Rioting in Portland for 60 days now, most recently trying to burn down a police station. The Press says the riots are “mostly peaceful.” 

Puts me in mind of a certain movie. I can imagine our anti-fa hero coming up from the basement, dressed in black, telling Mom he’s going out with his friends. “That’s nice dear, have fun storming the courthouse.”

Joe Doakes

It’s all funny until self-government becomes impossible because nobody trusts our institutions…

Millennial parents, themselves raised by insipid helicopter parents, are reproducing.

God help us all.

Minneapolis businesses destroyed when the City failed – no, abnegated, competely – at its responsibility to deliver the public safety and order that taxpayers expect…

…have to pay in advance on their taxes to clear the rubble of the businesses that the City didn’t even bother protecting with last year’s taxes:

Light leaving “moral” today won’t reach Minneapolis’s city goverment until long after Mayor McDreamy’s great-grandchildren are collecting social security.

This is the kind of analysis the jury is likely to hear in the Floyd case, which is why I’ve been saying all along that it’s going to be a tough case to win.

Not saying this guy is correct, or that the jury will find his analysis persuasive, but this column shows why serving on the jury is not as simple as watching the video before voting to convict.  The defense gets a turn, too.

Joe Doakes

Attorney friends tell me Earl Gray is the real deal, defense-wise.

In other words, buckle in and pray for an April blizzard.

It’s easy to “joke” – especially living as a Republican in places like Saint Paul – that “Mike Judge’s cult classic Idiocracy isn’t a comedy, it’s a documentary”.

But you – we – are not wrong:

And for exactly the reason Judge lampooned…

So why are we supposedly getting dumber?

Previous research has found that women of higher intelligence are having fewer children, meaning women of lower intelligence are driving population growth, according to the study.

Over time, experts say, that would affect the average IQ of a population.

…or “lampooned”, as the case may be.

It’s only funny if you don’t look at the world around you.

First Amendment of the Constitution protects the fundamental right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.
60 days of rioting, burning down buildings, destroying property, is not what the Framers contemplated. Those are not peaceful protests so they’re not covered by the First Amendment. They are Insurrection, which must be put down to preserve civil order.

Portland needs to announce that we’ve had our little fun, but we’re done now. Starting tonight, anybody suspected of Riot will be shot on sight. Then shoot a few people,  “a whiff of the grape,” to encourage the others.

The time-out from reality is over. We are going back to constitutional republic.

Joe Doakes

The government of Portland – like that of Minneapolis, except apparently the Charter Commission – is so dependent on the (politically connected parents and aunts and uncles of the) mob in the streets, they wouldn’t dare raise a finger to them.

Can you imagine the tone if the two “idealistic young lawyers” in this story had worn MAGA hats?

I’m sure those young lawyers will do just fine pleading “moment of madness’ in court.

Mr. Spoor (a prog lawyer who has the most wonderfully occoponymous name, if you speak any Dutch at all) says that young people are prone to doing stupid things (true), and that we should have some forgiveness in our hearts. Throwing a firebomb shouldn’t rate 35 years in federal prison.

But forgiveness without atonement is meaningless – and I wager a shiny new quarter that the overentitled, over-schooled, under-educated wannabe Che Guevaras in this story feel no remorse whatsoever.

Regret over being caught? Sure.

Remorse? That’s for plebes.

Powerline has a column on President Trump’s decision to revoke President Obama’s rule on AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing).  The Left claims the decision is racist.  It’s not.

President Obama wanted to force racial integration in nice neighborhoods, which white people in nice neighborhoods don’t oppose.  Nobody is trying to block blacks from buying homes in Woodbury or Wayzata, for example. People in nice neighborhoods oppose forced class integration, because of the behavioral differences between classes

Florence King, a writer from the South, explained how Southern ladies distinguish classes:

If you live in a run-down little house with a beat-up car in the front yard but the car runs, you’re ordinary.

If you live in a run-down little house with a beat-up car in the front yard but the car doesn’t run, you’re common.

If you live in a run-down little house with pieces of a car in the front yard, you’re trash.

That’s why people in nice neighborhoods oppose AFFH.  It has nothing to do with race.  We don’t want trash – of any race – moving into the neighborhoods we worked so hard to reach. 

Joe Doakes

But remember – all “racial conflict” is really class conflict being re-painted with “race” to make it socially acceptable on the left.

Shot: Vandals of sorts “attack” Lisa Bender’s house:

Chaser: And in response Bender filed a…

…well, let’s look at the Channel 5 story:

The Minneapolis Police Department told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS there is an incident report filed concerning an act of vandalism that occurred at the home of Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender last week.

Bender declined an interview request from KSTP.

I smell some more private security for the more-equal animals.

And I’m not the only one, if you read between the lines:

Three Minneapolis City Council members, Andrea Jenkins, Alondra Cano and Phillipe Cunningham recently received threats that prompted safety concerns, and the city paid for private security companies to provide extra protection.

Jenkins told KSTP there have been protests outside the homes of several city council members in recent weeks. After the vandalism at Bender’s home, she said she has never seen this type of vitriol aimed at the city council during her 16 years of work at city hall.

And remember – there are two Betg’s Laws in effect here; the 18th Law covers the media’s reaction, and let’s not rule out the 20th Law in re Councilwoman Bender or her staff themselves.

Someone in the press leaked the body cam video of the George Floyd arrest. Taking nothing away from the tragedy or the anger that went along with it – “knee on the throat” isn’t a good look – but seeing this, I’m thinking Keith Ellison would need Vasily Ulrikh on the bench to get a Murder conviction.

I have little to add, except that this piece from two months ago is looking better and better.

Oh, yeah – strap in. Officer Chauvin will be acquitted of “Unintentional Second Degree Murder”, and the other three will get away with lesser included charges. It’s going to make the last week in May look like a kindergarten full of kids who broke into the Koolaid.

To: Johnathan “Chaitful” Chait
From: Mitch Berg – Red State Sleeper Agent
Re: This Little “Eliminationist Hatred” Problem You Have

Mr. Chait

We go way back, of course – and not in a good way. You have a bit of a history of being a horrible excuse for a human being. But you are a gift that keeps giving, for people like me, so for that I thank you, even if backhandedly.

This past week, you wrote an article in “New York Magazine” claiming that the Republican response to Covid is, in your terms, a “Death Cult”.

I won’t pullquote anything – the article is long, and never really improves over the title.

But I have two questions.

First, some background – here’s the listed Covid fatalities/million as of last Friday:

• NY (D): 1,684
• NJ (D): 1,790
• US average: 474
• FL (R): 319
• MN (DFL): 291
• TX (R): 241
• ND (R): 135

So I’ve got two questions for you, Mr. Chait:

1. Did you ever refer to Cuomo (or the governors of NJ/CT/MA) as running a “death cult?” I’ll confess, I’m an infrequent reader of yours. I only read you (or John Fugelsang) when you step on your d**k spectacularly – but I’d hate to be unfair.
2. I wager you a shiny new quarter that as of November 3, 2020, TX and FL will be below half NY’s fatalities per million. Any action on that bet?

Thanks.

By the way – at the risk of sounding uncharitable, there are times that I think you are God’s karmic gift to me for never teasing the short-bus kids in elementary school. For this, I thank Him, and urge you to keep up the, uh, work, karmically speaking.

That is all.

Side Note: I’m making this the The George W. Bush Corollary To Berg’s Seventh Law – All of a Republican’s sins, imaginary or (for sake of argument) real, will be forgotten once the Republican can no longer hold office. 

Found on Twitter. Verdict: Absolutely true – but it doesn’t go far enough.

30 Days from Now: “Expecting protests to be ‘peaceful’ is a sign of white privilege.”

60 Days from Now: “Any ‘violence’ inflicted on you at a peaceful protest is deserved – expecting not to have violence committed on you at a protest is a sign of privilege”

90 Days from Now: “Violence is Peace”

Remember – Berg’s 21st Law is a law for a reason.

Seattle cops, barred the use of tear gas and other non-lethal force, are telling businesses “sorry – you’re on your own”.

Given that “keeping order” – making a city a safe place for law-abiding taxpayers to be – is one of local government’s most unambiguously legitimate missions, this should really wake all but the most deluded Seattleoids up.  

I said ‘should”. 

As this is written, the general trend in research indicates that children – under 10-ish – suffer exceptionally mild symptoms of Covid, frequently none at all, and may not even transmit it when infected (which may or may not be related to the observation that asymptomatic people may not spread it, either).

At the same time, the nation’s teachers’ unions are demanding a near-complete lockdown, including another stretch of “distance learning” – which for many children is the worst possible way to learn, amplifying the stultifying effects of sitting in a desk with the boredom of never leaving home at all – even if the home isn’t an unpleasant or cramped place to be, as indeed it is for many, largely inner-urban children. And that’s for kids where learning at home is even an option.

We’ve all heard the stories – children rendered paranoid about germs and masks, terrified about dying hooked up to a ventilator or being left orphaned, kept sometimes literally sequestered away from the world, including the in-person socializing that’s such a vital part of childhood, often by the same parents that are the most obnoxious, hectoring helicopter elders stereotype can muster (I have to figure that yesterday’s “helicopter parent” is todays’ Karen, while we’re on the subject).

So what’s that going to do to kids?

Probably nothing good.

And, given the shadiness and opacity of Governor Klink’s response, I have to wonder – what if, along with a “mail-in” election that could put the DFL’s mass of fraudulent registrations into play, “raising a generation of kids so insecure, damaged and anxious they make millennials seem like John Wayne in comparison” is the actual goal?

Anxious, insecure people who’ve had any notion of self-determination strained out of them are “progressivism’s” farm team.

Psychologically speaking, this quarantine may well be the biggest “grooming” exercise ever attempted.

Via Facebook friend (and, I think, occasional reader John Doiron)

…Big Left is scouring the world for that wave of “white terror” that, we have been assured since 2009, is imminent.

But again, Big Left has met its enemy, and they are it:

…Big Left is looking for the real racists.

But they have met the enemy, and it is them.

Quick tangent before I cut to the chase: is anyone out there as sick as me about people whining about how awful 2020 is? Yes, epidemic and riots and collateral damage, this generation’s 9/11, yadda yadda, I get it, it’s the worst thing people under thirty have ever seen. Gotcha.

Comparing it to 1962, or 1942, or 1933-1936, or 1915, or 1861, or pretty much any year the bubonic plague was active, seems pretty…trivial.

But never mind – the year, bad or overrated as it may be, just got a little better:

Much as I’d love to see one of the media outlets go to court, and lose big, this is a great start.

To: Readers of “Shot In The Dark”
From: Mitch Berg, Editor/Publisher/Writer
Re: Accepted Terminology

Esteemed Reader,

In the past, on this blog, I have referred to “Antifa” – the descendent of the Communist version of the Brownshirts – as “Anti”-Fa, to infer, correctly, that they are “anti” fascist in the same sense as Stalin was “different’ from Hitler.

This is simply too laborious.

With that in mind, henceforth the group will be referred to by a more correct and rhetorically economical moniker.

Vanilla ISIS.

Thanks for seeing to this.

That is all.

“You should be voting in your ‘best interests'”

You mean, the “best interests” that gave voters Camden?

Stockton?

Detroit?

Newark?

New Orleans?

Baltimore?

Saint Louis?

DC?

North Minneapolis?

The destruction on Lake Street and University Avenue?

The carnage every summer in south Chicago?

Those “best interests?”

Just wanna be clear, here.

CONTESTANT 1: “I’ll take “Riddle Me This” for $600, Alex”

TREBEK: “A couple of shades of melanin”

(CONTESTANT 2 Rings in)

TREBEK: Irving…

CONTESTANT 2: “What is ‘the difference between a community group of ‘freedom fighters’ and a ‘scary right wing militia’ to Big Media?”

TREBEK: Correct, and you have the board…

To: Seth Rogen
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Issues In Fulfilling Your Request

Mr. Rogen,

In regards to your request that everyone who questions “Black Lives Matter“ should“F*** off” and not go to any of your movies: We’ve got a bit of a problem here.

I’m not going to say I haven’t enjoyed a few of your movies; “Zack and Miri make a Porno” was worth a watch. And Freaks and Geeks was pretty essential, although that was mostly a Linda Cardellini thing – and you played basically the same role you’ve played in just about every movie since.

Which brings us, with all due respect, to the point; you’ve kind of got a formula – to the extent that once you’ve seen one of your movies, you’ve kind of seen them all.

Which puts us in a bit of a pickle. I can’t “f*** off” and skip your movies, since logically, unless your formula changes, I have already seen all your future, lovable-bumbling-stoner/slacker-fish out of water movies as well

Please see to this.

That is all.

“Check your privilege”

OK. Let’s check my privilege.

I grew up descended from people from an inhospitable place that nobody wanted to conquer and that nobody managed to enslave (or who managed to kill everyone that tried). My dominant culture has no experience of being enslaved – indeed, it abolished slavery hundreds of years before the rest of the world. It’s a “privilege” that every human in the world should have, and that I’m more than happy to share.

I grew up in a family where the parents stayed together (until we were all adults, anyway), and worked their butts off to give us a stable, loving upbringing where we were expected to grow up into productive, self-sufficient adults. My parents themselves were “privileged” with the same basic family structure, notwithstanding the Depression and World War 2.

Those are privileges I’m more than happy to spread to the whole world, and have nothing to do with my skin color.

I went to a public school system that was more concerned with teaching me to read, write, calculate, present myself, and reason than indoctrinating me in a view of society. It’s a “privilege” afford to very few these days.

I got a post-secondary education (thanks to my Mom working at the local college, with the commensurate tuition break) that focused on reason, logic and critical thought, rather than post-structural twaddle – not merely a “privilege”, but a decisive advantage in so many areas of my life.

Somewhere, I got a work ethic. I was blessed with ways to exercise it – for which I’m thankful. I’m more than happy to do my bit, and more, to make sure you get the same privilege.

I am a free person, with all the rights God endowed me, and all the responsibilities that position gives me. Freedom and responsibility are “privileges” I’ll fight to provide anyone who wants them, and against anyone who’ll deprive either of us of them.

In no case are those “privileges” zero-sum. My freedom takes nothing away from your freedom (that you’re not willing to give up, or at least pretend you’ve given up). And taking freedom away from others gives you no more; Germans, the Klan and Red Guards gained no freedom, no prosperity, no happiness from oppressing Jews, Afro-Americans or “counterrevolutionaries”; quite the opposite, in fact.

Freedom is the ultimate “privilege”. And it’s contagious, if you let it be. Try it, Sparky.

You are, of course, not referring to any of those. You are referring to the stretchy, sketchy concept of racial privilege which is in fact almost entirely a matter of class, not race, and is almost entirely an attempt to expiate White Progressive Guilt.

Lara Logan – one of the precious few actual reporters in national journalism today – on the nature of the “Anti”-Fa attacks on federal property:

One other thing: just like the 9/11 terrorists, they use the “weaknesses” of an open society – free speech and assembly, relative transparency and accountability – against it, to cover their activities and wedge their opposition.

“Anti”-Fa should be considered a domestic terror group.

They won’t be, because they are the idiot children and pathetic nephews and nieces of the political class.

But they should be.

“If You’re Not Part Of The Solution, You’re Part Of The Problem”

People who use this statement always use it incompletely. I’ll do it again, filling in and emphasiing the words that are unstated but that actually define the statement.

“If you’re not part of the solution I’m demanding, you’re part of the problem that’s in my way“.

It’s incumbent on you to convince me – everyone – that your solution isn’t worse than the problem. If you are a socialist, if your “solution” can be shown via a rational argument based in fact to be worse than the problem you see, then you’re going to have a tough time of it.

And if you use statements like “If you’re not part of the solution…”, it’s going to be even tougher, because if you knew all that rational, factual, “convincing people” stuff, you wouldn’t have to resort to such twaddle.