07/24/15 – Sheldon Richman – The Scott Horton Show

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Hey, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
I ran out of time, man.
I wanted to ask Patrick Coburn more things, but he had to go and it's time to bring on our friend Sheldon Richman.
He writes at sheldonrichman.com.
Free Association is the name of his great blog.
And his latest is Thought Crimes, Domestic Terrorism, and Police Bullying.
Welcome back, Sheldon.
How are you?
I'm doing fine.
Nice to be back with you.
Yeah, good.
Happy to talk to you.
So let's see.
I guess you got some commas in here.
Let's start with thought crimes.
Dylan Roof has been charged by the central government.
I appreciate you phrasing it that way.
The feds have basically taken the case from South Carolina and made it a federal case and a federal hate crimes case.
And you're against it.
How come?
I'm against the concept, the legal concept of hate crimes, because it's less euphemistically we could call them thought crimes.
It's like something out of Orwell's 1984.
In other words, you take a person who in cold blood kills a bunch of people sitting in church who were, I don't know, no particular ethnic group or protected group.
That person's going to only face state charges and could face the death penalty, which I don't approve of.
But, you know, that's not the point of the discussion or life imprisonment.
And but if someone did it because because he didn't like that the people were doesn't like blacks, let's say, as in the case of Dylan Roof, then he not only faces life imprisonment without parole and possibly the death penalty at the state level, he could face the same penalties at the national level for only one reason.
He had certain thoughts in his mind when he pulled the trigger.
And I think that's that's wrong.
I don't think crime should be, you know, what your the content of your attitude toward your victims were.
It was an intentional killing.
And we can in fact, some people would say that even an accidental killing and an intentional killing is just a matter of ideas in people's minds.
And you should never be punished for ideas.
You should be punished for if you're going to be punished at all, you should be punished for your actions.
Hmm.
Well, see now, I think most people would argue that that's absurd and that actually helps make the counter argument that we're actually not talking about prosecuting somebody just for what they think, but for the motivation behind an actual crime that they commit against somebody else.
And I think almost everyone would agree that if somebody, you know, makes a terrible mistake and commits manslaughter, that's one thing.
And that if they deliberately kill somebody, that that's an entirely different crime.
And it's charged that way.
I think people accept that difference.
And and in many cases, there's at least, I don't know, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, pretty damn good evidence to understand why it is that somebody did do something.
They were trying to rob a bank or they were mad about an affair or an insult or whatever.
Right.
Well, we can argue.
We can argue about this at two different levels.
So for our discussion, I think we should leave the more radical level aside.
That's the very argument that Randy Barnett, the libertarian legal scholar, was making back in the 1970s, and he still does, that punishment is is is wrong in a free society.
There shouldn't be punishment.
You should you should be made to, you know, to restitute your victims or the or the survivors to the best.
I agree with that.
And let's also leave aside the feds here, too.
Let's just pretend we're talking about the actual jurisdiction like it should be anyway.
Yeah.
So so let's leave the more radical.
We can do that another day if you wanted to.
But let's leave that aside.
So let's just accept the paradigm of punishment, the prevailing paradigm.
So it says that if the state of mind matters in that paradigm, the state of mind matters in this respect.
It's a crime if you have a mens rea, right, a criminal intent, an evil intent, hostile, malicious intent versus an accidental shooting.
OK, I accept that for the sake of this discussion.
So but now we're making a further distinction, a malicious shooting where someone doesn't like the race of the victims or the sexual orientation or ethnicity, national origin or other other classifications.
And there's there are crimes where, you know, where you get extra punishment if you don't like the race or those things, other other features of your victims.
And then there's a different there's there's less punishment if if you killed for in cold blood intentionally for another reason, like you just don't personally like them.
You know, if Dylann Roof had had a personal grievance with each of the nine people he killed, they all let's say they owed him money and then pay right away or, you know, they said something he didn't like and it wasn't race.
He wouldn't be facing life imprisonment and the death penalty at the at the national level, at the central government level.
And why?
Because he had a certain content of his, you know, in his head, a certain ideas or attitudes in his head, apart from just the criminal intent, you know, malicious intent.
Well, now that so that's me.
But the other argument is, yeah, but we come from a legacy of all white juries and acquittals for crimes just like this.
And so now we're trying to make the correction on that.
You're saying it's too far of a correction.
I don't think that makes sense.
First of all, the criminal justice process is in motion in South Carolina.
Nobody thinks he's going to that Dylan Roof is going to get some code of leniency or that he's going to be let off.
You know, he's I don't even he's not contesting that he even did it, I don't believe.
So they'll probably end up could end up being a guilty plea.
He faces the death penalty or certainly life imprisonment without parole.
So it's not as if the feds need to step in, you know, like like you could argue that in the 30s and around that time regarding lynching, your states states were not prosecuting for lynching only because, you know, the Klan was infiltrated, the criminal justice system.
Times have changed drastically.
You know, if he's convicted in the state court before a jury, well, then why?
Why would the feds be prosecuting him?
He's been convicted.
And let's say let's say he's acquitted.
I mean, it's not going to happen, but let's just imagine he's acquitted.
If the feds then charge him, that is double jeopardy.
I don't know.
I know they may call it by a different name, hate crimes, but it's still double jeopardy.
And I thought the people believe in the Constitution, you're not supposed to be tried for the same offense.
It's just a different level of government.
It doesn't change the fact that it's double jeopardy.
Now, he's not going to be acquitted.
Nobody thinks that the.
There's going to be a Klan jury that's going to say, you know, nullify right and exercise nullification and let him go.
That guy's not going anywhere.
And if it happens, we can worry about it then.
But it's just ridiculous for the feds to be preempting the state.
I mean, they're not totally preempting because it's going on in the state, too, but for them to get in on the act anyway, I think it's just pure politics on part of Obama and the Justice Department.
All right.
Now.
So then there's the question of domestic terrorism, and there's been a big fight over whether it counts as terrorism when a Nazi massacres a bunch of black people.
And the the basically the argument has come down to whether black lives matter or not.
And if they did, then it would be called terrorism.
But since they don't, it's not.
That's basically the way it's understood, at least by the left and kind of understandably, I think.
I mean, it does seem to me it is terrorism just as a political definition.
He's trying to provoke a political reaction here.
It's not just murder for fun or profit.
There was that was the point of it was to kill civilians in order to provoke a reaction.
So that counts.
But then you also not that I'm saying extra laws ought to now kick in or whatever, which is, you know, another part of the argument.
But then there's also this case of Chattanooga where the guy went and shot up active duty and and at a recruitment center.
And and you cycling Greenwald pointing out the discrepancy of whether that counts as terrorism or not.
Here, Dylan Roof, what he did for some reason, that's not terrorism, even though he was killing civilians for political reasons.
But this is terrorism, even though he was killing active duty military who, by definition, are not civilians and right now are on the entire world, which is a battlefield in the great global long war on terror.
Yeah, I mean, look, these are very different cases.
Roof's action is much is much closer to terrorism than Abdul Aziz's actions.
You know what?
I'm really bad at doing radio, Sheldon.
Why don't you do me a favor and just hang on a second and we'll listen to a bunch of lame commercials and then come back and I'll let you answer after that.
All right.
Thank you.
You're very kind and patient, man.
We all like you a lot.
It's Sheldon Richman, everybody.
He's at Sheldon Richman dot com.
Hang tight.
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All right.
A lot of work.
Last night's shooting in Lafayette in here, too, man, I think that looks like he was a right wing crank picking that picking on an audience at a new left wing feminist movie coming out kind of thing that looks like a political type of motivation there, too.
But anyway, so Charlotte Chattanooga Lafayette, go ahead, Sheldon, what do you think?
Well, look, I'd say the feds should stay out of it.
These are these are if they're murderers, they're murderers.
I just don't think the the state should be making a differentiation for, you know, why you're murdering if, you know, it already distinguishes first degree from second degree.
You know, if you're killing a passion or a sudden provocation, even though it's not justified, that's usually second degree or manslaughter.
We already have these distinctions.
Keep the feds out of it completely.
And, you know, like with Abdul Aziz, there's the additional element that Glenn Greenwald has elaborated.
That's the Chattanooga shooter.
Yeah.
That he went after military centers.
And again, I'm not justifying this as as Greenwald says, and I quote him in my piece to say that something's not terrorism isn't to say that it's justifiable.
OK, so we're we're drawing distinctions here among, you know, bad things.
And I don't think walking around on American Street and, you know, shooting people who are in the military that I don't believe is justified under those cases.
Those people aren't, you know, the people in the in the military at that point are not carrying guns and out and trying to shoot people.
I just don't believe that's a proper, justifiable recourse.
And it's even a bad tactic because all it does is build sympathy for the military.
I mean, the media, the media was filled with, you know, homage to the to the individuals that died and their family was on in the service.
You know.
Oh, yeah.
No, that's working, though.
It's very effective.
It's it's all about making the everybody in America is not a Muslim that much more alienated from Muslims and vice versa.
In order to.
Yeah, I mean, it's enough to make you think that, you know, I don't really believe this.
So I'll say it as a throwaway line.
It's enough to make you think that Abdulaziz was a double agent.
It certainly serves the hawks on both sides.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm not I'm not enough of a conspiracy theorist.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist at all.
So I don't really believe that.
But that is the effect.
But I think apart from that, you know, I don't I stand with Greenwald that there is a basis in in proper basis in law for saying to just go kill someone in his bed who is a member of the military is not is not justified or even standing at a recruiting station.
So so, you know, I don't want to in any way sound like I approve of that.
But it doesn't count as terrorism, no matter how the government defines it these days, because terrorism has tended to mean and if you look at it through history, it has tended to mean the attack on civilians to gain some political or social and either terrorize people so that they'll, you know, pressure their government to do something or, you know, some kind of goal like that.
We are attacking basically defenseless noncombatants or or civilians to go in for installation is not has not traditionally been regarded as terrorism.
And I don't think we should do that.
And I agree.
You know, Chomsky has been criticizing the concept that has used terrorism as it has been used, you know, I don't know, since the 70s, maybe late 60s for this very reason.
It's a now a contrived concept which is constructed so that Muslims are terrorists, no matter who they attack, even if it's self-defense.
Look, Omar Khadr, which was put in Guantanamo, was a terrorist, right?
He was in what, Afghanistan when when the US invaded.
And, you know, at worst, he he tossed a grenade at a at a combat forces, American combat forces.
How is that terrorism?
Well, I don't know.
No, you're right.
It's completely used arbitrarily and the arguments now about it and what counts as it or not are all legal arguments about who's going to get which book thrown at them.
But I think it's really important to call it terrorism or maybe we need a new term for it or something.
So people understand when people do political violence, they're trying to get a reaction out of you.
So now the burden is on you to be smart instead of angry and react in a proper way, in a way that defeats their purpose rather than, you know, completely falling for it, which is basically what everybody tends to do.
So that's why I think it's important to call not for politically correct reasons or legal reasons, but for just understanding about who's doing what and why it is that they're doing what they're doing.
You know, when when Dylan Dylan Roof knows that his his changing of the world is marginal at best.
But on the margin, what he's doing is he's making blacks and whites fear and hate each other more.
And that's what he's trying to do.
So our job is to go and have dinner with black people or vice versa kind of thing and make sure that doesn't happen.
So that's my argument.
Just like with September 11th.
Our job is send bounty hunters to slit bin Laden's water, his throat and then call the whole thing off and just that's it and bring the whole empire home.
And then instead of doing exactly what they wanted us to do, which is spend trillions of dollars destabilizing the Middle East, radicalizing a generation, bankrupting all of our fascist puppet dictators and creating a whole new generation of bin Laden's.
Same damn thing.
That's my.
No, no.
Right.
And your point is, it's not a legal it's not a legal concept.
I disagree, by the way, that it's arbitrary.
I don't think it's arbitrary at all.
Everything the U.S. does and its allies and most particularly Israel cannot by definition by definition cannot be terrorism the way they use the term.
And basically anything done by a Muslim, even against an invading American army, is terrorism.
That's not arbitrary.
That's just a contrivance.
That's a that's just a propaganda tool.
And what's so funny is right before you was Patrick Coburn and we're talking about how they're rebranding Al Qaeda, the guys who are still declared loyal to Ayman al-Zawahiri.
They're saying these guys aren't that bad.
We can work with them.
We could do it in Syria.
Yes.
I know they see I see they've elevated ISIS, but what does it has ISIS done anything to on U.S. soil to an American American on soil?
No, no.
I mean, the closest thing is the closest thing is the Pamela Geller attack.
That guy had apparently talked to some of them on Twitter, but doesn't look like he got any direction from them.
And the rest of the so-called ISIS plots here, all FBI plots.
Look, we've got to understand it's a it's a political concept now and it's used just in the cause of, you know, the American and the American empire and its allies.
And if you look at the state terrorism list that the State Department keeps, it's purely political people, countries or groups go on it or go off it as as dictated by a political agenda like the M.E.K., for example, that, you know, that group which has committed terrorism of of Iranians who turned pro-Iraq when Iraq invaded Iran and has been involved with Israel and committing doing plots against Iranian scientists and whatnot.
That group was on the terrorist list while it was on the terrorist list.
It was hiring prominent Americans to speak at its dinners like Howard Dean and and Giuliani, a whole bunch of them.
Right.
And who therefore should have been guilty of the federal crime against giving aid and comfort to terrorist organizations.
And what happened?
This was under Hillary's watch at State Department.
They lobbied and got them taken off the list.
Yeah.
Somebody even confronted Ed Rendell.
Hey, aren't you guilty of providing material support for a state State Department listed terrorist group?
And he just goes, I'm going to I'm going to everybody's doing it.
It was I think actually an inquiry had been opened up even so was someone in the Justice Department said, take a look at it.
But it all became Hillary saved him.
She took him off the list.
Right.
Exactly right.
All right.
That's all.
It's politics.
Yeah.
Hey, everybody, go read Sheldon Richman's at Sheldon Richman dot com.
And there's more to this essay, too, about Sandra Bland and things like that.
So go check him out.
The great Sheldon Richman.
Thanks, Sheldon.
Thank you, Scott.
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