Trying to understand the inner workings of the 'progressive' mind has got to be one of the worlds most impossible tasks. Their inability to understand basic arithmetic when it comes to economics is legendary as is their inability to alter their mindset in the face indisputable facts.
Their attitudes when it comes to social issues such as criminality, the law and public order are bordering on lunacy. Somehow they have convinced themselves that criminals do not act out of badness or malice but are forced into their criminal behavior by an uncaring society.
This nonsense will come easily to anyone who lives in splendid isolation such as judges, police chiefs and politicians but it is incomprehensible to anyone who has been the victim of crime, especially a violent one.
Despite the ever increasing rate of re-offending, the criminal justice system, namely judges, persist in giving serial criminals lenient sentences. These derisory sentences are not only an insult to the victims of crime but they also give a green light to the criminals to carry on offending.
Anyone who pays attention to what their political leaders are thinking about, in terms of future public policy, will be shocked but not surprised by the latest crackpot ideas from a so called 'progressive' academic.
Andrew Ashworth was the Labour party's crime advisor, the former Chairman of the Government Sentencing Advisory Panel and unsurprisingly, he is a 'progressive' fanatic of the very highest order. This leading light is advising the Labour leaders that serial thieves and other criminals should never be sent to prison.
Ashworth claimed that even repeat offenders with dozens of convictions should be spared the 'pain' of a prison term. Obviously in this idiots twisted mind the victims should not be spared the 'pain' of these serial criminals actions.
This imbecile displays his complete ignorance of the real world by going on to say that locking up thieves and fraudsters and 'condemning' them to prison was an 'abuse of State power'. He argues that they should be fined, given community service and forced to pay for the damage they have caused. If Ashworth is on top of his subject he would know that a record number of fines go unpaid and community service does not engender remorse or prevent re-offending.
He is obviously incapable of understanding that criminals cannot pay for the psychological damage they have inflicted on their victims or the fear that victims feel after a crime has been committed against them.
In his indecent haste to show compassion for criminal scum like thirty year old Christopher Harrison and spare him the 'pain' of a prison sentence, Ashworth callously ignores the plight of his victims. Harrison ticks all the boxes for Ashworth's compassion, a criminal since the age of thirteen, he was released early after being jailed for his one hundred and twenty seventh (127) burglary. After his release he was caught performing his one hundred and sixty seventh burglary and is reputed to have broken into two hundred homes and dozens of cars.
Harrison, the subject of Ashworth's attention and a cowardly swine, preys on the elderly such as eighty seven year old Edna Pollock who lives alone. Her statement, which is roundly ignored by Ashworth and the rest of his 'progressive' ilk, states that:
"I have no faith in the police so I didn't report it immediately". (see yesterdays article) "At night I'm kept awake by any noise and terrified that someone is in my home. I live alone and since this burglary it has made me a lot less confident. I do not feel safe and I shouldn't feel this way in my own home".
Another victim was seventy eight year old Morris Nicholson who stated that: "Due to what happened I now feel more vulnerable and nervous in my own home. I feel he will come back".
If house holders were allowed to arm themselves for protection against home invasion then scum like Harrison would have met his maker years ago and there would be no question of re-offending, there would be two hundred less victims of crime and elderly people like Edna Pollock and Morris Nicholson could sleep soundly in their beds at night. Alternatively the police could do their job and protect the public instead of policing political correctness on behalf of their political masters.
As chairman of the Sentencing Advisory Panel, Ashworth should have been aware that over ninety thousand (90,000) serious repeat offenders escaped prison sentences last year alone, most of whom went on to re-offend. That is ninety thousand victims that he chooses to ignore in his attempt to justify his ideological purity.
"There is no evidence whatsoever that the judges' leniency does anything except increase the amount of crime".
Ashworth puts the Marxist foundation to his beliefs on full public display with his assertion that jail was disproportionate for 'pure' property offences'. Depriving someone of their liberty for an offence that 'only' targeted property was unfair he claims. Edna Pollock and Morris Nicholson would beg to differ but in any event these elderly victims don't warrant any compassion from Ashworth or enter into his thinking at all.
These ideas come from the warped brain of a committed 'progressive' and if the people thought this guy has been sent back to the asylum from whence he came then they will be disappointed.
This 'progressive' from another planet is now Professor Andrew Ashworth, a law professor at Oxford University which was once reputed to be one of the worlds greatest educational establishments.
It strikes me that progressivism has become 'stuck'. The world's developed nations started all this back in the 80's, hiding behind the banner of 'fairness'.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for fairness, but now it's become even more unbalanced than it was before!! Nobody seems to have thought about the consequences of trying to afford the less privilged in the world (be they poor, criminal, minority group) all that they need without considering the enormous burden it puts on those who (ultimately) pay for it all.
Pay in monetary or other ways. For example, 'Hug a Hoody' was a ridiculous idea, which thankfully met with its just desserts. But we're still told that we have to accommodate those in the world who do others no good.
Politicians love it because it keeps them in a job, and as long as they can keep moving the goalposts, people are too busy to notice.
What's needed is a forward (actually - really progressive) thinking person to take us beyond the inital concept into a society more evenly balanced where criminals get punnished, hard workers get rewarded, the police chase true criminals and not what they are led to believe are criminals, and religeons are practiced without hinderance - throughout the world - which includes Muslim countires allowing Christianity.
Unless and until extremism is shown to be what it is, then those extremist beliefs should be excluded from a country. Eg. If a certain country does not permit a religeon to be practiced, then their religeon should not be allowed elsewhere. Maybe simplistic, but to get back to the start of this post - it's a question of rebalancing. imo.
Thanks for your interesting comment Pete. You have covered a lot of ground and have touched on some indisputable truths.
DeleteFairness is being used as an excuse for wealth redistribution which is being done for ideological rather practical reasons.
Attempting to cure global poverty by such means will fail because, as you point out, it must be paid for.
Showing compassion to the criminal will not prevent re-offending or protect the victims of crime.
Your final two paragraphs are eloquent, spot on and need no comment from me.
Thanks again