The thing about Democrats and guns has been obvious since I was a kid. On the left, we commonly find the wish to blame anyone but the criminal. This became a joke in the 70s: ‘Society’s to blame; let’s arrest society.’ Now we have joke disciplines to push this sort of nonsense, like ‘Critical Race Theory.’

This is the result of sympathy, perhaps, sympathy unbounded by reason, but whatever the cause, it is generally a part of the leftist mindset.

THE OUTSIDER MUST BE THE VICTIM TO BE DEFENDED
or
THE OUTSIDER IS THE HERO TO SAVE US

That is the leftist myth. In art, this is often expressed in merely identifying heroic or victimized outsiders and celebrating them. Note that this core leftist notion is not about individuals carrying on civilized standards — or the defense of civilization — when shorn of usual social support by being thrown into the state of nature (this is a very right-wing artistic theme, prevalent in Westerns and SF), it is about how outsiders are created by bad insiders, and ‘therefore’ we mustn’t fight the outside threats but our very own selves, our in-group hierarchy especially.

Now, sometimes it is indeed the case that insiders create their outsider enemies. But once created, one may disagree on what to do. Truth is, most victims are not created by our in-group but by some other group or individual. There are three major types of malefactors that engage in victimization on a regular basis: criminals, mobs, and states. I hold to what I think of as a common-sense truth that

1. anyone can do good as an individual, or do bad as a criminal;
2. any group can do fine work either as families, communities, firms, etc., or even move about harmlessly in crowds, but any group can become a dangerous mob all-too easily;
3. states bound by a rule of law are better than those not so limited, and the less encumbered by customary law, the more states are apt to victimize individuals within and without their designated territories.

A right-wing mindset sees states as absolutely necessary to keep individuals from becoming criminal and crowds from becoming mobs. A left-wing mindset sees states as absolutely necessary to bringing in outsiders and mobs into the in-group, toppling the hierarchy and establishing the rule of ideologically pure leftists. Traditional state concerns are uninteresting to leftists largely because traditional state concerns are right-wing, in-group defense and hierarchy maintenance, which the leftist gesture sees as inherently evil.

So it is no surprise that leftist and centrist technocrats tolerate leftist mobs — that is a source of their power and purpose. And it is no shock to see leftist and centrist technocrats tolerate outrageous criminality, for the criminals were (their story tells them) created by the evil conservative hierarchies and by insider oppression of outsiders.

Which is why these technocrats repeatedly lean to the strategy of “anarcho-tyranny,” where the power of the state is directed away from violent criminals and to actually creating and oppressing peaceful people in the enforcement of regulations (and this is one of several ways in which left-wingers become right-wing: they perform the very acts upon members of the in-group that they say the in-group performs on outsiders).

On the common-sense level, leftists are nuts. But there are cases where their story is true, and their gesture across the social landscape (defend the outsiders against insiders, to revolutionize the in-group) is the right one.

The problem is, people infected by the memeplexes of right-wingedness and left-wingedness cannot judge actual situations on the basis of actual facts and operating trends. They get stuck in their myths and rites and gestures, and can only perform stereotypical acts. They are disempowered from even conceptualizing actual problems.

Now, in times of crisis, increasing numbers of people jump ship, move rapidly from left to right and from right to left. We will see a lot of this in the near future. It is not necessarily a good sign, because it is mainly panic, and because the responsible “middle way” is often the last thing anyone wants. After all, in times of crisis, responsibilitarian policy appears as too difficult — just as, in the period leading up to the crisis, it appeared impossible.

But Biden trying to pretend that today’s criminality is caused by gun manufacturers, for example, is pure stupid evasion — and just the kind of evasion we expect from the left. In this, he is a sign of leftist intransigence and leftist assumptions among even ‘centrist’ Democrats. He cannot yet conceive that the best way to respond to criminals is to fight them and crush them, not make their criminality just marginally more difficult.

Or, in the case of Democrats today, make criminality easier while cracking down on free speech of “hate groups” . . . like white people who do not vote Democrat.

twv