LA TImes: "Of Course The Death Penalty Is Racist; It Would Be Wrong Even If It Weren't

Unintentionally hilarious; also probably bullshit.

   Not what you'd call an inherently funny topic...but it's really the "of course it's racist!" bit. I mean...of course it's racist...everything's racist!...according to the almost-literally-insane postpostmodern worldview of the progressive "elites" who run the show at places like the LA Times... They're so locked into their cultish, quasi-religious collective delusions that they can confidently proclaim things like this with abject, dogmatic certainty. Immunity to evidence could almost be a defining feature of progressivism. Well, if the crackpot right weren't also afflicted...

   Though, I'll admit, it is somewhat heartening to see progressives express the opinion that, just maybe, there ought to be limits on government power... (Though both extremes are loony and inconsistent about that.)

   Anyway: journalists aren't journalists anymore. They're activists. They don't, in this post, consider a single argument against their view. And, look: I'm no expert on this. But I've read enough to know that these arguments are very likely bullshit. People who actually know about this topic, and who aren't in the cult, can take apart most such arguments. My prediction about this essay: they're relying on contentious numbers and, especially, a broad and malleable conception of "same type of crime." Blacks and Hispanics commit more violent crimes, on average, than whites and Asians. It would be no surprise if they committed more crimes at the very end of the curve where the death penalty becomes an option. Pervasive ("systematic") racism is an axiom of the left, not a conclusion. It almost always turns out to be bullshit. Their claims about racism in policing have almost all turned out to be bullshit--though with some unclear cases, as I understand it, as with application of stop-and-frisk. Most cases against the death penalty are bullshit, too. Organizations like the Innocence Project are just packed with liars and activists. They are religiously devoted to both the proposition that everything is racist and that the death penalty is bad. 

   So, by a kind of half-assed induction, I conclude that there's no reason to even investigate the claims of this screed. If somebody I trust on the subject, like Peter Moskos or Sean Fitzgerald (Actual Justice Warrior) or Nate the Lawyer were to discuss this topic, I'd certainly take what they said seriously, and likely accept their conclusions unless I saw some overt error. But the LA Times is a joke--at least when it comes to anything that involves politically contentious or culture-war-y issues.

   So this is the kind of thing I either don't even read, or (as this time) skim, forget, and move on.