{"id":8540,"date":"2015-07-16T08:06:35","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T15:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=8540"},"modified":"2015-07-16T08:06:35","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T15:06:35","slug":"progressive-elites-ignore-human-nature-at-everyone-elses-expense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/progressive-elites-ignore-human-nature-at-everyone-elses-expense\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive Elites Ignore Human Nature at Everyone Else\u2019s Expense"},"content":{"rendered":"
by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\"Protesters
Protesters march over proposed austerity measures in Athens. (Louisa Gouliamaki\/AFP\/Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

H<\/span>uman nature is unchanging, predictable \u2014 and can be dangerous if ignored.<\/p>\n

Five-time deportee and seven-time felon Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an unauthorized immigrant, recently was arrested in San Francisco for the murder of an innocent passerby, Kate Steinle.<\/p>\n

The alleged killer told a local TV station that he came to San Francisco because it was a sanctuary city. San Francisco has long boasted that it would not turn over unauthorized immigrants to federal immigration authorities.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Can it be that announcing such exemptions actually draws in foreign citizens who have arrived in the U.S. illegally and committed crimes?<\/p>\n

What is true compassion \u2014 deporting a repeat felon like Lopez-Sanchez back to his home country, or turning him loose on potential victims such as Kate Steinle?<\/p>\n

Baltimore just fired its police commissioner, Anthony Batts, for his supposed inability to stop an epidemic of violent crime.<\/p>\n

But not long ago, after the riots that followed suspect Freddie Gray\u2019s death while in police custody, Batts and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake had promised to rein in the police. They seemed to blame Baltimore\u2019s police culture for Gray\u2019s death even before the indictments and trials of the arresting officers involved.<\/p>\n

Amid the rioting, Rawlings-Blake infamously assured Baltimore that \u201cwe also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The murder rate in Baltimore has nearly doubled since the May riots. Nonfatal shootings in Baltimore have also surged.<\/p>\n

Is it possible that when offenders became convinced they would not necessarily be arrested or even questioned \u2014 and would be given space to burn, while police were blamed for being too proactive \u2014 these offenders became more visible, and police less visible?<\/p>\n

Given human nature, people also like to blame their self-created dilemmas on cosmic forces not of their own making. Take Greece. The Greek government cooked its books to finagle streams of borrowed Northern European cash.<\/p>\n

The Greeks spent what they could not earn faster even than it could be lent. Now, Greece is broke and cannot pay back what it owes.<\/p>\n

But do not suggest to the Greeks that their own endemic tax avoidance, featherbedding, and corruption caused their financial collapse. It is so much easier for humans to blame \u201cthem\u201d: in this case, German creditors who either loaned Greeks too much money, or made too much money on the loans, or who had Nazi grandparents who once occupied Greece 75 years ago.<\/p>\n

Former Maryland governor and current presidential candidate Martin O\u2019Malley deplores staggering student-loan debt. He himself has borrowed almost $340,000 to put his two daughters through college. O\u2019Malley wants a new taxpayer-supported plan of subsidizing college students to ensure that they graduate debt-free and avoid the sort of mess he is in.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Malley and his wife, a district court judge, have together made more than $300,000 some years. How did they manage to borrow so much money? And why, well after their two children\u2019s graduations, have they not paid these staggering sums back?<\/p>\n

Again, it is someone else\u2019s fault. But did the O\u2019Malleys have to send one child to $67,000-per-year Georgetown University rather than have her spend her first two years at a junior college? Could they have cut back on their vacations and other expenditures to pay down more on the loans?<\/p>\n

Why should taxpayers \u2014 the overwhelming majority of whom make less than the O\u2019Malleys and do not choose to send their children to tony schools like Georgetown \u2014 lament the family\u2019s staggering debt?<\/p>\n

In all these cases, progressivism assured us that human nature \u2014 self-centered and predictable \u2014 could be improved. Enlightened new theories and policies promised to change behavior by no longer ensuring hurtful punishments or consequences for bad behavior and unwise choices.<\/p>\n

In truth, if humans do not face bridles on their often dangerous appetites and recklessness, they are emboldened to do a great deal of damage, not just to themselves but also to others.<\/p>\n

Those who borrow sums that they cannot pay back usually blame those who lent them the money \u2014 not their own appetites. And elites never seem to pay firsthand for the consequences of their own naive \u2014 and selfish \u2014 theories about human nature.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015 Tribune Media Services, Inc.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online Human nature is unchanging, predictable \u2014 and can be dangerous if ignored. Five-time deportee and seven-time felon Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an unauthorized immigrant, recently was arrested in San Francisco for the murder of an innocent passerby, Kate Steinle. The alleged killer told a local TV station that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[294,619],"tags":[42,1009],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2dK","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11639,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-to-make-it-home-in-california-rules-for-the-modern-odysseus\/","url_meta":{"origin":8540,"position":0},"title":"How to Make It Home in California: Rules for the Modern Odysseus","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness I drove back from San Francisco not long ago to the rural San Joaquin Valley. 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Walking to the car in San Francisco\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8549,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/san-francisco-one-sick-sanctuary-city\/","url_meta":{"origin":8540,"position":1},"title":"San Francisco: One Sick Sanctuary City","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"As is true daily in other sanctuary cities, San Francisco rolled the dice with someone else\u2019s safety, resulting in the murder of Kate Steinle.\u00a0 by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media The horrific \u2014 but likely preventable \u2014 death of Kate Steinle at the hands of five-time deported illegal alien\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mexico"","block_context":{"text":"Mexico","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"In this Tuesday, July 7, 2015 file photo, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, right, is lead into the courtroom by San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, left, and Assistant District Attorney Diana Garciaor, center, for his arraignment at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco. 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Hood, Texas, where in cold-blooded fashion he murdered 12, and wounded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2009"","block_context":{"text":"November 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/november-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8542,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8540\/revisions\/8542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}