Republican Congressman threatens to kill reporter after State of the Union

so perhaps it’s on me for not being aware of your personal style.

Don’t turn on yourself in the end like that, it’s treasonous.

1 Like

It’s unclear but Rep. Grimms’ threats might be protected by Article 1 Section 6 of the U. S. Constitution.

“They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”

except Treason

Yes, but what about treasonous?

I don’t find chest beating around a crowd all that intimidating. A dark alley alone at night I’d find more intimidating.

Yeah, nothing bad ever happens in crowds.

a gun nut like me

Apparently you’re perturbed enough to let everyone know you’ve got a gun. I think all this talk of breaking boys in half has got you a little bit on edge.

Apparently my mom gets around.

You said it, not me.

I barely escaped getting the shit beat out of me by 10+ guys at Burger King

That was you?

While he is guilty of making threats

Case closed.

I really wouldn’t go with ANY sort of psychopathy as a diagnosis, it’s too broad a brush and not accurate for most of the political and business ‘successes’

I think it’s safer to say that they’re more predictably authoritarians who happen to have monkeyspheres like all the rest of us. The ‘roles’ do select for certain personalitiy types, and that gives psycopathy an advantage (and this SPECIFIC guy may have some psychopathic tendencies, but we’d need more info to go there.)

Having worked both with corporate and political sorts and watched some gradual shifts happen, I have no doubt that there are also adaptive components rather than genetic.

That being said, we’re never going to shuffle asshats like that to the shadows where they belong until we completely change the system that gives the microphone to the worst of us. This PARTICULAR man, however, looks to be a bit of a sociopath.

Might I suggest contacting Kim Dine, Chief of the US Capitol Police, and ask him why he hasn’t arrested Rep. Grimm for threatening to kill someone on the grounds of the Capitol?

Here’s the contact number for USCP: (202) 224-1677

If someone wants to try arguing that Congress’ members can’t be arrested, I’d like to point out that Congressman Raul Grivalda was arrested last October for blocking traffic when he participated in an immigration-policy protest.

All my likes were used up to the quota this bbs sets in place, but there’s this:

2 Likes

Honestly, I’m not a big proponent of genetic over social, as I was at least half joking… I do wonder how much we change based on our environment, as a species. Is there some tipping point to where we can’t go back to navigating the wild again? I don’t know… but yeah, I’m a half-nurture/half-nature guy myself… although I’m not a guy

Also, I don’t think psychopath and sociopath are the same thing? maybe I’m wrong on that though. YOu seem to be using them interchangable there, and I think they mean different things?

Felony…I saw felony in that list. Assault with death threats definitely qualifies.

Edited to add: it only says they can’t be arrested or questioned in those certain circumstances, not that they can’t be arrested at all.

1 Like

Technically a sociopathy is a subset of psychopathy . . . but both of those are fairly broad terms and cover a lot of different types of people and contain a large number of observed and reported traits.

The problem is that lots of people see ‘heartless’ people in power often as being incapable of empathy, totally unlike us, and so on. . . and that’s rarely the case, many of them empathize with people ‘like them’ just like we empathize more easily with people ‘like us’. By giving them a disorder they don’t have (and that means a lot of different things to people) we tend to miss opportunities to address people where their defenses AREN’T.

In politics you’d expect a pathological narcissistic personality disorder to be common, however, and that’s pretty well supported, eh?

This is all partly our fault. It’s well established that people prefer false confidence over honest consideration in a leader, despite the outcomes being the opposite of effective and generally exactly the wrong trait to select for in positions of power.

He’s a bully. And just how quickly he got to violent threats and the specificity, “like a boy” when talking to somebody smaller than him indicates to me at least that he is probably accustomed to using his physical stature to intimidate. And we agree that intimidating the press is a very bad thing in a democracy.

But it would only be slightly more inflammatory and only slightly less accurate to accuse him of rape, so little does his crime resemble actual treason. It strikes me as disingenuous for you to describe him as “treasonous” and then say that you didn’t actually mean that he was guilty of treason. It is as if you’re using the term just for its emotional impact, without any regard to its actual, legal meaning. Which is pretty much what conservatives do when they accuse war protestors as committing “treason,” which is indeed the comparison that I made. For which you accuse me of pedantry. I suppose if by that you mean that I believe that many words HAVE agreed upon meanings and that clear communication is enhanced if we try to use those meanings rather than expand their meaning willy-nilly than I am guilty.

For the record, I also dislike the use of the word “slavery” do describe terrible working conditions as opposed to the abject horror of kidnapping and torture compelled labor that we used to allow in this country. I believe that is disrespectful of the suffering of actual slaves to lightly make that metaphor.

2 Likes

I believe that they can’t be arrested for misdemeanors, but this might constitute a felony, at least if there was reason to believe that the threat was serious. Sadly, the reporter has already accepted the congressman’s apology, because to decline it and press the matter would be a career limiting move. Hopefully threatening violence is career limiting for the congressman.

1 Like
so little does his crime resemble actual treason. It strikes me as disingenuous for you to describe him as "treasonous" and then say that you didn't actually mean that he was guilty of treason.
I honestly don't care, I've already explained why I called him treasonous and you've already explained why you don't like it. Now you're just repeating yourself. I'm sorry if I offended you by not appreciating your pedantry skills.

This particular discussion is starting to feel like treasonous slavery at this point, so I’d like to move on to new business.

1 Like

The hell of it is, as a republican, his constituents will probably like him even better for pulling shit like this.

“I didn’t have time to answer an off-topic question, but I did have time to swing my dick.”

1 Like

Creepily sexual threat…

I appreciate the detail in your metaphor! I intuitively would appreciate seeing some form of legal ramifications for the congress’bro’ in question.

1 Like

I was neither defending anyone else, nor requesting anything, nor even stating my POV on the matter at hand. I was making a joke about how absurd the conversation had got.

I’m not the one making anything personal, or making assumptions, or pointing fingers, friend. Maybe you are the source of your discomfort?

This extended argument based around the reification of arbitrarily-designated legal terminology is highly entertaining, I have to say. I’m too lazy to make popcorn, but dammit this is fine reading with a hot cup of magic potion by my side!

Admittedly, some folks enjoy reading zealous, ranty salvos, especially when they come from people who appear to be thinking at the same time. I love it when cognizant humans ‘throw down’ some fire & brimstone in response to situations such as this congress-Pink (nod to the Subgenii out there) going all neanderthal on someone asking relevant questions. Good times.
All Hail Eris!

I would think leveling death threats is a breach of the peace.

1 Like