Lifted from the comments, Mr Burkett ponders crime and its apologists:

A thread ensues.

Regarding the consequent conflictedness and anxiety, all that progressive wrongness, these three posts include some fairly vivid illustrations of the phenomenon.

Among which, a claim that more theatre for schoolchildren would somehow deter the kinds of creatures who repeatedly and gleefully sucker-punch elderly ladies for being the wrong race, and a chap who insists that women should allow themselves to be mugged at bus stops lest their mugger, out on probation, come to harm.

Oh, and the belief, expressed tearfully and at length by a Guardian columnist, that when you find your home being burgled in the middle of the night, the real victims, the people deserving of sympathy and indulgence, are the ones breaking into your home while brandishing carving knives and then driving off with your valuables in your car.

In the examples featured in the posts above, the perpetrator is typically black and the apologist white. This recurring racial hang-up is often made explicit – as when the activist and lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, mentioned here, dismissed objections to being burgled as, and I quote, “idiotic attitudes,” while telling Guardian readers that the wellbeing of burglars is more important than the wellbeing of their victims, especially if the burglar is a “young black person.”

Mr Stafford Smith went on to chide and insult the victims of burglary, and the law-abiding generally, while offering implausible excuses for those who break into strangers’ homes and steal their belongings, and who do this over and over again with ever greater boldness. And none of these claims were challenged, at all, in the Guardian‘s fawning interview. Apparently, among many progressives, such contrivance is not only congenial, but terribly high-status.

Perversity as piety.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

I paraphrase, of course. Though not, I think, wildly:

Sorry, still pondering the Swissness of wind instrument repairman.

Well, he’s not wrong. We could, I suppose, list things like pelvis shape, skull shape, bone density, Q-angles and whatnot, and we could mention the very high accuracy of sex determination via forensic examinations based on such variables, but it all seems rather obvious. Almost too silly.

But wait.

Because in the realm of the trans activist, and others who like to pretend things, in this case, two journalists and a teacher, the accumulation of ludicrousness must not be impeded.

And so,

A transcript of the interrogation, in German, can be found here.

It turns out that noticing the obvious – that sexual dysmorphia is a mental health issue, that the skeletons of men and women are quite distinct, and that some members of the so-called “LGBTQI community” are quite extreme in their ambitions, as illustrated by the case itself – has now been deemed taboo, and indeed punishable:

Don’t talk back, citizen. Cross-dressing men are women.

With magic woman bones.

Readers will note the bizarre and emphatic conflation, by Judge Julia Schär, of sexual orientation and sexual dysmorphia – her equating of homosexuality with intolerant transvestism – via which she condemned Mr Brünisholz for an alleged intent to “disparage people on the basis of their sexual orientation in a way that violates human dignity.”

Whether the farce described above does much for human dignity is a question I leave to the reader.

Well, quite.

A reminder, were one needed, that when you surrender to the lie, all manner of distortions will ensue. Best, I think, not to give away the store in the first place.

Oh, and because I know you like a punchline:

Modernity, baby. Bathe in its glow.

Update, via the comments:

Readers with a taste for inadvertent surrealism and colourful epithets – and claims that skeletal analysis is unreliable and irrelevant because “our species isn’t very sexually dimorphic” – may find amusement of a sort over in this related Reddit thread.

There, some commenters, presumably ‘allies’ or themselves trans-identified, denounce the post above and what they consider to be “obsessing over transgenderism,” which seems to mean expressing any reservation or insufficiently flattering thought, “because it literally doesn’t impact your life.”

As if, for instance, women could have no reason to express reservations, and all while commenting on a news item with rather ominous implications, and in which someone’s life was obviously impacted.

As sH2 quips in reply,

Well, indeed. There is, after all, the small matter of probity.

And the implication of such statements, commonplace among trans activists, is that despite the current ubiquity in the media of trans-related issues, and despite efforts to change laws and social norms in ways that create any number of serious problems, and despite the alarming comorbidities of sexual dysmorphia, and despite the eye-widening prevalence of sex offending among the trans-identified… despite all of that, the rest of us should say nothing.

Instead, we’re expected to quietly acquiesce.

Big ask.

As noted here many, many times, progressives often have a wildly inaccurate conception of the criminal demographic and of the psychology and motives in play, as expressed by the criminals themselves. A conception so inaccurate, one might call it perverse.

On the subject of prison and its occupants, Inquisitive Bird shares some corrective statistics while poking at one or two common myths:

There’s much more to be had in the linked piece, along with some eyebrow-raising charts.

Unsurprisingly, a similar pattern is found here in the UK:

And then there’s Sweden:

In short, before ending up in prison, the vast majority of the perpetrators, the supposedly downtrodden and marginalised, have at least five prior arrests, with almost half having 10 or more, and one in seven, 20 or more:

At which point, the phrase that comes to mind is the nature of the beast. Conceivably, other phrases may occur to readers. 

Those with a taste for grim humour are steered towards this rather vivid indication of how a crime rate can improve when just three burglars – with over 200 convictions between them – flee the police in a stolen car before colliding with something solid and ceasing to be.

An illustration, one of many, of how a very large fraction of crime could be prevented by dealing decisively with a surprisingly small number of persistent offenders.

And as commenter Geoff quipped, following this:

Well, indeed.

For those of you with X accounts, Inquisitive Bird can be followed here.

Update, via the comments:

MarkL quotes this,

And adds,

The mismatch of progressive assumptions with the perpetrators’ own stated motives, the way their minds work, is quite something. The idea that carjacking, for instance, is done for reasons of survival, to meet basic needs, and only done in desperation or under duress, because of some supposedly oppressive and racist social system, is darkly funny. Perverse to the point of absurdity.

As illustrated, vividly, in the study linked above – say, by the female carjacker named PoPo, who terrorised a random woman, stole her car, her purse and her wedding ring, then “bought some drink and… weed and… got my hair did.” Because, you know, hair.

Or her fellow carjacker, Little Ty, who, contrary to progressive assumptions, had no need of money – “We don’t need money, we have money” – via means one might guess at – but who simply finds pleasure in violating others. Or the ferals named Loco and Corleone, who boasted that financial security wouldn’t stop them from indulging in carjacking because they just like doing it. Because it’s exciting.

Pretty much by default, the mental process – such as it is – is see it, want it, take it. The fear and degradation of the victim is just icing on the cake. A point expanded on by a carjacker named Tall: “It’s a rush thing… when you’re pulling someone out the car… Just a rush come over me… I mean, I feel good.” And likewise, Big Mix, who found his victims’ terror a “kick,” and indeed “hilarious.” And the aforementioned PoPo, who boasted, “It’s funny just to see them shaking and pissing all over theyself.”

And yet progressives will conjure elaborate explanations, outright fantasies, that bear no relation at all to the motives stated by the criminals themselves. The reality of their nature.

It must be that progressive empathy we hear so much about.

From happy-clappy Portland – on day 21 of the ongoing intifada:

A Portland resident confronts Antifa for blaring music past midnight at the ongoing ICE facility occupation:

“I’m coming back every night and I’m breaking your sh-t. We the people need sleep. You’re worse than ICE, terrorizing us every night. Go f-ck yourself.” pic.twitter.com/gpDBdPYiuP

— Katie Daviscourt 📸 (@KatieDaviscourt) June 29, 2025

Attention, comrades. You will learn to love the explosions, fires, and shouting, the round-the-clock banging of things against other things, and the shrill, unending high-frequency tones, heavily amplified. Because sleep is a luxury of the bourgeoisie.

I paraphrase, of course. Though not, I think, unfairly.

From the replies:

Because spite is the sweetest plum.

Immediately after the resident complained, Antifa increased their noise disturbance.

The group has created a makeshift LRAD system, blasting it at the ICE office around 1 am. Federal police responded so a vehicle could exit.

Note: none of this noise is coming from ICE/DHS. pic.twitter.com/O03uagtIi2

— Katie Daviscourt 📸 (@KatieDaviscourt) June 29, 2025

Update, via the comments:

Quoting this,

Rafi adds, drily,

That would seem to be the implied dynamic. The new and immensely radical pecking order.

And readers with a taste for irony may appreciate the exchange in the first video, around 30 seconds in, during which Generic Antifa Bint says to the disgruntled resident, “Talking to us calmly would be a hell of a lot better.” The same Generic Antifa Bint whose comrades carry megaphones, fireworks and drums, and who spend their evenings torturing local residents, and presumably any pets, with a loudspeaker sound cannon.

Update 2:

For readers intrigued by the lack of law enforcement, Andy Ngo has been querying the inactivity of Portland’s Police Department.

Which is, we learn,

Even, it seems, when those individuals are quite literally disturbing the peace. Such that local residents are being robbed of sleep, night after night, and despite such protests – or, more accurately, fits of sociopathy – violating Portland’s laws on public noise.

Laws that clearly forbid,

Such is policing in an age of progress.

Update 3:

Because of course.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Some elaboration on a couple of items from Friday’s Ephemera – in which Antifa’s Transgender Enforcement Wing bare their sweet little souls.

The following scenes were filmed by Katie Daviscourt at a University of Washington event on safeguarding women’s sports against mentally ill men:

“It would be so beautiful to see your bodies hanging from the tree”

Trantifa/Antifa members threatened an elderly couple leaving a @Riley_Gaines_ event at the @UW campus. Police had to escort them as the militants followed. Video by @KatieDaviscourt: pic.twitter.com/ZapSmwQo8y

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) May 7, 2025

From the same:

“I hope you die behind the wheel you stupid transphobic bitch!”
“You look too much like a trans woman to be transphobic”
*Neck slitting gesture*

Antifa members at @UW threatened a woman walking with a cane after the @Riley_Gaines_ event on women’s sports. pic.twitter.com/MvBXrXkqRf

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) May 7, 2025

For daring to film such things, Ms Daviscourt received similar treatment.

In the comments, Min asked, not unreasonably:

One might think that gangs of masked misfits following elderly and disabled people to their cars, then obstructing their attempts to leave, while generally menacing them and muttering vivid threats, might constitute a breach of the peace, to say the least. Causing fear and alarm is the obvious intention.

And remember, the targets in the videos above – the unimposing, the elderly, the disabled – are chosen deliberately and with glee. Because that’s who they are, these mighty warriors of the Cluster B Tendency. Malevolence is their aphrodisiac, their euphoria. It’s how they feel important. It’s how they process the buzzing noise inside their own heads.

And then there’s the whole throwing faeces thing.

Oh, and note the “I’m not touching anyone – don’t touch me!” line from the big Antifa goon, the one enthusiastically menacing an elderly woman who struggles to walk.

We’ve been here before, of course. And we’ve seen what it means.

Update, via the comments:

EmC quotes this,

And adds,

The threat of catastrophic injury would, I suspect, be the only language such creatures are likely to heed. It’s certainly hard to imagine them being swayed by appeals to logic, reciprocation, or basic decency. I see no evidence of a better nature to which one might appeal. I mean, once you’ve chosen to spend your afternoon menacing the elderly and disabled precisely because they’re unlikely to give you the vigorous kicking you deserve, you’re pretty much beyond any negotiation or genteel outreach project.

And should any readers have assumed the choice of targets seen above must be some one-off aberration, by all means think again:

T’aint politics. It’s pathology.

Previously in the happy-clappy world of Antifa and their Guardian apologists.