Was this blatantly clickbait?
Maybe, you don't know.
You're here aren'tcha?
Ah, so nice to be back, can't believe this is where im starting-actually it makes perfect sense-aka -THE PREAMBLE
Anywho, its not unknown to most...*ahem* serious leftists that there's some serious hypocrisy within the democratic party and most who know themselves to be "liberals". See, the biggest differentiation between "leftists" and "liberals" tends to be (in my mind at least), that Liberals believe there to be a way to salvage capitalism and that our current system of governance is mostly fine with some hick ups (mostly conservatives). Leftists on the other hand, believe there to be a systemic issue starting at the very foundation of our government.
Now, leftism and liberalism are both extremely broad and varied- but this seems to be the primary difference. That being said, this post is not about liberals (you know who you are), no, this post is about Leftists proper. Ancom/soc's, communists, collectivists, etc, etc. This is necessary to point out because I really don't feel like digging through the pointless objections and generalizations.
Okay, but WHAT hypocrisies best friend Weakeredge?? aka -THE POINT
Simple, on our base level Leftists are people who want equality-we want to do so in a way where people don't get hurt- we want to do so in a way that betters society. And yet, soooo many of us advocate prison. Now; there are certainly situations where there is no other outcome, particularly when the individual is violent and is unable to be soothed. But that archetype makes up such a low percentage of such situations that its sad people would pretend otherwise.
Its not just prison though, fundamentally so many "solutions" offered by leftists buy into the idea of retributive justice. Really, if I were more organized, I woulda introduced the idea and talked about why i think its bad- but nah im not so here we are- thats the main point. We can't just default to the idea that people arbitrarily deserve x or y. There's a reason why so many of these moral quandary's are fundamentally flawed.
What if- and here me out here- it doesn't particularly matter what people deserve? The core principle of mercy is the idea of abandoning justice, ala, forgiveness OR the ability to let live. Now, Im not saying to embrace your abusers-have a chat and let bygones be bygones- not my point here. Abandoning retribution does not mean accepting abuse or evil. It means recognizing that retribution for nothing more than the sake of retribution is useless- less than useless considering prison usually creates MORE violent criminals.
Leftists need to abandon retribution as the answer, The Right tried that- it. did. not. work. We cannot preach equality and wanting to better society and then default to retribution as our answer to everything.