Law according to the honor system

I recently saw a perplexed, sort-of conservative person on social media ask why Trump needed to send all those rough ICE agents to Michigan just because of a few reports of daycare fraud by Nick Shirley. But before Nick Shirley, there was a NYT report blasting Tim Walz about fraud, as well as Chris Rufo pointing out that taxpayer money was ending up in the hands of Somali terrorists.

Why didn't she know this?

Oh. And there was also this LONG written piece before any of the above:

We have discussed this piece before, but I don't think we have emphasized the honor system factor, based partly on a previous Norwegian high-trust society which was prominent in Michigan (Ooops - Minnesota - hope it doesn't spread) for a long time.

The specifics of how these fraudulent systems seem to have developed are remarkable. I don't think it's all "cultural differences". I think a lot of it is leftism. Pick an example from this piece and see what you think. In one case, a whistleblower report of fraud was sent back to the ringleader of the fraud for resolution!

So much fraud was reported for so long, and IGNORED for so long.

Going even further back in time. . .

TRUST THEM. NOMADS WILL BE GOOD CITIZENS.

I haven't verified this (I don't understand Somali). Ilhan would have been about 20 years old at this time. It was before she was elected to Congress.

Nov 6, 2012: Ilhan Omar & MN leaders are on tape arguing Somalis are "nomads" incapable of holding IDs. They explicitly urged a NO vote on Voter ID to protect the "services" and "benefits" their community receives. Verification stops the grift, so they killed the verification. pic.twitter.com/Wl0BcCIGFz

— Apple Lamps (@lamps_apple) January 9, 2026

Democrats proudly keeping citizens of Huntington Beach, California from requiring voter I.D. in 2026.

#NEWS: The CA Supreme Court has permanently shut the door on Huntington Beach’s illegal voter ID law!

This victory makes one thing crystal clear: no city in our state, charter and non-charter alike, is above the law.

Disenfranchising voters for imagined fraud will not be… pic.twitter.com/4cdxH9MlPl

— Rob Bonta (@AGRobBonta) January 29, 2026

The Honor System

Minnesota Voter Fraud

Did you know that a registered voter in MN can vouch for up to 👉EIGHT👈 other voters in their precinct?

No ID required. No proof of residency.

1 voter can vouch for 8 others.

Yes, this is the law & it’s directly on the MN SOS website pic.twitter.com/q7aK9goo7T

— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) December 27, 2025

Spain just legalized 500,000 illegal aliens to “defeat the far-right.”

It’s not even a secret anymore. By legalizing 500,000 illegals under the guise of defeating the far-right, Pedro Sánchez is essentially dropping the mask. This is electoral engineering.

The logic is simple:… pic.twitter.com/gVmEMy4Ljb

— Ian Miles Cheong (@ianmiles) January 29, 2026

THE HONOR SYSTEM GOES PHILOSOPHICAL

There exists a state, a donut hole of existence, where law exists and doesn't exist at the same time.

I think we are watching something in Minneapolis that is amazing and terrifying at the same time.

It appears to me that a strange new form of governance is emerging in modern democracies, especially in America where the strongest protection of individual liberty exists. It is a governing system that exists in a state of perpetual contradiction and it has spread to Washington where Democrats recognize there are actual immigration laws they don’t like, but instead of attacking them and changing them, they want to defund the agency charged with the enforcement of the laws and the removal of those who broke them to stop the law from being enforced. They want to play another round of “Defund the Police” with national security and sovereignty in the balance.

So, law exists but it doesn’t exist because it can’t be enforced.

In this new system, the fundamental legitimacy of democratic processes, elections, legislation, and judicial rulings becomes conditional, subject to acceptance by those affected. If you (and an extreme minority composed of other chaos agents) disagree with an electoral outcome or dislike any passed law (whether newly passed or settled), you can simply declare it invalid, at least for yourself. The social contract that binds citizens to respect democratically enacted rules, even those they oppose, becomes entirely situational and voluntary.

This rejection of authority operates parasitically within the very system it denounces. Those who refuse to accept certain laws simultaneously invoke other laws and constitutional protections as absolute shields. They weaponize rights to assembly, speech, and due process—protections they claim are inviolable—while coordinating sustained campaigns of civil disruption designed to make governance impossible.

The asymmetry is deliberate: the system must respect procedural limits and individual rights even as those same individuals work to paralyze it. You can even use the system against itself, tying it in knots by using its own processes to delay judicial outcomes for weeks, months, and in some cases—years.

The result is a kind of legal donut hole, a void where law simultaneously exists and doesn’t exist. Authorities face an impossible dilemma. . .

read the whole thing . . .

WEEKEND

The Week In Pictures: Pre-Groundhog Day Edition

Next Monday is Groundhog Day, but it needs updating. No, not because the PETA lunatics want us to replace Punxsutawney Phil with a hologram (see Section 3 below), but because there are other persistent things for which the groundhog indicator could be redeployed. Like ICE protests, because it is the categorical imperative of the Omnicause that protests must go on no matter how cold the weather. Or like Sydney Sweeney. If the groundhog spots Sweeney’s new lingerie line hanging on the Hollywood sign, it means at least six more weeks of Sweeney in the news. As our pal RS says sagely, if Sweeney doesn’t win all the Golden Globes awards, then words have no meaning.

We cover this important ongoing and vital story in memes in Section 3 of today’s TWiP, and if that doesn’t keep you scrolling, we can’t help you. (Actually we can, as we have “Amelia” to cheer us up in Section 1 today. . .

The cartoon below, from "X", is NOT Amelia.

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, The WEF has been a little different this year

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 11:05 AM

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