Any response to the Bundy’s provocations at this point would be better than the backing off that emboldened them to start their current occupation. It’s not that I side with conservatives, but highlighting the hypocrisy and failure of law enforcement to so much as slap the Bundy’s wrists for the last standoff shouldn’t be a partisan issue.
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Really? So you’re saying that these armed, threatening, property-destroying federal-building-occupiers have yet to break any laws?
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I struggle with this. Yes, there is huge hypocrisy, but to borrow a phrase, hypocrisy is annoying but not evil - being a hypocrite doubles your chances of being half-right. To me, the half that is right is definitely calling them “armed protesters,” trying to engage them in a conversation, and probably cutting power to the building and hoping they eventually give up without bloodshed. I feel like given the options of:
- Insist these guys are terrorists
- The next time the government calls a muslim or indigenous group a terrorist group saying, “How are these guys terrorists when the Bundy’s weren’t?”
I much prefer (2). I recognize that as long as there is no chance that (1) will be taken seriously by authorities (and it seems like there is none) you can probably do both, however.
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I’m saying that while I oppose what they did and don’t think it’s OK, it’s really not a big deal compared to exactly that kind of hyperbole.
I disagree - given the choice between:
A) A hypertrophied security state which precludes the possibility of whack-job standoffs
or
B) Having to occasionally endure whack-job standoffs because we understand as a society that it’s not OK to bring down the hammer whenever folks get a little uppity
I’ll go with B. I do hear you about not wanting to embolden right-wing militias to get more aggressive, but I think the counter to that has to be civil rather than military. Empowering a security state to repress right wing militants will not actually move society in a leftward direction, you know?
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FTFY
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I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean. That juries are passé? Are we going to replace them with, I don’t know, how many “likes” we can get on FaceBook?
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American Idol: The Jury! I love it. Running Man finally comes to pass.
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Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
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Because a) black protesters with guns had them confiscated by the police, and b) it establishes who exactly it is who has the guns (because you can see them in protest groups, etc.). What happened is the police “came under fire” from “small groups” during the chaos happening around the protests. Were they actually protesters or those simply taking advantage of the chaos? Were they even necessarily shooting at the police, or were the police under the standard operating procedure that gunfire in their vicinity should be assumed to be directed at them? Etc.
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I understand why federal agents are wary of dealing with armed,
far-right protesters. I don’t understand why newspapers are also in
thrall to them.
You don’t? Then please consider the ownership pattern of much of America’s commercial media, including practically all newspapers.
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And endangering the firefighters camped nearby.
One of the grandkids also thought he came close to death while helping to start one of the burns.
[I’m agreeing with you, in case it’s not clear. Still, mandatory minimum sentencing seems to harm more than it hurts. The sentences have been supported by pointing to prior occurrences of 25 years got stealing a candy bar. Not good bed fellows for justice.]
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My guess is that you did not grow up on the prairie. If you had you’d realize that that is a damn daft thing to say.
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The phrase you’re looking for is “arson”, not “alleged arson”.
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Gif blab-ank*?
Benlk* **
Blank** ***
Bank***
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Two fires.
The first was deliberate arson, undertaken in an attempted conspiracy to conceal evidence of poaching in a wildlife preserve.
The second was a reckless backburn that got out of control, which was undertaken during a period of high fire danger in which deliberate burning without notifying the fire authorities is prohibited.
In both cases, substantial damage was done to the wildlife preserve. In both cases, lives were at risk.
The reasons why we have laws regulating the use of fire are not hard to figure out. Idiots like this are why.
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I don’t disagree with you. I think the term ‘terrorist’ has been absurdly widened in definition by those in power over the last 15-ish years, and heavily abused. For the present time, it strikes me as somewhat prudent to expose the hypocrisy, shove it into the faces of law enforcement, and then demand that the word be reserved for overtly political groups perpetrating deadly acts of violence to further their agendas instead of being applied to any group the establishment decides it doesn’t like. It is a struggle, but I don’t think anything will get better if angry right-wing white men continue to get a pass from the executive and judicial branches when they commit atrocities in the name of their politics.
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I think maybe my original point was misunderstood, because the things you’re telling me are unrelated to what I was trying to express. There is a racist double-standard in law enforcement, but racism alone doesn’t explain what’s going on here. Police respond to armed protesters with standoffs (rather than immediate force) in many situations, and it’s because of strategic concerns around getting shot and/or getting bad media. The response of police to armed black protesters in Ferguson supports this idea.
I’m pointing out that there’s more than racism going on here because our response to the standoff needs to address more than just the fact that it’s racist. It’s also part of a worrying trend in the increasing securitization of our society in the name of fighting crime and terrorism. It’s short-sighted to use the language of Law and Order and the War on Terror to condemn these ranchers just because we don’t like them. And it’s naive to think that people will understand that we’re not seriously saying the government should repress the militia, we’re just using ironic hyperbole to highlight hypocrisy. Indeed, even within this discussion thread, some have implied that the militia protesters should seriously be repressed.
Do you… do you not actually have any clue what arson is? Is that the problem here? That you simply don’t understand what’s illegal, why it’s illegal, or why the government should enforce the law against people you support?
Because arson is specifically, legally defined as “deliberately setting fire to buildings, wildland areas, or other property”
This argument that the lack of buildings makes it not-arson is just making you look stupid, because all it demonstrates is your total ignorance.
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When I saw Caliphate on that sign I was surprised they went there.
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