Care Required

I’m not sure how old the adage is – but liberals should take keen advice from the phrase “only give your side the power you’re not afraid of your enemy having”.

For example, many on the left express worry about the Trump administration stance – hostility – towards the media.

They do this, apparently, forgetting that Trump isn’t doing anything that Obama did and pave the way to:

Criticism of Mr. Obama’s stance on press freedom, government transparency and secrecy is hotly disputed by the White House, but many journalism groups say the record is clear. Over the past eight years, the administration has prosecuted nine cases involving whistle-blowers and leakers, compared with only three by all previous administrations combined. It has repeatedly used the Espionage Act, a relic of World War I-era red-baiting, not to prosecute spies but to go after government officials who talked to journalists.

Under Mr. Obama, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. have spied on reporters by monitoring their phone records, labeled one journalist an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal case for simply doing reporting and issued subpoenas to other reporters to try to force them to reveal their sources and testify in criminal cases.

If the left didn’t have double-standards…

…well, you know where this goes, right?

Berg’s Seventh Law Is Getting Creaky And Worn Out From Constant Over-Use

If a conservative were to say bla blq bla that Jimmy Kimmel just bla bla bla yadda yadda:

In the place of ABC’s late-night Jimmy Kimmel: The “Man Show” Jimmy Kimmel. The only thing missing were the women on trampolines.

Kimmel took aim Thursday at the Christian proprietor of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado. For the late-night funny man, the takeaway from Jack Phillips’ refusal to bake a cake celebrating a trans person’s transition is that the cakemaker might be gay, and that he sure looks gay.

“It’s funny because this is a guy who spends all day, every day, meticulously designing flowers out of icing. His whole life is gay, OK?” Kimmel said to laughs. “I don’t know if the wrong cake might bring that to life or what.”

The late-night host turned his attention to the shop owner’s physical appearance, adding for good measure that Phillips is “the totally straight cake baker.”

“You would think that someone who looks like the Reba McEntire’s version of Col. Sanders would be more sympathetic to gender identity issues,” the host laughed.

“Progs” jabber about “right wing hate”, and then marinade their own culture in the real thing.

The most depressingly evergreen story in all of media.

 

Orwell Was A Pollyanna

Progs at Evergreen State (but I repeat myself) equate science and white supremacy:

Earlier this week, some graffiti was spotted on campus that sought to couterpose intersectionality and the sciences, equating the latter with white supremacy. Facilities staff have completed the chore of cleaning up the graffiti.

Bret Weinstein – the former ESU bio prof who became a national symbol for the intolerant left, had a riposte:

 

Remember this Berg’s Seventh Law violation next time some liberal bobblehead coos that the left is the party of science.

Berg’s Seventh Law Is Universal And All-Seeing

Can you imagine if a significant Republican were to acknowledge that violence was a good thing in pursuit of political ends?

No, not Donald Trump urging his supporters to “hit back”, at a time when people were, y’know, hitting them first.  .No, actually forming groups and going out and beating up people who dissent from the GOP.

Can you imagine the projectile pants-soiling that’d happen?

Especially if it weren’t some marginal figure – but a sitting Congressman?  To say nothing of a member of the party’s central leadership?

But as usual – as always – it’s the Democrats doing it.   Keith Ellison, to – let’s be honest, nobody’s surprise – has endorsed The Antifa Handbook

Ellison, the deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, posted a photo on Twitter Wednesday of himself posing with the book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.” The book calls violence during counter-protests “a small though vital sliver of anti-fascist activity.”

Ellison’s post said the book should “strike fear into the heart” of President Donald Trump.

Big Left, via its subsidiary Big Media, loves to remind us that “Right Wing Violence” is the “real” danger, and is lurking around the corner, one of these days, honest.

But it seems all the actual violence, and endorsement of more violence, to say nothing of use of mob influence to control society, is coming from the left.

 

Berg’s Seventh Law Is Universal And Inviolable

Gun violence prevention control grouips are fond of whipping up “popular” anger against “the gun lobby” – portrayed as an immense, boundlessly wealthy group of heartless white guys with three piece suits and cigars, cackling with glee at the deaths of innocent children.  Big Left has worked overtime to try to demonize civil rights groups, especially the NRA, as 900 pound gorillas that the plucky criminal-safety advocates can’t possibly compete with.

So what’s the truth?

As always – read Berg’s Seventh Law:  “When a Liberal 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.”.

And the Law will lead you to the truth.    It always does:

After compiling the numbers we discovered pro-gun control candidates received more than six times more money than pro-gun rights candidates on the issue.

Last year, the largest recipient of campaign cash from pro-gun rights groups in Oregon was Laura Morett. The Republican candidate for state representative and former “Survivor” reality show contestant received $10,132.86 total from the Oregon Firearms Federation and the National Rifle Association (NRA). Despite the infusion of cash, Morett was not successful in defeating state Rep. Paul Evans, D-Salem.

“But Mitch – that’s Oregon!”

The ration is even more lopsided in Minnesota, where the antis outspent the good guys nearly 10:1 in the 2016 legislative elections.

 

 

Since We’re Talking About Harassment

Al Franken resigned so that the full weight of the Democrat noise machine can turn its attention to attacking Roy Moore – thereby returning the narrative to “The Republican War On Women”.

Speaking of which – has there ever been a better Berg’s Seventh Law violation than “The War On Women”?

Anyway – this past few months, our society’s been focused incessantly on the various grades of “Sexual Harassment” – the use of un-consented flirting, “blue” conversation, touching and more aggressive sexual contact, especially that which takes place in the context of a power disparity.    Whether it’s feeling entitled to grab a little “no go zone” anatomy without consent, to trading sex for advancement, to using the resources of the state you govern to silence people who complain about what you do, and everything in between, the genera consensus is “It’s bad”.

So our society’s been lingering for a few months on every possible permutation of sexual harassment, and how society deals with it (“due process”?  “Always believe women!”?  “Always believe women, unless they’re accusing men who are key votes for abortion rights legislation”?), I think it’s time to look at another version.

On The Plantation:  “Progressivism” heaps especial scorn on apostates – Afro-Americans, Latinos, Asians and women wno leave the Progressive plantation.

And no, the right doesn’t do the same thing.    Have you ever heard a conservative rip on, say, Paul Thissen or Tom Bakk for “betraying middle aged white guys” [1] by not being a conservative?   No.  And you never will.

But you do hear mainstream “progressives” tear into black, Latino, asian and female conservatives for, I kid you not, “betraying” their race and gender.  [2]

And if any of them run for office?  They turn psychotic (which brings us to Berg’s Eight Law).

In particular, I’ve talked with a number of female conservatives who’ve related a similar pattern to me; they’ve thought about running for office, or for higher office – but demurred…

…because they knew the Democrat smear machine was going to do in terms of splashing their private life, current, past and long-past, in public.

So let’s get this straight:  to “Progressive” “feminists”, “slut-shaming” women who have had more than one partner in their lives, or who’ve gone out in public dressed as someone other than Hester Prynne, is completely unacceptable –  unless one has:

  • Accused a Democrat politician of some sort of impropriety, in which it will be used to discredit you
  • Run for office as a non-Democrat, in which case it will be used to assassinate your character.

Which, put another way, is using sex to preserve disparate power.


[1] Their narrative about conservatives and conservatism.  Not mine.

[2] Conservatism is never, ever about identity.  Anyone who says it is is driven by narrative, not fact.

Hate Crime

Big Left has been warning us that there’s a wave of ideological hate crime just around the corner, and that  you gotta watch out for those crazy right-wingers.

It’s a Berg’s Seventh Law occurrence, of course.

A gunman attacked a Republican congressional baseball practice this morning.  His mission?  “Kill as many Republicans as possible”.

Shortly after the shooting Wednesday morning at a congressional baseball practice, Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) told NBC News that it appeared the “gunman was there to kill as many Republican members as possible.” Walker, who was at the practice for the upcoming annual congressional baseball game in Alexandria, Virginia, confirmed he was “shaken but okay.”

“Punch a Nazi”.

“Anti-Fa”.

Hello, Liberals – when so much of your side is awash in demented hatred (the real thing, not the “disagreement with our narrative is hate” thing that so many of you jabber about), and given the instability wrapped in entitlement that so many people on your side have, what do you think is going to happen?

Be careful out there, Real Americans.  It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

UPDATE:  While Berg’s 19th Law is still in effect (“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”), the shooter’s Facebook page indicates he is a Sanders supporter.

UPDATE 2:  The WaPo has ID’ed the shooter as a 66 year old Illinois man.

UPDATE 3:  As usual, many on the left are acting like poo-flinging baboons.

UPDATE 4:  James Hodgkinson is the name, and this is from his Facebook page:

Apparnetly “& Co” is “All Republicans”.

Clearly, we need universal background checks for Democrat voters buying guns.

Shot In The Dark: Today’s Learned Opinion, 11 Years Ago

Kurt Schlichter notes that “You Can Tell What Leftists Are Doing By What They Accuse Conservatives Of Doing

Sound familiar?  Of course it does.

This was codified in 2006, in “Berg’s Seventh Law of Liberal Projection“. To wit: “When a Liberal 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.”

I’ve collected a few thousand examples over the past 11 years.

To paraphrase the immortal John McClain, “Welcome to the party, Schlichter”.

(But read Schlichter anyway.  He’s one of the best). \

All Roads Lead To George

The more politics I watch, the more I realize Berg’s Seventh Law – which started as a flippant observation of casual hypocrisy…:

“When a Liberal 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”

…truly does pretty much explain the entire American left.

To wit:  the left is barbering about the suffocating control an Eastern European kleptocrat has over the American right?  Look for an Eastern European kleptocrat pulling the strings behind the American left.

Ding ding di freaking ding:

By my draft research, which I’m opening up for crowd-sourcing on GoogleDocs, Soros has funded, or has close relationships with, at least 56 of the march’s “partners,” including “key partners” Planned Parenthood, which opposes Trump’s anti-abortion policy, and the National Resource Defense Council, which opposes Trump’s environmental policies. The other Soros ties with “Women’s March” organizations include the partisan MoveOn.org (which was fiercely pro-Clinton), the National Action Network (which has a former executive director lauded by Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett as “a leader of tomorrow” as a march co-chair and another official as “the head of logistics”). Other Soros grantees who are “partners” in the march are the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. March organizers and the organizations identified here haven’t yet returned queries for comment.   

Presumably because they’re jetting off to Riyadh to protest treatment of women in the Middle East.

Oh, I slay me.

Chanting Points Memo: Fake Coverage Of Fake News

During the 2010 Minnesota gubernatorial race, the “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” spread a story – Target was “anti-gay”.

They weren’t, of course; Target has always been socially progressive to a fault; by 2010, they spun themselves into a fair tizzy over every PC fad that came along.  They still do.

But they’d donated money to the Tom Emmer campaign.  And Tom Emmer opposed same sex marriage – exactly as the majority of the DFL did, on the record, at that point.

And so the “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” created a wave of “fake news” (and even more mangled advocacy reporting) to attack Target and Emmer.  Waves of paid and DFL-affiliated “protesters” descended on Target; after that, the media breathlessly proclaimed their campaign was having an effect on Target’s share price (it wasn’t) based on a report from a “progressive” fund that owned pennies on pennies on the Target dollar.    The media, played enthusiastically along, for the same reasons they did with Hillary.   In one cast, CBS news collaborated, willingly or not, with a local left-wing advocacy group to create an entirely fake news story.

The goal, of course, was to simultaneously attack Emmer and try to intimidate Minnesota businesses into not donating to Republicans; if they could cause problems for the mighty Target, what could they do to a machine shop in Owatonna?

So when Democrats whinge about “fake news” – they sowed the wind,

But did they reap the whirlwind?

Hillary is blaming “fake news” for her loss:

“The epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year — it’s now clear the so-called fake news can have real-world consequences,” Clinton said during a speech on Capitol Hill.

Some Democrats have argued the spread of anti-Clinton fake news online contributed to her electoral loss to Donald Trump.

Several problems with this theory:

  • There was at least as much “fake news” supporting Hillary.  My social media feed was clogged with photomemes and phony stories from groups like “Occupy Democrats”.
  • Beyond the purportedly fake news and “propaganda” epidemic, the mainstream media wallowed in a Pauline Kael-like echo chamber of pro-HIllary bias, to the point of publishing, well, “fake news” against Trump, to the point where the publisher of the NYTimes felt the need to publicly rededicate his paper to not doing the things that the media’s apologists say it never did.
  • Not so much a “problem” but an observation; this is just another symptom of the cranky arrogance that helped Clinton lose the election in the first place; “If you deplorables weren’t so stupid, believing the wrong fake news, ‘d be in the White House again!”.

The mainstream media is less fake than “Occupy Democrats” – but it’s a matter of degree.

Berg’s Seventh Law is getting an epic workout this cycle.

The Most Ironic Berg’s Seventh Law Violation

It’s long been one of the Dems’ favorite – and most childish – chanting points to say that Republicans, being stodgy fundamentalist WASPS, want to make sex impossible to have.

If you follow Berg’s Seventh Law, you know the Democrats are actually doing something worse (or actually enacting the slur).

And you would, as always, be right.  

(And not for the first time).

Be Careful Out There

I suspect that Hillary Clinton has enough states with enough electoral votes to win the election – at that the vote-generation systems in her blue-city base of operations will generates any votes needed to give her the win.  1

And while any given liberal is no more likely to be violent than any given conservative, the fact is that when liberals get scared – and they are always terrified about something – some of them get violent.

In late July an unidentified 60-year-old man was shot in the leg at Winston’s Bar on Cleveland’s East Side. His assailant, Darnell Hall, 45, shot him after their discussion of presidential politics grew heated. The attacker “was enraged that anyone in the overwhelmingly African-American bar would support the GOP nominee,” the Plain Dealer reports. Hall later surrendered to police and was charged with felonious assault.
Two UCLA students told Sean Hannity on Oct. 25 they’ve seen a lot of anti-Trump violence on campus. Haley Nieves said protesters crashed one of their pro-Trump rallies. “They were stomping on the American flag during the event and even attempting to burn it afterward.” Dominique Blair said, “You face crazy leftist mobs that are not tolerant of your views whatsoever, and it turns into a lot of bad debates. Sometimes violent, sometimes hitting and fights. I’ve been all around it.” Blair added, “I am treated very poorly on my campus and other campuses. It’s very hard to be a conservative activist in Los Angeles.”

Given the amount of ink the left’s media has expended fretting about largely nonexistent violence on the right, you can expect the left to act out badly over the next couple days.

And if Hillary somehow loses?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

1 – If you’re a regular commenter prone to claiming nobody can see, hear or say anything about vote fraud, do not bother leaving a comment until you have resonded tothis question it in detail.  I’m done playing games.

Berg’s Seventh Law Is Eternal And Omnipresent

Know how I knew there was a Democrat plan to use physical violence on pro-Trump and pro-GOP rallies?

Because the media has been spending so much time talking about the “threat” of GOP violence against Democrats.

When I heard NPR last week solemnly intoning about the “threat” of “people in open-carry states standing around polling stations with guns”, doing whatever it is they were supposed to be doing, it was obvious to me; attention needed to be turned away from “progressive” thugs.

When you hear these things, always, always remember Berg’s Seventh Law:

When a Liberal 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.

Because it truly does explain everything:

Democratic Party operative Robert Creamer used terror to wage war on honesty. Until forced to resign his post as a “consultant” with a Democratic Party-aligned organization named Americans United for Change, Creamer ran what amounts to a domestic U.S. political terror and propaganda operation dedicated to undermining the 2016 U.S. presidential election—“rigging the election,” to use the current term.

Yes, Creamer’s operation uses terror—and three investigative videos recently released by Project Veritas contain information supporting my assessment.

(“Rigging The Election,” Part OnePart Two and Part Three, released October 24).

Creamer resigned as an official consultant because Part One and Part Two exposed him. His operation, however, remains active and continues to do damage. The election rigging scheme he commanded relies on street thuggery. That means physical fear—terror—is a core component of Americans United for Change’s crooked enterprise. Street thuggery is very low-level terrorism, but it is a type of terrorism nonetheless and it is wrong to call it otherwise.

The thing about terrorists is that their goal is to destroy moderation; to make the center untenable; you’re either with them 100%, or against them 100%.  That’s intentional; the chaos in between creates opportunity for those willing to exploit it.

Which the GOP – still focusing on all of that “Constitution” and “economy” and “Democracy” stuff – never really is, for better or worse.

Berg’s Seventh Law Is Universal And Immutable, Part MXMVI

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Democrats claimed Hillary’s emails were not classified when sent, they were retroactively changed from unclassified to classified to make Hillary look bad.

 That always seemed a bit odd to me.  Why would the Democrat administration be trying to harm the Democrat candidate? 

 Now, it turns out the opposite was true – the Democrat administration pressured the FBI to un-classify emails that already were classified, trying to make Hillary look good.

 More confirmation of the wisdom of Berg’s Seventh Law of Liberal Projection.

 Joe Doakes

It never fails.

Never.

Berg’s Seventh Law: Universal And Immutable

Remember when Democrats couldn’t stop talking about the Koch brothers (who aren’t even among the top fifty political donors in the country) and the American Legislative Exchange Committee, a “think tank” utterly similar to an array of such groups on both sides of the aisle?

And you – a smart person – asked “why all the fuss?”

Simple – provided you remember Berg’s Seventh Law.

Because it really does explain everything, every time.

Everything Two, Four, Six, 12 And 22 Years Old Is New Again

What does the “Alt-Right” have in common with 2014’s Koch Brothers, 2012’s “ALEC”, 2010’s “Tea Party”,  2004’s “neocons”, and 1994’s “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?”

Everything!

One of the great staples of politics – in this case, the left, although the right does it too (although with less cynical panache or institutional momentum) – is “finding a boogeyman to wave around to scare the crap out of your base”, ideally motivating them to come to the polls.

  • In 1996, it was Hillary’s “vast right-wing conspiracy” – the shadowy, all-powerful and, as it happens, fictitious conglomeration of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and, er, others, I guess – whom the left trumpeted as the real machers behind the scenes, operating against the plucky underdogs of the left (like George Soros and Paul Allen).
  • In 2004, it was the “Neocons” – a shadowy, all-powerful, and vaguely Jew-y band of conspirators who wanted to control All the Oil and kill All the Muslims for Israel, or something, arrayed against the plucky, grass-roots left ((like George Soros and Paul Allen).
  • In 2010, it was the “Tea Party” – a fairly spontaneous outpouring of libertarian populism which threatened the plucky, organic left ((like Journo-List, George Soros and Paul Allen).
  • In 2012, it was ALEC – a run-of-the-mill policy think tank much like many others on all sides of the political aisle that the left’s PR machine, plucky grass-rooters that they were (like George Soros and Paul Allen and Michael Bloomberg), tried to paint as a shadowy, sinister conspiracy that drove public policy via unprecedented means like, well, circulating model bills and stuff.
  • In 2014 it was the “Koch Brothers”, a couple of libertarian billionaires with a history of donating to libertarian causes on both sides of the political aisle who, though they aren’t even among the top fifty individual political donors, were portrayed by the left’s plucky, grass-roots PR machine (funded by George Soros and Paul Allen) as a shadowy, vaguely Jew-y conspiracy to buy the government.

So of course the “Alt Right” – a tiny, politically inconsequential group of marginal people with marginal-radical views on some hot-topic issues – is suddenly in the news.

Of course, in every case, Berg’s Seventh Law applies; for every one of these purported right wing big-money “conspiracy”, there was a real-world left-wing counterpart doing exactly what the left accused the right of doing.

I Know You Are…

Victor Davis Hanson reminds us:  If you don’t like something Trump has said, just take a deep breath…

…and remember when a Democrat inevitably said, or did, something much worse:

Trump reprehensibly has urged his supporters to physically tangle with opponents. But, after Chicago, did he emulate a presidential urge “to argue with them and get in their face!”? When Trump does his next Philadelphia rally, will he, in Obama fashion, egg on his Trumpsters with this: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.” Or maybe Trump could adapt another line from Obama and use it with his working-class white supporters, cautioning them that, instead of sitting out the election, they should say, “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.” Or maybe Trump could try still another adaptation of a line from President Obama for those stubborn senators who favor open borders: “Those aren’t the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.”

Oh, there are many, many more.  Read ’em.

Berg’s Seventh Law is universal.

The Mythical White Christian Terrorist

They’re back.  In the wake of the shooting at the abortion mill in Colorado Springs, and the shooting in Minneapolis (and to a lesser extent last week’s shootings in San Bernardino, which the left tried its level best to jam into the template), the talking heads of the left are furrowing their brows and warning us, yet again, about the imminent danger of “white christian right-wing terror”, which, we’re warned, is a huge danger, and could become the biggest most dangerous terror out there.  Says someone in the government. Because science.

It’s BS, of course; while white “conservative” terror was a real thing during the heyday of the Klan, by the seventies it had largely faded to obscurity; today, the Klan and other white/”Christian” identity movements are a pimple on society’s tush.

Indeed, the numbers aren’t even arguable; left-wing environmental groups committed more terror attacks than all other sources combined from 2001-2011; while 9/11 outstripped them all in terms of dead people, the level of effort was lopsided in favor of the left.

And yet the left – from Janet Napolitano to MPR’s Bob Collins down to the dimmest writer at Minnesota Progressive Project, assures us that white terror is the real danger.  

David French points out the absurdity of the left’s claim, against a backdrop of steadily diminishing domestic terror of all kinds:

Don’t tell the alarmists that, though. Even before this weekend’s shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic, left-wing sites trumpeted the threat of “Christian terrorists” while minimizing the threat of jihadists. This summer, the New York Times hyped a transparently idiotic study claiming that (mainly right-wing) homegrown extremists were deadlier than jihadists — by excluding from the death toll the almost 3,000 Americans who died on 9/11 and the nearly 7,000 Americans killed — not to mention the more than 52,000 Americans wounded — at the hands of radical Islamists overseas. SHARE ARTICLE ON FACEBOOKSHARE TWEET ARTICLETWEETSince the Planned Parenthood shooting, leftists have indicted the pro-life movement itself for the actions of a bitter and angry loner with no known connections to any activist organization. The Huffington Post wrote a story noting that Colorado Springs is full of — gasp! — Christians. Buzzfeed published a comprehensive report demonstrating exactly how abortion-rights activists intend to turn the Colorado shooting into a “rallying cry.”

What it is, is Berg’s Seventh Law in full effect.

Berg’ Seventh Law Is Absolute

Last week, when stickers labeling establishments as “exclusively for white people” went up around Austin, Texas, I quietly figured it had to be a “progressive” false flag.

Why?

Because Bergs Seventh Law (“When a Liberal 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”), that’s why.

So – were those “exclusively for white people” stickers a progressive false flag?

Duh…:

[Austin lawyer] Adam Reposa posted the video on YouTube and made a statement on Facebook saying he was trying promote the issue of gentrification in East Austin. (Warning: The video contains explicit language)
“They’re getting pushed out, and pretty quick. This area of town is turning into white’s only,” Reposa said in the clip. “Not by law like it used to be, and everyone’s going to jump on, ‘that’s racist!’ ‘that’s racist!’ Man, this town, the way **** works is racist! And I knew I could just bait all of y’all into being as stupid as you are.”
Reposa went on to blast people for not getting the message.

“You’re just not smart enough to keep up with my argument!”

I started Berg’s Law as a joke, pretty much, back in 2004. But the more I see, the less funny they seem.

Except, of course, is that I still laugh my butt off at “progressives”.

Mischaracterization

I try to find things in common with people with whom I disagree.  I really do.

Part of it was growing up a liberal, into my twenties.  I don’t see liberals as “the enemy” – not reflexively, at least.  They’re people, mostly.

Do both sides have crazies?  People who regard dissent and disagreement as signs of depravity and evil, things to be eradicated?  Sure. 

Unfortunately, on the left the crazies are pretty mainstream.  One of my enduring memories was after the death of Tony Snow, the former talk show host who’d become Dubya’s press secretary before being diagnosed with colon cancer.  The outpouring of hatred in the lefty alt-media after the death of Snow – one of the most genuinely good people in the media racket – was a telling moment; to a big part of the “intellectual” left, it’s not just about elections and bills; it’s a scorched-earth battle for control of the entire culture. 

So perhaps it’s unsurprising that the NYTimes expresses…shock?  Confusion?  Befuddlement at Republicans in Congress expressing their concerns for the President’s security; I’ll add emphasis:

WASHINGTON — President Obama must be touched by all the concern Republicans are showing him these days. As Congress examines security breaches at the White House, even opposition lawmakers who have spent the last six years fighting his every initiative have expressed deep worry for his security.

“The American people want to know: Is the president safe?” Representative Darrell Issa of California, the Republican committee chairman who has made it his mission to investigate all sorts of Obama administration missteps, solemnly intoned as he opened a hearing into the lapses on Tuesday.

Genuine desire not to see the President and his family killed?  It doesn’t seem a stretch – on the right.  Conservatives see Liberals as wrong; Liberals see Conservatives as Evil.  Evil people wish death upon their political opponents.  (Anyone but me seeing a Berg’s Seventh Law reference here?)

Put another way:  Today’s GOP, for all its maddening problems, is directly descended from the party that freed the slaves and brought about a shot at freedom for hundreds of millions in the Eastern Bloc.  Today’s Democrats are controlled by extremists who are intellectual descendents from sixties radicals who drank from the same well of Kool Aid that might not have openly endorsed herding kulaks and counterrevolutionaries into railroad cars to ship to Siberia – but they could see the reasoning behind it, too.

Mark Andrew’s Ninety Seconds Of Hate

Mark Andrew is a former Henco commissioner and former DFL chair.  He also works in the “green energy marketing” biz.  Since “government” is the primary target of green industry “marketing”, it’s fair to say Andrew is part of our nation’s ongoing green graft racket – by which the “green” industry tries to chivvy tax money from friendly governments.

And as yesterday’s Strib op-ed shows, he really really doesn’t like the Koch Brothers – their refinery (the Flint Hills refinery in Rosemount), them, or their business:

What make’s their businesses so dirty is not just what they do, but how they do it.

Koch Industries’ corporate ethos is to pollute the American landscape with impunity.

(Really, Mark?  That’s their “ethos”?  The Kochs base their behavior on the idea that polluting is a moral good?  That seems a bit far-fetched).

After hours, they fuel a dark labyrinth of propoganda networks to spew out pollution of another kind-disinformation, defamation and denials. Their goal is not to gain market share–it is to rid the world of government oversight of their businesses and the nefarious groups that prop them up. This is how they roll.

Put another way – and in this case an accurate one?  The Kochs use some of their fortune (in the tens of billions) to press libertarian solutions (some of their stances have angered conservatives and would probably have gotten Andrew’s support, if he were intellectually honest, which this article pretty much confirms he’s not).

Oh, yeah – they’re thought-criminals (emphasis added):

The brothers over the years have outspent ExxonMobil’s subsidies of shadow climate denier groups by a 3-1 margin.

But this piece isn’t just an attack on the Kochs.

No – it’s against those polluted by association – in this case, the Ordway Theatre in Saint Paul, which the Koch Brothers help underwrite (again, emphasis added):

It is not so curious then, that the Koch’s would want to align themselves with St.Paul’s Ordway Theatre, one of the nation’s leading non-profit live performance venues. The 14th Annual “Flint Hills International Children’s Festival, presented by the Ordway” opens this weekend, and is the perfect halo under which the conglomerate might dwell for a few days, basking in the glow of delighted children whose lives are put at risk by their business and political actions.

The Koch’s [sic] and the Ordway’s that birthed the theatre couldn’t be a starker study in contrastsBathed in a riot of color, the brochure captures multi-colored children carefully photographed and captivated by a phantasmagoria of dance, music, acrobatics and reverie. And not a refinery to be found!

The stagings are fantasy adventures as far removed from daily reality as the Koch brothers’ climate change denials.

One wonders if the Kochs slither about in black capes and top-hats and laugh maniacally as they twirl their waxed mustaches.

What Andrew is trying to do is “shame” the Ordway – and the rest of Minnesota’s cultural community – into putting the Kochs “beyond the pale”.   Something like this:

Look for more of this; well-heeled liberals badgering Big Minnesota into dissociating with anyone who pushes back against Big Narrative.

Because to the Minnesota left, the only act that can be shamed any more is disagreeing with Big Left.

Epilogue:  A local journo pointed out on Facebook that Andrew’s op-ed reads a lot like Andrew’s former boss at the Minnesota Daily – Nick Coleman.

I toyed with responding on Facebook “A badly-written hatchet job, long on name-calling, thoughtcrime-shaming and innuendo and short on fact?  Yes, I see the similarity”.

But I don’t like it when people gunk up my Facebook page, either.   But it never ceases to amaze me – journalists actually think Nick Coleman is a good writer and reporter.

Sack Of Garbage

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Excellent job of capturing what the DFL thinks about Ambassador Stevens’ dead body being dragged through the streets of Benghazi as a result of the failure of Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama’s Middle East policy.

Courtesy Star Tribune

Joe Doakes

Two points:

  • Editorial cartoonists trend left – but I’m at a loss to think of a major-market editorial cartoonist who is a more baldfaced Democrat lapdog than Steve Sack.
  • This city is full of crappy cartoonists.
  • I think this qualifies as a Berg’s Seventh Law citation.

No Wonder The Left Hates Him So Much

Charles Koch, one of the “Koch Brothers”, the left’s current boogeymen du jour and donor of a tiny fraction of the money bequeathed to progressivism by much more “generous” liberal plutocrats, writing in the WSJ, with occasional emphasis added:

Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law and personal freedom are under attack by the nation’s own government. That’s why, if we want to restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight for those principles. I have been doing so for more than 50 years, primarily through educational efforts. It was only in the past decade that I realized the need to also engage in the political process.

A truly free society is based on a vision of respect for people and what they value. In a truly free society, any business that disrespects its customers will fail, and deserves to do so. The same should be true of any government that disrespects its citizens.

That last emphasized sentence is going to be the subject of a couple of blog posts very soon here. 

The central belief and fatal conceit of the current administration is that you are incapable of running your own life, but those in power are capable of running it for you. This is the essence of big government and collectivism.

The whole thing is worth a read.

The Kochs are fundamentally libertarian-conservatives; they have some stances that vex some paleos. 

Asking “progressives” to explain exactly what’s wrong with the Koch Brothers – especially in light of the fact that there are dozens of plutocrats that give much more money to the left – is akin to watching Daffy Duck sputter; lots of flying saliva, not much fact, logic or reason. 

So why do they do it?

Berg’s Seventh Law explains it all.