I know conservatives are and have been insane for a long time, but it really is kind of earth shattering that the official conservative position is the Chauvin jury was terrorized by BLM and 82 year old Maxine Waters into delivering a verdict of guilty on all counts. So if a police officer can’t kill a Black man by kneeling on his neck for 9 minutes and get away with it, that means liberals have won and the country has been consumed by Godless Communism Socialism Transgenderism Reverse-Racism Cancel Culture. I mean, when you stop and think about it, it is fucking amazing that this is where we are in 2021.
I liked it better when they were wringing their hands about Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head – at least that was funny. This is just horrifying.
My recent seminar was about the deep roots of ugly ideologies based in nostagia & grievance. Homer's Iliad is often held as start of sorts of Western Civ" but it's really founded in a grievance, that Helen would dare go off with a richer, more cultured, probably more well-groomed & charming man from a more advanced non-European society.
You go on any interracial porn forum & you see the exact same narrative playing out in their various diseased grudges & grievances
Those pundits & chatterboxes see the police as THEIR hand, the hand that acts on their desires to brutalize & oppress POCS & queer folx. That hand has to date never been singed. Now it has, and now like a child in the kitchen, have to figure out why a new hard limit to their raging id.
Yes, thanks. It's the realization that "If-God-had-not-wanted-them-sheared-He-would-not-have-made-them-sheep" does not mean to break the sheep's neck while shearing it.
As I've mentioned before, they think they still *own* people like me, and brutalizing us has no consequences. Now, at least in this particular case, there are, and their rage will be incandescent.
Their rage was already incandescent, and they showed this by doing things like cornering peaceful protesters against a freeway fence and then teargassing them while lobbing flash-bangs into the crowd. Or breaking out the batons and just beating random people senseless.
I'll be honest - I judge them motherfuckers everyday and find them guilty everyday too.
Imagine what a shit show this would have been if Trump were president. After 4 years on the verge of stroking out this would have pushed me over the edge.
Great column. You always have a lot of good things to say and a tremendous talent for saying them.
Well said and thanks for reading Ben Shapiro so I don’t have to. Meanwhile, Walter Mondale has died, raising the question once again, how much better would the world be if Ronald Reagan had never left California? He injected modern American racism and voodoo economics directly into the country’s bloodstream and made everything we’re living through now possible, if not inevitable.
It's hard to say. The far right had been trying to take their ideas mainstream at least since Goldwater. With Reagan, they found a charismatic front man who had the acting skills to come off as an avuncular grandpa while enacting their horrific policies.* Was there anyone else in American politics at the time who could have pulled that off?
*IMHO, it's possible that Reagan really was as affable as he seemed, but was just too sheltered and naive -- and more importantly, too *dumb* -- to realize how the policies he supported were affecting people. Who knows?
I was but a suburban child during the Reagan years, and he seemed caring and tough and decent, and Just Say No made sense to me because I knew at 13 if I was ever offered drugs, I would just say no! Therefore whoever didn't say no was throwing away a life just like mine, like a criminal would, and was to blame for all the troubles that followed. I did not see a racial dimension to the question. Or to any question. Now, obviously, I disagree with me. However, I think the chief horror wrought by Reagan was not race-related or even policy-based but was the idea, so affably put, that government is your enemy and is a terror. We need to get it off our backs! He mainstreamed that crazy fringe bullshit and it has ramped up aggressively every year since. To the point where now wearing a mask to save your fellow Americans = tyranny. I don't think Reagan was a moron, but I do think when he came up with all those "government is evil" laugh lines, he was deciding, stupidly and destructively, not to think more than one election ahead. He should have imagined that reinvigorating the Birchers would be very bad for the nation down the line, but he didn't care -- he decided to win in '80 and '84 and leave it to the next generation to produce some kind of Ike to put that genie back in its bottle.
No, his bloodbath, outlawing Russia, and botulism comments were unguarded windows into the real man. Like many like him, I'm sure he was affable enough with people enough like him who didn't cross any of his lines, including, I'm sure, churchy and cardigan-friendly–enough darker people, but no true tolerance outside that very narrow comfort-zone.
A functional society needs this: Criminals tried and punished for their acts. OTOH, as I've said a boring number of times, I'm an Old Testament guy and believe in punishment for bad acts as opposed to getting a pass on saying one's sorry, being given forgiveness for the asking and nothing more. Which, BTW, Chauvin didn't do either.
Too, what this is isn't justice. It's a jury doing what a jury supposed to do, the system working.
So. Not justice. Not the beginning of the end of systemic racism. Not the beginning of regaining control of the police. Not empowering the good cops who actually aren't good because they do nothing to change the system. It's highly exceptional, single occurrence.
And any Xian compassion for Chauvin going to the slammer has to be somewhat balanced by knowing that when that day comes, he'll be seen by the COs as a hero to respect and protect. (I think that day's inevitable. My only worry is that a SCOTUS majority will see some reason to toss the verdict -- as if there was ever a more open and shut case.) Too, I hope this doesn't mean that Chauvin won't be prosecuted for tax fraud.
As long as it doesn't get to SCOTUS, the verdict should stick. And I'm not even sue the GOP majority wouldn't have a problem tossing the verdict. The core thing here is that a lot of difference goes to a jury's finding. In this case, given the evidence, tossing it might even be too much for SCOTUS. But as for all other courts between here and there, I will be really, really shocked if all three verdicts get tossed.
Common failure, feeling uncomfortable being wrong. I know people who believe white supremacist lies now, who 20 years ago would not have bought into these twisted claims about minorities becoming the majority and suddenly the white people will be victimized and shut out. Wait, you mean you now believe that you do have privilege?
No, they say, white people are the least parochial and the least clannish group. Seriously, they believe that. No prejudice here. The only color Trump sees is green. Those other groups, they only do business with each other, they only marry each other. White people were so generous they went everywhere and colonized every place they went. They are the fairest group, no pun intended, and so they need to be in charge.
These are things I have heard over the years from surprising sources.
There was another bit of good news this week. The 20-year sentence of Michael Slager, the South Carolina cop who shot Walter Scott in the back five times, was upheld. His first state prosecution ended in a mistrial, which is what the usual crop of conservative white tribalists expected then and now, and he ended up taking a plea deal on federal civil rights charges. If you recall, that was another one of those cases where anyone would have to deny what they’d seen with their own eyes to absolve him in any way, and at least one of his jurors did just that. Fortunately, that didn’t happen in the Chauvin case.
The obvious problem is that if it weren't for bystanders recording cell phone video both of these murderers would be walking free and we would likely never have heard of either victim. Sadly, camera footage doesn't usually mean that much. Phillip Brailsford, the triggerman of a team of SWAT cops who tortured and executed an unarmed Daniel Shaver, was not only acquitted of second degree murder, but was temporarily rehired by the police department so that he could claim medical disability for PTSD and then retire on medical grounds on a pension of $2,500 a month. Needless to say, Shaver's surviving wife and children haven't been so lucky.
Watching the right wing reaction, I keep thinking that a lot of them are more upset about not getting riots in response to a not guilty verdict than anything else. They need more BLM/antifa b-roll to stoke their fantasies.
William Golding called it in The Inheritors. Humans are so frightened they have to murder everyone outside their tribe just to feel safe (while allowing for the adoption of some cute exceptions). And it's doubtful even that will last long.
"Defund the Designated Hitter". Yet another program I can get behind.
Very well said, Roy.
I know conservatives are and have been insane for a long time, but it really is kind of earth shattering that the official conservative position is the Chauvin jury was terrorized by BLM and 82 year old Maxine Waters into delivering a verdict of guilty on all counts. So if a police officer can’t kill a Black man by kneeling on his neck for 9 minutes and get away with it, that means liberals have won and the country has been consumed by Godless Communism Socialism Transgenderism Reverse-Racism Cancel Culture. I mean, when you stop and think about it, it is fucking amazing that this is where we are in 2021.
I liked it better when they were wringing their hands about Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head – at least that was funny. This is just horrifying.
Sure, the White supremacists lost this round. But they'll always have grievance. Always.
My recent seminar was about the deep roots of ugly ideologies based in nostagia & grievance. Homer's Iliad is often held as start of sorts of Western Civ" but it's really founded in a grievance, that Helen would dare go off with a richer, more cultured, probably more well-groomed & charming man from a more advanced non-European society.
You go on any interracial porn forum & you see the exact same narrative playing out in their various diseased grudges & grievances
The Tree of Liberty is best watered with conservative tears.
This. Thisssssss.
Those pundits & chatterboxes see the police as THEIR hand, the hand that acts on their desires to brutalize & oppress POCS & queer folx. That hand has to date never been singed. Now it has, and now like a child in the kitchen, have to figure out why a new hard limit to their raging id.
Yes, thanks. It's the realization that "If-God-had-not-wanted-them-sheared-He-would-not-have-made-them-sheep" does not mean to break the sheep's neck while shearing it.
As I've mentioned before, they think they still *own* people like me, and brutalizing us has no consequences. Now, at least in this particular case, there are, and their rage will be incandescent.
Respect. And hope for the future.
Their rage was already incandescent, and they showed this by doing things like cornering peaceful protesters against a freeway fence and then teargassing them while lobbing flash-bangs into the crowd. Or breaking out the batons and just beating random people senseless.
Wow, Roy. Just. Wow.
I'll be honest - I judge them motherfuckers everyday and find them guilty everyday too.
Imagine what a shit show this would have been if Trump were president. After 4 years on the verge of stroking out this would have pushed me over the edge.
Great column. You always have a lot of good things to say and a tremendous talent for saying them.
Well said and thanks for reading Ben Shapiro so I don’t have to. Meanwhile, Walter Mondale has died, raising the question once again, how much better would the world be if Ronald Reagan had never left California? He injected modern American racism and voodoo economics directly into the country’s bloodstream and made everything we’re living through now possible, if not inevitable.
California? Hell, Reagan was governor here when I was at UC. I wish he’d never left 𝘐𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘴.
Point taken.
he should never have left the womb.
It's hard to say. The far right had been trying to take their ideas mainstream at least since Goldwater. With Reagan, they found a charismatic front man who had the acting skills to come off as an avuncular grandpa while enacting their horrific policies.* Was there anyone else in American politics at the time who could have pulled that off?
*IMHO, it's possible that Reagan really was as affable as he seemed, but was just too sheltered and naive -- and more importantly, too *dumb* -- to realize how the policies he supported were affecting people. Who knows?
I was but a suburban child during the Reagan years, and he seemed caring and tough and decent, and Just Say No made sense to me because I knew at 13 if I was ever offered drugs, I would just say no! Therefore whoever didn't say no was throwing away a life just like mine, like a criminal would, and was to blame for all the troubles that followed. I did not see a racial dimension to the question. Or to any question. Now, obviously, I disagree with me. However, I think the chief horror wrought by Reagan was not race-related or even policy-based but was the idea, so affably put, that government is your enemy and is a terror. We need to get it off our backs! He mainstreamed that crazy fringe bullshit and it has ramped up aggressively every year since. To the point where now wearing a mask to save your fellow Americans = tyranny. I don't think Reagan was a moron, but I do think when he came up with all those "government is evil" laugh lines, he was deciding, stupidly and destructively, not to think more than one election ahead. He should have imagined that reinvigorating the Birchers would be very bad for the nation down the line, but he didn't care -- he decided to win in '80 and '84 and leave it to the next generation to produce some kind of Ike to put that genie back in its bottle.
I said yes .
Hell - I said yes this morning!
No, he knew.
Probably. And even if he hadn't known, that wouldn't have let him off the hook.
No, his bloodbath, outlawing Russia, and botulism comments were unguarded windows into the real man. Like many like him, I'm sure he was affable enough with people enough like him who didn't cross any of his lines, including, I'm sure, churchy and cardigan-friendly–enough darker people, but no true tolerance outside that very narrow comfort-zone.
A functional society needs this: Criminals tried and punished for their acts. OTOH, as I've said a boring number of times, I'm an Old Testament guy and believe in punishment for bad acts as opposed to getting a pass on saying one's sorry, being given forgiveness for the asking and nothing more. Which, BTW, Chauvin didn't do either.
Too, what this is isn't justice. It's a jury doing what a jury supposed to do, the system working.
So. Not justice. Not the beginning of the end of systemic racism. Not the beginning of regaining control of the police. Not empowering the good cops who actually aren't good because they do nothing to change the system. It's highly exceptional, single occurrence.
And any Xian compassion for Chauvin going to the slammer has to be somewhat balanced by knowing that when that day comes, he'll be seen by the COs as a hero to respect and protect. (I think that day's inevitable. My only worry is that a SCOTUS majority will see some reason to toss the verdict -- as if there was ever a more open and shut case.) Too, I hope this doesn't mean that Chauvin won't be prosecuted for tax fraud.
"...when that day comes, he'll be seen by the COs as a hero to respect and protect." It's already started: https://www.salon.com/2021/04/21/the-making-of-a-right-wing-martyr-conservatives-see-derek-chauvins-conviction-as-an-act-of-war/
Eh, I was only thinking about the respect Chauvin would get from the like-minded while in the slammer, not the world outside the prison.
Yeah, I'm sure the Aryan Nation types will rally around him, although I won't be surprised if he gets solitary.
I usually agree with you, Roy, but restorative justice requires repentance, and Chauvin sure didn't show any.
"..flat affect...can be a symptom of a psychiatric disorder".
Chauvin's lack of facial expression while he killed a man was most disturbing. So was his hand in his pocket.
Conservative doublethink, led byu the pundits, is endemic now with any 'duck speak' being acceptable. Jim Jeffreys' behaviour is archetypal.
I hope you're right Roy, and every Republican in the country feels the Nation's judgement.
I also hope the verdict survives the appeal.
As long as it doesn't get to SCOTUS, the verdict should stick. And I'm not even sue the GOP majority wouldn't have a problem tossing the verdict. The core thing here is that a lot of difference goes to a jury's finding. In this case, given the evidence, tossing it might even be too much for SCOTUS. But as for all other courts between here and there, I will be really, really shocked if all three verdicts get tossed.
Common failure, feeling uncomfortable being wrong. I know people who believe white supremacist lies now, who 20 years ago would not have bought into these twisted claims about minorities becoming the majority and suddenly the white people will be victimized and shut out. Wait, you mean you now believe that you do have privilege?
No, they say, white people are the least parochial and the least clannish group. Seriously, they believe that. No prejudice here. The only color Trump sees is green. Those other groups, they only do business with each other, they only marry each other. White people were so generous they went everywhere and colonized every place they went. They are the fairest group, no pun intended, and so they need to be in charge.
These are things I have heard over the years from surprising sources.
There was another bit of good news this week. The 20-year sentence of Michael Slager, the South Carolina cop who shot Walter Scott in the back five times, was upheld. His first state prosecution ended in a mistrial, which is what the usual crop of conservative white tribalists expected then and now, and he ended up taking a plea deal on federal civil rights charges. If you recall, that was another one of those cases where anyone would have to deny what they’d seen with their own eyes to absolve him in any way, and at least one of his jurors did just that. Fortunately, that didn’t happen in the Chauvin case.
The obvious problem is that if it weren't for bystanders recording cell phone video both of these murderers would be walking free and we would likely never have heard of either victim. Sadly, camera footage doesn't usually mean that much. Phillip Brailsford, the triggerman of a team of SWAT cops who tortured and executed an unarmed Daniel Shaver, was not only acquitted of second degree murder, but was temporarily rehired by the police department so that he could claim medical disability for PTSD and then retire on medical grounds on a pension of $2,500 a month. Needless to say, Shaver's surviving wife and children haven't been so lucky.
Cue Republican authored bills forbidding filming cops (“interfering with police business “).
Over at LGM and elsewhere you hear people asking "Are there any good cops?"
That's like asking if there's any good SS officers.
Watching the right wing reaction, I keep thinking that a lot of them are more upset about not getting riots in response to a not guilty verdict than anything else. They need more BLM/antifa b-roll to stoke their fantasies.
I'm pleasantly surprised that the MAGAts didn't riot.
William Golding called it in The Inheritors. Humans are so frightened they have to murder everyone outside their tribe just to feel safe (while allowing for the adoption of some cute exceptions). And it's doubtful even that will last long.