# Where is the National Guard?



## Kramodlog (Jan 3, 2016)

Some armed right wing extremists have broken into a US federal wildlife refuge and are willing to kill to make their point. http://gawker.com/sons-of-noted-racist-vigilante-are-willing-to-kill-in-s-1750764305

Where is the National Guard? When black people protest in the street, the National Guard is called pretty quickly. Why isn't the public behind shooting those right wing extremists? They are breaking the law and are obviously dangerous. The public is always for the shooting of black people who were breaking the law and danerous, even if they were not armed.


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## Umbran (Jan 3, 2016)

The National Guard is sometimes used for crowd control in urban and suburban areas.

The folks at the refuge are not moving through an area.  The are sitting still, in a few buildings in a rural area, apparently miles from any real population center.  They don't pose a threat to bystanders or property, largely because there aren't any bystanders or property there to threaten.  The tactical situation is entirely different.  So we should expect different tactics to be used on them, should we not?  

And, by the way "the public" is not "always for shooting of black people".  Your outrage is oversimplified and overgeneralized.


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## MechaPilot (Jan 3, 2016)

I am in favor of equal treatment under the law for people of all races, and I agree with you that if they were black or musilms people would be demanding immediate armed intervention.  However, I think in this situation that using the national guard might create more problems than it solves.

One of the main reasons for that is "that is what they want."  The group that has forcibly occupied the refuge consists of the classic white, rural, armed, militia nuts who desperately want some way to justify their position to at least some of the general public.  Probably the most effective way for them to appeal to a certain segment of the general public would be for the federal government to violently enforce the law, which would then be spun as the "government oppression" that the group pretends they were protesting against from the beginning.

Another reason is that the national guard has a history of screwing up domestic issues.  Probably one of the most memorable, if for no other reason than there's a song about it, is the Kent State Ohio massacre of four students by the national guard.

Now that's not to say that I'm in favor of doing nothing.  You can't just let people with guns walk in and take over whatever they want to.  That's a horrible precedent to set.  Maybe they should just deliver a couple cases of whiskey to the refuge then wait till the nutjobs are passed out drunk before going in to arrest them.


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## Kramodlog (Jan 3, 2016)

Umbran said:


> The National Guard is sometimes used for crowd control in urban and suburban areas.
> 
> The folks at the refuge are not moving through an area.  The are sitting still, in a few buildings in a rural area, apparently miles from any real population center.  They don't pose a threat to bystanders or property, largely because there aren't any bystanders or property there to threaten.  The tactical situation is entirely different.  So we should expect different tactics to be used on them, should we not?
> 
> And, by the way "the public" is not "always for shooting of black people".  Your outrage is oversimplified and overgeneralized.




Maybe you're taking what I said too literaly. My design what to underline how the response to white people with firearms and black people with firearms (or noweapons for that matter) is different. It could also extent to the different mediatic coverage of both. Heck, I'm wonder if these right wing extremists aren't just terrorists and how the coverage is different from Islamic terrorists.


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## Umbran (Jan 3, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Maybe you're taking what I said too literaly.




I think a non-literal statement about what is going on does a great disservice to all sides and the function of reason.  Inflammatory words and over-generalized positions drive wedges between people, rather than drive them to understanding.

So, if you are trying to keep these matters more difficult to deal with, by making people defensive, by all means, continue to be inaccurate.


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## tuxgeo (Jan 3, 2016)

The coverage of this story on CNBC is moderately hilarious: it shows a photograph of "No. 4 hole at Pacific Dunes course, Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, Bandon, Oregon" on the west coast of Oregon -- nigh unto three hundred miles* away from Malheur Harney County** in eastern Oregon. 

Because, Yeah! A luxurious golf course on the humid west coast is just exactly like a wildfire-burned ranch and federal lands in the arid eastern part of the state -- right? (Sheesh!)

It doesn't matter that the two men on whose behalf the occupiers arrived were not in favor of the intervention, does it?

Personally, I think the National Guard would do just as much good in this case by gathering in Portland and going out for doughnuts, because their showing up in Malheur Harney County** would simply give the attention-seeking Bundy family more of the attention they seek. 


* actually closer to 250 - 275 miles as the crow flies; but the roads do wind _hither and yon_ quite a bit. 

** The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is in Harney County, not farther east in Malheur County.


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## Kramodlog (Jan 3, 2016)

tuxgeo said:


> Personally, I think the National Guard would do just as much good in this case by gathering in Portland and going out for doughnuts, because their showing up in Malheur County would simply give the attention-seeking Bundy family more of the attention they seek.




As much as I think that there is a lot of critique with the power of goverment, legislations, the justice system, etc, I have issues when the law isn't applied to everyone equally. Inaction from the government is not a good thing. These extremists are getting away with stuff that no other group would get away with. They are setting precedent and showing the biases of law enforcement. Althought exposing biases ain't necessarely bad, it isn't their intention.


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## Morlock (Jan 3, 2016)

No, it isn't. Stuff is usually burning to the ground before the NG gets called in.


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## ccs (Jan 3, 2016)

Well, the article states that the armed militia are to come to the refuge & join them....
So maybe wait until all/more of the targets gather together & hit them all at once?

Or maybe just ignore them & only deal with them if they cause actual trouble.


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## Morlock (Jan 3, 2016)

But sure, let's talk double-standards. Why is it that blacks are 12% of the population, but commit more than half of the murders in this country year in, year out, yet this fact is treated like a state secret? It's always couched in euphemism, chiefly by stating the large share of the victims who are black.

If whites had murder rates as high as blacks, you can bet the media would make hay out of that (they certainly make a ton of hay out of phantom "crimes" like "white privilege" and the like). In fact, they do make hay where they can, taking every opportunity to play up the "mass shooter" thing, because that's where you find the most whites and the fewest blacks.


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## Morlock (Jan 3, 2016)

The feds tiptoe around this kind of thing because of the massive bungling at Waco and Ruby Ridge. Since then, they've realized they get better results by not escalating with people who are in armed groups, but not hurting anyone, damaging property, etc.


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## Ryujin (Jan 3, 2016)

goldomark said:


> As much as I think that there is a lot of critique with the power of goverment, legislations, the justice system, etc, I have issues when the law isn't applied to everyone equally. Inaction from the government is not a good thing. These extremists are getting away with stuff that no other group would get away with. They are setting precedent and showing the biases of law enforcement. Althought exposing biases ain't necessarely bad, it isn't their intention.




They are 'getting away with' the sort of behaviour that our own Canadian indigenous peoples get away with, every few years, in areas like Tyendinaga, Kanesatake, and Ohsweken. Different issues and different incidents demand a different response. Remember the Kanestake incident? No one wants more of that sort of thing.


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## MechaPilot (Jan 3, 2016)

Morlock said:


> If whites had murder rates as high as blacks. . .




If whites had poverty rates as high as blacks, and were as politically disinfranchised as blacks, and were intentionally given poor police response time like blacks then whites would be in a situation where crime would have a greater opportunity to flourish.  And don't forget that the law does little or nothing to protect people who testify, which makes people more likely to fall into that don't "snitch" crap that just helps create a garden for crime.


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## Eltab (Jan 4, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Where is the National Guard?



Is there some reason to believe this group is a clear and present danger to the general public?


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Jan 4, 2016)

This is a federal issue; the National Guard works for the states unless federalized.  You won't see the Guard called out over this (nor the Army, unless an armed insurrection is declared, due to the Posse Commitatus Act).

There are federal law enforcement agencies that handle this sort of thing ... and they may be called in at some point.

In most other cases where the Guard has been called out -- Ferguson, the LA riots, Hurricane Katrina -- it was a state governor making that call.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

goldomark said:


> As much as I think that there is a lot of critique with the power of goverment, legislations, the justice system, etc, I have issues when the law isn't applied to everyone equally. Inaction from the government is not a good thing. These extremists are getting away with stuff that no other group would get away with. They are setting precedent and showing the biases of law enforcement. Althought exposing biases ain't necessarely bad, it isn't their intention.




Yeah, occupy everything didn't ever happen.


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## Mallus (Jan 4, 2016)

I recall Occupy having fewer armed people willing to level weapons at federal agents...


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

You have to love how these guys are called "protesters" and "activist," rather than what they actually are - terrorist. 



> Washington Post
> A group of armed anti-government *activists*...






> Fox "News"
> Armed *protesters* occupying a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon...




Had these guys been black, or appeared to be Muslims, they'd be called terrorist even before they were interviewed and allowed to talk. Hell, they'd probably have police rushing in ready to start shooting them up.


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## ccs (Jan 4, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> You have to love how these guys are called "protesters" and "activist," rather than what they actually are - terrorist.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Don't worry, as soon as something really happens it'll be discovered that they have Islamic ties.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

ccs said:


> Don't worry, as soon as something really happens it'll be discovered that they have Islamic ties.



No, brosef. These guys are White. They could shoot up the cops and kill half the police force in that town, and they'd still be "protesters" and "activists." 
The only way the word "terrorist" would be used is if some non-white guy walks by, and he just happens to be carrying something that could be construed as a weapon. Then the headline would read "Armed protesters defend themselves from Islamic terrorist."


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## The_Silversword (Jan 4, 2016)

What Im getting from this: Islamic terrorism=We must ban Islam!!! Christian terrorism = ok, cause Jesus!!!


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

The_Silversword said:


> What Im getting from this: Islamic terrorism=We must ban Islam!!! Christian terrorism = ok, cause Jesus!!!



That's correct.


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## Hand of Evil (Jan 4, 2016)

Not sure jurisdiction, it is a National Park, which means it may be a federal issue and not a state one, thinking this would be FBI.


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## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Ryujin said:


> They are 'getting away with' the sort of behaviour that our own Canadian indigenous peoples get away with, every few years, in areas like Tyendinaga, Kanesatake, and Ohsweken. Different issues and different incidents demand a different response. Remember the Kanestake incident? No one wants more of that sort of thing.




Oka was a just a long grind and a Mohawk got away with murder. So we should accept more armed protests?


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## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Eltab said:


> Is there some reason to believe this group is a clear and present danger to the general public?




Worse, they are willing to kill law enforcement officers. Black Lives Matter was blamed in the media for the murder of some police officers when the movement isn't about killing officer. These guys are pretty said they will kill and people shrug. Imagine if they were black or Muslims. They would be labelled clear and present dangers.


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## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Yeah, occupy everything didn't ever happen.




I know. Occupiers were so armed that the feds and the media just shrugged them off.


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## Maxperson (Jan 4, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> You have to love how these guys are called "protesters" and "activist," rather than what they actually are - terrorist.
> 
> Had these guys been black, or appeared to be Muslims, they'd be called terrorist even before they were interviewed and allowed to talk. Hell, they'd probably have police rushing in ready to start shooting them up.




False.  Obama has at every chance, called Muslim terrorism in the U.S. "Workplace violence."  The Fort Hood shooting was a Muslim who had radicalized and shot people based on that radicalization, but was it terrorism?  Noooooooo, it was workplace violence.  He held off on calling the San Bernardino shooting an act of terrorism as long as he could, but the evidence was just too great for him to call it workplace violence.

Terrorism is a goal, not an act.  If the goal of these "protesters" and "activists" isn't to incite terror as one of their goals, then it's not *terror*ism.


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## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Terrorism is a goal, not an act.



Terrorism is a violent means to a political end. 

You can google it or go at your local library.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> False.  Obama has at every chance, called Muslim terrorism in the U.S. "Workplace violence."  The Fort Hood shooting was a Muslim who had radicalized and shot people based on that radicalization, but was it terrorism?  Noooooooo, it was workplace violence.  He held off on calling the San Bernardino shooting an act of terrorism as long as he could, but the evidence was just too great for him to call it workplace violence.
> 
> Terrorism is a goal, not an act.  If the goal of these "protesters" and "activists" isn't to incite terror as one of their goals, then it's not *terror*ism.




You can argue it all you'd like, but you'll still be wrong.


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## Umbran (Jan 4, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Terrorism is a violent means to a political end.
> 
> You can google it or go at your local library.




Hm.  Not sure that the internet entirely agrees with you.  Right now, they're in violation of a few laws, I expect, but while they say they are armed, they've not used violence.  

The first definition that Google gives for terrorism is, "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims."

There's a political aim here, yes.  But as noted there's been no violence as yet, and I'm not sure anyone's intimidated.

The FBI says:

"Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:

1) Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
2) Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
3) Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.

#3 we have.  

#1 - I assume they're violating some laws, yes.   But have as yet committed not acts that were in and of themselves dangerous to human life, have they?  

#2 - The folks in Oregon are not trying to intimidate civilians, as there are none present.  There's been no mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.  So, the only possibility is that it falls under ii - influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.

A bunch of folks holed up in a building are not terribly intimidating to the government.  So, that leaves us with coercion.  That is the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.  The only force or threat as yet applied has been of the form, "if force is used on us, we'll use force on them".  That doesn't seem a solid claim of coercion against the government on the land policy they say they want to change.  

Simply put, nobody's really scared or intimidated here.  Not much terror.  Not much terrorism.  Their acts have so far been armed, but peaceful, and that makes terrorism hard to make stick.


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## tuxgeo (Jan 4, 2016)

Hand of Evil said:


> Not sure jurisdiction, it is a National Park, which means it may be a federal issue and not a state one, thinking this would be FBI.




Call it a "Federal Wildlife Refuge," please -- not a "National Park." 
(The only "National Park" in Oregon is Crater Lake N.P.)

I'm thinking the federal officers who are most likely to show up there eventually are the Federal Marshalls.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Their acts have so far been armed, but peaceful, and that makes terrorism hard to make stick.



I wouldn't say they have been peaceful. Telling the government that if they try to take them out, they'll be putting people at risk is not a peaceful. It's a threat to use force against the government for not doing what they want them to do.


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## WayneLigon (Jan 4, 2016)

The feds have had a policy of ignoring or paying off most of the extreme-right-wing (and occassional left-wing) groups in that general region to keep from igniting another Waco or Ruby Ridge, though, so it could simply be that after their last dance, Bundy senses a possible pay-day out of all this. The Bundys have already had a guns-pointing-at-Feds confrontation last year, and a violent confrontation will only add fuel to the Patriot Movement/anti-government militia movement.


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## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Hm.  Not sure that the internet entirely agrees with you.  Right now, they're in violation of a few laws, I expect, but while they say they are armed, they've not used violence.
> 
> The first definition that Google gives for terrorism is, "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims."
> 
> ...




On #2, they are trying to do (ii) because they are occupying the building in protest to the re-jailing of some ranchers in a federal case.

On #1, it's just a matter of time.  They have guns.  They declared intent to use them, I believe.  It would take very little to trigger some gun play.


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## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

WayneLigon said:


> The feds have had a policy of ignoring or paying off most of the extreme-right-wing (and occassional left-wing) groups in that general region to keep from igniting another Waco or Ruby Ridge, though, so it could simply be that after their last dance, Bundy senses a possible pay-day out of all this. The Bundys have already had a guns-pointing-at-Feds confrontation last year, and a violent confrontation will only add fuel to the Patriot Movement/anti-government militia movement.




The Feds likely need to get all SunTZu on this.  So the bad guys want a conflict, don't give them one.  Starve them out.  Jam their wifi signals, etc. Jack with them indirectly.


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## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Some armed right wing extremists have broken into a US federal wildlife refuge and are willing to kill to make their point. http://gawker.com/sons-of-noted-racist-vigilante-are-willing-to-kill-in-s-1750764305
> 
> Where is the National Guard? When black people protest in the street, the National Guard is called pretty quickly. Why isn't the public behind shooting those right wing extremists? They are breaking the law and are obviously dangerous. The public is always for the shooting of black people who were breaking the law and danerous, even if they were not armed.




Addressing this more directly (asside from Umbran's points to you).

I could be wrong, but in most of the black death incidents, they happen pretty quickly.  Black guy does something, cop shows up hot and ready and bang, dead black guy in short order.

This building seizure was sort of slow-motion.  Bad guys seize empty building and call in their demands.  It's not that a single patrol car is sent out to investigate and the cops bumble onto it and start shooting.

Everybody knows where they are, who they are.  The cops had to drive out there a ways, and set up some kind of crisis command center no doubt.

The scale is different in how it gets to the police and such.

I imagine in the black death incidents, those cops thought it was going to be "just another call".  I doubt the cops in oregon thought that when the call came in.


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## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Hm.  Not sure that the internet entirely agrees with you.  Right now, they're in violation of a few laws, I expect, but while they say they are armed, they've not used violence.



There might be some confusion. I was responding to Max who was giving his opinion on what is terrorism. I found it lacking. I wasn't concern by the Oregon group.

We can see if they qualifies with what you mentioned.



> The first definition that Google gives for terrorism is, "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims."
> 
> There's a political aim here, yes.  But as noted there's been no violence as yet, and I'm not sure anyone's intimidated.



Violence and death has been hinted at and they have a few firearms. At least one of them said he was ready to die for his cause. I wonder if he wants to die shooting? What they are doing is clearly an attempt at intimidation. Whether the attempt is successful or not that doesn't matter for it to be an act of terror. The intent is important. 



> The FBI says:
> 
> "Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:
> 
> ...


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## cmad1977 (Jan 4, 2016)

I want these people killed quite frankly. What they are doing is treason and rebellion. I would fully support a joint tactical strike to wipe them out.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> I wouldn't say they have been peaceful. Telling the government that if they try to take them out, they'll be putting people at risk is not a peaceful. It's a threat to use force against the government for not doing what they want them to do.




They've been exactly as peaceful as the occupy Wall Street and other occupy movements were.  They're less disruptive than the occupy movements were, and they're in outside civilian population centers.  The only 'violence' they've threatened is that they are ready and willing to defend themselves if the authorities try to use force to remove them.

They're criminals, yes and no doubt, but they aren't engaged in terrorism, nor is this any kind of threat to civilian populations.  You (and others) are blowing this way out of proportion.  There's no need to storm the ramparts of a bunch of idiots posturing out in the wilderness because they're not a threat to anyone but themselves.  The urge to recreate Waco is unaccountably strong.


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## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Janx said:


> Addressing this more directly (asside from Umbran's points to you).
> 
> I could be wrong, but in most of the black death incidents, they happen pretty quickly.  Black guy does something, cop shows up hot and ready and bang, dead black guy in short order.
> 
> ...




There are plenty of videos on the net of white people who open carry and are approached slowly and non-violently by cops because people in the neighborhood felt intimidated or threaten. It can get tense, but usually there is talk and no shooting. In the case of Tamir Rice, the kid was in a open carry state... and black. The cops rushed in and shot him immediately. Same case with John Crawford who was in a open carry state, black, was holding a toy gun and was shot by a cop. Heck, a NYPD cop shot an unarmed blackmen in a stairwell just because it was dark and the cop got scared. There is a bias toward black people. They are seen as violent and a menace. Same with Muslims. Its ugly, but true. 

If armed black people or Muslims did what these guys are doing, the narrative wouldn't be about peaceful protestors in a wildlife refuge.


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## cmad1977 (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> They've been exactly as peaceful as the occupy Wall Street and other occupy movements were.  They're less disruptive than the occupy movements were, and they're in outside civilian population centers.  The only 'violence' they've threatened is that they are ready and willing to defend themselves if the authorities try to use force to remove them.
> 
> They're criminals, yes and no doubt, but they aren't engaged in terrorism, nor is this any kind of threat to civilian populations.  You (and others) are blowing this way out of proportion.  There's no need to storm the ramparts of a bunch of idiots posturing out in the wilderness because they're not a threat to anyone but themselves.  The urge to recreate Waco is unaccountably strong.




The've threatened agents of the federal government. That counts as terrorism in my book. 
The 'terrorism/not terrorism' argument is silly to me(except that it shows how differently we cover issues when one group is brown and another is white).


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## SkidAce (Jan 4, 2016)

cmad1977 said:


> I want these people killed quite frankly. What they are doing is treason and rebellion. I would fully support a joint tactical strike to wipe them out.




You want those people killed?

/sigh


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## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> They've been exactly as peaceful as the occupy Wall Street and other occupy movements were.  They're less disruptive than the occupy movements were, and they're in outside civilian population centers.  The only 'violence' they've threatened is that they are ready and willing to defend themselves if the authorities try to use force to remove them.
> 
> They're criminals, yes and no doubt, but they aren't engaged in terrorism, nor is this any kind of threat to civilian populations.  You (and others) are blowing this way out of proportion.  There's no need to storm the ramparts of a bunch of idiots posturing out in the wilderness because they're not a threat to anyone but themselves.  The urge to recreate Waco is unaccountably strong.




I think you are confusing the resolution strategy for the crime.

Goldie and have have refuted Umbran's terrorism checklist by covering all 3 points.  Nobody has countered, so we win, it's Terrorism (feel free to counter argue my point on 2ii of the checklist, and I'll cede victory).

That said, this being redneck Terrorism aka " bunch of idiots posturing out in the wilderness", has nothing to do with the solution, well, out in the wilderness does.

It's winter, in the woods.  they can be starved out, blinded from internet deprivation.  If this was Nakatome Tower, that might call for a a different response.  There's no need to storm the ramparts because there's no hostages and no risk to collateral damage.  Which would ironically enough, be the safest way to storm them.

However, given the very topic they are on about is Arson, it is possible they may decide to burn the place down, which is federal property and could also carry risk for forest fire.  So doing nothing may be complicated as well.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

cmad1977 said:


> The've threatened agents of the federal government. That counts as terrorism in my book.
> The 'terrorism/not terrorism' argument is silly to me(except that it shows how differently we cover issues when one group is brown and another is white).




Saying "if you use force to remove us, we may choose to defend ourselves with force" is terrorism/threatening the US government?  Seriously, step back from the edge a moment and consider that they're posturing blowhards, but not terrorists.  Saying 'if you shoot at me, I'll shoot at you,' even to a cop, isn't terrorism.  It isn't even a threat.  It may be (and I think it is) incredibly stupid, but that's it. 

It's not even illegal to say that (ie, it's not a threat to say that you will response with equal violence to a violent provocation, even if the government is the agent initiating).  So far, the only law they've broken is criminal trespass.  Those are right scary terrorists, there.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> They've been exactly as peaceful as the occupy Wall Street and other occupy movements were.



How many "armed protesters" did Occupy Wall Street have? 


> They're less disruptive than the occupy movements were, and they're in outside civilian population centers.



It's their first day. Give them time. They'll be disrupting government workers who have jobs to do in those buildings.


> The only 'violence' they've threatened is that they are ready and willing to defend themselves if the authorities try to use force to remove them.



The question is, what does this group of terrorist consider "violence" from the government? 



> They're criminals, yes and no doubt,



Good, I'm glad you can at least admit that.


> but they aren't engaged in terrorism,



Yes, they are.



> nor is this any kind of threat to civilian populations.



Yet. It's now day two. Give them time. The idiots at father Bundy's ranch started stopping civilians driving by and pulling guns on them. You think these guys are going to be less violent? 


> You (and others) are blowing this way out of proportion.



Nope, but thanks for trying to play it like that. 



> There's no need to storm the ramparts of a bunch of idiots posturing out in the wilderness because they're not a threat to anyone but themselves.



Awesome, let's set a precedent were any group of "armed protesters" can take over government property and threaten violence if they don't get their way. That's sure to turn out well. 



> The urge to recreate Waco is unaccountably strong.



Waco was a completely different situation. Those were religious people being persecuted for their beliefs.


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Seriously, step back from the edge a moment and consider that they're posturing blowhards, but not terrorists.



So you think these guys won't fire on police officers if police officers try to get them out of there? At all?


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## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

goldomark said:


> There are plenty of videos on the net of white people who open carry and are approached slowly and non-violently by cops because people in the neighborhood felt intimidated or threaten. It can get tense, but usually there is talk and no shooting. In the case of Tamir Rice, the kid was in a open carry state... and black. The cops rushed in and shot him immediately. Same case with John Crawford who was in a open carry state, black, was holding a toy gun and was shot by a cop. Heck, a NYPD cop shot an unarmed blackmen in a stairwell just because it was dark and the cop got scared. There is a bias toward black people. They are seen as violent and a menace. Same with Muslims. Its ugly, but true.
> 
> If armed black people or Muslims did what these guys are doing, the narrative wouldn't be about peaceful protestors in a wildlife refuge.




Bear in mind, you aren't here to sell me on how cops mishandle black people.  Already agree with you.  I am saying there are contextual differences with THIS situation from the typical black guy got shot by cop scenario.

Consider that this is rural Oregon. I'd bet mostly white and has a sizable demographic of paranoid gun-nuts like these terrorists.  So the Oregon police are probably used to handling yet another Bundy call.


Contrast that to the inner city which is populated by poor people who tend to do more crime, who happen to be black.  Where the majority of calls are black guys doing crime, so show up and take them down.  When 90% of your calls are blacks actually being bad, you probably get your reflexes trained to treat all black people as crooks.


No doubt, the cops need to relearn how to handle all cases the same, and how to handle all cases carefully to preserve life.  But there's a feedback loop which is conditioning cops in these places to act this way. 

If we're going to say it's not wholly black people's fault for being poor and being desperate to resort to crime, then we also have to accept it's not wholly the cop's fault for being hard on the demographic that makes their job hard (which in turn makes their job harder).

Both problems need to be solved.


----------



## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> So you think these guys won't fire on police officers if police officers try to get them out of there? At all?




yup.

That would be part of item 2 on the checklist.  If I was a cop and my boss told me to go up there and ask them to leave or be arrested, I would be worried about my safety.

That intimidation is why the cop boss would be wary to send somebody up there in the first place.

These Terrorists haven't done violence yet, but the threat and intimidation is there.


What sucks about these terrorists is that their cause is about "Government bullying".  So anything the government does in response to defend itself or reclaim its land will be used as propaganda against it.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

Janx said:


> yup.
> 
> That would be part of item 2 on the checklist.  If I was a cop and my boss told me to go up there and ask them to leave or be arrested, I would be worried about my safety.
> 
> ...




Exactly.


----------



## billd91 (Jan 4, 2016)

Can we lay off the overused terrorism label? I'm getting kind of sick of people branding one group or another terrorists largely because of political disagreement. Having been reading quite a bit on the history of the Vietnam protests on college campuses, there's not a lot these goons in Oregon are doing that is significantly worse than most Vietnam protesters. It's true they're better armed, but that is legal. Misuse of the terrorism label just serves to weaken it and it's getting tedious. The presence of weapons complicates the situation pretty badly, but that doesn't turn them into terrorists, particularly when they're not really seeking to intimidate broadly outside their immediate targets (federal authorities). The FBI definition of domestic terrorism as quoted by Umbran is *highly* self-serving with item 2 (ii). The UN is significantly stricter by defining terrorists as trying to intimidate *the public*.



			
				goldomark said:
			
		

> There are plenty of videos on the net of white people who open carry and are approached slowly and non-violently by cops because people in the neighborhood felt intimidated or threaten. It can get tense, but usually there is talk and no shooting. In the case of Tamir Rice, the kid was in a open carry state... and black. The cops rushed in and shot him immediately. Same case with John Crawford who was in a open carry state, black, was holding a toy gun and was shot by a cop. Heck, a NYPD cop shot an unarmed blackmen in a stairwell just because it was dark and the cop got scared. There is a bias toward black people. They are seen as violent and a menace. Same with Muslims. Its ugly, but true.
> 
> If armed black people or Muslims did what these guys are doing, the narrative wouldn't be about peaceful protestors in a wildlife refuge.




As true as this might be, it's relevant to the broader issue of race relations and racism in the US... but not really to the resolution of the situation in Oregon. That authorities and the media might behave badly if these were African-Americans or Muslims shouldn't be justification for behaving badly with the current situation.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

Janx said:


> I think you are confusing the resolution strategy for the crime.
> 
> Goldie and have have refuted Umbran's terrorism checklist by covering all 3 points.  Nobody has countered, so we win, it's Terrorism (feel free to counter argue my point on 2ii of the checklist, and I'll cede victory).
> 
> ...




Oh, wow.  "No one addressed what I said, so it's automatically right!"  Yeah, I can't win that one.  I don't have to directly respond to you to not agree with you, and no one responding to you doesn't mean you're right.  That's basic logic, there.

But, that said, your supposed refutation of Umbran is flawed because you're exaggerating events to your flawed understanding of the legal definition.  No violence has been used.  No violence, except in self defense, has been promised.  Lack of violence means that your assumptions for 2ii are flawed, as there is no intimidation or coercion.  You've assumed violence, and you've assumed that criminal trespass and squatting are somehow sufficient crimes to coerce or intimidate, but I assure you they are not. If you insist that your analysis is correct, then you must also condemn the Occupy movement as terrorists.  This is clearly false, and so is your analysis of 2ii in this case.

I get that people are scared of people that are armed, but that's not a legal threat, even if you consider it threatening.  

Also, imagining those people doing bad things they haven't done and haven't said they'd do is just you projecting and has no bearing on what a rational response would be.  However, you did manage to mention that a siege would be a good solution, but starving people is an excellent way to create a crisis of bad decisions.  Food, medical and power need to be kept on so that a reasonable solution can be achieved.  Well, power until it warms up, if it takes that long.  Also, unfortunately, it's against the law to jam cellphone signals, even for Feds or that would be my first step -- cut outside lines of communication.    They could possibly work with the provider in the area to shut down the towers, or isolate and shut down individual phone's ability to connect to the cell tower, but the latter is challenging for many reasons and the former would mess with the Feds, too.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> How many "armed protesters" did Occupy Wall Street have?
> It's their first day. Give them time. They'll be disrupting government workers who have jobs to do in those buildings.
> The question is, what does this group of terrorist consider "violence" from the government?
> 
> ...



Totally not interested in a fisk war.  If you'd like to bundle those up a bit, I'd be happy to discuss.



Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> So you think these guys won't fire on police officers if police officers try to get them out of there? At all?



Doesn't matter, they haven't done it and they've only said that they may defend themselves if force is used.  The law doesn't operate on what you fear people will do, it operates on what people actually do.  So far, these people haven't issued any threats, nor have they engaged in violence.  You being scared that they might isn't sufficient.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

Janx said:


> yup.
> 
> That would be part of item 2 on the checklist.  If I was a cop and my boss told me to go up there and ask them to leave or be arrested, I would be worried about my safety.



One would hope that you'd be worried about your safety approaching any perp.  However, a reasonable fear for one's safety is not sufficient to achieve 2ii.  Actual threats of violence are required, and those are missing.  Again, you being scared of something isn't sufficient.


----------



## billd91 (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> But, that said, your supposed refutation of Umbran is flawed because you're exaggerating events to your flawed understanding of the legal definition.  No violence has been used.  No violence, except in self defense, has been promised.  Lack of violence means that your assumptions for 2ii are flawed, as there is no intimidation or coercion.  You've assumed violence, and you've assumed that criminal trespass and squatting are somehow sufficient crimes to coerce or intimidate, but I assure you they are not. If you insist that your analysis is correct, then you must also condemn the Occupy movement as terrorists.  This is clearly false, and so is your analysis of 2ii in this case.




How exactly one of the Bundy's saying they're willing to kill in this situation and being armed isn't an attempt at intimidation or a threat of violence eludes me. It's *clearly* an attempt at intimidation of the authorities.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 4, 2016)

A couple things.  I grew up in eastern Oregon, so this hits home a bit close for me.

1. Don't call them "the Oregon group".  These people aren't from Oregon.  In fact, the people who actually live there don't want them there
2. They are engaging in armed sedition.  Terrorism might not be the right word, but armed sedition is.  Which is still pretty bad
3. My irony meter is off the chart, because their cause (give the land back to white ranchers) happens to be on land that is considered sacred by the Paiute tribe.  Which is why the government manages it and private owners do not
4. One of the original group to take over the site is Jon Ritzheimer.  If that name rings a bell, it's because he's famous for protesting mosques in full combat gear and weapons.  He also posted a video of himself in a car a couple months ago saying he was going to a Muslim neighborhood in NY to bring violence.
5. The excuse they are using (and it's just a poor excuse) was because of the two ranchers who had to go back to jail because the local judge violated federal law in his sentencing.  They were convicted of arson to cover up illegal poaching they were engaged in.  Not good or innocent people here.
6.  If Obama has been very reluctant to use the word "terrorism" with the San Bernadino shooting, he also did not use the term when a radical Christian shot up the planned Parenthood a week prior to that.  That's called consistency, not that he's covering up for Muslims.


----------



## Ryujin (Jan 4, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Oka was a just a long grind and a Mohawk got away with murder. So we should accept more armed protests?




And at Ipperwash, Dudley George was killed.

That clearly wasn't what I said, was it? I said that different methods need to be used, other than armed confrontation. A heavy hand simply puts the match to the powder.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Totally not interested in a fisk war.  If you'd like to bundle those up a bit, I'd be happy to discuss.



You've already bundled them up in one quote. You can discuss it if you want. If you can't, don't. I won't be bothered.




> Doesn't matter, they haven't done it and they've only said that they may defend themselves if force is used.  The law doesn't operate on what you fear people will do, it operates on what people actually do.  So far, these people haven't issued any threats, nor have they engaged in violence.  You being scared that they might isn't sufficient.



Yes, they have issued threats. That what they did when they said the y would "defend" themselves. But hey, if you're willing to set a precedent where "armed protesters" can take over government facilities with their freedom guns, go ahead. Just remember to hold everyone who follows their example to the same standards.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

billd91 said:


> How exactly one of the Bundy's saying they're willing to kill in this situation and being armed isn't an attempt at intimidation or a threat of violence eludes me. It's *clearly* an attempt at intimidation of the authorities.




Saying that you will defend yourselves if violence is used against you isn't a threat.  Your paraphrase is deliberately provocative and isn't in line with the statements actually made.  Now, that said, what was said is still stupid, but it's not a threat of violence to say that you will defend yourself against violence.  If the Feds go in shooting, it's arguably legal to shoot back if what you're doing isn't endangering others.  At that point, the Feds are engaged in illegal use of deadly force.  The police can't just shoot you because you're doing something illegal, you must be a danger to others.  So far, that's not the case, and the protesters/activists are within their legal rights to state that they will defend themselves with lethal force if attacked with lethal force.

Again, just because YOU think it's scary, doesn't mean it's an actual threat.


----------



## was (Jan 4, 2016)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> This is a federal issue; the National Guard works for the states unless federalized.




...This is why the Guard is not involved.  Unless there is some sort of disaster, and the federal government takes over, the National Guard falls under control of the state's governor.  

...It's unlikely that the governor of Oregon is willing to take the political flack for supporting the federal government over local constituents.  The fact that the trespassing, illegal grazing and poaching occurred on federally protected land allows her to avoid dealing with the problem.    
​​​
...There's a long history of conflict between the federal government and cattle ranchers over these protected areas.  Particularly considering the reintroduction of wolves, and their rising populations.  Historically, ranchers in these areas have sought to eradicate wolves and illegally grazed their cattle on public lands with relative impunity.


----------



## Ryujin (Jan 4, 2016)

cmad1977 said:


> I want these people killed quite frankly. What they are doing is treason and rebellion. I would fully support a joint tactical strike to wipe them out.




Well there goes the wilderness refuge.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> You've already bundled them up in one quote. You can discuss it if you want. If you can't, don't. I won't be bothered.



Didn't even read it.  I guess you don't think it was important.  So far, I don't, either.



> Yes, they have issued threats. That what they did when they said the y would "defend" themselves. But hey, if you're willing to set a precedent where "armed protesters" can take over government facilities with their freedom guns, go ahead. Just remember to hold everyone who follows their example to the same standards.




Saying you will defend yourself isn't a threat.  And I'm not saying that what their doing isn't criminal (I've called their actions criminal) nor am I saying I'm okay with it (I'm not).  I think these people need to be arrested, tried, and, if found guilty, serve appropriate sentences.  Our point of disagreement doesn't seem to be that fact that their people are misbehaving criminally, but in the specifics of that misbehavior.  So far, all I see is criminal trespass, and perhaps squatting.  Because you think guns are bad, you see threats and terror and scary people.  Thing is, though, that just because it's scary to you doesn't make it illegal.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Saying that you will defend yourselves if violence is used against you isn't a threat.  Your paraphrase is deliberately provocative and isn't in line with the statements actually made.  Now, that said, what was said is still stupid, but it's not a threat of violence to say that you will defend yourself against violence.  If the Feds go in shooting, it's arguably legal to shoot back if what you're doing isn't endangering others.  At that point, the Feds are engaged in illegal use of deadly force.  The police can't just shoot you because you're doing something illegal, you must be a danger to others.  So far, that's not the case, and the protesters/activists are within their legal rights to state that they will defend themselves with lethal force if attacked with lethal force.
> 
> Again, just because YOU think it's scary, doesn't mean it's an actual threat.




In the context of this scenario, yeah it is.  They aren't making these statements from their homes.  It would be like going into a bank and taking it over, saying you're gonna kill anyone who displays force towards you.  That's a pretty clear threat, considering that ANY action the police would do to enforce the law would be construed as "showing force" towards you.

*edit*  that is to say, saying "if the police do their jobs, we will react with deadly force" is in fact a threat.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Didn't even read it.  I guess you don't think it was important.  So far, I don't, either.



In other words, you weren't able to respond? I'm fine with that. Move on.



> Because you think guns are bad, you see threats and terror and scary people.  Thing is, though, that just because it's scary to you doesn't make it illegal.



Awesome. Let's start throwing out baseless assumptions about people that you obviously know nothing about. Here, I'll try it. Because you're part of a anti-government militia from some backwater Texas hovel, you agree with these guys. You also want to break away from the U.S. government, and you are wiling to kill the evil government tyrants. How close was my assumption? I'll tell you how close it was. It was as close as your assumption that I think guns are bad.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> In the context of this scenario, yeah it is.  They aren't making these statements from their homes.  It would be like going into a bank and taking it over, saying you're gonna kill anyone who displays force towards you.  That's a pretty clear threat, considering that ANY action the police would do to enforce the law would be construed as "showing force" towards you.




Yeah, if you went into a bank and sat on the floor and refused to move, it would be the same.  If you were armed (ignoring all of the possible automatic assumptions of being armed and in a populated bank) and you said that you would engage your right to self-defense if a murderous cop walked in and started shooting at you, you'd not be making a threat, you'd be stating your right to self-defense. 

See, that's the thing here, the actual statements have been pretty clear that the use of arms will be in response to an armed attack on the protesters/activists/idiots (whichever term you prefer).  That's just a statement of the natural right to self-defense, which persists even while engaged in non-violent criminal activity.  Trespass is non-violent criminal activity, and that's the same in a bank or on a wildlife preserve.

Now, if you pull your gun out in the bank and brandish it, bets are off.  If you tell police that you'll shoot if they approach, bets are off.  But the idiots, so far, have been just smart enough to not say such things and put themselves in a place of making actual threats.

I'll repeat:  just because you find something scary doesn't mean it's a threat.  These people are scary.  They haven't made any threats.  It's not a threat to be scary because you have a legal weapon, be a kook, and make statements about your actual rights.  So far, that's all they've done, and that being scary to you doesn't make it an actual threat.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> In other words, you weren't able to respond? I'm fine with that. Move on.



If your ego is so in need of such a massage, sure, I wasn't able to respond to the things I didn't read.


> Awesome. Let's start throwing out baseless assumptions about people that you obviously know nothing about. Here, I'll try it. Because you're part of a anti-government militia from some backwater Texas hovel, you agree with these guys. You also want to break away from the U.S. government, and you are wiling to kill the evil government tyrants. How close was my assumption? I'll tell you how close it was. It was as close as your assumption that I think guns are bad.




Apologies, my mistake, it's good to know that you're pro-guns.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 4, 2016)

If you are engaged in a crime, you don't get to claim self defense when the police try to enforce the law by removing you.  It's as simple as that.  You don't get to say, "We're not leaving, and any show of force will be met with deadly force in return" and call that self defense.  That's one of the most ridiculous statements I've heard in a long time.

"I was carrying a gun, but I wasn't pointing it at the cop when he tried to arrest me for trespassing and refusing to leave.  But as soon as he tried to arrest me, I shot him.  Self defense you know, because he displayed a level of force towards me."

Well, at any rate, nice to know that when you're not home, I'll go take over your house with all my weapons, and say anyone who tries to remove me against my will I will consider it a show of force and return with deadly force of my own.  Nice to know you'd consider that self defense on my part, and not a threat at all.


----------



## Morrus (Jan 4, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> If you are engaged in a crime, you don't get to claim self defense when the police try to enforce the law by removing you.




Yeah.  That's known as "resisting arrest".


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> If your ego is so in need of such a massage, sure, I wasn't able to respond to the things I didn't read.



Ego is such a mentalistic construct. Please Sthap.



> Apologies, my mistake, it's good to know that you're pro-guns.



I grew up around guns, handling them since I was 7 years old. I wouldn't say "pro-gun." I'm not afraid of guns, nor do I dislike them. I also don't believe everyone and their mothers should have access to guns.


----------



## The_Silversword (Jan 4, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Terrorism is a violent means to a political end.
> 
> You can google it or go at your local library.




OMG! This country was founded by terrorists!


----------



## billd91 (Jan 4, 2016)

The_Silversword said:


> OMG! This country was founded by terrorists!




Indeed it was, from a certain point of view - a POV shared by about 1/3 of all colonial residents at the time. Patriot agitators weren't exactly shy about intimidating their loyalist neighbors.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 4, 2016)

The_Silversword said:


> OMG! This country was founded by terrorists!




They're not called terrorists when they're on our side.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Because you think guns are bad, you see threats and terror and scary people.  Thing is, though, that just because it's scary to you doesn't make it illegal.




I think threatening to shoot law enforcement officers in the lawful act of performing their duties probably breaks some laws.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

Umbran said:


> I think threatening to shoot law enforcement officers in the lawful act of performing their duties probably breaks some laws.




Saying you will defend yourself from officers using illegal deadly force isn't, though.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Now, if you pull your gun out in the bank and brandish it, bets are off.



Not in an open carry state, like Texas for example. The guy may just be cleaning his gun or adjusting it. That is, unless he is black. All bets are off if it's a black guy. All the other open carry supporters depositing their government checks will shoot him down in self defense.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Janx said:


> If we're going to say it's not wholly black people's fault for being poor and being desperate to resort to crime, then we also have to accept it's not wholly the cop's fault for being hard on the demographic that makes their job hard (which in turn makes their job harder).



There certainly are terrible black people out there, but the idea that responsability is evenly distributed between the oppressed and the oppressor is hard to swallow. The number of black people who commit crime is rather small. Higher than white people, yes, but still small. Cops aren't force by black people to stop them when they drive cars or perform "stop and frisk" on them. Black people do not tend to open carry, cause that leads to them getting shot. It's everyday racism and how these men from Y'all Qaeda are treated is just one example of the double standards in affect.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Saying you will defend yourself from officers using illegal deadly force isn't, though.




To make sure we are all on the same page, what they have said (according to CNN.com) is:

"We have no intentions of using force upon anyone, (but) if force is used against us, we would defend ourselves."

The word "deadly" do not appear.  Nor, admittedly, is there a clear statement that they intended specifically to shoot law enforcement officials.

However, their occupation of a federal installation is not legal.  If they are not going to go willingly and quietly, then some amount of force (not deadly force, but force, nonetheless) may be required* to remove them - law enforcement may need to go in, restrain them, and carry them out.  Using force to resist arrest is not legal.  Giving credible threats to law enforcement officers in action of duty is, I expect, illegal.  

*It is winter - the smart play is probably to cut power and access to the facility, and just wait them out.  Any supplies they brought will eventually run out, and they don't dare start hunting with firearms, as if they shoot a law enforcement officer who didn't shoot first, they are quite legally toast.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 4, 2016)

goldomark said:


> There certainly are terrible black people out there, but the idea that responsability is evenly distributed between the oppressed and the oppressor is hard to swallow. The number of black people who commit crime is rather small. Higher than white people, yes, but still small. Cops aren't force by black people to stop them when they drive cars or perform "stop and frisk" on them. Black people do not tend to open carry, cause that leads to them getting shot. It's everyday racism and how these men from Y'all Qaeda are treated is just one example of the double standards in affect.





This video certainly supports evidence of a double standard.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

billd91 said:


> As true as this might be, it's relevant to the broader issue of race relations and racism in the US... but not really to the resolution of the situation in Oregon. That authorities and the media might behave badly if these were African-Americans or Muslims shouldn't be justification for behaving badly with the current situation.



I'm not sure how calling these guys something else than "peaceful protestors" would be unfair mediatic treatment.

And the government can't just let this go. It creates a worrisome precedent. Well, the first Bundy incident did and it gave them incentive to do it again.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Ryujin said:


> And at Ipperwash, Dudley George was killed.



At least someone was procecuted. 



> That clearly wasn't what I said, was it? I said that different methods need to be used, other than armed confrontation. A heavy hand simply puts the match to the powder.



They can try to starve them out, but a confrontation seems inevitable unless the feds fold.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

The_Silversword said:


> OMG! This country was founded by terrorists!




Sometimes they win and write history.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 4, 2016)

Umbran said:


> To make sure we are all on the same page, what they have said (according to CNN.com) is:
> 
> "We have no intentions of using force upon anyone, (but) if force is used against us, we would defend ourselves."
> 
> ...




The other day, Ian Kullgren (a reporter for the Oregonian) sent out a tweet, "I talked to Ryan Bundy on the phone again. He said they're willing to kill and be killed if necessary."


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> This video certainly supports evidence of a double standard.




I'm shocked.


----------



## Istbor (Jan 4, 2016)

I don't think you are.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 4, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> The other day, Ian Kullgren (a reporter for the Oregonian) sent out a tweet, "I talked to Ryan Bundy on the phone again. He said they're willing to kill and be killed if necessary."




His followup tweets pretty clearly show that the Bundys aren't interested in starting violence, but will defend themselves if attacked.  Kinda takes the air out of that statement a bit.

Look, again, I think these people are idiots.  They're committing criminal trespass.  They're inviting scorn by saying that they'll defend themselves.  There's no heroic or anything worth emulation or adulation here.  But neither is there the things that the internet is screaming about, like terrorism or threatening to kill police.  The stupid is strong enough already without adding made up stupid on top of it.


----------



## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> In the context of this scenario, yeah it is.  They aren't making these statements from their homes.  It would be like going into a bank and taking it over, saying you're gonna kill anyone who displays force towards you.  That's a pretty clear threat, considering that ANY action the police would do to enforce the law would be construed as "showing force" towards you.
> 
> *edit*  that is to say, saying "if the police do their jobs, we will react with deadly force" is in fact a threat.




I concur.

Laws vary by state, but in TX, you lose the right to self defense if you are committing a crime.

So by act of trespassing, they may not fire their weapons nor make a statement about defending themselves with lethal force because they are already committing a crime.

This nuance, at least in TX, is what prevents the robber from saying he was "defending himself" when he shoots me back when I am trying to shoot him for robbing me.  Since he was in the middle of robbery, he has to take the bullet.

I would expect most states that have "self defense" laws to have similar conditions on when you can defend yourself.

Also, as you say, while standing inside my home at the front door, I may display my weapon and tell somebody they are tresspassing (TX law covers use of Force, but not Lethal Force to mean displaying a weapon to a tresspasser).

What I may not do without a CHL is do the same but walk outside onto my driveway, as now I am not under my roof or in my vehicle.  This is the "at home or in my car" clause for self defense.  It takes a CHL in TX to be able to go outside and defend oneself.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 4, 2016)

Because right wing militia groups have a history of not reacting with violence when law enforcement gets involved to arrest them?  Not sure what world you're living in.

That Ritzheimer guy who is there I posted earlier?  Right before this started, he essentially posted a video that was, "tell my kids I love them.  I'm not coming home."  That, combined with the aforementioned rhetoric he's posted about wanting to shoot up Muslim neighborhoods, and I can't see how you can sit there in good faith and honestly believe that there is nothing that is threatening by this group.  It's their MO, quite literally.

video in question is here


----------



## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

Umbran said:


> I think threatening to shoot law enforcement officers in the lawful act of performing their duties probably breaks some laws.




don't they call that "terroristic threats"

That term applies quite readily to any threatening speech about harming somebody.

So me saying "Umbran, I'm gonna shoot you for wut you done" is a terroristic threat (a fake one.)


I don't know that we'd normally call a dude a Terrorist who is charged with making Terrorist Threats.  I'm sure there's oodles of cases with that on the charges from some drunk dude in a bar, or restraining order from an ex-girlfriend, where the guy is clearly not making it to the FBI's terrorism watch list.


----------



## billd91 (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> His followup tweets pretty clearly show that the Bundys aren't interested in starting violence, but will defend themselves if attacked.  Kinda takes the air out of that statement a bit.




Not really. They're practicing a form of compellence. By occupying the federal facility, they're trying to put the ball for starting a fight in the FBI's court, because, sooner or later, the Feds are going to have to do something. That way, they are trying to get want without the opprobrium of being the ones who started the fight. 



Ovinomancer said:


> Look, again, I think these people are idiots.  They're committing criminal trespass.  They're inviting scorn by saying that they'll defend themselves.  There's no heroic or anything worth emulation or adulation here.  But neither is there the things that the internet is screaming about, like terrorism or threatening to kill police.  The stupid is strong enough already without adding made up stupid on top of it.




As far as the law (and the public) goes, the cops *get* to use a certain amount of force against unruly suspects. Threatening to kill or be killed if violence starts *is* threatening to kill cops.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 4, 2016)

A few more things to consider.  All of these people are facing felony charges, if the government chooses to prosecute.

1. Trespassing with a firearm is a 3rd degree felony
2. transporting firearms across state lines is also a felony (these people aren't from Oregon, and have had to cross several states depending on where they came from.  Concealed carry permits are only by individual state)
3. Armed sedition is most definitely a felony

That means that every single one of these militia can be prosecuted with a felony, which means they would no longer be legally able to own firearms in the future.  Even if this thing ends peacefully, do these people strike you as the sort that would give up all of their guns and never own one again?  I doubt it.  Looking at past history every single time something like this has happened, and looking at the rhetoric they've been saying in the past and present, and I don't see how this ends well.


----------



## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Oh, wow.  "No one addressed what I said, so it's automatically right!"  Yeah, I can't win that one.  I don't have to directly respond to you to not agree with you, and no one responding to you doesn't mean you're right.  That's
> basic logic, there.




Umbran defined the legal parameters for this event being Terrorism.

I and somebody engaged him on his specific checklist.

The parameters for debating if this event is Terrorism have effectively been defined.

Thus, if you wish to prove it is NOT Terrorism, please disprove the points (as you are doing below).  You will find that I am easily swayed if you engage on the points of dispute.



Ovinomancer said:


> But, that said, your supposed refutation of Umbran is flawed because you're exaggerating events to your flawed understanding of the legal definition.  No violence has been used.  No violence, except in self defense, has been promised.  Lack of violence means that your assumptions for 2ii are flawed, as there is no intimidation or coercion.  You've assumed violence, and you've assumed that criminal trespass and squatting are somehow sufficient crimes to coerce or intimidate, but I assure you they are not. If you insist that your analysis is correct, then you must also condemn the Occupy movement as terrorists.  This is clearly false, and so is your analysis of 2ii in this case.




The Bundy's have threatened violence if somebody tries to get them out.

They are actively breaking the law by holding the building with weapons (several laws no doubt).

As they are actively breaking the law, they do not have a right to self defense.  Therefore, any statement they make about "defending ourselves" is a threat.

Additionally, it is what differentiates this from a break-in/trespassing to do some squatting vs. holding territory and making demands (the release of the Hammonds).
A squatter will go with the cops, flee or shoot at them because they don't want to go to jail.
Before the cops even got there, the Bundy's have declared that they will use force to maintain their position, and that they have a specific political goal to free the Hammonds (those ranchers who burned some federal land and poached).

I say they have this goal, because they said that is why they are there, and there is no point to this action if not to raise awareness and incite change in the Hammonds state.  At least Netflix's Making a Murderer didn't take over any federal buildings and threaten to defend itself if Avery wasn't freed.

In contrast to the Occupy movement, those folks did not have weapons.  They only occupied actual public spaces where the public was free to assemble (in contrast, a federal building that is meant to be closed to the public).  They did not make statements about defending themselves if the police tried to remove them.  They did not offer violent resistance to police when they came to remove them.

Thus, I conclude the Bundy's are closer to matching the Terrorism checkpoints than the Occcupy people (as a whole, there were Anarchists and such in their ranks that did do bad stuff).

---------------------
here's the bottom line ( I just drew it 

The Bundy's don't have a right to make Self Defense statements because they are actively committing other crimes.  Those are terroristic threats (which per another post, does not mean they are terrorists, but they are illegal to say).  So any argument you have about that specifically is nullified to me, thus far. 

However, the finer point I see you have is whether being a Terrorist requires actually committing violence.

I posit that actual violence need not happen if the threat of it exists.  The bad guys are holding Nakatome Tower.  Nobody was home in this version of the movie.  Are they not terrorists because nobody was home?

Sell me on this point that "nobody got hurt or hostaged" so it's not Terrorism.


----------



## HardcoreDandDGirl (Jan 4, 2016)

My mother's new boyfriend keep thinking they are some kind of Robin hood freedom fighters... He thinks an armed revolt against the whole government would make his life better. He I guess thinks that said revolt would include some kind of miracle that would create a perfect world...  I've given up trying to correct him.

I wonder if we as a country could 'give' a state or region to these people...


----------



## HardcoreDandDGirl (Jan 4, 2016)

Janx said:


> here's the bottom line ( I just drew it
> 
> The Bundy's don't have a right to make Self Defense statements because they are actively committing other crimes.  Those are terroristic threats (which per another post, does not mean they are terrorists, but they are illegal to say).  So any argument you have about that specifically is nullified to me, thus far.
> 
> ...





I don't think they are terrorist, and just threatening alone well committing another crime is an odd place to draw the line...

Jim bob walked into a bank and handed a note to the teller saying 'put all the money in the bad' well she was doing it the off duity security guard pulls her gun and says 'freeze' in response he pulls his grenade and says "If you don't put down the gun, I will kill everyone in here"   he is a bank robber not a terrorist...

Kelly is a cat burgler, but one who carries a gun and made the mistake of robbing Officer Joes' house well he wasn't home... he come home and sees the broken window and identifies himself as a cop... so she pulls a kitchen knife and hold it to his sleeping wife throat..."If you come in the bed room I will slit her throat..." still not a terrorist...


----------



## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

HardcoreDandDGirl said:


> I don't think they are terrorist, and just threatening alone well committing another crime is an odd place to draw the line...
> 
> Jim bob walked into a bank and handed a note to the teller saying 'put all the money in the bad' well she was doing it the off duity security guard pulls her gun and says 'freeze' in response he pulls his grenade and says "If you don't put down the gun, I will kill everyone in here"   he is a bank robber not a terrorist...
> 
> Kelly is a cat burgler, but one who carries a gun and made the mistake of robbing Officer Joes' house well he wasn't home... he come home and sees the broken window and identifies himself as a cop... so she pulls a kitchen knife and hold it to his sleeping wife throat..."If you come in the bed room I will slit her throat..." still not a terrorist...




Good points.

PEr the official list from page 3, posted by Umbran:
The FBI says:

"Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:

1) Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
2) Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
3) Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.


I believe they have violated #2 (section ii to be precise) per all the reasons you quoted.  checkpoint #2 is what differentiates this from a bank robbery or burglary

#3 is obvious.  And I thought somebody successfully argued #1.

If not, I believe #1 is triggered because they have taken over a federal building with weapons and made statements about holding it with force.

actual damage hasn't happened, but the act of taking it over set up a dangerous condition for the law to try to recover it.

I think somebody could sway me on #1 not being Terrorism with the right argument.  Right now, I think the Bundy's actions are close enough.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 4, 2016)

Janx said:


> don't they call that "terroristic threats"
> 
> That term applies quite readily to any threatening speech about harming somebody.
> 
> So me saying "Umbran, I'm gonna shoot you for wut you done" is a terroristic threat (a fake one.)




That term is sometimes used for personal threats, but by my understanding that use predates our current handling of and laws about terrorism, so we need to be careful in this context.

By the FBI definition I posted earlier, it isn't a terror threat.  I am an individual, not a population, nor am I a member of government, nor, as stated, is it about changing government policy.  Threatening me, personally, for something I did would be considered illegal in most jurisdictions, but not as terrorism, _per se_.  Such is usually considered a form of assault and/or covered by statutes against coercion, not statutes about terrorism.

If someone says, "If the government does not do X, I will shoot Umbran," then they are making a terror threat - specifically threatening violence to impact government policy.


----------



## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

Umbran said:


> That term is sometimes used for personal threats, but by my understanding that use predates our current handling of and laws about terrorism, so we need to be careful in this context.
> 
> By the FBI definition I posted earlier, it isn't a terror threat.  I am an individual, not a population, nor am I a member of government, nor, as stated, is it about changing government policy.  Threatening me, personally, for something I did would be considered illegal in most jurisdictions, but not as terrorism, _per se_.  Such is usually considered a form of assault and/or covered by statutes against coercion, not statutes about terrorism.
> 
> If someone says, "If the government does not do X, I will shoot Umbran," then they are making a terror threat - specifically threatening violence to impact government policy.




Yes.  Which I covered in the next sentences that you cut off when you quoted me... 

In any event.  making threats is a crime.

Saying "I will defend myself if the cops try to stop me" while you are committing a crime is a threat to the cops who are expected to stop/catch people who are committing/committed a crime.  Thus, it is a crime to say such things.


----------



## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

Here's a new news link.  Apparently the FBI are taking over, but with a light hand:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protesters-vow-hold-oregon-refuge-until-feds-give-n489606

Based on the quotes involved.  The Bundy's are trying to say somethings without crossing the line, but then there's subtext of "but we are armed and won't be rooted out" behind what they are saying.

I'm sure they were coached by a lawyer wannabe on what to say.

But a regular protest would be marching down a street to city hall with signs.

These guys have guns, and have taken over a building that just happened to be empty.

The implication is that somebody will be hurt if the "government is wanting their building back" (an actual part of a  Bundy quote from the article).

That kind of means that unless the Bundy's get what they want, the government cannot have their building back without violence.

Is that Terrorism?

Is it not Terrorism to send a note saying that unless your demands are met, you will deprive the government of one of their buildings?


----------



## Istbor (Jan 4, 2016)

Can we at least agree that these fellows are of a particular brand of stupid? 

Looking for some common ground. 

I am not sold on this being some act of Terror, but more of some lame political statement or a grab for attention (maybe even martyrdom?).  

If they were threatening to kill or blow up a building with actual hostages then maybe I would jump on the Terror bus.  As it stands this is almost as if this group is trying to declare war, but wants the Government to look like the aggressor. Which is very much what several member's ideology is all about. 

I just don't see the fear they are trying to instill.  Criminals threatening police or other law enforcement is not new. Especially when that group of criminals has a propensity to try to buck authority. 

Extremists? Certainly. 
Terrorists? That remains to be seen.


----------



## Janx (Jan 4, 2016)

Istbor said:


> Can we at least agree that these fellows are of a particular brand of stupid?
> 
> Looking for some common ground.
> 
> ...




I get trying to find common ground, but I must be feeling argumentive today.

I'm not so sure they're stupid.  Kind of like how I think Ted Cruz is an idiot, but in reality he's a Harvard educated smarter than average person who excels in debate.

These guys have some bad ideas that they believe in.  

But their strategy is getting them attention as we argue about whether to call them Terrorists, because if they aren't, then they have been very smart to set themselves up to come just short of that to avoid a SWAT team and a trip to Gitmo.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Istbor said:


> I don't think you are.




Doubting me hurts my feelings. 

Dad hurt me a lot. I'm straight, dad! I'm straight!


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> His followup tweets pretty clearly show that the Bundys aren't interested in starting violence, but will defend themselves if attacked.




So, to be clear, you believe that if unarmed law officiers come to arrest and handcuff them, the Bundys will cooperate and be non-violent?


----------



## Istbor (Jan 4, 2016)

Janx said:


> I get trying to find common ground, but I must be feeling argumentive today.
> 
> I'm not so sure they're stupid.  Kind of like how I think Ted Cruz is an idiot, but in reality he's a Harvard educated smarter than average person who excels in debate.
> 
> ...




Well we have a disconnect there.  Idiots attend and graduate college all the time. Being able to afford and graduate even from an expensive school such as Harvard does not make you more intelligent.  More educated and perhaps better equipped to succeed at whatever given field you had chosen. 

However, to get back on topic, yes.  I agree. At some level, there is some devious intelligence at work here.  They have a goal and they are executing a plan to achieve it.  It remains to be seen if it was a brilliant plan however.  And that is dependent on what the actual goals of this stand-off are. IS it really in protest of the two poachers/arsonists who have already distanced themselves from this event, or was it simply for national attention to some cause, or ego? 

They could be very well skirting a very thin line between criminal activity and terrorism. A pretty big price to pay.  I do not think they will be getting away from this with a slap on the wrist.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 4, 2016)

Betrayal! Alex Jones thinks the Bundys are idiots! http://gawker.com/even-alex-jade-helm-jones-thinks-the-oregon-militiame-1750972637


----------



## Istbor (Jan 4, 2016)

goldomark said:


> So, to be clear, you believe that if unarmed law officiers come to arrest and handcuff them, the Bundys will cooperate and be non-violent?




Well, it isn't impossible that it could happen.  Pretty unlikely though. 

I would chuckle if they went out that quietly though, for all their bluster and posturing. Right now, the ball is in there court.  They aren't harming anyone physically, so any violent or overly forceful measure to dig them out of there is only going to play to their hand. 

Ending this quietly is one of the best ways this could end, without giving any credence to their ideology.  I certainly like the thoughts of just encircling the building and starving them out.  It would certainly fall under the idea of a modern siege:

Modern sieges are more commonly the result of smaller hostage, militant, or extreme resisting arrest situations.

I think we can chalk this under extreme resisting arrest situations, as force has been promised if force is used.  Until they are willing to come out, any attempt to remove them will probably be considered a use of force.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

The best phrase I've heard so far is, "Of course they are willing to die for their cause.  They were promised 72 cousins in heaven."


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 5, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> The best phrase I've heard so far is, "Of course they are willing to die for their cause.  They were promised 72 cousins in heaven."




Yee Hawdists and Y'all Qaeda takes all their meaning here.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

Man these people are idiots.  Being rural militants and all that, I assumed they were preppers.  They can't even militia right.  Here's a photo of their supplies.  They put a call out for more supplies to be sent to them.  So really all the feds should do is prevent all traffic, shut down utilities, and wait them out.


----------



## was (Jan 5, 2016)

The weather forecast for Burn's Oregon (Yahoo Weather)

Monday        high 28 F  low 22 F  snow - 40%
Tuesday       high 34 F  low 16 F  snow - 80% 
Wednesday  high 29 F  low 17 F  mostly cloudy
Thursday      high 30 F  low 13 F  cloudy 
Friday           high 32 F  low 12 F  partly cloudy  

...Turning off the electricity/heat should be effective.  The cold tends to be very persuasive.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 5, 2016)

Is that a bag of dog food by the weights? These guys are set. They'll outlast the roaches after the nuclear apocalypse kills of the rest of humanity.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 5, 2016)

was said:


> The weather forecast for Burn's Oregon (Yahoo Weather)
> 
> Monday        high 28 F  low 22 F  snow - 40%
> Tuesday       high 34 F  low 16 F  snow - 80%
> ...




Yeah, but you know what'll end up happening if the evil government does that. Some idiot will try to start a fire in the building to warm everyone up, set the whole place on fire, kill everyone, and then some other backwater militia group is going to blame the government.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 5, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Terrorism is a violent means to a political end.
> 
> You can google it or go at your local library.




So you're arguing that there is no such thing is a Muslim terrorist.  After all, it's all about religion and not politics for them.  Nice!


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 5, 2016)

Janx said:


> yup.
> 
> That would be part of item 2 on the checklist.  If I was a cop and my boss told me to go up there and ask them to leave or be arrested, I would be worried about my safety.
> 
> ...




Threat =/= terrorism.  Intimidation =/= terrorism.  People have incorrectly shifted the meaning of what it means to be a terrorist until it has nearly lost its meaning.  Heck, if it relies on politics now, Muslim extremists are no longer capable of terrorism.  Religion fuels their cause, not politics.


----------



## Eltab (Jan 5, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Terrorism is a violent means to a political end.



Only part of the truth.  Terrorism includes targeting civilians on purpose.

The idea behind terrorism is that the survivors and witnesses (with TV, millions of them) will start telling their elected politicians to do what YOU want.


----------



## Janx (Jan 5, 2016)

Istbor said:


> Well, it isn't impossible that it could happen.  Pretty unlikely though.
> 
> I would chuckle if they went out that quietly though, for all their bluster and posturing. Right now, the ball is in there court.  They aren't harming anyone physically, so any violent or overly forceful measure to dig them out of there is only going to play to their hand.
> 
> ...




I think we agree on this.  The bad guys are trying to instigate trouble.

Best response is to not feed them what they want.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 5, 2016)

Eltab said:


> Only part of the truth.  Terrorism includes targeting civilians on purpose.
> 
> The idea behind terrorism is that the survivors and witnesses (with TV, millions of them) will start telling their elected politicians to do what YOU want.




Right.  Fear and intimidation are the methods used by design to get what you want from the populace.  Simply causing some fear and intimidation to some people for other reasons is not enough to be terrorism.  These guys holed up right now are not doing it to try and scare the populace into capitulation.


----------



## Eltab (Jan 5, 2016)

Janx said:


> ...in the next sentences that you cut off when you quoted me...



That wasn't _him_; that was ENWorld's reply-with-quote feature.
If there is a way to create a quote of a quote (so I can pick up a conversation) on this site, I haven't figured it out yet.


----------



## Eltab (Jan 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> These guys holed up right now are not doing it to try and scare the populace into capitulation.



As mentioned above, the best move would be to block all access in / out except for porta-potties.  Most of the guys inside will get hungry / thirsty / cold / wet / other uncomfy, and start drifting away.  When only the 'core' people are left, open discussions on how they can go home since nothing is getting accomplished.  Maybe throw them a bone during the talks: commute the ranchers' sentences to Time Served.

Calling this act terrorism is quite foolish: these guys are out in the countryside near to NOBODY.  
The most likely political desire I can see from them is the creation of "Just Us" County.


----------



## billd91 (Jan 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Threat =/= terrorism.  Intimidation =/= terrorism.  People have incorrectly shifted the meaning of what it means to be a terrorist until it has nearly lost its meaning.  Heck, if it relies on politics now, Muslim extremists are no longer capable of terrorism.  Religion fuels their cause, not politics.




You might want to study up on your Muslim extremists. The axes they're grinding are extremely political. Always have been.


----------



## tuxgeo (Jan 5, 2016)

OPB reports that the Bundy bunch is saying they'll leave peacefully if the local community asks them to. 

In related news, the Hammond men (convicted of arson) have reported back to prison as expected. They still haven't claimed the Bundy militia is speaking for them; rather, they've tried to distance themselves from the Bundys.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 5, 2016)

billd91 said:


> You might want to study up on your Muslim extremists. The axes they're grinding are extremely political. Always have been.




Any politics involved is incidental.  The primary motivator for everything they do is religion.  What political statements they take have religion at the heart.  They hate us "infidels" because religion.  They hate each other because differences in interpreting their religion.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

Eltab said:


> As mentioned above, the best move would be to block all access in / out except for porta-potties.  Most of the guys inside will get hungry / thirsty / cold / wet / other uncomfy, and start drifting away.  When only the 'core' people are left, open discussions on how they can go home since nothing is getting accomplished.  Maybe throw them a bone during the talks: commute the ranchers' sentences to Time Served.
> 
> Calling this act terrorism is quite foolish: these guys are out in the countryside near to NOBODY.
> The most likely political desire I can see from them is the creation of "Just Us" County.




At some point, people need to be held accountable for their crimes.  The feds completely backed off in Nevada, and look what happened.  It embolden them to go even further and do this.  They committed a crime knowingly, and should be held accountable


----------



## billd91 (Jan 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Any politics involved is incidental.  The primary motivator for everything they do is religion.  What political statements they take have religion at the heart.  They hate us "infidels" because religion.  They hate each other because differences in interpreting their religion.




Politics isn't incidental to any of this - it's central to the dispute between Sunni and Shia. It's at the core of al-Qaeda's ideology.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 5, 2016)

billd91 said:


> Politics isn't incidental to any of this - it's central to the dispute between Sunni and Shia. It's at the core of al-Qaeda's ideology.




Um, those are religious disputes.  They differ on how they follow Islam.  Anything political is secondary to that religious dispute.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 5, 2016)

Eltab said:


> Only part of the truth.  Terrorism includes targeting civilians on purpose.



Not necessarely. Terrorists can target government institutions, government buildings, government employees, politicians, kings, owners, the military, symboles...


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> So you're arguing that there is no such thing is a Muslim terrorist.  After all, it's all about religion and not politics for them.  Nice!




Dude, ISIS and Al Quaeda are revolutionary groups who use, among other things, political violence as a means of establishing a theocracy in the Arab world. It is all politics. Religion is just used for rhetoric and mobilization, like communism was for the Bolsheviks and nationalism for the thirteen colonies.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 5, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Dude, ISIS and Al Quaeda are revolutionary groups who use, among other things, political violence as a means of *establishing a theocracy* in the Arab world. It is all politics. Religion is just used for rhetoric and mobilization, like communism was for the Bolsheviks and nationalism for the thirteen colonies.




Religion is the prime motivator.  Unlike communism, the radical Muslims believe what they say and are moved by that belief, rather than using an invented belief as a way to exert control.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Religion is the prime motivator.  Unlike communism, the radical Muslims believe what they say and are moved by that belief, rather than using an invented belief as a way to exert control.




You read their minds to know is sincere and who isn't? 

Its a quest for power, pure politics. Some militants of course trully believe in what they do, but those at the top are rather rational. How they destroy artifacts on videos for being heretic objects and selling others on the black market just shows their pragmatism.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 5, 2016)

goldomark said:


> You read their minds to know is sincere and who isn't?




Don't even try it Goldo.  That they believe their jihad is well known and accepted everywhere.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> They hate us "infidels" because religion.




Um, no. Not that simple, at all.  Let's not pretend it is all in their religious beliefs, as if we have never taken any action that they'd find hate-worthy.

They hate us because we jerk them around really badly over Israel and oil, things which lead us to periodically drop bombs on them and shoot them.  If you got bombs dropped on you, and your family shot, you'd be cheesed off, too, you know.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Don't even try it Goldo.  That they believe their jihad is well known and accepted everywhere.




Nope. That is just an appeal to popularity and your opinion. Not reality. 

Its a quest for power, pure politics. Some militants of course trully believe in what they do, but those at the top are rather rational. How they destroy artifacts on videos for being heretic objects and selling others on the black market just shows their pragmatism.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 5, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Um, no. Not that simple, at all.  Let's not pretend it is all in their religious beliefs, as if we have never taken any action that they'd find hate-worthy.
> 
> They hate us because we jerk them around really badly over Israel and oil, things which lead us to periodically drop bombs on them and shoot them.  If you got bombs dropped on you, and your family shot, you'd be cheesed off, too, you know.




Maybe if they didn't shoot and behead people, we wouldn't drop as many bombs on them.  They're not innocent in this. Yes, there is bad blood on both sides, but religion is the foundation that they follow for their jihad against us and everyone else.  Politics is secondary to that.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Maybe if they didn't shoot and behead people, we wouldn't drop as many bombs on them.  They're not innocent in this. Yes, there is bad blood on both sides, but religion is the foundation that they follow for their jihad against us and everyone else.  Politics is secondary to that.




Two things I disagree with here.

1. If religion was the primary reason, then it stands to reason that they would have always tried to bomb us since eternity.  And they haven't.  They were actually quite friendly to westerners for large periods of time---until something political happened.  Like us disposing the leadership of Iran to install a dictator who would give us the country's oil, leading to the revolution and installment of the Shah.

2. You realize not all Muslims shoot and behead people, right?  Hardly any of them do, by %.  Most of the people we've killed in bombing and drone strikes were innocent civilians.  So I guess I'll repost this from my earlier post


----------



## Istbor (Jan 5, 2016)

If I am not mistaken, you are both correct.  

A lot of what they are after is a government and state religion working side by side.  Effectively holding the actions of that established government up to the standards set by their holy doctrine. It would not be hard then to see both religious and political motivations at their core.


----------



## Janx (Jan 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Religion is the prime motivator.  Unlike communism, the radical Muslims believe what they say and are moved by that belief, rather than using an invented belief as a way to exert control.




I think wiser folk than you have researched that these conflicts over religious pretenses are all over political and territorial issues.

If religion was the prime motivator, than almost all 1 billion muslims would be active at war with us.

at best religion equals politics (heck, look at US politics and you'll see rabid loyalty to party lines, almost reverent in nature).


----------



## Umbran (Jan 5, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Maybe if they didn't shoot and behead people, we wouldn't drop as many bombs on them.




That's the bully's position - you should let me do what I want without objection, and we'll get along fine!  



> They're not innocent in this.




Nobody said they were innocent.  But let us remember our history:  Some bad blood goes back to the Crusades (which were largely European aggression).  Much of the modern collection of issues stem back to the displacing of Palestinians without their consent (effectively, again, Western aggression).  And when they try to work these things out among themselves in the time-honored form of small wars, we step in to protect our petroleum interests.  We topple their governments when we feel like, and then don't do a good job of setting them up to succeed afterwards.   

But *they* aren't innocent, and should stop shooting, and we'd play nice?  History doesn't really support that position.   

No, they aren't innocent.  There are some horrible, vicious human beings in the field at this point.  But they got their foothold because of what *we* started, and continued to support with decades of short-sighted policy.


----------



## billd91 (Jan 5, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Nobody said they were innocent.  But let us remember our history:  Some bad blood goes back to the Crusades (which were largely European aggression).  Much of the modern collection of issues stem back to the displacing of Palestinians without their consent (effectively, again, Western aggression).  And when they try to work these things out among themselves in the time-honored form of small wars, we step in to protect our petroleum interests.  We topple their governments when we feel like, and then don't do a good job of setting them up to succeed afterwards.




In all fairness, we *used to* set governments up to succeed back in the cold war, when we thought it best to install and boost regimes like the Shah's in Iran - even when they ended up governing with a fairly brutal hand. And, of course, that's now a significant part of the problem. We toppled the previous government because they were nationalizing British oil interests, set up a harsher regime, only to watch it fall and turn into an Anti-American regime that sponsors insurgent and terrorist organizations. 

Nah, it's all religion and they have no political axe to grind against us...


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## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 5, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Betrayal! Alex Jones thinks the Bundys are idiots! http://gawker.com/even-alex-jade-helm-jones-thinks-the-oregon-militiame-1750972637



Pffftt... Shows what you know, loser. Alex Jones is a CIA disinformation agent sent to destroy conservatives and true Murikan patriots.


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

billd91 said:


> In all fairness, we *used to* set governments up to succeed back in the cold war, when we thought it best to install and boost regimes like the Shah's in Iran - even when they ended up governing with a fairly brutal hand...




Make no mistake.  When Mohammad Mosaddegh was in charge of Iran and it's oil, Iran was actually a very prosperous and progressive state.  The problem was that a certain company (later to be known as British Petroleum), wanted that oil.  So Britain allied with the US to overthrow Masaddegh and install a puppet who would give them the oil.  We didn't care about setting up a successful government as long as we got the oil.  Not did we give a crud about how the Iranians were actually treated.  It was inevitable that the revolution would happen, and we're the ones indirectly at fault for putting Khomeini in power.  And believe it, the people of Iran certainly haven't forgotten that.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> If whites had poverty rates as high as blacks, and were as politically disinfranchised as blacks, and were intentionally given poor police response time like blacks then whites would be in a situation where crime would have a greater opportunity to flourish. And don't forget that the law does little or nothing to protect people who testify, which makes people more likely to fall into that don't "snitch" crap that just helps create a garden for crime.




Poverty rates: there are more whites living below the poverty line in America than there are poor blacks. Then there's the fact that no one in America is starving. We have a fairly generous welfare state, so there's no excuse to going around shooting one another. Heck, if poverty rates were really to blame, then why is it a small minority of blacks (young, urban, male) doing the overwhelming majority of the killing? There are lots of poor black young women, middle aged men and women, and elderly, but you don't see them dropping bodies in the streets because poverty. Murder may cluster among poorer populations, but it also crosses socioeconomic lines.

Disenfranchised: I don't know what that means. Blacks vote at higher rates than most populations, last time I checked. Their grievances sure as hell get more air time than any other population group. Try to air a white grievance some time, then you'll see disenfranchised.

Poor police response time: well, taxes matter. Whites are taxed to pay for police for blacks and whites. You get what you pay for. Then there's the fact that black culture is currently quite hostile to police. You try solving crimes in an area where "no snitchin" reigns supreme, some time. The "law" can't protect witnesses, money can. Governments simply don't have the funds to pay to protect witnesses, especially given the fact that the areas that produce most of the problem produce the least tax revenue. The idea that witnesses aren't protected is what's really driving the "snitches get ditches" culture is laughable.



> Yeah, occupy everything didn't ever happen.




This. It's long been a tactic of the left in general to occupy public spaces.



> I recall Occupy having fewer armed people willing to level weapons at federal agents




Leftists have different politics. They don't care about the 2nd Amendment. Obviously these folks do. That said, no, I don't think they should be leveling guns at federal agents. For that matter, I don't know anything much about them, and my point here is not to defend them, but to answer the OP's points about wider society's response.



> No, brosef. These guys are White. They could shoot up the cops and kill half the police force in that town, and they'd still be "protesters" and "activists."
> The only way the word "terrorist" would be used is if some non-white guy walks by, and he just happens to be carrying something that could be construed as a weapon. Then the headline would read "Armed protesters defend themselves from Islamic terrorist."




Interesting point of view. Complete nonsense, but, interesting.


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## Hand of Evil (Jan 5, 2016)

Was watching the news last night and the ex-FBI panel said they are leaving them alone because they are a mixed bag of nuts, different people hating different groups (some hate the government, some blacks, some Muslims, etc.) and the FBI figures they will start to turn on each other soon.  Add to that they are away from people they see no reason to escalate the issue and create another Waco.


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## Ryujin (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Poor police response time: well, taxes matter. Whites are taxed to pay for police for blacks and whites.




Given the rest of what you wrote, I think that you need to reread this to yourself a few times.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> I want these people killed quite frankly. What they are doing is treason and rebellion. I would fully support a joint tactical strike to wipe them out.




Well, they're mostly white and they aren't Muslims, so I won't hold my breath waiting for the lefties here to condemn your statement.



> They've been exactly as peaceful as the occupy Wall Street and other occupy movements were.




And probably a lot cleaner, too. I haven't read anything about them leaving mountains of trash, running rape tents, or taking a dump on a cop car yet.



> There are plenty of videos on the net of white people who open carry and are approached slowly and non-violently by cops because people in the neighborhood felt intimidated or threaten. It can get tense, but usually there is talk and no shooting. In the case of Tamir Rice, the kid was in a open carry state... and black. The cops rushed in and shot him immediately. Same case with John Crawford who was in a open carry state, black, was holding a toy gun and was shot by a cop. Heck, a NYPD cop shot an unarmed blackmen in a stairwell just because it was dark and the cop got scared. There is a bias toward black people. They are seen as violent and a menace. Same with Muslims. Its ugly, but true.
> 
> If armed black people or Muslims did what these guys are doing, the narrative wouldn't be about peaceful protestors in a wildlife refuge.




That was all down to the dispatcher, who failed to relay any of the mitigating circumstances (probably a juvenile, probably a toy gun) to the responding officers, who thought they had a perp waving a gun at innocent bystanders. He pointed it at the cops when they arrived, after repeated orders to drop the gun. Yes, he was a juvenile, but he was 5'7", not exactly a tiny lil' waif. I agree it was tragic, but it wasn't like the cops had no excuse.

As for bias, a lot of black cops shoot black people, too.



> How many "armed protesters" did Occupy Wall Street have?




So, right to protest is obviated by exercising 2nd Amendment?



> Awesome, let's set a precedent were any group of "armed protesters" can take over government property and threaten violence if they don't get their way. That's sure to turn out well.




There's long and broad precedent for protesters taking over gov't property (even in a threatening way) when they don't get their way. All you're objecting to is that they're exercising their 2nd Amendment rights at the same time. Or maybe their politics. Heck, the mayor of Baltimore gave a speech during the riots that said the city gov't should give the rioters "safe space" to carry out their riots.



> How exactly one of the Bundy's saying they're willing to kill in this situation and being armed isn't an attempt at intimidation or a threat of violence eludes me. It's clearly an attempt at intimidation of the authorities.




I'm willing to kill 24/7/365. Much of that time, I have been armed. That's how self-defense works.



> The number of black people who commit crime is rather small. Higher than white people, yes, but still small. Cops aren't force by black people to stop them when they drive cars or perform "stop and frisk" on them.




Lefties are too fond of telling everyone how big a share of the black male population will spend time in prison in their lifetimes for the rest of us to buy that one.

"The oppressed," lol. More like "the coddled."

As for stop and frisk, I find it ironic that lefties hate S&F, which is the best way to get guns out of the hands of criminals.



> Look, again, I think these people are idiots. They're committing criminal trespass. They're inviting scorn by saying that they'll defend themselves. There's no heroic or anything worth emulation or adulation here. But neither is there the things that the internet is screaming about, like terrorism or threatening to kill police. The stupid is strong enough already without adding made up stupid on top of it.




Oh, I dunno. They seem to have plenty of balls. That much at least seems worth emulating.



> I would chuckle if they went out that quietly though, for all their bluster and posturing.




Right. If they go out shooting, they're terrorists and must be destroyed. If they go out quietly, they're cowards.



> The best phrase I've heard so far is, "Of course they are willing to die for their cause. They were promised 72 cousins in heaven."




Right. If you talk trash about Muslims, you're evil. If you talk trash about poor blacks, you're evil. If you talk trash about poor whites, you're leftist and establishment approved.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Jan 5, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Um, no. Not that simple, at all.  Let's not pretend it is all in their religious beliefs, as if we have never taken any action that they'd find hate-worthy.
> 
> They hate us because we jerk them around really badly over Israel and oil, things which lead us to periodically drop bombs on them and shoot them.  If you got bombs dropped on you, and your family shot, you'd be cheesed off, too, you know.




I think people on both sides here are way oversimplifying. It is definitely true we have interfered in the region and I can certainly understand why there is hostility toward the west. But this doesn't explain why groups like ISIS and other Salafi movements (like the Saudi Arabian government) are so violent toward other Muslims. That largely does stem from religion It isn't all religion, but religion is a big part of the equation here and when we project our own secular assumptions onto people in the middle east, I think we miss a lot of what is going on. Also I don't think one can ever justify the killing of innocent people (by us or by them). When armed men storm a peaceful concert event and gun people down who haven't done anything wrong, whatever justification they may think they have evaporates. You immediately lose any high ground the moment you engage in tactics that have as their aim the killing of innocent civilians.


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

It's times like these when I view my time deployed overseas (6 years), the friends I've lost, and realize "this is the type of free speech we sacrificed to protect?"  Yeah, I know without free speech for everyone it becomes a worthless thing, but it still is equal parts depressing and irritating.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> Dude, ISIS and Al Quaeda are revolutionary groups who use, among other things, political violence as a means of establishing a theocracy in the Arab world. It is all politics. Religion is just used for rhetoric and mobilization, like communism was for the Bolsheviks and nationalism for the thirteen colonies.




That's an oversimplification. Yes, Islamic State uses religion for rhetoric and mobilization. They also happen to actually be Muslim fanatics. Yes, communism was used for rhetoric and mobilization...by communist fanatics.

It is only "all politics" insofar as both Islam and communism are politics.

Islamic State is, without a doubt, Islamic.

ETA: no offense meant to anyone who has served, but I've never understood how foreign wars protect our rights at home. If anything, they seem to serve to erode our freedoms by escalating our conflicts with foreign actors and thus justifying the ratcheting up of our high-tech police/surveillance state.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 5, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> It's times like these when I view my time deployed overseas (6 years), the friends I've lost, and realize "this is the type of free speech we sacrificed to protect?"  Yeah, I know without free speech for everyone it becomes a worthless thing, but it still is equal parts depressing and irritating.




Sacro, if you found anything I said offensive, please feel free to let me know, because I would at like to at least make sure I am able to clarify my position as much as possible if that is the case.


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> Sacro, if you found anything I said offensive, please feel free to let me know, because I would at like to at least make sure I am able to clarify my position as much as possible if that is the case.




No, not you.  Posted at the same time.  I was referring the posts by Morlock, which are full of flat out inaccuracies and racist drivel.  Which do sort of go hand in hand, traditionally.


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## Istbor (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Right. If they go out shooting, they're terrorists and must be destroyed. If they go out quietly, they're cowards.




No, I don't think they are terrorists or cowards. Plenty of people bluster and posture everyday without showing cowardice. Do not put words in my mouth please. There were no words expressing this nor implication of it. 

They are at this point protesters, criminals at the worst. 

It remains to be seen if this status changes.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

"Racist" is what lefties call you when they can't be bothered to make a cogent argument.

ETA:


> No, I don't think they are terrorists or cowards. Plenty of people bluster and posture everyday without showing cowardice. Do not put words in my mouth please. There was no words expressing this nor implication of it.
> 
> They are at this point protesters, criminals at the worst.
> 
> It remains to be seen if this status changes.




I stand corrected.


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> "Racist" is what lefties call you when they can't be bothered to make a cogent argument.




No, racist is what I call someone who makes racist statements, like black not paying taxes, or being worse humans than other races.  You probably don't even get the irony of your posts accusing "leftists" of playing victim, while at the same time portraying yourself and other white people as the real victims.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 5, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> Sacro, if you found anything I said offensive, please feel free to let me know, because I would at like to at least make sure I am able to clarify my position as much as possible if that is the case.




Okay. Because I realized it could have appeared I was castigating Islam in general, and I wasn't trying to do that at all. I was just saying religion is a big factor here that we shouldn't dismiss cynically as cover for purely political aims (like it is a factor when someone in the US bombs an abortion clinic).


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> No, racist is what I call someone who makes racist statements, like black not paying taxes, or being worse humans than other races. You probably don't even get the irony of your posts accusing "leftists" of playing victim, while at the same time portraying yourself and other white people as the real victims.




How is it racist to point out that African-Americans pay a lot less in taxes, and consume a lot more in taxpayer-funded services, relative to European-Americans or Asian-Americans?

"Worse humans"? Wait, what now?

P.S., what exactly are lefties saying about whites when they call America racist, say that whites oppress blacks, etc? That we're "better humans"?


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> "Racist" is what lefties call you when they can't be bothered to make a cogent argument.
> .




It has been watered down through over use, and that is unfortunate because a lot of people are using that as cover for real racism. This is why I think we shouldn't be so quick to lob the accusation, but sometimes it fits. Increasingly it feels like people are engaging in brazen racism and using the word's overuse as a shield (not saying you are as I haven't followed your posts closely enough to weigh in). I think we can both look at this situation objectively, examine some of the religious underpinnings objectively, without getting becoming bigots against all Muslims. I welcome clear-eyed examinations of religions. I abhor some the nazi-like rhetoric coming from people like Trump. Islam is like a lot of other faiths, it has its conservatives, its progressives, etc. Right now there are some dangerous movements like the one ISIS belongs to, and I think we need to be critical of those movements, while letting other Muslims know we support them and treat like human beings.


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## Umbran (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Poverty rates: there are more whites living below the poverty line in America than there are poor blacks.




We need to be careful when we are talking about a rate (a percentage) and when we are talking about an absolute number.

According to the National Census Bureau, in 2014, some 31 million white people in the US were below the poverty line.  Some 11 million African Americans were below the poverty line.  So, yes, in absolute terms, there were more white people in poverty.  But...

According toe the same source, those 31 million white people were about 12% of the white population.  The 11 million African Americans were 26% of the African American population.

So, the poverty *rate* is higher among African Americans - if you're African American, you're more than twice as likely to be in poverty than if you're white in the US.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2014/table3.pdf



> Then there's the fact that no one in America is starving.




The USDA finds that about 86% of American households were food secure at all times in 2014.  "These households had access, at all times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members."

That means 14% of housholds had some level of food insecurity - "At times during the year, these households were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for food. Food-insecure households include those with low food security and very low food security."

Rates of food insecurity were higher for some groups:

All households with children (19.2 percent),
Households with children under age 6 (19.9 percent),
Households with children headed by a single woman (35.3 percent),
Households with children headed by a single man (21.7 percent),
Black, non-Hispanic households (26.1 percent),
Hispanic households (22.4 percent)

http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food...curity-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx




> Heck, if poverty rates were really to blame, then why is it a small minority of blacks (young, urban, male) doing the overwhelming majority of the killing?




There are other social factors involved, that transcend race.  Whatever the race, men are *far* more likely to be violent criminals than women. In essence, when you put a group under stress, it is the men who lean toward the high risk activities that may lead to violence.  This likely has more to do with more broad gender roles than race.



> Disenfranchised: I don't know what that means. Blacks vote at higher rates than most populations, last time I checked.




By the US Census Bureau, voting rates for blacks were 2.1 percent higher than whites in the 2012 Presidential election.  That was the first (and only) time that lack voting rates were higher than whites in the period of 1996-2012.  The cite I found doesn't speak to years before that, but in 1996 blacks were voting at a rate of 7.7% lower than whites.  The trend is such that I am not confident that they'd ever been at a higher rate before 2012.

https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-568.pdf




> You try solving crimes in an area where "no snitchin" reigns supreme, some time. The "law" can't protect witnesses, money can.




Yes.  See the financial sector (filled with white people) as an example of both of these - you'd imagine a lot of folks should have gone up the river for fraud after our last financial crisis, but... no.  Closed mouths and money do protect people, clearly.


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

Umbran said:


> By the US Census Bureau, voting rates for blacks were 2.1 percent higher than whites in the 2012 Presidential election.  That was the first (and only) time that lack voting rates were higher than whites in the period of 1996-2012.  The cite I found doesn't speak to years before that, but in 1996 blacks were voting at a rate of 7.7% lower than whites.  The trend is such that I am not confident that they'd ever been at a higher rate before 2012.
> .




Don't worry, some states are working to reverse that.  Like Alabama requiring state issued ID to vote, and then promptly closing all DMV offices in predominantly black areas.


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## Janx (Jan 5, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> It's times like these when I view my time deployed overseas (6 years), the friends I've lost, and realize "this is the type of free speech we sacrificed to protect?"  Yeah, I know without free speech for everyone it becomes a worthless thing, but it still is equal parts depressing and irritating.




I don't mean to disrespect your service, and this is probably a huge fork, but I think there's a chunk of people who question the validity of sending you overseas to fight some other dudes who are fighting about something as protecting American Free Speech.

Unless you specifically went overseas to kill some guys who were killing newspapers (or some such), you weren't even protecting the concept of free speech.

I don't know where you went, but I'm certain you did it with good intent and honor and all that.  If your effort was wasted (by some metric like above), that fault lies with the leaders who deployed you.

In any event, I don't think soldiers sent overseas to fight bad guys has anything to do with protecting American Rights (as documented in the constitution).  Barring a war to fight Nazis because they WERE expanding to take over America eventually and take our freedoms.  Whether you fired 10 bullets, or zero over there, had zero impact on any US Citizens rights in the US.  Hopefully what you were doing over there was helping to stop bad things from happening to other people in other countries.  That's still good.  But it is faulty logic to associate that service with protecting free speech and such because almost no conflict somewhere else can directly remove rights from an American Citizen in America*.

*except as somebody else noted that it ratchets our terror threat level to justify abridging 4th amendment rights and such to scrutinize and search our own citizens.  Or fighting an expansionist empire that truly threatens to take over our country.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 5, 2016)

I think people who don't live in poverty or who have never truly, truly experienced it for a prolonged period, do not understand how it impacts every aspect of life. Especially with the way things like debt work this in this country.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> We need to be careful when we are talking about a rate (a percentage) and when we are talking about an absolute number.
> 
> According to the National Census Bureau, in 2014, some 31 million white people in the US were below the poverty line. Some 11 million African Americans were below the poverty line. So, yes, in absolute terms, there were more white people in poverty. But...
> 
> ...




True about rates. Believe me, I'm all for increasing numeracy. But I think it fits in a statement about population percentages and how many murders given populations commit. If it's all down to poverty...



> There are other social factors involved, that transcend race. Whatever the race, men are *far* more likely to be violent criminals than women.




Indeed. Why that isn't a sexist statement is anyone's guess.



> In essence, when you put a group under stress, it is the men who lean toward the high risk activities that may lead to violence. This likely has more to do with more broad gender roles than race.




Sounds like a way to sweep the racial issue under the rug. Nobody's defending the male sex, or claiming that the male sex is being targeted by a sexist, oppressive system.



> By the US Census Bureau, voting rates for blacks were 2.1 percent higher than whites in the 2012 Presidential election. That was the first (and only) time that lack voting rates were higher than whites in the period of 1996-2012. The cite I found doesn't speak to years before that, but in 1996 blacks were voting at a rate of 7.7% lower than whites. The trend is such that I am not confident that they'd ever been at a higher rate before 2012.




Sounds like black voting rates are pretty good.



> Yes. See the financial sector (filled with white people) as an example of both of these - you'd imagine a lot of folks should have gone up the river for fraud after our last financial crisis, but... no. Closed mouths and money do protect people, clearly.




No argument here. It's a national scandal that none of the crooks and thieves were held to account. I'm all for rounding up the violators and prosecuting them, and putting them in jail at the end.

Re food security, sure, but the number of people who don't get enough to eat in this country is vanishingly small. And has more to do with individual circumstances on the ground (e.g., scummy parents who neglect their children) than with policy, per se.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 5, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think people who don't live in poverty or who have never truly, truly experienced it for a prolonged period, do not understand how it impacts every aspect of life. Especially with the way things like debt work this in this country.




I don't understand your point.  What are you referring to?  What about poverty isn't understood?  For the record, I spent a year homeless as a 20 something, so maybe I qualify as someone that might understand something about how poverty might work for some things?  I don't know.


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## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Then there's the fact that no one in America is starving.




I would dearly love it if that were true.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> Don't worry, some states are working to reverse that. Like Alabama requiring state issued ID to vote, and then promptly closing all DMV offices in predominantly black areas.




Cite? There's nothing wrong with requiring ID to vote. Seems like common sense to me. It's what they do in Europe, after all.

As for closing all DMV offices in predominantly black areas, let's just say I'm from Missouri.



> I think people who don't live in poverty or who have never truly, truly experienced it for a prolonged period, do not understand how it impacts every aspect of life. Especially with the way things like debt work this in this country.




Poverty sucks. But I don't see how it justifies, or even explains, violent crime. Most of the murders in this country are not committed by people trying to keep a roof over their kids' heads, or food on the table. They're committed by young criminals over conflicts with other young criminals, over things like territory, drug deals, romantic disputes, arguments, etc. The illegitimacy rate among blacks was like 70%, last time I checked. That does not really agree with the "gotta feed my starving family" thing, IMO.

ETA: okay, I'll bite. How many people died last year in this country from starvation? How many people were hospitalized for malnutrition?


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## Janx (Jan 5, 2016)

Umbran said:


> We need to be careful when we are talking about a rate (a percentage) and when we are talking about an absolute number.
> 
> According to the National Census Bureau, in 2014, some 31 million white people in the US were below the poverty line.  Some 11 million African Americans were below the poverty line.  So, yes, in absolute terms, there were more white people in poverty.  But...
> 
> ...




Yay Stats from Umbran!

Last stat I had heard on NPR was that blacks account for about 75% of America's poor.  Close enough to what Umbran said.

And sure, since more blacks are poor, I'm sure that means blacks in total pay less than whites in taxes.  That's just math.

What gets racist is what we do with this information and how we express it.

I think blacks get arrested more because they are the largest portion of the poor people

I think cops, just by the crime rate and skin color distribution, see a lot more blacks they have to cuff than whites.

I think that colors how cops see blacks in a bad way (no pun intended).

Hopefully, these views don't make me a racist as I do not want to be a racist.

In my view, if we could raise everybody to be middle-class, we wouldn't have a crime problem* that is dominated by poor black people.  Most crimes happen from poor people, and the most poor people are black.  Flip the skin colors around and it would be white people in jail because they are poor and living desperate lifestyles.

*crime problem is relative, since the 1990's crime has dropped and is generally at all time lows.


I swear we've had this discussion in other threads, and I'm not sure how it involves the guys in Oregon, other than the difference in police response to their crime.


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## billd91 (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Indeed. Why that isn't a sexist statement is anyone's guess.




Because it's easily backed by statistics. Statements observing differences between sexes aren't necessarily sexist.




Morlock said:


> Re food security, sure, but the number of people who don't get enough to eat in this country is vanishingly small. And has more to do with individual circumstances on the ground (e.g., scummy parents who neglect their children) than with policy, per se.




Tell that to people when food stamps benefits get cut or otherwise encumbered by increasing regulation or when unemployment benefits run out. But, hey, justify your assumptions about people being "scummy" however you want and pray like hell that you'll never be in that position around people like yourself who will consider you scummy for it without knowing your story.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 5, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> I don't understand your point.  What are you referring to?  What about poverty isn't understood?  For the record, I spent a year homeless as a 20 something, so maybe I qualify as someone that might understand something about how poverty might work for some things?  I don't know.




I was responding to people denying much of a connection between poverty and crime rates. I live in a poor and high crime area. I also have known people who otherwise wouldn't commit crime, do so because they are trying to pay the bills or feed their family.


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## Janx (Jan 5, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> I don't understand your point.  What are you referring to?  What about poverty isn't understood?  For the record, I spent a year homeless as a 20 something, so maybe I qualify as someone that might understand something about how poverty might work for some things?  I don't know.




he's referring to Morlock's comments about how nobody in America is starving.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> Last stat I had heard on NPR was that blacks account for about 75% of America's poor. Close enough to what Umbran said.




Either they were mis-reporting the stats, or you are mis-reporting what they said.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

The US Census declared that in 2010 15.1% of the general population lived in poverty:[43]
9.9% of all white persons
12.1% of all Asian persons
26.6% of all Hispanic persons (of any race)
28.4% of all black persons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
223.5m Whites
39m Blacks

9.9% of 223.5m = 22m poor whites.
28.4% of 39m = 11m poor blacks.

There are twice as many poor whites in America as there are poor blacks.



> Because it's easily backed by statistics. Statements observing differences between sexes aren't necessarily sexist.




So is the correlation between race and violent crime. Truth never saved anybody from the "racist" accusation.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 5, 2016)

Janx said:


> he's referring to Morlock's comments about how nobody in America is starving.




That as well. I was just trying to emphasize that being poor means impacts every aspect of your life and that there are people doing things like surviving on one meal a day (or having to make really tough choices between things like food and bills).


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## Janx (Jan 5, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> I was responding to people denying much of a connection between poverty and crime rates. I live in a poor and high crime area. I also have known people who otherwise wouldn't commit crime, do so because they are trying to pay the bills or feed their family.




this is speculation (as I grew up poor and didn't resort to lawlessness), but I would suspect people living in continued poorness with no prospects may develop a lack of respect for society (what has it ever done for them), such that they turn to drugs and crime to escape or get their way over the world.

Consider that what we have here in the US is "street crime" over in the middle east is a comparable demographic that is joining terrorist groups instead.

It's the same lack of hope, and lawlessness attitude, just funneled slightly differently.


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## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> There's nothing wrong with requiring ID to vote. Seems like common sense to me. It's what they do in Europe, after all.




Sure.  There's nothing wrong with requiring ID to vote, despite the fact that in-person voter fraud is so rare as to virtually not exist in the U.S.  If you have to pay for that ID it then becomes equivalent to a poll tax however, and that is wrong.  And, if you prevent people from attaining that ID by shutting down the place you have to go to get it, that's wrong too.  If those shutdowns target areas that heavily populated by a specific race, religion, or political affiliation, that's also wrong.

Voter ID laws cloak themselves in the shallow pretense of avoiding virtually non-existent instances of in-person voter fraud when they actually exist for the purpose of manipulating votes.


----------



## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

What I have found is that "righties" have no idea what "lefties" want, think or feel, but they think they do.

Left: "I think if we do A it would make America great!"

Right: "No, doing A would destroy America! You want to destroy America! You hate America!"

Left: "I also think that doing B would help with racial equality."

Right: "No, doing B would give all of the advantages to the minorities! Why do you hate White people?"

Really those on the Right should just stop trying to ascribe motives to those of us on the Left and just agree to disagree. It seems in the past that both the Right and the Left would believe that the other side wants the best for America, but they just disagree on how to get there. Now the Right thinks the Left are full of evil, America hating communists that want to destroy the country.

As for the idiots at the Refuge in Oregon (I think we all agreed they are idiots). They are in the wrong here. The refuge was created over 100 years ago by Teddy Roosevelt. If they really want to give it back to the original owners, that would be the Native Americans. Or their descendants as none of the actual "original owners" are alive anymore.

But really, that ship has sailed. The people of America now own all of the land currently held for us by our government, however it was aquired. It is our government, we can tell them what to do with it. The majority is perfectly happy with that land being a refuge. If you don't like it you can vote for representatives that agree and will try to change it, but you have to accept when you are out voted. That's how a democracy works (or representative republic in our case).


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## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> So is the correlation between race and violent crime.




As if race (or gender) were the determinative factor.  It's not.  It's not as if men or minorities are just monsters waiting to pounce when no one is looking.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> Tell that to people when food stamps benefits get cut or otherwise encumbered by increasing regulation or when unemployment benefits run out. But, hey, justify your assumptions about people being "scummy" however you want and pray like hell that you'll never be in that position around people like yourself who will consider you scummy for it without knowing your story.




You seem to have missed my point, which was that I'd be willing to bet that a large proportion of the (very small) number of people for whom starvation is actually a real problem are probably self-inflicting their wounds. E.g., parents who would rather sell their food stamps on the black market and use the proceeds to get high than feed their kids, or the mentally ill who can't manage a household, no matter how much money or aid you give them, or...you get the idea (I hope).

I certainly wasn't implying that poor people are scummy, as you seem to have inferred.



> What I have found is that "righties" have no idea what "lefties" want, think or feel, but they think they do.




In my experience, leftists are the grand masters of imputing whatever "thoughts" they want to their political adversaries. I frequently find myself wanting to borrow whatever device they employ for this telepathic ability.


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## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

Election days should be national holidays or should be on Saturday. Or it could be over several days, really no reason it all has to be on one day.

Try to get the Republicans to agree to that though. To many people (of the "wrong" sort) would be able to vote then.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Jan 5, 2016)

Janx said:


> this is speculation (as I grew up poor and didn't resort to lawlessness), but I would suspect people living in continued poorness with no prospects may develop a lack of respect for society (what has it ever done for them), such that they turn to drugs and crime to escape or get their way over the world.
> 
> Consider that what we have here in the US is "street crime" over in the middle east is a comparable demographic that is joining terrorist groups instead.
> 
> It's the same lack of hope, and lawlessness attitude, just funneled slightly differently.




I don't know what the stats are. I am not saying it is a forgone conclusion by any stretch. I am just saying the pressures that could lead one to commit crime are much more pronounced and real when you are poor (particularly if you are trying to support a family). It also just affects every aspect of your life. It is one thing to be single or young and suffer through hunger, another thing when you are watching your family suffer and just want to be a good provider. And I am not saying every person who is poor and commits a crime is doing so for these kinds of reasons (there are also plenty of people who just want quick cash or who don't respect others and have no problem victimizing people to advance their own interests). But there are also reluctant criminals who do it because they feel like they have little choice. My point is I think people are way too dismissive of other peoples circumstances and sometimes act as though people who are poor like being that way or are just lazy.


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## tomBitonti (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> ETA: okay, I'll bite. How many people died last year in this country from starvation? How many people were hospitalized for malnutrition?




According to quora (see: https://www.quora.com/How-many-Americans-starve-to-death-each-year):



> Around 2000-3000 just among the elderly. I'm not finding reliable rates for other age cohorts.




But answers.com (see: http://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_die_from_starvation_each_year_in_America) has:



> According to the World Health Organization, 120 Americans died from "lack of food" in 2004.
> 
> Starvation rates in the United States are generally not recorded due to the relative infrequency of the occurrence. Generally speaking, most people do not starve to death in America as a result of lack of access to food. A combination of government food programs and private charities help to ensure this. However, Americans do have a serious problem with malnutrition. Starvation (that is, death due to lack of food) in America, in the relatively rare instances that it does occur, is not usually an indication of poverty but rather a variety of other social issues.




Wikipedia has a long article on the subject.  It's much longer than I can summarize here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States

Thx!
TomB


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## Mallus (Jan 5, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> Voter ID laws cloak themselves in the shallow pretense of avoiding virtually non-existent instances of in-person voter fraud when they actually exist for the purpose of manipulating votes.



When the voter ID law went to court here in Pennsylvania, the State declined/failed to provide any evidence of voter fraud. Their defense of said law consisted entirely of "here are experts who say it won't disenfranchise too many people". As you might imagine, it was struck down. 

You want mandatory voter IDs? Fine. Provide them to all eligible citizens --ie, the one on the voter rolls -- for free. Or rather, use taxpayer money. Its' what we pay taxes _for_.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> Around 2000-3000 just among the elderly. I'm not finding reliable rates for other age cohorts.




Okay, I could buy that. It does agree with what I was saying.



> Starvation (that is, death due to lack of food) in America, in the relatively rare instances that it does occur, is not usually an indication of poverty but rather a variety of other social issues.




That's pretty much exactly what I was saying, though I admit I could have said it better in the first approach.

ETA: the hand-wringing over voter ID is amusing. Voter ID is how they do it in the civilized world (but not America). Just ask a European.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 5, 2016)

Lord Twig said:


> What I have found is that "righties" have no idea what "lefties" want, think or feel, but they think they do.
> 
> Left: "I think if we do A it would make America great!"
> 
> ...




Oh, man, talk about the pot and the kettle!


----------



## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> As if race (or gender) were the determinative factor. It's not. It's not as if men or minorities are just monsters waiting to pounce when no one is looking.




You seem to have gotten my point backwards. Blacks being so frequently incarcerated is evidence of malfeasance, while men being even more frequently incarcerated is...*crickets chirping*


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## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> You seem to have gotten my point backwards. Blacks being so frequently incarcerated is evidence of malfeasance, while men being even more frequently incarcerated is...*crickets chirping*




Men being more frequently incarcerated, depending on the circumstance, is evidence of a double standard.  There's certainly a double-standard in domestic violence cases, which is (I suppose) a small step-up from old days when we just pretended that it wasn't perpetrated by either men or women.


----------



## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Oh, man, talk about the pot and the kettle!




What? I think those on the Right want what is best for America. All I ask is that they acknowledge the same in return.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> Election days should be national holidays or should be on Saturday. Or it could be over several days, really no reason it all has to be on one day.
> 
> Try to get the Republicans to agree to that though. To many people (of the "wrong" sort) would be able to vote then.




The wrong sort being, say, the dead.


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## billd91 (Jan 5, 2016)

Mallus said:


> You want mandatory voter IDs? Fine. Provide them to all eligible citizens --ie, the one on the voter rolls -- for free. Or rather, use taxpayer money. Its' what we pay taxes _for_.




Even when free, the documentation requirements for getting one may be a challenge. Need a birth certificate? That may not be so easy for elderly voters whose records may have been destroyed or lost over the years or who may not even know where the records can be found. Then there are places that charge for copies of those records. The time and fees involved may serve the place of a poll tax even if the ID itself is free.

Of course, IDs aren't the only means over suppressing voters. The student vote in WI was directly targeted by new residency requirements when the WI legislature pass their "voter fraud" law. Unfortunately, that provision clearly passes constitutional muster because the state constitution includes a provision for residency statues - it does NOT provide for an ID - yet somehow the GOP-dominated state Supreme Court found a way for that to be constitutional, overturning lower courts that found a statutory ID requirement unconstitutional.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 5, 2016)

Lord Twig said:


> What? I think those on the Right want what is best for America. All I ask is that they acknowledge the same in return.



It's nice that you generalize the right as misrepresenting the left, but you make sure to personalize your response to the charge the left (general) does the same. This is extra funny and ironic since you just did generalize the right as bad actors.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> Even when free, the documentation requirements for getting one may be a challenge. Need a birth certificate? That may not be so easy for elderly voters whose records may have been destroyed or lost over the years or who may not even know where the records can be found. Then there are places that charge for copies of those records. The time and fees involved may serve the place of a poll tax even if the ID itself is free.
> 
> Of course, IDs aren't the only means over suppressing voters. The student vote in WI was directly targeted by new residency requirements when the WI legislature pass their "voter fraud" law. Unfortunately, that provision clearly passes constitutional muster because the state constitution includes a provision for residency statues - it does NOT provide for an ID - yet somehow the GOP-dominated state Supreme Court found a way for that to be constitutional, overturning lower courts that found a statutory ID requirement unconstitutional.




Funny how all of these objections evaporate when it comes to exercising the 2nd Amendment.


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## Janx (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> You seem to have missed my point, which was that I'd be willing to bet that a large proportion of the (very small) number of people for whom starvation is actually a real problem are probably self-inflicting their wounds. E.g., parents who would rather sell their food stamps on the black market and use the proceeds to get high than feed their kids, or the mentally ill who can't manage a household, no matter how much money or aid you give them, or...you get the idea (I hope).




On this particular point, I don't know that hordes of Americans are starving like those ethiopian babies sally fields showed us.

But plenty of poor people are eating poorly due to lack of proper diet because health food costs more and in many cases, isn't available at the gas station where "food" comes from because there isn't a proper grocery store near enough to them.  You can "live" off the Mcdonald's dollar menu for $2-$3, but it won't be healthy.  And you probably be hard pressed to get healthier food for that money.

public schools have been supplying what their stats say are "the only meals" a kid gets in many cases.  Apparently, if a kid doesn't eat at school, he might not eat at all that day.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 5, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> It's nice that you generalize the right as misrepresenting the left, but you make sure to personalize your response to the charge the left (general) does the same. This is extra funny and ironic since you just did generalize the right as bad actors.




Full disclosure, I consider myself a liberal, but I agree with this sentiment. I do think both sides are increasingly far too quick to call the other the devil and completely dismiss them, rather than talk through things and try to find some common ground. At the end of the day, neither side is going anywhere anytime soon. The country is pretty evenly divided between liberals and conservative. We have to learn to live with each other at some point. I do think there are some people out there who are hateful and warrant heavy criticism; but a lot of people in these discussions just have honest disagreements about the facts and have just reached different conclusions based on those facts. Also, when you immediately accuse people of crossing the line, then when folks actually do cross the line, that accusation has no power at all.


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## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> The wrong sort being, say, the dead.




Inner city poor working class that primarily votes Democrat. Why would the dead be better able to vote on a holiday?


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## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> It's nice that you generalize the right as misrepresenting the left, but you make sure to personalize your response to the charge the left (general) does the same. This is extra funny and ironic since you just did generalize the right as bad actors.




There is a trend to on the Right to misrepresent what people on the Left believe. I don't know how else to say that other than to say it. What I am not doing is accusing them of doing it out of evil intent. I don't know why they do it, but it is happening.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 5, 2016)

Lord Twig said:


> There is a trend to on the Right to misrepresent what people on the Left believe. I don't know how else to say that other than to say it. What I am not doing is accusing them of doing it out of evil intent. I don't know why they do it, but it is happening.



And the left doesn't do the exact same thing?  Your pitching this as a problem of the right when it's, as bedrock notes, a problem of both sides.

Tribalism is strong on both sides.


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## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> Full disclosure, I consider myself a liberal, but I agree with this sentiment. I do think both sides are increasingly far too quick to call the other the devil and completely dismiss them, rather than talk through things and try to find some common ground. At the end of the day, neither side is going anywhere anytime soon. The country is pretty evenly divided between liberals and conservative. We have to learn to live with each other at some point. I do think there are some people out there who are hateful and warrant heavy criticism; but a lot of people in these discussions just have honest disagreements about the facts and have just reached different conclusions based on those facts. Also, when you immediately accuse people of crossing the line, then when folks actually do cross the line, that accusation has no power at all.




Fair enough. The only talk radio I get where I'm at is right wing, which I listen to on the way to and from work. So it's possible I'm only hearing one side of it.


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## billd91 (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Funny how all of these objections evaporate when it comes to exercising the 2nd Amendment.




Note that people doing so are usually quite willing to spend hundreds of dollars for the guns and ammunition to do it. Charging a little more for better licensing and regulation is a better fit than for voting. Voting is otherwise free. Moreover, you can fully participate in American democracy without exercising 2nd amendment rights - not so being unable to vote.


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## Ovinomancer (Jan 5, 2016)

Lord Twig said:


> Fair enough. The only talk radio I get where I'm at is right wing, which I listen to on the way to and from work. So it's possible I'm only hearing one side of it.



You're on the internet.  Are we to believe that you only visit right wing sites?

That aside, you choose to characterize the entire right by way of your listening to a radio show.  That's extremely ironic.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 5, 2016)

Lord Twig said:


> Fair enough. The only talk radio I get where I'm at is right wing, which I listen to on the way to and from work. So it's possible I'm only hearing one side of it.




I think there is some bad stuff on talk radio. Personally I am not a fan of right wing talk radio, but because I did delivery I worked with lots of people who did and got to know them. At the end of the day I still disagreed with them on many political points, but they weren't monsters. Even here in Boston we have talk radio (though the big talk station went under a few years ago). 

I was thinking more about internet media and social media though, where it feels like both sides are a lot more interested in point scoring and name calling than get at truth. Like I said, I am liberal, but when a new event occurs, I like to take time to understand it, look at it from a few angles and get what data I can before making posts about it. But a lot of what I see from otherwise thoughtful and intelligent people are immediate calls for the most extreme response to anything the moment it occurs. You have to pick sides right away and if you don't it is because your evil. I just don't think you can honestly analyze events in seconds like that. Distilling that into pejorative that stop the conversation doesn't help either side in my view. I do think some of these labels are accurate in cases. But they get so overused that they become meaningless and have no power by the time they do need to be invoked. I feel like we are just really oversimplifying things for ourselves to make the other side easily tagged as evil (rather than simply incorrect, misguided, etc). I'm guilty of it too. If we all took a step back, recognize that both sides will be here for a very long time, and actually talk and listen, we might be able to get somewhere.


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## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Funny how all of these objections evaporate when it comes to exercising the 2nd Amendment.




A person does not have a deadline to exercise their second amendment rights, so the time required to get the documents doesn't matter.  By contrast, in most cases you can't vote the day after election day.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> Note that people doing so are usually quite willing to spend hundreds of dollars for the guns and ammunition to do it. Charging a little more for better licensing and regulation is a better fit than for voting. Voting is otherwise free. Moreover, you can fully participate in American democracy without exercising 2nd amendment rights - not so being unable to vote.




Leftists are willing to put all kinds of barriers and red tape between citizens and their 2nd Amendment rights (the more the merrier on that score), but a $10 ID every 10 years and the sky's falling.

Harder to fully participate in defending yourself without exercising 2nd Amendment rights, though. Self-defense is much more primal than voting rights ('specially in our current Tweedledee vs. Tweedledum system).


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> A person does not have a deadline to exercise their second amendment rights, so the time required to get the documents doesn't matter. By contrast, in most cases you can't vote the day after election day.




How hard is it to get the paperwork (birth certificate, etc.), most of which you already need for something else anyway, and keep it in a drawer? Then take that to a DMV at some point in the two years between elections, and get an ID that will last you the next 5-10 years (and can, at least in my state, renew online)?


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## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> How hard is it to get the paperwork (birth certificate, etc.), most of which you already need for something else anyway, and keep it in a drawer?




You were just complaining about the difficulties of such with regard to exercising 2nd amendment rights.  Either it's onerous or not.  I don't care which one you choose, but make up your mind.


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## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> You were just complaining about the difficulties of such with regard to exercising 2nd amendment rights. Either it's onerous or not. I don't care which one you choose, but make up your mind.




There are myriad barriers (all erected by the left, or the statists, or both) on various forms of 2nd Amendment rights that are far more onerous than getting an ID (try the form for SBR/suppressor some time), and the left doesn't give a crap. Ergo, we're not really discussing principles when it come to voter ID. That was my point.


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## billd91 (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Leftists are willing to put all kinds of barriers and red tape between citizens and their 2nd Amendment rights (the more the merrier on that score), but a $10 ID every 10 years and the sky's falling.




Sky falling? No. Voter suppression? Yes.
I also note that whatever onerous restrictions you think the left are putting on gun ownership, somehow we manage to have more guns in Americans' hands than we have Americans. The latest stats say there are 112 firearms out there per 100 people. Clearly those barriers, supported by about 72% of the US population (considerably more than those identifying as liberal), aren't doing squat.



Morlock said:


> Harder to fully participate in defending yourself without exercising 2nd Amendment rights, though. Self-defense is much more primal than voting rights ('specially in our current Tweedledee vs. Tweedledum system).




Much more primal? Not when it comes to participation in the political system and that deals with issues far broader than self-defense. When you consider that people are about 32x more likely to kill themselves than an assailant, maybe self-defense should be considered a much smaller issue than "primal".


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## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> There are myriad barriers (all erected by the left, or the statists, or both) on various forms of 2nd Amendment rights that are far more onerous than getting an ID (try the form for SBR/suppressor some time), and the left doesn't give a crap. Ergo, we're not really discussing principles when it come to voter ID. That was my point.




Your point is inaccurate.  Unless you are casting a vote to kill someone, voting doesn't kill.  Firearms, by contrast, have the primary purpose of wounding living things and/or taking the lives of living things.

Also, a suppressor is not a firearm.  It is an accessory that is not necessary to the exercise of one's second amendment rights.


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## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

billd91 said:


> Sky falling? No. Voter suppression? Yes.
> I also note that whatever onerous restrictions you think the left are putting on gun ownership, somehow we manage to have more guns in Americans' hands than we have Americans.




If I'm being completely honest, I own six firearms.


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## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Harder to fully participate in defending yourself without exercising 2nd Amendment rights, though. Self-defense is much more primal than voting rights ('specially in our current Tweedledee vs. Tweedledum system).





A person without a firearm can fight with deadly force to protect her own life.  A gun can make that fight more effective, but it can also lead to accidentally shooting yourself (which is especially common when there is a struggle for the gun).  Put another way, you're confusing the ability to participate with the ability to win.


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## Kramodlog (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> That's an oversimplification. Yes, Islamic State uses religion for rhetoric and mobilization. They also happen to actually be Muslim fanatics. Yes, communism was used for rhetoric and mobilization...by communist fanatics.



Fascinating how you skipped my third example of people who use ideologies to mobilize people. So, the nationalists of the US revolution weren't fanatics? Only communists and islamists are fanatics?


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## Mallus (Jan 5, 2016)

Morlock said:


> There are myriad barriers (all erected by the left, or the statists, or both) on various forms of 2nd Amendment rights that are far more onerous than getting an ID (try the form for SBR/suppressor some time), and the left doesn't give a crap. Ergo, we're not really discussing principles when it come to voter ID.



Sure we're discussing principles. Here are mine!

I believe voter participation should be encouraged. Therefore, registration should be easy. At the very least no more difficult than it is currently. This is a _principle_.

I believe gun ownership should be neither encouraged or discouraged, however, it should be well-regulated. More so than it currently is, at the federal level, and with fewer loopholes in the sales of. This is also a _principle_. An entirely separate one, in fact! 

I've got no truck with gun owners. I know them, have gone shooting with them, and respect their rights. Gun-_fetishists_, on the other hand, make me twitchy. 

Also, what do you mean 'statists'? Is it like a dog-whistle for 'Communist' or something?


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## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> You're on the internet.  Are we to believe that you only visit right wing sites?
> 
> That aside, you choose to characterize the entire right by way of your listening to a radio show.  That's extremely ironic.




Yes, you are right. There are other sources that I use. So I go back to my original statement. It is the Right that is far more likely to misrepresenting the Left. I'm sure it does happen the other way around ("Cling to God and guns" for example), but it is far less prevalent.

Go back through this thread and see who assigns beliefs to the other side.

And again, I'm not assigning beliefs to the other side, I'm just pointing out that it has been done.


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## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Mallus said:


> Also, what do you mean 'statists'? Is it like a dog-whistle for 'Communist' or something?




I think by "statists" he means people who hold to statistics that he doesn't like.


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## Mallus (Jan 5, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> I think by "statists" he means people who hold to statistics that he doesn't like.



That must it it! .


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

I want to clarify something.  Morlock seems to think anyone not toeing his line is a leftist.  Based on the things he's saying, that's like saying anyone left of Trump is a leftist.  Which is pretty odd, to say the least.  For example, the vast majority of Americans (something like 80%) support things like background checks.   Clearly not all of those are leftists, or otherwise every city in every state would look like Portland, OR (with Koi fusion, clean streets, huge PRIDE parades, naked bike rides, unicycle Darth Vaders playing bagpipes, more microbreweries per capita than any other city, etc, etc).

I am not a leftist.  I support equal rights for everyone, am against every from of bigotry (my son is black, so I've seen first hand what white privilege is and how it manifests), and fully support background checks, training, and regulation of firearms.  That does not make me a leftist.  I like to think that just makes me a regular person.  Why would you have to be a leftist to support those things?  The first half of them are taught in the Bible, and the second half are common sense.

I own several firearms, and grew up in rural areas around guns all my life.  Here's a picture of me in the army.  Because I support universal background checks on all gun sales and getting rid of the 3 day loophole (which would have prevented Dylan Roof from getting his gun if that loophole wasn't there), and support mandatory firearm training that makes me a leftist?  I'm a pretty odd one then.

Oh, and Morlock keeps talking the tough guy talk about being ready to kill 24/7.  That's such a load of bollocks.  Let me tell you dude, from first hand experience.  You don't ever want to know what it's like to kill another human being or see another human being get killed in front of you.  EVER.


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## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

I have 3 guns currently in my house. Now that my kids are getting older I'm considering getting rid of them.

My grandfather had a gun behind his bar. My dad always had a gun in the house. And in the past 80 years (okay, actually only 77 or 78. I think it goes back to 1938) we have never needed it. We did go out target shooting a few times, that was fun, but hardly worth risking having someone shot.


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## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> Here's a picture of me in the army.




Good picture! Who is the guy you are with?


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

Lord Twig said:


> Good picture! Who is the guy you are with?




Chief of Staff, General Sullivan.  This was in 1992 or 1993 I think.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 5, 2016)

Lord Twig said:


> Yes, you are right. There are other sources that I use. So I go back to my original statement. It is the Right that is far more likely to misrepresenting the Left. I'm sure it does happen the other way around ("Cling to God and guns" for example), but it is far less prevalent.
> 
> Go back through this thread and see who assigns beliefs to the other side.
> 
> And again, I'm not assigning beliefs to the other side, I'm just pointing out that it has been done.





Wait, are you being serious?  You assign your beliefs to the right (that they are more likely to misrepresent the left) and then actually say that you're not assigning beliefs to the right?  Come on, this is a performance piece, now, right?

Go check out the other politics thread here, and see how often the right is categorized as racists, for just one example.  Heck, in this thread the idiots in Oregon have been called Yee Hawists and Y'all Queda (despite the fact that they don't say y'all out there).  There have been distinct calls for the extermination of those idiots by people identifying as leftists.  Like, they wanted them all killed.  And it's the right that misrepresents the left more often.  Dude, you need to get new glasses, because that's the standard tone of political discourse in the US for both sides.

And, to be perfectly clear, I'm very often disgusted by my own ideological side for the crappy name calling and assumptions of evil they make.  I, quite often, get yelled at by both sides.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 5, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Wait, are you being serious?  You assign your beliefs to the right (that they are more likely to misrepresent the left) and then actually say that you're not assigning beliefs to the right?  Come on, this is a performance piece, now, right?
> 
> Go check out the other politics thread here, and see how often the right is categorized as racists, for just one example.  Heck, in this thread the idiots in Oregon have been called Yee Hawists and Y'all Queda (despite the fact that they don't say y'all out there).  There have been distinct calls for the extermination of those idiots by people identifying as leftists.  Like, they wanted them all killed.  And it's the right that misrepresents the left more often.  Dude, you need to get new glasses, because that's the standard tone of political discourse in the US for both sides.
> 
> And, to be perfectly clear, I'm very often disgusted by my own ideological side for the crappy name calling and assumptions of evil they make.  I, quite often, get yelled at by both sides.




1. The Bundy led militia isn't from Oregon.  They are from other states.  So regardless if people living in eastern Oregon say "y'all" (which some do.  I know.  I grew up in Wallowa), the militia aren't even from the state.

2. You said people wanted them exterminated.  Who?  I know of one person.  Who were the others?  

But if you want objective data, FOX news constantly rates as the "news" organization with the highest level of misrepresentation and falsehoods.  Way more than any other organization, let alone "leftist" ones like MSNBC.  So objectively, it does seem the right lies more than the left.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Lord Twig said:


> I have 3 guns currently in my house. Now that my kids are getting older I'm considering getting rid of them.




If you don't want to get rid of them I'd suggest a safe.  I keep my arms in a safe.  In my case it's not to prevent children from getting into them (I don't have kids), but to make it harder for criminals to steal them if someone breaks in while my roommate and I are out of the house.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 5, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Go check out the other politics thread here, and see how often the right is categorized as racists, for just one example.  Heck, in this thread the idiots in Oregon have been called Yee Hawists and Y'all Queda (despite the fact that they don't say y'all out there).  There have been distinct calls for the extermination of those idiots by people identifying as leftists.  Like, they wanted them all killed.  And it's the right that misrepresents the left more often.  Dude, you need to get new glasses, because that's the standard tone of political discourse in the US for both sides.



Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal evidence.


----------



## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Wait, are you being serious?  You assign your beliefs to the right (that they are more likely to misrepresent the left) and then actually say that you're not assigning beliefs to the right?  Come on, this is a performance piece, now, right?




I am not assigning a belief. I am making an observation.

Now if I said, "Supporting gun rights will kill more people. You want to kill more people!" That would be what I'm talking about.



Ovinomancer said:


> Go check out the other politics thread here, and see how often the right is categorized as racists, for just one example.  Heck, in this thread the idiots in Oregon have been called Yee Hawists and Y'all Queda (despite the fact that they don't say y'all out there).  There have been distinct calls for the extermination of those idiots by people identifying as leftists.  Like, they wanted them all killed.  And it's the right that misrepresents the left more often.  Dude, you need to get new glasses, because that's the standard tone of political discourse in the US for both sides.




I saw the Yee Hawists and Y'all Queda as jokes, and nothing more.

I can see the argument that the Left portrays the Right as racist some times, and I will agree that that is not right. But it is not always that way. Many times it is just "Doing that would be racist" or "What you said is racist". That is not saying they _are_ racist, but the action or statement (or whatever) would be racist or at least could be construed that way.

I mean, what are we supposed to do? _Not_ say that something is racist when we believe it is?



Ovinomancer said:


> And, to be perfectly clear, I'm very often disgusted by my own ideological side for the crappy name calling and assumptions of evil they make.  I, quite often, get yelled at by both sides.




Stepping back a bit I can see that this is something that has been bugging me for a bit and Morlock's over the top leftist claims pushed me over the edge. So I will back off a bit. It is something both sides should try to avoid if we are going to have any meaningful discussions.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 5, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> So objectively, it does seem the right lies more than the left.




Unfortunately, the right, or at least its prominent representatives, also seem to try to deny people their civil rights more than the left.  And that's a rather ironic turn of events given that southern democrats were historically the ones opposed to integration of schools and the civil rights movement.


----------



## Lord Twig (Jan 5, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> Unfortunately, the right, or at least its prominent representatives, also seem to try to deny people their civil rights more than the left.  And that's a rather ironic turn of events given that southern democrats were historically the ones opposed to integration of schools and the civil rights movement.




The historical southern democrats are now republicans. The civil rights movement is when the democrats lost the south.

See the Southern Strategy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy


----------



## billd91 (Jan 5, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> Unfortunately, the right, or at least its prominent representatives, also seem to try to deny people their civil rights more than the left.  And that's a rather ironic turn of events given that southern democrats were historically the ones opposed to integration of schools and the civil rights movement.




Parties do shift and realign over time. Just review the movement of Strom Thurmond from Southern Democrat through Dixiecrat to Republican - segregationist all the way.


----------



## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> Sky falling? No. Voter suppression? Yes.
> I also note that whatever onerous restrictions you think the left are putting on gun ownership, somehow we manage to have more guns in Americans' hands than we have Americans. The latest stats say there are 112 firearms out there per 100 people. Clearly those barriers, supported by about 72% of the US population (considerably more than those identifying as liberal), aren't doing squat.




Cite for that 72% number? I doubt even half the population knows anything about SBR/suppressior regulations, for example.

But if they aren't doing squat, why are they so broadly supported?



> Much more primal? Not when it comes to participation in the political system and that deals with issues far broader than self-defense. When you consider that people are about 32x more likely to kill themselves than an assailant, maybe self-defense should be considered a much smaller issue than "primal".




But much more primal when it comes to real life.

Self-defense very often results in zero fatalities. In fact, I think it's safe to say that the most typical use of a gun for self-defense involves little more than brandishing a firearm.



> Your point is inaccurate. Unless you are casting a vote to kill someone, voting doesn't kill. Firearms, by contrast, have the primary purpose of wounding living things and/or taking the lives of living things.
> 
> Also, a suppressor is not a firearm. It is an accessory that is not necessary to the exercise of one's second amendment rights.




Oh, I dunno. Who we vote for seems to have a lot to do with who dies in MENA, for example. Or in wombs, for another. Okay, that wasn't exactly fair - Republicans have done absolutely nothing to curtail abortion.

Guns save lives too. That's what's so great about them - they empower the law-abiding at least as much as they empower criminals.

As for their primary purpose, I'd leave that to the owners. For most, their primary purpose is punching holes in paper.



> Oh, and Morlock keeps talking the tough guy talk about being ready to kill 24/7. That's such a load of bollocks. Let me tell you dude, from first hand experience. You don't ever want to know what it's like to kill another human being or see another human being get killed in front of you. EVER.




Don't know where you got the idea that being mentally prepared to defend yourself translates into wanting it, but whatever. Projection, I guess.


----------



## Morlock (Jan 5, 2016)

> Unfortunately, the right, or at least its prominent representatives, also seem to try to deny people their civil rights more than the left. And that's a rather ironic turn of events given that southern democrats were historically the ones opposed to integration of schools and the civil rights movement.



Right. It's the Republicans who constantly trot out "gun control" (to infringe on and curtail 2nd Amendment Right), support "hate speech" laws, are currently locking down universities with PC, have shackled academia with PC speech and thought codes, tasked the IRS with harassing conservative organizations, etc.

ETA: what I find most ironic on the topic of segregation is that for all their high-minded talk and blue voting, it's the Yankee northeast that's the most segregated.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> 1. The Bundy led militia isn't from Oregon.  They are from other states.  So regardless if people living in eastern Oregon say "y'all" (which some do.  I know.  I grew up in Wallowa), the militia aren't even from the state.



I said 'in Oregon' not 'from Oregon.'



> 2. You said people wanted them exterminated.  Who?  I know of one person.  Who were the others?
> 
> But if you want objective data, FOX news constantly rates as the "news" organization with the highest level of misrepresentation and falsehoods.  Way more than any other organization, let alone "leftist" ones like MSNBC.  So objectively, it does seem the right lies more than the left.



By who?  Politifact?  Yeah, they directly caution against using their numbers for any kind of objective comparison, as they don't rate everything on the networks.  They've also shown a good bit of a bias towards the left in some of their supposed 'fact checking'.  On the balance, their a decent source, but not an authoritative one.

But you're quoting Fox News, which many on the right dislike (like I do) as much as the left does for their overly sensationalized content.  MSNBC is worse, in that regard, and is often voted as the most politically slanted organization in many, many polls.



Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal evidence.



And that's hypocrisy in not saying the same thing to Lord Twig.

This is a fun game!


Lord Twig said:


> I am not assigning a belief. I am making an observation.



No, you're stating an opinion that the Right is more likely to misbehavior out of ideological bias than the left.  You've assigned bias based on nothing more than your opinion and limited exposure.




> I saw the Yee Hawists and Y'all Queda as jokes, and nothing more.



Cognitive bias.  They were insults you thought were funny because they were aimed at people you don't like very much.



> I can see the argument that the Left portrays the Right as racist some times, and I will agree that that is not right. But it is not always that way. Many times it is just "Doing that would be racist" or "What you said is racist". That is not saying they _are_ racist, but the action or statement (or whatever) would be racist or at least could be construed that way.



Goodness, the Right doesn't always mischaracterize the left, yeah?  It's funny that you fall back to absolute statements when it's your tribe that's challenged, but are more than happy to condemn the right on the same level of evidence.



> I mean, what are we supposed to do? _Not_ say that something is racist when we believe it is?



Nice defense.  "It's okay to say that the right is racist, if we think that it is.  It's never okay for the Right to say mean things about the left, though, even if they think it's true."  Do you NOT see the double standard you're peddling?



> Stepping back a bit I can see that this is something that has been bugging me for a bit and Morlock's over the top leftist claims pushed me over the edge. So I will back off a bit. It is something both sides should try to avoid if we are going to have any meaningful discussions.



I'd also suggest taking your blinders off and giving the behavior of your tribe a hard a look as you give the other side.  Morlock is also one person, not the Right, so, again, you're generalizing when it's convenient to your worldview while you personalize to yourself and your own sainted behavior when your tribe is similarly challenged.

Both sides misbehave about the same amount.  If you don't think so, it's because you're blinded to the behavior of your own tribe.  It's called cognitive bias, and you shouldn't worry much, it puts you  in the same category as most of the rest of the world.  I know I dread political discussions when my hyperactive conservative family is in town -- I find them even more obnoxious in their tribalism than I usually do even the rabid left.  The left at least is the opposition, and it's easy to accept bad behavior in the opposition.  It's more annoying facing the bad behavior on your own side.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Right. It's the Republicans who constantly trot out "gun control" (to infringe on and curtail 2nd Amendment Right), support "hate speech" laws, are currently locking down universities with PC, have shackled academia with PC speech and thought codes, tasked the IRS with harassing conservative organizations, etc.
> 
> ETA: what I find most ironic on the topic of segregation is that for all their high-minded talk and blue voting, it's the Yankee northeast that's the most segregated.




Regarding the IRS:

The IRS was NOT tasked with harassing conservative organizations.  The IRS is a massive organization headed by a person who's appointment requires the "advice and consent" of the senate and is divided into different departments that deal with different taxpayers: Large Business & International, Wage & Investment, Small Business & Self-Employed, Criminal Investigations, etc.

Government entities and exempt organizations have their own department.  If there was malfeasance, which has yet to be proven, then we are talking about an extremely small number of the people in the IRS who all work in the same department.  But sure, let's punitively cut the funding for the whole shabang by 20% (which is just what happened) because that can't hamper the IRS from doing the job the government wants and frankly NEEDS them to do.  It's not like the IRS isn't already so understaffed that they can't keep the regulations up to date with statutory changes, or so understaffed that you don't get an answer when you call their help hotline. . . wait, it's exactly like that.

Everybody hates the IRS because no one wants to pay taxes, but the IRS does FAR more than just act as a leg-breaker for the government.  In several cases, the government assigns the ability to make statutory tax law to the IRS because the subjects require technical knowledge that lawmakers just don't have.


Re civil rights:
Gun control is a broad term that popularly gets applied to any regulation of firearms, including common-sense measures like background checks and age restrictions.  Some of the proposed regulations are good ideas, some are not.  And, as mentioned previously, the right to own a firearm is a right that is potentially physically harmful to others.  You can shout insults at the top of your lungs, but your free speech is never going to be the direct cause of a person's death.

Furthermore, the right to free speech is intended to promote the debate of ideas.  It is not intended to encourage the dehumanization of people, which is the point of racial slurs and hate speech.

Also, republicans stand in the way of preventing housing, employment, wage, and marriage discrimination.  People can be legally fired or denied housing for being transgender, and republicans have been the ones to block the statutory acknowledgement of their civil rights, typically painting transgender persons as immoral perverts who want to use ladies' restrooms and women's showers for nefarious reasons.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> Unfortunately, the right, or at least its prominent representatives, also seem to try to deny people their civil rights more than the left.  And that's a rather ironic turn of events given that southern democrats were historically the ones opposed to integration of schools and the civil rights movement.



I know that's a common perception on the left, but it's an equally common perception on the right.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> And that's hypocrisy in not saying the same thing to Lord Twig.
> 
> This is a fun game!



Not really. I haven't read his posts. If you'd like, you can quote it, and I'll respond to it.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> I know that's a common perception on the left, but it's an equally common perception on the right.




Speaking as a centrist, the denial of rights that I see comes predominantly from the right.  Not entirely from the right (I do see some people on the left who want guns entirely banned instead of responsibly regulated), but predominantly from the right.

There's also the fact that the denial of rights that the right espouses often is more invasive and ruinous to people's personal lives by resulting in people being able to be denied housing, denied employment, denied the right to marry, transgender men being forced to risk harassment or physical assault for using a men's restroom while dressed as a woman, etc.

And then there's topics like equal pay for women.  Now, I've seen plenty of people say the wage gap isn't real.  Let's just assume that's true (in part because that's a whole other discussion).  If it is true, what harm is there in requiring equal pay for equal work regardless of gender under the law?  If the wage gap isn't real, then the private sector must already be giving equal pay for equal work, and there should be no opposition to making that a law.  Yet the right consistently opposes a gender and wages non-discrimination statute.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> Regarding the IRS:
> 
> The IRS was NOT tasked with harassing conservative organizations.  The IRS is a massive organization headed by a person who's appointment requires the "advice and consent" of the senate and is divided into different departments that deal with different taxpayers: Large Business & International, Wage & Investment, Small Business & Self-Employed, Criminal Investigations, etc.



That's a distinction without a difference.  The fact is that the IRS did harass conservative organizations.  Whether or not they were tasked to is hot air, they did. Their organizational culture encouraged such a thing to happen.  What I don't get is the lack of outrage from everyone for what is essentially an misbehavior police organization (the IRS has an armed enforcement wing, after all).  We get mad when the police misbehave by engaging in clearly discriminatory practices (and rightly so), but the entire IRS thing is brushed off by the left mostly because it only targeted the opposition, and all's fair in politics.


> Government entities and exempt organizations have their own department.  If there was malfeasance, which has yet to be proven, then we are talking about an extremely small number of the people in the IRS who all work in the same department.  But sure, let's punitively cut the funding for the whole shabang by 20% (which is just what happened) because that can't hamper the IRS from doing the job the government wants and frankly NEEDS them to do.  It's not like the IRS isn't already so understaffed that they can't keep the regulations up to date with statutory changes, or so understaffed that you don't get an answer when you call their help hotline. . . wait, it's exactly like that.



The IRS IG said it was malfeasance.  The AG declined to pursue charges.  That doesn't mean it didn't happen.  Congress reacted with the only stick they have:  money.  Was it a good stick?  Nope, but sometimes that happens.  



> Everybody hates the IRS because no one wants to pay taxes, but the IRS does FAR more than just act as a leg-breaker for the government.  In several cases, the government assigns the ability to make statutory tax law to the IRS because the subjects require technical knowledge that lawmakers just don't have.



Yeah, that may be changing.  There's a lot of movement about administrative law right now, and how what we're doing with it may actually be unconstitutional.  And that's not coming from right wing sources, that's coming out of mainstream law professors (which are mostly left of center).  Kinda turns out that the Constitution clearly says that it's Congress' job to create laws, and there's no Constitutional authority to delegate it.  Should be interesting to watch that and see where it ends up.  I reckon it'll end up with some restrictions on admin law, but not killing it.  After all, Congress isn't really interested in passing those kinds of laws, and the bureaucracy is too large to dismantle.



> Re civil rights:
> Gun control is a broad term that popularly gets applied to any regulation of firearms, including common-sense measures like background checks and age restrictions.  Some of the proposed regulations are good ideas, some are not.  And, as mentioned previously, the right to own a firearm is a right that is potentially physically harmful to others.  You can shout insults at the top of your lungs, but your free speech is never going to be the direct cause of a person's death.



You use of the words 'common sense' are a clear indicator that you're presenting your opinion as fact.  Restrictions on guns are a restriction of civil liberties.  You can argue that they're necessary or wise, but you can't argue that it's not restricting a civil liberty.



> Furthermore, the right to free speech is intended to promote the debate of ideas.  It is not intended to encourage the dehumanization of people, which is the point of racial slurs and hate speech.



BINGO!  You just hit most of the tropes on Popehat's "How To Spot And Critique Censorship Tropes In The Media's Coverage Of Free Speech Controversies" list!  

Free speech is not about the promotion or debate of ideas.  It's necessary to it, yes, but not about it.  It's about people not going to jail or facing government sanctions for what they say.  It doesn't have any proscriptions against hate speech or the dehumanization of people. If you wish to add it, you're restricting civil liberties in general, and free speech in specifics.

Man, I really don't think you could have made Morlock's point any more correct there.



> Also, republicans stand in the way of preventing housing, employment, wage, and marriage discrimination.  People can be legally fired or denied housing for being transgender, and republicans have been the ones to block the statutory acknowledgement of their civil rights, typically painting transgender persons as immoral perverts who want to use ladies' restrooms and women's showers for nefarious reasons.



Sorry, is this all about trans discrimination, or are there more types of discrimination you're including there.  If it's trans, please explain the violent rejection of trans rights from the feminist movement as something of the right?  It seems that anti-trans sentiment is pretty strong on both sides, so you really shouldn't throw stones.

But I always ask people rabidly in favor of trans rights how they feel about body integrity identity disorder (BIID)? I often find responses illustrative.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> But you're quoting Fox News, which many on the right dislike (like I do) as much as the left does for their overly sensationalized content.  MSNBC is worse, in that regard, and is often voted as the most politically slanted organization in many, many polls.




I can't say how people on the right view Fox, but it would be refreshing to hear that what you said about that subject is true.  Also, MSNBC is pretty bad.  It's sad that CNN is the best of the big three news outlets.

Question for news viewers: Has anyone tried Al Jazeera America?


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> Not really. I haven't read his posts. If you'd like, you can quote it, and I'll respond to it.



That sounds like a you and him problem, not a me and you problem.  


MechaPilot said:


> Speaking as a centrist, the denial of rights that I see comes predominantly from the right.  Not entirely from the right (I do see some people on the left who want guns entirely banned instead of responsibly regulated), but predominantly from the right.



I'll take your word that your a centrist.  Which republicans did you vote for last election?



> There's also the fact that the denial of rights that the right espouses often is more invasive and ruinous to people's personal lives by resulting in people being able to be denied housing, denied employment, denied the right to marry, transgender men being forced to risk harassment or physical assault for using a men's restroom while dressed as a woman, etc.



Yes, you said this before with the same lack of detail.
[/quote]
And then there's topics like equal pay for women.  Now, I've seen plenty of people say the wage gap isn't real.  Let's just assume that's true (in part because that's a whole other discussion).  If it is true, what harm is there in requiring equal pay for equal work regardless of gender under the law?  If the wage gap isn't real, then the private sector must already be giving equal pay for equal work, and there should be no opposition to making that a law.  Yet the right consistently opposes a gender and wages non-discrimination statute.[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry, but your argument is that if legislation is unnecessary to correct a non-existent problem, why shouldn't we pass the legislation to not-fix the non-problem?  Hopefully, a little reflection might make that clear.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> That sounds like a you and him problem, not a me and you problem.



He isn't the one crying about it. You are.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> He isn't the one crying about it. You are.




Naw, you misread.  I called you hypocritical.  That's not crying.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Naw, you misread.  I called you hypocritical.  That's not crying.



Seems you misread. I wasn't commenting on who you thought was hypocritical. I was pointing out you were crying about it for no real reason.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> Seems you misread. I wasn't commenting on who you thought was hypocritical. I was pointing out you were crying about it for no real reason.




You know what, you're absolutely right.  You've won the internet!


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> There's a lot of movement about administrative law right now, and how what we're doing with it may actually be unconstitutional.  And that's not coming from right wing sources, that's coming out of mainstream law professors (which are mostly left of center).  Kinda turns out that the Constitution clearly says that it's Congress' job to create laws, and there's no Constitutional authority to delegate it.  Should be interesting to watch that and see where it ends up.  I reckon it'll end up with some restrictions on admin law, but not killing it.  After all, Congress isn't really interested in passing those kinds of laws, and the bureaucracy is too large to dismantle.




Administrative law isn't going to change too much.  Representatives just don't have the depth and breadth of knowledge they need to craft statutes in highly technical arenas, especially partnership taxation, which is widely regarded as the most complex set of tax rules in the U.S. tax system.




Ovinomancer said:


> You use of the words 'common sense' are a clear indicator that you're presenting your opinion as fact.  Restrictions on guns are a restriction of civil liberties.  You can argue that they're necessary or wise, but you can't argue that it's not restricting a civil liberty.




If the right to bear arms is absolute and no common sense applies then people who are sent to prison for violent crimes have the right to bear arms in prison.  Somehow I don't think the founding fathers were that stupid.




Ovinomancer said:


> BINGO!  You just hit most of the tropes on Popehat's "How To Spot And Critique Censorship Tropes In The Media's Coverage Of Free Speech Controversies" list!
> 
> Free speech is not about the promotion or debate of ideas.  It's necessary to it, yes, but not about it.  It's about people not going to jail or facing government sanctions for what they say.  It doesn't have any proscriptions against hate speech or the dehumanization of people. If you wish to add it, you're restricting civil liberties in general, and free speech in specifics.
> 
> Man, I really don't think you could have made Morlock's point any more correct there.




So it should be entirely without consequences to shout fire in a crowded theater, to incite a riot, to slander someone personally and/or professionally, and to make false police reports?  After all, if you can't say whatever you want whenever you want without any consequences whatsoever it's not really free speech right?




Ovinomancer said:


> Sorry, is this all about trans discrimination, or are there more types of discrimination you're including there.  If it's trans, please explain the violent rejection of trans rights from the feminist movement as something of the right?  It seems that anti-trans sentiment is pretty strong on both sides, so you really shouldn't throw stones.
> 
> But I always ask people rabidly in favor of trans rights how they feel about body integrity identity disorder (BIID)? I often find responses illustrative.




No, it is not all about trans discrimination.  Trans discrimination is simply highly illustrative because of the breadth of that discrimination: housing, employment, restroom usage, etc.  There's also racial discrimination as seen in several voter suppression laws.  There's sexual orientation discrimination, though the Supreme Court somewhat recently took a nice step in removing some of that.  There's religious discrimination, with Trump wanting to screen potential entrants to the U.S. based on their religion as a recent example of proposed discriminatory policy.  And, I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg: as a white person I know that I haven't encountered most of the discrimination that's out there.




Ovinomancer said:


> But I always ask people rabidly in favor of trans rights how they feel about body integrity identity disorder (BIID)? I often find responses illustrative.




Never heard of it before.  After reading the Wikipedia entry about it, I can really only say that I don't know enough about the disorder and those who suffer from it to comment on it with any real insight.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> You know what, you're absolutely right.  You've won the internet!



Well, seems you've misread more than I thought. I'm not interested in your internet winning goals. 

In the end, my point about your anecdotal evidence being anecdotal still stands. You are welcome to call hypocrisy if it makes you feel better, but anecdotal evidence is still anecdotal evidence.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> I'll take your word that your a centrist.  Which republicans did you vote for last election?




None.  Republican candidates have been skewing too far from center in recent years, leaning far more to the extreme right than I'm comfortable with.  Some democrats have done the same (only leaning in the other direction), but most of them seem more moderate than their republican counterparts.  Meanwhile, republicans have taken the track that doubling and tripling down on what they were already doing will somehow lead to success.

I also doubt I will vote for any in the current campaign season.  Far too many of the republican candidates advocate extreme positions and/or violence against other countries.  ISIS is a threat, and we should support our allies, but I don't see a need to go to war again.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Jan 6, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> I also doubt I will vote for any in the current campaign season.  Far too many of the republican candidates advocate extreme positions and/or violence against other countries.  ISIS is a threat, and we should support our allies, but I don't see a need to go to war again.




I think people are worried about ISIS right now and that is why tough language gets a positive reaction but there really isn't any endurance left in the US for a protracted conflict in the Middle East (especially when it seems things never really get resolved there). I think if you start talking actual dollar amounts most Americans would prefer we spend that here on things like our crumbling infrastructure and helping to grow our economy.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 6, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> I can't say how people on the right view Fox, but it would be refreshing to hear that what you said about that subject is true.  Also, MSNBC is pretty bad.  It's sad that CNN is the best of the big three news outlets.
> 
> Question for news viewers: Has anyone tried Al Jazeera America?




yes. and it's by far the most objective news source I've watched


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> yes. and it's by far the most objective news source I've watched




Thank you for answering.  I don't get that channel, so I can't watch them the way I can CNN.  However, I have read an article or two on their site, and they both seemed reasonable and well-written.  That said, "an article or two" is hardly representative of their body of work, so again, thanks for offering me an additional opinion to consider.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 6, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> Two things I disagree with here.
> 
> 1. If religion was the primary reason, then it stands to reason that they would have always tried to bomb us since eternity.  And they haven't.  They were actually quite friendly to westerners for large periods of time---until something political happened.  Like us disposing the leadership of Iran to install a dictator who would give us the country's oil, leading to the revolution and installment of the Shah.




They taxed infidels and did other things to persuade them to convert.  It's the extremists who have turned violent and those are more prevalent now and have access to weapons.



> 2. You realize not all Muslims shoot and behead people, right?  Hardly any of them do, by %.  Most of the people we've killed in bombing and drone strikes were innocent civilians.  So I guess I'll repost this from my earlier post




It's a given that I'm talking about extremists.  I'm not going to repeat that when I post.

Our bad behavior doesn't excuse theirs or make their religious reactions political.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 6, 2016)

Umbran said:


> That's the bully's position - you should let me do what I want without objection, and we'll get along fine!




That's not what I'm saying.  Our bad behavior, and much of the bombs we drop was not bad behavior, does not excuse theirs.  Especially when the 10 up us and start beheading people on video. 



> Nobody said they were innocent.  But let us remember our history:  Some bad blood goes back to the Crusades (which were largely European aggression).




I agree.  



> Much of the modern collection of issues stem back to the displacing of Palestinians without their consent (effectively, again, Western aggression).




The Jerusalem is a Jewish city and the Jews had been displaced from there prior to being restored to their home after WWII.



> And when they try to work these things out among themselves in the time-honored form of small wars, we step in to protect our petroleum interests.  We topple their governments when we feel like, and then don't do a good job of setting them up to succeed afterwards.




Yes.  The U.S. is bad that way and I don't support how we acted.



> But *they* aren't innocent, and should stop shooting, and we'd play nice?  History doesn't really support that position.




I know.  I'm just saying that the current extremist movement (ISIS, Al Shabob (sp) and others) is religious first and foremost, and political second.


----------



## Cor Azer (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> But I always ask people rabidly in favor of trans rights how they feel about body integrity identity disorder (BIID)? I often find responses illustrative.




Illustrative how?

Because what you seem to be implying is that how someone feels about something that decades of research has shown to not be in any way a psychological disorder should have some sort of bearing on how they feel about a completely unrelated psychological disorder.


----------



## Joker (Jan 6, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Okay, I could buy that. It does agree with what I was saying.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




You sure you want to ask someone from a developed European country about how we do it?  We also have adult gun regulations to prevent the proliferation of firearms and flooding of the black market.  That's how it's done in a civilized country.


----------



## Janx (Jan 6, 2016)

Back to the original topic...

I notice today that my Google News feed is void of any entries about the Oregon situation.

Mayhap this topic has run its course and the feds will just let them sit there.  The media seems to be done with them.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 6, 2016)

Janx said:


> The media seems to be done with them.




North Korea's pretty much stolen their thunder today.


----------



## Lord Twig (Jan 6, 2016)

I think ignore and wait is the proper response at this point, but I also don't think they should just be able to go home. They should be arrested and charged.

Unarmed protesters are arrested all the time if they are doing something they shouldn't, like blocking roads or whatever. Usually they are just charged with a misdemeanor offence, but that's because they were never a threat to anybody, just a nuisance.

Likewise these guys aren't harming anyone, but they are being a nuisance and it is costing taxpayer dollars to deal with them. They shouldn't be able to just pack up and go home because they have guns. Quite the opposite really.


----------



## tuxgeo (Jan 6, 2016)

The Bundy militia occupying the federal building in Oregon have been seeking a meeting with the local community to find whether the citizens of Burns and the surrounding ranchers want the militia to be there. That meeting has not happened yet; and there's not much news until it does. I'm guessing that, since the militia were not invited there, they're probably not strongly wanted there; but for the time being, there's no news to report.

At the Bundy ranch in Nevada, those guys were defending their own ranch; but in Oregon, they're taking over federal property. It's not the same situation at all.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 6, 2016)

A few updates.

A guy who is in the circles of the Central Oregon militia posted a video (don't have the link handy, sorry) a couple days ago where he says he does not support this group because a) the local militia groups were never brought in to get their ideas, b) it was horribly planned, and c) Bundy's group sent out electronic flyers prior saying they would NOT do something like this, and they did, which makes them liars.

There have been children spotted there now, which I'm sure gives the feds reason to not do anything crazy.  How did they get there?  Why haven't the Feds shut down all traffic to there?

They were supposed to talk with CNN last night, but cancelled at the last minute when they found out the FBI ordered arrest warrants for them.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 6, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> Why haven't the Feds shut down all traffic to there?




The feds aren't talking much.  I would presume it is because these people have not, so far, been seen to be an actual threat to anybody, so whatever their technical infractions, it isn't worth escalating over.

Consider - if they just sit there, in the cold, and nobody pays any attention... well, that's an amazing deflation, now isn't it?  Go home, nobody cares.  

If they build a cordon around the site, they'll get extra demonstrators and reporters at that cordon.  It would increase their news exposure.  Who needs that?  Keep an eye on them to make sure they aren't hurting anyone, and see if they get bored and go home quietly.


----------



## Istbor (Jan 6, 2016)

Umbran said:


> The feds aren't talking much.  I would presume it is because these people have not, so far, been seen to be an actual threat to anybody, so whatever their technical infractions, it isn't worth escalating over.
> 
> Consider - if they just sit there, in the cold, and nobody pays any attention... well, that's an amazing deflation, now isn't it?  Go home, nobody cares.
> 
> If they build a cordon around the site, they'll get extra demonstrators and reporters at that cordon.  It would increase their news exposure.  Who needs that?  Keep an eye on them to make sure they aren't hurting anyone, and see if they get bored and go home quietly.




I would go home.  Sounds super lame up there. Not to mention it's Oregon. ;D


----------



## Umbran (Jan 6, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> The Jerusalem is a Jewish city and the Jews had been displaced from there prior to being restored to their home after WWII.




Histrionically, the land of Palestine has been held by, well, just about everybody:  Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, the Arab Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Mongols, Ottomans, the British, and modern Israelis and Palestinians.  If there's a place on the planet that could be said to not reallybelong to one people, it's Palestine.

But, let us take as granted that they had been displaced.  That displacement happened a long time ago.  We are then in "two wrongs don't make a right" territory - displacing modern residents to make up for a wrong of prior centuries isn't really just to the modern people who have made their lives there.  So, kinda naturally, they're cheesed off.



> I'm just saying that the current extremist movement (ISIS, Al Shabob (sp) and others) is religious first and foremost, and political second.




I think you are operating under the misapprehension that these things are cleanly separable.  Note that separation of politics from religion is, as far as history is concerned, a pretty modern concept. Even if we put it into a document in 1789, much of the rest of the world simply doesn't hold to the concept.  When you are talking about a religious state, there is no primary and secondary.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 6, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Histrionically, the land of Palestine has been held by, well, just about everybody:  Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, the Arab Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Mongols, Ottomans, the British, and modern Israelis and Palestinians.  If there's a place on the planet that could be said to not reallybelong to one people, it's Palestine..




yeah, that argument never made sense to me.  Palastine clearly has as much of, if not more claim to Jeruselum than the Jews do.  It was what?  Over 1000 years that the Palastinians lived there?  If you're gonna say the land should go back to the Jews, you also have to say that the US should give all of the land back to the Native Americans.  After all, that's MUCH more recent displacement than Israel.


----------



## Ryujin (Jan 6, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> There have been children spotted there now, which I'm sure gives the feds reason to not do anything crazy.




I think that those are more properly referred to as "shields."


----------



## Umbran (Jan 6, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Histrionically...




I must laugh at myself here.  I meant "historically".  Histrionically is a different animal.


----------



## Ryujin (Jan 6, 2016)

Umbran said:


> I must laugh at myself here.  I meant "historically".  Histrionically is a different animal.




When talking politics, either may be equally applicable.


----------



## Janx (Jan 6, 2016)

Lord Twig said:


> I think ignore and wait is the proper response at this point, but I also don't think they should just be able to go home. They should be arrested and charged.
> 
> Unarmed protesters are arrested all the time if they are doing something they shouldn't, like blocking roads or whatever. Usually they are just charged with a misdemeanor offence, but that's because they were never a threat to anybody, just a nuisance.
> 
> Likewise these guys aren't harming anyone, but they are being a nuisance and it is costing taxpayer dollars to deal with them. They shouldn't be able to just pack up and go home because they have guns. Quite the opposite really.




I think per your last statement we might be on the same page...

From a CHL training perspective, the moment you have a gun on your person, your nature as a threat to other people changes.  With a weapon concealed, you are obligated to not escalate a situation, etc, because otherwise, the other guy's lawyer will say you were seeking to be a Hero ala the George Zimmerman incident.

If you have a weapon visible, you are inherently affecting any interaction with another person.  That person is now keenly aware that you could kill them, and that puts them in a position of apprehension and fear.


I am a fan of licensed conceal carry and of killing bad guys if they attack you.

I am not a fan of open carry (though there's a few cases where it would be handy in hot Texas) because of the fear stance.  A lawyer could easily argue that I am intimidating somebody by displaying a weapon.  Given that TX law covers lawful use of Force, but not Deadly Force to include displaying a weapon to a trespasser, I conclude that showing a weapon (being armed like these guys), is bad.

Note: obviously laws differ in other states, but by illustrating how TX laws seem to view aspects of being armed, it at least demonstrates points at least one legal body considered.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> Administrative law isn't going to change too much.  Representatives just don't have the depth and breadth of knowledge they need to craft statutes in highly technical arenas, especially partnership taxation, which is widely regarded as the most complex set of tax rules in the U.S. tax system.



Doesn't matter one bit if it's unconstitutional.  Beside, what a great reason to simply the tax code.





> If the right to bear arms is absolute and no common sense applies then people who are sent to prison for violent crimes have the right to bear arms in prison.  Somehow I don't think the founding fathers were that stupid.



Nothing I said implied any of this.  Don't jump to conclusions.  But the restriction on inmates being armed is still a restriction of their civil liberties.  It's deemed necessary and proper, but it doesn't change that it's a restriction.  However, even with that said, we aren't talking about inmates with your ideas, are we?





> So it should be entirely without consequences to shout fire in a crowded theater, to incite a riot, to slander someone personally and/or professionally, and to make false police reports?  After all, if you can't say whatever you want whenever you want without any consequences whatsoever it's not really free speech right?



Huh, the "fire in a crowded theatre" trope.  You're batting 1000 on the censor trope watchlist!

The actual quote, from Justice Holmes in 1918, was used as justification for imprisoning people that questioned the draft during WWI under the Espionage Act.  It was a horrid justification and a bad ruling.  That was overturned in '68 during the Brandenburg trial, which now governs both your 'fire in a theater' and 'incite a riot' cases.  The speech must incite imminent lawless action to not be protected.  So you can actually tell people they should riot, and then they can actually riot, and you could be protected so long as you didn't tell them to riot immediately before they riot.  If you say, 'we should riot!' and two days later there's a riot, Brandenburg says you're protected.  So, in your first two cases, the answers are: fire in a theater -- most likely this is fine, it would be a rare situation where this was actionable; inciting a riot -- again, in most cases, unless you're in front of an angry mob and directing them to riot right now and they do, you're still safe.

Ain't free speech wonderful?  Well, no, I guess you don't think so.

As for slander, that's not criminally actionable, and it's pretty hard to slander someone.  Opinion is entirely protected, so I can say that I think you (a random you) are a cheat and a liar and do bad work, and that's protected even if I put it up on your website as a comment (or on Yelp, a great place for these cases).  Now, if I allege facts that are false, I'm in trouble.

Filing a false report also has the same issues -- so long as I don't file knowingly false facts, I'm good.  But, yeah, in that case, causing someone else to lose their civil liberties (by being arrested under false information) is the issue, not that the speech is inherently bad.




> No, it is not all about trans discrimination.  Trans discrimination is simply highly illustrative because of the breadth of that discrimination: housing, employment, restroom usage, etc.  There's also racial discrimination as seen in several voter suppression laws.  There's sexual orientation discrimination, though the Supreme Court somewhat recently took a nice step in removing some of that.  There's religious discrimination, with Trump wanting to screen potential entrants to the U.S. based on their religion as a recent example of proposed discriminatory policy.  And, I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg: as a white person I know that I haven't encountered most of the discrimination that's out there.



I'm not aware of any voter suppression laws.  Seems like a bad nomenclature to use.

But I saw what happened to Brendan Eich.  Those pesky right wingers! 



> Never heard of it before.  After reading the Wikipedia entry about it, I can really only say that I don't know enough about the disorder and those who suffer from it to comment on it with any real insight.



\
cool.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm not aware of any voter suppression laws.  Seems like a bad nomenclature to use.




Nobody is passing any laws and intentionally calling them "voter suppression laws" when they try to get them passed.

There are laws that have been passed, or proposed, that would have the effect of suppressing voting among some groups.  The most notable recent such cases I can think of were claimed to be voter identification laws, supposedly intended to eliminate voting fraud.  Not that the voting fraud was occurring at a rate such that any recent election would have been impacted, mind you.  And a couple of legislators have gotten caught on camera within memory, referring positively to the suppression of a minority groups votes as a desired effect.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 6, 2016)

And as I expected, the local Paiute tribe is decrying this occupation.

So not only are these idiots occupying land that no rancher has owned in 100 years, but they are damaging sacred native American relics as well.

At this point, they just need to turn the power off.  Pipes will freeze, there won't be any heat, and life will be pretty miserable.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Nobody is passing any laws and intentionally calling them "voter suppression laws" when they try to get them passed.
> 
> There are laws that have been passed, or proposed, that would have the effect of suppressing voting among some groups.  The most notable recent such cases I can think of were claimed to be voter identification laws, supposedly intended to eliminate voting fraud.  Not that the voting fraud was occurring at a rate such that any recent election would have been impacted, mind you.  And a couple of legislators have gotten caught on camera within memory, referring positively to the suppression of a minority groups votes as a desired effect.




Ah, so it's the opinion held that instituting voter ID, like Europe does, is intended to be voter suppression?  K.

SCOTUS disagrees, btw, and has allowed some voter ID laws to stand.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Beside, what a great reason to simply the tax code.




That really isn't going to happen, not to the degree that most people think it should.  Even if they cut the tax code down to just a flat tax on all income, it won't last.  In a year or two congress will decide or be successfully lobbied to encourage some sort of behavior whether it's purchasing new capital assets or attending college, and the whole thing will start again.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> You're batting 1000 on the censor trope watchlist!




I don't know or care what it is; you're just wasting virtual ink.




Ovinomancer said:


> The speech must incite imminent lawless action to not be protected.




So then we don't have free speech.  We have free speech with limitations.  Thank you for making my point for me.




Ovinomancer said:


> Ain't free speech wonderful?  Well, no, I guess you don't think so.




You guess wrong.




Ovinomancer said:


> As for slander, that's not criminally actionable, and it's pretty hard to slander someone.




It's not that hard to slander someone.  Especially in today's networked world.  If someone goes on social media and posts a picture of a person along with a name and a statement that that person has herpes, or is a rapist or child molester that sounds like it would take someone maybe five minutes to do and it would definitely be slander (assuming that it wasn't true).




Ovinomancer said:


> Now, if I allege facts that are false, I'm in trouble.





Ovinomancer said:


> Filing a false report also has the same issues -- so long as I don't file knowingly false facts, I'm good.




But what about your freedom to say things that are untrue whenever and wherever you want without legal repercussions?

OMG!!!

Speech isn't free!!!!


----------



## billd91 (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> SCOTUS disagrees, btw, and has allowed some voter ID laws to stand.




SCOTUS also gutted the Voting Rights Act despite evidence the areas covered by the increased scrutiny still generate proportionally more problems than the rest of the country. So it's not like the SCOTUS doesn't make mistakes with respect to voting rights.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

billd91 said:


> SCOTUS also gutted the Voting Rights Act despite evidence the areas covered by the increased scrutiny still generate proportionally more problems than the rest of the country. So it's not like the SCOTUS doesn't make mistakes with respect to voting rights.




That is very true.  After all, the SCOTUS is comprised of people, and people are flawed and imperfect.  Fortunately, as a panel they usually make well-reasoned and well-informed decisions, but even that can't prevent them from making the occasional boner.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> I don't know or care what it is; you're just wasting virtual ink.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




 No one ever said that there aren't some limitations on free speech, but that you wish to add more limitations.  Your entire post is nothing but a false equivocation. You're implying that because free speech, as a right, has limited, then it's entirely open to more limitations.  This is the censor's shtick.  It's a way to implant the idea that since you don't have an absolute right to free speech, completely unrestricted, that adding more restrictions doesn't change anything and/or is a good thing.  After all, if we restrict these things, the why not go further and tackle those things that really annoy me, sorry, us, right?

But the fact is that the 1st is very, very narrowly restricted.  The restrictions that exist all pass strict scrutiny, which your preferred choice of removing offensiveness does not.  You're making a false rhetorical argument to try to make it seem like you're not an outright censor, trying to make other people stop saying things you don't like, and that's okay because there are some limitations on free speech so there should be more (specifically, the ones you want).  Such behavior ignores, of course, the fact that if such things are allowed, then the other side gets to define what's offensive when they get into power and you're suddenly in a world where you cannot speak your mind without fines or jailtime, and they don't even have to pass a new law, just redefine a few terms or add some.

I'd feel sorry for people that feel the need to censor others if they were so stupidly dangerous to a functioning democracy.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

billd91 said:


> SCOTUS also gutted the Voting Rights Act despite evidence the areas covered by the increased scrutiny still generate proportionally more problems than the rest of the country. So it's not like the SCOTUS doesn't make mistakes with respect to voting rights.




You assert they made a wrong decision.  Can you explain what decision they made and why?

Because they didn't remove any protections for people's civil rights.  They removed the requirement for prior approval by the Federal government to enact state laws.  Something that was questionably Constitutional to begin with.  If a state passed a bad law, the remedies still exist.

Arguments for prior restraint based on nothing more than 'they might misbehave, after all, they've done it before' are poor arguments.  To be completely open, I apply that to the sex offender registry, which is a tragedy of a law.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> Ah, so it's the opinion held that instituting voter ID, like Europe does, is intended to be voter suppression?




As I already noted (and you seem to have ignored) it was stated as an intent by some of the lawmakers voting for it.  So, not so much "opinion held", thank you.



> SCOTUS disagrees, btw, and has allowed some voter ID laws to stand.




And in other cases (the Pennsylvania 2012 voter ID law, for example), the courts have struck them down.  The Pennsylvania case didn't make it to the SCOTUS, as the Governor of Pennsylvania chose not to challenge the lower court's ruling.  Perhaps because the Gov either realized he would lose the case (because there was no statistically relevant evidence of fraud in the first place to justify it) or because the relevance to the 2012 election had already gone by.

Specifically, voter ID laws suppress voting by groups who don't have easy access to the resources required to get the IDs.  When, for example, the State decides to require an ID available only thorugh their DMVs, and they *close* the DMVs in a majority of minority-population (and by statistical correlation, low-income) districts, those districts are suppressed.  The people can't as easily take time off work for a trip to the DMV, and may not own cars to drive themselves to the DMV in another district.  

This all doubly so when the law is passed, "by coincidence", very close to election time.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> No one ever said that there aren't some limitations on free speech, but that you wish to add more limitations.




It's not necessarily that I wish to add more limitations.  Seriously, can you point to a single place where I said "saying X should be illegal," because although I did voice my distaste for racial slurs and my belief that they do absolutely nothing to further any type of constructive discourse I don't believe I've said that they should be made illegal.  However, I do think that in all things we should occasionally take the time to ask ourselves and seriously consider whether or not we should simply be staying the course.





Ovinomancer said:


> But the fact is that the 1st is very, very narrowly restricted.




While that's good it doesn't mean that some additional restrictions may not be warranted at some point.  That's why we need the periodic evaluation that I mentioned above.


Also, it bears mentioning that being "offensive" is already illegal in some regards.  Recall Carlin's seven words you can't say on TV.  If you drop an MF in primetime TV on some channels you can expect a visit from the FCC who will hand you a hefty fine.  Like all things, that bears re-evaluating periodically.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jan 6, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> It's not necessarily that I wish to add more limitations.  Seriously, can you point to a single place where I said "saying X should be illegal," because although I did voice my distaste for racial slurs and my belief that they do absolutely nothing to further any type of constructive discourse I don't believe I've said that they should be made illegal.  However, I do think that in all things we should occasionally take the time to ask ourselves and seriously consider whether or not we should simply be staying the course.



To whit, you said:


> Furthermore, the right to free speech is intended to promote the debate of ideas. It is not intended to encourage the dehumanization of people, which is the point of racial slurs and hate speech.



While engaged in replying to how you view civil liberties.  That's a clear statement that you do not think the 1st Amendment covers the dehumanization of people or racial slurs and hate speech.  It's a little late to start backing down and saying 'but I never said it should be illegal' when you said was that you didn't think such things should be protected by law.  If you think they shouldn't be illegal and that they shouldn't be protected under law, I'm extremely unclear as to what's left.  Could you illuminate the middle ground there?







> While that's good it doesn't mean that some additional restrictions may not be warranted at some point.  That's why we need the periodic evaluation that I mentioned above.



You were born in the wrong time.  Brandeis and you would be bosom buddies.  By the by, Brandeis was on the same court as the 'fire in a crowded theater' Holmes mentioned earlier, and joined Holmes in the unanimous decision that quote is part of to incarcerate some guys that said out loud that the draft was a bad thing.  You see, it was considered very unpopular at the time, even offensive, to question the war effort in Europe, so they took a periodic evaluation, applied the current beliefs, and whammo, questioning the draft is jailable.   Brandeis in particular said almost exactly what you just said -- that rights should be reconsidered at times to adjust for current society.  You're in good company.



> Also, it bears mentioning that being "offensive" is already illegal in some regards.  Recall Carlin's seven words you can't say on TV.  If you drop an MF in primetime TV on some channels you can expect a visit from the FCC who will hand you a hefty fine.  Like all things, that bears re-evaluating periodically.



You can say those words on TV, you can't say them over government owed and licensed broadcast frequencies.  You're confusing the government placing restrictions on the use of it's property with free speech.  The government has some limited rights to curtail speech in some ways when it's done with government held assets.  Much like it was recently determined that Texas didn't have to create a Confederate flag license plate, despite the requisite forms and money being provided, because speech on licence plates can be inferred to be government approved and Texas is under no obligation to approve of speech.  However, in a similar kind of case, New York got slapped hard for restricting the advertising on the sides of busses by content, where the ruling is that since it's obvious it's advertising space, not government speech, they cannot restrict speech there based on content.  They can restrict things like profanity, which is content neutral (ie, it doesn't matter what you're saying, you can't use profanity to say it, so the underlying content isn't evaluated), which is much the same jurispurdence that allows the US to restrict speech on licensed broadcast frequencies based on content-neutral rules like no profanity.

Switch to a cable channel and note that profanity is quite acceptable there.  They are leasing that from the government, so the government can't restrict their speech.

It would be interesting if you'd stop and look at what you're going to say before you let go with another censorious statement unintentionally.  I say unintentionally because I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you just aren't aware of these things.


----------



## Homicidal_Squirrel (Jan 6, 2016)

"I am not anti-government... I like taking their money."


----------



## billd91 (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> You assert they made a wrong decision.  Can you explain what decision they made and why?
> 
> Because they didn't remove any protections for people's civil rights.  They removed the requirement for prior approval by the Federal government to enact state laws.  Something that was questionably Constitutional to begin with.  If a state passed a bad law, the remedies still exist.
> 
> Arguments for prior restraint based on nothing more than 'they might misbehave, after all, they've done it before' are poor arguments.  To be completely open, I apply that to the sex offender registry, which is a tragedy of a law.




They didn't even do that, really, considering that preclearance had already been help up *as* constitutional *three* times (1966, 1980, 1999). They removed the specific set of areas covered by preclearance because it was based on a 40 year old formula, which basically rendered the preclearance impotent and, predictably, in a state that would never be addressed with GOP control of the legislature. Suddenly, Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina all passed laws that had all previously been denied preclearance. Hmmm... I guess maybe past behavior actually *is* a predictor of future behavior.

Moreover, they did this ignoring the thousands of pages of documents Congress generated as part of the reauthorization of the supposedly irrelevant 40 year old formula that showed a higher rate of issues being blocked by the Department of Justice in the most recent period since the last reauthorization than the preceding one - suggesting the problem was getting worse, not better (and this was blockages by the DOJ under GOP administrations for 16 of the 24 years so you can't even blame the Democrats for it). And on top of that, Congress also found that the area covered by the preclearance formula, over the last reauthorization period, generated complaints covered by the rest of the VRA's provisions at 4x the rate of the rest of the United States.

The majority, in asserting that the data used for formula were outdated, *ignored* Congressional evidence that it was not.


----------



## MechaPilot (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> To whit, you said. . .




I know what I said.  I stand by what I said.  I believe that free speech was intended to promote the discourse of ideas, and I do not believe that free speech was intended to encourage the dehumanization of people.  Free speech as it exists today allows for both.  Should that be changed?  That's a question worth asking regardless of what answer one comes up with, because the evaluation itself has merit.




Ovinomancer said:


> You were born in the wrong time.  Brandeis and you would be bosom buddies.  By the by, Brandeis was on the same court as the 'fire in a crowded theater' Holmes mentioned earlier, and joined Holmes in the unanimous decision that quote is part of to incarcerate some guys that said out loud that the draft was a bad thing.  You see, it was considered very unpopular at the time, even offensive, to question the war effort in Europe, so they took a periodic evaluation, applied the current beliefs, and whammo, questioning the draft is jailable.   Brandeis in particular said almost exactly what you just said -- that rights should be reconsidered at times to adjust for current society.  You're in good company.




I don't know Brandeis, and I've never read a biography of the man.  As for the notion that he and I would have been "bosom buddies," I find that unlikely.  There are people who I entirely can't stand who agree with me about individual topics.

It's also worth pointing out that evaluation of the status quo is also what led to the repeal of prohibition.  Evaluation is good.  It teaches you what works, what doesn't, what could be improved, and what should be discarded.  So it would seem that I am in the company of Socrates, to whom the saying "the unexamined life is not worth living" is attributed.


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## Lord Twig (Jan 6, 2016)

Ovinomancer said:


> To whit, you said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I think I am finally figuring out what Ovinomancer is doing. To him saying "the right to free speech is intended to promote the debate of ideas. It is not intended to encourage the dehumanization of people, which is the point of racial slurs and hate speech." Is exactly the same as saying that language that dehumanization of people should be illegal. Which is not what you said at all.

Which is exactly what I pointed out as a flaw of the Right in the first place.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 6, 2016)

Homicidal_Squirrel said:


> "I am not anti-government... I like taking their money."




He is against the government redistributing wealth only when black people are at the receiving end. Classic conservatism.


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## Lord Twig (Jan 6, 2016)

goldomark said:


> He is against the government redistributing wealth only when black people are at the receiving end. Classic conservatism.




I think this goes too far. I would be willing to bet that some (most?) of them would be happy to give land back to a black rancher that owned some of the property 100 years ago. That fact that there probably aren't any is besides the point.

Also they don't seem too keen to give the land back to the Native Americans.

But I'm going to be generous and say that both cases are because they are self-centered and narrow-minded and haven't taken the time to actually think about the various intricacies of historical politics that led up to the Federal Gov't owning that land.

They got the idea that the Feds stole it from Ranchers and haven't bothered to actually question whether that belief is actually true or not. Or even if it is, whether there might be some other injustice that would take precedent. Or if maybe the better action would have been to realize that the past is the past and if they really think it is an injustice then they should work to make sure it doesn't happen again in the future.


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## Istbor (Jan 6, 2016)

goldomark said:


> He is against the government redistributing wealth only when black people are at the receiving end. Classic conservatism.




He might be. I don't know his stance on that, but if we can take what was said in this article as his word, then he is against the Feds from picking on the little guys.  Saying it is their job to deal with the world and not with local issues, politics, and general goings on. Or basically that the Federal government are out to get him and those like him or generally everyone. 

I cannot 100% dismiss what he is thinking but I would certainly categorize him into a more extreme group than most people who may feel that way. 

Whenever I think the Government is out to get me, I too generally occupy a building and refuse to leave for no real reason.   I mean what are they even DOING at this point?  Part of me feels that it is going to continue only to save face.  No one has come out to say they want them there.  Not locally, not nationally, and certainly not the individuals who sparked this whole thing.


----------



## Kramodlog (Jan 6, 2016)

Lord Twig said:


> But I'm going to be generous and say that both cases are because they are self-centered and narrow-minded.




I agree with this. I would summerize it this way: "Me! Now!". There has been so many politicians and other authority figures who have pandered to those feelings under the guise of "liberty", that having the needs of a child is considered the norm and some people think it is acceptable to kill and die for it. Worrisome.


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## Maxperson (Jan 6, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Histrionically, the land of Palestine has been held by, well, just about everybody:  Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, the Arab Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Mongols, Ottomans, the British, and modern Israelis and Palestinians.  If there's a place on the planet that could be said to not reallybelong to one people, it's Palestine.
> 
> But, let us take as granted that they had been displaced.  That displacement happened a long time ago.  We are then in "two wrongs don't make a right" territory - displacing modern residents to make up for a wrong of prior centuries isn't really just to the modern people who have made their lives there.  So, kinda naturally, they're cheesed off.




I can understand them being upset.  I can understand the Jews being upset.  It's too bad they just can't share and get along.  



> I think you are operating under the misapprehension that these things are cleanly separable.  Note that separation of politics from religion is, as far as history is concerned, a pretty modern concept. Even if we put it into a document in 1789, much of the rest of the world simply doesn't hold to the concept.  When you are talking about a religious state, there is no primary and secondary.




I look at the primal cause.  Wanting an Islamic state is founded first and foremost in religion.  Yes, religion and politics are tied together pretty securely, but you can still see which precedes which in most cases.  In the U.S., it's religion being added to government for the religious folks who want religion to be a part of the government.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 6, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Nobody is passing any laws and intentionally calling them "voter suppression laws" when they try to get them passed.
> 
> There are laws that have been passed, or proposed, that would have the effect of suppressing voting among some groups.  The most notable recent such cases I can think of were claimed to be voter identification laws, supposedly intended to eliminate voting fraud.  Not that the voting fraud was occurring at a rate such that any recent election would have been impacted, mind you.  And a couple of legislators have gotten caught on camera within memory, referring positively to the suppression of a minority groups votes as a desired effect.




Small potatoes.  The electoral college does such a tremendous job at suppressing votes that it dwarfs the very small number of people who would lose votes over these laws.  Every Republican in California has his vote suppressed during presidential elections.  Ever Democrat in Texas is likewise disenfranchised by the electoral college.

If you're really worried about people losing votes, that's the place to start.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 6, 2016)

MechaPilot said:


> That is very true.  After all, the SCOTUS is comprised of people, and people are flawed and imperfect.  Fortunately, as a panel they usually make well-reasoned and well-informed decisions, but even that can't prevent them from making the occasional boner.




Yeah, and allowing Obama's fine for no health insurance was one of them.  With that ruling, the government literally has the power to tell me that I have to buy 10 pairs of fruit of the loom underwear a month or face a tax.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 7, 2016)

Istbor said:


> Saying it is their job to deal with the world and not with local issues, politics, and general goings on.




If that is his stance (and I know our understanding is incomplete) then he's missing a very basic point:  Sometimes (probably often), dealing with the world has local impact.


----------



## billd91 (Jan 7, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Small potatoes.  The electoral college does such a tremendous job at suppressing votes that it dwarfs the very small number of people who would lose votes over these laws.  Every Republican in California has his vote suppressed during presidential elections.  Ever Democrat in Texas is likewise disenfranchised by the electoral college.
> 
> If you're really worried about people losing votes, that's the place to start.




I agree the electoral college should go, but it does have an interesting effect of actually raising the power of individual voters in competitive states. There were a pair of mathematicians who calculated the power indices of voters and showed an individual vote is more powerful thanks to the electoral college than it would be in a nation-wide presidential race.

But even the electoral college doesn't suppress votes. Voters still get to cast them and have them counted. That CA hasn't voted GOP for president since 1984 doesn't mean it can't be competitive. Republican governors have carried the state since then and if they can, surely a Republican presidential candidate could too. Or maybe they could if they didn't try to pander so much to some of their Bible Belt activists that they become unpalatable in CA.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 7, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Every Republican in California has his vote suppressed during presidential elections.  Ever Democrat in Texas is likewise disenfranchised by the electoral college.
> 
> If you're really worried about people losing votes, that's the place to start.




Well, the Electoral College applies only to the offices of the President and VP. The suppression measures under discussion apply to *all* elections, all levels, and there's strong argument that all the other levels are far more important in the long run.  

The electoral college system has its flaws, and I'm not in principle against replacing it with something else.  However, the way we collectively form political opinions these days sometimes makes me wonder if the Founding Fathers were correct, that we need some protection against certain forms of whim of the electorate.


----------



## Maxperson (Jan 7, 2016)

billd91 said:


> I agree the electoral college should go, but it does have an interesting effect of actually raising the power of individual voters in competitive states. There were a pair of mathematicians who calculated the power indices of voters and showed an individual vote is more powerful thanks to the electoral college than it would be in a nation-wide presidential race.
> 
> But even the electoral college doesn't suppress votes. Voters still get to cast them and have them counted. That CA hasn't voted GOP for president since 1984 doesn't mean it can't be competitive. Republican governors have carried the state since then and if they can, surely a Republican presidential candidate could too. Or maybe they could if they didn't try to pander so much to some of their Bible Belt activists that they become unpalatable in CA.




The votes are counted as they are thrown in the trash as worthless.  It doesn't matter which party wins the state.  The votes of the other party are automatically tossed away as garbage, holding no weight whatsoever.


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## Maxperson (Jan 7, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Well, the Electoral College applies only to the offices of the President and VP. The suppression measures under discussion apply to *all* elections, all levels, and there's strong argument that all the other levels are far more important in the long run.
> 
> The electoral college system has its flaws, and I'm not in principle against replacing it with something else.  However, the way we collectively form political opinions these days sometimes makes me wonder if the Founding Fathers were correct, that we need some protection against certain forms of whim of the electorate.




It's not really protection, though.  Only rarely is the one elected as President not the winner of the popular vote.  The one time it has happened in modern times didn't protect anyone.  Gore may not have been the best for the job, but he couldn't have been any worse than Bush or Obama.  It may have started out as protection, during a time when people really couldn't find out who was who and what they stood for, but that hasn't been the case for decades.

Edit: I forgot to respond to your first paragraph.

While I agree that state elections are more important than the election of the President, the numbers of people who are suppressed by these state laws are small.  States charge a small handful of dollars or give I.D. cards free to poor people.  If they really want an I.D., it's easy for them to get one.


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## Valador (Jan 7, 2016)

More of these race baiting discussions... How about we do this. You poor mistreated souls just tell me how much of my hard earned money as a donation would ease the massive pain and suffering you're obviously in thanks to the man holding you down... *insert eyeroll*

This is sarcasm by the way... Please don't ask me for money, go for work it, thanks.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 7, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> While I agree that state elections are more important than the election of the President, the numbers of people who are suppressed by these state laws are small.




To quote the New York Times, about the PA voter ID law mentioned above:

_"The judge, Bernard L. McGinley of Commonwealth Court, ruled that the law hampered the ability of *hundreds of thousands* of Pennsylvanians to cast their ballots, with the burden falling most heavily on elderly, disabled and low-income residents, and that the state’s reason for the law — that it was needed to combat voter fraud — was not supported by the facts."_

(emphasis mine)

Now, in the presidential campaign, we could argue that hundreds of thousands do not matter.  They certainly do matter for the US Congressional elections in the State.  They mater for State-level representation as well.



> . States charge a small handful of dollars or give I.D. cards free to poor people.  If they really want an I.D., it's easy for them to get one




Oh, about that:

_"In addition, Judge McGinley ruled, the state’s $5 million campaign to explain the law had been full of misinformation that has never been corrected. He also said that the free IDs that were supposed to be made available to those without driver’s licenses or other approved photo identification were difficult and sometimes impossible to obtain."_

So, really, not so much easy. 

It would be easy to get a card if you are in good health, have a car, and have a job in which taking a few hours off to go to the DMV to get an ID isn't a big deal.  If you are in this state of being, you have a certain amount of privilege that you should be happy you have.  If you have that privilege, you can afford to give a little leeway for others, who have less advantage than you.  

Especially when there was no notable voter fraud to prevent.  This was legislation that, supposedly, was designed to fix a problem that could not be demonstrated as actually existing!

I would imagine a conservative should be *happy* that entirely unnecessary legislation that impinged on the freedom of law abiding American citizens would be shot down!


----------



## tuxgeo (Jan 7, 2016)

And, getting back to the occupation at the Wildlife Refuge again for a moment: 

Burns, Oregon (CNN) -- 
The leaders of the Burns Paiute tribe have a message for the men and women who have taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge outside Burns, Oregon: "Go home. We don't want you here."

OK, so that's at least _one_ group of local residents who don't want the Bundy militia to do what they're doing, where they're doing it. . . . 

One of the Paiutes was shown in a video saying something to the effect that the Bundys want the government to give the land back to its rightful owners, and she was quipping that she was busy writing an adquate acceptance letter. (_Tongue firmly in cheek_, I suspect.)


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## Maxperson (Jan 7, 2016)

Umbran said:


> _"The judge, Bernard L. McGinley of Commonwealth Court, ruled that the law hampered the ability of *hundreds of thousands* of Pennsylvanians to cast their ballots, with the burden falling most heavily on elderly, disabled and low-income residents, and that the state’s reason for the law — that it was needed to combat voter fraud — was not supported by the facts."_




Given the prevalence of bench legislation in this country, I'm not going to just take a judge's word on that.



> _"In addition, Judge McGinley ruled, the state’s $5 million campaign to explain the law had been full of misinformation that has never been corrected. He also said that the free IDs that were supposed to be made available to those without driver’s licenses or other approved photo identification were difficult and sometimes impossible to obtain."_




Then he should have required corrections be made.



> It would be easy to get a card if you are in good health, have a car, and have a job in which taking a few hours off to go to the DMV to get an ID isn't a big deal.




If they have trouble taking a few hours to get an I.D., they aren't going to be in any shape to go vote, either.  If you can do one, you can do the other.



> If you are in this state of being, you have a certain amount of privilege that you should be happy you have.  If you have that privilege, you can afford to give a little leeway for others, who have less advantage than you.




I've been poor.  I didn't have a car.  I didn't have a job that gave me vacation time.  I still managed to get an ID.  



> Especially when there was no notable voter fraud to prevent.  This was legislation that, supposedly, was designed to fix a problem that could not be demonstrated as actually existing!




This is true.  Voter fraud, while not non-existent, is nearly so.


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 7, 2016)

Valador said:


> More of these race baiting discussions... How about we do this. You poor mistreated souls just tell me how much of my hard earned money as a donation would ease the massive pain and suffering you're obviously in thanks to the man holding you down... *insert eyeroll*
> 
> This is sarcasm by the way... Please don't ask me for money, go for work it, thanks.




Wait, are you saying that the only reason people are victims of disparate treatment is not based on their ethnicity/race/religion but because they're too lazy to work?  or that people who are claiming to be victims of disparate treatment, aren't, and that they just want money?  Or both?



Maxperson said:


> The votes are counted as they are thrown in the trash as worthless.  It doesn't matter which party wins the state.  The votes of the other party are automatically tossed away as garbage, holding no weight whatsoever.




Just because "your side" didn't win an election, doesn't mean that your votes are worthless and garbage.  They also drive future behavior and strategy 



tuxgeo said:


> And, getting back to the occupation at the Wildlife Refuge again for a moment:
> 
> Burns, Oregon (CNN) --
> The leaders of the Burns Paiute tribe have a message for the men and women who have taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge outside Burns, Oregon: "Go home. We don't want you here."
> ...




In the article I posted yesterday from the Paiute tribe, they basically said, "We made a treaty 150 years ago agreeing that the government would take care of this sacred land.  The militia are damaging sacred relics, so the government needs to keep its promise and take care of the area.  (implying, get rid of these militia as soon as possible).


----------



## Mallus (Jan 7, 2016)

Valador said:


> You poor mistreated souls just tell me how much of my hard earned money as a donation would ease the massive pain and suffering you're obviously in thanks to the man holding you down... *insert eyeroll*
> 
> This is sarcasm by the way... Please don't ask me for money, go for work it, thanks.



Who are you addressing here? Everyone in this thread who is non-white? Everyone with politics to the left of yours?

Speaking as someone who qualifies on both counts, all I can say is: keep your money! I don't need it. My family's doing pretty well (and not because of government handouts). So no worries! 

However, seeing as you're in Texas, I do have a favor to ask. Could you do something about the elected officials responsible for choosing those awful public school textbooks? You know, the history books that refer to the African slaves as "guest workers". And the science texts with Moses riding around on a dinosaur. These have have an influence on the national level. A bad one, if you're a fan of history & science. 

(this might a little sarcastic, but, unfortunately, not entirely inaccurate)

Also, feel free to ask for some FEMA money if you need it. Say the next time a large swath of Texas catches on fire. I don't mind if my tax money goes to help you guys out. We're all Americans. I'm happy to help. 

(sarcasm, too, but also sincere)


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 7, 2016)

Mallus said:


> Also, feel free to ask for some FEMA money if you need it. Say the next time a large swath of Texas catches on fire. I don't mind if my tax money goes to help you guys out. We're all Americans. I'm happy to help.
> 
> (sarcasm, too, but also sincere)




I'm being overly pedantic, but it would be floods, not fires.  Which has already hit Texas hard, and will really bad in a couple months with the worst La Nina in recorded history.

But yeah, it struck me pretty odd to see Texas politicans say, "Jade Helm!   Get the feds out of our state!" while literally at the same time saying, "Where is our FEMA support!"


----------



## Janx (Jan 7, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> I'm being overly pedantic, but it would be floods, not fires.  Which has already hit Texas hard, and will really bad in a couple months with the worst La Nina in recorded history.
> 
> But yeah, it struck me pretty odd to see Texas politicans say, "Jade Helm!   Get the feds out of our state!" while literally at the same time saying, "Where is our FEMA support!"




it varies.  it was fires before, due to the several years of drought.  this year, TX seems to have caught back up and now has an excess of water (aka flooding).  Always with extremes, Texas is.


----------



## tomBitonti (Jan 7, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Yeah, and allowing Obama's fine for no health insurance was one of them.  With that ruling, the government literally has the power to tell me that I have to buy 10 pairs of fruit of the loom underwear a month or face a tax.




Folks pay for a lot of stuff at the government's insistence.  Build a house, pay for inspections and smoke detectors.  Drive a car, and pay for insurance.  Buy a blank CD, pay the recording industry piracy surcharge.

There are differences which are worth considering.  Health insurance costs a lot more than smoke detectors.  If I live in a tent I can probably avoid getting a smoke detector for it.  I can't avoid paying something for health insurance, either to buy it, or to pay the fine.  Although, I do have a choice of how much to get.

An alternative would be regional surcharges: Live in a city, and be forced to pay a surcharge to pay for emergency care insurance.

Thx!

TomB


----------



## Morlock (Jan 7, 2016)

> Gun control is a broad term that popularly gets applied to any regulation of firearms, including common-sense measures like background checks and age restrictions. Some of the proposed regulations are good ideas, some are not. And, as mentioned previously, the right to own a firearm is a right that is potentially physically harmful to others. You can shout insults at the top of your lungs, but your free speech is never going to be the direct cause of a person's death.




Freedom in general is potentially physically harmful to others. Even free speech - surely you've heard of ye olde "shouting fire in a crowded theatre," one man passing a kill order on to another via spoken word, stirring up a lynch mob, etc.



> So then we don't have free speech. We have free speech with limitations. Thank you for making my point for me.




Doesn't amount to the camel's nose in the tent that you'd prefer, though. Legitimate curbs on free speech amount to charging people with crimes of speech (see preceding), which is equivalent to charging people for murder when they unlawfully use a firearm to kill someone. "Common sense gun control" amounts to muzzling people _before_ they've had a chance to commit a crime via speech.



> Furthermore, the right to free speech is intended to promote the debate of ideas. It is not intended to encourage the dehumanization of people, which is the point of racial slurs and hate speech.




And thank Heaven, here are the lefties to define the differences for us. I feel safer already.



> Also, republicans stand in the way of preventing housing, employment, wage, and marriage discrimination.




No, they don't. E.g:

republicans passed the civil rights act

"Marriage discrimination" is a misnomer. Homosexuals have always had equal marriage rights. They never wanted equal marriage rights, they wanted to redefine marriage to suit them. America as a whole rejected "homosexual marriage" over and over, until the leftists managed to go over their heads and cheat it in via the courts.

Really, I think all of the so-called "anti-discrimination" laws need to go. "Anti-freedom laws" or "anti-property-rights laws" would be a more appropriate label. It's not the gov't's business who private citizens hire and fire, rent or sell to, bake cakes for (leftists should be ashamed for breaking this man over what kind of cake he was willing to bake, but the leftist mob has diminished capacity for shame), etc. If people want to forego perfectly good money out of prejudice, that's their business.



> People can be legally fired or denied housing for being transgender, and republicans have been the ones to block the statutory acknowledgement of their civil rights, typically painting transgender persons as immoral perverts who want to use ladies' restrooms and women's showers for nefarious reasons.




They can be fired for being Christians, Republicans, Democrats, etc., too. This is what leftists are reduced to, these days: acting as if the sky is falling over an infinitesimally small fraction of the population. It's kind of pathetic.



> If the right to bear arms is absolute and no common sense applies then people who are sent to prison for violent crimes have the right to bear arms in prison. Somehow I don't think the founding fathers were that stupid.




Restricting criminals' right to bear arms, at least while in custody, is okay by me. What with due process, and all.



> None. Republican candidates have been skewing too far from center in recent years, leaning far more to the extreme right than I'm comfortable with.




Exhibit A that far leftists think of themselves as centrists, or at least, like to claim to be. The Republican party is "extreme right"? Uhm, no.



> You sure you want to ask someone from a developed European country about how we do it? We also have adult gun regulations to prevent the proliferation of firearms and flooding of the black market. That's how it's done in a civilized country.




That was my point exactly; American leftists are always going on about how we need gun control because that's how they do it in Europe, but you never hear them champion voter ID, which is how they do it in Europe. Ergo, American leftists don't really care how it's done in Europe.



> Back to the original topic...
> 
> I notice today that my Google News feed is void of any entries about the Oregon situation.
> 
> Mayhap this topic has run its course and the feds will just let them sit there. The media seems to be done with them.




Like I said:

After Ruby Ridge and Waco, authorities keep a low profile in Oregon


----------



## Morlock (Jan 7, 2016)

> Furthermore, the right to free speech is intended to promote the debate of ideas. It is not intended to encourage the dehumanization of people, which is the point of racial slurs and hate speech.




Like how academia in general, and the social "sciences" in particular, are now pretty much agreed that the white man is the villain of history? That kind of dehumanization? How the establishment blames all of blacks' problems on white "racism"? That kind of dehumanization?

Magic 8 ball says "no."


----------



## Sacrosanct (Jan 7, 2016)

I'm just gonna say this.  If you think republicans are the more civil rights friendly because they passed the Civil Rights Act, then you (you in general) aren't educated enough about politics to really contribute any meaningful discourse.  Why?  Well....I guess because it shows a complete ignorance of what the Southern Strategy was.  TLDR version?  The republicans now used to be the democrats when it was passed, and vice versa.


----------



## Morlock (Jan 7, 2016)

More on how they do it in Europe:

Cologne sex attacks 'require police rethink'


> Mr Jaeger also warned that anti-immigrant groups were trying to use the attacks to stir up hatred against refugees.
> 
> “What happens on the right-wing platforms and in chat rooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting the women,” he said.




Poster boy for leftism. Criticizing rape-prone groups for being rape-prone is _at least_ as bad as rape.

Leftist circular firing squad, open-borders fanatics vs. feminists edition.

"Cologne Mayor: Women Should Be More Careful After Migrant Mass Rapes, Promises ‘Guidance’ So They Can ‘Prepare’

"Women should be more careful," lol. What's next? "She shouldn't have worn that dress"?


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## Morlock (Jan 7, 2016)

> I'm just gonna say this. If you think republicans are the more civil rights friendly because they passed the Civil Rights Act, then you (you in general) aren't educated enough about politics to really contribute any meaningful discourse. Why? Well....I guess because it shows a complete ignorance of what the Southern Strategy was. TLDR version? The republicans now used to be the democrats when it was passed, and vice versa.




Lemme check...yep, "liberal" northeast is still more segregated than the south. Race-relations are great in lily-white Vermont, amirite?


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## Mallus (Jan 7, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Race-relations are great in lily-white Vermont, amirite?



They're okay in Philadelphia. Despite the usual ugly stuff at the Mummer's Parade -- which was denounced by almost everyone. Thing's are okay in the diverse neighborhood my wife & I live in (it's amazing what neighborhoods where redlining wasn't a common practice look like). We just elected a White mayor who had strong Black support, replacing a Black mayor with strong White support (who also rapped a pretty mean Rapper's Delight at the 4th of July celebration last year w/The Roots). 

Perfect? Of course not. But livable, functional, trying to do better.


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## Mallus (Jan 7, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Homosexuals have always had equal marriage rights.



Not to marry the people they wanted to. Did this really require clarification?



> They never wanted equal marriage rights, they wanted to redefine marriage to suit them.



Is your marriage redefined? Mine isn't. None of the married straight couples I know have suffered any deleterious redefinition of their marriages. Show me how this whole 'redefinition' thing is more than empty (and painfully abstract) rhetoric. If you're claiming that extending marriage rights has harmed you, explain how. 



> America as a whole rejected "homosexual marriage" over and over, until the leftists managed to go over their heads and cheat it in via the courts.



America used to reject interracial marriage. My marriage would have been illegal in California (& several other states) until, I believe, 1947. Care to explain how that's good, just, freedom-loving American sort-of thing?

edit: and another thing... look, if that's the kind of American you want, where property rights trump human rights and any old shopkeeper can say 'get out Jew!' to a man whose prayer shawl they don't like the cut of, so be it. That's not the America I was raised in, nor the America I believe in. If you believe differently, I'll see you at the polls.


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## Sacrosanct (Jan 7, 2016)

Mallus said:


> Not to marry the people they wanted to. Did this really require clarification?
> 
> 
> Is your marriage redefined? Mine isn't. None of the married straight couples I know have suffered any deleterious redefinition of their marriages. Show me how this whole 'redefinition' thing is more than empty (and painfully abstract) rhetoric. If you're claiming that extending marriage rights has harmed you, explain how.
> ...




No kidding.  and it's more recent than the 40s.  Loving vs. Virgina was in 1967.  The same arguments againts gay marriage were made back then.  Literally the same arguments.


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## Mallus (Jan 7, 2016)

Sacrosanct said:


> No kidding.  and it's more recent than the 40s.  Loving vs. Virgina was in 1967.  The same arguments againts gay marriage were made back then.  Literally the same arguments.



I'm 1/2 Asian/Pacific Islander. I think the last US anti-miscegenation laws that would have applied to me were gone before Loving vs. Virginia. Because, of course, the US just had to have discriminatory laws against Black people on the books just a wee bit longer... to make it clear how grudgingly we accepted Black equality.


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## Umbran (Jan 7, 2016)

Morlock said:


> America as a whole rejected "homosexual marriage" over and over, until the leftists managed to go over their heads and cheat it in via the courts.




At the time the courts finally decided the issue, the majority of Americans were in favor of allowing homosexual marriage.  Only about 40% of Americans were against it.

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/07/29/graphics-slideshow-changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/

So, it wasn't so much that anyone cheated it in via the courts, as it was the courts enacted the will of the people more quickly than the legislature could (largely because much of that legislature is overly-beholden to that 39%)


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## Kramodlog (Jan 7, 2016)

Ya'll Qaeda can come and go as they wish.  http://gawker.com/cops-oregon-militia-idiots-are-free-to-come-and-go-as-1751644940


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## Ryujin (Jan 7, 2016)

Umbran said:


> At the time the courts finally decided the issue, the majority of Americans were in favor of allowing homosexual marriage.  Only about 40% of Americans were against it.
> 
> http://www.pewforum.org/2015/07/29/graphics-slideshow-changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/
> 
> So, it wasn't so much that anyone cheated it in via the courts, as it was the courts enacted the will of the people more quickly than the legislature could (largely because much of that legislature is overly-beholden to that 39%)




I would take it a step further and say that sometimes the courts, or legislators, must act to support the very principles that a nation espouses, but that The People might only give lip service to.


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## Umbran (Jan 7, 2016)

Ryujin said:


> I would take it a step further and say that sometimes the courts, or legislators, must act to support the very principles that a nation espouses, but that The People might only give lip service to.




There are times when any branch of the government must act to protect a minority from the majority, yes.  In this case, it was to protect a minority from the stubborn discrimination of a group that had finally become another minority...


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## HardcoreDandDGirl (Jan 8, 2016)

Umbran said:


> There are times when any branch of the government must act to protect a minority from the majority, yes.  In this case, it was to protect a minority from the stubborn discrimination of a group that had finally become another minority...




I'm not a historian, or even the smartest girl in the room most of the time. I know in school there was a movie they used to show around the time of learning about the constitution. It was a musical comedy about the writing, and during the votes one of the reps says something like "I am here to do what is right even if the people tell me otherwise" it was more profound though... I wish I new the name of the movie or the character/historical figure I would google it.


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## nightwind1 (Jan 8, 2016)

HardcoreDandDGirl said:


> I'm not a historian, or even the smartest girl in the room most of the time. I know in school there was a movie they used to show around the time of learning about the constitution. It was a musical comedy about the writing, and during the votes one of the reps says something like "I am here to do what is right even if the people tell me otherwise" it was more profound though... I wish I new the name of the movie or the character/historical figure I would google it.



That would be "1776". A great musical.

I played Colonel Thomas McKean onstage for a run of it with a local theater company.


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## Eltab (Jan 8, 2016)

Just to dredge up the 'definition of terrorism' discussion from earlier:

There is currently no definition of 'terrorism' in International Law.  (Because too many actors want an 'except clause' for their pet cat's-paw groups.)
But a working definition could be: a Terrorist is a person who commits acts by land, sea, or air, that would be Piracy if they were committed at sea / against a ship.

The book "The World for Ransom" goes into more detail.

Now you can say you learned something useful on the Internet today.


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## Umbran (Jan 8, 2016)

HardcoreDandDGirl said:


> I'm not a historian, or even the smartest girl in the room most of the time. I know in school there was a movie they used to show around the time of learning about the constitution. It was a musical comedy about the writing, and during the votes one of the reps says something like "I am here to do what is right even if the people tell me otherwise" it was more profound though... I wish I new the name of the movie or the character/historical figure I would google it.




Nightwind1 got it, I think.  The play is 1776.  The character is Dr. Lyman Hall, who was a representative to the Second Continental Congress from Georgia.

"*Dr. Lyman Hall:* I'm sorry if I startled you. I couldn't sleep. In trying to resolve my dilemma I remembered something I'd once read, "that a representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion."
[He smiles]
*Dr. Lyman Hall:* It was written by Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament."

Which is ironic, because Hall's judgement was then to vote for independence from Britain, against his people's desires.


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## MechaPilot (Jan 8, 2016)

Umbran said:


> *Dr. Lyman Hall:* It was written by Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament."
> 
> Which is ironic, because Hall's judgement was then to vote for independence from Britain, against his people's desires.




Edmund Burke.  Isn't that the same fellow to whom the saying "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" is attributed?


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## MechaPilot (Jan 8, 2016)

Morlock said:


> Doesn't amount to the camel's nose in the tent that you'd prefer, though.




Considering that you don't actually know what my preferences are, it's so nice of you to judge me from a position of ignorance like that.


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## MechaPilot (Jan 8, 2016)

Morlock said:


> republicans passed the civil rights act




No.  The people who were sitting republicans more than 50 years ago passed the civil rights act.  You can pretend that today's republicans are the same if you wish, but they are not.  Lincoln and Reagan couldn't ever rise to the level of the Republican party's presidential candidate in the context of the modern Republican party.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 8, 2016)

goldomark said:


> Some armed right wing extremists have broken into a US federal wildlife refuge and are willing to kill to make their point. http://gawker.com/sons-of-noted-racist-vigilante-are-willing-to-kill-in-s-1750764305
> 
> Where is the National Guard? When black people protest in the street, the National Guard is called pretty quickly. Why isn't the public behind shooting those right wing extremists? They are breaking the law and are obviously dangerous. The public is always for the shooting of black people who were breaking the law and danerous, even if they were not armed.




If they were black, hispanic/latin, or middle eastern, they would already be dead. Period. They would have been dead before they got out of their trucks. 

And even if they somehow survived this long, it would only be in a hostile standoff with fully militarized local, state and federal law enforcement, and national guard support. There would likely be at least 3 armored vehicles involved, and every media outlet in the country would be calling them terrorists. 

The idea that the National Guard isn't there because it's a different tactical situation is pure nonsense. They aren't there because armed white men aren't engaged with armed intervention, unless they actually shoot someone. Barring shots fired, a lot of the time they're taken alive if it can possibly be accomplished, so long as when the fuzz shows up, they don't actually shoot at said fuzz. Even if it requires days of talking them down. Hell, they can even point their guns at federal agents, explicitely threaten to kill feds who try to interfere with them, and they still get kid gloves. 

But gods forbid a black preteen have a fake gun on a playground. Then it's shoot on sight.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jan 8, 2016)

Morlock said:


> No, it isn't. Stuff is usually burning to the ground before the NG gets called in.




lol sure. 

or black people are peacefully protesting. 

or college kids are occupying a park somewhere. 

the national guard is used to squash protests so that they can't serve the vital democratic function they are meant to serve.


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