I don't do this a whole lot...

It is very rare that I go all in on a single story on my blog the way I have with the police slaying of Michael Brown and the resulting chaos in Ferguson, MO this week. This grabbed me in a particular way not just because it's yet another example of a life needlessly ended, because it's an example of the overreach of "duly constituted authority" or because it highlights the militarization of local police forces and some of the endemic racism that persists even in our supposed post-civil rights-struggle consciousness. It's that it engages all those issues at once. I promise--I'll get on to other things--it's just that it's been a rough week and I found it worthwhile to narrow my focus.

That said, I want to point out two good reads from Erick Erickson and Mark Steyn. Why, yes, that is another thing that is pretty rare for my blog. But no, really. I think recognition that local government here really behaved in evasive and deceptive, overhanded and underhanded ways is something that liberals and conservatives alike should be thinking about because our relationship as citizens to this larger thing called the civil contract matters, and if governments, whether local, federal or state, can just make stuff up as they go along, our theory that government is made up of, for and by the people is blown. That lack of transparency and uncertainty of expectation isn't what we need.