Page 4 — THE LACONIA DAILY SUN, Saturday, July 28, 2012
Michael Barone
Conservatives rethinking wisdom of long prison terms Only a few lonely media outlets responded to the Aurora Mall murders by calling for stricter gun control measures. President Barack Obama and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper made eloquent statements, as did Mitt Romney, but neither the two Democrats nor the Republican called for changes in gun laws. Many conservatives and gun rights advocates took satisfaction from this, with some cause. Congressional Democrats have mostly given up the fight for gun control after observing the defeats of many colleagues in 1994 and of Al Gore in 2000. A large majority of states have passed laws allowing qualified citizens to carry concealed weapons, and no such law has been repealed. And the Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment does recognize a personal right to keep and bear arms. But it is not only liberals who have changed their stance on an issue related to violence and crime. Conservatives in increasing numbers are moving away from their decades-long support for long prison terms for criminals. Last year, Newt Gingrich, William Bennett and Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese endorsed a “right on crime” initiative, calling for rehabilitation measures rather than prison sentences for nonviolent offenders. They joined liberals who have been dismayed that America has just about the highest rate of incarceration of any nation in history. There’s little question that the vast increase in prison populations from the lows of the 1960s to the highs of recent decades have resulted in reduced crime. Violent offenders who are locked up can’t attack people outside. But it’s also true that crime rates stayed high for a couple of decades after prison populations started their vast increases. Better police tactics, pioneered by Rudolph Giuliani and William Bratton in New York City and adapted by many others, played a major role. Meanwhile, laws requiring mandatory minimum sentences have resulted in lengthy terms for many who are likely to be no threat to society. This has led conservatives like anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist to endorse the Families Against Mandatory Minimums organization. It seems particularly unfair to many conservatives as well as to liberals that judges must sentence people possessing small amounts of marijuana to five-year terms when states with medical marijuana dispensaries have de facto legalized the substance. Some conservatives have taken
such stands after serving in prison themselves, like the late Charles Colson, founder of the Prison Fellowship, and Pat Nolan, a former Republican California legislator. Nolan points out that conservatives like Texas Gov. Rick Perry have turned down proposals to build new prisons and have stepped up drug treatment programs instead. Conservative legislators in Congress and the states have also joined with black Democratic colleagues in attempts to reduce the shocking levels of rape in prison. And conservative as well as liberal prosecutors have stepped up DNA testing and have exonerated those who prove to have been wrongly convicted. The most systematic expression of such views is found in the late Harvard Law professor William Stuntz’s book “The Collapse of American Criminal Justice.” Stuntz, a Republican and evangelical Christian beloved by his mostly liberal colleagues, argued that an excess of criminal statutes and undue power in the hands of prosecutors and police have resulted in an unfairly large number of people in prison. Looking back in history, he pointed that immigrant groups in cities a century ago were allowed to police their own communities, while today in many heavily black areas police and prosecutors are accountable to largely white suburban electorates. My own historical research indicates that rates of crime, violence and substance abuse among Irish immigrants in the mid-19th century were about as high as those rates for black Americans from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. But by the late 19th century, after a long generation, crime rates among the Irish fell sharply. Something similar seems to be happening among black Americans, so many of whom are descendants of the vast migration from the rural South to the big cities of the North in the mid-20th century. In any case, there’s a strong case to be made that stringent anti-crime measures that were, after some years, effective at reducing crime are no longer necessary now that violent crime rates have gone down. So just as facts have prompted liberals to abandon stricter gun control, facts seem to be persuading conservatives to abandon tough anti-crime laws they once championed. (Syndicated columnist Michael Barone is senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.)
LETTERS Many small biz owners being crushed by anti-capitalist policies To the editor, I need the help of others with understanding Dr. Thomas Dawson’s letter in the July 19 edition of the Sun. I sort of agree with him regarding the money elitists in this country who have undue influence on governing. Then he confuses me with his analysis that it is only a Republican nominee who wants to give more power and control to the elitists who run this country. Perhaps he has recently been in Africa helping poor victims of malaria due in no small part to liberals outlawing DDT without an affordable and effective alternative. Otherwise, he would likely know that there are more rich Democrats than there are Republicans. Plus, Democrat contributors like George Soros and George Kaiser make the Koch Brothers look like pawn shop pikers. Jeffrey Immelt and Jon Corzine are Democrats and elitists and do not care one whit about the 99-percent or the middle class. President Obama sent billions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and overseas companies and yet Dr. Dawson actually believes Obama and the Democrats care about the 99-percent. Got any real proof sir? The 1-percent that Dr. Dawson refers to include many small business owners who are being crushed by Obama’s anti-capitalist policies. Obamacare with it’s attendant taxes and regulations will further put a death grip stranglehold on our anemic recovery which is on the verge of a double dip recession. The top 1-percent pay 40-percent of all federal income taxes while the bottom 50-percent pay no federal income taxes. The food stamp program has gone from 28-million to 46-million eligible participants since our president took office. Unemployment has been above 8-percent for 42 straight months and counting. The number of folks collecting disability payments has exceeded the number of new jobs created since June 2009. It is debatable whether or not raising taxes on the 1-percent will add any appreciable funds toward our revenue shortfalls. What is not debatable, is that it will force more small and large companies to hunker down or move away.
middle class immeasurably with it’s 20 or so new taxes and burgeoning number of new patients without any measurable increase in the number of doctors. This tax will force companies to have their current workers perform overtime or hire temporary help to avoid the cost of health care for new workers. Doctor shortages and bureaucratic decision makers will cause a marked decrease in the quality of care along with skyrocketing health care costs. The Citizens United decision was the appropriate one so that all citizens can have their voice heard. I believe corporations are made up of individual people, are they not? Not all corporations spend their money on “right wing political ads” as Dr. Dawson suggests. Does he really think all the pharmaceutical giants contribute to Republican coffers? Please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t Citizen United protect the free speech of powerful unions by allowing them to contribute mucho bucks to “left wing political ads”? It’s not an ideal circumstance for sure, but I wonder just how Dr. Dawson would limit campaign contributions while not impinging on free speech? Respectfully sir, I believe you are tilting at the wrong windmills. I would like to correct Dr. Dawson regarding his parroting a familiar liberal lie proclaiming that the “GOP is the party of the rich”. Look it up in the congressional record cuz it just ain’t so. Other than official records, I gleaned my information from the American Association of Retired Citizens(AMAC), Docs4PatientCare, CATO Institute, Heritage Foundation and Alliance for Natural Health-USA, among others. I and perhaps others would love to know just where Dr. Dawson obtained information to support the assertions in his letter. And to the doctors’ last question, “Are you scared yet”? You bet I am. Four more years of our current POTUS untethered to any future campaigning will afford him his golden opportunity to play Marxist dictator and further dismantle our constitution. Perhaps he might even consider an executive order eliminating term limits for presidents. Yes, I am very scared. Russ Wiles