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BY KIM SHINKOSKEY

It occurs to me that both major political parties in America are pushing for irresponsible leniency for their favored constituencies. For example, the Democratic party essentially wants immunity from prosecution for misdeeds committed by the poor and minority groups. The Republican party wants immunity from prosecution for the wealthy. In addition, the MAGA President wants immunity from prosecution for all high crimes and misdemeanors he commits while in office. The reason for all this is that the rich, the poor, and the president commit so darn many crimes that they cannot easily continue what they are doing without considerable relief from accountability for their actions. 

The middle class is the only class left in America that is willing to stand up for the crimes its members commit. The reason for this is that the middle class do not commit all that much crime compared to the others. They like to limit their depredations to social crime rather than costly economic crime. Social crime, like bad conduct in dating relationships, marriage, and divorce, is thought to be less injurious to the fabric of society than economic crime. Hmmm . . .  whatever.  

This is a simplified analysis, of course, but not by much. For example, I recently wrote about the variety of preventive and corrective measures our American democracy has used over the past 250 years to deal with the politically destabilizing effects of crime. Democracy cannot survive without firm guidelines for citizen behavior and even-handed implementation of deterrent and corrective measures.

Most liberal editors could not even come close to supporting a reasonably tough stand on crime for the poor and minorities, even assuming we are able to make the criminal justice system impartial across all groups in society. And another thing, a proposal to bring back the death penalty for capital crimes absolutely made liberals gag, throw up, and chuck my editorial into the waste can. The death penalty historically was commonly and widely accepted in democracy because of its obvious deterrent effect. The death penalty is what many murderers want and expect given the enormity of their crimes. Committing murder is essentially a request for assisted suicide by death penalty.

On the other hand, conservative editors run and hide under a rock and pee their pants when I write about the need to deal with white collar criminals like the subprime mortgage predators who are still running around naked in the public square 15 years after committing their crimes, interest rate predators who try to act like legitimate businessmen and bankers, and tax reformers who make things better for the rich but not for the poor.

Wow, liberals do not seem to believe society can be made egalitarian so that there will be little to no racism left in its administration. And conservatives clearly think money is the only legitimate power in society, and that the people who vote in elections don’t really count at all because they can be manipulated and bought by the rich. Both views show very little confidence in the educational, spiritual and parental institutions of society like schools, churches, and . . . well, two-parent households.

The big problem here is that unless we do all four things at the same time – deter crime, make the justice system egalitarian, hold the rich to account, and impeach and prosecute any and every president who tries to destroy the Constitution – we will never get any single one of those individual goals accomplished. We must believe enough in ourselves and form up righteous enough political parties so that we can make progress on all fronts at the same time. Of course, educational systems, churches, police, and the military need a little kick in the butt as well.

(Robert Kimball Shinkoskey writes citizen editorials about current social, economic, and political events from a perspective of the history of this country, and the history of democracy in the Western world. He lives in Woods Cross, Utah.)