Dawn breaks for Mr. Dent

Stephen Dent is uneasy about his new friends, according to the Star Tribune:

“I’m about as liberal as you can get in this world,” Dent said. “And I hate to say it, but my goodness it’s all the conservatives that are supporting me. It makes me nervous.”

Scary indeed. Why is Mr. Dent receiving support from conservatives? Well, he got doxxed:

Minneapolis City Council Member Alondra Cano said she was trying to keep discussion of Black Lives Matter issues “in public light” by broadcasting on Twitter critical messages sent to her office last week.

Her decision to tweet several messages critiquing her involvement in a Dec. 23 rally at the Mall of America, including the senders’ contact information, has since drawn an ethics complaint from one of the people whose information was disclosed. 

That would be Mr. Dent who filed the ethics complaint. And I'm glad he did. It apparently isn't illegal to publish the contact information of your political opponents in Minnesota, but it's a very bad practice in a time when the pitchforks are always close by. If you are a public servant, and Ms. Cano is, retaliating against your constituents is a terrible practice. Not that Cano seems to understand that:

Cano was accused of “doxing,” Internet parlance for publicizing someone’s personal information online. But Cano rejected the label Wednesday, saying the term is typically associated with the intentional targeting and harassment of someone.

“I did neither of those,” Cano said. “And my intention was never to put anyone in harm’s way.”

She's just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don't let her be misunderstood. But there's more:

Cano said she posted the messages because “I think that it’s a way to keep this public discussion going and keep it in public light. And not pretend like I hadn’t gotten any e-mails or ignore them.”

As for why she included the contact information, rather than redacting it, Cano said it wasn’t feasible in the rush of posting live Twitter updates about the rally.

“Honestly, I just didn’t have time,” Cano said. “I was at the mall, using my phone, I was running around. It was kind of a thing that was happening at the moment and responding to those issues in that timely manner matters.”

Do you accept that explanation? Seriously? She just didn't have time? We send representatives to the halls of government because we expect them to take the time to consider the issues and offer reasoned responses. She is a member of a deliberative body. If a few of her constituents get run over in the process, they need to understand Cano's needs first, you see.

Cano later deleted the tweets and said she worried that the online backlash from what she described as the “white supremacy community” was detracting from the broader point of the protests.

So, is Mr. Dent a member of the "white supremacy community?" I'm guessing no. Remember, he's as liberal as you can get in this world, so how could he be part of that? I'm assuming that Ms. Cano just doesn't have time to make those distinctions, either.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard," said H. L. Mencken. Mr. Dent just got it.