Matt Welch and I have a new bloggingheads up about guns, politics, and other matters of interest. If you are Freddie, Mindles Dreck, Brian Dougherty, Julian Sanchez, or my ex-boyfriend, you should watch it just for the name check. The rest of you should watch it for Matt's dreamy eyes.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
SPIDEY SENSE!
BONSAI!
One of your better discussions.
Thanks for the shout out.
Here's something that drives me crazy: How can Matt Welch say that he dislikes the creeping authoritarianism of America, and then turn around and decry the situation in France where he says that men travel in packs and hang around. The blacks! Traveling in packs and hanging around! Yes, if they're grabbing people or mugging people or harassing them in a way that violates statute, they should be arrested. But freaking out about young minority men hanging around in groups bothers me, and it seems frankly incompatible with the libertarian project. Should we really restrict the right of certain people to gather in groups? Do we want to empower police to arrest people for loitering, vagrancy, etc., all of which grant them wide latitude to restrict people's liberty, and which have almost universally been used to target the poor and minorities?
Welch seems to me to be a classic example of the libertarian whose belief in freedom extends precisely to the point where he feels threatened by crime. There is a conflict between freedom and security. If you'd like to err on the security side, be my guest; I think you can greatly reduce street crime, like they have in North Korea. But don't do it and simultaneously call yourself a libertarian.
Oh, by the way-- the kind of broad power to disperse crowds that Welch seems to think the cops in France need is exactly the kind of thing that creates police who believe that they can disperse dancers from the Jefferson memorial with no reason beyond their gut, their comfort level or however the mood strikes them.
OK off to work.
Actually, Freddie-o, it's the packs who menace people with violence with whom I have a beef, and there's no particular color that springs to my mind when I say that, aside from the depressing grey of the Chatelet Les-Halles metro stop. Aside from my perhaps quaint notion that there shouldn't be places that cops are too afraid to go, I'm about as soft-on-crime as you get.
I'm merely disturbed by the notion that the problem is people hanging around and gathering in packs, because there are many people who straight think that the cops should be able to break up groups of men for hanging around. I was probably taking your words a little too literally. And I'm not accusing you of racism; I'm saying that when the police have discretion to harass people based on vague notions of loitering and pack-gathering, history tells us that they inevitably target minorities. Sorry if that was unclear.
Did I really say that the crime rate is lower in Europe?
Megan continues to be a superstar on the Bloggingheads format, relegating Matt's so-called eyes to complete and utter irrelevance. I'm still chuckling over the faux karate pose. Nice.
socalled dreamy eyes...
sorry
Due to an unfair internet connection speed I cannot watch the video. Though I'm sure I can surmise its contents looking at the topics. I would say to Matt and Freddie that Porte De La Chappelle is not a nice place to walk in, its a very rough neighborhood where you can find straight death to Israel cassette tapes in the windows of stores. And pro-palestinian attitudes prevail. I can say that being in a Paris Metro with a homeless man shouting "Blanche!" at me while annoying is not particularly threatening.
It is disconcerting that Parisians do feel they have a large minority whose existence seems to lead to endless issues. However, to throw guns into Paris gradually or fast is not bright. At this point we ought to be able to see that there is a fuse sticking out of Paris, and its lit. Guns would turn riots and some scorching into an armed insurrection. Bastille day repeated live in color?
No, "so-called eyes" is about right, actually.
So Ben, what do you think the French should do about their "youth" problem?
A friend of mine was sexually assaulted (short of rape) on the Paris metro by a pack of young hooligans such that Matt describes. Though the car had plenty of people on it, no one stepped in to stop it.
This discussion brings to mind the excellent French movie District B-13. It stars the guy who popularized parkour. Anyone who enjoys great action and stunts as well as dystopian near-future themes would love it.
> So Ben, what do you think the French
> should do about their "youth" problem?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Yeah, that's pretty much the French response, too (though Sarkozy has made a few little noises about changing that.)