In the November 18 issue of the university newspaper The Hoya, Georgetown senior Oliver Friedfeld wrote an op-ed about
his own mugging at gunpoint the weekend before. It was entitled, “I Was Mugged and I Understand Why.” His explanation is another nail in the
coffin of American sanity and another victory for progressive brainwashing in
academia.
Asked by a reporter if he were surprised that an armed robbery occurred
in upscale Georgetown, the “solidly middle-class” Friedfeld immediately replied,
“Not at all.” After all, he explains, “We live in the most privileged
neighborhood within a city that has historically been, and continues to be,
harshly unequal.”
Since economic disparity undoubtedly caused his attackers to rob him,
Friedfeld thinks it’s unfair to refer to them as “thugs,” “criminals” or “bad
people.” He “trusted” that they weren’t out to hurt him; they only wanted his
possessions. “While I don’t know what exactly they needed the money for” – I’m
guessing an iPhone, new Air Jordans, or drugs, but almost certainly not food to
survive – “I do know that I’ve never once had to think about going out on a
Saturday night to mug people... The fact that these two kids, who appeared
younger than I, have even had to entertain these questions suggests their
universes are light years away from mine.”
Apparently it is common sense and a grasp of individual responsibility that
are light years away from Friedfeld’s experience. First of all, he has no way
of knowing if these “kids” are worse off than he; they could be fellow
Georgetown students, for that matter. Second, he has never had to contemplate
threatening people with a (probably illegally obtained) firearm in order to
take what doesn’t belong to him, not because he has never been poor, but
because, like most of us, he has chosen to be law-abiding. To assume that
poverty made them rob him is an
unconscionable slap in the face to the impoverished who work hard and long to
make ends meet but who nonetheless have the honor, dignity, and moral
conscience to lead law-abiding lives. But this is the progressive mindset: that
some vague, irresistible entity called “society” somehow overrides our personal
ability to choose to act rightly or wrongly.
“I’d venture to guess,” Friedfeld continues, “that our attackers have had
to experience things I’ve never dreamed of.” So what? People are not
automatically compelled by their “experiences” to commit armed robbery; they must
make many decisions along the way, choices that are their own responsibility. Not necessarily in this order: they make
decisions to commit a felony, to obtain (again, probably illegally) a firearm, to
load it, to conceal it and their identity, to go out and stalk a victim, to
select one and then to draw that weapon and force the victim to the floor at
gunpoint to take his possessions. At every step of the way, that criminal is
under his own power to stop himself, to call off this felonious act that could
very well result in an innocent person’s death.
“When I walk around at 2 a.m., nobody looks at me suspiciously,” says
Friedfeld, “and police don’t ask me any questions. I wonder if our attackers
could say the same.” Again, so what? Does he truly believe that people are
driven to commit crimes because others view them with suspicion? This reasoning
isn’t compassionate, it’s simply nonsensical. It’s depressing to think that the
Georgetown University education Friedfeld has pursued for four years hasn’t resulted
in critical thinking skills.
He goes on: “Who am I to stand from my perch of privilege, surrounded by
million-dollar homes and paying for a $60,000 education, to condemn these young
men as ‘thugs?’ It’s precisely this kind of ‘otherization’ that fuels the
problem.” You read that correctly: he has no right to judge armed bandits who
were willing to shoot him had he resisted, because that would be “otherizing”
them, or some such politically correct idiocy.
For a moment, let’s grant Friedfeld’s point. Let’s assume the armed
robbers did indeed steal from him because poverty drove them to it. If that’s
so, then Friedfeld is so brainwashed that he can’t see that he has been otherized by the criminals who targeted him for his
affluence. He has been made the rich Other from whom it is acceptable to steal. Because, income disparity.
“Young people who willingly or unwillingly go down this road have been
dealt a bad hand,” writes Friedfeld. But even the D.C. police officer who
responded to the mugging told Friedfeld that he too had come from difficult
circumstances, and yet had made the choice not to turn to crime. “This is a
very fair point,” Friedfeld conceded. “We all make decisions.” It’s more than a
fair point – it is the only point.
Regardless of one’s situation, your choices – not your situation – define you.
“If we ever want opportunistic crime to end, we should look at ourselves
first... When we play along with a system that fuels this kind of desperation,
we can’t be surprised when we’re touched by it.” Again, he has no evidence to
assume that his attackers were driven by “desperation,” but in any case, opportunistic
crime will never end, because human beings will never rid themselves of greed
or immorality. All the income equality in the world won’t bring an end to that.
Brace yourself for Friedfeld’s pathetically weak conclusion: We must “devote
real energy,” he writes, “to solving what are collective challenges. Until we
do so, we should get comfortable with sporadic muggings and break-ins. I can
hardly blame them.” So his solution to armed robbery is to urge us to accept
being compassionate, understanding victims until we can get our collectivist
utopia up and running.
To paraphrase Iriving Kristol, a liberal is simply a conservative who
hasn’t been mugged by reality yet. But today, not only is a mugging not enough
to drive some sense into a young progressive, it actually confirms his worldview about economic inequality. It confirms, not
the armed robber’s guilt, but the victim’s
guilt for (presumably) being better off. This is precisely the sort of
“victim-blaming” that drives progressives into a rage when applied toward rape
victims. But when it comes to “white privilege” and “income inequality,” moral
equivalence rules, and reason flies out the window.
(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 11/28/14)
