That’s a mischaracterization. I said in today’s environment. I wasn’t saying the right or the left are solely responsible for increased heat in their rhetoric nor do I believe political violence is monopolized by one side of the political spectrum.
Of course I see sides and factions. However, I also believe that law enforcement should be apolitical.
I do have a problem with police over reach and I have a problem with the justice system and the way prisons are run in America as well. I don’t think the solution is rioting and opportunistic looting while attempting to dismantle law enforcement in general. Furthermore, I do see a problem with the hostility towards state security when one’s preferred party is out of power and an obsequiousness and deference to the same apparatus when one’s preferred party in in power.
Everything from civil forfeiture, plea bargains, the advocation of extrajudicial punishment of prisoners including rape I have opposed and I believe I have opposed on these forums. So to say I want to weaponize law enforcement on the “other side” is not a fair assessment of my position.
The reason I do respond in such threads that I responded in is I feel that having an intellectual stance on issues such as law enforcement, health and science, free speech and the concept of individual liberty that is contingent upon short term political gain is very counterproductive.
As an example, Salmon Rushdie was stabbed. Do you all think that this was a product of classical liberal thought or regressive illiberal thought? We’d probably agree that it was most likely a product of a person motivated by regressive illiberal thought. This is why it’s important in enlightened societies to have an unwavering support of fundamental rights that aren’t dependent upon which party or which faction in a party supports them. Otherwise the whole argument advocated by said faction appears to be nothing but politics and that cynicism and the undermining of rational thought and argument is undermined.
So, as I said, I found it jarring that the progressive left with their radical language about defunding the police, abolishing the police, community justice, elimination of incarceration, etc… were now changing their tune and changing it quite aggressively. All it demonstrates is that the message and demand for change weren’t honest and instead they were and are a mechanism to exploit emotions to energize an electorate.
To address the FBI retrieving documents, of course at this stage it’s going to appear politically motivated. I don’t think there is anything wrong if the FBI consistently follows the law and doesn’t pick sides but in the past 4-8 years the FBI has not appeared to be neutral. With regards to homeland security separating kids from parents I do believe that that is quite wrong. I believe we should have robust border security and actually enforce immigration law, however it does not need to be enforced in an inhumane or monstrous way.
With regards to drug growers? I’m of two minds, one is libertarian where I think the state ought to stay out of it and let Darwin do the work. The other is practical where I know that due to the human tragedy of addiction and overdose, especially with more and more dangerous drugs entering society, the negative externalities of letting Darwin do the work would make that approach unacceptable. That said, even with a crackdown on narcotics being the law, I do think we need to be very careful about the erosion of civil liberties while enforcing the law.