Lawyers tell the joke about a person on trial for mariticide – killing one’s spouse. The defendant testified, “I didn’t do it and, if I did, it was in self-defense.”
The point for lawyers is that you can plead inconsistent legal theories, but not inconsistent facts.
Which brings me to Portland, Seattle and the Democrats. On the one hand, while their cities are looted and burned the Dems maintain that in fact the looters and burners are “perfectly peaceful.”
The Dems’ lackeys in the media spin the same tale. While buildings burn in the background, television so-called news reporters contend with a straight face that the riots are “mostly peaceful.”
Challenged, the Dems and their media allies would say, I suppose, that “mostly peaceful” merely means over 50%. Under that rationale, you could say that Chicago is “mostly peaceful” on any given night because more than half of the inhabitants don’t get shot. World War II was “mostly peaceful” because most of the soldiers survived.
In Seattle, rioters took over an entire neighborhood for weeks and destroyed the police precinct building. They looted, burned, extorted and killed.
In a clinical case of psycho-denial, the lefty Seattle mayor declared it a “Summer of Love.”
Until they came for her, anyway. The rioters went to her house after a city council member even more radical than the mayor apparently gave them her address. They were armed with the usual collection of bricks, bats, guns, bottles and bombs. From the street outside her house, they called her vile names and threatened her.
Did she really think the mob would settle for one police station? Why would they, when even the mayor offers to surrender?
That’s the one hand – the Dems denying the existence of the violence that we can see for ourselves on our television screens. Who you going to believe, the Dems or your lying eyes?
On the other hand, even as the Dem politicians deny the existence of any violence, they contend that this violence which they deny exists is the fault of the police which they plan to abolish. And, of course, the fault of Trump.
Like the person accused of murdering their spouse, the Dems say the violence didn’t happen and, if it did, then it was in self-defense. They contend that the looters, vandals, rioters and murderers didn’t loot, vandalize, riot and murder but, if they did, it was to protect themselves from the police.
The United States Attorney General, Bill Barr, asked plaintively at this week’s hearing before Congress, “Is that OK now?” He challenged the Democrats at the hearing to condemn such violence, or even to simply disapprove of it. In response, the Dems went mute for the first time that day.
The Democrats are unwilling to disapprove of the violent overthrow of the United States government, and they watch silently as their radical base attempts precisely that. The Dems are accomplices to looting, vandalism, rioting and murder – almost in a legal sense, not just a moral one.
Oddly, these Dem politicians still seem to have some support from the people who elected them in Portland and Seattle. The hard left of those cities feel good about themselves by imagining that the filthy vagrants, violent anarchists and sick sociopaths they encourage to roam their cities picking fights to overthrow the government are social justice warriors.
My theory regarding this flight from reality in Portland and Seattle (where I lived for a couple of years) is that those cities have long suffered from an inferiority complex vis-a-vis San Francisco. The big city to the south makes Portland and Seattle feel like a timber mill and a fishing harbor.
Every policy decision is consequently animated with the unspoken sentiment, “What would San Fran do? Let’s outdo that!”
Congratulations, Portland and Seattle, you’ve managed to outdo even San Francisco in violence, vagrancy and anarchy. Now you can live in the festering filth and feces of sociopaths who have nothing but cynical contempt for your self-indulgent self-righteousness. But at least you feel really good about yourselves.
Let’s pull the feds out of Portland and Seattle. Give the people there the feel-good they crave and vote for, good and hard. Let’s see how they like it when the thugs come for them.
the Aspen beat 
Dr Beaton, If a Republican can’t beat the mayors of Portland and Seattle, all is lost. Just play the incompetence card, and make it hard, brutal, and vicious. If they win, beat the @$%^&&@! out of the City Council until they cave. This is American politics, if you don’t win, you’re a loser.
My thoughts exactly. Let the Dems destroy all of their stuff if that’s what they want. And that seems to be what they voted for. With the caveat that they receive not a penny when they decide they want to clean it up.
When they have finally managed to destroy the federal courthouse move the court and all of its functions to a sane city in the eastern part of the state, or maybe Idaho…
Fully on board with letting those cities burn. It’s what the voters must want. I’m also on board with having federal agents protect federal property that all of the taxpayers paid for, not just the ones in those cities that allow the destruction.
The only problem with letting the crazies destroy Seattle and Portland is that they will just move somewhere else and vote for the same failed policies and politicians they supported in Seattle-stan and Moscow on the Willamette!!! I don’t particularly want them moving to where I live and screwing it up too, so keep them where they are and have the president build a wall around them to keep them in…or better yet, out of my town!
Portland and Seattle are being tortured. So, what’s best for them now? Slow torture or fast torture?
I like slow torture. Keep the federal officers there to protect federal property and then watch both cities slowly evolve into Venezuela.
Communism always evolves into destruction. That’s the future for both Portland and Seattle … unless enough voters come to their senses.
No doubt there is an exodus underway from not just Portland and Seattle, but likely every major urban area. Even Lefties bail out when they don’t feel safe anymore. Then the problems that cause this insanity in the first place get transplanted to smaller towns and rural areas. I guess Aspen would be exhibit A. Hell, Colorado state government has been transformed too. Leftism is a cancer.
Amen. There must be some normal people living west of the Cascades, and if they won’t rise up to defend and reclaim civilization, then let it all burn.
At least during the prototypical Battle of Seattle twenty years ago, despite the same anarchic violence, it was possible to understand and almost sympathize with what looked like a familiar labor union beef with globalization — the same WTO and NAFTA selling out of jobs and wages so fiercely opposed even by Republicans such as Pat Buchanan and, later, Donald Trump.
But the current conflagration is simply pointless and demonic, fueled purely by envy and hatred that have been incubating in our Marxist schools and universities for decades. The Democrats are now truly “demon-rats.”
Pulling the police out of the cities is not necessary. Like in any crime scene, set up a perimeter around each city using the police, national guard or any additional policing agency and let them destroy each city. Of course, many innocent people will suffer but maybe enough suffering will encourage those innocent citizens to get out and put an end to these radicals by themselves. Leave the methods they use to them as, quoting the Marxist and Democrat Party playbook ” the end justify the means ‘.
As tempting as it is to say that those cities can just go to hell, what bothers me is the fact that there are thousands of innocent people living and working there whose lives would be ruined. I have a daughter who is as loyally pro-American as anyone, who lives in another city that is predominantly liberal, and I would hate to see her abandoned to the whims of a leftist mob.
Liberals had no problem with Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy sending federal law enforcement personnel and even troops into the South to enforce de-segregation. By the same logic, it is entirely legal and appropriate to send federal forces into urban areas where local and state authorities are unwilling or unable to provide the level of protection to “ordinary” citizens that every American has a right to expect from government.
Yes, it would be “entirely legal and appropriate” to do so, but this is entirely what the lefties are hoping for, so that their media can gin up outrage at dictator Trump sending in his “stormtroopers” in an unconscionable act of suppression. So far, a Kent State moment has been avoided, at the expense of federal marshals being blinded by lasers and beaned with frozen water bottles.
It amazes me that “good Christians” like you are so concerned about the lives of unborn fetuses/children (who, if unwanted by their mother and typically absent father) are likely to turn into the Marxist human garbage that we see rioting in Portland and Seattle (or non-aggressive homeless people at best). And yet you don’t want the federal government to exercise its right, ability, and obligation to protect the lives and livelihoods of law-abiding American citizens in those places.
Where is the logic or morality in that?
First of all, Carlton, I wasn’t declaring what I “want” or “don’t want” — I’d personally love to see federal forces crack some heads and put the survivors in a re-education camp in the desert, but that won’t play any better with the press and PC public than the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW II. We’re in a public relations war, among other things.
Secondly, bringing my view of abortion into this is a red herring, an attempted ad hominem, and a post hoc — perhaps you assume that all unwanted children remain unwanted and turn into “Marxist garbage” and gangbangers, but I don’t.
Would love to see them stew but if we don’t stop this nonsense now, the anarchists will move eastward. And the next town will have to stew in a pot of their own making. Ignoring a problem NEVER solves anything. Take a stand, Protect America, and put the offenders on trial and if convicted, convey the harshest penalty provided by law.
Do persons and parties — TWANLOCs — who abominate Americans, America, and our Constitution have lawful claim to vote in our elections and put their names on our election ballots? Why would we allow someone or some party who abominates us to administer penal authority against us? Would that not be insane on our part?
Dear Carlton:
I sympathize with your daughter’s predicament. Regardless, I am generally of the opinion that law enforcement activities are best performed by law enforcement authorities; i.e., police, not federal troops, which are part of a a military organization, whose purpose and training are not intended to apprehend criminals for later prosecution and, if convicted, punishment, but contrariwise, to wage war against and kill foreign enemies and destroy the enemy’s logistical ability to wage war. Thus, I oppose, in general the use of federal troops to enforce domestic tranquility, except in the most extreme circumstances. Having said that, let me address your false dichotomy regarding abortion and lawlessness. If the citizens of a political jurisdiction have elected a government that chooses to ignore law enforcement, or actually prevent legitimate law enforcement, it is because the citizens of that polity VOTED that political structure into power, and they retain the ability to vote those politicians out of office at the next election. As yet, we have not extended the franchise to children in the womb, who therefore have been deprived of any voice in the decision to kill them prior to birth. Thus, they require others to support their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Consequently, there seems to me to be no logical, moral or other contradiction between those two positions.
Three places where law enforcement of any level has no business are (1) in people’s bedrooms, (2) inside of a church or “political” gathering place, unless invited, and (3) inside of a woman’s body. That is both my personal belief, and an area in which I agree with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution.
In the last round of voting, I doubt that the candidates for office in any city or state ran on a platform of how they would deal with rioting and unlawful occupation of entire neighborhoods, whether in response to “racial injustice” or numerous other real or alleged imperfections in American society. Particularly with de-facto one-party rule, the average voter has very limited ability to judge how any particular candidate would react to crises of the type that the U.S. has experienced this year, much less to have much of a choice as to whom to vote for. (I regard ranked order voting as a way to improve on that dilemma.)
In my case, for example, I have written-in the names of prominent moderate Republicans in the last three presidential elections, and intend to do so again this year (probably, Condoleezza Rice) — obviously with no expectation that they will win, but at least with the satisfaction of exercising knowledgeable independent choice. (And not being a single issue voter, I don’t know Dr. Rice’s position on the abortion issue.)
I think your list of places where there’s no justification for law enforcement is not so much a reasoned analysis as a list of sound bites.
What about infanticide? Is it OK so long as it occurs inside a parent’s bedroom? What about the Jim Jones cult that killed 900 and some people. Is that OK because it occurred in a political/religious gathering?
The issues are complicated. Abortion is particularly complicated. I don’t think it should be outlawed but I do think it’s wrong (I don’t try to outlaw everything I think is wrong) and I do think there should be some restricions on it. For example, I think it should be outlawed in the case of a viable fetus at, say, 8 months — and that’s even though it’s still “in the woman’s body” — unless a strong argument can be made that the fetus risks killing the woman.
Issues like this are complicated. On both sides, some recognition of the complexity would help, rather than just oversimplifying the issue to make it a sound bite for politics.
As for being unable to predict how a candidate would deal with rioting of the sort we’ve had recently, I agree. BUT now we have that rioting, and so it’s reasonable to ask a candidate how they would deal with it. I realize they aren’t bound by their answer, but I’m personally willing to rule out the candidates who give me an answer that I regard as wrong. I’m not going to vote for someone on the hope that he’s a liar and will breach his campaign promise to me.
Returning to the subject of this piece, my point is not that the riots should be condoned (and I think I made that clear). My point is that the first responsibility to stop them lies with local law enforcement and their politician bosses. When the locals are unwilling to even try to stop the riots, and seem to actively encourage them (i.e. the Seattle mayor’s proclamation of a “Summer of Love”) and the voters seem to feel the same way in supporting that outrageous policy, the feds have no role is acting contrary to that policy.
Once the locals decide the riots do have to stop, and start trying themselves to stop the riots, and ask the feds for help in stopping the riots, then a whole different picture is presented. In those circumstances — where the locals are asking for help rather than condemning the help — then I fully support the feds giving them that help.
There has been a lot of talk recently of splitting up California into separate states so that the conservatives will have a voice. Let’s take that one step further. L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle. The whole left coast should be made a state. True, the left would pick up the new state, but the right would get California, Oregon and Washington back.
The destruction of Dem run cities has been going on since Detroit was declared the wealthiest city in the world in 1955. Nothing has really changed much – a city starts to thrive, progressives start to complain, media joins in, lists of gimmes are presented…aaand the cycle begins. Demand more, destroy the best, take what you want and create chaos where order existed. Rinse and repeat.
This time is a bit different in that we have a multi-city takedown effort in an ongoing soft coup attempt by the Dems. We’re in the fourth year of the coup, one finally leaning left with the introduction of biological warfare and the government shutdown. Until the survival of our government is decided, I say let the libs eat their own and burn the cities to the ground. We’ll either rebuild under Trump or suffer the consequences under Kamala.
Lock and load.