Everyone else is posting Jordan Peterson videos. Why not me?

With Saint Paul experiencing a three-digit jump in homicides, and Minneapolis tripling down on pumping up high-density, high-income housing (with token “affordable” housing sprinkled hither and yon), I think this one is well worth a thoughtful couple of minutes:

If you don’t have ten free minutes, I’ll help out:

• Poverty doesn’t cause crime. It’s not even up for rational debate.
• Income disparity causes crime – it can be measured via a “Gini Coefficient” calculated for any given area and group of people. The Coefficient is, by social sciences standards, apparently incredibly robust, and gives you a pretty solid correlation between income disparity and crime.
• The reason income disparity causes crime: when young men have no way to try to exert social dominance (i.e. make themselves more attractive to young women) because the social hierarchy is solidly established, they turn to less socially-acceptable forms of aggression – which, from a standpoint of evolutionary psychology, work. The capos of a New York mafia family may not have fit in with Upper-West-Side Manhattan society, but they were at the peak of their own societies – which led to them actually finding women who’d help them propagate their species.

Now – I’m not saying that the “New Urbanism” that afflicts urban planning authorities in places like Portland, San Francisco, and the Twin Cities’ Met Council is intended to create a social Petri dish designed to cultivate a more virulent criminal underclass.

But given what we know about evolutionary psychology, if they were trying to create a permanent criminal mindset, what would they do differently?

The DFL, 2019: “Guns are out of control! Our cities are victims of “gun culture’s” love of guns over the children! Blood is running in the streets directly onto your hands!”

The DFL, 2020 (in response to the Senate GOP’s recognition of the crime problem in the DFL-controlled Metro area): “Oh, quit being tribalist and divisive. It’s not that bad”.

No, really:

Democrats who control the House said the GOP was trying to stoke fear among Minnesotans.
“It’s unfortunate that the playbook from Donald Trump and the Washington, D.C. Republicans is demonize and divide,” House Speaker Melissa Hortman said in an interview. “I’m really disappointed to see Minnesota Republicans going down that same path.”

Thing is, the MN DFL can have it both ways – at least with our media.

I was listening to NPR’s “Fresh Air”, with Teri Gross – the most overrated interviewer in the history of radio, by the way, but I digress – talking with the authors of a book, The Fixers: The Bottom-feeders, Crooked Lawyers , Gossipmongers, and Porn Stars Who Created the 45th President.’

The interview – and, one presumes, the book – beats heavily on the “fake” media, in this case the National Enquirer (Call for Captain Obvious – you’ve been skipped directly to Lieutenant Colonel). The authors – a couple of MSMers putting out the obligatory book on “Why Trump” – riff hard on the atrocious standards, dubious ethics, and penchant for running with implausible stories and willingness to buy and bury real ones…

…at The National Enquirer.

And boy, it sure sounds like the pro-Trump media works hard to shape the narrative! And a media that runs its preferred narrative in preference to the truth is an awful thing!

But being radio, a one-way medium, I couldn’t ask the authors, or the terminally annoying Gross, about:

• the media’s treatment of Nick Sandman (who got a nice settlement from the first of his many defamation suits last week) and the rest of the Covington kids
• Jussie Smollett, and the rigged “justice” system that allowed him to walk relatively free after lying not only our idiot media (dog licks dog) but the Chicago police
• The Mueller Report, which the media breathlessly anticipated as an indictment of Trump, and in fact wiped out the left’s case.
• The ongoing #MeToo moment that is Joe Biden
• The glowing obits the media ran for Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi – the “Austere Scholar”; one might have hardly known from the first round of MSM obits that he ran a murderous theocracy
• The Jeffrey Epstein story, buried deeper than Jimmy Hoffa
• The media’s embrace of the Steele Dossier, long after the DOJ IG report showed it was absolute garbage.

That was one year’s worth of media miscarriage. None of which Teri Gross, or anyone at NPR (or NPR’s pet media cheerleading show, “On The Media”) have touched.

They live in a world all their own.

Donate to the Committee to Protect Political Volunteering. 

Check out this still photo of the guy who shot the gunman in church [Jack Wilson – Ed]. If you figure 5 feet between pews, he’s 25 feet away when he takes the shot. That’s good shooting, Tex, way better than me. 
I need to hit the range. I need practice.
Joe Doakes

It’s definitely gotten me thinking more seriously about the subject.

Or would, if guns didn’t terrify me, and if mine hadn’t all fallen in the lake.

The Strib puts faces – and, to a fairly cryptic and inconsistent extent, causes – to the 31 homicides in Saint Paul last year.

Of the 31 victims, two are white, and five are Latino. Of the remaining 26 victims, gang violence is explicitly noted in several incidents.

• Gang members were specifically listed as the killers in three of the blurbs – and the three victims were also apparently gang members. There is no doubt that that number is low –
• Of the remaining 28 homicides, 11 showed (reading between the lines) signs of being gang-related; young men being shot while sitting in cars, or in the middle of drug deals. This omits several that smelled of common street crime – people shot outside bars, in alleys, that sort of thing. It’s a guess, but I”m going to say it’s a good guess.
• 27 of the victims were shot – two of them accidentally, and one by the SPPD in what looked like “suicide by cop”.
• Three, incuding one of the children, were the result of domestic violence.
• Two were children – one killed by blunt force trauma, one from being left in a hot car.
• No arrests have been made in eight (and no mention of an arrest is in one other blurb) of the homicides.
• Mental illness seems to be an explicit part of at least 2-3, including a suicide by cop and good samaritan killed by mentally-ill man.
• Two are white, five are Latino, 26 are black.
• None of murders were deterred, and none of the homicides, were solved by the city’s “resilience director”, or the two-dozen deputy mayors that clog the city payroll. Or by the city’s Tony Soprano-style

Interesting to see if the city triples down on its Carter-era pollyannaism about crime.

Having its police chief focusing on copy-editing the Constitution probably isn’t a good sign.

A friend of the blog emails:

Obama talks about undeveloped countries and opportunities for women in those countries. 
“It turns out that one of the best indicators of whether a country is developed or not is how does it educate its girls and how does it treat its women,” Obama said. “And typically, those countries that do a bad job on that are backwards and behind economically.”
Here, I agree. There are Middle Eastern countries that invoke religious laws to justify barring women from educational opportunities, employment, and just being out in public.

Amazing as this might seem to some millennials, there are places much, much worse than the United States.

But, MPR tweeted this article, leading with the following quote-
“There would be less war, kids would be better taken care of and there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes,” Obama said.
Why do we need to constantly perpetuate this sexist myth that all women are anti-war, that all women agree on what is the ‘right’ way to provide child care? As a woman, I am deeply offended by this myth.
I am offended for many reasons. Supporters of Obama love this type of quote. It makes them feel are warm and fuzzy for being “woke” and feminist. Then, they turn around and bash Betsy Devos for being pro Charter schools. Oh, women don’t know what is best for their children in that case? 

“Progressivism” is all about supporting the right women/gays/minorities. As Berg’s Eighth Law of Diversity notes, “American progressivism’s reaction to one of “their”constituents – women, gays or people of color – running for office or otherwise identifying as a conservative is indistinguishable from sociopathic disorder.” There’s only one lane allowed for women, gays and minorities – otherwise, they’re apostates, and treated as such.

They are the type of people who bashed Margaret Thatcher for her economic policies in Britain. Did Thatcher improve living standards in Britain? Of course. But, your answer to that probably depends on your political beliefs, and not based on the fact that she was a woman. I am not sure Obama supporters come to the same conclusion as me.
By the way, Hillary Clinton likely would have had us in a war by now. Oh, and Thatcher was not an anti-war woman, either. Does that make Trump “the woman” candidate since he hasn’t started a war? 

By the way – while I am the Twin Cities’ best feminist, I am unabashedly male, so I’m probably not the one to ask – but I can’t be the only one who cringes, visibly, at some of modern culture’s more visible pandering to women, can I? My peeve lately is people using the term “HERStory”, with helpful idiot caps, when a history article refers to women? More seriously, I can’t be the one that notices that modern “feminism’s” big push seems to be a return to victorian social conventions (but not, repeat not, mores) as re women?

I do not care if your political beliefs are different from mine. I am happy to debate policy differences. But I am sick of people in the 21st Century making blanket statements that all women believe this or all blacks vote for that. We have examples of competent and experienced women and people of color on all sides of the issues. We also have many examples of people- men, women, any race- who have not been competent. Even if you disagree politically, you can give credit to someone who is competent. 
Yes, as Americans who believe in freedoms for all people, we abhor the way some countries disregard women and children. But, if you conflate that with we need women in charge to make us all better, then you are being just as oppressive. You are not allowing women the same opportunities to have independent beliefs as you have allowed for yourself as a man.

Obama’s comment is the rankest form of pandering. And anyone who’s ever worked in the real world knows that women are, pretty much, like other humans. Some are good, many are walking trash. I’ve worked for managers who were good, and many who were worse than worthless, a few are downright evil – and they’re about evenly split by gender.

Why does the worst ex-President since Jimmy Carter think leaders would be any different?

They’re not.

Ivy League academic, continuing Big Left’s urge to appropriate and pervert every aspect of society no matter how innocuous or innocent, progsplains that the classic claymation Christmas special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is actually classically “queer”, and that conservatives who object just don’t understand Christmas:

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is a “queer” icon whether “conservatives” like it or not, according to one Ivy League professor.
Columbia University English professor Jennifer Finney Boylan, has offered a whole new take on the classic Christmas claymation “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” claiming that the film is “the queerest holiday special ever” in a recent New York Timesopinion piece. 

But wait.  There’s more. 

Boylan began a gender transition to live as a woman at the age of 42. In her article, she compares her life experience to the Christmas classic, saying, “the subtext of this ridiculous story was the truth of my own improbable life. A fabulously blond elf who doesn’t like to make toys? A reindeer who is cast out by those who are supposed to love him, on account of an accident of birth?”

Of course “she” did.

For those moments when Avery Librelle seems just too realistic…

But forget what you know, because progsplain. Also shut up hater.

Boylan notes that she expects “conservatives” to be “infuriated by this suggestion,” adding that “conservatives seem to miss the point of a lot of things having to do with Christmas.” This supposedly includes that Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas’ employs a “fundamental critique of capitalism”

There are times I think a civil war may be the best thing that could happen to this country.

A friend of the blog emails a PiPress story in which it’s noted the Twin Cities ranks 92 out of 100 metro areas for racial equity, according to the NAACP:

They dont even give us the official name of this survey so to properly look it up?
Of course I find a link to how more money would help this. Convenient these stories come out after a PROPOSED budget surplus.

Of course. The story isn’t about informing people who think critically. It’s about starting the process of shaking down taxpayers…

…to set the stage for the next shakedown.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

“Progressive” bosses won’t hire Trump supporters:

It’s not legal in most cases, and certainly not right, but 1 in 5 left-leaning bosses “will not hire” supporters of President Trump, and huge majorities of hiring managers want to know the positions job candidates have on highly controversial issues including race and immigration, according to a sweeping new survey.
What’s more, job seekers reluctant to cough up their views and positions in interviews can’t hide them because nearly all employers sift through social media posts, mostly Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, of those they are considering for jobs.

Now, I didn’t vote for Trump, and I’ve certainly made my Trump-skepticism a matter of public record – but I’ve run into this, and in fact it’s not just Trump. Some “progressive” management practice cultural cleansing of all Republican and conservative thought their offices.

I pretty strenuously keep my political beliefs, this blog, and my show out of the workplace – eschewing political conversations even among friends. But I’m fairly certain my blog and / or show played a role in two contracting gigs not being renewed over the years, and I’ve got suspicions about one reorganization at a direct job back in the 2000s as well.

Of course, in every case it turned out to be their loss rather than mine – each of the teams I’d worked on has developed a reputation for incompetence and venal, petty, backbiting institutional culture and…

…well, some punch lines just write themselves, don’t they?

SCENE: Mitch BERG sees a flatbed cargo bike, with a parka-clad rider, bogged down in a snowdrift. He pulls his car over to help…

…only to see that the driver is Avery LIBRELLE.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Uh, hey, Avery. Looks like you’re stuck…

LIBRELLE: Don’t change the subject. Elizabeth Warren, like Kamala Harris before her, is falling in the polls because of sexism!

BERG: Sexism among Democrat primary voters?

LIBRELLE: Stop deflecting! She’s being targeted because white cis-males can’t stand an angry woman!

BERG: Huh. So even as the guardians of White Liberal Progressive culture tell us that “female rage” is a positive virtue, something to be celebrated on pain of social ostracism, you’d have me believe that Fauxcahontas, seeking the support of the people that support this view, is suffering from a patriarchal disdain for female rage?

LIBRELLE: Hey! You called her Fauxcahontas! Show some respect!

BERG: Warren has admitted she lied about the whole thing, and I have no respect for her whatsoever. So – either Warren is just a terrible candidate, or it’s the Democrat voters who can’t deal with “female rage”. (BERG gives a mighty push and dislodges the cargo bike)

LIBRELLE: (Pedaling merrily away) Clearly you’re a misogynist!

BERG: (Yelling after h…er, hi…er, LIBRELLE without any especial gusto) Clearly.

(BERG resumes trudging up the street)

(And SCENE)

In a state with functioning truth in advertising laws, the DFL would be forced the change its name from the “Democrat Farmer Labor” to the “Democrat Public Employee” party.

The DFL’s numbers among private-sector labor unions have been eroding for decades. That’s the subject of another post.

But the DFL’s support in rural Minnesota has pretty much collapsed. The DFL lost the First CD, and likely will not get it back anytime soon. The 7th – aka “East Dakota” – has always been a positive GOP district for every office other than state Representative; Trump took the district by nearly a three-digit margin. And if Colin Peterson ever retires, it will never vote DFL again. Ever.

And the reversal in the 8th – as the DFL, a wholly owned and operated subsidiary of the Metro public employee/big progressive money/environmentalist racket, continues its generations-long stomping on the mining industry – appears to be nearly complete; the district, a DFL sinecure up to the last decade and blue enough to toss Chip Cravaack for Rick Nolan’s re-animated head in a jar, went for Trump by two digits and sent Pete Stauber to Congress.

So in the parts of Minnesota where people respond “the Met what ?” when the Met Council is brought up, the DFL is about as politically current and on point as a Beach Boys tour.

Which perhaps is behind Speaker Melissa Hortman’s faintly desperate-sounding kumbaya op-ed last week in the Strib, “Minnesota’s Urban-Rural Divide is a Myth“.

Minnesotans have a lot in common with each other. We care about our neighbors and our shared future. We want to see everyone succeed in our communities. No matter our differences, including where we live, we all want good jobs that can support our families, good schools for our children, clean air to breathe, clean water to drink and affordable, high-quality health care.

MIners in CD8 might well be wondering when that concern for their “good jobs” is going to materialize.  

And given that Democrats in Minnesota as nationwide are quintupling down on the same identity politics that performed so well for HIllary Clinton three years ago, this next paragraph should insult the intelligence of even Hortman’s base, to say nothing of readers with critical thinking skills:

There are those who seek to divide us. Some people seek to score political points by contending that there is an “us” and a “them” in Minnesota. Some people focus on what they contend divides us — whether that’s geography, race, religion, national origin or some other characteristic — rather than focusing on the values that unite us. (“Minnesota’s urban-rural divide is no lie,” July 28; “I’d like to expand on my thanks to the president,” Oct 15; “The Twin Cities don’t speak for the entire state,” Nov. 11.)

Now, I’m not going to say that the DFL has spent the last decade or so trying to create a cultural civil war between the Blue and Red parts of Minnesota, with its:

• obsession with identity politics
• eternal environmental lobby-driven sandbagging of the mining and timber industries
• their hatred of and contempt for law-abiding gun owners and their firearms
• open-border activism on the taxpayers dollar
• nudge-and-a-wink toleration for physical assault on political dissenters
• Funding and legislating education in such a way as to ensure that the consolidation of rural schools into ever-larger, pseudo-urban high schools, with all the attendant educational and social rot that entails, only accelerates.
• the starving of much-needed highway money – money for the roads that actually pay the bills in the Minnesota economy – to pay for more, more-expensive transit, especially endless rail boondoggles
• …and I’m sure I’m missing more than a few

But if the D”F”L were trying to wage a cultural red-blue civil war, I’m at a loss to think about what they’d be doing differently.

But as our friend Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring points out, the proof of the DFL’s urban-uber-alles philosophy isn’t just in their numbers, their policy, their legislative priorities or their results.

It’s in their org chart:

Of the 7-person DFL Senate leadership team, 1 person is from northwest Minnesota (Kent Eken) and another person (Tom Bakk) is from northeast Minnesota. The other 5 people (Susan Kent, who is challenging Bakk for Minority Leader, Jeffrey Hayden, Carolyn Laine, John Hoffman and Ann Rest) are from the Twin Cities.

And that’s the Senate – where the DFL has to “moderate” their approach, being in a slight minority.

And I eirect you back to their 2018 state convention, where the activists in the party advanced a “crazies-only” slate; Erin Murphy, Erin Maye-Quade for Governor and Lieutenant Governoer, Matt Pelikan for Attorney General and the rest. It remained for the DFL’s statewide voters to opt for the – this is rich – more “moderate” Tim Walz and Keith Ellison in the primaries.

Nope. No catastrophic urban focus there.

In which Senate Democrats threaten to render the Supreme Court moot if they vote for the gun-rights case we talked about.

The newly Democrat-clogged Virginia Assembly is hearing a number of California-style gun grab bills in coming weeks.

In response, a number of Virginia counties are declaring themselves “Second Amendment Sanctuaries:

So far we have at least 7 brand new Sanctuary Counties in Virginia that we are aware of: Charlotte County, Campbell County, Carroll County, Appomattox County, Patrick County, Pittsylvania County, and Dinwiddie County. All so far have passed unanimously!

And more counties are on the way.

I attended the Board of Supervisors meeting in Amherst County last night. The turnout by gun owners was HUGE! The good-sized meeting room was full, standing room only, the crowd spilled out into the hallway, stairs, entrance, went out the front door and wrapped around the parking lot!
I was afraid I made the two-hour trip for nothing, as I didn’t think I could even get in the meeting room to speak. Many thanks to Speaker Vance Wilkins for his help on that. I did get to speak, emphasizing the importance of the resolution.
Apparently, it was a similar situation in Franklin County yesterday, too.
Both counties postponed the vote until they have their next Board of Supervisors meeting. In Amherst, the delay was to incorporate some of the wording from the VCDL model resolution. Franklin wanted more time to review the overall wording with their lawyers.
I believe both counties are going to pass the resolution.

In the event – heaven forefend – that the DFL takes the Senate and holds the House next fall, Minnesotans are going to need to start doing the same kind of work. The Virginia Citizens Defense League has published a bit of a guide on the subject:

VCDL 2A Second Amendment Sa… by AmmoLand Shooting Sports News on Scribd

Worth a read.

A Michigan bill would put liability for mass shootings in “gun free zones” on those posting the zone:

State Rep. Gary Eisen, R-St. Clair Township, introduced House Bill 4975, which would revoke governmental immunity from lawsuits arising from injuries sustained on government property where guns are banned. Eisen is also the sponsor of House Bill 4976, which would make a government, business or individual that designates a property a gun-free zone responsible for the safety of individuals who enter it.
Eisen said the intention was to require a business or government that enforces a gun-free policy to take responsibility through measures like hiring security guards.
“I have to presume that no one will have a gun inside and I will be safe,” Eisen said. “They are telling me, ‘Don’t worry, Mr. Eisen, this is a gun-free zone. You’ll be perfectly safe in here.’ We know that is not the case.”
Eisen said by not allowing him to carry a gun, government and companies that declare their property a gun-free zone could be held liable under his bills.
“If they don’t want to be liable, then don’t put the sign in the window,” Eisen said…

…part of the rationale for his bill lies with a report that 98% of mass public shootings happen in gun-free zones. The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump recited that statistic in a May 4 speech to the National Rifle Association.
The Washington Post said the figure comes from the Crime Prevention Research Center’s updated 2014 report. That report stated that 98.4 percent of mass shootings from 1950 to July 10, 2016, happened in gun-free zones.
“We call them killing zones, not gun-free zones,” Eisen said.

I doubt it’ll pass – Michigan Republicans don’t want to send soccer moms running away in tears -and there’s legal reasons such a law might be struck down in court (legal technicalities like a plaintiff needing to show banning guns makes shopping unreasonably unsafe, as well as showing that a particular plaintiff or patron would more likely than not have taken down the shooter).

But it’s a start.

Progs wonder why the bitter clingers don’t vote in “their best interests” – i.e., for Progs.

Because this is what “best interests” look like under “progressivism”.

Today is Veterans Day in America. It’s the day we who didn’t serve in the military honor those who did.

And it’a also two days after the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – a symbolic event, to be sure, but one whose symbolism should not be diluted by modern revisionism.

And there’s a connection: while Communism is not a sustainable model of governance (like its passive-aggressive cousin “Democratic Socialism”). there is no guarantee that when it falls it won’t be replaced by something even worse.

And among the reason that Soviet communism fell when it did was the fact that two generations of American (and NATO) soldiers ensured that “inducing a conflict to keep the peoples’ minds off their misery” wasn’t a valid end-game.

The world changed thirty years ago last Saturday because American will, and American steel, and American troops, ensured that that change took place in its proper lane.

Nobody (and that means you, Democrats) predicted the wall, and the blood-lusting tyrants who built it, would go away.

Well, almost nobody.

But while Reagan’s (and Thatcher’s, and Pope John Paul II’s, and Lech Wałęsa) were the hammer that pounded the Soviet system on the head, that hammer jammed them against the anvil that was the American soldier (and the German, British, Dutch, Belgian, Italian, French, Danish and Norwegian troops they joined).

And fall, it did.

And so I thank all you veterans out there.

And as a special treat for all of you – “Bornholmer Strasse”, a German TV dramedy about the point where the dam broke thirty years ago Saturday.

It’s in German – worse yet, Berlin German – but even if you don’t speak the language (and I, modestly fluent in “High” German, stretch to keep up with Berlinisch – the actions are pretty self-explanatory.

Finally, someone else arrives at the conclusion I reached back when Obama was welcoming floods of Mexicans riding atop trains.  
Don’t mend it, end it.  Moratorium on ALL immigration to allow time for assimilation – probably two generations, maybe three, going by history.  
Close the gates.  Pull up the drawbridge. Build the wall. 
Joe Doakes

Or – y’know – do what Canada, Japan, Australia and…you guessed it, Mexico do; make potential immigrants prove their value to the country before getting that visa. 

It’s about time for President Trump to suggest that Congress repeal Title IX and eliminate Girls’ Sports on the grounds that since Boys can compete in Girls sports simply by declaring themselves Girls, having a separate sports system is a wasteful, duplicative, expensive boondoggle. 
We’ll just have one system, winner take all. True, boys will win everything forever, but that’s where we’re headed anyway so might as well jump right into it.
The money we save can be used to build The Wall.
Joe Doakes

Joe, of course, is aware of Berg’s 21st Law: “When it comes to “progressive” policy, yesterday’s absurd joke is today’s serious proposal and tomorrow’s potential law.”

And satire, like Joe’s sarcastic note, is closer to the news than the news is. 

I mean, is it any dumber than the WaPo’s headline about Al-Baghdadi? 

One suspects had Obama ordered the raid that erased Baghdadi, the headline would have been a little less…conciliatory toward the man who brought seventh-century horrors back to the world, murdering thousands in ways designed to cow and horrify his enemies, the stuff of legends of the Mongols.  

Greta Thunberg is used to swimming in the warm water of the adulation of the deluded blue-state masses.

But getting outside the moldy blue confines of the parts of this country that take CNN seriously is a whole ‘nother thing.

Even if it’s the red part of Canada:

I’m a member of a gun club just East of The Cities. Every member volunteers two days to serve as range safety officer while members of the public use the range to sight their hunting rifles. It’s always an eye-opener to see all ages, races, genders, incomes, occupations, coming together to get ready for their annual family deer hunt. And uniformly, they are grateful to have a place to do it.
If Republicans made a bigger show of supporting hunting, I think they’d have stronger grassroots support.
Joe Doakes

I agree.

And gun rights groups – while rightfully disdaining all too many hunters’ myopia over gun rights (all too many believe the fight over the AR15 will never affect their deer rifle or duck gun) – would do well to reach out to hunters as well.

Grief and stupidity make people say stupid things. I’m sure aggressors’ families blaming the victim when their spawn comes to grief is nothing new.

What’s new is, this sort of story – the family of some felon shot by a law-abiding citizen while committing a crime, complaining that armed citizens make for an unfair fight – seems to be making the news more and more,

I recall two parents of “Teens” killed trying to rob people, and the family of someone killed by citizen with an AR, that’ve made the news in recent years saying the same kind of thing “yeah, whatever, my relatives were threatening people with lethal force – BUT THE VICTIM SHOULDN’T HAVE SHOT THEM!”.

In this week’s installment, the sister of armed robber Roosevelt Rappley – who has apparently lost a previous brother to “gun violence” – condemns the store clerk who shot her brother after Mr. Rappley allegedly pointed a gun at the clerk:

“Right and wrong is wrong, that was wrong for that clerk to shoot my brother in the chest. Yes, he’s robbing them. Oh, well! Call the police, that’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re not supposed to take matters into your own hands.”

Rappley is a person of interest in several other store robberies.

Watch the video for the full effect.

Almost like Big Media trying to get stupid people to believe something even dumber.

Crime on the Blight Rail is getting worse, the cops know it and need more money to fight it, the politicians are desperately trying to hide it.
I particularly like Metro Transit’s response: The train is fine.
Joe Doakes

I rode the train for a year and a half.

It’s not “Fine”.

When the several states joined forces to become the “United States”, they did it by signing a contract with one another; they’d cede out control of certain issues that the states couldn’t handle as efficiently and effectively as the states to a central, national government. The contract was called a Constitution,.

Under the terms of that contract government had certain enumerated powers; the states had some more; The People had the rest.

As part of that contract, that central government had checks and balances:

• The power of the chief executive and their branch was limited; appropriations and foreign treaties could only be approved by Congress; a Supreme Court could constrain all three of their ambitions – or, put another way, hold them to the contract.
• The lower chamber would be directly elected. The upper chamber would represent states, not a direct nose-count of the population.
• The chief executive would be chosen by a system that would pare back a little of the power of the more populous areas. Furthermore, the entire system was predicated on the idea that the chief executive, while an important and powerful position, would not be a “winner-take-all” choice as far as governent power when: small states wouldn’t “lose’ because they had the Senate to temper the passions of the mob; larger population centers weren’t disenfranchised because the combination of the directly-elected House and usually-directly-elected President counterbalanced the, er, counterbalancing effect of the Senate and the electoral college. You weren’t just voting for a President; you were voting for a complete package at the Federal level.

That’s the system that made this country what it is. For worse or, mostly, better.

Lately, though – and it’s hardly the first time, even in my lifetime, although the dumb power of raw numbers seems to make it louder this time – there are those talking about “making the country more representative”; they propose:

• Eliminating the Electoral College, electing the president by popular vote.
• Making the Senate a popularly-elected body, or eliminating it altogether.
• Adding term limits to the Supreme Court, or allowing Presidents greater leeway to change its composition.

These proposed changes to the contract accompany many other more or less drastic proposals to alter the fabric of this nation; various guttings of the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments are all current events these days. And for many of those constitutional guarantees, the fact this nation’s contract enforces a sort of gridlock designed to constrain the passions of the dumb masses is the only thing standing in the way.

So let me make a proposal – and when I say “proposal”, I guess I’m shading more toward “manifesto”.

A Not At All Modest Proposal

Go ahead. Change the Electoral College, the Senate, the SCOTUS. Jam down anything you want, in fact.

But consider those changes an abrogation of the contract under which this nation was formed.

California, New York, New Engalnd, Illinois and the Mid-Atlantic states can form their own parliamentary democracy with popular president and enshrined powers of the majority. They can basically turn their nation into a glorified city government, like that of MInneapolis (or Chicago, Newark, Baltimore, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle or Saint Paul) with aircraft carriers, giving all power to the most populous areas, essentially making the less populous areas, the Inland Empires and Southern Illinois’ and upstate New Yorks taxed without representation – and with the contract now null and void, the rest of the nation can be free to choose something less stupid.

But you can not have one without the other. One party to a contract can not force a change in contract terms on the other parties without a negotiation – and that includes the freedom to walk away. Not legally. Not with any talk of forcing everyone to remain in a contract that’s been abrogated, rendered null and void.

I’m fine either way. But nowhere in between.

One or the other.

It’s worth having a knock-down, drag-out national debate over. Wars have been fought over much less. Let’s try not to do that.