Portland terrorists (aka "antifas") will use ANY reason to riot.
The most recent excuse was the ill-advised SCOTUS decision on abortion that I would estimate 80% of my fellow Oregonians disagree with.
So, why are they rioting? Have women been forced to look to back alley abortionists?
No. In fact Oregon is building clinics to allow women from nearby Mountain states that are likely to "trigger" abortion prohibitions in those states.
Oregon not only has zero barriers to abortion, something I and many Oregonians agree with, but there are no barriers because of age, residency or income. In fact Oregon's State Constitution guarantees a woman's right to choice, so that absent an actual federal ban on states allowing abortion (something that exists only in the fevered imagination of radicals and Clarence Thomas) there is literally no place IN THE WORLD that makes access to abortion easier than Oregon.
So, why are they breaking windows, setting fires, and violating the law while police stand by and "observe?" Because they like burning and destroying stuff and spreading terror in a once-weird but cool community.
The no barriers to abortion and agreement among a majority of Oregonians is not a fact but an anecdote. I have traveled through out Oregon and spoken with many people of all income groups, religions, philosophies, etc. My anecdotal evidence is that many Oregonians agree with the freedom of choice but disagree with the ability to kill a child at birth. Most will say up to first trimester even though that is pushing it. More of the people I've spoken with support the ability to put up for adoption rather than termination. Remember, all the counties outside of Lane, Multnomah and Ashland trend red. My question would be this: outlaw vote-by-mail and go back to one day, one vote, results by the next day. If you don't vote or sign up for absentee legally then that's on you.
The law in Oregon is statewide and allows abortion without any restrictions whatsoever. In some rural counties it might be very difficult to find a doctor or hospital willing to perform an abortion.
There are 36 counties in Oregon and six reliably vote Democratic: Multnomah Lane, Benton, Clatsop, Hood River, and Washington Counties.
Ashland is part of Jackson county which is very red other than that particular town.
Yes. The law says one thing yet the true feelings of a majority is as I have stated. It is a contentious issue only because of political framing. Now is the true test whereby the people at large will have to be sold on the no restrictions abortion idea. If asked most people will plead ignorance to that and will instead say they thought it was first trimester only. Truth will prevail.
I was born and raised in the Bay Area and lived in San Francisco for thirty years. I moved out of state a year ago. I have children and I was very concerned for their well being and safety as they moved into adolescence. It broke my heart to leave the city that was once my home. I left behind a community of cherished friends and colleagues. I hold precious memories from my childhood to adulthood. Dinner celebrations at the Cliff House. Restaurants from North Beach to the theatre district where I’d waited tables as I worked to make ends meet while pursuing creative endeavors. Meeting my husband in the theatre. Getting married at City Hall. The birth of my own children and the years dedicated to their school and our church community. My volunteer work with a number of organizations. All in San Francisco. Sadly, I also witnessed it’s demise. I remember my then 7-year old son asking me why the man on the corner was giving himself “a shot”. Being chased by a meth head with my other son on our way home from the park on a Sunday afternoon. Walking over bodies to get to my front door with my children in tow. After personally witnessing two flash mobs raid my local Walgreens, I no longer allowed my children to come with me when they simply wanted to tag along to look in the toy section. I could no longer rationalize staying in San Francisco with the hope that things would improve. When I finally left, I didn’t move. I fled. I am homesick everyday, but the city I once loved is gone.
A lot to like in this piece. It persuasively lays out why we have laws -- that they function at a deeper and broader level than individual actions, direct damages, and individual infringements.
However, I don't think criminal laws are the only place where this idea that rules exist to reinforce social order obtains. While it's fairly (and importantly) explicit in the case of criminal law, this principle is true in virtually every social situation. If one is a teacher learning classroom management, one learns the value of defining rules clearly and always enforcing them: it creates a cohesive expectation of behavior within the classroom. Punishing those who break the rules isn't (just) about stopping the individual from breaking the rules; it's about ensuring everyone understands the rules will be enforced. The same is true for business leaders. The same is also true for contract law -- you're probably not going to find a lot more people who think it's okay to give your word -- including your signature -- that you will do something, and then break that word than you will people who think it's okay to maim your neighbor. If breaking a contract is not punished, then contracts have no value. The difference in criminal laws is that if they are broken, safety has no value. It's a matter of severity of consequence more than a matter of which one damages society and which one does not.
It is, in a pretty real way, the way society forces its values onto itself. These values are not set in stone, and they are not set once and then forgotten. They are constantly set and reset collectively. When society no longer forces its values onto itself, society coherence dissolves. Social order is not inevitable. This is something that conservatives have understood intuitively for a very long time. While I don't share all the values conservatives would like society to enforce in a lot of cases, there's a sort of desire for order inherent within conservatism. (This is one of the reasons why I dislike the conservative / progressive-liberal "scale" and division, as if a person is *either* conservative *or* progressive / liberal. We all have elements of all within ourselves and our ideas.)
I disagree that there is not a meaningful distinction to be made vis-a-vis civil law — one that is institutionalized, as Durkheim argues, in the practice of awarding restitutive damages and not retributive penalties in such lawsuits. But I totally agree that criminal law isn't the only example of this process of reproduction of the normative order. I've written before about the social ritual of apologizing and how it achieves the same purpose: https://leightonwoodhouse.substack.com/p/magic-words
It was Erving Goffman who first explained the apology in this way, and not coincidentally, Goffman was a Durkheimian.
I sympathize with the critique here of the New Left. The need to publicly punish and shame is an important social ordering function. But I think everyone is abandoning how deterrence used to function in less alienated societies. Potential offenders were actively surveillance by local family and neighbors. The decay of urban America is linked to absence of meaningful, normal surveillance and intervention because good folks are simply to terrified to intervene with strangers (in large part) because guns are everywhere. There is more to the stranger conflict issue, but it is uniquely bad in the U.S.
I’ve often wondered about the semantic difference between words like ‘vengeance’ and ‘justice’ or ‘punishment’ and ‘discipline,’ Revenge, while certainly what many in society seem to seek, always felt like the wrong goal, but it might be the semantic difference is too fine to put a point on. Does Durkheim have anything to say about that?
Portland terrorists (aka "antifas") will use ANY reason to riot.
The most recent excuse was the ill-advised SCOTUS decision on abortion that I would estimate 80% of my fellow Oregonians disagree with.
So, why are they rioting? Have women been forced to look to back alley abortionists?
No. In fact Oregon is building clinics to allow women from nearby Mountain states that are likely to "trigger" abortion prohibitions in those states.
Oregon not only has zero barriers to abortion, something I and many Oregonians agree with, but there are no barriers because of age, residency or income. In fact Oregon's State Constitution guarantees a woman's right to choice, so that absent an actual federal ban on states allowing abortion (something that exists only in the fevered imagination of radicals and Clarence Thomas) there is literally no place IN THE WORLD that makes access to abortion easier than Oregon.
So, why are they breaking windows, setting fires, and violating the law while police stand by and "observe?" Because they like burning and destroying stuff and spreading terror in a once-weird but cool community.
Antifa is the definition of nihilism. Nothing they do has any actual political purpose or value.
The no barriers to abortion and agreement among a majority of Oregonians is not a fact but an anecdote. I have traveled through out Oregon and spoken with many people of all income groups, religions, philosophies, etc. My anecdotal evidence is that many Oregonians agree with the freedom of choice but disagree with the ability to kill a child at birth. Most will say up to first trimester even though that is pushing it. More of the people I've spoken with support the ability to put up for adoption rather than termination. Remember, all the counties outside of Lane, Multnomah and Ashland trend red. My question would be this: outlaw vote-by-mail and go back to one day, one vote, results by the next day. If you don't vote or sign up for absentee legally then that's on you.
The law in Oregon is statewide and allows abortion without any restrictions whatsoever. In some rural counties it might be very difficult to find a doctor or hospital willing to perform an abortion.
There are 36 counties in Oregon and six reliably vote Democratic: Multnomah Lane, Benton, Clatsop, Hood River, and Washington Counties.
Ashland is part of Jackson county which is very red other than that particular town.
Yes. The law says one thing yet the true feelings of a majority is as I have stated. It is a contentious issue only because of political framing. Now is the true test whereby the people at large will have to be sold on the no restrictions abortion idea. If asked most people will plead ignorance to that and will instead say they thought it was first trimester only. Truth will prevail.
I was born and raised in the Bay Area and lived in San Francisco for thirty years. I moved out of state a year ago. I have children and I was very concerned for their well being and safety as they moved into adolescence. It broke my heart to leave the city that was once my home. I left behind a community of cherished friends and colleagues. I hold precious memories from my childhood to adulthood. Dinner celebrations at the Cliff House. Restaurants from North Beach to the theatre district where I’d waited tables as I worked to make ends meet while pursuing creative endeavors. Meeting my husband in the theatre. Getting married at City Hall. The birth of my own children and the years dedicated to their school and our church community. My volunteer work with a number of organizations. All in San Francisco. Sadly, I also witnessed it’s demise. I remember my then 7-year old son asking me why the man on the corner was giving himself “a shot”. Being chased by a meth head with my other son on our way home from the park on a Sunday afternoon. Walking over bodies to get to my front door with my children in tow. After personally witnessing two flash mobs raid my local Walgreens, I no longer allowed my children to come with me when they simply wanted to tag along to look in the toy section. I could no longer rationalize staying in San Francisco with the hope that things would improve. When I finally left, I didn’t move. I fled. I am homesick everyday, but the city I once loved is gone.
Wow.
A lot to like in this piece. It persuasively lays out why we have laws -- that they function at a deeper and broader level than individual actions, direct damages, and individual infringements.
However, I don't think criminal laws are the only place where this idea that rules exist to reinforce social order obtains. While it's fairly (and importantly) explicit in the case of criminal law, this principle is true in virtually every social situation. If one is a teacher learning classroom management, one learns the value of defining rules clearly and always enforcing them: it creates a cohesive expectation of behavior within the classroom. Punishing those who break the rules isn't (just) about stopping the individual from breaking the rules; it's about ensuring everyone understands the rules will be enforced. The same is true for business leaders. The same is also true for contract law -- you're probably not going to find a lot more people who think it's okay to give your word -- including your signature -- that you will do something, and then break that word than you will people who think it's okay to maim your neighbor. If breaking a contract is not punished, then contracts have no value. The difference in criminal laws is that if they are broken, safety has no value. It's a matter of severity of consequence more than a matter of which one damages society and which one does not.
It is, in a pretty real way, the way society forces its values onto itself. These values are not set in stone, and they are not set once and then forgotten. They are constantly set and reset collectively. When society no longer forces its values onto itself, society coherence dissolves. Social order is not inevitable. This is something that conservatives have understood intuitively for a very long time. While I don't share all the values conservatives would like society to enforce in a lot of cases, there's a sort of desire for order inherent within conservatism. (This is one of the reasons why I dislike the conservative / progressive-liberal "scale" and division, as if a person is *either* conservative *or* progressive / liberal. We all have elements of all within ourselves and our ideas.)
I disagree that there is not a meaningful distinction to be made vis-a-vis civil law — one that is institutionalized, as Durkheim argues, in the practice of awarding restitutive damages and not retributive penalties in such lawsuits. But I totally agree that criminal law isn't the only example of this process of reproduction of the normative order. I've written before about the social ritual of apologizing and how it achieves the same purpose: https://leightonwoodhouse.substack.com/p/magic-words
It was Erving Goffman who first explained the apology in this way, and not coincidentally, Goffman was a Durkheimian.
I sympathize with the critique here of the New Left. The need to publicly punish and shame is an important social ordering function. But I think everyone is abandoning how deterrence used to function in less alienated societies. Potential offenders were actively surveillance by local family and neighbors. The decay of urban America is linked to absence of meaningful, normal surveillance and intervention because good folks are simply to terrified to intervene with strangers (in large part) because guns are everywhere. There is more to the stranger conflict issue, but it is uniquely bad in the U.S.
Nice piece! Well argued and defended.
I’ve often wondered about the semantic difference between words like ‘vengeance’ and ‘justice’ or ‘punishment’ and ‘discipline,’ Revenge, while certainly what many in society seem to seek, always felt like the wrong goal, but it might be the semantic difference is too fine to put a point on. Does Durkheim have anything to say about that?