Among crime hoaxes, there's a subset of tricksters who concoct crimes for political causes, says Gregg O. McCrary, a retired FBI agent who profiles criminals as director of Behavioral Criminology International, a consultancy in Fredericksburg, Virginia. This kind of hoaxer is just as likely to be a man as a woman. A recent case occurred last November when Jaime Alexander Saide, a Northwestern University student in Evanston, Illinois, published a column about his Mexican heritage in the campus newspaper after he claimed to be the target of two hate crimes. Saide later confessed to filing false reports to bring attention to campus race relations.
While most reported hate crimes are real, hoaxes often occur on college campuses around the same time as antiracism forums, says Laird Wilcox, who's currently updating his book, Crying Wolf, to include more than 320 staged hate crimes that he's tracked in the U.S. since 1994. Consider the recent case of Kerri Dunn, a social psychology professor at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, who police suspect may have slashed her own car's tires, smashed its windshield and spray-painted it with racial slurs just hours before speaking at a campus forum against hate crimes last spring. Two eyewitnesses identified her as the culprit shortly after hundreds of students marched to protest the crime. Dunn denies that she staged the attack.Another big tip-off is when an alleged victim calls the press before calling the police. "These people are not knowledgeable about what a typical crime looks like," McCrary says. "You'll try to find support for their allegations and find the facts don't match up."
Apparently, though general crime hoaxes are committed by women, men are just as likely to stage political crime hoaxes.
Let's not let the facts get in the way of the truth.......and a good story that some warped individuals wish were true.......
While no crime was committed a crime
was committed. Curiouser and Curiouser.
Indeed. Now don't you think it would have been prudent to Google that one (1!) up before your dreadful AFAIK bulljive below? Really, now.
Also, we'll take links to all those "media reports" you noted now as well. Thanks in advance!
What is McArdle doing here? Having abandoned any attempt at insight into the crash of 2008, is the Atlantic's "econoblogger" going into random association mode as a refuge from reality? Will no one end this travesty?
This is better than using the attack as a launching pad for attacking liberals.
Brace yourselves, people, we could be in for one of Megan's patented seemingly endless series of posts on how she wants to clarify what she said because she was somehow misunderstood--again.
Don't expect an apology for her unsourced claim that liberals are mostly at fault in these instances. "In reality." As far as she knows. Maybe in four years, a la her Iraq Invasion endorsement.
Any news on the Waheena Lubiano harrassment?
A reminder for Megan:
This is SOP for the modern Republican party since Nixon. It's hardly new. From Nixon to Lee Atwater to today. One would think a Republican like Megan would be hip to this seriously unfortunate bulljive. One would think.
I hate to have to be the one to break this to you (apparently you're so shielded from life you haven't realized this yet) but this is SOP for politicians of all stripes. "Vote for me and I'll stop those gay-bashers/gays/gun nuts/anti-gunners."
The fact is that anyone who "makes it" in national-level politics wants power so bad that they can taste it. They wouldn't put up with the intrusions in their life for relatively low pay otherwise. Once they get there, they'll say anything they think necessary to stay there.
That's one reason I can respect Megan's decision to vote for Obama. She at least recognizes that Obama isn't going to lead us into the Promised Land, or bring a unity to the country unseen since Washington or some other crap. He's a politician. I don't respect anybody, left or right, who gets excited by their guy. Or, quite frankly, anybody who thinks that their guys are special, not like the politicians from the other side.
I hate to have to be the one to break this to you (apparently you're so shielded from life you haven't realized this yet) but this is SOP for politicians of all stripes.
If you could cite a single example (although you may wish to provide several given the nature of your statement) to support your case, that would be awesome.
Also, check out Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland." Required reading for anyone on this subject. Oh, and look up "Southern Strategy" while you're at it. You may discover the book and the strategy to be illuminating.
One more for you, CatCube: "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. I mentioned this one in the other thread and figured you might want to acquaint yourself with it. It's a fine read. I read in Junior High School. There's also a movie if books aren't your thing.
ed, you are right only Republicans have caused a "coarsening of our culture." Now Americans "cling to guns and religion." It is time for us to stand up and say "yes, we can" and have "change that we can believe in."
We definitely don't want to go back to the "failed policies of the BushI/BushII/Reagan" adminstration.
(Ed, I might suggest that you research psychological topics such as cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.)
Well, it is true, isn't it, that since Noah banished Ham, the big black mens have been sniffing around the daughters of Japheth.
Ms. Todd is just one in a long line of fine men and women of the cuacasian descent to see the real threat of the sons of Ham.
This isn't about poliics or fake hate crimes, it is about realizing the fruit of the Bible in our daily lives.
Strange fruit, that.
MnZ:
I'll take a specific example to bolster your point at your earliest convenience (I've noted several). Thanks in advance. Oh, and easy on the straw pummeling. It's unbecoming.
The Zander Saide incident was last November? It happened when I was a freshman at NU... five years ago.
Megan, how far are you behind reading your subscription to Psychology Today? In any case, I eagerly await reaction to Colin Powell's presentation to the UN.
I'm sure lefties are worse, though. AFAIK.