A Follow-Up to the Posts about Sex Offender Registration
I’m not saying that the New York Times gets its editorial ideas from this blog, but. . . .
Last week, you may have read this post on sex offender registration, which included links to two studies on the efficacy of registration laws, as well as link to a statistical analysis of sex offender recidivism, which — contrary to popular thought — occurs much less often than any other crime except murder.
Shortly thereafter, Jess Barton cited that post in an open letter to the DeMuniz Commission.
And this weekend, the New York Times discussed sex offender registration here.
On top of that, the Oregonian discussed sex offender registration and homelessness here. The Comments section wasn’t entirely the cesspool of opinion that you usually see in those types of articles. Some very wise commentators.
The Oregon Library of Defense has previously discussed some of the absurdity of — and legal challenges to — registering a residence that you don’t have. See Thad Betz’s post here.
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Somehow I’m Facebook friends with a Tea Party activist here in Oregon. On Saturday he posted the Oregonian article on FB, *with* the suggestion that the way to deal with the homeless guy was by putting him in jail. The lions’ share of his Tea Party fans’ comments would fit right into what Ryan calls “the cesspool of opinion that you usually see in those types of articles.”
I couldn’t help responding. I labeled their comments as reflective of what I call the “New Authoritarianism.” For the most part their replies treated my label as a compliment. Truly remarkable.
Which helps explain why I keep this Tea Party activist as a FB friend. For one thing, some of his posts are interesting. And to be honest, these include his post about the Oregonian article. It was interesting, because it ended up disclosing the the authoritarian characteristic that is fundamental to Tea Party fans.
Consider how the Tea Party’s purportedly biggest cause of concern is government spending on useless programs. I’m hard pressed to think of a more useless government “program” than locking up some guy because he’s homeless. Yet these New Authoritarian tea partiers embrace the idea of spending who knows many thousands of dollars a year on that useless program.
This is evidence that the Tea Party isn’t some sort of neo-fiscal conservative movement. Instead, it’s a right-wing movement that’s fiscally conservative when it’s convenient, but that’s profligate when it comes to authoritarian governmental programs.