Petti's Shooting

 

There are some things about the killing of Alex Pretti that are obvious even without having full information. It is hard to claim self defense for shooting a man lying or kneeling down on the ground helpless. The fact that an American citizen with a concealed carry permit has a concealed weapon on his person is not evidence that he is a crazed terrorist out to shoot up a bunch of feds, and certainly not justification for shooting him. The interesting thing about the government’s story on the killing is what its people are no longer saying. They now do not claim Pretti fired, brandished, or even drew his pistol. Instead they are saying only that he was armed. The evidence I have seen so far points to murder, followed by a very weak cover up and a lot of lying.

An observant person expects politicians and bureaucrats to lie. There is nothing unusual about that (though Trump is a bigger and more frequent liar than most). What is a little unusual in this case is how poorly and ineptly the lying was done, and how easily video evidence refuted it. An observant person also expects politicians to be unprincipled and willing to ignore or even contradict and reject their professed beliefs when it is expedient to do so. Still it was somewhat unusual for officials of the party and administration claiming to support the Second Amendment and the right of self defense to announce that the fact that an American citizen with a concealed carry license had a gun on him proved that he needed killing or at least brought his death on himself. That should cause some pro-Second Amendment people to wonder if Trump is really on their side or just playing them for useful suckers.

People are right to worry about the authoritarian tendencies of Trump and his administration. But they can take some consolation and feel some relief in noticing how seriously incompetent many in  Trump’s gang are.   It may not be much in the way of good news, but it is something.

Being the World's Boy Scouts

 

I like having been the world’s boy scouts. I like having a country that did so much good in the world. I like having a country that saved the world from fascist tyranny in World War II. I like having a country that rebuilt western Europe and Japan after that war and led former tyrannies to become stable, fairly liberal democracies. I like having a country that fought and won a decades long cold war with Soviet communism that led to the liberation of the countries of central and eastern Europe. I like our country being that last, best hope of which Lincoln spoke.

Donald Trump does not. He has no use for liberal principles, liberal societies, or the cause of liberty in the world. His ideas on foreign policy and international relations are closer to those of Putin or Mussolini than those of FDR, John Kennedy, or Ronald Reagan. (It is an interesting experience to listen to speeches by any of those three and then read one of Trump’s screeds on Truth Social.) In a very deep way his behavior is both anti-American and a repudiation of Americanism. In regard to Greenland it is also nuts. He is a disgrace, and he is doing his best to disgrace this country. Regardless of the various and conflicting things we are for politically, decent Americans need to stand up together and make it clear that this is something we are against.

TTU and Oregon

 

Texas Tech’s football team had a very good season, winning the Big 12 twelve conference championship and being seeded as one of the top four teams in the country for the playoffs. Then it lost to Oregon 23-0. Some people took the loss as a sign that the program was not ready for prime time and unable to compete against the top teams in the country. I think they were wrong. TTU’s defense performed very well in the game. The offense failed completely from play calling, to line play, to the running backs, receivers, and especially the quarterback, but I do not think this indicated Tech being completely over matched. Oregon had a good team, but its defense had given up 34 points to James Madison, 24 points to a Penn State team so bad that its coach got fired in the middle of the season, and , of course, got humiliated against Indiana in the next round of the playoffs. Experts say offenses need to get in a rhythm. TTU’s got off to a bad start, and things just went downhill. I have seen similar things in super bowls where it is safe to assume both teams were ready for prime time. To me it seems better to write the game off as one where the offense picked a bad time for its worst performance and not to relapse into the old TTU inferiority complex.

HItting New Lows

 

It is hard for a man like Trump to hit new lows, but in the last couple of weeks he has managed. His decision to crush the hopes of Venezuelans who wanted their country liberated and side with the Marxist dictatorship instead of the elected opposition was execrable. I do not know if he did it because he was jealous that Maria Machado won the Nobel peace prize that he wanted (though that surely sounds like him), and it really does not matter. What matters is that it not merely shows but broadcasts that as of now the government of the United States is not on the side of freedom in the world, but just another grasping gang of international bandits out to steal what they can (oil in this case). The sleazy lawfare attack on Chairman Powell shows not only contempt for the legal status of the federal reserve, but a thug’s notion that the way to deal with opposition or resistance is intimidation. The whole fiasco with ICE, but especially not only attempting to justify the killing of Renee Good but effectively proclaiming that anyone else getting in the way might expect a dose of the same is simply something that should not be tolerable in America. The scheme to occupy Greenland by force, which legally would require all our NATO allies to go to war with the hostile invading power, us, is so completely absurd, so vilely un-American, and so manifestly harmful to our actual national interests and security that it is reasonable to wonder if it is the work of a literal raving madman who should be removed via the 25^th Amendment.

It is a hell of a mess. Republicans used to claim, and often back their claim up, that they were better than Democrats on issues of individual freedom, national security, the cause of liberty in the world, and respect for the Constitution. Well, that was then. This is now.

There are various definitions of a fascist. There is the formal one that a fascist is one who advocates a program for setting up a centralized autocratic national regime with severely nationalistic policies, exercising regimentation of industry, commerce, and finance while allowing the existence of nominally private property, and practicing rigid censorship and forcible suppression of opposition. There is the colloquial one that a fascist is someone who desires a government characterized by racial or ethnic bigotry, military aggression, suppression of dissent, and the glorification of the all powerful leader as the manifestation of the nation. There is the ostensive one that a fascist is somebody who wants to be like Franco, Peron, or the Duce. A person can take his pick.

Babbitt and Good

 

On the premise that cops should not shoot people when there is no good reason for it, I think it is wrong that Ashli Babbitt was killed and wrong that Renee Good was killed. If I judged by what I have been seeing on the internet this week, I might have to conclude that that opinion puts me in a very small minority. Many Democrats and leftists are arguing that rioter Babbitt got what she had coming to her, while Good was a murdered, mainly innocent protester. Many Republicans and Trumpists are arguing that obstructionist Good got what she had coming to her while Babbitt was a murdered, mainly innocent protester. Still the optimist, I am not going to reach that conclusion. I think the country is not yet at a point where most of those on side A think killing those on side B is acceptable, and most of those on side B reciprocate. But we need to be careful, and politicians and their flacks need to learn to show some sense and decency.

Venezuela

 

Deposing Maduro in Venezuela was a good thing for which Trump should be commended. Leaving Maduro’s regime in place to be headed by his vice president is not. It may be that this action is a short term expedient to get time to neutralize the forces of the dictatorship before elections or turning the government over to the already elected opposition. That would be acceptable and perhaps even the best course the situation would allow. However, Trump and his people mainly have been suspiciously quiet about elections and the freedom and interests of Venezuelans. Instead Trump is talking about running the country and taking its oil for uses he alone will determine and bragging about having the new dictator under his thumb. (Some people  have suggested that Trump is shunning the opposition because its leader beat him out for the Nobel peace prize. That would be a crazy assertion about other American presidents, but with Trump one never knows.) If it turns out that this operation has nothing to do with freedom and justice for Venezuelans, but only with grabbing the country’s oil and replacing a dictator Trump could not control with one he could, it will be a disgrace and a repudiation of the good things America stands for and of the good things it has done in the world since 1941. I hope I am wrong, but that seems to be the direction things are going. We should know soon.