“Criminal justice reform is [an] example of progressive policy. It’s important for our justice system to be reformative rather than just punitive. If the extent of our justice system is “bad guys belong in jail and good guys belong outside” it becomes difficult to allow for a sliding scale on how to deal with different types and levels of offenses. Binary thinking is how we end up with a criminal justice system that imposes the same minimum sentences for the distribution of 5 grams of crack cocaine as it does for 500 grams of powder cocaine.” - Progressive Thinking is Complex Thinking by David Stein/Medium February 1, 2019
Note this opinion piece came out in 2019 - one year after Congress passed and Trump signed the ‘First Step Act’, described by The Sentencing Project as “a sweeping criminal justice reform bill designed to promote rehabilitation, lower recidivism, and reduce excessive sentences in the federal prison system. Lawmakers and advocates across both political parties supported the bill as a necessary step to address some of the punitive excesses of the 1980s and 1990s.” And the bipartisan Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 had already eliminated the mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine. Those Draconian sentences had been mandated by the bipartisan Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986.
This is what binary thinking looks like: Progressives are complex thinkers; others are not.
Yes, my example is old. But I still encounter that binary mindset just about every day: variations on we’re smart, they’re dumb; we’re good; they’re bad; we see the truth, they’re deluded. And those comments are always from progressives. (Living in Berkeley California may be a factor here.)
And, no, I’m not a conservative, Republican or Trump supporter - although whenever I criticize the smug binary mindset of progressives, I’m accused of being right-wing. And if I point out the merit in the other side’s case, I’m told “well, a clock has the right time twice a day”. Or if I criticize a progressive policy, I’m met with “well, the other side is so much worse”. Or if I give examples of how politicians across the spectrum can be right about some things and wrong about others, I’m met with “false equivalence!”
It’s like throwing pebbles at an impenetrable fortress.