Via TAPPED contributor Scott Lemieux, this gem of insight from Jonah Goldberg on the injustices of the American criminal justice system.
I'm not casting doubt on the statistics they cite or the sincerity of the arguments (I've argued with too many liberatarians and legalizers about drugs to doubt their sincerity on the issue, statistics are another matter). But something has always bothered me about the drug war is racist argument which, in fairness, Will only suggests above.In other words, sure, the way our criminal justice system is set up disproportionately harms black people, but what's far more offensive than the suffering caused by the war on drugs is that anyone would notice that.It seems so, well, unlibertarian — at least in one respect. Sure, as an argument against the unintended consequences of what they consider to be a bad policy, the disproportionate affect on blacks works just fine.
But as an argument from proud individualists it seems a bit off. It seems to me that the classical liberal is supposed to see people as autonomous and sovereign moral actors, not identity politics groups.
It seems to me, the only way the "racist drug war" argument really works on libertarian grounds is if you take for granted that it is a bad policy in principle and that its proponents know it is a bad policy but support it anyway for evil reasons.
A policy that disproportionately affects black people isn't racist unless you can prove that whoever implemented the policy, and those who support it in fact hate black people. Otherwise, once again, you're the racist for even noticing, you big racist.
Oh, and in case you haven't had enough false naïvité, here's Goldberg on the death penalty.
One last point on the disproportionate thing. Let's take drugs out of it. I'm in favor of the death penalty. Let's assume blacks and white commit murder at identical rates but because blacks are poorer they get convicted and executed more than whites. I don't think that fact alone means we should get rid of the death penalty.
Right. Blacks get the death penalty more often because they're "poorer." In reality, the race of the victim is more predictive of the death penalty than the race of the perpetrator. In other words, if the victim is white, the perpetrator is more likely to be sentenced to death.
Of course, it's racist for me to even say that.
-- A. Serwer
