Missing The Point Yet Even More

Matt Yglesias writes for an progressive think tank. All progressives and most Americans believe that an accused fellow citizen is innocent until proven guilty.  Lots of his and my fellow citizens think that Wikileaks is no big deal and to the extent that it is a big deal it's a good thing.  What Yglesias thinks about the second point, I don't know; what he thinks about the first point is illuminated here (via here):

So as best I can tell Manning is, in fact, guilty of serious crimes.

What does this mean?  As best he can tell from? Press releases? The Government's accusations?  The various stuff floating hither and yon on the web?

Another thing all progressives and many Americans believe is that the state ought to improve prison condition particularly for individuals awaiting trial because they have yet to be convicted and, consequently, are presumed innocent.  Yglesias thinks

Somewhat punitive post-arrest pre-trial measures are kind of a necessary evil, but the prolonged confinement of Manning under cruel conditions go well beyond the necessary into the straightforward evil.

So Manning's treatment is "evil" but some lesser form of the "evil" is "kind of necessary" because? It's irresponsible to reform prisons and jails unless that reform involves the destruction of unions and decreasing prison workers salaries?

Is it the case that Yglesias has been making bad arguments for so long that he has now ascended to the Broderosphere where he is free at last, thank God almighty free at last, to simply assert position central to the progressive worldview, in this case reform of necessary evils, i.e., prisons and jails, will lead inexorably to a humane system of incarceration for the presumed innocent as well as the proven guilty  fellow citizens hapless enough to fall afoul of the state's policing function.

And while were at it Megan McCardle, in a similar wrong-headed analysis of something else, she comes up with two tiers of crime: white collared and blue collared:

This is basically a variant of complaints that white-collar crime is treated less harshly than blue collar crime.  And there's some justice in the complaints--white collar crimes usually involve larger sums, and the people who commit them can rarely claim that they are victims of society.

White-collared crime is clear to all: Madoffesque stuff.  Blue-collared crime is? Calling in sick when you're well? Does she mean "ordinary" crimes like murder, rape, and etc?  Does she mean to suggest that only the lower orders commit such crimes?  She seems to because she, humorously?, suggests that the lower orders who can blame society for their crimes, as in Kniock Any Door starring Humphrey Bogart, commit blue collared crimes.

And those of us who want to tax the rich to pay for the things we need tomorrow today are accused of class warfare; McArdle classifies violent crimes as the work of only the lower orders.

Would it surprise you to know that they are pals?

UPDATE:
Yglesias on private mass transportation

And, yes, I’m well-aware that none of this is going to happen any time soon. But I think people are oftentimes insufficiently utopian in their thinking about public policy. Think about how different policy was in 1960 compared to today.

Got that? When in comes to incarceration of the presumably innocent some degree of abuse is a "necessary evil" when it comes to making a buck off of getting from here to there, people just aren't clapping loud enough.