Police Shootings, By The Numbers

I received an email from SumOfUs.org with this sentence:

The murder of George Floyd, after the murder of Breonna Taylor, after the murder of Tony McDade, in the midst of a pandemic that kills Black and Brown people at twice the rate of white people, has reflected in stark reality an inequitable system affecting all aspects of our lives.

Wait . . . who is Tony McDade? From WGCU Tallahassee:

McDade, a black transgender man [i.e., a biological woman], is accused of fatally stabbing 21-year-old Malik Jackson just minutes before being shot and killed by police. Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell told media at the scene that McDade was holding a gun when the officer opened fire and killed him . . . . During a court hearing last week, PBA attorney Stephen Webster described the officer’s actions as “absolutely, defensible, understandable and predictable acts of self-defense,” citing a video posted to McDade’s Facebook page prior to his death that shows McDade talking about a potential standoff with police.

For reasons I can't recall, I came across an article in the Daily Beast that had this sentence:

In the midst of two pandemics—the coronavirus and police brutality against unarmed black people, including the recent killings of George Floyd, David McAtee, and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police—the adult industry is having a long-overdue conversation about the racism that has infected so many aspects of the adult world, from the marketing of scenes to the amount workers are paid.

Again, we have the first-string players, Floyd and Taylor, accompanied by a walk-on, David McAtee:

The fatal shot that killed west Louisville restaurateur David McAtee came from the Kentucky National Guard, according to preliminary findings from an investigation of the shooting announced Tuesday by state officials. LMPD officials have said McAtee was first to shoot, and the officers and Guard members returned fire. On Tuesday, Brown backed up that claim. He said gunshot residue was found on McAtee’s body and two casings recovered near the door of the restaurant matched the ammunition he carried in a pistol that same night.

There seems to be a pattern where advocacy organizations and their journalistic mouthpieces pad the list of bad police shootings (and there are many) with justified police shootings (and there are many of those as well). I sought to evaluate police shootings along two axes: how justified the shooting was, and how much punishment the responsible officer received.

Guilt Scale

1	Justified Force
2	Accident
3	Inappropriate Force
4	Intent to kill

Punishment Scale

1	None
2	Dismissal
3	Charged
4	Convicted

Here is my list, by no means complete:

Victim	Guilt	Punishment
George Floyd	3	3
Laquan McDonald	4	4
Freddie Gray	2	2.5
Christine Damond	4	4
John Crawford	4	1
Michael Brown	1	2
Trayvon Martin	1	3
Duncan Lemp	3.5	1
Eric Garner	2	2
Philando Castille	4	3
Breonna Taylor	3.5	1
William Green	4	3
Allan George	3.5	1
Dennis Tuttle	3.5	1
Tamir Rice	3	1
Jemel Roberson	3	1
Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr	3.5	1
Richard Black	3.5	1
Jason Erik Washington	3	1
Zachary Champommier	3	1
Daniel Shaver	4	1.5

Here is the graph:

Oh, yeah, that long list of names in the lower right you've never heard of? Mostly white victims.

A few notes:

• Media accounts differ as to what happened in the Tamir Rice shooting. Some say that he "pulled" the toy gun when the officer approached and ordered him to raise his hands. If this were true, I would regard the shooting as mostly justified; his toy gun looked real enough, and no reasonable officer would NOT shoot under those circumstances. However, other accounts say that Rice merely "reached" for the gun, which sounds bogus: just about all innocent arm movements could be characterized as "reaching" for something on one's person for this to be a valid justification, and it is on this account that I base my rating.
  

• Most of the "3.5" guilt-scale ratings attempt to provide some consideration for the Fog of War inherent in serving no-knock drug warrants. The officers bear primary responsibility for creating that fog, reason enough to forbid the practice of raids in which officers do anything other than knock on the door, wait for an answer, and present the warrant to the occupant before proceeding.
  

• The 2.5 punishment-scale rating for the officers implicated in Freddy Gray's death are because they were prosecuted and acquitted, but not discharged. The 1.5 rating for the officer who shot Daniel Shaver reflects that the officer was initially fired, but then temporarily rehired so he could qualify for a pension.
  

• The standout miscarriages of justice are in the Trayvon Martin shooting (where George Zimmerman was manifestly justified in using deadly force but prosecuted anyway) and John Crawford III (whose murderers are still on the Beavercreek, Ohio police force).
  

• Note that this list does NOT include the many, many unjustified police shootings and excessive force cases in which the victim fortunately survived.
  

There is some subjectivity in assigning these ratings, but I am confident that I am within ± 0.5 of where it ought to be. That said, I will would be happy to consider any evidence that you, my two-dozen or so faithful readers, might present for re-characterization.

BLM by the Numbers

Ahmaud Arbery was killed on 23 February. George Floyd was killed on 25 May. Who else was killed during those three months? Here are some names you probably haven't heard:

• Leslie Baker
  

• Kevin Humes
  

• Roman Kichigin
  

• Rosalie Cook
  

• Heather Perry
  

• Martha McKay
  

• Paul C. and Lidia Marino
  

• Daniel Musterman
  

• Angela Summers
  

• Logan Allen Stacks
  

• Patric Phillips
  

• Nancy Nash, Willie Tidwell, and Barbara Tidwell
  

• Christopher Duane Stewart
  

• Andrea Camps Lacayo
  

• Casey Paul Bonhorst
  

• Kristopher Dacus
  

• Dale Hudson, Gennady "Gene" Levshetz, Dana Walk, Trevor Wetselaar
  

This is not a complete list of non-blacks killed by blacks; on the contrary, the Molson Coors plant shooting included Jesus Valle, whom I take to be Puerto Rican. And it probably isn't a complete list even of non-Hispanic whites killed by blacks, only the ones I know. But in that category, this is representative of the pace of black-on-white murders that I hear about, so let's say 100 / year.

Last I wrote about it, the Tuskegee Institute estimated that 3446 blacks were killed during the Golden Age of Lynching, 1882 - 1968. Many of those murders were motivated by white racism. That comes to about 40 / year.

David Dinkins, New York City's first (and last) black mayor served in office 1990 - 1993. During those four years, New York City suffered 8331 murders. These are the NYC's four highest murder rate years in its history. I don't know how many of them were black, but more recent statistics suggest 80%. So let's assume 1666 blacks murdered per year in NYC alone.

Exit questions:

• Who is more dangerous to blacks, white racists or black Democrat politicians?
  

• Who is more dangerous, white racists to blacks or blacks to all whites?
  

Please answer in the comments.

"Blacks With No Soul"

Presumptive Democrat nominee Joseph Biden's off-the-cuff remark during an interview last Friday reminded me of the "Blacks with No Soul" sketch from the 1987 movie Amazon Women on the Moon:

I am of course unqualified to judge whether Biden has overplayed his ghetto pass, but I would note that of the ten directors, producers and screenwriters for AWOTM, not one is a "person of color". The Democrats have long asserted that blacks who attempt to flee the liberal plantation are somehow inauthentic, and while they usually leave it to black proxies to do this explicitly, here is an example of white filmmakers implying it.

How Can We Help the Afrikaners?

I finished reading K. M. Breakey's epic novel of South Africa, Never, Never and Never Again -- or rather, almost finished. I quit when I realized something very terrible was in the offing, which, while no doubt true-to-life, isn't something I much have the stomach for in a novel.

But I did resolve to look for ways to support the dispossessed Afrikaners. I kicked into the two charities to which the novel refers: Suidlanders and Afriforum. But these are primarily advocacy organizations. What about charities that are providing direct humanitarian assistance to those South African whites forced into refugee camps?

The only standing organization that I could find with a website providing such assistance is the South African Family Relief Project (SAFRPSA). There is also the Humanities Action Group Limited (mentioned here, but I can't find anything else). Other advocacy organizations are Radio Free South Africa and The Covener's League.

Bottom line is that I would like to help legitimate organizations doing good work but rather not get fleeced.

The Pence Rules Considered

Writing about the a number of Mississippi gubernatorial candidates' adherence to the "Pence Rules" (generally, avoiding being alone with any women other than their wives), Irina Manta writes:

So how are we to understand these men's attitudes? Here are some possibilities:

• While they would deny this as the reason, these men don't trust themselves not to misbehave around women. This should make them look bad to voters.

I do not intend to compromise the moral prohibition against adultery when I say that viewing it as a function of "self-control" is a rather naive model of how adultery happens.

Let's consider a man possessed of politician-levels of charisma and charm. His marriage is secure and happy but subject to normal levels of stress. He begins to take long car rides with a female journalist who is herself attractive and who, likewise, responds favorably to his charisma. Their conversations, as they naturally would, move from formal to playful to intimate, the subjects from politics to shared interests to personal. Perhaps they become aware of the mutual attraction.

I don't actually know what happens at this point, but it's not like adultery is a novel concept. Presumably an offer somewhere gets made. Our politician may indeed resist such an offer, and refrain making his own. But . . . he thinks about her.

And maybe he doesn't want that. Maybe he would prefer to avoid the temptation altogether. Perhaps he knows that the "self" making decisions in these circumstances will not be the same "self" making decisions about who gets to be his riding companion. Maybe he doesn't want the distraction or self-consciousness that arises from spending long stretches in intimate circumstances with an attractive woman-not-his-wife, irrespective of her availability.

• Their wives don't trust these guys around women. Voters may want to inquire why that is, and the reasons may well end up looking bad to voters.

My employer has a long-running program called "Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR)". It's content has evolved over the years, moving from the "rape culture" paradigm to something called Green Dot, which is about teaching bystander intervention. While considerably less alienating, this new iteration still leaves me cold. The scenarios they present for our consideration usually start in one of two ways:

• "You're at a bar and . . . ." No, I'm not. I'm literally never at a bar. And even when I was a weekend regular at our club when I was living in the Far East, I never involved myself in anyone else's business sufficiently to apprehend if anything the scenario describes was happening.
  

• "A friend from work confides in you that her boyfriend . . . ." Female friends are also not a thing. Even were my friendship actually sought by a female coworker (a 'hole 'nuther issue), I'm pretty sure Mrs. Phi would frown on the practice.

Anyway, after this year's training session, I shared my reaction with a couple of people at work and Mrs. Phi. Nobody contradicted me. Notably, Mrs. Phi did not rush to assure me that I was totally allowed female friends. Irina to the contrary, I don't think this is because she "doesn't trust" me. Rather I think she trusts me precisely because I'm not the kind of married man who keeps a "female friend" or two in the kitty.

• These men don't trust women not to behave inappropriately toward them. Any women. This should make said men look bad to voters.

Remember Kathy Lee Gifford? She once cohosted a morning talk show with Regis Philbin called "Regis & Kathy Lee". Kathy Lee publicly identified as Christian, and she also would occasionally talk about how wonderful her marriage to sportscaster Frank Gifford was. That combination was too juicy a target for the tabloid newspaper Globe, which paid $120K (estimates of the amount varies, and to be fair the Globe has its own side to this story) to a former model to spend a couple of months seducing Frank, finally succeeding in a New York City hotel where they were secretly filmed together. I note here that the target of this little sting operation wasn't even Frank Gifford. Nobody gave a d@mn what Frank did. This was all an effort to embarrass his wife for the temerity of being a Christian in a mainstream setting.

And that was just to sell some magazines. Do you believe the media has gotten (a) more ethical and less partisan in the last 20 years or (b) less ethical and more partisan? Yeah, that's what I think too. I further think there is no shortage of female journalists for whom boning a Republican would be an acceptable price to pay if it helped elect a Democrat in Mississippi.

• These men don't trust how journalists would present such interactions and/or they don't trust the public in how it would view Important Men spending any time alone with women. In other words, these candidates don't trust voters with something fairly basic. Why should voters trust them with much more important things?

I have a colleague I've known for the last dozen or so years. He has considerable stature in our professional field, directing one of the research centers at the institute where I obtained my PhD. He also is, as near as I can assess these things, good looking for his age, and in possession of abundant personal charisma.

When we first met I was one of his students, and in that capacity had occasion to visit his office. I noted (because I'm a guy) the attractive blond assistant stationed at the desk outside his office. Then again, a couple of years later on the cusp of graduation, I dropped by his office again, and there was another, different though equally attractive, blond parked at the same desk.

How did he manage that?

A couple of years after that, this professor visited my own work center (with which the institute has a collaborative relationship), bringing along with him yet another research assistant . . . a hot strawberry blond!

I mean . . . d@mn.

Seriously, though, I'd like to think I know this man pretty well after a decade of our association, and based on that I would be surprised and disappointed were I to learn of any inappropriate relationships. But . . . I thought about it.

Now let's picture Mr. Republican, tooling up to a campaign picnic in his (I assume) F-150 King Ranch Supercab. The local Republican event coordinator runs up to greet him and the woman climbing out of the truck with him: "Hello, Mr. & Mrs. Republican!"

Mr. Republican: "Er . . . thanks, but no, Mrs. Republican is home raising my kids without me. This young woman is Miss Hot Journalist, with whom I have a totally professional, non-sexual relationship."

Event Coordinator: "Oops, that was really awkward, but now that you've explained everything, I totally won't say another word about it."

And maybe he won't. But he thought about it.

Now I am (or was) an early Trump supporter. I stopped caring about his messy personal history the moment he made immigration the keystone of his campaign and didn't back down. But I personally know people for whom that history was a deal-breaker in a crowded primary, and I expect there are a lot of such people among Mississippi Republican primary voters. They have a lot of candidates to pick from this cycle, and I kind of get how they might not want to be embarassed by throwing early support to a candidate around whom gossip of impropriety might grow to a full-blown scandal. Which means I also get how the candidates would want to avoid running afoul of those concerns.

A Conspiracy Theory, Examined

Apparently, there were three people at the random mass murder in Las Vegas in 2017 that were also at Gilroy Garlic Festival random mass murder a couple of weeks ago. Barbie writes:

I'm responding to Vox's OP: The odds against one person in a country of 320 million being in the vicinity of two such events are astronomical.

Las Vegas 2017 attendance: 20,000

Gilroy 2019 attendance: 80,000

I don't know how many attendees were actually physically present at each event at the time of the shootings, but I'll assume two thirds, so 14,520 (sic) and 52,800.

Proportion of US population present at LV shooting: 14,520 / 350,000,000 = .000041 or .0041%

Proportion of the population NOT at LV is the inverse or 99.9959%

Likelihood of one person being at both events is then: 1 - (.999959^52,800). Which is 88.8%. The number of times this apparently happened is 3, so it's 0.888^3, or 70%.

Vox counters:

For example, if the odds of rolling a six on a six-sided die are 1 in 6, then the odds of rolling two sixes on two different six-sided dice are (1/6) * (1/6) = 1/36.

But before we calculate the probability of these two specific independent events, let's get the base numbers right. The Gilroy Garlic Festival is a three-day event, so that 80,000 is reduced to 26,667 before being reduced another one-third as per Uncephalized's assumption to account for the timing of the event. This brings us to an estimated 17,787 people present at the time of the shootings. Note that reducing the estimated 20,000 Las Vegas attendance by the same one-third gives us 13,340, not 14,520.

It's never a good sign when they can't even get the simple division right. Now for the relevant probabilities.

• Gilroy probability: Dividing 17,787 by 350,000,000 results in a probability of 0.00005082, or one in 19,677.
  

• Las Vegas probability: Dividing 13,340 by 350,000,000 results in a probability of 0.00003811428, or one in 26,237
  

• Gilroy AND Las Vegas probability: Multiplying 0.00005082 by 0.00003811428 results in a probability of 0.0000000019369677096, or one in 516,270,868.

Both Vox and Barbie are wrong, but Barbie is closer.

Vox's error is the easiest to apprehend, in that he his asking the wrong question: what is the probability of a specific American, or three specific Americans -- say Vox, Barbie and me -- being present at both the Gilroy and Vegas shootings. But the correct question is: what is the probability of overlap between the groups present at Gilroy and Las Vegas. To use Vox's dice analogy, the probability of rolling double sixes is indeed 1/36. But given that I rolled a six on the first roll, the probability of rolling a second six is still only 1/6. This is called conditional probability and is adequately described by Bayes Theorem, on which I will not elaborate here.

Barbie's mistake is more subtle. The first clue is that her formula does not converge to 100%, as it must if, in the extreme case, the sum of the attendance at Gilroy and Vegas were to exceed the population of the U.S. If there were, say, 200M people at each, there would must be some overlap by at least 50M people, but applying her formula as written, the probablity of overlap would still not equal 100%, though it would be close. Her error is that each person attending Gilroy that was NOT at Vegas must be subtracted from each subsequent ratio.

Let me explain it with a toy problem so we can count the overlap ourselves. Suppose I have a bag of 6 balls, lettered A thru F. This analogizes to the population of the U.S. I randomly draw 3 balls out. They can be any balls, but let's say they are balls lettered A, B, and C. (This analogizes to the subset of the population present at Vegas in 2017.) I replace the balls, and again randomly draw 3 balls. (This analogizes to the subset of the population at Gilroy in 2019.) Those familiar with combinatorics will recognize that number of possible combinations of 3 balls selected from 6 as equal to nchoosek(6,3) = 6!/(6-3)!/3! = 20 different possible combinations. These are:

A, B, C	A, B, D	A, B, E	A, B, F
A, C, D	A, C, E	A, C, F	A, D, E
A, D, F	A, E, F	B, C, D	B, C, E
B, C, F	B, D, E	B, D, F	B, E, F
C, D, E	C, D, F	C, E, F	D, E, F

Notice that of these combinations, only one has no overlap with the first event: combination D, E, and F. Thus the probability of overlap is not (3/6)^2 = 1/4 as Vox would have it, nor 1 - (3/6)^3 = 7/8 as Barbie would, but rather 19/20 = 95%.

There are several ways of getting this number. The easiest is this: When I reach into the bag for the second event, the first ball I remove has a 3/6 probability of not having been drawn in the first event; in other words, one of balls 4, 5, and 6. But once I draw one of those balls, and reach into the bag for the second ball, I now have only a 2/5 probability of drawing a non-first-event ball, one of those balls having already been removed. Likewise, the probability of drawing the last remaining non-first-event ball is 1/4. Thus, the probability is arrived at with 1 - (3/6)(2/5)(1/4) = 1 - 6/120 = 114/120 = 95%.

Applying this formula to the mass shooting overlap problem, using e.g. the population of the U.S. at 350M, the subset at Vegas as 52800, and the subset at Gilroy as 13340 gives us: 1 - [(350M - 52800)/350M][(350M - 52800 - 1)/(350M - 1)][(350M - 52800 - 2)/(350M - 2)] . . . [(350M - 52800 - 13339 )/(350M - 13339] = 86.6%. The reader can verify that the same result is arrived at by exchanging the 52800 and 13340 as applied in this formula.

Both Vox and Barbie agree that calculating the probabilities of overlap of two or more people is merely a matter of raising the probability of one overlap to the requisite power. This is also wrong, as we can see by inspection in our bag of balls problem. Looking at the list of 20 combinations above, we see that half of them contain either 2 or 3 of balls A, B, and C. So the probability of an overlap of two or more balls is 50%, not (19/20)^2 = 90.25% as Vox and Barbie would have it.

How can we get the overlap of 10? Here we will adopt a new approach, though it will yield the same answer as in our previously solved problems.

First, look at the pattern of an overlap of exactly two balls of the three from the first event. This is nchoosek(3,2) = 3 combinations:

A, B

B, C

A, C

Second, each of these combinations fills the last remaining ball with 3 - 2 = 1 ball selected from among 6 - 3 = 3 balls (D, E, and F) that were not drawn in the first event, i.e. nchoosek(6 - 3, 3 - 2) = 3 combinations. The product of these numbers is 9. (I know this seems trivial, but these formulas will generalize to much bigger numbers.)

We repeat this process for an overlap of exactly 3 balls. There are nchoosek(3,3) = 1 possible combinations of the first event balls repeated nchoosek(6 - 3, 3 - 3) = 1 time, for an additional 1 combination. 9 + 1 = 10. Dividing by the total number of combinations nchoosek(6,3) = 20 gives us the probability of an overlap of 2 or more at 50%

The general formula for the probability of overlap greater than or equal to R between two groups of sizes V and G drawn from a population P, is therefore:

min(V,G) is the smaller of the number at the two events, and the () is the standard mathematical symbol for nchoosek().

Note that no computer in the world will calculate the values of factorials as high as this problem calls for; however, we can calculate the log of Stirling's estimator as modified by Gosper: log(n!) = 0.5 * log[(2 * r + 1/3)*pi] + r * log(r / e). We can therefore calculate the log of the probabilities by adding and subtracting the logs of the factorials and converting them before the summation.

I know you're all looking for the answer. The probability that three or more individuals (R = 3) in America (P = 350M) attending Gilroy (G = 13340) would also attend Vegas (V = 52800) is . . . 32.7%. Give or take. This algorithm is pretty complicated, so I ran it swapping the P and G values (it takes several minutes), and I arrived at the same result as I expected, so I'm actually pretty confident this is the correct answer.

Please note that the above analysis assumes that attendees at both Gilroy and Vegas were selected randomly from the U.S. general population. That assumption is almost certainly false. My intuition was that people living within driving distance of Vegas and Gilroy were far more heavily represented at these events than those who were not. But who knows? I personally would have had no interest in either event; in contrast, there may be a class of people who travel vast distances to attend fairs, festivals, conventions and the like. (I have a colleague who recently crossed state lines to attend a board game convention. I have no idea why SWPLs do what they do.)

Also note that this applies for "any three individuals". If there were something special about them, for instance that they all turned out to be the only members of a radical pro-confiscation outfit that we might suspect of shenanigans, then the probability of their randomly being at both Vegas and Gilroy starts to look a lot more like Vox's numbers.

UPDATE: I eventually realized the the additional probability added by considering higher and higher levels overlap eventually fell below the smallest floating point value. Once the probability calculation falls below zero, the summation in the equation above can be safely terminated. That reduced the run-time from a few minutes to a few seconds.

Which means I could play with some additional numbers. For instance, using Vox's estimate of 17,787 at Gilroy instead of 52800, I calculated the probability of a one-person overlap between Gilroy at Vegas at 49%, and a three-person overlap at 3%. This means:

• 1. that attendance at festivals isn't really drawn randomly from the U.S. population;
  

• 2. that mass shootings are common enough that even a 3% probability is going to hit every so often; or
  

• 3. the people turning up at multiple mass shootings aren't randomly selected.

My intution is that option 1 explains LV-Gilroy. Using Barbie's 3000 number for Parkland, the probability of a one person overlap with Las Vegas is not quite 11%. I think option 2 explains LV-Parkland. Randon mass murders aren't very common either as a percentage of the U.S. population or as a fraction of the murder rate, but they're common enough for 11% probabilities to occur.

I should note we know the LV-Borderline isn't random according to the official story: Borderline is a popular college student hangout, and a lot of college students from that area had gone down to the Route 91 whatever in LV in 2017. They even had T-shirts made up that said "I survived Vegas" or something, and the murderer chose Borderline for that reason. But for completeness, assuming that there were 200 people at Borderline that night, the probability of a random Vegas overlap is less than 1%.

The Handmaid's Tall Tales

Somehow, this article, made its way into my news feed. Which is how I learned that the references to "The Handmaid's Tale" I occasionally come across aren't actually to Chaucer, but rather to a 1985 novel:

The Handmaid's Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead, a theonomic military dictatorship formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America.

Beginning with a staged attack that kills the President and most of Congress, a fundamentalist Christian Reconstructionist movement calling itself the "Sons of Jacob" launches a revolution and suspends the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order.

So, Christian Reconstructionism is a thing, or was. It's thought leaders include Rousas Rushdoony and "paleolibertarian" Gary North, about whom more in a minute. (Cornelius Van Til is often counted as an inspiration, although he himself evidently disavowed it.)

Full disclosure: it's roots lie in Reformed (i.e. Calvinist) thinkers and theologians, a background I share. That said, the only mention of Reconstructionism from the pulpits of the Reformed (i.e. Presbyterian) churches I have attended have been to reject it, as far as I can recall.

[Rushdoony] nevertheless repeatedly expressed his opposition to any sort of violent revolution and advocated instead the gradual reformation (often termed "regeneration" in his writings) of society from the bottom up, beginning with the individual and the family and from there gradually reforming other spheres of authority, including the church and the state.

So, already the novel has departed from what real-life Reconstructionists have said.

From "The Handmaid's Tale":

In this society, human rights are severely limited and women's rights are strictly curtailed. For example, women are forbidden to read . . . . [W]omen are forcibly assigned to produce children for the ruling class and are known as "handmaids", based on the biblical story of Rachel and her handmaid Bilhah.

. . . Finally, [Republic of Gilead Commander Fred Waterford] gives [the handmaid] lingerie and takes her to a government-run brothel called Jezebel's. This brothel is meant to add variety to men's sex lives which, as claimed by the Commander, is necessary.

Wow. I don't know about brothels, but that first bit looks to me like life under the Taliban; meanwhile, the Wikipedia article is pretty short on citations to anything a real-life Reconstructionist ever said. And considering that Reconstructionists want to restore the rules and punishments of Leviticus 20, I would be surprised to find any of them sanctioning brothels.

Also, in the news:

Joseph Fiennes, who stars as the brutal Commander Fred Waterford on "The Handmaid's Tale," [a Hulu television series based on the novel] is opening up about how the Hulu series mirrors the news headlines. The actor talked about parallels between the show and real life during a new interview with Tanya Rivero on CBSN.

For example, one recent storyline focused on family separations even as protests erupted over immigrant families being separated at the U.S. border. "Our writers are clairvoyant," Fiennes said. "I think our writers, like Margaret Atwood and Bruce Miller, our showrunner, have really tapped into something extraordinary, creatively, and tapping into the energy and psyche of society the way they do has sort of brought about a parallel between our show and what's happening."

I'm not sure how much seriousness this deserves. On the one hand, Fiennes is obviously an idiot, but to play along for a moment, let's point out the irony. Proponents of immigration are quite specifically attempting to mandate a fundamentalist interpretation of Leviticus 19:33-34. Granted, most of this is in bad faith, but Gary North is apparently also against immigration control, so the Reconstructionists are consistent. Otherwise, I will show you a thousand people who will quote from Leviticus 19 to support immigration for every one that quotes Leviticus 20 in support of stoning homosexuals.

But this is over-thinking it. The TV series exists only as a vehicle for the left to project their fantasies onto the rest of us, and it uses whatever their obsession du jour happens to be.