One response to her re the Soviet Union (and perhaps you’ve already said this) is that a single mugging is a single event perpetrated by a single person. Whereas the suffering people endured under the Soviet regime was systemic, official, vast, cultural, not an anomaly at all, and not the work of an individual.

Of course, if it is true (and I believe statistics bear this out) that especially in urban areas where muggings are relatively frequent, they are disproportionately committed by minority groups (blacks, Hispanics). So a person might end up generalizing to the group as a whole. But still, the majority of black people and Hispanic people are not muggers.

Your liberal friend also might respond that minorities are oppressed and that can explain their disproportionately high representation in the group of people who are muggers. All the more of a contrast with the Soviet system—the Soviets were the powers, the people in charge, the privileged, and their goal was to control the rest and create a society based on terror and fear. They succeeded, for the most part, for generations. Her analogy was an exceptionally poor one, and it’s interesting that, as a liberal, she focused on the victim’s emotional reaction rather than the victim’s reasoning (in one case, somewhat irrational, and in the other, very rational) or the structural difference in the identity of the perpetrator.

I am talking currently to someone who wants to know “why” and is open to looking at things I send her. It is hard to even know sometimes where to begin. I sent a Jamie Glazov speech about his time as a kid growing up in the Soviet Union and his parents and grandparents experience as dissidents. I was shocked when she wrote me back and said that this “guy seems like someone who got mugged by a black person and so joined the KKK”. In other words, she didn’t get it at all. When I said, I don’t see how you can compare a mugging to the experience of life in the Soviet Union — being put in prisons and being watched non-stop, she did relent and say that she knew it was really bad there, she had met Jews who managed to leave. Still — how could someone not be moved by the experience of people who have been in tyranny and then experience freedom? We’re still talking about this and I am sending her things here and there. I doubt it will have much impact, but possibly people have to be shaken loose from their former beliefs by traumatic experiences. Brandon Darby finally saw the real face of hate and dysfunction behind the far left forces he was working with, and I experienced a good deal of ill treatment due to speech codes (I am a writer and my writing, which I thought was left wing enough, was apparently not). At some point, something has to break. I guess…

KO-KO

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list – I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed – who never would be missed!
There’s the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs –
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs –
All children who are up in dates, and floor you with ’em flat –
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that –
And all third persons who on spoiling téªte-é¡-téªtes insist –
They’d none of ’em be missed – they’d none of ’em be missed!

CHORUS

He’s got ’em on the list – he’s got ’em on the list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed – they’ll none of ’em be missed!

KO-KO

There’s the n***er serenader[1], and the others of his race,
And the piano-organist – I’ve got him on the list!
And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face,
They never would be missed – they never would be missed!

Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
All centuries but this, and every country but his own;
And the lady from the provinces, who dresses like a guy,
And who “doesn’t think she dances, but would rather like to try”;
And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist[2] –
I don’t think she’d be missed – I’m sure she’d not be missed!

CHORUS

He’s got her on the list – he’s got her on the list;
And I don’t think she’ll be missed – I’m sure she’ll not be missed!

KO-KO

And that Nisi Prius nuisance, who just now is rather rife,
The Judicial humorist – I’ve got him on the list!
All funny fellows, comic men, and clowns of private life –
They’d none of ’em be missed – they’d none of ’em be missed.

And apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind,
Such as – What d’ye call him – Thingummy-bob, and likewise – Never-mind,
And ‘St– ‘st– ‘st– and What’s-his-name, and also You-know-who –
The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you.
But it really doesn’t matter whom you put upon the list,
For they’d none of ’em be missed – they’d none of ’em be missed!

CHORUS

You may put ’em on the list – you may put ’em on the list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed – they’ll none of ’em be missed!

dare the injustice system to incarcerate a geriatric to the penitentiary for killing some asshole pol

It’s one thing to wring your hands and talk about fairness and compassion, and another to shut up and give of yourself in some way. Actions used to speak louder than words, but not in today’s dumbed-down societies.

The Commencement-Speaker Litmus Test Don’t forget parents share genes with their offspring Another political change story Why Liberals support Gun Control State power Billionaire Bloomberg Badgers Moms … Who Suck Baby Binkies? Guy has gone crazy…

“so a free market it shall be”

I should have added that I too think that the free market is the best available mechanism for distributing goods based on worth. Reducing the collusion between big business, big labor, and big government would make the market more free and more just in matching distribution to worth. Another corruption, I believe, of the free market is the tight relationship between big government and the educational system, from elementary school through the university. But I am afraid I will just have to accept that some rappers may make more than the best nurses.