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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Our View: Wider is better ... Hands needed to help Food Bank with bi-monthly drive ... Ashland High grad, professor, author and musician plays here Friday ... Our View: Wider is better ... Hands needed to help Food Bank with bi-monthly drive ... Ashland High grad, professor, author and musician plays here Friday ... GUEST OPINION Guest Opinion: Ambrose spins a conservative fantasy Comment By R.L. Tokareff DailyTidings.com By R.L. Tokareff Posted May. 9, 2015 at 12:01 AM By R.L. Tokareff Posted May. 9, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News Over the past three or four years the conservative spin of your paper becomes more and more obvious each day. For example, Jay Ambrose's column on Wednesday. Jay Ambrose! Spin master par excellence! This “op-ed columnist” opines on what a wonderful job the New York Police Department did to bring down crime in New York City. “Police have saved thousands from being murdered, robbed or beaten and thousands more from going to prison because they were deprived of their chance to commit a crime.” “Deprived of their chance to commit a crime?” How exactly does this statement have any basis in reality? In a free society, how does one deprive a criminal from breaking the law? By spinning their brains? Society can deprive them of their freedom or their life after the crime, but how do you do it before they commit the crime? How did the NYPD accomplish this miraculous crime-cutting feat? Answer: They control the statistics! And by aggressive illegal street arrests of 80 percent to 90 percent minorities on trumped-up charges, most of which were plea bargained or dismissed as illegal if you could afford an attorney. One reality is that he fails to mention that the biggest drop in crime happened when the NYPD was on a slowdown/strike. He then goes on to spin how poor minority neighborhoods “have become much safer.” I guess he forgets about Ferguson and Baltimore? There's that conservative bubble again. I’m sure he lives in poor minority neighborhood, so he knows, right? Ambrose is not finished with his conservative fantasy amnesia: He goes on to say how bad it is that “judicial discretion (makes) sentences tortuously long for reactively minor acts and spend ungodly amounts of money on building prisons, maintaining them and housing guests who hardly pay for the privilege.” After reading that my head almost exploded. He totally ignored the “war on drugs” (which was and is a war on young people that Nixon started to punish the anti-war protesters in the 1960s) that made the USA have the highest number of people in jail compared to all the other countries combined and is totally responsible. His statement is classic conservative spin: “housing guests who hardly pay for the privilege”? I have to give it to him for this wordsmithing statement! He is very concerned about the money spent and little about the lives destroyed. This is the first time I have ever heard of convicted felons called a “guests” who “hardly pay for the privilege” of being in prison. So going to jail is a privilege? Talk about spin! I need to go sit down. Even George Orwell is spinning in his grave over that statement. Next this spinmaster goes on to give a small nod to Hillary Clinton to show he is "fair and balanced." Then he goes on to say how all the wonderful Republicans who are “concerned” like Newt Gingrich, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie and company. You remember the “ tough on crime” guys who pushed mandatory minimum sentencing back in the Bush ’41/Clinton/“W” years? Now they totally abhor this miscarriage of justice? Ambrose goes on to refer to Franklin Zimring's U.C. Berkeley study of NYPD and what a wonderful model they would make. However, he fails to mention this study was from 1990 to 2010, five years before the riots across the country that we have currently experienced. A connection between then and now, perhaps? Ambrose goes on to finish his conservative spin cycle to state the obvious about the country’s problems with education and the evil single parent problem, which is code for poor and/or minority families. Like most conservatives he offers no answers, just criticisms and cuts to their programs. I hope that E.J. Dionne is right about “America becoming less conservative” (Tidings, May 6). It would be nice to have the rest of you on board. R.L. Tokareff lives in Ashland.         By R.L. Tokareff DailyTidings.com By R.L. Tokareff Posted May. 9, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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