Defunding Minneapolis

Which would be the result of actually implementing this whole #DefundThePolice nonsense.  To catch you up:
From The Guardian:

The Minneapolis city council has pledged to disband the city’s police department and replace it with a new system of public safety, a historic move that comes as calls to defund law enforcement are sweeping the US.  

Speaking at a community rally on Sunday, a veto-proof majority of council members declared their intent to “dismantle” and “abolish” the embattled police agency responsible for George Floyd’s death – and build an alternative model of community-led safety. The decision is a direct response to the massive protests that have taken over American cities in the last two weeks, and is a major victory for abolitionist activists who have long fought to disband police and prisons.

Wow. A veto-proof majority? Guess it's curtains for all those racists holed up in ... checks notes ... Minneapolis? 

This is so farcical as to defy my attempt to process it.  Also, IT IS NOT HAPPENING!  Guaranteed.  It is all political posturing because these bozos on the Minneapolis City Council know they can get away with it. Minneapolis City Charter has this little clause  getting in the way. (From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune) WAY below the fold.

The Council must follow the City Charter which requires the funding of “a police force of at least 0.0017 employees per resident, and provide for those employees’ compensation, for which purpose it may tax the taxable property in the City up to 0.3 percent of its value annually.”
As for what size police force the charter requires, a city spokesman would say that’s a “legal interpretation” that he wouldn’t answer.
...
Who can change the charter? 

The council alone cannot do this. It needs to be a 13-0 vote with the mayor’s approval. But three council members have not said whether they support the dismantling and one seat is vacant.

But it would be FUN, FUN, FUN to speculate what would happen if the City Council successfully voted to abolish the city police department. My fearless predictions:

1. Most likely scenario. Before the abolition could take place, the city council would be recalled. See, I'm not racist, even though I am right wing.  I think black people don't like getting shot, mugged, and stolen from just as much as white or brown people. (As usual, ¡SCIENCE!, is on our side.)

2. If actually passed there would be a mass exodus of businesses and people from the city, along with a massive uptick in crime as the population armed themselves.  Eventually the state would have to step in with police action.  Same politicians also voted out of office.

The utter un-seriousness of our current political class is stupendous and is either part of the process of up ending our society or is the cause of it.  Either way, this isn't even socialism, it looks more like "clown fascism" (H/T Outsidedness for the term.)

The Speech that Trump Will Give

Donald Trump will give this speech or an edited version of it.  He will win in a landslide, because he genuinely loves this country and is running against an obvious crook whose only goals are money and power for herself.

My fellow Americans,

On social media and in the press, there have been terrible accusations that I am somehow racist. Really.  I know, hard to believe, right? They're accusing me of that. Nothing could be further from the truth. My whole life, I have welcomed people of all races and religions into my businesses, into my campaign, and into my home and family.  Bigotry has no place in America and has never had a place in my life. When I say that I want to make America great again, and trust me, we ARE going to make America great again; that's a promise to all Americans no matter what their backgrounds. As Americans, we treat everyone as an individual, regardless of their race, religion, or ethnic background. We don't go around dividing up the country by race or whatever, that's not who we are.  And that's what I've done my entire life.  My record and the example of my personal life speaks for itself.

You know, there was a time in America when we were all getting richer. Blacks were getting richer. Hispanics were getting richer. Asians and Jews were getting richer. Both men and women were getting richer. Crime was going down too. But then we had decades of stupid trade deals, stupid foreign-policy and stupid wars, and stupid immigration policies. Look where we are today. We've all suffered because the politicians in Washington have been looking out for the people who give them money, these big corporations or listening to harebrained schemes from so-called intellectuals.  If you want to know the truth, it's the minorities that have suffered the most under the stupid policies. Making America Great Again will help the people that have been suffering, all people.

So, when I say were going to build a wall with Mexico, it's because drugs and crime are coming over the border, that's an undisputed fact.  Who doesn't believe that criminals and drugs and terrorists aren't just walking across the border with Mexico. Who is hit worst by drugs and crime? The poor and minorities.  That's why we're building the wall.  When I say were going to end immigration from these Muslim nations, until we figure out what's going on, it's because we know that ISIS is using our stupid immigration policies to send terrorists to this country. Making America great again means protecting Americans from terrorists and criminals. When I say we're going to end the stupid trade deals with China, it's not because I hate the Chinese I love the Chinese. But having stupid trade deals with them hurts our American workers. That isn't part of making America great again. When I criticize the Iraq war, it's because Americans of all races died in those wars and yet we still allowed the rise of ISIS and lots of other bad things to get going in the Middle East. Trust me, you haven't heard the half of how bad it is. I love our troops, all our troops, of all races, and we need to keep them out of stupid wars that we don't win. Because as Americans, we're going to start winning again.

Now you're seeing all this racial tension and these terrible killings across the country.  Police are dead, just because they are police, and you know we love the police. Frankly, I blame this on Obama and the Democrats, I really do. Their whole policy as been to divide up and classify Americans by race by gender by sexual orientation your name it. So when trouble happens, we don't ask how we should fix this as Americans, we talk about race, which just inflames the situation.  They should've been bringing America together.  That's exactly what I'm doing because I love all these Americans and making America great again means making it great for all.  Were going to bring Americans together as one great big loving family and we're going to Make America Great Again.

Traitors, Cretins and Racism

"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel," Samuel Johnson famously warned us, inveighing against a false patriotism that is only a cover up. Recently, scoundrels have taken to calling their critics racists as their last refuge.  It's an attack intended to silence debate and to squelch freedom of speech through mob intimidation.  Merely being accused of doing a single racist thing, true or not, can cause an American to lose their job, lose their business, or being assaulted by random strangers on the street.  Mob rule intended to violate Americans' rights runs contrary to our founding principles.

So if you are calling someone racist, I am going to just assume you're lying.  Second, I'm going to assume you're a traitor because you want to deny an American their rights.  And I'm going to call you what on your treachery and betrayal.  

You've been warned.

Obama: Black Father Absence to be Solved By...

... You guessed, it, taxes on the rich.  No kidding.  From Reuters:

At the panel discussion, the president defended his practice of encouraging young African American men to take responsibility for their children when they become parents.
. . .
He said policy makers had to budget for programs that helped impoverished youth, and he singled out changing tax loopholes such as one on "carried interest" enjoyed by fund managers as a way to help boost resources for such programs.

This is more evidence, as if we needed it, that Obama's approach makes race relations in America worse, not better. Today we see him stirring up class animosity, conflating the salaries of hedge fund managers with the death of black fathers in the home, as if 1 thing had anything to do with the other.   He is on to something as the absence of black fathers in the home is definitely a contributing factor to the rioting we have seen in the black community.  But, as I've said before, Obama should get a refund for any Economics classes he took at Harvard or Columbia.

Further, the last thing that black families need is more government intervention.  The war on poverty launched by Lyndon Johnson has turned out to be a war on black families. In typically racist fashion the Democrat party put into practice policies that undermined African-American families; substituting the government for fathers and ensuring that black men would be priced out of the labor market by a rising minimum wage.

The first black President could have been a god-send to this country's race relations, instead he has chosen to divide the nation on the basis of race and class. Thanks.

What You Should Be Reading:

• Dalrock, because he breaks down family issues with a keen parsing of the statistics and the insight that comes with a true understanding of how evolutionary psychology is applied to interpersonal relations between the sexes.  His most recent post on black children living with their fathers is here.
• The Scratching Post, because KTCat blogs everyday at a consistently high level.

Let's #racetogether for Racism

I am sure you have heard of Starbucks' ridiculous effort to show that they're contributing to moving America forward on the issue of race, with a hashtag #racetogether. Of course, this effort will be heavily lampooned, see Iowahawk's entry for starters. (By the way, how is the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag working out?)  However, I wanted to take on the issue head-on.

The real purpose behind efforts such as Starbucks' #racetogether is to delegitimize white people's voices, by continuously hectoring them over their supposed ongoing racism. Well, besides being an effort in colossal corporate ass-covering, just in case someone notices that all those baristas are persons of pallor, if you will.  Because this "conversation" is targeted at a specific racial group, in this case, whites, it is fundamentally racist. There is never any legitimate reason for racism. This is true whether the racism is practiced on behalf of the perceived victims or the perceived oppressors.  

Ultimately, the thought process behind the Starbucks campaign is illegitimate. It assumes a viewpoint on the part of the white customers. It doesn't treat them as individuals. In our society, we descend from a tradition where our rights accrue to us as individuals, we expect to be treated as individuals and we expect to be held accountable for our actions as individuals, not as members of a race. So when you are all given your Starbucks coffee cup emblazoned with #racetogether, if you haven't boycotted them already, you should ask:

"What makes you think I'm racist?"

Defending the Indefensible - Why Racism Is not a Crime

Jonathon Rauch wrote what I consider the seminal article on intellectual pluralism in 1995. He defends the idea that prejudiced, even hate-filled speech must be protected and that the antidote is better speech and ridicule of the obviously evil. Early in the article he states:

By all indications, Homo sapiens is a tribal species for whom "us versus them" comes naturally and must be continually pushed back. Where there is genuine freedom of expression, there will be racist expression. There will also be people who believe that homosexuals are sick or threaten children or--especially among teenagers--are rightful targets of manly savagery. Homosexuality will always be incomprehensible to most people, and what is incomprehensible is feared. As for anti-Semitism, it appears to be a hardier virus than influenza. If you want pluralism, then you get racism and sexism and homophobia, and communism and fascism and xenophobia and tribalism, and that is just for a start. If you want to believe in intellectual freedom and the progress of knowledge and the advancement of science and all those other good things, then you must swallow hard and accept this: for as thickheaded and wayward an animal as us, the realistic question is how to make the best of prejudice, not how to eradicate it.

Indeed. There is a real connection between the protections Americans are accustomed to and the superior progress we have made in applying technology and creating a wealthy society. But that comes at a price, the price that repugnant thought and speech will be allowed to proceed unchecked in our society.

By letting people make errors--even mischievous, spiteful errors (as, for instance, Galileo's insistence on Copernicanism was taken to be in 1633)--pluralism creates room to challenge orthodoxy, think imaginatively, experiment boldly. Brilliance and bigotry are empowered in the same stroke.

However, we are so concerned about bigotry with regards to race that we are willing to bend the normal rules of justice to achieve the seemingly laudable end of a society without prejudice.

From the purist point of view, a society with even one racist is a racist society, because the idea itself threatens and demeans its targets. They cannot feel wholly safe or wholly welcome as long as racism is present. Pluralism says: There will always be some racists. Marginalize them, ignore them, exploit them, ridicule them, take pains to make their policies illegal, but otherwise leave them alone. Purists say: That's not enough. Society cannot be just until these pervasive and oppressive ideas are searched out and eradicated.

Our society is creating a climate of persecution and victimization that diversity bullies use to impose their own agenda. Racial prejudice is certainly ugly, but the answer is not speech codes and racial quotas, which do harm to our freedoms and threaten our progress in insidious ways. Diversity is in fact a good thing, but by imposing only one kind of diversity, that of race, we exclude real diversity from our colleges and universities. Victor David Hanson hit the bulls eye in discussing L'affaire Warren:

This melodramatic history is the antithesis of the only diversity that counts, intellectual diversity, for it reduces a complex, variegated, universally flawed humanity into cardboard villains and victims. But the point of multiculturalism has never been “diversity.” If true diversity were the aim, then the university would promote the diversity of religion, region, socio-economic background, and most important intellect and philosophy. And that’s what “diversity” of the sort that allowed a blue-eyed, blonde Elizabeth Warren to pass as evidence of Harvard’s “commitment to diversity” is really about: imposing a leftist ideological conformity predicated on America’s historical crimes and sins.

If America's universities are to remain the center of intellectual achievement for which they were once known, this false pretense of diversity has to end. The imposition of speech codes and all the Marxist-Orwellian claptrap regarding acceptable thought must end. The existence of racists, will be met, not with intolerance, but ridicule and well crafted argument. Ultimately, suppression of speech is incompatible with a free society. Suppression does not persuade, it only intimidates and drives behavior underground. Better to have the debate in the open and allow prejudice to sink or swim on its own merits.

Racism?

So, John Edwards fathers a child out of wedlock, covers it up with the connivance of his campaign manager, while his wife is dying of cancer. He further sneaks into LA to visit the mistress while still campaigning. The mainstream press, including the Los Angeles Times, on whose beat much of the action took place, refuses to cover any part of the story, and its left to the National Enquirer to scoop them all.

Meanwhile, Herman Cain is alleged to have made ". . . physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable and that they regarded as improper in a professional relationship," and the mainstream press seems to have nothing else to discuss.

Maybe the left is correct. Maybe there still is racism in America.

Gun Control and Racism

So Garry McCarthy, Chicago Police Superintendent, links federal gun control regulation to racism. Turns out he is right, but not in the sense he means. First, his comments:

“I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of African-American history in this country, and tell me if I’m crazy: Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms into our urban centers, across this country, that are killing black and brown children,”

Well, Garry, you are crazy. Keeping guns out of the hands of blacks and Hispanics has been the racist goal of gun control attempts. A review of the historical record reveals that gun control in America has been directed at keeping guns out of the hands of blacks. Historian Clayton Cramer argues

"The historical record provides compelling evidence that racism underlies gun control laws -- and not in any subtle way. Throughout much of American history, gun control was openly stated as a method for keeping blacks and Hispanics "in their place," and to quiet the racial fears of whites."

He cites numerous examples starting with those that predate the American revolution. As late as 1941 the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court openly acknowledges that a gun control law was intended to only apply to non-whites:

I know something of the history of this legislation. The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this State drawn here for the purpose of working in turpentine and lumber camps. The same condition existed when the Act was amended in 1901 and the Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers and to thereby reduce the unlawful homicides that were prevalent in turpentine and saw-mill camps and to give the white citizens in sparsely settled areas a better feeling of security. The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied.

Garry McCarthy should be ashamed to assert that an assertion of the right to own a gun is racist, when in fact it is gun control that is the historically racist position.

Defining the Pale

There is a phrase, "beyond the pale" that means those things that are considered totally unacceptable. Interestingly enough, it derives its meaning from something beyond the bounds of law. As the Tea Party movement, is largely unorganized in terms of "official" organization and membership, how do we police behavior that is "beyond the pale" and indeed, what is behavior that is beyond the pale. This is potentially a real issue for us, as some lefty wingnuts think they can infiltrate to make us look bad.

So first, we should ask what is out of bounds for us. I think that all the craziness has to be a start, first and foremost, racism. I'm not talking about the faux racism of saying Obama has a good basketball shot either. You know it when you see it, but in general it is the use of demeaning stereotypes. Right up there with racism, are the truthers and birthers. Both of these types of conspiracy idiot savants have put 2 and 2 together and gotten 22. If you listen too long, it sounds plausible, but it just ain't so. Finally, I would also say that anti-gay sentiment has no place here. I admit to voting for Proposition 8, but if you are against and are also against big government spending you are welcome here. That is just not our issue.

Now the tougher question of what to do? I propose a two prong approach. First, just like the Apache example in the Starfish and the Spider, we should shun those beyond the pale. We should ask them to leave, repeatedly, and we should make it clear that they are not welcome. Unfortunately, for the hard core lunatics this may not work. The other thing to protect our image would be to interrupt any effort by news media to take their picture, video them or interview them. We need to make it clear that they do not share our core beliefs and this is about the size of government, the intrusion of government and the preservation of the republic, nothing else.

Time to get ready, Thursday is going to be a busy day.

Racism and the Tea Party - Update with Video Rebuttal

Scroll down for update.

Image courtesy of Tea Party blogger Nice Deb.

I had hoped not to blog on this topic, but the left won't let it die. Gratuitous, mindless, endless and unfounded cries of racism are injecting even more poison into the body politic. David Paul Kuhn has an excellent rebuttal to the likes of Frank Rich, Jimmy Carter, Maureen Dowd, and lesser lefty lights.

For decades, leading liberals explained white concerns about urban upheaval, crime, welfare, school bussing, affirmative action and more recently, illegal immigration, as rooted in racism. Not safer streets or safer schools. Not concern about taxes for welfare, as working class whites (like all races) struggled in their hardscrabble lives. Not regular men who never knew "white male privilege" but were on the losing end of affirmative action (recall Frank Ricci). Not job competition or economic class. Instead, leading liberals constantly saw the color of the issue as the only issue.

I further add this absurdity. When Obama took office in January 2009 he had an approval rating of 76%, while his approval numbers are now down to 48%. Assuming about 225 million adult Americans, that means that 63 million Americans suddenly turned racist in just over one year? I'm not buying it.

More importantly, since this meme will have to be refuted day after day for the next two and a half years, we must inculcate an intolerance for racism in the Tea Party. Since the movement is self organizing, the only way to enforce this is through peer pressure. It is important to our movement, and important that Americans start to see what liars that criers of racism really are.

I leave with you some thoughts that Jay Nordlinger published in NRO's The Corner, quoting a letter from a reader (Nordlinger is not sure if he agrees, BTW.)

As everyone sweats out the final Obamacare tallies, I’m struck by a couple of other stories. In one case, someone reported hearing an anti-black epithet used at a political rally. In another case, dogged police finally arrested the perpetrator of an intolerable crime. The perp is a 16-year-old kid who made a potentially offensive comment on a Wal-Mart overhead speaker. That these things are even remotely newsworthy leads me to one conclusion: Racism in America is dead. We had slavery, then we had Jim Crow — and now we have the occasional public utterance of a bad word. Real racism has been reduced to de minimis levels, while charges of racism seem to increase. I’ll vote for the first politician with the brass to say that “racism” should be dropped from our national dialogue. We’re a good nation, among the least racist on earth . . .

VIDEO UPDATE

Andrew Ian Dodge provides a link in the comments to an incredible video in which the whole racism and violence meme is entirely debunked and MSNBC is again shown to be utter tools, shilling shamelessly for the Democrat party in total denial of the facts.