Crime and the death penalty

No topic draws a clearer line between liberals and conservatives than that of violent crime. Strict Father morality sees the cure for violent crime simply as strict punishment. This derives from the Strict Father model of the family that demands that disobedience must be punished, preferably in a painful fashion with an instrument like a belt or a rod. It assumes the Morality of Reward and Punishment, which says that punishment is the moral alternative. And it also assumes a behaviorist theory of human nature that says punishment will work to eliminate violence.

In addition, conservatives claim that violent crime has been the result of "permissive" childrearing practices. They claim that violent crime in later life is caused by a lack of strict discipline at home, a lack of painful corporal punishment in response to disobedience. A mother's nurturance without a father's discipline, they imply, produces antisocial, uninhibited, violent children with no respect for law. Conservatives, using this reasoning, attribute the rise in violent crime to the corresponding decline in the presence of fathers in American homes, due to divorce and illegitimacy. The assumption is that a father would administer strict discipline, with painful corporal punishment for disobedience, and that this would teach children to behave and to grow up as law-abiding, self-reliant citizens.

The Nurturant Parent model of the family makes exactly the opposite claim. It says that children are best socialized and taught responsibility through a nurturant upbringing where discipline is maintained through loving, respectful, and firm interactions and a constant attention to mutual responsibilities and explanations. Painful corporal punishment, the nurturant model says, does just the opposite of what it is intended to do. It teaches violence and violence begets violence. Children who are made to submit through pain to the will of a parent are taught to make others submit to them through their use of violent methods. Correspondingly, neglect has a similar effect. Neglect is a lack of the nurturance in which discipline comes out of loving, responsible interactions. Neglect is thus a form of violence, a denial of needed nurturance.

Liberals respond that violence among fatherless children living in high-crime districts is a result of one or more of the following: (1) mothers who act like abusive strict fathers, administering corporal punishment for disobedience and berating their children; (2) mothers who are neglectful; or (3) social causes, such as poverty or peer pressure. Liberals further argue that mothers who are abusive or neglectful were abused or neglected themselves. The long-term cure for violent crime, liberals argue, is (1) nurturant environments in which there are no neglectful or abusive strict-parent models and (2) the reduction or elimination of poverty by the provision of job training and jobs. From the liberal perspective, what the conservatives are suggesting would just increase violence.

Advocates of nurturant-parent child-rearing practices cite research indicating that strict-father families and corporal punishment contribute importantly to delinquency and violence in later life. Such studies will be discussed in Chapter 21.

Gun Control

Liberal support for gun control is a consequence of the nurturant parent's view of painful corporal punishment – that it contributes to a cycle of violence. Guns are not intended just for target practice or sport. They are intended to hurt or kill people. The very presence of a gun evokes scenarios in which guns are used. These scenarios (self-defense, retribution, or revenge) all share the property that violent punishment is seen as the natural response to wrongdoing. That very idea, the Nurturant Parent model claims, leads to further violence. And further violence with guns means more killing.

Conservatives' support for the right to bear arms – even the right to bear machine guns – comes from Strict Father morality, which says that it is the responsibility of everyone to protect himself as well as he can and it is the responsibility of the Strict Father to protect his family. Guns are seen as the individual's form of protection in a hostile world and they are symbolic of the male role as family protector. They are an instrument of moral strength and a symbol of the power of the Strict Father. As such, they also uphold the moral order. There is thus a very good reason why it is conservatives who support the right to bear arms at a time when conservatives are down in general on rights as liberals have defined them, e.g., the right to a decent standard of living, the right to an education, and the like.

There is also a good reason why very impassioned opposition to gun control often goes with survivalism. Survivalism is about self-reliance through self-discipline, the hallmark of Strict Father morality. And there is a good reason why those who are impassioned about the right to bear arms and about survivalism are also against the income tax. As we have seen, opposition to taxation fits Strict Father morality. And there is a reason why advocates of the right to bear arms are often violently anticommunist. The Strict Father model provides the link between the protective function of the father and the principle of the Morality of Reward and Punishment, the very basis of all morality in the Strict Father model.

This is by no means to say that all conservatives are gun nuts, survivalists, antitax activists, and strong anticommunists. But there is a good reason why those values fit together and why people with those values tend to be conservatives.

Crime

Why do conservatives believe in spending money to build more prisons, and in tougher sentencing laws even for nonviolent offenders. Why do they support the Three-Strikes-and-You're-Out law, mandating twenty-five-year-to-life sentences for repeat nonviolent as well as violent offenders? Why do they do so in the face of evidence that having more people in prison does not reduce crime?

The state of Minnesota's Kids First program, which stresses day care, education, and community involvement, has succeeded in crime prevention at a much lower cost than running prisons. Why has this model not been supported by conservatives?

The answer comes out of Strict Father morality, in which the Moral Strength system of metaphors is primary, with Moral Self-interest right behind it. Strict Father morality thus includes Retribution, Moral Strength, Moral Self-interest, and Moral Essence. Retribution sees punishment as defining justice. The priority of Moral Strength entails that a show of strength is the best protection against evil. It is a consequence of Moral Self-interest that people act in their own self-interest; hence, people will commit crimes if it is in their interest (that is, if punishment is lenient) and won't commit crimes if it is not in their interest (if punishment is harsh). And according to Moral Essence, past behavior is a guide to essential character and essential character predicts future behavior. Therefore, a repeat offender has a bad character, which means he's likely to commit crimes again. To protect the public, he should be imprisoned for a long time.

By Strict Father morality, harsh prison terms for criminals and life imprisonment for repeat offenders are the only moral options. Programs like Minnesota's Kids First are social programs and are, as such, immoral to conservatives for reasons given above. The conservative arguments are moral arguments, not practical arguments. Statistics about which policies do or do not actually reduce crime rates do not count in a morality-based discourse.

Liberals, following Nurturant Parent morality, point to Minnesota's Kids First as an argument that prevention programs can reduce crime, while pointing to statistics indicating that putting people in prison does not. Liberals see crime as having social causes – poverty, unemployment, alienation, and lack of caring and community – and argue that social programs are needed to address those social causes. Conservatives don't believe in social causes of crime or in any other social causes. Let's consider why.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14