Bergs Law

I first codified the various “Berg’s Laws” in 2005. Now, for the first time, I’m going to put them all in one place:

Berg’s First Law of Progressive Iraq Commentary – “No progressive commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the President’s justifications for the War in Iraq at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive”

Berg’s Corollary to Bissonnette’s Law – (Whenever someone introduces an “Old West” analogy into a discussion on civilian firearms ownership, the person can be presumed to be covering for absolute ignorance on the subject). Corollary: Whenever anyone says “people who favor guns are compensating for something, ifyaknowwhatImean”, know what they mean only in the most academic possible sense. (Superseded by the Fugelsang corollary to the Seventh Law, below).


Berg’s Third Law of Human Resilience – At any time less than three weeks after any natural disaster, whenever government and the media declare “there can not be any more survivors, and this is now a recovery operation”, they will be wrong.


Berg’s Fourth Law of Media/Sports Inversion – A Minnesota sports team may be a contender until the moment the local media actually believes they will be contenders. At that moment – be it spring training, late November in the NFL season, or week 72 of the NHL playoffs – the season will fall irredeemably apart.


Berg’s Fifth Law of Historical Illiteracy – 99% of the invocations of Godwin’s Law are intended to get out of a losing argument.


Berg’s Sixth Law of writing a Blog in a city full of people with dubious senses of Humor – To every joke, there is an equal and opposite inappropriately petulant reaction.

Berg’s Seventh Law of Progressive Projection – When a progressive issues a group defamation or assault on conservatives’ ethics, character, humanity or respect for liberty or the truth, they are at best projecting, and at worst drawing attention away from their own misdeeds. Here are the references to Berg’s 7th Law.

The McKay Corollary To Berg’s Seventh Law – Any time the progressive media (to say nothing of leftyblogs) “reports” on guns or race, they should be distrusted but verified. And then, to an almost-mathemetical standard of invariably, distrusted some more.


The “Sixty-First-Minute” Corollary to Berg’s Seventh Law – any time the mainstream (to say nothing of overtly progressive) media presents supposedly damaging information about conservatives, they should presumed guilty of dishonest editing or outright manufacturing of evidence until proven innocent.  They are almost never proven innocent.


The Fugelsang Corollary To Berg’s Seventh Law – an anti-gun progressive who uses “I’m happy with my penis size” as their big kicker in a debate on the Second Amendment doth protest too much.

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.


Berg’s Eighth Law of Diversity: 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. Here are the references to Berg’s 8th Law.


Berg’s Ninth Law of Experiential Value: Advice on “keeping a marriage together” from anyone whose kids haven’t been moved out for at least five years is also known as”wishful thinking”.


Berg’s Tenth Law of Quantum Context: When a progressive says a conservative is “lying”, the odds of the “lie” being merely an ambiguity triggering some form of cognitive dissonance increases in geometric proportion with the volume and stridency of the progressive’s declaration. Here are the references in this blog to Berg’s 10th Law.


The Mother Jones Corollary to Berg’s Tenth Law:  “Progressive” media accusations regarding conservative depravity should be distrusted and verified.  The probability that the accusation was at best a mistake and at worst a malicious misrepresentation of fact approach 100% in direct proportion to the hyperbole of the accusation.   Example.


The Santorum Corollary to Berg’s Tenth Law:  If the news media reports something askance about a conservative’s behavior, a full look into the facts will likely show that it was reported with key context missing.  (Removed:  While it’s an overwhelming tendency, it doesn’t quite rise to the level of a “Law”.  Close, but not quite).


Berg’s Eleventh Law of Inverse Viability: The conservative progressive’s “respect” for their “conservative principles” will the the one that has the least chance of ever getting elected. Here are all the references I could find to Berg’s 11th Law.


The McCain Corollary To Berg’s Eleventh Law: If that respected conservative ever develops a chance of getting elected, that “respect” will turn to blind unreasoning hatred overnight.


The Huckabee Corollary the McCain Corollary To Berg’s Eleventh Law: The Republican that the media covers most intensively before the nomination for any office will be the one that the progressives know they have the best chance of beating after the nomination, and/or will most cripple the GOP if nominated.


The Reagan Corollary To The Huckabee Corollary the McCain Corollary To Berg’s Eleventh Law: The Media and Left (pardon the redundancy) will try to destroy the conservative they are most afraid of.

The Boehner Inversion the Reagan Corollary to Berg’s Eleventh Law:   Similarly, the Republican that Democrats support, is supported purely to wedge the conservative wing of the party.


Berg’s Twelfth Law Of Hyperbolic Political Empiricism: The humorous, satirical or hyperbolic explanation of “progressive” behavior will, in direct proportion to the recklessness, extralegality, deviance or confrontiveness of the “progressive” actions being analyzed, to be the correct explanation. Here’s the entire catalog of Berg’s 12th Law references.

The Cano Corollary To Berg’s 12th Law:  Today’s jokes about “progressive” petulance, hypocrisy and bullying are tomorrow’s headlines, next week’s proposals, and next month’s policies.

Berg’s Fourteenth Law Of Media Behavior: The more strenuously a media organization identifies itself as “fact-checkers”, the more completely their “fact checking” will actually be checking statement for congruency with progressive conventional wisdom. Here are all the references to Berg’s 14th Law.

The Maddow Corollary to Berg’s Fourteenth Law:  The same goes for science.

Berg’s Fifteenth Law:  When the Truthers show up, the debate is over.

Berg’s Sixteenth Law of Cognitive Dissipation:  The percentage of “progressives” outside of academia who can make it to the second round of a debate without running out of “facts” and having to switch to deflection, ad hominem and straw man arguments is within the statistical margin of error.

The McFeely/McNeill Corollary to Berg’s Sixteenth Law:  Especially in Minnesota.

Berg’s Seventeenth Law of Media Prioritization:  When reporting “news”:

  1. Nothing any Democrat says, or does, up to and including violating federal law and national security, will ever be held against them
  2. On the other hand, anything untoward (or that can be interpreted as being untoward, regardless of intent or context) that is or is reputed to be done, said, hinted at or speculated to have been done, said or hinted at by any Republican officeholder (no matter how obscure or inconsequential), candidate (whether mainstream or far fringe), party official, contributor, voter, supporter, rally attendee, or by any putative supporter, contributor or rally attendee, or anyone claiming or reputed to have at any time been a Republican party member, supporter or sympathizer, will not only be treated like it’s evidence in a federal trial, but imputed to every conservative, anywhere, regardless of its context, accuracy or even truthfulness.

Berg’s Eighteenth Law of Media Latency:  Nothing the media writes/says about any emotionally charged event – a mass shooting, a police shooting, anything – should be taken seriously for 48 hours after the original incident.  It will largely be rubbish, as media outlets vie to “scoop” each other even on incorrect facts.

Berg’s Nineteenth Law of Fudd-Herding:  No Minnesota gun control group has ever made, nor will they ever make, a statement of fact that is simultaneously

  • Substantial
  • Original, and
  • True

Berg’s Twentieth Law of Social Justice Warmongering:   All incidents of “hate speech” not captured on video (involving being delivered by someone proven not to be a ringer) shall be assumed to be hoaxes until proven otherwise.

Berg’s Twenty-First Law of Rhetorical Evolution:   When it comes to “progressive” policy, yesterday’s absurd joke is today’s serious proposal and tomorrow’s potential law.

Cano’s Corollary to Berg’s 21st Law: In Blue city electoral politics, “blue” never gets “lighter” or less “progressive”.  There is only one electoral direction – more “progressive”.  A symptom of this is when one sees people just barely to the left of a city’s Overton Window referring to the progressive politicidans and institutions in power as “Conservatives” or “Republicans”.  

Berg’s Twenty-Second Law of Mandatory Congruency:  The American media “fact check” industry exists to ensure the left is is credited for all accurate reporting it needs, and ensure the disappearance of that which it doesn’t.

Berg’s 23th Law Of Delusional Mastery:. The level of anger, condescension or picque associated with with a person asserts.a person’s position on the “Dunning Kruger” curve is inversely proportional with that person’s distance form the left side of the curve. 

Berg’s 24th Law Of Rhetorical Predictability: Progressive politicians can, and routinely do, say anything they want, regardless of honesty or even factuality, confident that their audience, while formally “educated”, is badly informed, incurious, and has little capacity for critical thought”.

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