I spent the weekend away from writing, spending the time with my wife. Politics can be so depressing, and the national news so infuriating, that from time to time I have to go on a news fast to prevent me from losing my perspective on life in general. When I do this, I try to find something humorous to watch.

I was thinking about this as I planned my weekend. I worked some ham radio communications on Saturday and then settled down with a few of my favorite YouTubers. YouTube has done more to convince me that there is a lot right with America than the media let on. Some of the stuff on YouTube shows the real people trying to communicate the truth.

Donut Operator is a good example. A Spartanburg, S.C, police officer who initially started on YouTube explaining why jumping to conclusions about police encounters was a bad idea, he now has more than one million followers and his content is both informative and funny. In a recent livestream he and another guy played Karen Bingo. He has explained police shootings by breaking them down into terms even a leftwing agitator could understand (if he/she/xe wanted to). In Karen Bingo you take series of YouTube videos and go through them looking for specific phrases (“I want to speak to the manager”) and if that phrase is on your bingo card, you mark it. It’s an excellent way to poke fun at the stupid.

Salty Cracker is another YouTube content provider who can make you laugh out loud, and laugh hard, at the antics of the left. Recently he took on the conspiracy theory voiced by Taylor Not-Too-Swift and Jamie Lee “Scream Queen” Curtis that Trump was deliberately sabotaging the United States Postal Service. You’ll pardon me if I don’t run right out and scream in the streets about this. I would, you understand, except my invitation to do so was lost in the mail. Seriously, in my neighborhood, with about 150 houses and two mail centers, we frequently wind up going to other folks’ houses to drop off mail that has been misdelivered to ours. We’ve found mail, packages, and other goodies on our front porch because the items were given to neighbors. It’s four numbers and a street name: you’d think they could get that right. So, excuse me if I am more worried about the quality of mail delivery than any attempted improvements or streamlining of the process. The USPS simply doesn’t operate by normal rules and it loses tons of money each year. I’m for hiring the whole thing out to Fed Ex and UPS.

Salty’s videos are worth your time. Here’s the most recent video talking about how 4Chan found the BLM rioters that kicked a man in the head. If you’re not laughing by the time you finish, you aren’t doing it right.

The Officer Tatum details police procedure from a uniquely black police officer perspective. In this video, he talks about why he’s sick of Masks, Antifa and BLM. It’s worth your time. In this video, he discusses Cannon Hinnant’s senseless shooting. He gets it! It’s not perhaps as funny as some of the others, but it’s pretty good material and useful ammo for when people say “black people don’t feel that way.” No, trust me, they do. And don’t forget to watch Kevin’s Corner where he tries to make sense out of nonsense.

But I’ve saved the best for last. Shrodinger’s Cat is a peek into the funhouse mirror of flat earthers, sovereign citizens, and First Amendment Auditors. If you appreciate a dry sense of humor (“he hasn’t been this excited since he got new tires on his house”) you’ll love this channel. As stupid as it is, there are still some people who reject the idea that the globe is a giant ball spinning in space, and believe it to be a flat disk because “bodies of water do not curve.” From sea level this appears true, until you remember that you see the mast of a ship before you see the ship. But from 20,000 feet, you can clearly see the ocean curve at the horizon. In spite of this and the science behind it (satellites and moon landings are all a big joke on us) people believe what they want to believe. Pretty sure these are the same folks voting Democrat (because President Kennedy isn’t dead, he’s with Elvis).

Sovereign Citizens are a completely different, but equally stupid, breed of numbskulls competing for the justice system’s equivalent of Darwin Awards. As a lawyer, I know that every time you hear someone yell “I know the law,” they’re lying. We’re lawyers, and we don’t know the law. The law changes on a daily basis. But these guys apparently get the memo every morning.

The FBI describes Sovereign Citizens as “anti-government extremists who believe that even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or ‘sovereign’ from the United States.” The Sovereign Citizen movement is focused on cases from the 1860s through the 1930s, before driving and driving licenses were common, to claim (without any success whatsoever) that they don’t need either a driver’s license or a vehicle registration/tag. They try the same line of BS on cop after cop and keep getting arrested, often refusing to exit the vehicle and then appearing dumbfounded when cops break the window and drag them out of the vehicle. Lawyers know that cases often say interesting things. You can find cases, for example, that state a given proposition (like a contract requires offer, acceptance, and consideration) but we all have seen cases where there is either an “although” at the beginning of the sentence, or a “however” in the middle. You can’t just snip the law and take the nugget from the middle. It just doesn’t work that way. The fact is the beliefs of any one of these idiots may not square with the beliefs of others. There are good treatises out there if you’re interested.

Aside from their screwball interpretations of the law, there is nothing to recommend them. But in spite of being arrested and convicted multiple times and refusing to consent to arrest (I bet OJ wished it was that simple!) they get arrested and film it for all to see.

The worst of the group, however, are the First Amendment Auditors. The First Amendment grants legal protection to the press, as it should. People in the press, however, usually respect certain limits. If they want som B-roll footage of the Department of Social Services for a video they’re making, they call, ask for permission to film, and promise to blur out the faces of anyone that can be recognized. But not the auditors. They go in with their iPhones and their handycams (some use chest-mounted GoPros so they look like a police officer’s body cam) and just walk around until someone tells them to leave.

Then the fun begins. They argue that because it’s a public building, they can film. While that may certainly be true in parts of a courthouse, the jail and the sally ports beneath the courthouse are restricted areas for a reason. When they refuse to stop filming, the knuckleheads get arrested. In this video the auditor goes into the agency that serves the battered and abused women and children and starts filming, is politely asked to leave, and then objects to being removed by the police. The commentary is hilarious. But I have to be honest, so much of the interaction is the same, predictable and boring recitation of nonsense, that I often skip forward to the commentary to enjoy the funny parts of the video. In one recent video an auditor talks a big game, suggests he might have to “take out” a Portland police officer, and generally abuses law enforcement who takes it in stride until the jerk touches him. Then he gets a dose of OC spray and whines about it. I have to say, I do love it when stupid has consequences.

Someone once told me that if you’re ever feeling bad about yourself or your situation in life, just go to a Wal-Mart and 10:00 p.m. on a Sunday and you’ll see plenty of people to make you feel good about yourself. The same is true about YouTube. Whether it’s Salty Cracker or Schrodinger’s Cat, the humor derived from what is actually “reality” video is hilarious. I hope y’all have a great laugh, and if you enjoy it, drop a comment below.

I’ll be off for the next few days. I have eye surgery tomorrow. See you (hopefully?) later in the week.