The Georgetown student who feels sympathy for his mugger
A couple of weeks ago Friedfeld and a friend of his were mugged. At gunpoint.
Friedfeld was compelled to write about the experience in the university newspaper, The Hoya.
… when a reporter asked whether I was surprised that this happened in Georgetown, I immediately answered: “Not at all.” It was so clear to me that we live in the most privileged neighborhood within a city that has historically been, and continues to be, harshly unequal. While we aren’t often confronted by this stark reality west of Rock Creek Park, the economic inequality is very real
Friedfeld apparently felt the mugging was an opportunity for him to pontificate on “economic inequality.” Sounds kind of like the president saying the anger in Ferguson is understandable.
Anyway, Friedfeld, didn’t stop there. It got worse. (Doesn’t it always with progressives?)
What has been most startling to me, even more so than the incident itself, have been the reactions I’ve gotten. I kept hearing “thugs,” “criminals” and “bad people.” While I understand why one might jump to that conclusion, I don’t think this is fair.
Not once did I consider our attackers to be “bad people.” I trust that they weren’t trying to hurt me. In fact, if they knew me, I bet they’d think I was okay. They wanted my stuff, not me. While I don’t know what exactly they needed the money for, I do know that I’ve never once had to think about going out on a Saturday night to mug people. I had never before seen a gun, let alone known where to get one. The fact that these two kids, who appeared younger than I, have even had to entertain these questions suggests their universes are light years away from mine.
Friedfeld thinks it’s unfair to call his attackers “thugs.” (Amazingly he is willing to call them “attackers,” but who knows if he has since awakened to that verbal injustice.)
I wonder if Friedfeld also thinks it’s unfair to call people who discover life-saving medical breakthroughs, extraordinary. Can we call ISIS, barbarians? What about people who torture animals? Can we call them psychopaths? Can the man who saved a child from drowning still be a hero?
Does Friedfeld not realize we have something called the English language and that we have names for things? Can we call his attackers “criminals?” (That is, after all, the legal name for them, something he also addressed in his piece.) Or in his twisted and mangled mental world are they “innocent victims?” Or, in keeping with Georgetown University’s heritage, maybe even “saints?”
And then there is Friedfeld’s conviction that if the attackers knew him, they’d think he was “okay.” I’m not sure if he’s suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or what, but the need to feel that the bad, thuggish, criminals (if he won’t say it, I feel compelled to make up the difference) who mugged him would think he was a good guy if they knew him was truly desperate. Not to mention irrelevant.
His assurance that the muggers only wanted his stuff and not him was also foolhardy. Apparently Friedfeld doesn’t realize that people often get killed during muggings, robberies, and so forth when the criminal appears interested in stealing other people’s things. But then plans change.
Piling on wrong-headed thinking was Friedfeld’s belief that the “kids” (the left is driven to paint thuggish criminals in a diminutive light) who attacked him must do so because of their life circumstance. He gives a pass for anyone who’s (presumably) poor to rob and steal because they are poor. If that’s the case, then we would have sheer mayhem on our hands in small towns and big cities across America every single day.
Oh, that’s right. Now we do.
Friedfeld thinks it’s not only understandable for folks to mug other people (abstract), he thinks it understandable to mug him (personal). Holy smokes! As Daniel Greenfield wrote in Front Page Magazine where I originally found the link to Friedfeld’s article:
To paraphrase Iriving Kristol, a liberal is simply a conservative who hasn’t been mugged by reality yet. But today, not only is a mugging not enough to drive some sense into a young progressive, it actually confirms his worldview about economic inequality. It confirms, not the armed robber’s guilt, but the victim’s guilt for (presumably) being better off. This is precisely the sort of “victim-blaming” that drives progressives into a rage when applied toward rape victims. But when it comes to “white privilege” and “income inequality,” moral equivalence rules, and reason flies out the window.
Quite right. But if you think Friedfeld reached the pinnacle (or shall I say pit) of his rant, he wasn’t quite done. Winding down his article, Friedfeld states:
Who am I to stand from my perch of privilege, surrounded by million-dollar homes and paying for a $60,000 education, to condemn these young men as “thugs?” It’s precisely this kind of “otherization” that fuels the problem.
Ah! “Otherization.” Let’s see. How about: “Hands up, don’t shoot. Otherization in process.” Or: “You racist otherizer!” Not sure, but I think there are some real possibilities there.
But I digress.
Mr. Friedfeld. You are free to crawl under a rock (they don’t cost a million bucks, or even $60,000, so you your new home can be guilt free) and feel apologetic for your blessings.
What’s that, Mr. Friedfeld? You’re not finished? Wow, ok. You have one more message to the world? All right. Let’s hear it.
… As young people, we need to devote real energy to solving what are collective challenges. Until we do so, we should get comfortable with sporadic muggings and break-ins ….
If Oliver Friedfeld is any indication of leftist thinking (and I believe he is a poster child for it), then I can only hope and pray the left has jumped the shark. Until that is confirmed, we must call out their insanity at every turn and replace it with reason. So have at it gentle readers.
Hat tip: Front Page Magazine
Oliver Friedfeld is a senior in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. I will leave it to readers to determine how else he may be described as I will stick to serving up the facts and only the facts.
A couple of weeks ago Friedfeld and a friend of his were mugged. At gunpoint.
Friedfeld was compelled to write about the experience in the university newspaper, The Hoya.
… when a reporter asked whether I was surprised that this happened in Georgetown, I immediately answered: “Not at all.” It was so clear to me that we live in the most privileged neighborhood within a city that has historically been, and continues to be, harshly unequal. While we aren’t often confronted by this stark reality west of Rock Creek Park, the economic inequality is very real
Friedfeld apparently felt the mugging was an opportunity for him to pontificate on “economic inequality.” Sounds kind of like the president saying the anger in Ferguson is understandable.
Anyway, Friedfeld, didn’t stop there. It got worse. (Doesn’t it always with progressives?)
What has been most startling to me, even more so than the incident itself, have been the reactions I’ve gotten. I kept hearing “thugs,” “criminals” and “bad people.” While I understand why one might jump to that conclusion, I don’t think this is fair.
Not once did I consider our attackers to be “bad people.” I trust that they weren’t trying to hurt me. In fact, if they knew me, I bet they’d think I was okay. They wanted my stuff, not me. While I don’t know what exactly they needed the money for, I do know that I’ve never once had to think about going out on a Saturday night to mug people. I had never before seen a gun, let alone known where to get one. The fact that these two kids, who appeared younger than I, have even had to entertain these questions suggests their universes are light years away from mine.
Friedfeld thinks it’s unfair to call his attackers “thugs.” (Amazingly he is willing to call them “attackers,” but who knows if he has since awakened to that verbal injustice.)
I wonder if Friedfeld also thinks it’s unfair to call people who discover life-saving medical breakthroughs, extraordinary. Can we call ISIS, barbarians? What about people who torture animals? Can we call them psychopaths? Can the man who saved a child from drowning still be a hero?
Does Friedfeld not realize we have something called the English language and that we have names for things? Can we call his attackers “criminals?” (That is, after all, the legal name for them, something he also addressed in his piece.) Or in his twisted and mangled mental world are they “innocent victims?” Or, in keeping with Georgetown University’s heritage, maybe even “saints?”
And then there is Friedfeld’s conviction that if the attackers knew him, they’d think he was “okay.” I’m not sure if he’s suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or what, but the need to feel that the bad, thuggish, criminals (if he won’t say it, I feel compelled to make up the difference) who mugged him would think he was a good guy if they knew him was truly desperate. Not to mention irrelevant.
His assurance that the muggers only wanted his stuff and not him was also foolhardy. Apparently Friedfeld doesn’t realize that people often get killed during muggings, robberies, and so forth when the criminal appears interested in stealing other people’s things. But then plans change.
Piling on wrong-headed thinking was Friedfeld’s belief that the “kids” (the left is driven to paint thuggish criminals in a diminutive light) who attacked him must do so because of their life circumstance. He gives a pass for anyone who’s (presumably) poor to rob and steal because they are poor. If that’s the case, then we would have sheer mayhem on our hands in small towns and big cities across America every single day.
Oh, that’s right. Now we do.
Friedfeld thinks it’s not only understandable for folks to mug other people (abstract), he thinks it understandable to mug him (personal). Holy smokes! As Daniel Greenfield wrote in Front Page Magazine where I originally found the link to Friedfeld’s article:
To paraphrase Iriving Kristol, a liberal is simply a conservative who hasn’t been mugged by reality yet. But today, not only is a mugging not enough to drive some sense into a young progressive, it actually confirms his worldview about economic inequality. It confirms, not the armed robber’s guilt, but the victim’s guilt for (presumably) being better off. This is precisely the sort of “victim-blaming” that drives progressives into a rage when applied toward rape victims. But when it comes to “white privilege” and “income inequality,” moral equivalence rules, and reason flies out the window.
Quite right. But if you think Friedfeld reached the pinnacle (or shall I say pit) of his rant, he wasn’t quite done. Winding down his article, Friedfeld states:
Who am I to stand from my perch of privilege, surrounded by million-dollar homes and paying for a $60,000 education, to condemn these young men as “thugs?” It’s precisely this kind of “otherization” that fuels the problem.
Ah! “Otherization.” Let’s see. How about: “Hands up, don’t shoot. Otherization in process.” Or: “You racist otherizer!” Not sure, but I think there are some real possibilities there.
But I digress.
Mr. Friedfeld. You are free to crawl under a rock (they don’t cost a million bucks, or even $60,000, so you your new home can be guilt free) and feel apologetic for your blessings.
What’s that, Mr. Friedfeld? You’re not finished? Wow, ok. You have one more message to the world? All right. Let’s hear it.
… As young people, we need to devote real energy to solving what are collective challenges. Until we do so, we should get comfortable with sporadic muggings and break-ins ….
If Oliver Friedfeld is any indication of leftist thinking (and I believe he is a poster child for it), then I can only hope and pray the left has jumped the shark. Until that is confirmed, we must call out their insanity at every turn and replace it with reason. So have at it gentle readers.
Hat tip: Front Page Magazine
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/11/the_georgetown_student_who_feels_sympathy_for_his_mugger.html#ixzz3KZNyO2mP
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook