A CHANGE OF SCENE.

Hey look, Rod Dreher took a moment off from his endless war against the gays to address the Baltimore riots! His first instinct is to tell us the rioters have "lawlessness in their hearts," but list ye, sinners, for "the rest of us are destroying the basis for self-governance and order in our polis too." What can this mean? Later Dreher amplifies: He knows a religious school where they have a sexual assault problem, and the obvious reason is that society at large no longer adheres to "the concepts and the language of the Bible," which Biblelessness has apparently been transmitted atmospherically (you know, like Ebola!) to the religious school or something:

...the school’s leadership refuses to use the language or morality, or moral absolutes. It couches everything it says in the language of liberalism, which is to say, in consent and procedure...

Whereas previously the Holy Ghost wrote the disciplinary policies. This is also, per Dreher, why we don't have another MLK; I thought it was because we tend to shoot them. Inevitably:

This is why what is happening in Baltimore is linked to what is happening on Capitol Hill at the Supreme Court today. America in 2015 is a culture that defines the good as whatever the individual says it is.

Son of a gun, he brought it back home! Eventually, Dreher revisits:

It’s society’s fault. It always is. In this view, poor black people are always acted upon, and are never moral agents.

Also, Freddie Gray "was a layabout who had a bail bondsman the way other people have an auto mechanic," thugs, black fatherlessness, etc. -- why, it's as if Dreher remembered there were other people besides homosexuals for him to hate! He ends thus:

...we will get absolutely nowhere toward harmonizing our badly fractured communities if all we do is blame Somebody Else, or some abstraction — White People, Black People, History, Social Injustice — for our own sins and failings, both individual and collective.

If self-awareness were a virus, scientists could build a vaccine off Dreher's immunity.

UPDATE. Many alicublog commenters note the howling irony of Dreher complaining that a sexual assault policy is based on "consent and procedure." ("The language of 'consent and procedure' officially became the basis of our legal system in 1215," says Gromet. "Leave it to Dreher to find the High Middle Ages too liberal.") The lack of clarity among conservatives on the concept of consent is well documented, but it will always be worse with Brother Rod, an every-head-shall-bow-and-every-knee-shall-bend type who probably left Catholicism because they wouldn't let him into Opus Dei.

Kudos to Megalon: "You better watch it, America! The Rod From God is THIS CLOSE to opening a serious can of smite ass!"

Oh, and Dreher has a new Baltimore post up, basically a new entry in the Longest Way To Say 'They're Animals' Competition. And he cites Kevin D. Williamson as a moral authority! Here's an example of Williamson's writing on the riots:

Translation: All liberals are white (blacks are Mau-Maus or something) and they're all as scared of black people as I am.

LOOTERS.

As you may expect in the wake of the Baltimore riots, on the right it's all ooga-booga all the time. The Mayor of Baltimore said that in giving citizens space to demonstrate, the city had also given "those who wished to destroy space to do that," which to normal people means that if you choose to have a free society, as opposed to a police state, some people will abuse the privilege. To professional bullshit artists like Paul Mirengoff, however, it was evidence that the Mayor was telling rioters to go nuts. Fox's Lou Dobbs said the mayor had "basically have given a free pass to those who are tearing up property," and his guest Keith Ablow responded, "if you want to tear down the system, you might be taking your cues, by the way, from a president who has given the appearance that there is every justification for any level of anger at our country because we're such despicable people." Further proof that ObamaHitler is responsible, from Warner Todd Huston: "Priorities: Obama Sends THREE Reps to Freddie Gray Funeral–Sent ZERO to American Sniper Chris Kyle’s and British PM Thatcher’s Funerals."

At American Thinker, Thomas Lifson decried the "paltry number of arrests" in Baltimore, and quoted his colleague, racial obsessive Colin Flaherty, who said that it didn't matter that crime has gone down in Baltimore, what's important is that "in Baltimore, police will not arrest black criminals" (apparently they were just giving Freddie Gray a lift -- as they've done frequently to others), and the cops, the statisticians, and the media are all siding with their friends the Negroes against persecuted white people:

The idea that crime in Baltimore is going down comes up every time a case of black mob violence hits the local news. Which is pretty much all the time. Everything except that black part, that is, which they leave out.

This, folks, is the modern conservative movement -- a toxic stew of racist paranoia and Nixonian lawn-order. It has nothing to do with that "libertarian moment" PR campaign from last summer, the memory of which gets more grimly funny every month. There's an election coming up and they need to get as many horrified honkies as possible into the van.

Speaking of libertarianism,  here's Robby Soave at libertarian flagship Reason having a rap session with the Baltimoreans:

Violence is violence, and it’s wrong. That’s a foundational principle of libertarianism, for one thing.

Fight the power! Next week he'll tell them about the grave injustice of affirmative action and the Civil Rights Act.

FRIDAY 'ROUND THE HORN.

Thanks to Chuck Gilligan I finally saw the Mountain Goats this week.

Liked it all, but this song really jumped up and grabbed my throat.

•   Charles C.W. Cooke takes me to task -- rather gently, considering how abusive I've been toward him -- for my review of his column on the Walter Scott video. Let me try and return the favor. I thought that column showed him resistant to the lessons of a long and depressing trend of which Scott's killing is a part (notwithstanding Scott's is less likely to go unpunished since someone took video of it):

...I think that [Michael Graham] is confusing conviction for humility. Pace Roy Edroso, I am not at all “sure” what happened in the cases of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. On the contrary: I have written repeatedly that I do not — and I cannot — know what happened in those instances, and that, in all likelihood, nor can a jury...

He then goes on about Blackstone and the presumption of innocence, as if my argument (and those of the others) were for a presumption of guilt in murder cases. Let me clarify, then: that is not what I'm arguing for at all. I'm arguing instead for an acknowledgement that cops (and would-be cops) sometimes treat black citizens differently from white ones, and not in a good way. This is not just the fantasy of "those among us who are convinced that the United States is an irredeemably racist nation," as Cooke described us in his original column, but a judgment based on years of bitter evidence. I'm arguing this not to begin any bogus race "conversation," nor to agitate for some quota of cop convictions. I'm arguing this because it's a plain fact that some folks seem committed to ignoring and to slurring other people for noticing, and that's one of the big reasons why, 150 years after Appomattox, this country remains totally nuts about race.

•   With his latest on the death penalty, Jonah Goldberg not only keeps up with the worst-thing-ever-written pledge I made on his behalf some time ago, he actually outdoes himself. First, he argues, that Tsarnaev bastard deserves the death penalty, doesn't he, and if you don't think so, what about that cop who shot that black guy 'cause you love black guys when the cops shoot them:

Wait, before you answer that, consider Michael Slager. He’s the North Charleston, S.C., cop who shot Walter Scott in the back as he was fleeing and then allegedly lied about why he did it. 

I don’t have to say he allegedly shot Scott because Slager admitted that much.

Huh, what about that, libtards? The smarter libtards take a seat and wait, and sure enough Goldberg starts pee-dancing around:

Legally, it’s harder to argue that Slager should get the death penalty if convicted. Not all murders are equal before the law. It’s unclear how much premeditation, if any, there was in this case. Presumably Slager didn’t know Scott before he pulled him over for a traffic stop. 

Still, I think you could make a case for the death penalty in cases like this.

[Libtards light cigarettes, read Elizabeth Bruenig on their phones.]

The analogy that comes to mind is the wartime military.

[One libtard looks up expectantly.] 

There are capital offenses for crimes other than murder because the integrity and effectiveness of the armed forces is a priority. We are not a martial society, but I could make a similar argument about police officers who murder and lie about it. Faith in the fairness of the justice system is simply indispensable to a democracy and social peace. Lack of such faith may be why Scott ran from Officer Slager.

[By now all the libtards have turned their attention to him.] 

If so, his mistrust was tragically well placed.

[The sneering laughter comes but is soon drowned out by the most insidious weapon in Goldberg's flatularium, the Cloaking Fart.] Sometimes I think Goldberg is a gift from the muses.

THEY NEVER LEARN.

He almost got away with it:

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — One day after a South Carolina police officer was arrested in the shooting death of an unarmed black man, the victim’s family said Wednesday that no charges would have been filed if not for a video of the encounter — which showed the officer firing eight shots at the man as he ran away. 

“It would have never come to light. They would have swept it under the rug, like they did with many others,” Walter Scott Sr., the father of the victim, said Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” Show.

A number of journalists have been making the point that without the fortuitous video, Scott would be dismissed as another lawbreaker who got, if not quite what he deserved, then at least no more than he had a right to expect, for reasons that I don't have to tell you. But none makes that point better on purpose than Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review does by accident.

Cooke admits that "the initial witness reports appear to have been wholly incorrect" in Scott's case and, based on the footage, "Scott's death at the hands of a police officer appears to be entirely unjustified." This, he says, is "an argument for more cameras," though he doesn't say how these would be put into practice; I can't imagine he wants the gummint to use precious taxpayer money on them; maybe he foresees Burkean "little platoons" of black folk recording cops, in shifts.

But one thing, Cooke makes clear, this case doesn't mean is that white cops are sometimes overeager to shoot and kill black people -- that's just gush from "those among us who are convinced that the United States is an irredeemably racist nation." And the apposite citation, for him, is a couple of dead black guys:

All in all, this seems to be the case that we have been hearing about for a long, long while now — that much-previewed-but-never-quite-forthcoming case in which the white cop unnecessarily guns down the unarmed black man who is trying in earnest to get away. This is that case in which the 80 percent white police force takes a life from the 47 percent black city; in which the small infraction leads to the fatal consequence; in which there are no wrinkles to complicate the complaint. This, in other words, is what the shootings of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin were not.

Are you wondering why he's so sure about Brown and Martin, even though "witness reports" can be "wholly incorrect"? I'm not.

MORAL RELATIVISM.

You've heard about the NYPD sneaking into Wikipedia to edit brutality victim Eric Garner's page and those of other victims so that they might better reflect the cops' own view of events. Probably you figured this is the sort of bullshit that's so egregious even conservatives wouldn't approve out loud. Well, you forgot about City Journal, also known as Late-Stage Giuliani In Print, where the problem is always The Black Guy. Here's Matthew Hennessey (whom we last saw asking "Is Bill de Blasio still a Sandinista at heart?") on the subject:

Cue the predictable howls of outrage at this attempt to whitewash the cold-blooded murder of an innocent man. The technology website Ars Technica called the edits an attempt “to sanitize Wikipedia entries about cases of police brutality.” Think Progress said they were an example of the police department’s fumbling its response to “increased scrutiny” after recent protests. 

The outrage is misplaced, however. The real scandal is that anyone thinks Wikipedia is a reliable source of unbiased information.

[blink. blink.]

...At best, Wikipedia is an approximation of the truth. If the philosophy is come one, come all, then the NYPD has as much right to fiddle with the entries that pertain to it as anyone else. Let the edits fall where they may.

In other words: See, Wikipedia isn't perfect, so why are you complaining that we're smearing it with shit? (In other words, their traditional argument when it comes to healthcare or any other public equity they've fucked up.)

Just in case you're not yet sure where Hennessey is coming from, here's his portrayal of the Garner case:

Garner’s death was caught on a cell phone video and has been viewed by millions across the country, but what happened on the day he died remains in dispute.

You know, like everyone saw the Apollo 11 moon footage, but there's still a perfectly understandable controversy over whether it was fake. Also global warming!

Reactions to the video vary. Some think the cops murdered Garner; others think he goaded them into taking him down. Some see Garner as the victim of an out-of-control police force targeting African-American men. Indeed, Mayor Bill de Blasio called Garner “a father, a husband, a son—a good man.” Others say that he was a career petty criminal with a chip on his shoulder.

In either case, I'm sure all good people can agree that Garner deserved to die.

With so much to disagree about, it’s no surprise that Garner’s Wikipedia page has become a battleground.

For people like this America needs a Master of Bullshit degree, perhaps bestowed with a cattle brand.

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.

THE SECRET OF HIS SUCCESS.

The Daily Caller's Patrick Howley, one of whose previous efforts for the cause -- a column called "Liberals want to stop men from checking out women," in which he suggested girls longed for him to stare at their tits -- was covered here in December 2013, has not changed his game. His latest is called "Liberal Hipsters Make Race Relations Worse," but before we get an explanation we have to hear how cool Patrick Howley is because he lives among black people:

Now as white people go, I get a fair amount of respect, even with my generally conservative political views. I don’t look like I have way more than other people because I don’t. I live alone, I don’t bother to shave a lot of the time, I’m skinny and mediocre-looking. I dress frumpy. Nobody dates me for very long. I get crapped on by others in my profession while hacks take my material and get famous with it. My adolescent desire to be Norman Mailer didn’t really pan out and I wear the shrugging disappointment on my face.

In other words, I get a pass. I don’t get hassled if I’m chain-smoking outside a Spanish laundromat at two in the morning on a Wednesday. I carry myself like I’m supposed to be there. I keep my head down, I don’t judge anybody, I don’t smile, I don’t make trouble, I don’t let anybody touch me, I’ll give somebody a cigarette if they need it. It’s fine. (THAT’s how you gentrify, kids. Take notes).

THAT's how you get a ghetto pass, kids -- shamble about like vintage Tim Roth and emanate self-loathing. And no touching! Black people respect that.

But some cats can't hang --

But lo and behold, this other white guy in line at Wendy’s was reading a book. Some frilly little kind of book. It could have been Emily Dickinson for all I know. He was dressed in smug glasses with a little scarf and some kind of twee little indie petticoat... 

He ordered some kind of salad-type thing and a chicken sandwich with all kinds of preconditions: no this, no that, like, uh, no I don’t want that on it. Whatever. It was thoroughly disgusting. I felt the angry eyes of other people in line linking me and this loser together as though we came as a socioeconomic couplet. I almost had to apologize to the crowd.

I half expected Howley to swagger up and offer this young gent from cubesville some new colors for his paintbox. Then I remembered: No human contact!

How did this person turn out this way? Is he really so oblivious that he can’t even go to a downmarket Wendy’s without stoking an undercurrent of racial tension that everybody went to the restaurant on a Sunday to just forget about?

You could feel it, brah. Dudes be like "damn!" What? No, they didn't say "damn" -- it was in the undercurrent!

Is he actively trying to be a punchable asshole?

And here’s the bitter irony: THAT guy is probably some kind of liberal blogger who makes his living accusing Republicans of being racist.

Wait. Waaaaaait.
He didn't just --
Okay I double-checked, he did.

THAT guy is exactly like the kind of dweeb who would Tweet at me after this column runs and tell me I’m making all sorts of culturally insensitive “microaggressions.” 

Also the kind of dweeb who'd hog the couch at this party, talking to this chick when I'm tuh-RY-ing to get with her, TODD!

Much has been made lately of Felix Salmon's advice to young journalists, but really, the best thing to tell them is this: Angle for a wingnut welfare sinecure, and pray for a boss who's too busy to read your copy.

UPDATE. Comments are just too good. From Another Kiwi:

Moby Dick by Patrick Howley. Call me Ishpatrick. A fucking white whale, are you kidding me? In this neighbourhood? Man, get your frilly petticoat ass out of here before the black folks take to you with torches and pitchforks. Me, I'll be down at the Sudz 'n' Spin ignoring all those dumb fucks. Now watch some bastard steal my writing, yeah, it figures.

Also enjoy dex's comment, which begins "i don't say he's a great man. patrick howley never made a lot of money..." and several others.