts. Given the breadth of his background, he was well qualified to compare the practices of federal and state prosecutors. In any event, the Government never objected to the admission of either affidavit on hearsay or any other grounds. It was certainly within the District Court’s discretion to credit the affidavits of two members of the bar of that Court, at least one of whom had presumably acquired a reputation by his frequent appearances there, and both of whose statements were made on pains of perjury.

The criticism that the affidavits were based on “anecdotal evidence” is also unpersuasive. I thought it was agreed that defendants do not need to prepare sophisticated statistical studies in order to receive mere discovery in cases like this one. Certainly evidence based on a drug counselor’s personal observations or on an attorney’s practice in two sets of courts, state and federal, can “ten[d] to show the existence” of a selective prosecution.

This is an important point–the kinds of evidence would evidently not suffice to prove the discrimination in itself, but surely it should be enough to order discovery to see if there is evidence of indvidualized discrimination or not. As Muller points out, making a discovery order contingent on sophisticated regression analysis makes it impossible for the ordinary defendant in a drug case to actually prove discrimination. And, of course, this discrimination is crucial to the continuation of the drug war; if these laws were applied generally and fairly, it would be far more difficult to sustain draconian punishments. Obviously, under the Alitofied Court it’s pointless to talk about Armstrong being overturned, but it’s part of a very serious problem.

The Baron of Banality

Shorter Jonah Goldberg #1: When you look at moderate liberal publications, you’ll find that they don’t want revolutionary change.

Shorter Jonah Goldberg #2: You don’t have to be a brilliant journalist to read news off a teleprompter. You do have to be a brilliant journalist to repeat the theme of Broadcast News as if it represented an earth-shattering insight, though!

Well, at least he’s better than David Gelertner….

"When it was offered, I thought it was highly appropriate"

Duke’s lacrosse coach has resigned, and the season officially cancelled. Some more information has been released about one of the scumbags in question:

Earlier Wednesday, authorities unsealed documents stating that hours after the alleged rape, a player apparently sent an e-mail saying he wanted to invite more strippers to his dorm room, kill them and skin them. It was not clear whether the message was serious or a joke.

That player’s lawyer, Glen Bachman, said Duke had suspended his client from school. Brodhead said he was the only player suspended so far.

The university president referred to the player’s e-mail in announcing the cancellation of the rest of the season. Last week, Brodhead suspended the team from play.

“The court released today a previously sealed warrant, whose contents are sickening and repulsive,” he said Wednesday.

[...]

he e-mail, according to an application for a search warrant of the player’s dorm room, was sent from the player’s Duke e-mail account just before 2 a.m. on March 14. Police said investigators received a copy from a confidential source, though they later won a court order seeking access to the account.

In the e-mail, addressed “To whom it may concern,” the player says he has “decided to have some strippers over” to his dorm room, “however there will be no nudity.”

“I plan on killing the bitches as soon as they walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off,” the author of the e-mail says, adding in vulgar terms that he would find the act sexually satisfying. The e-mail was signed with what police said is the player’s jersey number.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to go and throw up now.

For those of you not familiar with this story, Rachel’s Tavern provides a good introduction; see also this link-rich update. A compendium of news about the case can be found here (thanks to Ginger for the tip.)

UPDATE: The Smoking Gun has the evidence.

Do Pro-Labor Policies Destroy Competitive Balance?

Before I had a chance to respond to Yglesias’ repeating of highly flawed received wisdom about competitive balance and baseball, he finds some relevant data. To this, I will add that 1)as demonstrated in the Historical Abstract, baseball was more competitively balanced in the 90s than the 80s, and the 80s than the 70s, despite the decision to actually pay the players market rates, and 2)big-market teams dominated in NBA to a far greater extent than they did in baseball in the same time period. Actually, Matt doesn’t seem to think the data rebuts his thesis, but to me it’s definitive; at 11%, you’re talking about a very modest difference that can clearly be overcome by good management, and given that ressentiment against big markets is good for the sport, that status quo would be better than pure parity.

It’s actually quite amazing the extent to which progressives who know better repeat the argument–which is pure management propaganda–that if players aren’t exploited only a few teams will be competitive. Consider this from Malcolm Gladwell, speaking in June 2002:

If there is a work stoppage this fall — as I hope there is — and if the players come to their senses and we get a cap and revenue sharing, I’ll come back to the game. In the meantime I’ll spend my time watching the NBA where, I’d like to point out, a team from a minor, regional metropolitan area just gave a team from Los Angeles a run for its money. Imagine that!

Of course, what’s ludicrous about this is that in MLB 2001 a team from New York was given all it could handle by small-market Oakland (you remember, when Derek Jeter made the Greatest Play Ever (TM) by flipping the ball toward the catcher, and then willing Giambi not to slide, and then willing the umpire to blow the call, in the key game that prevented the invincible Yankees from getting swept.) This is the perfect example of the tautological nature of these arguments; somehow, the Lakers winning yet again can be spun as a tribute to the highly competitive NBA, but if the Yankees barely beat a better team in the postseason this proves nobody can possibly compete with them (although–and I make no judgment about whether this is better–it’s obvious that far fewer teams can plausibly win an NBA championship at the beginning of the year than a World Series. The less “teamy” nature of baseball is far outweighed by the fact that a star player has vastly greater impact on an NBA team than an MLB one.) Gladwell’s rare moment of idiocy does give us a hint, however, about why this nonsense became strongly entrenched: the big Yankee run of the late 90s and early 00s. The thing is, though, that while the ’98 Yankees were an authentically great team, the 2000/1 Yankees weren’t. The 2001 A’s were a better team than the Yankees, their narrow loss in a 5-game series notwithstanding, and of course that year the Mariners won 116 games. Now that their luck in post-season has run out, it’s becoming harder to believe that the Yankees are unbeatable, and in fact in most of these years they weren’t (and, of course, their ’98 team was not primarily built around expensive free agents in any case.)

The other strange thing is that Gladwell buys into the myth that a salary cap is necessary for competitive balance, but this doesn’t make any sense. What you need to put teams on an even footing is revenue sharing; a salary cap just means the owners keep more money and the players less. Owners have tried to make this about protecting “small markets,” but it’s about greed, period. On this note, however, I can’t conclude with pro-baseball arrogance, because my punchline is that, for all intents and purposes, baseball has a salary cap. The Yankees are, I believe, the only team that is willing to spend over the luxury tax line. And, of course, this is basically the same as the NBA’s soft cap, which teams can easily exceed. The Evil Big Market Knicks, of course, outspend every other team by $25M , and have used that advantage to crush their opposition like a flabby grape. Right? Er…but, anyway, if I thought that capping player salaries helped competitive balance, then baseball and the NBA should be similarly affected, and especially given that there are 4 post-season slots in MLB the Yankees’ outlier status doesn’t mean that other teams can’t compete. The Yankees’ high payroll simply doesn’t prevent other teams from competing any more than the Knicks’ does. And salary caps are about putting more money in the owners’ pockets, not competitive balance.

…Ian Gray has more.

Grand Old Police Blotter

DHS pedophilia edition.

Padilla and the Supremes

I don’t have a whole lot to add to the Supreme Court’s denial of cert in the Padilla case that if you’re interested you haven’t read elsewhere. It’s certainly quite outrageous that the administration’s attempts to avoid scrutiny–so transparent even Federalist Society idol Michael Luttig saw through them–have succeeded. And certainly, as Ginsburg noted in her dissent, the denial of cert was purely discretionary (as opposed to a case where it is required because there is not an ongoing “case or controversy” necessary for the Court to have jurisdiction under Article III: cases where “the capable-of-repetition exception to mootness applies where ‘(1) the challenged action [is] in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to cessation or expiration, and (2) there [is] a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party [will] be subject to the same action again’,” and there’s no serious question that these exceptions apply to this case. What makes the denial particularly interesting (especially looking forward) is that Stevens failed to provide the fourth vote, which strongly suggests strategic voting. Marty Lederman is cautious in his assessment:

In Padilla, evidently Justice Kennedy was not prepared to give either side of the Court the necessary assurance of his views on the merits; this might explain, for example, Justice Stevens’s decision not to provide the fourth vote for certiorari (although it’s certainly possible that Justice Stevens simply agrees with Justice Kennedy that consideration of the merits would be premature).

The vote pattern does suggest uncertainty about Kennedy’s vote; it may also reflect ambivalence on the part of Scalia. Iocaste thinks the liberals foresaw a loss on the merits, and fears for the future:

The Court was ducking the case. But the question is, why did it duck?

Here’s what I’d actually lay money on: The liberals — all four of them — feared that they would lose on the merits. And thus, even though all four wanted to hear the case, all four could not risk voting to grant cert. So instead, they deliberately arranged for one — Stevens, apparently — to vote to deny, so that they could at least write a three-person opinion dissenting from the denial.

As for the conservatives, that’s a lot more difficult to read. Perhaps for them, it was simply a case where they didn’t need to get into the thorny issues. The Fourth Circuit upheld Padilla’s detention; that’s precedent, and it stands if the Court doesn’t hear the case. Meanwhile, Padilla is being tried. Thus, the conservatives did not feel any urgency to step in, not the same way the liberals would have.

So, for me, the scary part — aside from the fact that this decision leaves the Fourth Circuit’s original decision to uphold detention intact — is this: The four liberals believed that Kennedy was likely to vote in favor of detention.

And if that’s the way Kennedy is leaning in this case, involving an American citizen imprisoned on American soil, I’m terrified to think what Kennedy may be thinking about the other issues coming down the pike.

I can’t say I don’t share significant amounts of this pessimism.

Today In Philistinism

Shorter Jason Apuzzo: based on my trademark film trailer and poster criticism, I assume that this movie is a brief against guns. This makes it highly hypocritical because many film directors actually like guns, and as we all know “Hollywood” is a monolithic entity in which everyone involved holds the same views about everything, and certainly one writer cannot contradict the views of another.

Of course, maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Apuzzo–after all, his website, in an unprecedented move, actually had a post about film this week! OK, granted, it elaborates an aesthetic that would require us to see Danielle Steele’s works as greater artistic achievements than William Faulkner’s, but hey, you take what you can get. Plus, if I’m not mistaken he actually deigned to sit through an entire motion picture by a good director, as far as I can tell a first for Libertas.

Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg touts the bourgeois-epating quality of The Right Brothers. I’m sure he’ll be even more impressed with their new song, which consists of whining about their fan mail. Rock n’ Roll! Of course, he’ll be even more impressed with their forthcoming single, “Can You Email Us If You Have Any Information For Our New Song About Charles Murray?”

…more Right Brothers video entertainment from Sadly, No! The promo video is indeed pure gold, with such excalmations as “You’re my favorite group–sorry Montgomery Gentry!” and “The Hannity Show set to music!” I believe the latter is supposed to be a compliment, although frankly I’m reminded more of Mallard Fillmore…

…and also via S,N! they have the Instapundit seal of approval. Seems about right.

(Apuzzo link via TBogg.)

The World’s Most Meaningless Term

…must be “politically incorrect.” A classic example:

“That’s when my public school principal (in Orange, CA) decreed that the ’69 World Series would be played over the school PA system. With the games starting at 10 AM local time, I could hear most of the game at recesses and lunch. I was entranced; I was enthralled. Brooks Robinson; Tom Seaver; Boog Powell; Donn Clendenon. I have been a baseball fanatic — and an all-around sports fan — ever since.

“Playing the World Series over the school PA system — what a concept! It doesn’t happen anymore — primarily, because MLB makes more money when all the games are played at night; secondarily, because it would probably be politically incorrect.”

Oh sure, the official reason they don’t play World Series games over the school PA is because the games aren’t actually played in the afternoon. But it must also somehow be part of the nefarious conspiracy derived from the epistemologically decentering form of multiculturalism inspired by Edward Said. God knows I burn with rage at the idea that my students may have skipped class to go to Opening Day yesterday–everyone knows that the Islamofascistsecularistmulticultralistrelativist “PC” movement hates baseball.

In addition, have you ever noticed that most of the people who piss and moan about the fact that World Series games are now played when the typical worker can actually watch them because it was fun to find creative ways to hear the game are the same people who piss and moan about the fact that the games sometimes go on past 10:30? Because it would obviously ruin your kids’ lives forever if they stayed up past their bedtime a couple times a year. Which leads us to an even bigger pet peeve, complaints about 8:20 start times that seem to start with the assumption that everyone in the country lives in the eastern time zone. To state the obvious, someone with a 9-5 job can choose to stay up late, but they often can’t choose to leave work at 3.

(Via Holbo. The attempts to wedge the horrible failure to play World Series games that aren’t actually being played at the time during school days into the “PC” rubric reminds me of his classic review of Dead Right, which cites the following “everything is everything” musings of reactionary hippie David Frum: “Conservatives, however, see the things they dislike in the contemporary world–abortion, the slippage of educational standards, foreign policy weakness, federal aid to handicapped schoolchildren–as all connected, as expressions of a single creed, a creed of which liberalism is just one manifestation.” Like, like, whoa, man. I think it was all Edward Said.)

Koufax Winners!

The winners of the Koufax Awards are up. A terrific list, as you would expect. Special shout-outs go to long-time friends and supporters of L, G & M Shakespeare’s Sister, FireDogLake, Crooks & Liars, Bitch Ph.D., P.Z. Myers, Michael Berube, Rox Populi, Echidne of the Snakes, Glenn Greenwald, and Sadly, No!, all of whom were winners or runners-up. And thanks to Dwight and Mary Beth for putting in such intensive (and valuable) labors!

2006 Season Preview

Ah, so Opening Day is upon us, not a moment too soon. How will things go this year? Now you’ll know! Teams listed as I think they’ll finish (*is the wild card):

AL East: NY Bos Tor TB Bal

The top two are basically a coin flip. I have to pick the Yankees because I think Johnson will have a big year, and their offense could be historically good. The Red Sox are very, very good, though, and can certainly win the division. I will be cheering for the Blue Jays like it’s 1985, but although they are improved especially with Burnett starting on the DL I don’t think they’re going to seriously challenge (compare their offense with the big 2, and there’s still a big gap.) The biggest impact of the Jays’ improvement is that I think it will stop the wild card coming from the East this year, which could produce a rare great pennant race in the post-wild card era. The Devil Rays will be a somewhat fun to watch bad team, the Orioles don’t figure to be fun to watch.

AL Central: Min Chi* Cle Det KC

I was dead wrong about the Indians last year; I thought they were being overrated, and they were in fact arguably the best team in the league although they choked down the stretch. Having not learned anything, I think they’ll need a consolidation year; their starting pitching, in particular, figures to be a lot worse, and Wickman could blow up anytime. Minnesota is pretty much a coin-flip pick; I’m guessing that Morneau and Mauer will finally take a bug step forward, and I love their rotation, but the catch is that their offense has enough holes that if some kids don’t develop they could finish fourth. Chicago weren’t as good as their record last year, but on the other hand they are better this year; Thome is a very nice pickup and Vazquez should roughly offset the likely decline from Garland. Detroit have improved a lot, especially on offense, but I don’t think they have the rotation to be competitive. I’d put the over/under on Royals losses at about 106.

AL West: Oak Tex LAAOACUSA Sea

I have to concur with most people not blinded by smoldering Billy Beane ressentiment that this division figures to be a cakewalk for Oakland. (More about Beane later this week.) The As offense if far from overwhelming, but it should be better than the Angels’, and the latter sure don’t have the A’s pitching. The Rangers are further improved; the quintessentially underrated Wilkerson for the quintessentially overrated Soriano was highway robbery, and I like the Millwood signing, but at best they’ll compete for the wildcard. There seems to be some vague optimism about the Mariners this year; they’ll certainly be better, but their grip on the cellar strikes me as firm. While partially disguised by Safeco the post-King-Felix rotation is pretty ghastly, and even if things break right the offense is mediocre.

NL East: ATL NYM(*) Phi Fla Was

Since everyone’s trend is to say this will be the year the Braves finally lose, I’ll buck it and pick them in another coin toss. Had the Mets stopped their acquisitions after Delgado I’d pick them easily, but the subsequent gutting of their rotation depth is just baffling, particularly given that you can’t exactly count on Pedro to pitch 200 innings with his toe, Glavine is 40, and Zambrano sucks. I just can’t pick a team that seems to be keeping a guy coming of a 62 ERA+ as its #6 starter to beat Cox, although they should win the wild card. This may be the year the Phillies finally get to the next level, but seeing names like “Gordon” and “Franklin [in a bandbox]” and “Manuel” sure prevents me from seeing it. I don’t think the Marlins will collapse to the same extent they did after the last fire sale–there’s a lot more young talent there–although they certainly aren’t going to win the division. The Nationals, on the other hand, I can see bottoming out completely; the only hitter with any on-base skills at all has had 400 ABs once, and beyond Hernandez the rotation isn’t impressive either. Even considering the ownership situation Bowden has done a remarkably bad job with this team.

NL Central: STL Mil Chi Hou Pit Cin

The Cardinals have dropped off more than most people realize; Pujols is the best hitter in the league, of course, and Edmonds is a tremendous hitter although he’s a 36-year old coming off an off-year, and getting Rolen back will help although you can’t exactly pencil him in for 500 ABs. That’s the sum of their plus offensive players, and while the rotation is very good I’m doubtful that Carpenter will be a Cy Young candidate again. Still, their core should carry them to the title without too much danger. The Brewers are a surprisingly impressive comer, but I think they’re like my beloved 92-93 Expos, an excellent young talent base not quite ready to get over the hump. I’d love to pick them, but especially with Sheets on the DL…I can’t quite do it. They could compete for the wild card. The Cubs, as always, have talented but injured arms and don’t get anyone on base. The Astros are the poor man’s Cards, and might end up the homeless man’s Cards–at least 3 of their regulars hit nothing, and Ensberg and Berkman ain’t Pujols and Edmonds. My pick is an average based on a Rocket/no-Rocket average; even Clemens coming back in May won’t save them, and if he doesn’t they’ll be luck to stay ahead of the Pirates. The Pirates are actually somewhat like the Astros; offense a little better, pitchers not quite as proven. The Reds will be a fun 90+ loss team to watch.

NL West–LA SF SD Ari Col

Jeebus, it’s really not much better, is it? I will certainly be rooting against the Dodgers as always, but I think they’re the best of a bad lot–even if Bonds plays 120 games the Giants are pretty patchy, and I don’t think he will. The Dodgers don’t have any major offensive holes relative to position, and the pitching is OK. That’s enough in this division. The Giants are so old that they have the potential to be just dreadful, but also enough talent to stay win 85 games, which could be enough. The Padres could win again, I suppose, but they weren’t even as good as their record last year, and while Cameron will help a bit Estes and Vinny the Castilla sure won’t. The Diamondbacks don’t have a terrible lineup, but the core is weak and Russ Ortiz is the #2 starter. The Rockies’ have young players, but apart from Holliday none are terribly interesting, and it’s of course nearly impossible for young pitchers to develop in their environment.

World Series? I’ll say…Oakland over St. Louis.

Wingnut Post-Kidnapping Etiquette Tips

Shorter J-Pod, Don Imus co-bigots, Jeff Goldstein and (natch) Jonah Goldberg: Goddammit, if I was kidnapped at gunpoint with my companion shot, I couldn’t be more sure when I was released that I would immediately start speaking purely in right-wing banalities! And if I didn’t, I’m probably secretly pro-Islamofascist kidnapping! And I would speak that way even if I was making a propaganda video as a condition of my release!

There really are certain reactionary memes so fundamentally inhuman I can’t even grasp them. This, of course, isn’t true of many consevative ideas. Consider, example, Jason Appuzo’s artistic ideal the Right Brothers, who usefully for our purposes write songs that consist entirely of lame reactionary cliches. Click the link and watch that video and you’ll hear lots of bad ideas (as well as worse aesthetics, knowledge that even right-wing guitar licks sound like Whiny Ass Titty Babies, and a low-budget video that isn’t cheesy enough–really, at least throw in some freeze-frames of the drummer hitting the cymbal, like “Workin’ For the Weekend.”) But I can understand them. But to attack a freed hostage for saying that she wasn’t beaten up (and, as far as I can tell, we have no evidence that she wasn’t), as if that would somehow make the experience less terrifying, or kidnapping less heinous? I can’t even fathom that. It’s just a different moral universe.

(Real-life Bob Roberts video courtesy of Tristement, Non!)