Arguably all modern political issues boil down to two key priorities; liberty and safety. As someone who is liberally inclined, I find that people on my side of the political spectrum place a much higher priority on safety than personal liberty, often willing to sacrifice privacy or economic freedom for the sake of ensuring a baseline of governmentally-provided security. Whether that prioritization of safety manifests in social safety nets and welfare programs, governmental invasion of personal privacy to catch potential safety threats or gun control, it seems most liberal positions on issues would lend themselves to the idea that those on the left view safety as paramount to all other objectives of government.

That’s why I find it so incredibly perplexing how crime-infested and dangerous most modern democratic cities are; how is a voter base so open to ceding freedom for safety so consistently voting for politicians that don’t seem to care about making their cities safer? The truth is that there is a disconcerting reality regarding the left's approach to crime; they simply have no idea what they're doing.

I truly believe that the misconceptions that permeate liberal ideas on how to handle crime come from a place of genuine belief in the goodness of humanity, but that doesn’t make the results any less dangerous. A major problem with the leftist worldview is the belief that every single person operates with some set of moral code, and will only break the societally accepted social contract when they are forced to. While a calming belief to hold and a nice thing to say out loud, this simply isn’t true. Every single field in the social sciences at some point must acknowledge that humans have a predisposition to act in their self-interest, even when those actions come at the expense of others.

The problem with far-left voters is that they believe a society in which every person can live without committing crimes is a society in which crime doesn’t exist, which is easily disproved by taking a critical look at pretty much any instance of crime. Why do those with the means to support themselves steal? Why do those who can live without fearing for their lives murder? Why do gangs form in areas that aren’t completely barren of employment and economic growth? I argue there are two main reasons; mental illness and the economy of crime. I will highlight the former first, as it is already something most liberals acknowledge.

Mental illness is an American epidemic, and it needs to be treated as such. Liberals and Leftists alike have a pretty good understanding that preventative measures must be taken to aid those with mental illness and decrease the likelihood that they cause harm to themselves and others, and where these measures have taken place a decrease in violent crime often follows. However, the very unfortunate truth of the matter is that no amount of preventative measures or mental health-conscious education will be able to solve every case of mental illness. The brain is far too complex to be generalized for all 300 plus million Americans, and there aren’t enough resources in the world to keep tabs on the mental state of every person.

Where liberals fail is when somebody undergoes a mental health episode and commits a violent crime is that while often the perpetrator is in a position of marginalization by society, they still pose an imminent threat to valuable innocent lives. As then-senator Joe Biden explained on the Senate floor in 1993, “It doesn’t matter if the person attacking my son or your daughter, my parents or your parents, were deprived as a youth…the end result is they’re about to knock my mother on the head with a lead pipe.”

Preventative measures to reduce mental illness and poverty are unquestionably an important part of creating a perfect society, but the often-held belief that those who commit crimes because of the failings of a previous government in reducing poverty deserve to be left to their devices is dangerous and destructive. I doubt any person living in an area with rampant poverty or mental illness would be okay with criminals being left on the streets when it directly threatens their safety, but often the policy instituted by liberal elected officials does just that. To ensure justice for all citizens, those who threaten security must be taken off the streets, no matter what.

The second reality of crime that liberals don’t acknowledge is that humans will always commit crimes if it is economically beneficial for them to do so (albeit based on many more economic factors than money). When the opportunity cost of not committing a crime (or the benefit given up by not stealing that candy bar) outweighs the utility maintained by keeping your hands in your pockets, every single person will steal that bar. Now I'm sure you’re thinking “Even if I could get away with it, I wouldn’t steal - that’s just not who I am”. Well good news for you, this could be true! However, morals directly factor into the economic calculation that determines whether a crime is worth committing.

If the sum of the utility gained from crime, usually money or personal satisfaction depending on the motive of the crime, outweighs ALL of the potential negative utility incurred, including but not limited to probability of punishment, severity of punishment, moral self-image, and potential loss of social standing, then that crime will be committed. Your moral propensity to avoid crime is part of the calculation. Where liberals often fail most is in overlooking the severity of punishment part of this calculation. Liberal district attorneys and governors subscribe to the oft-cited theory that it is the probability of being caught, not the severity of punishment, that leads to crime deterrence.

Often cited are studies like this one from the Department of Justice, which notes that increasing probability of being caught has a higher impact on reducing crime than increasing punishment. This is true in part but ignores another part of the study that notes for this to be true, a certain level of punishment must be given out to those caught as part of that “certainty of apprehension”. After all, if stealing a car gives you a 90 percent chance of being caught, but your sentence is a day long or your charges always get dropped, why not commit the crime until you get away with it? This is congruent with the theory of crime economy, as severity and probability of punishment are complementary factors when calculating utility. Sure, sending someone to jail for 100 years for theft won’t do much to stop crime from occurring, but not sending them at all most definitely will.

While I believe in stricter crime policy from the left, it should not be forgotten that to root out crime in the future, preventative measures must be taken. Improving education, safety, and opportunities for youths in vulnerable situations is incredibly important to not only keeping them safer but the rest of society safer as well. I believe that if the left is willing to abandon the no-nuance, completely forgiving, and failing crime policy that has kept many major cities as dangerous places to live, they can finally fix their image as a group that is willing to sacrifice the safety of citizens for the sake of some facetious moral high ground. A safer society shouldn’t be a partisan issue. And if liberals can acknowledge that what they’re doing isn’t working, it doesn’t have to be.

Perhaps the last truly divisive issue among college-educated liberals, the Israel-Palestine conflict is far too complicated to be grasped in the brief time that it has taken the spotlight from Ukraine in world affairs. That makes it all the more concerning when young Democrats and liberals immediately attach themselves, without question, to the Palestinian cause. While it would seem on brand for the left to give support to the “underdog”, and the Palestinians are by all means a massive underdog in this conflict, there are some clear contradictions that call in to question the lefts’ stance on this issue.

The most common words I hear from Palestine-supporting leftists to describe the Palestinian condition are “colonized”, “victim”, and “oppressed”, all terms that circulate among liberal circles to lend pity to any group they deem disadvantaged. The problem with the liberal fascination with Palestine, however, is that it runs completely contrary to the strict woke orthodoxy that young modern-day leftists seem to obsess over, especially on college campuses. The double standard that these liberals seem to impose on Israel and the United States is not only mind-bogglingly narrow-minded but almost offensive to the Palestinian cause.

While I’m sure right-leaning Americans are very aware of a so-called “woke agenda” due to the right-wing media’s obsession with trivial corporate pandering - and while I would argue that “wokeness” as defined by these outlets is a tool of division used to distract from serious issues - the reality is that these new societal norms many left-leaning activists champion are strict and uncompromising.

We have reached the Overton window of modern college campus leftism that students protest for tampons in the men’s bathroom, introduce themselves to others with their pronouns, and skip class to voice displeasure with the conservative teachings of certain professors. Unlike many conservative commentators, I don’t care about these things, and living on a college campus it hardly affects my day-to-day life.

The problem arises, however, when the same left-leaning individuals who believe that these seemingly unimportant issues warrant, at times, mass civil disobedience, do not carry weight when examining the government and people of Palestine. It is often the same people who you see tying themselves to doors to protest a school’s bathroom policy who tend to be shouting “free Palestine” at mourning Jews. It is often these same people who call Israel an “apartheid state”, call the IDF a “terrorist organization”, and call dismembered Jewish civilians “colonizers” who had it coming. For a political philosophy so keyed in on semantic issues and who currently claims there is an active trans genocide going on in the southern United States, it seems none of these concerns arise when examining the positions of Middle Eastern nations. 

The unquestionable reality is that Israel is the only place in the Middle East with a semblance of liberal values. According to the UN gender equality index, Israel is by far the best country in the Middle East as it pertains to women’s rights, and it isn’t particularly close. The only other country that comes close is the United Arab Emirates, and their progress is a very recent development that heavily coincides with strengthening ties to the Western world.

Israel is also the only country in the Middle East that recognizes gay marriage, a massive point of emphasis by college liberals. In fact, should the dream of a free Palestine “from the river to the sea” come to fruition, not only would that spell the end of all Israeli Jews, but all chances for the happy life of homosexual Middle Easterners. Palestinian law deems gay marriage punishable by up to ten years in prison, and the social/governmental position is far more severe. Pew research found that 93 percent of Palestinians oppose homosexuality, one of the highest marks in the world. Not only is homosexuality criminalized, but it’s empirically punishable by death. In February 2016, Hamas murdered Mahmoud Ishtiwi, a leading commander, under accusations of homosexuality.

Because the Palestinian population is nearly unanimous on this issue, and given the nature of their dictatorial leadership, it’s impossible to believe that these practices would change under expanded leadership. Ponder then, the consequences of freeing Palestine. The eradication of Israel would end the last woman-friendly and LGBTQ+ friendly state in the Middle East, replacing it with a terroristic autocracy that has gone on record to say that the eradication of Jews and Homosexuals is a value core to their existence. 

Why then, do liberals continue to virulently support such an outcome? In my experience, it comes from their obsession with infantilizing groups they deem as oppressed. Moral relativism is a tool used by liberals only in situations where it’s beneficial to their stance, and results in the infantilization and abdication of personal responsibility from the groups they latch on to.

Many of these “activists” barely view Palestinians as human, and instead lost sheep that need to be saved by their hand, guided out of oppression and towards their ideals (sound familiar?). They have no reservation in their argument, no thought that these “oppressed” groups may have intelligence or can think for themselves, choosing right over wrong or good over evil. It’s a tactical maneuver, as it allows them to easily assimilate into their causes, eliminating pesky nuance and critical thinking.

The tribe mentality that liberals and conservatives alike share causes higher and higher levels of polarization and political-social fragmentation - my exact theory for why the aforementioned “woke” orthodoxy has become such a sticking point for liberal activists. It’s easy to scream at people for things they don’t understand and it’s even easier to fall in line with what the biggest extremists on one side of an issue say, ignoring the flaws in their character and argument.

I hope that as the Palestinian cause is pushed further into the spotlight, liberals can examine their oversights on this issue, and recognize the massive double standard they place on the practices of Western and Middle Eastern social norms. My one hope for this unfortunately requires leading Palestinian voices to gain power, and finally reveal the obvious truth about their intentions, snapping these liberals out of their tribal fervor and recognizing the massive problems with the Palestinian mission. Until then, however, groups like LGBTQ+ for Palestine will still exist, supporting the agents that could soon chop down their brethren in the Middle East.