I'm aware this term has been around for a while, but it has spiked in usage during the george floyd protests and now again with the arrest of the bodega clerk in New York after he stabbed someone trying to rob him, and was subsequently charged with murder. It's defined as "A stage of governmental dysfunction in which the state is anarchically hopeless at coping with large matters but ruthlessly tyrannical in the enforcement of small ones".

The term was coined by Samuel T. Francis (a noted racist and hate group member), originally relating to how violent gangs were not prosecuted while other, smaller crimes were, particularly against the people who would be most affected by gang violence.

  • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
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    2 years ago

    i wouldn't issue a blanket ban on cribbing concepts from the right, but if we do, i don't see why we would change the name. on the other hand, if the right does innovate something, maybe that's a sign that it's not particularly useful to left analysis.

    in this case, it sounds like special pleading to explain the obvious fact that the larger punitive state fascists demand has not and will not result in a safer society. "empowering pigs to execute people in the street is obviously good, but because of the :sicko-queer:s they are currently only doing this to white nationalists and small business owners and my son Rupert Horseteeth IV, and not perverts and drug dealers like they should be doing."