It would appear liberals love crooks -- other than Nixon that is. The city of Richmond in California is so enthused about crooks that they've just passed an ordinance to make sure criminals are on a level playing field with honest citizens when looking for work.

Richmond has decided that if you do business with the city your company cannot ask would-be employees about their criminal records.

The lie told to advance this policy is that it's unfair to murderers, rapists, thieves, and drug dealers for a potential employer to take into account a job applicant's history of anti-social and dangerous behavior.

The thought is well represented by this heroin dealer's statement; "Once we pay our debt, I think the playing field should be fair." Obviously all the damage done by the heroin that dealer sold was completely eradicated by his 16 months in prison (not).

But the reality is that putting a man who has worked hard and been honest all his life on the same level as one who's sold heroin is a gross discrimination against the honest man.

Additionally, according to liberals, it's downright discriminatory to assume that a criminal would ever return to crime after serving his time.

Of course, the statistics on recidivism tell a different story. On average roughly 67% of criminals will be rearrested within 3 years. On the plus side only 2.5% of rapists and 1.2% of murders are rearrested within 3 years for a repeat offense. On the downside 70% of crooks who sold, used, or possessed illegal weapons, 74% of burglars and larcenists and approximately 78% of car thieves and fences are rearrested. Just the sort of people every business is actively seeking.

While criminals can turn their lives around, it is simply insane to believe that crooks are no more likely than anyone else to commit new crimes.

It's an act of Christian mercy to hire a criminal, but it's an act of liberal oppression to tell small businesses that they have to hire someone without knowing if that person has been convicted of serious crimes, especially in a society where liberals make it easy for anyone who is victimized by a crook to sue the company he works for. If the crook can convince the business that he has reformed and he's worth the risk, the company may decide to hire him but keep an eye on him and avoid putting him in situations where he might be tempted to revert to his old ways. The Bible tells us "The Truth shall set you free" but the Richmond ordinance is specifically designed to hide the truth.

With unemployment running high in California in the Obama economy, giving crooks a pass for their past is discrimination against those people who have avoided crime and who are applying for the same jobs.

Even worse, while the ordinance prohibits asking about a criminal past, there's no way to stop companies from making an educated guess based on race or appearance. But those guesses could easily punish an innocent man -- especially one of color -- who has never committed a crime. Why would liberals put honest men of color at risk of being denied a badly needed job in order to give a white crook a second chance?

Another obvious question is why do liberals seem so enthused about routing taxpayer dollars to possibly reformed criminals rather than to honest citizens? Perhaps it's a recruiting ploy to give government business to fellow travelers; after all, the core of modern liberalism is legally stealing money from those who earn it and then using that ill-gotten loot to bribe people who don't work to vote Democrat -- "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis de Tocqueville.

Or maybe it's just another example of liberals disdain for the concept of universally applicable laws. Liberals often believe that crimes by minorities, riots, or by liberals, OWS, should not be prosecuted. Obama believes that he can rule by executive edict and choose to not enforce laws he dislikes, such as DOMA. Jerry Brown thinks he can choose to not defend the votes of 7,000,000 Californians because he doesn't personally agree with them. All are examples of liberal's belief that we should not be a country of laws but a country of men; where who you are determines which laws apply to you.

In the end, the honest, hardworking Black man who loses a job to a white convict because the biased hiring manager, who is barred from asking about criminal records, decided the Black man was likely a crook. He won't care about why the City of Richmond passed an ordinance that discriminates against him. He'll just know he's still looking for a job.

Setting up programs to help crooks turn their backs on crime could be very useful. But letting the market decide who gets hired and fired based on what they've done with their lives and letting private charities help mainstream former criminals is even better.

To say that a man who has done right all his life should be on the same level as a man who has voluntarily chosen to do wrong is to say that doing right is not that important. That's not a message any stable society can afford to send.

You can read more of tom's rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious and feel free to follow him on Twitter