DEATH, TAXES, AND AUTHORITARIANISM.

Over and over and over again I have to remind people that the conservatarian enlightenment on police power and civil rights --which starry-eyed opportunists tell us is coming any day now -- is never going to happen. This is partly due to the necessity of keeping the racist element of the Republican base enthralled with ooga-booga, suggesting that blacks are animals that must be kept at bay by Blue Knights, and partly due to the authoritarian equity to which they always return when an election gets close. Remember how the Justin Amash wing of the GOP was going to save us from trumped-up foreign wars? Look how that's working out.

But no one ever learns. On March 5, Leon Neyfakh had a story at Slate called "Cops and Conservatives: Could the DOJ’s Ferguson report lead the right to abandon its love of law enforcement?" Neyfakh interviewed "one of the most prominent conservatives in the criminal justice reform movement" who told him, this time for sure! Well, here we are a week later, and two cops have been shot in Ferguson. Here's Jazz Shaw at Hot Air:

Leaders from the local level all the way up to Eric Holder are pursuing a policy of appeasement in the face of mayhem with tragic results which should not be coming as a surprise... the state and the feds have essentially delegitimized the law enforcement structure and punished those charged with keeping order. And not just the police, but even the courts as well. Under such a public specter, why should the law abiding have any confidence that they will be protected under the rule of law? And why would those contemplating criminal activity feel any fear of the consequences of their actions? (Yes, “fear” is the correct term, even if you don’t care for it. Criminals should fear the long arm of the law. It’s how deterrence works.)

Expect more such lawn-order ejaculations in the days to come. By 2016 Bernie Kerik will take the stage at the Republican Convention riding a tank and wrapped in Kevlar, and "prominent conservatives in the criminal justice reform movement" will not be in attendance.

DINESH D'SOUZA MUST HAVE BEEN BUSY.

Time magazine gives the floor to a man who, before he went to prison, was a top advisor to President Rudolph Giuliani:

Bernie Kerik: War Is Being Waged on Our Homeland

In short: Eric Garner had it coming, and you mooks better be nice to the cops or "America will look more like a wasteland than the greatest country in the world in just a few short years."

Next issue, Time will have an essay by Justin Volpe on community policing.

UPDATE. In comments LookWhosInTheFreezer asks, "Was Mark Furhman unavailable?" Could be -- like his fellow felon D'Souza, he's a regular guest on TV and radio shows.

John Edwards, onetime Democratic Party nominee for Vice-President, merely cheated on his wife (in spectacular manner, I must admit) and as a result he's an unperson; the idea of him doing regular commentary a la Kerik, Furhman, and D'Souza is absurd. Yet conservative criminals are immediately rehabilitated via talk show therapy, where they pontificate about the very subjects on which they've disgraced themselves. I would love to hear an explanation of this phenomenon from the people who are always going on about the liberal media.