Random Thoughts From A Random Debate
By Mitch Berg
I got into a debate over the Good and Pretti shootings.
I’m posting this here mostly to have my summation available when I need it.
Modern political social media demands binaries, black hats and white hats, no ambiguity. Which is a problem, given that sSeveral things can be, and in this case certainly are, true at the same time.
In no particular order:
1. Civil liberties are for everyone, especially people we disagree with.
2. It’d be obtuse not to admit that Big Left is a profoundly illiberal force that, true to Alinsky, seeks to force its enemies to live by the rules it only invokes for it’s own gain. As it does with all liberal institutions, Big Left seeks to kill and skin the institutions and wear them like a meat suit. If and when they get the power they want, they *will*, not might, render those liberties pointless. We know that because that’s exactly what they’ve done every place they’ve gotten power.
3. Federal law enforcement is very militarized, just as we warned during the Obama administration.
4. So are Big Left’s shock troops. Militarized, well funded, and not bound by any niceties of social behavior. This past year, ICE has been shot at, and rammed over 100 times, including at least twice here in the Twin Cities. I can’t say I’d want to face that wearing a Men’s Wearhouse suit; I’d choose the battle rattle too.
5. We can NOT trust our sources of information. Depending on who you believe, Renee Good was either a stay at home mom who’d just dropped her kid off at school and was on her way to deliver cookies and butterflies to homeless amputees, or someone with a long criminal jacket, including domestic abuse charges, who ditched her husband and grabbed the kid to come to Minneapolis to live out her fantasy of being Robyn Hood. Evidence seems to be pointing more toward “B”, but I’ll admit I have some bias. Nevertheless, the media and Big Left’s noise machine is going all in on “A”.
6. Depending on who you believe, she was either murdered in cold blood by an untrained, inexperienced goon hired straight out of a strip club in Pensacola who was given a gun and a quota, OR a veteran of two decades in the military and law enforcement and a spotless record and ample, painful experience with how little these entitled white progressive f*cks care about hurting people.
This next one is a little abstruse:
7. In 1933, when German President Von Walz…er, Von Hindenburg declared emergency power, and using the provisions in the Weimar constitution installed the “Hitler Cabinet”, among the biggest supporters in the Reichstag were…the Communists. They figured that the upcoming struggle between the Communists and the “horseshoe right” of the day would make the center untenable, and they would benefit. They were right about the first part, but grossly miscalculated the last bit. Point being, Big Left benefits, or thinks they benefit, from destabilizing society, including the erosion of the rule of law and “order” in the broad sense of the term. That’s why they’re reacting with so much well-financed, organic-as-an-iPhone extremism. They figure, like Ernst Thälmann, that people fleeing the center will come to them. SInce they’re NOT faced with a party that’s going to shove them into camps if they lose, what’s to stop them? Small-“l” liberal democracy requires commitment from *all* parties. There is no such commitment from BIg Left, and we know this because what they’ve done, again, every time they have taken power, anywhere.
8. My old criminal defense attorney used to get pissed at people invoking “due process”. Paraphrasing him, he said “due process isn’t a magical guarantee of justice, or even fairness; it just means the system follows the law as it’s written down”. And the due process of law on many immigration issues *does not provide* for jury trials; I’m no expert on immigration law, but IIRC many visa violations – which were the largest source of illegal immigration until the Biden regime – require an administrative hearing, which is by law is about as probative as a hearing about your parking ticket. Don’t like that? I may agree with you – but that *is* the “due process”.
9. A whole lot of people who were experts on the War Powers Act a week ago are suddenly experts on Use of Force and Self-defense law. And most of them, on both sides, are substituting feeling for fact on this issue; IF “due process” is followed, the officer will claim he had a reasonable fear of immediate death or great bodily harm; the lawyers will argue and a jury will likely decide. And that jury will be in a Federal court – not because Trump’s got the fix in, but because *that is due process*, according to Neagle Vs. US; federal officers doing federal things are federal jurisdiction. The disinformation has already started on that one.
10. Let’s not underestimate how this is being harnessed to deflect from Minnesota’s only growing industry, nonprofit fraud.
One of the reasons, probably the main one, that I left the Libertarian party and never joined the Ron Paul mob was this: without order, prosperity is impossible; without prosperity, liberty is academic; without liberty, order is onerous. American small-“l” liberal pluralism is a lot more fragile than it looks.
Is the fed’s enforcement of immigration law heavy-handed? Probably. Is the amount of disorder and contempt for the rule of law left by the previous administration, not to mention that is the stock in trade of the opposition, a daunting challenge? Absolutely.
January 26th, 2026 at 11:19 am
This is a remarkable column, Mitch. I read it thrice and cannot find a single thing that I would correct or dispute.
Thank you.
January 26th, 2026 at 12:30 pm
“4. So are Big Left’s shock troops. Militarized, well funded, and not bound by any niceties of social behavior. “
Its a very safe bet that some significant amounts of the Billion$ in MN fraud money was funneled through NGOs to fund the insurgency shock troops. This insurgency is not spun up to protect the multibillion dollar frauds – the frauds are in place to fund this insurgency nationwide (see ohio, maine, california,etc)
January 26th, 2026 at 12:42 pm
also:
insurgency +
benefits to illegal aliens +
sanctuary cities/states +
extensive financial fraud = Cloward-Piven on ster0ids
January 26th, 2026 at 1:47 pm
Mitch, you may remember me from the early days of your blog as a big fan. We had some good discussions, and more or less agreed on things.
I watched over the years as you moved further and further right. For my own part I know I moved a little to the left, so the split in our viewpoint has continued to widen.
The last time I commented here was back when Scott Walker was our governor in Wisconsin. He “ran” for president. You loved him, or that’s my recollection. I thought he was Satan (still do). Fun factoid: He had a meeting with trump after trump got the nomination where he shared with trump his uniquely Machiavellian take on governance. A lot of people don’t know this, but trump has basically run Walker’s playbook in office, especially when Walkerism was formally codified in Project 2025.
I wrote an anti-Walker screed here and was absolutely gang-piled by your commenters, who said among other things that I was a socialist because I was a government employee “sucking the big teat of taxpayer largesse” (can’t forget that line).
I was a school bus driver. I can’t tell you how rich I got sucking on that big teat. My favorite part was the Saturday school sports charters.
Now.
It’s been well over a decade since my last comment here. And I’m commenting because, even though I have wanted to throw my phone across the room many times reading the snark emanating from you and your doppelgänger Doakes, I do respect your knowledge of history, music, etc. and that you don’t believe every stupid meme you run across.
So I think it’s very important that you get this one (ICE in the Twin Cities) right. I totally get your deep hatred of the left and those nice ELCA Lutheran ladies and “Avery Librelle,” who to me is like a character from MAD Magazine, which I’ll bet you read while growing up just like I did.
But I think you should be on the street with the people. They are fighting for YOUR freedom and YOUR beliefs. These federal agents include J6ers who trump sprung from jail who are in MPLS for payback. Many of them are simply incel thugs. I know you’re not a huge trump fan so there is hope for you yet. This is the real deal; it’s going down. Stand with the people, not with the thugocracy. I can’t help it if that puts you on the same side as Avery and the ELCA; a broken clock is still right twice a day.
I know I’m not particularly welcome here so I’ll leave it at that. And I know you wouldn’t deliberately spread misinformation so this will put the “Renee Good: Criminal!” bs to rest:
https://www.wral.com/news/state/fact-check-renee-good-criminal-record-child-abuse-minneapolis-2026/
That is all.
January 26th, 2026 at 4:12 pm
Is the fed’s enforcement of immigration law heavy-handed? Probably
BS. Nothing, literally nothing similar to what is occurring in MN is happening in other (red) states that agree to work with the immigration enforcement authorities. In TX, they are arresting 10 times the number of illegal aliens without any of this Marxist revolution LARPing.
I should also mention in this regard that the immigration enforcement authorities stated up front that they were only looking for illegal aliens engaging in typical criminal activities. The very types that local police have already arrested. However. The feds also stated that if forced to come in and go house-to-house, so to speak, they will take *all* illegal aliens. If there’s any heavy-handedness, Walz et al are to blame.
Finally, it should not be necessary, but it is important to note that this all exploded just after all the instances of DFL fraud were exposed and couldn’t be ignored (still more is being exposed, like at the bldg at 2614 Nicollet, coincidentally where the second shooting occurred). It should also not be necessary to mention (but I will), that should this financial fraud extends to voting and ultimately power. DFL power. That’s why this is all so serious.
PS those silly notions that Melissa Hortman’s murder was political don’t seem so silly now.
January 26th, 2026 at 9:44 pm
People have various opinions and I don’t have any problems with that.
There are other items that are facts and many people seem to think that their opinion might have some bearing or relevance on. They do not.
For example, use of lethal force is simple. The only question is if it is justified in a particular case. The criteria is:
1) LEOs have no duty to retreat from threats. ICE are LEOs. This has never been questioned until now – certainly not under Obama. As federal officers, they are assuredly real law enforcement.
2) LEOs may use deadly force if they feel threatened, another LEO is threatened or the public is threatened.
3) Once a vehicle has been weaponized, it remains weaponized until the driver exits the vehicle. A person with a gun is a threat until they are disarmed.
There are several Supreme Court cases on this in the context of the 4th amendment. They were not even close decisions, 8-0, 9-0, etc.
The media could easily provide this information. They certainly should be able to do the minimal research with the help of chatGPT. That they don’t probably is more a reflection of the fact that we now know MPR and other reporters are active members of ICE Watch.
January 27th, 2026 at 9:55 am
Pete, I know for a fact that Mitch and “Joe Doakes” are not the same person. I’ve met them both. The person who writes under the pen name “Joe Doakes” sends suggested posts to Mitch, much as First Ringer did earlier years, and Mitch decides what to post on SITD and when.
January 27th, 2026 at 10:19 am
John “Bigman” Jones — it was just a suspicion of mine because their tone and writing style are remarkably similar, and also if you were inclined to be mathematical about it, I’ll bet you’d find Doakes posts more words per annum than Mitch does.
But hey, I believe you, there are probably people who sound like me too.
And the overwhelming “editorial voice” of SITD remains a fairly unified one!
January 27th, 2026 at 2:48 pm
Thanks for responding, Pete. While you are here, would you mind clearing up something for me?
“These federal agents include J6ers who trump sprung from jail who are in MPLS for payback.” I searched the internet for a source to confirm that fact but couldn’t find one. Do you have a link so I can read it for myself?
Thanks so much.
January 27th, 2026 at 4:39 pm
Here’s a link where House Dems want a complete listing of names of J6ers who are employed at FBI and DHS; they mention some mid-level agents by name and are seeking the names of lower-ranking agents. This was just a few days ago:
https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/ranking-member-raskin-demands-doj-and-dhs-produce-records-regarding-hiring-of-jan-6-riot-participants
Also Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys now says he was “joking” when he said on X that he was proud to be on the list of ICE agents that was doxxed to the Internet. If you dig further (not hard) you find that the list itself was bogus, like so much other stuff on the Net these days. But as of a few days ago, Tarrio had admitted on X to being an ICE agent.
January 27th, 2026 at 8:08 pm
Thanks, Pete. I’ll dig into it.
January 29th, 2026 at 6:39 am
It’s not so much that you’re not welcome – I mean, why not? – but I really have no idea what you’re talking about half the time.
And you jam SO many words in my mouth. Seriously. I just give up trying.
January 29th, 2026 at 4:14 pm
Agreed. My take is that the 4th Amendment prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure does require warrants on private property, but also would mandate reasonable force no matter where an arrest is to be made. No SWAT teams on Elian Gonzalez, and (to use a recent example) officers need to either choose to arrest people or let them go–no pushing them down as preceded the killing of Alex Pretti.
More or less, the Constitution suggests that tactics matter, which is the same thing that we’d infer from a basic appraisal of human nature. There are some things you just don’t do unless you want a lot of resentment or even a fight.