Since the topic of political “extremism” is on everyone’s mind, I may as well get this out there.

I’m an extremist.

I’m an extremist for Western Civilization.

I’m an extremist for the legacy of the value of the individual that comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I am a zealot for that civilization’s rejection of group guilt for the sins of the individual.

I am a full blown foot soldier for the idea that rights – freedom of expression, conscience, innocence until proof of guilt, and defending my life, family, home, freedom and community – are all indivisible parts of being human, not “privileges” granted to you by a benevolent government (and taken away by a less-benevolent one).

I am a militant (intellectually speaking, and here’s hoping it can stay that way) for the notion that “citizenship” means having all the powers, rights and responsibilities of government, allowing me (and you!) to govern a society together, regardless of (indeed, ignoring completely) the rest of our various identities.

I’m a howling berserker (again, purely intellectually, here) for the free markets of ideas as well as goods, which has made this civilization the most humane human system in all of history.

I am a full-blown crusader for the tolerance of dissent, and indeed exaltation of informed criticism of and dissent from our rulers, our laws, and indeed the imperfections of Western Civilization itself that our civilization, pretty much alone among all the world’s cultures through history, invented – as well as for the ability to tolerate, learn from, and co-exist with other cultures as equals in the eyes of God and the law…

…while keeping, living by, and proselytizing the parts of our civilization that have made it the system in human history that has most effectively and systematically upheld the dignity and value of human life, even with all its (amply studied) imperfections.
I’m a stormtrooper for the ideal that these freedoms, exaltations, values and traditions are not zero sum propositions; that taking freedom away from someone doesn’t give you more.

I’m a flag-waving militiaman for the imperative to spread those freedoms to as many people in the world as want them – and, if needed, defend them from those who don’t.
For those things, I’m an extremist. A peaceful one, one that welcomes both agreement and civil disagreement.

But I’m absolutely an extremist. You can have my Western Civilization when you pry it from my cold, hand – and you will spend an eternity trying to pry it from my hot, living soul, and failing.

“Extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue”
— Barry Goldwater.

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.

Liberals keep haranguing us about Covid numbers, comparing New York to Florida, Minnesota to Wisconsin. They want us to believe open states fare worse than closed states. I don’t believe the numbers Liberals use are apt comparisons.

Covid kills old people. It’s reasonable that places with more old people would experience more Covid deaths. Raw number of deaths, and deaths-per-million-of-total-population, don’t take into account how many of the population are old enough to be at-risk (leaving aside the fact nobody believes the reported death numbers). You have to look at the at-risk populations to see how various states are doing.

There are 5,800,000 people in Wisconsin, 16.5% of them over-65, for a pool of 957,000 at-risk seniors, of which 906 have died of Covid.  That gives Wisconsin an at-risk death rate of 0.094%

There are 21,500,000 people in Florida, 21% of them over-65, for a pool of 4,515,000 at-risk seniors, of which 6,100 have died of Covid. That gives Florida an at-risk death rate of 0.135%.

There are 5,600,000 people in Minnesota, 16.3% of them over-65, for a pool of 912,800 at-risk seniors, of which 1,600 have died of Covid.  That gives Minnesota an at-risk death rate of 0.175%.

There are 19,500,000 people in New York, 17% of them over-65, for a pool of 3,315,000 at-risk seniors, of which 32,700 have died of Covid. That gives New York an at-risk death rate of 0.986%.

Minnesota’s results are twice as bad as Wisconsin’s (17 to 9).

New York’s results are SEVEN TIMES as bad as Florida’s (98 to 13).

Among the at-risk population, open states have decisively better results.

That’s a story that needs better telling.

Joe Doakes

That’s been the case since the beginning of this plague: “Blue State” pundits, pols and Karens have been predicting perdition for uppity square-staters with the fervor of Pentecostal ministers.

The comparison is less and less inapt every day.

As background: Thursdays are usually my slow day here on SITD. I usually do a little surge of writing over the weekend that tides me through the first half of the week – and the end of the week usually brings its own observations I scramble to get in for Friday.

But late-week fatigue, other commitments, and the like have made Thursdays the red-headed step-day of the Shot In The Dark schedule for years and years, now.

I’m going to fix that. Sort of.

So – the urge to do another book project has overtaken me. And writing Trulbert as a “Dickensian Serial” on this blog six years ago was not only a lot of fun, but short-circuited some of the usual pitfalls of trying to write a book, most particularly the whole “self-discipline” thing.

Indeed, I believe the fact that one of you readers called it exactly that was what sparked an interest to turn an extended series of “comical” posts into a novel. And it was suggestions in the comment section that led to an actual ending.

So I’m gonna do it again. I’m going to earmark Thursdays for the new project.

Or should I say, “new” project.

Thursdays will likely be light on other content, and devoted to a “chapter” of my next project.

More next week.

While I haven’t probably kept up with all of Pete Townsend‘s work since “White City“, I have to say if I were to put together a list of his most overlooked solo/non-Who work, my list would look very much the same as this, and more or less the same order.

“The Sea Refuses No River” is far and away his most underrated song. And “White City Fighting” should have been a hit.

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”. 

Went to dinner at friend’s house, no masks or distancing, and got to admire his M1 from the CMP program. Solid people.

His wife is afraid Democrats will never let us take off our muzzles but I explained the marks silliness will only last through the recount.

Last January, impeachment was a ploy to get Trump out of office. It failed.
Covid is a ploy to prevent Trump from getting re-elected. When it fails, they will drop it and move to a different play to get him removed from office. I suspect it will be another attempt at impeachment, this time based on tax returns.

Masks are temporary. Does not make them less annoying, but the end is in sight.

Joe Doakes

Even if mask mandates are as effective at disease prevention as they are at logrolling compliance, this whole episode points out that when the people get terrible information, the rumor mill – and its high-tech analog, “fake news” – fill in the gaps.

And yes, it is all Governor Klink’s fault.

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)

Republicans agreed to police reform bills in the second special session.  This is a mistake.

There should be NO legislative action, on ANY proposal, until Dictator Walz relinquishes his totalitarian control over the entire state back to the peoples’ elected representatives in the legislature.

Otherwise, it never ends.  Ever.  And in that case, why do we need the Legislature at all?

Joe Doakes

Couldn’t agree more.

Not one bill.

And if the GOP caves on the bonding bill – or any bill while the emergency is in effect – I’m going to have to reconsider why I vote GOP at all.

…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.

Fox9 meteorologist Jennifer McDermed

and

Chelsea Peretti from “Brooklyn Nine Nine”.

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.

This is treated with (justifiable) revulsion.

The reporters who treat it with justifiable revulsion go here for a drink after work and see people wearing these and say not a single word.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emailed…er, mid-last week:

Governor Walz is set to announce a state-wide mask order.  It’s
necessary, to prevent the spread of Covid-19 virus.  He hasn’t said so
yet, but he’ll be cancelling the elections soon.

Why?  Isn’t it obvious?  If the Covid-19 virus is so deadly that we must
wear masks at all times, even standing in line outside a store with the
breeze blowing, then surely it’s so deadly that we cannot stand in line
outside a polling place with the breeze blowing.

Unless . . . maybe voting is like rioting?  Maybe the virus doesn’t
spread during voting the way it spreads during singing, for example in
church, and more like the way it doesn’t spread during shouting, for
example at protests.

Anyway, it’s too late now to switch to on-line voting or mail-in
ballots.  And despite the endless tinkering with the dials to perpetuate
the terror, the DNC’s internal polling numbers show Trump doing
surprisingly well in Minnesota.  Voters simply aren’t blaming Trump for
Walz’ actions.

No, there’s just too much risk.  We can’t take the chance of something
going disastrously wrong.

The elections are canceled.

Joe Doakes

Who needs elections when we have hundreds of thousands of fraudulent registrations to do our voting for us?

As David Harsanyi notes, there is no issue save religion that the mainstream, especially “elite”, media, do a worse job of covering than guns.

At RealClearPolitics, John Lott reports that legacy media outlets often quite literally allow anti–Second Amendment activists to write their news stories on gun policy. Politico hasn’t quite done that today, but . . . well, I’m not sure having reporters dutifully repackaging Everytown USA press releases is any better.

The whole thing is worth a read – not that it tells you anything you don’t know.   Even the best better among Twin Cities newsrooms, NPR, has given anti-gun activists an unfettered, unedited and un-fact-checked voice (although as we noted at that time, the bias’s roots were more likely financial than ideological). 

The media does do a terrible job.  Not for lack of effort on the part of gun-rights activists…

…and not without some good results.   I’ve noticed, at least at the local level, that journos can – or at least could – be taught.  Over the years, there’ve been examples of reporters that actually listened, and learned to write the whole story and tell the truth on the issue…

…before moving on elsewhere and being replaced by a new wave of journos with the same set of superstitions their predecessors had slowly cut loose.   The whole new generation then needs to be slowly, painstakingly taught that “gun owner <> incipient mass murdering white supremacist”.  

It’s a job that, it seems, will never end. 

Of course, any hint of departing from the narrative is weeded out at the local level – there is not a single national “journalist” outside overtly conservative media that can cover this issue fairly, or even accurately.   And Big Left runs a constant effort to groom reports to take Big Gun Control’s “facts” as fact.  

Which, as Harsanyi notes, is all too successful.  

By the way – if you are among the journos who reads this space, I’d be more than happy to take you to the range one of these days.  Have your people call my people.  

And you? The citizen of Minneapolis? Presuming you’re not part of the political class?

You’re a loser.

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.

It annoys me when writers are carefree with their words.  As Mark Twain pointed out: “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

This article starts out saying: “So when a crisis of the magnitude of the COVID-19 global pandemic forces restaurants to close, and their revenue drops to zero overnight, things get particularly dire.”

Except it didn’t.  Covid was not the cause, Covid was the excuse.  Restaurants were closed by the government and remain closed to various degrees in various states because of politicians

There is no evidence bar patrons in Wisconsin (wide open) are dying in greater numbers than Minnesota (some controls) or California (total ban).  Same virus, diffferent government, different revenue loss,

Okay, it’s nit picking.  I get that.  But still, blaming your restaurant woes on a virus is a conceptual error.  It’s not the virus’ fault.  It’s the Governor’s fault.  And we must not forget that because there is always an excuse to take away your rights, if we’re willing to let them.

Joe Doakes

Most journalists – including some NPR “science correspondents” – can’t discern cause and effect, or correlation and causation, much less the finer points of science.

“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.

Republicans agreed to police reform bills in the second special session.  This is a mistake.

There should be NO legislative action, on ANY proposal, until Dictator Walz relinquishes his totalitarian control over the entire state back to the peoples’ elected representatives in the legislature.

Otherwise, it never ends.  Ever.  And in that case, why do we need the Legislature at all?

Joe Doakes

One hopes the MNGOP gets this message.

The “Mask Mandate” – which, as of a week ago, was of such crucial “scientific” importance that it was on the table in negotiations about the bonding bill – will become official policy as of Friday midnight.

Not only long after Covid peaked in Minnesota, but long after most Americans led the world in voluntarily adopting masks:

Which is more or less what I said a couple weeks ago – give Americans good information, a transparent request, and clear statement of interests, and we’ll do what needs to be done.

Here’s the thing – as we’ve noted, Covid is a disease spread by density. It might be a red-county meat-packing plant, or a major-metro bar, restaurant, open-plan office, bus or train, but the correlation between packing people together for extended time and the spread of Covid seems pretty clear.

Here in Minnesota, about half the counties have had no Covid deaths. Outside the metro areas – Twin Cities, Saint Cloud, Duluth and Rochester – and a few rural meat-packing facilities, the disease is just plain rare.

Senate Majority Leader Gazelka had the termerity to point this out – that perhaps a one-size fits all state mandate for a disease for which one size does not fit all, makes absolutely no sense.

Governor Klink’s response:

Someday, there will need to be an accounting for the damage the American Left has inflicted on the term “science”. For much, indeed most, of the American left, “science” is treated like saying “no sipsies” in high school when you bought a can of pop – a way to pre-emptively foreclose any argument, because you were the first to invoke “science”.

But y’see, Governor Klink, science is observation.

Observe this – pattern of the spread of the disease after five months in Minnesota:

So explain the “science” to us, Governor Klink?

What is the special science-fu that means a disease that spread between metropoli halfway around the world from each other in a matter of weeks, has yet to ravage the low-density hinterlands after five months?

The Governor isn’t talking science. He’s talking Blue Fragility.