Victor Davis Hanson asks National Review Online readers to consider one of the major failings of the progressive world-view: the refusal to accept human nature.
Human nature is unchanging, predictable — and can be dangerous if ignored.
Five-time deportee and seven-time felon Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an unauthorized immigrant, recently was arrested in San Francisco for the murder of an innocent passerby, Kate Steinle.
The alleged killer told a local TV station that he came to San Francisco because it was a sanctuary city. San Francisco has long boasted that it would not turn over unauthorized immigrants to federal immigration authorities.
Can it be that announcing such exemptions actually draws in foreign citizens who have arrived in the U.S. illegally and committed crimes?
What is true compassion — deporting a repeat felon like Lopez-Sanchez back to his home country, or turning him loose on potential victims such as Kate Steinle? …
… In all these cases, progressivism assured us that human nature — self-centered and predictable — could be improved. Enlightened new theories and policies promised to change behavior by no longer ensuring hurtful punishments or consequences for bad behavior and unwise choices.
In truth, if humans do not face bridles on their often dangerous appetites and recklessness, they are emboldened to do a great deal of damage, not just to themselves but also to others.
Those who borrow sums that they cannot pay back usually blame those who lent them the money — not their own appetites. And elites never seem to pay firsthand for the consequences of their own naive — and selfish — theories about human nature.
