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.

SUNDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

•    I hadn't looked in on National Review's "Postmodern Conservative" blog and its author Carl Eric Scott for some time (and with good reason!), so I opened up Scott's recent post on the University of Virginia's sexual assault issues and holy moley: First he advises that the school make the kids rape-proof by having them read books like Elizabeth Kantor’s The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After, and then --

And as long as we’re open to having our colleges mandate or “nudge” education on such matters, what we should really push is social dancing. I’m flat-out serious about this recommendation. Dance instructors are inexpensive, don’t have to be tenured or admitted to the bar, and don’t have to teach a sexual-ethics curriculum that we’d have to get the typical faculty of 90-98% non-conservative members to agree to. They really would provide a habituation that shapes sexual and social inclinations in ways more positive than not, and which could culminate in youth-culture patterns that diminish the hold of the worst Greek houses and the general expectations of hook-ups and binge-drinking.

Because no one ever drank too much or had sex, forced or otherwise, after doing the Lindy Hop and the Big Apple.  I don't know why he didn't also prescribe snoods and Wildroot Cream Oil, which in our forefathers' day eased sexual tension with soothing lanolin.

•    Some of the St. Louis Rams came on the field with their hands up today in a Ferguson solidarity gesture, and Michelle Malkin's rage aggregator Twitchy is on it, with these representative reactions from conservative thinkers: "Uggghhh," "idiots," "dumb," etc.  Weep, Buckley, weep. (From the way the game's going, though, you'd think it was the Raiders who came out with their hands up.)

•    Wow, the Rams thing has riled a big nest of enraged dummies. I must be confused: From the way Hot Air's Jazz Shaw talks about it --

Even if we weren’t talking about the Ferguson shooting, I have no interest in seeing a player come out waving a banner declaring their pro-abortion or pro-life position. That family in the stands didn’t lay out $300 or more for tickets, overpriced hot dogs and giant foam fingers to hear you pontificate on the merits of a flat tax.

-- it sounds like the Rams players did a big production number, with signs and speeches and whatnot; I had heard they just came out with their hands up. Guess the MSM is lying to me!

Rick Moran is deeply concerned:

What this very public display of ignorance may do to the team chemsitry of the Rams is another question.

Right after they came out with their hands up, the Rams beat the Raiders 52 to 0. We should all have such chemistry problems.

Moran naturally wants the players punished, but despairs of the League taking action because "the NFL's very public outreach to minority communities will force them to take a neutral stance in the matter." Always coddling black people, those guys! Why, if the white guys on the team came out wearing Klan robes in support of Officer Wilson, you'd never hear the end of it. Moran closes:

It will be interesting to watch the introductions to tonight's NFL game between Miami and the New York Jets. The five Rams players may have started a trend that the NFL may have to address whether they want to or not.

I understand the Jets will do a 20-minute ballet number based on the life and death of Patrick Dorismond, with one of those inflatable rats unions put up at picket lines representing Rudolph Giuliani. Hey, maybe I'll start watching these games again!