According to a recent news report, California has adopted a policy of increased leniency toward criminals.  Unsurprisingly, violent crime in that state has significantly increased.  Could anyone fail to make the connection between the leniency and the increased violence?  Unfortunately, yes.  Liberals and progressives have many talents, and cognitive dissonance is one of them.  Indeed, without it, progressive liberalism would soon cease to exist. It is a well known law of economics that the more one rewards something, the more of it one gets, and the converse is also true.  The less one punishes criminality – murder, robbery, rape, and the like – the more of it is produced.  So why do liberals persist in their fantasies, despite the overwhelming body of facts that would persuade any sane policy-maker that the fantasies are wrong? The reason is that liberal ideology holds that humans are by nature good – or at the worst,...(Read Full Post)