Piper: How to Live Under an Unqualified President

As an observation, I generally find that mandatory sentencing (3 strikes; Megan’s Law; etc.) is counterproductive to either justice or mercy, and is practically the death knell for any practical rehabilitation.

On the other hand, the concept of “the straw that broke the camel’s back” came from somewhere. And many times it is a relatively minute infraction that confirms what we probably knew all along—this person has no intention of living under law so let’s “cast out the scorner” and protect those that do wish to live under law.

The discernment necessary for one to exercise proper penal justice, show mercy, and/or seek some sort of rehabilitative opportunity for the lawbreaker is a spiritual matter. It is no wonder that Scripture directs us specifically to pray for all those in authority. That kind of discernment has to be a gift from God to be exercised in any sense of consistency.

It happens that a federal court has publicly rebuked the IRS for failing to comply with subpoenas, and here’s CNN“s “fact sheet” on the matter. Darrell Issa’s report names at least seven other high IRS officials, and here’s The Federalist’s take. Twelve different groups within the IRS appear to have participated in the targeting, and more in the cover-up.

Sorry, Joe, but the rot goes throughout the IRS and the Department of Justice. The problem is where the chains of command used to meet, and hopefully President Trump does what is needed to put people like Lois Lerner, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, and their former boss in jail where they belong.

Regarding drug sentencing laws, what many people don’t know is that enhanced sentences for crack (as opposed to power cocaine) were wanted by the black community including Charles Rangel. Read these articles for a review of a book on this:

https://www.city-journal.org/html/when-black-lives-mattered-14062.html

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/01/when-black-lives-mattered…

That’s not to say that there might be some racial disparity or injustice, but it’s probably useful to note that disparity (racial or not) is not the same as injustice.

Regarding the IRS scandal, it apparently was far more than “two rogue agents” as the standard line was (or now one female agent as Joeb says, though I am not sure the reason he pointed out she was female). There’s a reason that Lerner took the fifth before Congress (in addition to the multiple problems already mentioned). There was a reason to Koskinen stonewalled Congress. There was a reason that they did not produce the documents under subpoena.

Joe, your friend knows and likes Eric Holder. For my part, what I see is zero indictments (let alone prosecutions) for Fast and Furious, zero indictments for the IRS scandal, zero indictments for the New Black Panthers for obstructing voting, no action on numerous instances where government agencies slow-walked or outright ignored FOIA requests, no action on numerous instances where the IRS ignored or slow-walked subpoenas, DOJ monitoring of journalists’ activities….and all of these cases and more involved actions that protected his boss from scrutiny.

In other words, he made too many “mistakes” that were awfully convenient to Barack Obama for me to consider him an honest man.

[Larry]

Regarding drug sentencing laws, what many people don’t know is that enhanced sentences for crack (as opposed to power cocaine) were wanted by the black community including Charles Rangel. Read these articles for a review of a book on this:

https://www.city-journal.org/html/when-black-lives-mattered-14062.html

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/01/when-black-lives-mattered.php

That’s not to say that there might be some racial disparity or injustice, but it’s probably useful to note that disparity (racial or not) is not the same as injustice.

Regarding the IRS scandal, it apparently was far more than “two rogue agents” as the standard line was (or now one female agent as Joeb says, though I am not sure the reason he pointed out she was female). There’s a reason that Lerner took the fifth before Congress (in addition to the multiple problems already mentioned). There was a reason to Koskinen stonewalled Congress. There was a reason that they did not produce the documents under subpoena.

I read the reviews and where they are right is that some of the literature such as Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” does fall into the trap of the logical fallacy of “appeal to motive” and also points out that several black law makers and community leaders and middle class African-Americans were in favor of the tougher sentencing laws. However, the reviewers are still mostly wrong. They gloss over the fact that these laws were marketed to the public 30 years ago to go after the higher level “kinpins,” yet it was the low-level pusher on the street, many of which are addicted to the substance that they were selling that got the major sentences. I have seen over and over in my work where the gang leaders and the high-level drug dealers get a slap on the wrist, while the low-level dealer on the street will get 5 years to life. Yet the federal government gave billions of $ each year to fund all sorts of programs and even militarized the police, aiming to catch high-level drug dealers in the inner-city and all they did was create more prisons for the lowest level dealers and make fatherlessness even prevalent in my neighborhood. It was another example of government over-reach where the public was made to believe that the state (using the complete power of law enforcement without much regard to civil rights) could eliminate a social problem (drugs and crime). However, it was the conservatives that suddenly were all about big government and created a much larger mess than what was there before. The unintended consequences of the War on Drugs made things worse for minorities in the ‘hood. It isn’t just racial disparities, but rather a huge injustice, especially since its taken so many years for these failed laws to be repealed. By the way, I was doing ministry in the ‘hood during the height of the crack epidemic (although I was 20-25 years younger then). I marched in my neighborhood against drugs and crime, I worked with the Grand Rapids Vice to eliminate crack houses in my neighborhood, I formed neighborhood block watches that became a first defense against the neighborhood crime—including drugs, larcenies, sexual assault, murder, and etc….. I have lost around 35 of my students that have been shot and killed on the streets of Grand Rapids, I have seen crack-addicted mothers stop feeding their children so I had to call Child Protective Services on them, I have seen middle-age school boys turn to selling drugs or hold weapons for a high level gang member/dealer to put food on the table for their family (because mom was addicted to drugs), I have seen drug-addicted mothers sell all of the Christmas presents that they received from Toys for Tots, Salvation Army or whatever well-meaning church group and I’ve even had a gun pointed at me by a drug dealer. At the same time, I have seen several instances of police harassment and brutality of young black men in my neighborhood, Twice I was mocked and made fun of by police because they mistook me to be a drug fiend because I was hanging out with known dealers trying to minister to them (I am a bald, middle-aged white male…racial profiling in a different way), I have several students that grew up without a father because of a the mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Their fathers were not high level dealers, but rather the lowest level dealers.

Let me also add that the middle class African-Americans that supported these laws didn’t have to deal with neighborhood crime in the inner-city because the vast majority had already or were in the process of moving to the suburbs. In the late 1960’s through the mid 1980’s, many African-Americans moved to different neighborhoods to escape crime due to housing laws that were passed that outlawed discrimination and the eventual outlawing of redlining. That left a huge gap of leadership in neighborhoods like mine. For the first 20 years of our ministry, 95% of our young black men had no relationships with middle-class African-Americans that were professionals and held living-wage employment. My point is that there were many other socio-economic factors that contributed to the crime and violence crisis in the ‘hood besides drugs and fatherlessness. When I teach about Urban Ministry or Poverty and Crime/Violence, there is entire historical and cultural context to all of this. Unfortunately, conservative Christians only see the surface of sinful behavior and often ignore the context, rarely acknowledging broken systems. While Liberals/Progressives acknowledge the systems, they rarely acknowledge the individual sins and automatically think that throwing tax-payer money and creating programs is the answer (which often makes things worse as well). Enough of my rant…….

They gloss over the fact that these laws were marketed to the public 30 years ago to go after the higher level “kinpins,” yet it was the low-level pusher on the street, many of which are addicted to the substance that they were selling that got the major sentences. I have seen over and over in my work where the gang leaders and the high-level drug dealers get a slap on the wrist, while the low-level dealer on the street will get 5 years to life. Yet the federal government gave billions of $ each year to fund all sorts of programs and even militarized the police, aiming to catch high-level drug dealers in the inner-city and all they did was create more prisons for the lowest level dealers and make fatherlessness even prevalent in my neighborhood.

I don’t ever remember reading an inmate file where the convict had more than a pound of whatever substance on them. The police reports were usually something along the lines of “three dime bags” or “a small amount of _______” or something like that. Just a reminder - I did this almost every week for a couple of years.

The dealers are disposable and easily locked up. The ringleaders - the real masterminds - are the ones that have money to hire attorneys to fight the charges and cover their tracks better by hiring middlemen and such.

I have no idea what Bill Gothard has to do with anything, so I’m just going to ignore that.

It was another example of government over-reach where the public was made to believe that the state (using the complete power of law enforcement without much regard to civil rights) could eliminate a social problem (drugs and crime).

Yuppers.

….was linked by the Huffington Post when they claimed (correctly) that more whites than blacks use most legal and illegal drugs, but more blacks are in jail for it. They link to this interesting bit of work out of the U. of Michigan which allows you to look at which group (racial/ethnic/age/gender/whatever) has ever used it, how often each percentage uses it, and the like. The interesting thing is that while whites are more likely to have tried most drugs, blacks and native Americans are more likely to be using them often. So if the 2011 sample is representative of what we really have—IF—then we would assume laws against drugs and their enforcement will hit minority populations harder. This study does not include the dosage, though, so we don’t have a good measurement of problem usage or addiction.

We also have the question of why minority populations are more likely to become routine users of these drugs or addicted to them. Million dollar question to which “family status” and “poverty” are at best partial answers, I’m sure.

Here is an interesting table of homicide rates from 1950 to today. We see a relative peak lasting from about 1970 to about 1993, with local maxima in 1980 and 1991. The drop in homicide rates really starts in 1993, which is too late for the 1986 Reagan era law and too early for Bill Clinton’s crime bill to have really planed “the” significant role. Here’s an interesting summary of the 1994 Crime bill that admits…it didn’t change much.

And how do you get to the kingpins? Sad to say, I think a lot of that is shown by how guys like Hoover and Giuliani worked against the Mob….you get to little guys until you get some who talk, get the next layer, the next layer….obviously not fun for the little guys, but that’s how they got the Godfathers in jail, no? It’s also worth noting that New York City’s plunge in crime was done about the same way….they decided not to let the little crimes slide anymore. Kids that knew their prints were on file suddenly decided to stop leaving them at crime scenes, more or less.

Things to fix in that model? Sure. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Joel, Thanks for that … I think. My point is that the increased penalties for crack were the idea of the black community. So the idea that it was racist from its inception is, well, troubling at best.

As to your post, I am told by law enforcement here that they don’t care that much about low level dealers. They want the big guys. There’s no doubt that a lot of low level drug dealers were/are imprisoned. They were drug dealers selling to kids and others. It is not unjust to punish them as if they were drug dealers because they are, in fact, drug dealers. And the fact that others were not punished the same is hardly a reason not to punish them. The solution was and is to not sell drugs. We will never know the outcome if the drug war had been waged another way. We can talk about disparity (though it won’t matter much since none of us here have the power to do anything about it) and there may be disparity, but the answer isn’t to lessen the penalty; it is to stop the offense. People who don’t deal drugs don’t have to worry about sentencing disparities in drug cases.

[Larry]

Joel, Thanks for that … I think. My point is that the increased penalties for crack were the idea of the black community. So the idea that it was racist from its inception is, well, troubling at best.

As to your post, I am told by law enforcement here that they don’t care that much about low level dealers. They want the big guys. There’s no doubt that a lot of low level drug dealers were/are imprisoned. They were drug dealers selling to kids and others. It is not unjust to punish them as if they were drug dealers because they are, in fact, drug dealers. And the fact that others were not punished the same is hardly a reason not to punish them. The solution was and is to not sell drugs. We will never know the outcome if the drug war had been waged another way. We can talk about disparity (though it won’t matter much since none of us here have the power to do anything about it) and there may be disparity, but the answer isn’t to lessen the penalty; it is to stop the offense. People who don’t deal drugs don’t have to worry about sentencing disparities in drug cases.

Of course they want the kingpins. But the billions of $ of federal funding for the drug task forces has been based on the number of arrests made, and it doesn’t distinguish whether they were Kingpins or low-level dealers, so there has been a tendency by many police departments in the US to go after the tiny fish to ensure that government money keeps on flowing. Its human nature.

As for your solution “Just don’t sell drugs!” There are some that have no choice or few options. For example, the first drug dealer that I became friends with was mentally challenged and was forced to sell drugs on the corner by his brother (who was the kingpin in the neighborhood) They made him play Russian roulette and rubbed human feces on his face to keep him selling. My boss and I introduced him to a Grand Rapids Vice squad officer and he ratted out about 10 drug houses on the North side of GR. He also was caught selling drugs but for all his information that he shared, he still had to serve 5 years in prison and all they could get on his brother was 6 months. While in prison he was brutally raped because he was mentally challenged and frail, not being able to stand up for himself.

The question is, does the punishment fit the crime? For a non-violent offender, the answer is overwhelmingly no. It doesn’t serve as a deterrent. it doesn’t make our streets safer, It does, however, get certain government officials/prosecutors elected and provides a false sense of security for the public, while bloating the government and raising our taxes to pay for more prisons. It also helps maintain fatherlessness. And every stat available connects fatherlessness as a contributor to those who commit crime. By the way, I am also all for safety and making sure the violent offender/drug kingpin serves their time to the fullest.

Also, here are some links to the Prison Fellowship Website, which holds to similar view points that I have expressed on criminal justice reform.

https://www.prisonfellowship.org/resources/advocacy/sentencing/overcrim…

https://www.prisonfellowship.org/resources/advocacy/sentencing/drug-cri…

https://www.prisonfellowship.org/site/?wpdmdl=28421

Also, here’s a link to an event at Kings College that addressed this very issue, Overcriminalization and mass incarceration: race and justice beyon the new jim crow. https://www.tkc.edu/stories/overcriminalization-mass-incarceration-race…

It takes…treason….to lose one’s federal pension? Seriously? I would have figured a serious felony committed on the job would qualify, but…wow. I’m no big fan of pensions in general—too many games played with them—but Joe, you’re describing “on the job retirement” beautifully, or woefully, or something.

One thing I like about Drumpf/Trump so far; he’s done what I can’t remember Obama ever doing, which is to fire a lawless bureaucrat. Two guys from the VA got let go on inauguration day. Hopefully he takes a good look at a lot of people whose actions have brought the government into disrepute and takes some action that puts the fear of God into these guys.

The only way a federal pension holder loses his or her pension is if they are convicted of Treason. In Gov language she reached her KMA date…

Those two sentences encapsulate so much of what is wrong with government employees and especially government unions. That would never be tolerated in any normal (non-governmental) job. I hope Trump and Congress fix it.

Once you’re past probation and fully covered by the union, you’re good. Believe it. You are virtually untouchable as long as you show you have a pulse and put forth minimal effort to meet expectations.

When I call other state government supervisors to discuss former employees who are applying for jobs with our investigations unit, many are actually afraid to give honest feedback on their former employee. If somebody doesn’t get a job, they can file a public records request, get copies of all paperwork associated with the hiring decision, then sue their former supervisor for giving a negative evaluation to a prospective employer. It makes the supervisor just want to say, “well, look at the annual evaluations in their file.” But, because everybody is so afraid of being “negative,” the evaluations are frequently worthless. Criticism is deliberately muted and you have to learn to spot “code phraseology” in the narrative portions of the annual evaluations. For example:

• “Jamie is meeting performance expectations with regards to investigations completed for this past year” = “Jamie really sucks.”
• “Jamie is continuing to make great strides in improving her report writing skills and factual analysis” = “Jamie couldn’t investigate her way out of a wet paper bag, and wouldn’t know how to write about it if she did.”

Believe it. That is why the stereotype about government workers being drones exists … some people are useless, and there’s often little you can do about it.

….in the private sector is really only good until the company goes bankrupt. Around where I grew up, Bethlehem Steel funded a great portion of their pensions with corporate bonds, and of course that became worthless when they went Chapter 11. You the taxpayer are paying part, but not all, of that. Lots of companies did that, really.

(the “GM and Chrysler” bailout was really the UAW bailout—their pensions would have gone into the federal system at a lower rate, and their healthcare for retirees would have gone, but the core of the companies would have remained…)

The sooner “promise now pay later but don’t talk to an actuary or financial expert” and the pension system goes, the better. Just hopefully while inflicting the last possible amount of pain on all involved.

Joe, while the overall compensation package is a big deal, I really don’t think ending pensions is going to be a deal killer for young people today. For starters, a lot of them have watched as their parents’ companies went bankrupt and they got their “good” pensions cut severely, more have seen what happened when their granddad died at 59.5 years and the pension cutoff was 60, and even more are fully aware that with job security being a thing of the past, qualifying for a pension requiring 10/20/30 years of service is going to take some doing. There’s also the reality of what happens when people “hang on” just for a pension in “on the job retirement”—working with such people is horrible.

In other words, in the world we live in today, 401k is a plus over pensions as far as I’m concerned. Get the pay scales right, sure, but no workplace ought to have the games that accompany most pensions in my view.

I think pensions are bad both for governments and for individuals. Pensions are a major part of what is killing some of our urban cities like Detroit and other places. It would be better for all to have 401Ks or to fund their own retirements. It takes a bit of fiscal wisdom and discipline, but in the long way, it’s a better way to go.