The Left's Rejection of Good Faith

Leftist ideology has ravaged many urban African-American communities by attacking the concept of personal responsibility and replacing it with ideas of victimization and endemic persecution. Unfortunately, the election of the first African-American president, which might have helped reverse this process, only accelerated it. President Obama and former Attorney General Holder have sought to further legitimize the concept of ongoing oppression, and have embraced its most odious champions, such as racemonger Al Sharpton. But this is old news. The Baltimore riots and other perceived acts of police injustice also demonstrate is the left’s corresponding demolition of the concept of good faith -- that human agency is imperfect and that good people can do things that lead to bad outcomes without evil intent or legal liability. It’s tough to convict police officers of misconduct because juries instinctively understand that most officers are decent public servants who act in good faith in difficult situations, and occasionally make mistakes. Not every mistake, whether made by a police officer, a doctor, a teacher or any other professional is necessarily a crime or even a matter of actionable negligence. The law recognizes this. Anybody who signs a consent form before surgery acknowledges that bad outcomes are possible, even when the medical professionals involved do their best to make you better.

The law also recognizes a “good faith” exception to the exclusionary rule in cases where evidence obtained via a technically unlawful search may be admitted if the officers honestly but wrongfully believed they were acting under proper authority. The idea that well-meaning people make honest mistakes that lead to bad outcomes is the just the kind of common sense proposition that drives the left crazy. The left rejects the idea of good faith mistakes for two reasons. As it applies to people like police officers, the military, non-mainstream media, Republicans, or anybody that doesn’t buy into the left’s worldview, there is no such thing as good intentions, and so any mistake or bad outcome is necessarily the result of reckless negligence at best, wicked intent at worst. As it applies to the left, there never are any actual mistakes to be excused, only the actions of people who are righteous and good, who occasionally might find themselves hampered, coerced, manipulated, tricked, driven or otherwise forced into doing something untoward by the malicious machinations of their opponents. Thus, you can’t accuse the left of a double standard. They reject the idea of good faith completely. They don’t apply it to themselves because they don’t need it. They don’t apply it to their opponents because their opponents don’t deserve it. Oddly, for a political movement that rejects the philosophical conception of the divine and metaphysics in general, the left operates at a virtually medieval level of logic. There is always a malevolent underlying force that, in the left’s view, prevents their elites from guiding the human race to perfection, no matter how many people its leaders need to disparage, liable, imprison or kill on the path to utopia. God may be dead, but not the dialectic of class struggle, man-caused global warming or the vast right wing conspiracy. So the left’s enemies cannot possibly ever operate in good faith, while the left’s heroic leaders don’t require good faith, because they operate within their own version of quasi-metaphysical righteousness. The dictatorship of the proletariat rightfully operates beyond the traditional limits of morality and ethics -- freezing cold winters are proof of global warming, and any malfeasance by a Clinton evidence of the evil machinations of their opponents. The left has convinced a large portion of the American populace that bad things do not happen without some secretive malevolent cause behind it. This applies not only to rare incidents in which black men end up killed or injured by the police, but even to citizens randomly injured in car accidents. Remember, “If you have a phone, you have a lawyer” or at least someone who acts like a lawyer who will try to extort money for you for something bad that happened to you. The 1991 Crown Heights riots occurred after a car operated by a Jew accidently hit and killed a black child. But of course in the view of a leftist indoctrinated mob, accidents don’t happen, and a bad outcome is justification for a mob to vent its righteous anger. Same as the villagers of medieval Europe launched righteous pogroms for the random deaths of Christians, caused by the malevolent “other.” While the left would mock the beliefs of those Christians, they defend the perpetrators of modern urban pogroms, giving folks the space to destroy. All of which brings us to the situation in Baltimore. Precipitously charging six police officers for allegedly killing Freddie Gray is a perfect example of the left’s rejection of any concept of good will on the part of those who don’t see things their way, and the justification for almost any action that can be shoehorned into opposing an unseen malevolent force of oppression -- racial, social, patriarchal -- whatever fits. No justice no peace, means surrender or war. The political leadership of Baltimore did not surrender so much as join the pogrom. Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s action has been widely criticized by a host of legal experts. As a former prosecutor myself, I would say that her actions are not only unethical, but border on professional malpractice. But for those hoping that Mosby will get her comeuppance for this blatant abuse of power, don’t hold your breath. Her actions may have been legally irresponsible, but for a politician they were a no-brainer. She instantly became the hero of the left and much of the mainstream media, not to mention the mob. Mosby is now the heir apparent Baltimore mayor, and given her youth, there may be no limit to her ambitions. If her prosecution of the police officers proves even partly successful, due to their actual guilt or a poisoned jury pool she will not only a remain a hero, but lionized as sharp lawyer and public official. And even if the prosecution falls completely apart it will not be her fault. Leftist politicians never admit to fault, and don’t have to rely on good faith as a defense. Indeed, failure will only prove that the evil forces Mosby sought to tame are even stronger! If she and her mayor boss -- both African-American women -- cannot win convictions, it will only prove (like freezing winters prove global warming) that the problems of discrimination and oppression are much worse than anyone imagined! And there will need to be a lot more space for destruction.