Which republican shall we emulate now? Giuliani?

Names omitted to protect the guilty ... nah. I’m protecting myself from getting in trouble.

Bill Clinton doubled down on the oppressive crime bill, and for good measure, added the conservative “blacks kill blacks” meme.

Here is a succinct diary by slinkerwink

Reading the comments is usually dangerous, but I did it and found a spectacular example of how the Democratic party is turning into “Reagan minus the anti-choice and anti-gay” in its defense of the Third Way establishment.

Bill Clinton is not the only one emulating the Giuliani argument.

Commenter A:

The effects of crime and drugs in black neighborhoods and communities in the late 1980s and early 1990s were absolutely devastating. The crime bills of that period cannot be assessed without that context. In other words, I am glad some of the bad guys got put in prison.

31 recommends.

Commenter B:

No. Be intellectually honest. An overwhelming amount of violence was occurring in black neighborhoods. Literal war zones. We can assume, safely, that the rampant violence around the drug trade was not perpetrated by white people. If you’re a millennial (which most of BLM are) it’s almost forgivable that they don’t know this (they weren’t born yet). But don’t act like there was not crisis level violence in New York and DC, and it was almost exclusively black men involved. You can be offended, and clutch pearls. But intellectual honesty is an important thing at DK.

21 recommends.

“The crime bill of 1994 was fuel on the fire and did nothing to resolve these underlying issues.” Well, except dramatically reduce the crime and murder rates.

The next is a bit more subtle.

“Who created crack? Who recruited the street dealers? Who supplied them? Who took a large share of the profits? Who created the whole fucking mess of the urban ghetto in the first place? Black people? Who did not provide the means and opportunity to a better life?” I’m totally at a loss at your last statement…. “Who did not provide the means and opportunity to a better life?” Are you implying that white people are the only means for black people to have opportunities for a better life? That’s literally the most paternalistic tripe I’ve seen at DK.

In fairness ‘provide’ was not optimal language. “Who eliminated the means and opportunity?” would be better.

But on substance that was the meaning in the quote. And the substance of Commenter B’s sudden concern for paternalism in defense of his blame of blacks for crime is the same ‘BOOTSTRAPS!’ and ‘liberals are the real paternalist racists’ arguments I have seen a million times at other places and once at Daily Kos.

pgm 01 summed up the truth:

Louisiana man faces life in prison for stealing $31 worth of candy bars “A man is facing life in prison for stealing candy. Jacobia Grimes is accused of taking $31 worth of candy bars from a store in Louisiana. Grimes has five previous theft convictions. Under Louisiana state law, that makes him eligible for a harsher sentence ranging from 20 years to life.” People are still facing outrageous charges because of the idiotic crime bills. Democrats either believed the nonsense of super predators or worse, saw the moral panic as a political opportunity. Either way, we know what has happened because of them and it is unconscionable that any person who claims to be a democrat would back policies that are racist in practice.

And thank you jeopardydd for a preemptive strike on the inevitable “everybody did it” response: