Malum Prohibitum:

The Evil Legal Language of Progressivism

by William L. Anderson

Recently by William L. Anderson: Aaron Swartz and the Feds: How Progressivism Becomes Tyranny

The outrage over the prosecutor-inducted suicide of Aaron Swartz continues, and well it should. Glenn Greenwald’s recent column barely contains the rage of a principled civil libertarian who despite his deep Progressive-Left outlook still can understand government-induced evil when its ugly face is revealed.

Indeed, Progressives from Massachusetts to California are outraged at what they correctly see as a relatively minor legal transgression by an honorable activist turned into a “crime” for which punishment would be imposed that would be greater than that experienced by convicted murderers and rapists. Yet – and I despair of my own inability to make this point so that Progressives can comprehend – what these people seem incapable of understanding is that their own legal/political theology is the problem.

Yes, a lot of outrage properly is directed at U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, Carmen Ortiz, a Barack Obama-appointed political animal who apparently had her eyes set upon the governorship of that state. Both she and her assistant, Stephen Heymann, who also has a reputation for being politically-ambitious, are now targeted in petitions to the White House to fire both of them, and because the petitions have more than 25,000 signatures apiece, the Obama administration now is legally-obligated to respond to them. (It will be interesting to see if Obama and his equally-culpable U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, whose own hands are washed in blood of innocent people, will throw Ortiz and Heymann overboard or if they will try to ride out what could be a difficult political storm.)

In California, Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has introduced “Aaron’s Law” in hopes “to prevent a repeat of the abuses of power he experienced.” While this might sound dramatic, it truly is futile, just as former U.S. Senator Jim Webb’s attempt to deal with the ugly stain of U.S. incarceration policies and especially those involving the eternal Drug War.

Why, does one ask, are all of these “reform” efforts exercises in futility? Greenwald, after all, is an eloquent and impassioned voice for justice, perhaps the best on the modern scene. Even conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, are able to agree somewhat with one another that things have gone too far, that too many people are incarcerated, there are too many laws, and too many “crimes.”

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