…at least there’s this.  

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

June 17^th will be the 88^th anniversary of Wilmer Stultz’s historic flight across the Atlantic in 1928, just one year after Lucky Lindy flew it, which resulted in a ticker-tape parade, meeting the President, lecture tour, book deal, product endorsements, new job, the works.  Not for him – for his passenger.

 You don’t remember Stultz?  He was the pilot of the airplane that Amelia Earhart rode in.  What, you thought she was the pilot, that she flew it solo, as Lindberg did, that she earned these honors on her own?  Not according to the scholarly articles cited on Wikipedia:

 “The project coordinators (including book publisher and publicist George P. Putnam) interviewed Earhart and asked her to accompany pilot Wilmer Stultz and copilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on the flight, nominally as a passenger, but with the added duty of keeping the flight log. The team departed Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m on June 17, 1928, landing at Pwll near Burry Port, South Wales, exactly 20 hours and 40 minutes later. There is a commemorative blue plaque at the site. Since most of the flight was on “instruments” and Earhart had no training for this type of flying, she did not pilot the aircraft. When interviewed after landing, she said, “Stultz did all the flying—had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes.” She added, “…maybe someday I’ll try it alone.”

 Earhart actually did become the First Female Pilot to Fly Solo Across the Atlantic but not in 1928, she did it in 1932.  The first flight – the celebrated flight – was merely a feminist publicity stunt, akin to the two women dubbed “Army Rangers” last Fall and even our own First Affirmative Action President.

 Celebrating diversity is fine as entertainment, but it’s only entertainment.  Nobody wants their brain surgeon to be the guy who was socially promoted for diversity reasons instead of demonstrated competence.  Nobody wants their pilot to say “I’m just baggage, like a sack of potatoes, you’ll have to fly the plane on your own.”  And frankly, nobody wants to elect The First Woman President just so we can meet a quota.

 Joe Doakes

One can only wonder how much better this nation would be if Colin Powell, Tim Scott or Alan West had been our nation’s first black president.

One of the most frustrating things about being a Second Amendment supporter is that, for the most part, the parts of the media that aren’t misinformed are, actively or passively, spreading disinformation.

Not the worst example is this column yesterday from the left-leaning New York Daily News.

Well, no.  It may be one for the bad-gun-grabber-article hall of fame.  An epic.

But let’s take a step back.

Whenever I – like a lot of my fellow Real Americans in the Second Amendment movement – hear about another wave of gun control hysteria, I silently steel myself for another encounter with the inanity of Every Crusading Anti-Gun Media Figure and their invincible, comical ignorance about the subject.

And NYDN writer Gersh Kuntzman (what else?) delivered:

It feels like a bazooka — and sounds like a cannon.

More on this later.

One day after 49 people were killed in the Orlando shooting, I traveled to Philadelphia to better understand the firepower of military-style assault weapons and, hopefully, explain their appeal to gun lovers.

But mostly, I was just terrified.

I’ll save you some time;  the writer went to Philadelphia to find the single anti-gun gun shop owner in the entire US, an obnoxious European guy who may be the one gun store owner in the US who can be made to come across sympathetically to a New York liberal audience.

(Tangent:  Kuntzman tittered approvingly over this bit:  “He also said he never sells a gun to someone who “looks a little bit funny,” and he claimed he had prevented many guns from getting into the wrong hands because the would-be purchaser “asked stupid questions…”.  So – not selling products to people he doesn’t believe in selling products to?  Huh.  What a concept).

Anyway – remember what I said above about growing impatient with antis who clearly know nothing about the subject?  I’ve added emphasis:

Many gun shops turned down our request to fire and discuss the AR-15, a style of tactical machine gun popular with mass killers such as San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook and Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen.

It’s not a machine gun.  It’s not a machine gun.  It’s not a machine gun.  Not if you’re a civilian.  Again – it’s not a machine gun.

And popularity with psychos and terrorists aside, it’s also the most popular single civilian long arm in American history.  Over five million are in circulation.   But then most of you know that.

Then came the big payoff.   Kuntzman took his turn at the firing line:

I’ve shot pistols before, but never something like an AR-15. Squeeze lightly on the trigger and the resulting explosion of firepower is humbling and deafening (even with ear protection).

The video is hard to find – but judging from the photo…

…it might help if Kuntzman wasn’t holding the stock with his teeth.

The recoil bruised my shoulder. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick.

I’ve shot several ARs.  They kick like BB guns.

How light is the kick?    Light enough for a seven year old girl to shoot comfortably and accurately:

And this?

The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary case of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.

“Temporary PTSD?”

What do you say, veterans?

Even in semi-automatic mode, it is very simple to squeeze off two dozen rounds before you even know what has happened. In fully automatic mode, it doesn’t take any imagination to see dozens of bodies falling in front of your barrel.

But it does take imagination, Gersh, because your AR15 didn’t have it.

So yet again – we who care about this nation’s Second Amendment human rights are being lectured by the utterly ignorant.

Same as it ever was.

A friend of the blog, who works in the medical industry, notes:

Liberals often like to say that the US is ready for single payer healthcare. Then, we have something like this.

 

This is the evidence that people don’t want single payer healthcare. Allina is simply asking nurses to share the wealth. As one nurse noted, it would be like a 15% pay cut.

Allina has said that transitioning nurses to a different plan would be equitable.

 

As I see it, if this much of a fight is going to be put up over sharing the wealth in a state like Minnesota, how would it play in the rest of the country?  The only part that I don’t really understand is why people keep voting for liberal, share the wealth type policies when they clearly don’t want to themselves.

My theory:  they want the part of “single payer healthcare” that makes them feel good about doing big things with other peoples’ money.

They don’t want any actual change in their own life.

Hope we’ve cleared that up.

To:  All Youse Up Nort
From:  Mitch Berg, descendant of jackpine savages
Re:  Your Representative.

All,

Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.  Bernie Sanders endorses Rick Nolan.

That is all.

A chain of mediocre coffee shops tells Trump supporters to stay away.

Why, it’s almost like liberals suddenly believe in the concept of “freedom of association” or something.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Massachusetts passes bill to abolish biological term “sex,” replace with social construct “gender,” variable at whim.

 Next up: a bill to make Pi equal to 3 (to make math more rational and therefore easier for members of the teachers’ union to understand), and a bill to repeal the law of gravity (because it presently affects heavy people more and they tend to be Blacks living in food deserts). 

 I’m outraged that Minnesota Democrats are so far behind the times.  Why wasn’t Minnesota the first?

 Joe Doakes

Minnesota was always at war with Wisconsin, Winston.

That so much of our mainstream media is grossly uninformed about the Second Amendment debate is a challenge.

That so much of the mainstream media gets their information from people who are actively trying to disinform the public is an affront.

This article – a WaPo piece from Christopher Ingraham – is a little bit of both.

I’m not going to pullquote it – it’s really too stupid to want to do more than acknowledge.  But it makes a point that some would-be public intellectual always tries to make whenever there’s a debate about the Second Amendment; in this case, this is what “arms” looked like when the founding fathers wrote the Amendment:

A British “Brown Bess” musket. The AK-47 of its day, it equipped both the British and most of the Continental Armies during the Revolution.

Right – the flintlock rifle was bleeding edge technology back then.  The “Brown Bess” smoothbore musket was the AK47 of its day; simple, rugged, built in immense numbers, capable of smothering firepower by the standards of the day.

Of course, at that time, the First Amendment referred to pretty much the printing press,

They never envisioned photography, linotype, telegraph, radio, television and the internet!

Freedom from Unreasonable Searches and Seizures and a general right to Privacy? The founders never envisioned organized crime, transnational smuggling, terrorism and cell phone encryption!

Trial by Jury? The founders had no concept of “paying for daycare!”

When society starts conflating “rights” with “technology”, we are doomed as a free society.

Maybe we are anyway.

Planned Parenthood – or at least one of its constituent groups – also says face-palmingly stupid things:

Planned Parenthood black community outreach group is claiming that what happened in Orlando was due to “toxic masculinity.” “#Islam doesn’t foment the violence alleged gunman Omar Mateen enacted, toxic masculinity & a global culture of imperialist homophobia does,” the group, PP Black Community, tweeted on Sunday. Now, I’d agree it wasn’t motivated by “Islam” generally, because I understand the difference between “Islam” and “radical Islam.” However, I am also not so completely brain-dead and delusional as to think that this attack was motivated by absolutely anything but the latter. How do I know? Because I’m a psychic? A genius? No, because the shooter, Omar Mateen, &*%$-ing said it was.

No teenager with car keys and a bottle of Brass Monkey is as stupid as a “progressive” non-profiteer with a Twitter feed.

It’s a milestone for women:

Hear you roar!

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

IT’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK IT IS: How Clinton Donor Got on Sensitive Intelligence Board.

A prolific fundraiser for Democratic candidates and contributor to the Clinton Foundation, who later traveled with Bill Clinton on a trip to Africa, Rajiv K. Fernando’s only known qualification for a seat on the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) was his technological know-how. The Chicago securities trader, who specialized in electronic investing, sat alongside an august collection of nuclear scientists, former cabinet secretaries and members of Congress to advise Hillary Clinton on the use of tactical nuclear weapons and on other crucial arms control issues.

“We had no idea who he was,” one board member told ABC News.

No biggie, just nuclear security issues, it’s not as if she put it on an unsecure email server that our enemies could hack.

I suspect her defense will be “Doesn’t matter, I didn’t listen to any of them, anyway.”

Joe Doakes

Seems to be working for her.

Over the weekend – and before the other Orlando massacre – the Internet was buzzing with the story of the death of Christine Crimmins – one of the instant stars from the TV show “The Voice”.

Any guesses as to whether the law-abiding citizen was allowed to have a gun, where the murder took place?

You get one guess.

The last spent cartridge casing had barely pinged off the ground when the ghouls of Minnesota’s “Safe Criminals” movement came streaking out of the shadows to rip the bloody shirts off the (ahem) victims of an ISIS terror attack to try to jam their agenda down our throats.

Kim Norton – fresh from utter failure in the legislature, and apparently on her way to a fat, cushy job with a pro-murderer-safety non-profit:

Theatrical deep breath, here.

OK.  From the top:

• Universal Background Checks:  For whatever reason, notwithstanding the fact that Omar Mateen had been under investigation for his terrorist sympathies and was famously unstable, Mateen didn’t come up on any background checks.  Why?  Bad reporting?  Official political correctness?  Let’s assume both.  Either way – while “universal background checks” would have made owning a gun harder for any of Mateen’s potential victims, it would have done nothing to stop him.
• Rethink Carry Laws:  OK, let’s think.  Had one single gay man in that bar – a “gun free zone”, as usual – had a gun, it might have changed the course of events (as it does more often than our disinformed, and sometimes disinforming, media believes).  Of course, carrying a gun in a bar is a misdemeanor in Florida, which seems not to have been much of a deterrent to Mateen.  So yes, maybe it’s time to “rethink” the law to de-stigmatize the law-abiding citizen.
• Not “normalizing carrying”:  Ever notice how places where law-abiding citizens normally carry are almost never the target of mass shootings or terror attacks?  And when they are, the attacks are more likely to end with dead shooters and terrorists?

So yes, Kim Norton – take a moment to stop gorging yourself on the blood of innocent victims and do some re-thinking.   Please.

Of course, Kim Norton is a gun-grabbing ninny because she gets paid for it (or will be, soon).    Rabbi Latz – apparently the brother of Senator Ron “I Went To Harvard, Don’t You Know” Latz – tweeted in response to a local human rights advocate who pointed out exactly what I pointed out to Rep. Norton, above:

That Latz, rabbi at a “progressive” congregation in Saint Louis Park (who was in the process of dislocating his spine while bending over backwards to pin this atrocity on gun owners, rather than an ISIS terrorist) is in mid “smug response” with this tweet is the sort of inevitability that you learn to accept when dealing with orcs and the gun issue.

That a liberal rabbi, in the midst of a smug, know-nothing dismissal, tries to invoke the dissenter’s soul is purely loathsome.  The “Rabbi” is a blot on his calling.

Later, when I called him on his lack of command of the facts, he sniveled:

“Rabbi” Latz is a thug and a wanna-be bully for abusing his ecclesiastical position to support a political agenda (an agenda I believe, and can prove, to be morally retarded, but that’s really irrelevant to the issue at hand – thuggish bulliness).   I may not “have all the answers” – but despite the fact that he has none, he not only trumpets his ignorance, but wraps it in unearned self-righteousness.

There may be few people in politics I respect less than “progressive” clergy.

There’s a reason our founding fathers put an ironclad separation between the state and the military.

“I believe that our Constitution affords responsible Americans the right to own guns, but we need to keep dangerous people from having easy access to guns. Felons, domestic abusers, even known terrorists can buy a gun here without something as simple as a criminal background check. This has to stop,” retired Marine Brig. Gen. Stephen Cheney said in a statement. “Our laws don’t support responsible gun ownership, and far too often guns fall into the hands of dangerous, irresponsible people.”

And, Gen. Cheney, when you tell us how it is that background checks will stop criminals, by all means let us know.  

And if there’s any talk of “terror watch lists”, clearly you didn’t know much about that “Freedom” stuff you were sworn to defend.  Sorry, Generals McCrystal and Petraeus; your input is not required, here.

AM1280’s got a new show – “Meat Masters Radio“, heard every Saturday at 4PM.

It’s a show about…meat.  Grilling it, smoking it, eating it, you name it.

I’m hungry just writing about it.

And I’m happy to welcome it to the weekend shift at the 1280!

Sent by a friend, from a bikepath somewhere in the northwest metro:
If only.

Another slaughter.

This morning, the media is awash with the usual detritus – liberal hacks demanding gun control, almost visibly re-zipping their pants after getting the news of a new mass shooting (other than the mass shooting that happens every weekend in Chicago, Newark, New Orleans, Detroit, Oakland, Stockton, and North Minneapolis; they’re only concerned about mass shootings of people who look like them)

But if you take anything away from today’s “news” “coverage”, just remember:

It’s the fault of the NRA and “Gun Nuts“.

UPDATE:  Maybe the NRA was responsible for this, too? 

UPDATE 2:  Was Wayne LaPierre behind this?

UPDATE 3:  MN’s gun control jackals are having an event at a “pride” event in Golden Valley today.  Why do I picture Nancy Nord Bence and Ron Latz doing cartwheels every time news of a shooting comes through?

UPDATE 4:  Darn that NRA!~

The similarities between the November attack on the Bataclan nightclub in Paris and that the shooter who appeared to target a gay dance club during the Muslim month of Ramadan “indicates an ISIS-inspired act of terrorism,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, said in a statement.

Intelligence officers are combing through terrorism databases to see if there are any known links between alleged shooter and a terrorist group, Schiff said. Multiple outlets, including CNN, reported Mateen made a 911 call before the attack, pledging allegiance to ISIS.

Whenever an event like this is in the news, I urge people not to believe the news media any more than usual for the first 72 hours;  the difference between any ethical reporter and outlet and Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer is one big fat paycheck.

But all the signs so far seem to be pointing toward “terror attack in support of ISIS” rather than “crazy guy with a gun”.

More on Tony Cornish‘s letter to the editor, and Joel Kotkin.

Also – ♫ today’s music list.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talk radio show – is on the air! I will be on live from 1-3PM today!

• We’ll be talking about Tony Cornish’s letter to the editor
• Also – the trust deficit.

Don’t forget – King Banaian is on from 9-11AM on AM1440, and Brad Carlson has “The Closer” edition of the NARN Sundays from 2-3PM.

So tune in the Northern Alliance! You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• Streaming at AM1280’s Website
• Streaming on IHeartRadio
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• Via my UStream video and chat channel.
• Send us an SMS text message – 651-243-0390
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488
• Podcasts are now available; for my show and for Brad’s
• And make sure you fan us on our new Facebook page!

Join us!

To:  Katie Couric and the entire American news media
From:  Mitch Berg, peasant
Re:  Starting a Conversation

Ms Couric et al,

As we discussed last week, you got busted doing something that, in my day (and yours) would have gotten any young reporter unceremoniously fired; you edited a story specifically to invert the history, record and fact in an interview with a group of Virginia gun rights activists, expressly to mislead the public and drive your chosen narrative.

As Jonah Goldberg notes (in a piece on the left’s new conceit, that any kind of fabulism is OK as long as you’re “starting a conversation”):

“I can understand the objection of people who did have an issue about it,” Couric said. (The “it” here is the deliberate falsifying of the truth). “Having said that, I think we have to focus on the big issue of gun violence. It was my hope that, when I approached this topic, that this would be a conversation-starter.”

Here is the “conversation” about guns – the entire conversation:   as law enforcement targets gun criminals, gun crime is dropping, even as the number of guns in the hands of the law-abiding skyrockets.  The only exception is in inner cities, where it’s not the law-abiding citizens doing the shooting.  Discuss.

There.  There’s your conversation.

But I have a better conversation.  Let’s talk about when the media became the PR wing of the America left. And that’s fine, to a point – most of us have come to except that, to one point or another, at least considering it part of America’s intellectual background noise.

And that’s fine, to a point – most of us have come to accept that, to one degree or another; it’s part of America’s intellectual background noise.

So let’s “converse” about this:

When Bernie Maddoff  sells phony investments, and bilks people of their life’s savings, it’s a huge scandal – justifiably so – and righteous outrage ensues.  The entire faith in the investment industry – a vitally important one – took a hit.

When Enron falsifies its records, people like you, the media, jump up-and-down and hoot and holler – and very justifiably so. The lying utterly guts the credibility that was the foundation of that industry.  So far so good?

When Wall Street misleads the public, and itself, about what it’s actually investing in, causing a collapse of the entire housing market, that’s a breach of “trust” (or market discipline) that caused huge problems.  Ja?

When the police cover up wrongdoing to protect one of their own from the consequences of their wrongdoing, it’s a big story – one that cuts to the foundation of our trust in government, especially law enforcement.  Right?

So how is what Katie Couric did any different?

And more importantly, how is the entire news media’s failure (along with their cheerleaders) to rise up and condemn Couric’s perfidy as the blot on whatever trust for the media might still exist any different?

Other than saying you really don’t care anymore?

That is all.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

The Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock on November 11, 1620.

 Four years from this Fall, the United States will celebrate the 400-year anniversary of White People Coming to America.

 Who would you rather have as President overseeing that celebration: Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?

 Joe Doakes

And I wonder how many Native Americans are looking at Trump and thinking “he’s got the plan…”?

I officially endorse this idea.

Preface:  I don’t have a whole lot of pet peeves.  I really don’t.  I’m one of the most easygoing guys you’re likely to ever meet, ever.

But I do have a few:

• Using the term “begging the question” as a synonym for “that brings up another question”.  It’s not.  It’s just not.  “Begging the question” means “using your conclusion as evidence for your conclusion”.  That may come up in this story.
• The phrase “right not to get shot“.
• People who bring a conversation – usually a business meeting – to a screeching halt with either of the following:
  • “Let’s take a step back”
  • “I”m just trying to understand, here”
• Anyone who pronounces the word “processes” like “Pro-se-SEEZ”.

But the biggest one of all is people who try to tell me what I’m really thinking.  People who know what I’m thinking better than I do, and aren’t afraid to tell me not only what it is, but why it’s a horrible thing.

Attention:  You – whoever you are – are not qualified to tell me what I’m really thinking.

Ever.

I don’t like it when people do it to me, and I don’t much like people making constant habit of doing it to other people.  Telling people what they really think (especially because that’s what your narrative says they’re really thinking) is no less noxious than telling them what they really are.

OK.  On to the actual story.

Tony Cornish is a former cop.  He’s also been among the most steadfast protectors and advocates for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in the Minnesota legislature, so he’s one of the good guys.

He’s raised a kerfuffle among the kerfuffling class with a recent op-ed in the Strib that gave some fairly radical advice:

In a letter to the Star Tribune, Cornish lays out rules for interacting with police:

• “Don’t be a thug and lead a life of crime so that you come into frequent contact with police.”
• “Don’t rob people, don’t use or sell drugs, and don’t beat up your significant other.”
• “Don’t hang out on the street after 2 a.m. Go home.”
• “Don’t make furtive movements or keep your hands in your pockets if told to take them out.”
• “Don’t flap your jaws when the police arrive. Don’t disobey the requests of the police at the time. If you think you are wrongfully treated, make the complaint later.”

“Don’t hang out and yell at people after midnight,” he said over the phone. “Don’t be involved in crime. Don’t give police a reason to be there in your face.”

On the one hand, the small-l libertarian in me thinks some of those – especially the whole “don’t be out after 2AM” when you have every legal right to be out at 2AM bit – veer a little close to “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about”.  And you’d have to be a serious pollyanna to think that some cops don’t abuse the whole “lawful order” thing.

And as far as “making a complaint later”?  Yeah, that never works.  You’ll be making a complaint about cops, to cops.  Or to people whose best interest it is to stay tight with the cops.  Either way, what’s the point?

On the other hand?  If there’s anyone who’ll make you sympathetic for cops, warts and all, it’s some of their critics:

Cornish says his letter is a response to the activist groups wondering how to reduce the use of police force. He says it’s not complicated, and he provides a list for how to not get shot by police.

In a phone interview with WCCO, Cornish says he’s tired of news stories about police violence in which the *cops* get blamed for using excessive or deadly force against people he calls “thugs.”

“You see all these cop videos where they give order after order, and they just stand there and something bad happens and they wonder why in the world that happened,” he said.

[Minneapolis NAACP president Nekima] Levy-Pounds called the letter “racist,” and “intolerable,” with coded language aimed at the African American community.

Coded language.

See my preface above.  When someone accuses someone of “coded language”, what they’re saying is “you’re not saying what you  think you’re saying, and you’re not thinking what you think you’re thinking.  You’re saying and thinking what I say you’re saying and thinking.  And boy oh boy, are you an awful person for saying what I’m saying you’re really saying!”

I get it.  Political rhetoric ain’t beanbag.  But invoking “coded language” is the weasel’s argument.

“He’s drawing upon racial stereotypes that people often use to justify the use of excessive force against African-Americans, even when African-Americans — who are unarmed — are killed by law enforcement,” she said.

While I’m not going to excuse all police shootings – sometimes people make mistakes when the stress is on . And some people, cops included, do just-plain-evil things.

But someone being “unarmed” doesn’t mean they’re not potentially a lethal threat.  Every year, among Minnesota’s 90-odd homicides, some portion are people who are beaten to death – including, every year, a couple of “one punch kills”.  A big enough guy hitting someone hard enough to break a piece of brain loose, or to drop his head on a curb, can kill them just as dead as any gun will.  Circumstances matter.

Levy-Pounds says that’s exactly what the letter is really about — what she calls, “the Jim Crow North.” She’s been leading protests over the over-concentration of police in black neighborhoods, and over-criminalization of African-Americans in Minnesota.

There is certainly a discussion to be had about overcriminalization – and not just of black people in North Minneapolis.  There is also a conversation to be had about the collapse of the black family, which is not helping the black community out one little bit.

But the last person who will start that conversation is Levy-Pounds, who (along with many of her followers) will accuse you of “white supremacy” for, for example, disagreeing with her on any point of her agenda.  Or for taking the last parking spot.  Or for ordering mayo on a sandwich.

If everything is “racist”, then, really, is anything racist?

UPDATE: Commenter Night Writer brought up the good question: Is Chris Rock also a White Supremacist?

If it’s Thursday, a bunch of the usual New Urbanist suspects have ginned up another “study” “proving” the “costs” of “sprawl”.

Combining the the 50 largest metro areas in the U.S., he found, commuters pay more than $107 billion annually, which is about $1,400 per commuter, on average. Those are the dollar costs of the number of additional hours Americans spend traveling to and from work due to sprawling land-use patterns—which, by their methodology, ends up being around 3.9 billion extra hours total, or 50 hours per worker, per year.

To get to those rather staggering numbers, Hertz developed a unique methodology: He took the average commute length, in miles, for America’s 50 largest metros (as determined by the Brookings Institution), and looked at how much shorter those commutes would be if each metro were more compact. He did this by setting different commute benchmarks for clusters of comparably populated metros: six miles for areas with populations of 2.5 million or below, and 7.5 miles for those with more than 2.5 million people. These benchmarks were just below the commute length of the metro with the shortest average commute length in each category, but still 0.5 miles within the real average of the overall category.

He multiplied the difference between the benchmark and each metro’s average commute length by an estimated cost-per-mile for a mid-sized sedan, then doubled that number to represent a daily roundtrip “sprawl tax” per worker, and then multiplied that by the number of workers within a metro region to get the area’s daily “sprawl tax.” After multiplying that by the annual number of workdays, and adding up each metro, he had a rough estimate of how much sprawl costs American commuters every year.

Wow.  All of those suburbanites sure must be stupid, moving where life costs more!

Except it doesn’t.  City living nickels and dimes you to death; taxes are higher, the cost of non-slum rent or mortgages are higher, city services will get you coming and going, and then there’s the psychic cost of living in a city, almost inevitably run by Democrats with the attendant lousy services, dodgy schools and arrogant, imperious bureaucrats, to say nothing of the psychological cost involved in high-density living; apartment life, mass transit life, and all the other petty miseries of big city life.

No – the free market created the suburbs, as millions of GIs returning from spending the best years of their lives jammed “nuts to butts” on troop trains, troop ships and in barracks sprang for some elbow room for their kids; subsequent generations dabbled in the city, looked around, and skedaddled for the subs when the kids came along.   More on that point tomorrow.

As Kevin Williamson points out, the most powerful word in the free market is “no”; three generations of families have said “no” to “high density” life, and “yes” to the burbs.