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[Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
Before New York Attorney General Letita James launched her selective prosecution of former President Trump, the former public defender was advocating for the “criminal justice reforms” that empowered criminals and terrorized a state.
AG James had run for office promising to “reform NY’s criminal justice system and to investigate and prosecute Trump’s family businesses” and she kept her word. Criminals now roam free in the state while prosecutorial resources were dedicated to targeting political opponents.
In New York, criminals have nothing to worry about from the Attorney General’s office, only Republicans do. And this is becoming the norm among “progressive prosecutors”.
The crime waves sweeping the country and the serial prosecutions of former President Trump and other conservatives are not separate events, but the common outcome of a fundamental transformation of the justice system from punishing crime to punishing political opposition.
Within prosecutorial circles, the same debate has been taking place between maintaining even handed professional standards or using the profession to advocate for social justice as in other fields. In the media, it’s been between objective reporting and biased activism, and within medicine, between treating those who are sickest or prioritizing disadvantaged groups.
Among prosecutors, the debate has taken the form of the familiar social justice formula of “punching up” or “punching down”. Progressive prosecutors argue that prosecuting violent junkies or serial thieves is “punching down” and that they should advocate for change by dropping those cases, which make up much of their workload, and attacking the ‘root causes’.
The first part of this argument has gotten plenty of attention as cities and communities fight to oust radical prosecutors (dubbed by some the Soros DAs because of that billionaire’s backing for such figures) because even in an era of soaring crime rates, they refuse to bring criminals to justice. But it’s the latter part of that argument which may be even more dangerous.
What are the ‘root causes’ of social problems and how should they be fixed? If sending muggers to prison is ‘punching down’, whom are the prosecutors going to be ‘punching up’ against?
Too few have connected the vigorous prosecutions of Trump, his supporters and former administration officials to the same movement that gives violent criminals a pass, but they are two sides of the same coin. Progressive prosecutors have been attacked as promoting lawlessness, but more accurately they are promoting a new concept of what the law is.
Prosecutorial discretion means choosing which criminals to prosecute based on a set of values. The same philosophy which allows a DA to refuse to bring charges against a repeat sex offender because he is a member of an oppressed minority group allows him or her to bring charges against a driver for smearing his tires over a BLM street graphic, or for a federal prosecutor to choose which president to prosecute for taking home classified documents.
Prosecutors are not supposed to be judges or legislators, but social justice activism demands that everyone use their profession to be an advocate for social change, And that social change, under the revolutionary agenda of leftist movements, demands “punching up” against political power rather than “punching down” against those helpless victims who are merely mugging people because of the economic policies of Trump and other Republicans.
That is what progressive prosecutors believe and act upon. By engaging in sustained lawfare against conservatives, they believe that they are fighting against the ”root causes” of crime.
And all other social problems.
Police defunding was misunderstood from the beginning. Despite the impression created by CHAZ or the BLM riots, the end goal is not lawless anarchy, but a new kind of police state which merges generous welfare and street lawlessness with relentless prosecution of speech and other political offenses. Such systems already exist to varying degrees in Europe where ordinary citizens often have more cause to fear, for example, London’s Met police than criminals do. This new era of law enforcement officers has already begun in this country at the very top, but will take some time to make its way to street level.
The same phenomenon is moving more rapidly through the ranks of prosecutors, many of whom come through a limited set of law schools and are highly attuned to their careers and the political trends that can assure them a lucrative income or strand them in a backwater.
Federal prosecutors, the most savvy of careerists, understood that early on and the aggressive prosecutions of conservative figures, along with the failed prosecution of leftists for some of those same offenses, is the result. Local DA’s like Fulton County’s Fani Willis, got the memo, and so did state officials aspiring to higher office, like Attorney General James.
This isn’t “lawlessness”: it’s a new sort of law based on a different set of values. And those values are fundamentally hostile to the traditional notions of law, fairness and freedom.
Law enforcement and the justice system in its various forms were brought into being to protect the ruling class and then to protect individuals from harm by criminals. The American experiment significantly watered down the elements of the legal system that treated the persons and the agendas of the ruling class as uniquely worthy of protection and democratized law enforcement so that it protected the persons and property of each individual citizen instead.
Progressive prosecutors, for all that they claim to be making the system fairer, are actually reverting to that earlier two tier system in which the justice system is a means of enacting the agendas of the ruling class rather than protecting the lives and property of individuals. Like those government bureaucrats who choose which regulations they adhere to, some prosecutors have usurped the powers of the people.
‘Punching up’ is really ‘punching down’.
The philosophy of the progressive prosecutors, much like DEI medicine, places more value on some lives than others based on their race, gender or other protected characteristic, almost entirely devalues personal property while valuing government property quite highly, and seeks to punish political dissent against the ruling class while rejecting the notion that its members have any obligation to protect the ordinary citizenry.
This progressive police state, like the rest of the social justice system, values generalities over specifics. It addresses “root causes” rather than protecting Mrs. Rosen or Mrs. Johnson from having their purses stolen, it drives “systemic change” rather than ensuring that a repeat sex offender stays away from the Greenview playground, and pursues other ruling class ideological agendas rather than providing defined services to a defined person.
The classical American view set out the duties of civil servants and elected officials in terms of the needs of the people while the progressive approach is to define the ideology of this governmental ruling class as the answer to all the needs of the people whether they know it or not. The shift in definition is also a shift in power that allows the ruling class to define its agenda as the embodiment of the national welfare and any opposition to it as a threat to the people.
This is why they often describe Republicans and conservatives as “threats to democracy” whose political views must be prosecuted and who need to be locked up to save the agenda.
Enacting the progressive agenda through every institution also involves protecting it through those same institutions. And within the ambit of prosecutors, that can mean dragging opponents of that agenda into court. Prosecutors who believe in social change are dropping the prosecution of criminals whom they consider victims of society while prosecuting opponents of social change for having caused all the social problems with their conservative politics.
Criminalizing dissent is not overreach: it is a necessity for those who believe that criminality stems from the political views of society and not the individual life choices of criminals.
Criminal justice reform legalized everything from drugs to shoplifting, sprang violent felons from prisons and eliminated bail, but it also worked to outlaw defensive measures from legal gun ownership to barring businesses from asking applicants about their criminal past. A raft of new laws targeting single family homes, theft prevention programs, surveillance equipment and a multitude of other conditions and tools that they blamed for criminality went up even as stealing was treated as a victimless crime and junkies carrying out violent assaults were set loose.
The criminal justice reform movement is as concerned with policing businesses and ordinary people as it is unconcerned with policing criminals. And a particular priority of the new progressive policing is punishing speech and ideas that are deemed hateful and sustain an oppressive capitalistic system of “whiteness” that they claim is the root cause of crime.
The more organized the ideas and the system, the more they need to be rooted out.
And that is what the lawfare aimed at conservatives, especially conservative elected officials, is about. Progressive prosecutors are implementing their agenda one freed criminal and one imprisoned conservative at a time.
I don’t think anti American, criminal scum like Letitia James, Alvin Braggart and Saggy Fani Willis think about transmogrifying society the way anti-American, criminal scum like Chesa Sausage Boy Boudin. George Gascon (the shame of Gascony and its great food,) think about the destruction of America. Gascon wants to help tear down society because he’s so stupid and deranged he thinks it can be rebuilt into a lefty utopia ruled by globalists like his sugar daddy Soros, and Boudin hates to see criminals imprisoned or even punished because his criminal parents were punished by imprisonment, even though their punishment should’ve been death sentences.
James, Bragg and Willis are all blackish and they want blacks to go unpunished, so non black criminals tend to get free passes along with the usual suspects. And they all have Trump Derangement Syndrome and stupidly think the Dirtbagocrats are the party of the people, so they illegally went after Trump. I think they’re just lowlife criminals who abuse their power however they see fit, not ideologues.
And every black member of Congress I can think of are also anti American scum every except for House members John James, Wesley Hunt, and of course Burgess Owens, Alan West and Mia Love, who I love. I’m sure there are more and most of them are sure to be Republicans but the majority of blacks in Congress seem to be anti-American, anti-white, utterly corrupt Dirtbagocrat scum.
There is a culture that creates such officials, and government agencies and private foundations do their very best to promote it.
Every arrogant, stupid official in the news is a product. The DEI mentality pushes more of them to the top.
The American Patriots of 1776 would not stand for this DEI crap dictatorship.
They knew what had to be done in 1776.
I hope they know what must be done in 2024.
One of our problem’s is that our kids don’t know American history.. It’s a glorious history.
I was raised in Canada and I knew more American history and American Geography than my cousins who lived in the States. Of coarse American kids had more fun at school than we did and their school year was a month shorter.. That’s all changed now. Canada is in trouble too with illegals and crappy leaders.. .
It is the DIE not DEI and it s killing America.
Byron Donalds seems impressive, too. I almost think he would make a good VP?
Yes, I like him. I see him a lot on Real America’s Voice and Newsmax. He just spoke at C Pac or whatever conservative confab it was, and it was a good speech. So did Trump and he was hilarious.
Just another Fat Old Aunt Jemima. what else would you expect from The Democrat Communist Criminal Terrorist Organization of America.
Leticia Defames sure is ugly, isn’t she? She has a face like a grouper fish. So is Saggy Fanni. She looks like a Butterball turkey in a wig.
So, what will the “people” do about about it, bend over and take it or invoke the second amendment and use it for it’s intended purpose, which is to eliminate this evil.
Cowards rarely fight back.
Thanks Jeff! It is a (leftist) police state.
Steaming human shit piles like Hakeem Jeffries, Jim Clyburn, Hank “Crackhead” Johnson, Maxine Waters (yeah, she’s still alive,) Ayanna Pressley, Sheila Jackson Lee, Karen Bass, Frederica Wilson, Corrie Bush (the worst criminal of them all and possibly the dumbest) and Ayanna Pressley. I’d include Inbred Omar but she has even more white blood than Pressley, no matter what race she claims to be. Those are the only ones I can think of and they’re ALL corrupt trash on the take. At least Elijah Cummings had enough decency to drop dead.
Some of the chicks in the House look good but they’re Dirtbagocrats, so there’s either something emotionally and mentally wrong with them or they live in districts which won’t elect a Republican. Not that I have a problem with disturbed chicks, so long as they aren’t violent. Crazy chicks need loving, too.
In the Senate we have good people like Tim Scott, who’s a Republican, naturally, but I think there are only three black Senators because it’s much harder to win a state seat than a district one. Blacks tend to bloc vote for other blacks, which is why there are plenty of them in the House but only three in the Senate (sad but true,) so it’s easy to remember their names. Scott won a statewide election anyway because he was a good candidate.
And then we have those sleazy and corrupt rat turds, Raphael Warnock and Corey Booker, both Dirtbagocrats of course. Some people claim Heels Up Harris is still a Senator but I honestly don’t know if that’s possible.
I sure hope Trump makes it past the vote fraud and cheating to the Presidency and has the Supreme Court toss out the four bullshit political prosecutions. If it doesn’t, he’ll have to pardon himself, which he would definitely have the authority to do. I suppose its too much to expect him to imprison the DA’s and Judges persecuting him along with criminals like Merrick and Mayorkis, but I can dream. Those Gestapo FBI agents who raided Mar a Lago with automatic rifles and armored vehicles, too. Traitors, all.
Good old JB. What a class act! You and Greenfield are two peas in a pod.
go fornicate with your hand ya worthless, limey wanker!
I missed that, was that Brit “irony” from Mickorn?
and, you are one pea in a rotten pod, fool.
Still on the UN misinformation payroll?
Thank you! I feel good now.
I can’t believe I forgot Byron Donalds in FL. I see him on TV a lot and he’s great.
She acts like a State Prosecutor from Zimbabwe or the Republic of Congo ; more evidence the Dem Bolsheviks intend to turn America into a banana republic
If America recovers from this and returns to a country of Laws then she should be in prison
Dem Bolsheviks, indeed.
This has all been done before.
The KGB of the Soviet Union.
Mao’s PRC……….etc. etc.
Americans have the Second Amendment and the means to resist.
But they won’t do it.
Solzhenitsyn said that every revolution takes on the characteristics of previous revolutions and adds its own uniquely grotesque traits to what came before.
The US is becoming the most revolting culture in world history.
Thank you. It does look as if they wish to re-imagine law and order in a Medieval way. Those were also called the Dark Ages, for good reason.
In sad humour I must keep in mind that some people may think that the term Dark Ages has something to do with racism. I am too old to know how many may think that.
When one studies what few intricacies there are to this unveiled attack on the personhood of Trump, and the only victim here for which they fought is their own bruised ego, one assumes there’s no way this judgement will stand. His ‘crime’ was inflating the values of his property to use it as collateral for another construction loan. The banks approved it and he’s paid back the loan. The banks would like Trump’s business again. His crime was being successful.
If we take the result of this case to it’s logical conclusion, EVERY person who’s ever taken out a loan and used property as assets for loan collateral is subject to criminal prosecution…or NO ONE is. To pick and choose whom to prosecute is the epitome of prejudicial and one would hope Ms James would understand that principle.
And here’s another tip for Letita, Lequanda, whatever…when you run for Attorney General on the platform of “getting” someone, your objectivity as well as your case is now forfeit. If the Supremes don’t overturn this most hideous abuse of the legal system targeting political opposition, then it’s all over folks. Never in my 60+ years have I seen such blatant disregard for the the law and once was a legal system to be proud of.
Well said, and the truth – thanks.
Authority with total immunity put into the hands of the stupid.
Takes me back to the 80’s. Q. ”Would you like to reenlist?”—— A. ”You’ve got to be kidding.”
Join the US military. We are going to put minorities in charge, even if it kills you!
First, there was ‘love your fellow as yourself‘. A ‘fellow’ could simply refer to another human being or a variety of identities other than your own; but we are all fellow travelers in life on earth, created by God. Loving is the main component here. A human being has to exert a lot of self-thinking energy to live a life shaped by that kind of loving, connected to the entire world.
Then came ‘do unto others
as you would have them do unto you’. God’s ethic has faded away from this lopsided equation. No loving. No self-thinking. Just doing; and the ‘doing’ is done according to a personal, subjective human standard of right and wrong, good and evil.
Now there’s ‘I do whatever I want to you and you don’t do anything to me‘. As Ethics of the Fathers would say, “This is evil.”
‘Searching for a root cause’ is ‘finding an excuse‘ to say evil is good. That’s what’s going on throughout America. It seems to be taking hold, seems to be, but will it really take hold, as in the homogeneous complete terror entity above and below ground evil-is-good Gaza?
I don’t believe that true Americans, that is, those Americans true to the country’s moral, founding ideals, will ever be convinced that evil is good.
They will have no other choice but to eventually confront the evil on a massive scale. When, how? That’s the question.
The world has now been transformed into the establishment vs the rest of the world.
Watch them re-open the practice of committing insane people to insane asylums, only their definition of insane people will be limited to Evangelical Christians, devout Catholics, and Orthodox Jews. Only the leftist versions of these faiths will be allowed to remain in the public square. And of course crazies will remain on the streets.
Yep. Another return to the gold old days of the Soviets.
Beware the IDEs.
It took me a few moments to get that pun. Good one!
Parents are already being declared legally without power to protect or even keep their children when they disagree with the state.
Comparing Letitia James’s gutter ethics (not to mention her looks) to that of a ten-dollar ho is insulting to the ten-dollar ho.
Correct, she’s one of those ‘five dollar go away girls’. Even if your drunk, you give her 5 bucks and hope she goes away.
Letitia James, the poster gorilla of America Transformed.
It’s not just the justice system.
The evil islamo-leftist alliance is replacing good people with the fascists everywhere.
Always well reported Mr. Greenfield.
In summary, the obvious predictable result of replacing Judeo/Christian morality with secular policy.
At its most elemental, it is the refusal of black prosecutors to prosecute criminals whose skin color is the same as theirs or darker.
Do any of these creatures really have a philosophy? Or they’re just craving power and money and don’t forget that girls like Fah-ni “just :want to have fun!”
i doubt they have the brains to be following a philosophy. They’re told who to hate and attack. They enjoy the attack because they’re amoral and beasts.
Admit it, they even look like beasts and when they speak they sound like it too.
Yes, when I hear those morons trying to speak English all I can think is that America is doomed when creatures like that hold powerful positions in public office.
“That is what progressive prosecutors believe and act upon. By engaging in sustained lawfare against conservatives, they believe that they are fighting against the ”root causes” of crime. And all other social problems.”
And in believing this, they are totally wrong. It is far easier to argue that leftist ideology is the major contributor to the social decline we’ve seen in recent years. The more leftist our institutions became, the further society declined: rampant homelessness and drug abuse and tent cities; the decline of the family; the dumbing-down of education; the climate-change mandates; the Covid mandates; the flooding of the borders; the politicization of the justice system; the rampant shoplifting and smash-and-grab events. Oh, I left out the shrining middle-class and the rising cost of housing.
“Criminalizing dissent is not overreach: it is a necessity for those who believe that criminality stems from the political views of society and not the individual life choices of criminals.”
Yeah. Just more trash from that Dynamic Duo, Richard Cloward & Frances Fox Piven. Or, in this case, Cloward, anyway. At least, he’s dead, although his wife, Frances, lives on.
“Together with fellow sociologist Lloyd Ohlin, [Richard] Cloward wrote Delinquency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs, which rejected the prevailing premise that delinquency resulted from individual irresponsibility and argued it was caused by poverty and the lack of alternative opportunities caused by poverty, and that the conditions underlying delinquency could be resolved through social programs. – “Richard Cloward”, in Wikipedia
We are seeing the “fruit” of affirmative action.
Self loathing white progressives have paved the way to this chaos.
Those of us onthe right, look forward to the inevitable civil war.
Yes. … an excellent analysis of what’s happening …
I agree with the other commenters that the Useful Idiots on the front lines – and ergo in our headlines …
… they don’t have any philosophy other than their own ignorant stupidity, racism, bigotry, and greed…
And that said …
But I have a lot … A LOT … of experience with academics …
… and Greenfield’s analysis could easily be spoken out loud … to applause …
… if delivered in almost all the faculty lounges in the Soviet Socialist States formerly known as America …
This ‘philosophy’ is their philosophy. Greenfield has just distilled it to it’s basic framework and adds the quiet parts so we conservatives can understand this lunacy.
… The expanded versions … elaborated in meaningless word salads … are called Cultural Marxism, Marxism, communism, socialism, democratic socialist, and Mark Levin calls it ‘American Marxism’ …
Who benefits from the “fundamentally transformed” (read destroyed) America?
There are at least two beneficiaries that readily come to mind:
1. Hussein Obama, who was raised to hate America, can brag that what he promised in 2008 came true.
2. China, which replaces the US as the world’s superpower, and the yuan replaces the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
The US is the number one debtor nation in the world with over $213 trillion in unfunded liabilities that continues to increase at over $19 trillion per year. As long as China controls America’s elite, then as America continues to borrow money, the borrowing is used to benefit China in the short run and destroys the value of the dollar in the long run.
No wonder why Hussein Obama and the Democrats with the corrupt DOJ, corrupt FBI, corrupt courts, and the Fake News media go after Trump 24/7.
Proof that the 2024 election was stolen will be if Biden wins.
If the Yuan replaces the dollar the whole world will fail.
Not necessarily China, which has control over the printing of the yuan.
DNC Police State is here now! The Feral Courts and the Deep State is helping!