Chris Powell: Political correctness flusters response to assault in school; cannibal and gambling updates
Downtown Waterbury, called “The Brass City” in its industrial heyday.
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Three principles of Connecticut's political correctness have collided sensationally in Waterbury, where two middle-school students recently assaulted two other students. The victims, twin 13-year-old sisters new to the school, are of Arab descent and wore Muslim hijabs that were ripped off, so the alleged perpetrators, ages 12 and 11, are suspected of religious or ethnic prejudice. That would make the assault a “hate crime," and a political fuss is being made about it.
Children are often cruel and stupid and pick on others simply for being different. So it's just as plausible that the assault was motivated by ordinary cruelty and stupidity rather than any serious animus toward religion or ethnicity. Waterbury police are investigating and maybe they'll find out, though the public may not be told, because of those colliding principles of political correctness.
Those principles are:
1) Perpetrators of “hate crimes" should be more severely punished than perpetrators of ordinary crime because ordinary enforcement of criminal law doesn't demonstrate political correctness.
2) Short of murder, children misbehaving in school shouldn't be charged criminally or even punished at all, just referred to social workers.
3) Crime by juveniles should be handled secretly so there can never be any accountability for them or the government.
The collapse of discipline in public education argues for serious and visible punishment of students who commit assault -- something more ominous than the Waterbury middle-school principal's squishy statement about “respect, inclusivity and kindness," something requiring suspension from school and reparations to the victims.
But in the end little can be done with 11- and 12-year-olds except to watch them grow up. School authorities should be held to account but the ‘‘hate crime" crowd should can its bluster.
CANNIBAL WATCH: Questions posed by Republican state senators to the state Psychiatric Security Review Board about Tyree Smith, the murderer-cannibal whom the board recently paroled have turned out to be good ones.
In response the other week, the board's executive director, Vanessa Cardella, confirmed that despite the heavy supervision the parolee is receiving at the group home where he has been placed -- six state employees or contractors are keeping an eye on him -- he still will have plenty of time to be out and about on his own.
Cardella didn't know how much the supervisors will be paid for working on the parolee's case, but it seems likely to be many thousands of dollars a year.
Most people may not understand the necessity for the murderer-cannibal's parole and its expense. Indeed, they may be shocked and appalled. But they shouldn't blame the board, for it is only following the law, which calls for the perpetrator's release if the board thinks he'll be fine if he adheres to the conditions of his parole, which include medication.
Of course there can be no guarantee. Serious risk to the public will continue, which is why a better outcome would have been to keep the man residing in a comfortable room at the state's high-security mental hospital. This probably would be less expensive as well.
But that better outcome requires changing the law about acquittals by reason of insanity. The law simply shouldn't allow release of murderers before their old age. Republican legislators, a small minority in the General Assembly, should submit such legislation even though the Democratic majority will reject it. For at least then some Democrats may be asked to explain why people should feel good about the outcome of the murderer-cannibal's case.
THE PERFECT TAX: A recent study by the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services found that people addicted to gambling constitute less than 2 percent of Connecticut's population but produce more than half the state's sports betting revenue and a fifth of its revenue from all forms of gambling.
While the department sees this as a problem with a huge human cost, elected officials see it as a political solution -- the perfect tax. A tiny and disparaged minority finances a disproportionate share of state government and that human cost is not on state government's books.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
Chris Powell: Political correctness can't transform boys into girls
ALICE: "One can't believe impossible things.''
THE WHITE QUEEN: "I daresay you haven't had much practice. When I was your age I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.''
-- From Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll.
Connecticut lately is getting plenty of practice trying to believe impossible things, not least because of high school sports contests that let boys compete as girls if they insist that they want to be girls. Two such boys, excellent athletes, recently have been finishing first and second in track meets for girls.
There has been some grousing that this is unfair, but on the whole it seems that those most directly aggrieved by the expropriation of the girls events are afraid of coming out as politically incorrect. They fear acknowledging the obvious -- that there are physiological differences between the sexes, starting with the male and female chromosomes, differences that in general give athletic advantages to males, advantages confirmed by the instant success of the boys competing in the girls track meets.
Connecticut law now presumes to deny this basic science by insisting on the right of people who reject their biological gender to use the bathrooms designated for the other gender. The ancient right of sexual privacy has been crushed under the heel of this political correctness.
Biology and science are being discarded in favor of mere individual desire, leaving society with no objective criteria for determining whether someone is male or female. People are to be only what they call themselves, though it used to be understood that, as Lincoln noted, just calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.
If, as this trend presumes, there are really no differences between the sexes, there no longer will be any rationale for gender divisions in sports, from schools right up through professional leagues. As men who impersonate women begin competing that way, athletic opportunities and recognition for women will be reduced, as the success of the transgendered high school runners in Connecticut already has reduced them. Are women really going to sit quietly through this?
Requiring those runners to compete against their biological gender would deny them no opportunity. As this would remain a free country, the boys could still style and present themselves as girls. No one would have any power to interfere with their personal lives. There would be no need to review their medical histories, as is done elsewhere with claims of transgenderism, nor to psychoanalyze them. They could be themselves and their unconventionality would be no more publicized than it already is. No longer taking advantage of others, they would be less resented.
Indeed, in that case any honors they won might be considered not just more fairly but also more courageously won than honors they won by pretending to be girls.
Political correctness can intimidate people into silence but it can't control what they think, and honors received by able-bodied boys and men competing athletically against girls and women are not likely ever to be considered completely legitimate -- and they shouldn't be, no matter how much the White Queen enjoyed believing impossible things.
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.