{"id":85077,"date":"2023-10-07T05:00:14","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T09:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=85077"},"modified":"2023-10-06T18:40:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T22:40:08","slug":"many-people-who-hold-luxury-beliefs-are-oblivious-to-the-consequences-of-their-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/10\/07\/many-people-who-hold-luxury-beliefs-are-oblivious-to-the-consequences-of-their-views\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Many people who hold &#8216;luxury beliefs&#8217; &#8230; are oblivious to the consequences of their views&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefp.com\/p\/two-murdersand-the-cost-of-luxury\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rob Henderson<\/a>, guest-posting at <em>The Free Press<\/em>, illustrates several recent examples of well-connected people holding what he coined as &#8220;luxury beliefs&#8221; being suddenly introduced to the real-world consequences of their beliefs:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screenshot-2023-10-07-Two-Murders.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screenshot-2023-10-07-Two-Murders-480x343.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"343\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-85078\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screenshot-2023-10-07-Two-Murders-480x343.png 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screenshot-2023-10-07-Two-Murders-150x107.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screenshot-2023-10-07-Two-Murders.png 667w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Recently, two high-profile supporters of &#8220;justice reform&#8221; were murdered. <\/p>\n<p>At 4 a.m. on Monday, Ryan Carson, a 32-year-old social justice and climate change activist, was walking with his girlfriend in Bedford\u2013Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, when he was <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/10\/05\/suspect-18-arrested-for-random-stabbing-of-nyc-activist\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stabbed to death<\/a> by a stranger. Only a few hours earlier in Philadelphia, activist and journalist Josh Kruger was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/10\/02\/us\/josh-kruger-death-philadelphia\/index.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shot and killed<\/a> in his home. <\/p>\n<p>And two Democratic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govtrack.us\/congress\/bills\/117\/hr1280\/cosponsors\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lawmakers<\/a> who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/trial-over-killing-of-george-floyd\/2021\/04\/21\/989500468\/where-efforts-to-overhaul-policing-stand-in-congress-after-chauvin-verdict\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">voted<\/a> to &#8220;redirect funding to community-based policing reforms&#8221; have been recent victims of violent crime.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday night, blocks away from the Capitol in Washington, D.C., Congressman Henry Cuellar was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2023\/10\/02\/1203165609\/henry-cuellar-carjacked\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">carjacked<\/a> by three armed men. (The lawmaker survived the incident unscathed.) In February, Angie Craig was attacked in an elevator at her apartment building in Capitol Hill. A homeless man demanded she allow him into her home to use the restroom, then he punched her and grabbed her around the neck. She <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/man-attacked-us-rep-angie-craig-elevator-pleads-guilty-rcna87365\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">escaped<\/a> after throwing hot coffee on him.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, these people did not deserve harm because of their support for soft-on-crime policies. But I&#8217;ve long argued that many people who hold &#8220;luxury beliefs&#8221; \u2014 ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes \u2014 are oblivious to the consequences of their views. Support for defunding the police is a classic example. <\/p>\n<p>Luxury beliefs can stem from malice, good intentions, or outright naivete.<\/p>\n<p>But the individuals who hold those beliefs, the people who wield the most influence in policy and culture, are often sheltered when their preferences are implemented.<\/p>\n<p>Some online commenters have said that my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.robkhenderson.com\/p\/status-symbols-and-the-struggle-for\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">luxury beliefs thesis<\/a> is undermined by these tragic events, because the victims were affluent and influential \u2014 and they still suffered the consequences of their beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>But the fact remains that poor people are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/v8_thp_10crimefacts.pdf#p=5\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">far more likely<\/a> to be victims of violent crime. For every upper-middle-class person killed, <a href=\"https:\/\/bjs.ojp.gov\/library\/publications\/criminal-victimization-2009\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">20 poor people<\/a> you never hear about are assaulted and murdered. You just never hear about them. They don&#8217;t get identified by name in the media. Their stories don&#8217;t get told.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rob Henderson, guest-posting at The Free Press, illustrates several recent examples of well-connected people holding what he coined as &#8220;luxury beliefs&#8221; being suddenly introduced to the real-world consequences of their beliefs: Recently, two high-profile supporters of &#8220;justice reform&#8221; were murdered. At 4 a.m. on Monday, Ryan Carson, a 32-year-old social justice and climate change activist, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,53,13],"tags":[343,1481,321,647,912,985],"class_list":["post-85077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-politics","category-usa","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-luxurybeliefs","tag-nyc","tag-philadelphia","tag-privilege","tag-washingtondc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-m8d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85080,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85077\/revisions\/85080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}