Red Flag

Democrats, nationwide and in Minnesota, are fixated on “Red Flag Laws”. In the wake of Uvalde, it’s become the flavor the the month for the grabbers, yet again – part of the endless cycle that the gun control movement has become.

Now, it’s hypothetically possible to create a Red Flag Law that could work. But it won’t, and can’t, be the Red Flag bill that the DFL keeps dragging out in the Minnesota legislature, which:

  1. Lets pretty much anyone turn in anybody, for reasons legitimate or malicious. Various Twin Cities anti-gun groups have already promised to use the measure to “SWAT” Minnesota Second Amendment activists if it passes, which they can certainly do, since nothing about the bill prevents it.
  2. Leads to the cops driving away with someone’s guns – but leaving them in a home full of knives, rope and propane.
  3. Perverts dues process, with a low standard of evidence to take the guns, and a much higher one to get them back.

All that is bad enough.

But once you get to that, you come to the inevitable realization that if our mental health system can’t effectively intervene in a tragedy like this horrific s**t-show earlier this month, what do you think they can do about cases that present much more subtly, or with much more backstory ?

Fathers Day

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day arose from a desire to acknowledge the importance of parents, the people who guide, protect and care for the Next Generation. They deserve a day of recognition.

You know who else deserves a day of recognition? Step parents. The people who fill empty shoes to guide, protect and care for the Next Generation, but without the natural authority of being a parent, and frequently while being undermined by both natural parents.

When I was a divorce lawyer, I always felt sorry for them. They put up with backtalk from children who say, “you aren’t my parent,” visitation disputes that disrupt holiday and vacation plans, fill the budget gap that child support doesn’t cover . . . and get no credit from natural parents who say “Oh, you wouldn’t understand, you don’t have children.”

Really? Which do you think is easier: to love your own child, or to love someone else’s child as if it was your own?

No, I’m not advocating for another greeting card occasion, or more days off government work with pay. But look around your children’s classroom and count the number of intact families which celebrate natural mother and natural father’s days. All the rest are being raised by unacknowledged heroes.

Joe Doakes

I used to have a real trip on my shoulder about Father’s Day. Not have any personal animus; mostly out of anger for the way so many fathers are treated in Family Court, and for the way fatherhood has been devalued in our society.

But as a father of two, and a stepfather of one, I couldn’t agree more.

Divorce, American Style

The divorce between Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, finalized three months ago, has entered its most half-cocked bizarro phase:

And people thought OJ Simpson’s legal team was big and expensive.

UPDATE: I’m informed the parties in this post are Kim Jong Un of North Korea, and the West.

Not sure it makes sense, but I’ll take it under advisement.

Rhyme Unreason

What a horribly un-woke childhood I had.  I remember the old version.
Of course, the new version works for the LGBT+ crowd nowadays.
And here’s the family court version.
Of course, you must listen all the way to the end to get the humor.  I suspect college professors in Wymins Studies never got beyond the first sentence before thinking “Brilliant!  Let’s Do It!”
Joe Doakes

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

Snapped

Why are progressives so anti-gun?

Perhaps because, subconsciously, they know Berg’s Seventh Law is for real.

Gun-controller shoots her kids, self:

Ashley Auzenne, 39, fatally shot Parrish, 11, Eleanor, 9, and Lincoln, 7 — and then herself — in their Deer Park home, local police said in a statement. Authorities found their bodies when they got a request for a welfare check and responded to the New Orleans Street home around 8:45 a.m. Tuesday.

Police also found a gun inside the home.

The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the deaths a murder-suicide on Thursday, with Ashley Auzenne as the suspect, authorities said….Last November, Auzenne framed her Facebook profile picture with an “#End Gun Violence” banner.

And the reason? She got her way in her divorce – custody, apparently – but didn’t get everything she wanted:

She was concerned she’d not be able to move with the kids to her hometown, and would need to find a job and pay him rent if she stayed in their current home, he said.

And as we’ve noticed in the past, Auzenne was not the first prog to lose it and start killing helpless people with one of those guns they claimed to abjure (for everyone else)

Beneath all too many anti-gunners is a narcissist with a violence problem.

How The Other Half Fumes

Many years ago, I went out on a date with a woman who was a pretty “out” DFLer.  Public employee union member, second generation DFL activist (at least), and predictably emotion-driven in her approach to all things political.

We went out 3-4 times – “dates” that almost always involved being out with quite a number of her friends, and an amazing paucity of one on one conversation.

Nonetheless, when “fish or cut bait” time came along, she said “I’m just not sure I can trust you to be kind”.

Bear in mind, nothing about me or my senses and practice of kindness, charity or anything of the sort had ever come up.  But my conservatism had.  Literally, the only thing she knew about me was the stereotypes she had of conservatives.

It was, if unwittingly, one of the nastiest things anyone’s ever said to me.

I thought about that when reading this New York Magazine piece about women who are abandoning relationships and marriages in a flurry of “Lifetime Network”-caliber pique and huff…

…Because Trump.

David Thompson fisks one of the interview subjects to a fine sheen – go and read it – but that was by no means all:

[the writer] goes on to share other tales of bedlamite sorrow. A woman named Samantha complains that her husband of 25 years, a fellow lefty, has “much less rage” than she does, specifically about “white privileged men,” and doesn’t wish to spend every evening equally infuriated by the existence of people whose politics differ somewhat. “Anger,” says Samantha, is her “de facto mode.” Though she’s trying to “get rid of it through therapy.”

A Brooklynite named Betsy boasts that “cultural change is like a steamroller. It flattens distinctions, and some people will get hurt,” by which she means men falsely and maliciously accused of rape, before adding, “and I’m okay with that.” Betsy and her husband are currently in counselling.

Another lady named Sarah tells us that her marriage became unsustainable “after the 2016 election, when I ramped up my political activism.” Sarah’s husband is described as “completely aligned” politically, a feminist, even, albeit one who doesn’t care to spend every waking hour raging about politics. “Talking about the Trump election,” says Sarah, “makes me more emotional than the end of my marriage.” And presumably, more emotional than the thought of her children losing the stability and reassurance of a family structure. But hey, priorities.

It’s not a new, original observation to say that progressivism is to the left what faith is to the cultural right.  Far from it.

But some parts of “progressivism” are becoming downright cult-like.

SIDE NOTE to Minnesota Republicans fussing about “Sharia Law”:   Progressivism will destroy this nation long, long before anything else will.

Epic Fail

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

This guy lacks the intellectual rigor to preach Christian morality.  “If it feels good, do it” appears nowhere in the Gospels and that’s the basis of the abortion problem.

If we encourage young people to have sex, some will get pregnant.  If we make marriage optional and divorce a matter of whim, there’s low probability a pregnant young woman can look forward to a stable future with the baby’s father helping her raise their child.  If we insist young women must go to college to have careers, the pregnant ones facing an unstable family life burdened with a child, will feel compelled to terminate the pregnancy by abortion.  At that point, it does no good to say “abortion is a matter of personal choice” because the deck already is stacked to create the predictable outcome.

The chain of moral failures started in the backseat of the boyfriend’s car.  That’s where the preacher ought to focus.  He’s abdicating his moral responsibility to the unwed mother and to her unborn child.  He’s not an evangelist, he’s a hedonist.  Oh, and he’s against Trump.  How could I have predicted that?

Joe Doakes

It’s pretty much a 1:1 correlation.

It’s A Start

Sandra Grazzini-Rucki was sentenced today for the kidnapping of her children, after losing custody to her ex-husband, David Rucki; she then sequestered them on a ranch for over two years.  Not only did she keep them from her ex-husband – but she apparently didn’t visit them herself either.

Just my opinion, here; there is no circle of hell cold enough for people who deprive other parents of access to their children without damn good reason.  Ms. Grazzini-Rucki is lucky I wasn’t the judge.   Enough said.

More on this case – and its prime mover, Michael Brodkorb – tomorrow.

Mother Nature

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

In the olden days, a child born out of wedlock was illegitimate and not entitled to support from the father.  Fear for her child kept women from straying which contributed to social stability.  Apparently, it’s not just a human thing.

 Too bad the birdbrains who changed our laws are not as smart as sparrows.

 Joe Doakes

The first step to saving our society may be a game show for our politicians and media stars called “Are You Smarter Than A Small Bird?”

I’m afraid we’d have to run qualifiers through a round of “Are You Smarter Than An Invertebrate?”

Family Lawless

I’ll admit up front; I don’t know all the facts of this case.

And I doubt we’ll ever really find them out.  This case has been jammed forcibly onto the radars of pretty much every person in the Twin Cities media and pundocracy for quite some time now, by parties – family law attorneys – who appear to be as inept as Heather Martens when it comes to shaping public opinion.

And so I’ll admit that I don’t know everything one needs to know about the case.

But if the facts are as the father has presented them (and given the exceedingly erratic behavior of the mother throughout this case, and, in my frank opinion, the retention of Michelle MacDonald as counsel, I’m inclined to believe the father) and the defendant brainwashed the children against the father?

If that’s the case?  If there’s ever been a case to justify waterboarding someone, this is it.

Any parent who brainwashes their children against their other parent has to look waaaaay up to see Nazi war criminals.  While I oppose the death penalty on principle, I think any parent who brainwashes and kidnaps the kids to deprive an otherwise-capable parent of access to their children deserves a death that violates the entire Bill of Rights, and maybe the ISIS Constitution too.

The English language has no word dark and vile enough to describe my hatred for such people.

Unforgiven

I oppose the death penalty.  I oppose  it for one reason; the inevitability of executing the innocent.

It’s not that no case has ever made me want to see some one eaten by mice, of course.  Classic example; the Susan Smith case.  Smith was convicted twenty years ago of pushing her car, with her kids strapped into the back, into a lake to their deaths.  At the time she was alleged to be involved with another guy, and killed her boys to keep their father from getting custody.

She’s “setting the record straight“.

I read it.

I’ll stick with the mice.

Thoughtcrime

You’ve heard the stories of the betrothed gay couples who’ve scoured the market for test cases waiting to happen – Christian photogs, bakers, florists and other vendors who politely tried to opt out of participating in ceremonies they don’t believe in.  They were sued into compliance or bankruptcy, or both.

And now, in Canada – a Christian jeweler who actually made the rings for a lesbian couple, who were favorably impressed with his work…

…until they discovered he didn’t personally believe in same sex marriage.  The idea of having their finely-crafted rings made by someone with impure thoughts – thoughtcrime! – sent them running to Big Gay Inquisition to smite the infidels.

Rod Dreher narrates:

Were this a Monty Python sketch and not a horrifying power play, the tendering conversation would presumably have proceeded like this: Customer: We are a lesbian couple who would like you to make us a wedding ring. Business owner: Okay. I do not support gay marriage, but I will serve you as anybody else. This, I understand, is how it works. Customer: You can’t deny me service simply because you hold different views from mine. Business owner: Indeed. I have no intention of doing so. Society is better off when our differences remain private. Customer: Okay, let’s do business. Business owner: Great. Customer: Your private views are disgusting. You can’t make me do business with you. Give me my money back or I’ll unleash the kraken. If this is to be our new standard — and time will tell — it would be useful to know what legal protection our recalcitrant firms will reasonably be able to recruit to their side. In both Canada and in the United States there already exists a pernicious imbalance in the supposedly free marketplace. If a browsing consumer doesn’t happen to like the politics or the race or the religion of a given business owner, he is quite free to decline to associate with it. Thus do some progressives like to skip Chick-Fil-A, an openly Christian business; thus do some conservatives prefer to avoid Apple, whose owner Tim Cook irritated them during the Indiana fight. By that very same law, however, it is strictly verboten for a business to discriminate against customers they themselves dislike — even if they feel that by fulfilling their legal obligations they will be violating their consciences. Are we really going to add to this already lopsided arrangement a general right to break contracts after the fact? Are we going to hand the integrity of our signed arrangements over to the whim of the mob? And if we are not, what are we to expect the government to do about those whose consciences now demand that they renege on their word?

Granted, it’s Canada.

On the other hand, it’s Canada – the prototype shop for all the stupid bits of social engineering leaking into the Western Hemisphere.

Being Protestant, As I Am…

…my commentary about Pope Francis is largely irrelevant.  While we’re all on the Jesus Team, he’s not in my chain of command.

And I know, I know – is “infallability” is, doctrinally, entirely a matter of theology.

All I know, goy that I am, is that many more remarks like this and people are going to start mistaking him for Joe Biden.

The Ultimate Inequity

Preface: I frequently joke that progressives have developed a habit of turning todays’ satire into tomorrow’s policy.

Conservatives have long known that, no matter what a family’s income level, the best way to stack the odds in a kid’s favor is to:

  • Have the kids in wedlock
  • Stay together
  • Actually raise the kids

Poor families that do this have kids who stand a decent chance of making it out of poverty.  Rich families who don’t often have kids that slide right back down the economic ladder.

You’d think this’d be something that no “progressive” would, or could, mess with.

And you’d be wrong; a couple of (naturally) Ivy League philosophers are pondering the notion that a strong, loving family background is just unfair:

‘I had done some work on social mobility and the evidence is overwhelmingly that the reason why children born to different families have very different chances in life is because of what happens in those families.’

Once he got thinking, [philosopher Adam] Swift could see that the issue stretches well beyond the fact that some families can afford private schooling, nannies, tutors, and houses in good suburbs. Functional family interactions—from going to the cricket to reading bedtime stories—form a largely unseen but palpable fault line between families. The consequence is a gap in social mobility and equality that can last for generations.

So, what to do?

According to Swift, from a purely instrumental position the answer is straightforward.

‘One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family. If the family is this source of unfairness in society then it looks plausible to think that if we abolished the family there would be a more level playing field.’

Quite a few conservative critics stop with that quote – Swift doesn’t advocate abolishing the family or the role of parents (which isn’t to say he doesn’t support a radical redefinition of “family”, either).

But the “philosophers” (and the ABC reporter who wrote the story, Joe Gelonese) had a choice of angles to take: either “intact, involved families have a positive effect”, or “intact, involved families are unfair”.  And in the world, and with the media culture, we have today, the most depressing thing about this story is that it doesn’t surprise me they took the angle they did.

The Booming Legal Economy

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Ramsey County doesn’t use District Court Judges to hear Family Law cases, they use Referees who hold hearings, swear witnesses, take testimony, and recommends Findings and Conclusions for final Decree to be signed by the real judge.  Anybody out there interested in spend all day, every day, listening to divorcing couples bicker?  Oh, and you also get to wallow in domestic abuse and listen to excuses from juvenile delinquents.

On the other hand, it pays well.

***

The Second Judicial District has the following job opportunity available:

Referee (2 positions available)

Applications accepted until 4:30 p.m., March 27, 2015

How much worse than “having teenagers” could it be?

Extreme

How debased is the English language, as it relates to politics in the US today?

The Democrats are chanting in unison that a bill regulating abortion is “extreme”.

No shock there.

What’s “extreme” is that it would ban abortion of fetuses after the 20th week of gestation.

20 weeks.  Five months.  Over halfway there.

More importantly, long after pain is known to register with the “fetuses” – and exactly two weeks earlier than children have survived premature delivery.

Two weeks.

When the “fetus” is fully formed in every particular; just not developed quite enough to survive on its own yet; 22 weeks involves working medical miracles; 24 weeks is difficult as hell and touch and go – but doable.

Note to infanticide supporters; say what you will about a “woman’s right to choose” – but when the “choice” involves something that is physically as well as morally indistinguishable from “a baby”, you’re not making any friends outside your echo chamber, provided they know what the actual story is.  Barring abortion of a “fetus” that is two weeks away from being a viable human being is not extreme.  Allowing it certainly is.

 

 

Equality

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Courts struck down obsolete “one-man-one-woman” marriage laws because gays were treated unfairly.

Incest laws prevent birth defects . . . but gay couples don’t have that problem. So should gay cousins be allowed to marry? And what about Muslim cousin arranged marriages – shouldn’t we respect that culture?

Once you begin pulling out the foundation stones of the social framework . . . .

Joe Doakes

What, in all honesty, prevents any group of two or more people with legal standing to sign contracts from getting “married”, anymore?

NoH8!

When gay marriage activists sold the idea of same-sex marriage, their key points (other than the “if you disagree you are teh bigot!” that most of the lower-information supporters prattled endlessly) were:

  1. The idea that marriage is purely about raising children is obsolete – people who don’t intend to, or can’t, have children, are married all the time, even in churches. 
  2. With the idea of procreation left out of the equation, why, really, shouldn’t two people who love each other be able to be married?

This, of course, introduced some new questions; if, indeed, “love” is the basis for marriage, why can’t three or more people love each other enough to get married, by that same token? 

There was one other case I’ve been wondering about for the past few years; what kind of “love” do we mean, here? 

Who Wrote The Book Of Love?:  There are different kinds of love; the Bible breaks “love” down into three categories:

  • “Eros” – physical attraction
  • “Philos” – “brotherly” love, or deep friendship
  • “Agape” (pronounced:  “ogg-OPP-ay”):  unconditional love – usually associated with divinity, sometimes also of the “Greater love hath nobody that they lay down their life…” variety.

The Vapours:  With that in mind, gay groups in New Zealand are up in arms over a couple of guys – Travis McIntosh and Matt McCormick, who happen to be longtime utterly heterosexual pals – who got married as part of a radio station promotion. 

They are not amused: 

 Otago University Students’ Association Queer Support co-ordinator Neill Ballantyne, of Dunedin, said the wedding was an”insult” because marriage equality was a”hard fought” battle for gay people.

“Something like this trivialises what we fought for.” The competition promoted the marriage of two men as something negative,”as something outrageous that you’d never consider”, Mr Ballantyne said.

LegaliseLove Aotearoa Wellington co-chairman Joseph Habgood said the competition attacked the legitimacy of same-sex marriages.

“The point of this competition is that men marrying each other is still something they think is worth having a laugh at …

Both of these gentlemen bring up two responses:

Yuk It Up:  In a free society, marriage – no matter who is doing it – is always worth having a laugh at.  There is no right not to be offended. 

More seriously?:  Mr. Habgood’s organization’s name, “LegalizeLove”, should give you a hint here.

Gay activists convinced a plurality of representatives that “marriageable love” didn’t just involve people who practiced “Eros” in the heteronormative manner. 

So why must marriageable love include “Eros” (to say nothing of “Eros” between just two people) at all?  By the standard we’ve been convinced/forced to accept, all love is equal.  Why not “Philos?”

(And if the “Deep brotherly love” is only “love of Rugby”, as indeed seems to be the case?  Love is love, dammit!)

Cue The Outrage Industry:  Perhaps it’s time for “Philos” activists to take to the streets to fight for Pal Marriage.  To combat the “Homonormative” hatred that is denying rights to other people whose love for each other is no less valid than that of any gay couple. 

NoH8!

The Skewed Market

Childcare is hard to find in Minnesota – a state where daycare costs are already among the highest in the nation, per-capita.

And it’s even harder in Greater Minnesota.

Eight months before her due date, Angie Steinbach started calling day cares to reserve a spot for her baby.

Nobody had an opening as far as Marshall or Willmar — both a 45-minute drive away. Steinbach got on waiting lists “behind people who hadn’t even conceived yet,” she said.

When Steinbach’s boy was born, her husband — who had just earned a degree in computers — planned to stay home with their son. The couple didn’t find a way for them both to work until a relative tipped them to an opening at a child care in Granite Falls.

“You just don’t realize until you actually experience it firsthand just how bad the shortage is,” said Steinbach, community development director for the city of Montevideo.

Large parts of rural Minnesota don’t have enough child care for working families. Finding a place for newborns is especially difficult.

The piece does a fairly useful job of citing the economic problems that the shortage is causing.

What it doesn’t do is explain how the DFL’s strategy of raising the cost and crimping the supply of childcare with its daycare union jamdown is going to help anything.

Lawless

The second-biggest problem this nation faces today – behind the fact that our financial system, left to run the way it is today, is going to crash sooner than later – is the fact that too much of our government operates outside the law.

Of course, that fact grabs headlines when Obama’s administration tramples the law to oppress conservative groups – and by “headlines”, we mean “not in the mainstream media”, but headlines nonetheless.

It even gets notice on the retail level when government’s agents – the cops – make up the law as they go along.

But in the long term, it may be most toxic when the “justice” system decides it can operate outside the law.  Whether it’s a corrupt, pettifogging Mike Nifong bending the rules to help his re-election bid…

…or a piece of garbage in a judge costune who decides the law is what she says it is:

A judge has ordered Matthew Hindes to appear in court or face contempt, despite the fact that he’s out at sea and there’s a federal law meant to help those who are deployed.

Sailor Hindes already won custody of his daughter – four years ago.  Now he’s a crewman on, concidentally, the USS Michigan ,a ballistic missile submarine.

The Serviceman’s Civil Relief Act (SCRA) was designed to protect servicepeople from being ambushed by legal actions (foreclosures, lawsuits, and yes, custody battles) while they’re deployed and defending the country, frequently in situations where keeping focus on their jobs is a matter of life or death for them and – in the case of a submarine crew – 150 other men.   By law, judges are to stay all actions for a minimum of 90 days while servicepeople carry out their duty to this country.

But Hindes’ ex-wife filed a motion in their apparently ongoing custody battle.  And – SCRA notwithstanding – the judge has declared herself above the law, and is demanding that Hindes crap out a miracle:

But circuit court judge Margaret Noe in Michigan denied that protection for Hindes. The Daily Telegram quotes the judge, “If the child is not in the care and custody of the father, the child should be in the care and custody of the mother.” But sailor Hindes argues the child was taken from the ex-wife four years ago for neglect.

Let’s not mince words:  Judge Noe is a martinet, and a pig, and a “human” only in the strictest biological sense of the term.  She is unfit to walk on the same street as Hindes, much less suspend the law in regard to his case.   She is a piece of animal offal with two legs and a law degree.

Military lawyers are now joining the effort to get a delay in the case. In the meantime Hindes remains deployed serving his country.

I hope those military lawyers start with tossing Noe’s actions thus far.  And then impeach “her” from the bench.  And then clap her in the stocks to be pelted with garbage and jeers, especially from other serving servicepeople, not to mention the rare custodial father.  Then it’d be nice to deport her to North Korea, where she belongs and into whose ruling class she would likely fit nicely, at least ideologically.  And I hope they film the whole thing, to show it to any other petty government functionary who tries to operate like the law is their personal byotch.

That’d be merciful.  “Judge” Noe should be happy I’m not this nation’s absolute ruler.  Then, things would get nasty.

Hindes’ supporters have Facebook pages here and here.

In Re: The Matter Of Brandon Eich: Comment 1 Of Many

To:  Gay rights supporters doing the end-zone happy dance (to an impeccable techno beat) over the lynching of Brandon Eich
From: Mitch Berg, uppity libertarian-conservative Christian
Re:  Forgiveness and Memory

Dear activists,

To all of you who are doing the end-zone happy dance over the ouster of Brandon Eich as CEO at Mozilla?   A couple of points:

The “H” Word:  I’m one who believes the word is very, very over-used in our society today – but it applies here:  if you have ever, even once, said “politics is too nasty, vitriolic and rancorous”, but support the Eich ouster, then you are a hypocrite.

And The “F” Words:  A lot of libertarian conservatives – including, on some facets of the issue, yours truly – did battle with our own tribe on this issue, supporting the idea of same sex unions to one degree or another (in my case, I support civil unions, while wanting government out of the business of sanctioning civil statuses altogether).    I didn’t expect much better out of Big Gay – any more than I do out of any other Big Left movement – but I know a lot of libertarian-conservatives are feeling burned today.  Many of us will forgive, but we don’t forget.

Wind, Whirlwing, Et Al:   Read Matt Walsh’s piece on the subject.  We’ll talk.  Oh, yes.  We will.

That is all.