Van Jones, at the Life Size 2 world premiere last fall.
Van Jones, at the Life Size 2 world premiere last fall. Emma McIntyre / Getty

Black political commentator Van Jones, once the face of enlightened capitalism, thinks the left needs the right for America to fly. Bizarre. He made this point at the Conservative Political Action Conference 2019. He thought he made a solid point. He was certain the audience could not escape this sophistic cornering. Birds really do need two wings to get off the ground and into the air. The same is true, Jones argued, for US politics. Were CPAC people feeling him? They must. The right needs to recognize the left, and the left the right. That's how it works. But Jones was just blowing his own bubble. The nearly all white audience did not feel him. What they saw instead was another brother with chicken on his mind.

But the really embarrassing thing is that Van Jones claimed Republicans are actually leading prison reform in the US. He even told them that they were "stealing his issue" (as someone eating that left wing). How did the GOP commit this theft? By being tough on dollars and tough on crime. This, again, is just bizarre. I thought Jones, with his glasses and all, was supposed to be the image of black smarts. But his position on crime in the US turns out to lack any intelligence. For one, he sees crime as natural. It's a matter of dollars and sense.

For Jones, it's like a man throwing a stone at a bird. If he kills the bird, it is his. But what happens if a person (appearing from behind some tree) who did not kill the bird you killed takes it? This is a crime. This is your prison system. This is the foundation upon which Van Jones's constructs his theory of American justice. We have to instruct people not to take birds (and their delicious wings) that they did not kill. This understanding will drop crime. Good common sense. You go, GOP.