When You Try to Negotiate with Evil, You Lose.

Glen Reynolds this morning over at instapundit ^[1]:

OUT: DEFUND THE POLICE. IN: Oakland Baker and Activist Jen Angel Dies After Being Injured During a Violent Robbery. ^[2]
Perhaps she “believed in a world that was safer and fairer for all,”
but she pursued policies that predictably produced the opposite.

From the article that Glenn links:

Jen Angel, owner and operator of Oakland bakery Angel Cakes, died on February 9 due to injuries sustained in a violent robbery. Angel was known not only as a maker of outstanding pies and treats, but also as a longtime organizer of the Anarchist Book Fair and a member of the Occupy
Wall Street movement. The East Bay activist, writer, anarchist, and
entrepreneur was declared to have lost all brain function by her medical team at Highland Hospital in Oakland on February 9. She was 48 yearsold.

So in other words, the very policies that she’s pursued came back to bite her, fatally.The last few years has been a wake-up call. The policies of the left over that time have proven themselves to be unarguable disaster.

The problem of course is that there are many leftists who deal in emotion more than they deal in fact. They are emotionally connected to those disastrous policies, and inexplicably remain totally convinced in their efficacy toward the stated goals. In this case, when reality caught up to her, it cost her her life.

Of course, there’s nothing new about this. Look closely at the constant bleating for socialism, and when they get it and it invariably fails, we are told “well, that wasn’t real socialism.” No matter how many times the cycle has gone round, no matter how many times leftist policy gets tested and fails disastrously… as in this case… it’s proponents never seem to learn the lesson being taught.And the situation here is no different at all. Observe, from the article:

Restorative justice, a framework Angel supported, is based on the idea that victims and perpetrators of harm should arbitrate and mediate to determine appropriate atonement and amendment, rather than defaulting to traditional forms of punishment including incarceration. In the statement, the family asks supporters to not “advance putting public resources into policing, incarceration, or other state violence that perpetuates the cycles of violence that resulted in this tragedy.”

Restorative justice? What is it precisely, that she felt was being restored?I say it again, no matter how many times this nonsense has failed, they continue to push for it Even when, as in this case, death occurs ….the naivete’ continues.

What we’re talking about is very close to a lesson about negotiating with evil that Neville Chamberlain learned back in the day.

And yes, I said evil.

The reality is that there is evil in the world, and there is no negotiating with it. Tragic situations like this occur when that reality is ignored.In Oakland these days, at least as of 2021 which was the most recent statistics I could find on the subject, your chances of being a victim of a violent crime are approximately one in 80. When you’re dealing with property crimes only, it comes out in the neighborhood of one in 17.Those kind of figures are a disaster for any society. They were brought about by the easy on crime policies being pursued in California and in most major cities these days.

The problem of course is that evil benefits because that kind of naivete’ is a constant.