Former British Colony in Downward Spiral of Ethnic Violence, State Security Impunity

[ReluctantSamurai]

Hooahguy might appreciate this article, or maybe you already know all of this. Even after reading it (twice), my head still spins over the convoluted way we do democracy here in the US:

https://www.vox.com/21424582/filibuster-joe-biden-2020-senate-democrats-abolish-trump


If Joe Biden wins the White House, and Democrats take back the Senate, there is one decision that will loom over every other. It is a question that dominated no debates and received only glancing discussion across the campaign, and yet it is the master choice that will either unlock their agenda or ensure they fail to deliver on their promises.

That decision? Whether the requirement for passing a bill through the Senate should be 60 votes or 51 votes. Whether, in other words, to eliminate the modern filibuster, and make governance possible again.

Virtually everything Democrats have sworn to do — honoring John Lewis’s legacy by strengthening the right to vote, preserving the climate for future generations by decarbonizing America, ensuring no gun is sold without a background check, raising the minimum wage, implementing universal pre-K, ending dark money in politics, guaranteeing paid family leave, offering statehood to Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, reinvigorating unions, passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act — hinges on this question.

If Democrats decide — and it is crucial to say that it would be a decision, a choice — to leave the 60-vote threshold in place, that entire agenda, and far more beyond it, is dead. All those primary debates, all those grand ideas on Joe Biden’s “vision” page, all those mailers and press releases and speeches and vows, will be revealed as promises they never meant to keep. All it takes to eliminate the filibuster, and to unlock that agenda, is 51 votes. All it takes to annihilate that agenda’s barest hope of passage is to do nothing. And doing nothing is always the easiest choice for politicians to make.

The arguments for and against eliminating the filibuster:


The founders envisioned a system of checks and balances, of pluralistic competition and deliberative government. That system had, and has, nothing to do with the filibuster. If anything, it is imbalanced by the filibuster: When Congress can’t pass laws, pressure mounts for the president to stretch executive authorities, as happened after the DREAM Act failed despite receiving 59 votes in the Senate, pushing President Obama to do through executive action what the filibuster prevented Congress from doing through legislation. Similarly, the Supreme Court grows in power as Congress gridlocks, in part because it becomes impossible for Congress to alter provisions of bills that fall to constitutional challenge, and in part because the paralysis of the legislative branch pushes movements to try and achieve their goals through the courts.

This is the historical truth of the filibuster: It is a weapon wielded by the racial majority against racial minorities, cloaked in the rhetoric of protecting minority rights.

[...] the US Senate is “the most powerful force for structural racism in American life.” The Senate grants unusual power to small states, and small states tend to be whiter than big states. In the New York Times, David Leonhardt calculated how many senators each racial group gets per million people. White Americans — the racial majority — get 0.35 senators per million people; Black Americans have 0.26; Asian Americans are right alongside them, with 0.25; and Hispanics are last in senatorial power and representation, with 0.19.

It is a woeful abuse of history to claim the filibuster protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority. As a weapon of the status quo, the filibuster is wielded by those who’ve already secured political representation and power, and so is often a tool the powerful use to protect their existing privileges. That the filibuster’s defenders cloak themselves in the glittering language of minority rights even as they’re using the filibuster to deny minorities rights is one of America’s more grotesque rhetorical inversions.

At the core of the debate over the filibuster, then, is this simple truth: Members of both parties prefer the problems of paralysis to those of governance. They are more eager to block the other party from governing than they are committed to governing themselves. Or, to put it even more directly, given the choice between keeping the promises they made to the American people and sabotaging their opponents’ ability to keep their promises, they choose the latter.

What is possible vs what is:


What we are facing, then, is a trade-off: Should we prefer a system in which parties can, occasionally, govern, or a system in which they can’t?

Answering this question requires ridding ourselves of the cramped psychology of the Senate and prizing, instead, the vantage point of the voter. How, from a voter’s perspective, is American politics supposed to work? In theory, something like this: Parties propose agendas during elections. Voters choose the agenda — and thus the party — they like most. The newly elected party passes a substantial portion of their agenda into law. Voters judge the results and choose whether to return that party to power in the next election or give the opposition a turn at the wheel.

This is, of course, not how American politics works. Even in the absence of the filibuster, the American political system is thick with veto points and clashing institutions. It is also deeply undemocratic, with Republicans currently holding the White House and Senate despite winning fewer votes in the relevant elections. And then, layered atop all that, is the filibuster, which imposes a 60-vote supermajority requirement.

As a result, the feedback loop of American politics is fundamentally broken. Parties propose agendas during elections. Voter choose the agenda — and thus the party — they like most. That party may or may not win power, depending on the vicissitudes of gerrymandering, geography, and the Electoral College. Even if the voters’ chosen party does win power, it can’t enact the agenda it has promised, as it is almost impossible to win 60 Senate seats, and otherwise, the filibuster blocks most of what parties promise to do. As a result, rather than judging the results of the agenda they voted for, voters are left assessing why so little has happened, and trying to understand who is to blame for their problems going unsolved.

The removal of the filibuster will also have a disciplining effect on politicians themselves, who now have the luxury of promising voters all kinds of policies they know can never pass. In his comments above, Barrasso threatened Democrats with the anti-abortion bills Senate Republicans push routinely now, knowing they will die in the Senate. But does the Republican Party want to stand behind that agenda, knowing it might actually pass, and voters might actually see and judge them on the results? How differently would politicians act if they couldn’t use the filibuster as an excuse for disappointing their base?

“It changes the dynamics when people are playing with live ammunition,” says Eli Zupnick, a former Senate staffer who’s now spokesperson for Fix Our Senate, a coalition of progressive groups pushing to abolish the filibuster. “In 2017, McConnell knew that without the filibuster, they’d have to pass things that would be politically catastrophic for Republicans. Instead, he was able to say, ‘Democrats didn’t let us pass this.’”

An important note on Biden's past view of the filibuster:


In 2005, in a speech condemning the Republican majority’s threat to extinguish the filibuster against judicial nominees, then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) said, “At its core, the filibuster is not about stopping a nominee or a bill, it is about compromise and moderation. … It does not mean I get my way. It means you may have to compromise. You may have to see my side of the argument. That is what it is about, engendering compromise and moderation.”

There is, as Jonathan Chait has written, an obvious answer to this argument. “The simplest rebuttal to this claim is look around you. Do you see a lot of legislative compromise?” There are more filibusters than ever, and more partisan gridlock than ever.

But this argument is dominant enough that it’s worth unpacking precisely what in the logic is flawed — because it is both subtle and important. The theory is straightforward: A 60-vote threshold in a Senate means that the majority will always have to win over members of the minority to pass legislation. The filibuster therefore gives the majority party an incentive to win over members of the minority. That is, it gives them an incentive to moderate and compromise, just as Biden said.

This idea is dominant because, crucially, it’s half right. If you look across the Obama era, for instance, Democrats were desperate to find Republicans who would vote with them on health care, stimulus, or anything else. What it gets wrong is assuming that the majority party is the key actor here. The implicit logic, stated transparently, is this: If the majority party is willing to compromise, the minority party will be eager to compromise. It’s there that the logic falls apart, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proved to such devastating effect across Barack Obama’s presidency.

What McConnell understood was simple and obvious: The party in power will get electoral credit for bills passed with big, bipartisan majorities. But by the same token, the party in power will get the blame if Congress is paralyzed, if bills die amid partisan bickering, if the problems of the nation go unsolved. Compromise isn’t a gift the majority offers to the minority. It’s a boon the minority offers to the majority.


After the Civil War, Republicans were the dominant party for decades. After the New Deal, Democrats were the dominant party for decades. Our current era of seesawing power is the historical aberration, and as political scientist Frances Lee argues in her book Insecure Majorities, it has reshaped Congress and made bipartisan compromise nearly impossible.

Lee’s argument is that close competition, where “neither party perceives itself as a permanent majority or permanent minority,” breeds all-out partisan combat. When one party is perpetually dominant, the subordinate party has reason to cooperate, as that’s the only realistic shot at wielding power. Either you work well with the majority party or you have no say over policy, nothing to bring home to your constituents. In the modern era, neither party is perpetually dominant, and the minority’s best shot at wielding power is to ensure the majority fails to govern effectively. That makes bipartisanship effectively irrational.

And I had no idea about this:


The budget reconciliation process was created in 1974 as a way to expedite the completion of appropriations bills. It’s a fast-track that avoids not just the filibuster but a normal amendment process and a normal committee process. It can only be used for one legislative package a year, and it includes a host of restrictions: Every provision that goes through budget reconciliation needs to certified by the parliamentarian as primarily related to taxing and spending, it can’t increase the budget deficit in its 11th year, and it can’t make any change at all to Social Security.

In recent decades, senators from both parties have abused the budget reconciliation process to pass legislation they knew would otherwise fall to a filibuster. First, note the illogic of that: They are unwilling to get rid of the filibuster, but they are willing to avoid it by mangling another Senate procedure instead. Worse, because the budget reconciliation process in not meant for normal legislating, only certain kinds of initiatives can fit within it, and even they end up battered and bruised.

Worse, both parties find themselves reaching for tax-and-spend solution when regulations would work better, because you can’t pass most regulations through reconciliation. You could easily pass, say, a carbon tax through budget reconciliation. But you couldn’t pass a renewable energy standard that reshaped private behavior, or new regulations on building materials and automobile construction, even if those would be more effective, or cheaper. Bills that go through budget reconciliation are worse bills, because they are written without the full range of tools and flexibility normally allowed to legislators.

Budget reconciliation also warps the priorities of the two parties. It creates an incentive to prioritize bills that can be crammed into the budget reconciliation process, and to neglect priorities that cannot. You can, for instance, pass a Medicaid expansion, or a tax cut, through budget reconciliation. You cannot pass a voting rights bill, or a gun control law, or a serious climate change package, or abortion restrictions. Parties sensibly focus on what they can pass rather than what they can’t, and so the agenda is endlessly tilted toward the narrow set of issues that can be coaxed into budget reconciliation.

This, then, is the bizarre equilibrium the Senate has settled into. The filibuster has broken the normal legislating process. But rather than fix the filibuster, both parties have broken another Senate rule so they can pass a worse version of a limited subset of bills on a fraction of the issues that face the country. Either the filibuster is a worthy rule that the Senate should honor or it isn’t, and it should be abolished or reformed. But the status quo they’ve instead settled into, where senators don’t have to make the hard decisions about the future of their institution and the American people pay the price through badly written legislation and a vast range of neglected problems, is indefensible.

Probably the point that scares the Dems:


A 2019 Data for Progress analysis by Colin McAuliffe found that the Senate has a 3 percentage point tilt toward Republican candidates. In an electorate as closely divided as America’s, that’s a powerful advantage. “The 1.5-percent penalty in the Electoral College was enough to elect the popular vote loser in 2016, but the penalty in the Senate was twice as large,” writes McAuliffe. A more recent FiveThirtyEight analysis pegged the bias at a startling 6 to 7 points.

Behind the tilt is the Senate’s over-representation of small states — small states tend to be whiter and more rural than big states, with fewer immigrants and more Republicans. In this way, the Senate doesn’t just favor Republicans but also pushes the GOP toward being a more ethnonationalist party, as it gives them a path to political power in which white votes are over-represented and immigrants are underrepresented.

So it is true that the Senate tilts Republican, but it is also true that if they eliminated the filibuster, Democrats could try to fight for the democracy they claim to believe in. They may lose that fight, but they should look around: They are losing that fight now, and the surest way to lose it in the future, too, is to refuse to actually fight back.

The final argument:


In 2014, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a speech titled “Restoring the Senate.” In it, he leveled a blistering critique at the degraded state of the institution in which he served, and explained how, if he won back the gavel, he’d lead the Senate back to greatness.

“Without some meaningful buy-in, you guarantee a food fight,” McConnell said. “You guarantee instability and strife. It may very well have been the case that on Obamacare, the will of the country was not to pass the bill at all. That’s what I would have concluded if Republicans couldn’t get a single Democrat to vote for legislation of this magnitude. I’d have thought, maybe this isn’t such a great idea.”

But just because McConnell is a hypocrite doesn’t make him wrong. In a country this polarized, perhaps he’s right: if you can’t secure bipartisan support, maybe you shouldn’t move forward.

The logic is appealing because it inverts the basic case against the filibuster even as it accepts most of its premises. Yes, the filibuster paralyzes governance and leaves terrible environmental, social, political, and economic problems to fester. But in a bitterly divided polity, that’s a feature, not a bug. If we can’t agree on what to do, maybe it’s better we do nothing than do things that half the country will oppose, or that will just be undone when the other party takes power in a few years.

The filibuster, in other words, traps us in the most polarizing and disagreeable phase of legislating: the partisan conflict phase. Ideas emerge, they become polarizing by virtue of being jammed into a zero-sum political system, and then they typically fail. The public experiences endless conflict but rarely sees its problems solved, or its material interests improved. If the two parties could legislate more effectively, more proposals would pass into the judgment phase, and either rise in popularity as they worked to better people’s lives or fall into disrepute as they proved themselves to be failures.

I don’t believe that reform or elimination of the filibuster will solve all the problems that face America, or even reliably lead to outcomes I support. There is no utopia on offer, no end to our disagreements and debates and disappointments. While a 51-vote Senate would have a better shot at solving the problems that bedevil the country, it will not solve them all, and it may make some worse.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but my copy/paste Cliff Notes are only a small part of the entire article:creep:

[Montmorency]

Yeah, this is the ticket.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/10/01/political-violence-424157

https://i.imgur.com/ML9Noa0.png

[a completely inoffensive name]

It is a testament to the American people those numbers are not higher. I mean that seriously. Even now a wide majority believe violence is never justified, and that gives me hope.

[ReluctantSamurai]

It is a testament to the American people those numbers are not higher. I mean that seriously. Even now a wide majority believe violence is never justified, and that gives me hope.

Let's have that poll again in five weeks and see the results......:creep:

[a completely inoffensive name]

Let's have that poll again in five weeks and see the results......:creep:


I mean... if there is a coup violence becomes the only option by default. Not so much people are eager but forced to fight for their country.

[Viking]

What do you have in mind beyond what's going on now in the very active public discourse? If it all comes down to long-term visions of policy, I've already said that while it's a reasonable expectation to extend to any sphere of politics, it's unreasonable as a special demand with which to encumber or disprivilege a particular position.


Don't see what more there is to expand on. You want to know the context(s) the various opinions of people exist in.

You also want to know more about the context the opinions of politicians or other people that can gain power and influence through focusing on these issues. Once they are in powerful positions, it's a little late to be having second thoughts.

This was my initial observation:


The current debate on the subject focuses on current grievances and immediate policies to correct those. Without plans for the future, one cannot really see what kind of societies the particpants of the debate want to create, and what trade-offs they find acceptable. Nor what presumptions they make (that a particular political ideology or religion will prevail, the future of specific ongoing trends, and so on).

It is difficult proving a negative. If you have an example of an opinion piece or similar that has a long-term perspective and that also has had a lot of mainstream exposure, you could always post a link.

To the extent there is a special demand here, it is not because we are dealing with a disadvantaged group, but due to the prospect of radical solutions having an easier time gaining favour in the current political climate. And radical solutions would generally deserve greater scrutiny, one would think.


If you don't want mass immigration, cut off the reasons why people would want to emigrate! That takes proactive investment to increase living standards and stability and opportunity abroad, as well as to mitigate the very predictable effects of climate disruption on large, relatively-poor, populations in tropical regions.

Certainly. Yet the main focus of many politicians and voters in Europe is to increase the number of refugees being taken in. It's more important to be seen helping people up from a frozen pavement than to get rid of the ice.


So to say that the introduction of heterogeneity is itself the problem, that the physical presence of immigrants is the problem, is to totally miss the mark. It is a misapplication of consideration, a mislocation of the site of the existential crisis, an illegitimate offloading of perceived risk, to blame those who suffer the burdens that are in themselves unjust.

What is a society? It is a collection of people that implicitly agree to pull in the same general direction. There are many challenges to this unity, such as political ideologies and religiosity versus areligiosity.

The unique thing about ethnicity is that it is inherited to an extent that few other things are, even if you don't include biological ancestry in the definition. In practice you can typically tell whether you and another person belong to the same ethnicity by taking a quick glance at the person, something that is much more difficult to do when it comes to ideology.

This means that ethnic diversity within a society is a direct challenge to the very concept of a society - you have different groups pulling in the same direction separately, rather than everyone in the same direction; and the tendency is inherited from one generation to the next. It is poison for a well-functioning society. It creates an allegiance that competes with the commitment to a functioning state and society in a way that allegiance to friends and family does not (unless the concept of a family is a tribe, at which point we are dealing with mini- or proto-ethnicities).

Heterogeneity is the problem, because at its core, a society is about co-operation. Up to a certain point, heterogeneity promotes resilience by providing more legs to stand on - above a certain point, it promotes self-destruction through incompatibility.


Frankly what's the psychological or methodological distinction between the above and the fear that the formerly colonized will eventually exert colonial brutality onto Europeans if they are allowed to exist in Europe, or whatever? I consider all of the above a mindless wickedness in its substance.

Who is saying that the criterion is that they are "allowed to exist in Europe"? Although 'colonial brutality' in the case of new ethnic majorities per se cannot be ruled out (how could it be?), you don't have to go there. A Mexican scenario is where things seems to be headed many places, currently. For example, the National Police Commissioner of Sweden said in September (https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/polischefen-40-slaktbaserade-kriminella-natverk-i-sverige/) that there are 40 family-based criminal networks currently operating in Sweden (as far as I can see, he is saying that they are a result of immigration). Doesn't sound very promising when you combine the statement with all the shootings and the explosions being set off in the country.

And criminals brazenly setting up roadblocks in a suburb of Sweden's second-largest city (https://www.ft.com/content/67b04d32-da13-440e-ad68-099b533470e1). When things look so bad at the surface, imagine what is going on underneath.


It is frankly monstrous to propose to sacrifice populations for (idealized) expedience rather than undertaking to challenge the disruptors of coexistence themselves.

[...]

You don't have to eliminate it, but if the choice is between acting to contain it and sacrificing the actual targets of it - see above.

[...]

The bottom line is, I - and many others - categorically reject the reflexive impulse to impose burdens and harms onto marginalized populations.

The argument that enforcing borders amounts to causing harm is as insidious as it is incorrect, and the talk of sacrifice is absurd. The are plenty of things to spend resources on, and the cost of lifting the living standard of large amounts (but still just a tiny subset) of poor people to Western levels is a massive drain of resources.

Resources could be spent on limiting population growth in poorer countries (through things like contraceptives and education), they could be spent on vaccines and medication in such countries (which makes the first point even more important), they could be spent on infrastructure, and maybe on intelligent ways to speed up democratization, such as through the creation of, or a strengthening of, civil society where relevant. Resources are limited, as is the desire to spend them.

Helping those that happen to make it to the borders of the West, or emptying refugee camps, is not going to eradicate the worst of the delible misery in poorer countries. When factored in that it has the realistic prospect of being extremely expensive given the small amount of people it is able to help out through spending huge amounts of money, such policies has the realistic prospect of being extremely unethical, and that's not factoring in the potential for the destabilization of previously stable countries.

Remember that having superificially good intentions is not an excuse, deliberate ignorance in this context is often an act of malevolence


Most people naturally prefer to remain in their native areas.

If everything else is equal, quite likely. In practice, I there are probably more people willing to immigrate to the West than almost anyone who doesn't more or less favour open border policies would be willing to accept.


I mean, our lives are shaped by the intervention or non-intervention of government in all sorts of ways. How does school assignment work in Norway?

As far as I can see, pupils have a right to attend the nearest school, or the school associated with the local community (https://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1998-07-17-61/KAPITTEL_9#KAPITTEL_9).

If the government removes the right, or authorities start closing or relocating schools, of course a lot of parents would be unsettled. Many parents settle before or after having children with precisely such things in mind as in which social environment their children would grow up in. You are likely to end up with many parents moving even further away from the areas in question so that new government policies won't affect them.

It's no secret (https://www.aftenposten.no/osloby/i/wElV4/barneran-tiltalte-fylte-opp-rettssalen) that some parts of the capital have more underage criminals than others, and they often rob children.


When has this happened? As far as I know when their ethnicity is not made salient by the wider society, immigrants vote according to individual ideologies. Otherwise, they seek safe harbor among those parties that are perceived to be least hostile to their group interests (e.g. existence).

When has mass-immigration in conjunction with mass-segregation happened before in modern democratic states like it is happening now in Europe? I suppose never, this is unchartered territory.

That means you need to go back to the basics and look at what you have. In countries like Sweden, you got massive segregation. If you get even more immigration from relevant countries, you'll likely strengthen the segregation. If people from segregated areas maintain a different culture than that found in the rest of society, they can of course also develop their own voting culture; i.e. who they vote for.

The Assyrian politician Edip Noyan was voted all the way into the Swedish parliament. His ascent to parliament started when relatives and members of his church congregation supposedly were bussed in to vote him into power at a local level, effectively staging a coup (short version (https://www.expressen.se/kvp/kronikorer/federico-moreno/klanpolitikern-rostades-hela-vagen-till-riksdagen/), long version (https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/longread/utanforskapet-inifran/ett-parallellt-samhalle-vaxer-fram/)).


In all periods of American history, foresighted individuals have pointed out the increasing fascistic inclinations among significant elements of the population. These reached moments of greatest salience with the Goldwater campaign and Bircher movement in the 1960s, the Reagan Revolution in the 1980s, and the Gingrich/Norquist/Buchanan ascendance of the 90s. On the basis of these premonitions and observations would it have been appropriate for Democrats under Clinton to attempt to disenfranchise and suppress conservatives? Decidedly not (though on the other hand taking measures to prevent them from consolidating power toward minority rule would have been helpful)..

[...]

You misunderstand, in this context I've consistently been referring to recrudescent elements of the far-right.

One the one hand, you have the internal democratic process of a country, one the other, you have the question about who should be granted citizenship in a country. These are two very different topics. Suppressing the participation of a demographic in democracy is a defeat on a whole other level than what not permitting a demographic revolution through immigration is. It must be, because in the first case, the quality of the currenty society itself is necessarily the problem, while in the second case, it does not have to be.


And we know and have always known that the existence of the far-right and of oligarchs is a more real existential threat than the existence of ethnic immigrants has ever been.

Where to begin? 'Existential threat' to whom or what? And with the phrase 'more real', we might be headed for ontological territory.

Now, if minority and majority flips due, the ethnicity of the powerful 'far-right' and the ethnicity of their victims will likely also flip; so you would just have shifted the existential threat to new groups.


Sure, "separate but equal" is not theoretically unachievable, in the same way that there is a clear pathway to full communism...

There are at least a couple of Sami-majority towns in Northern Norway, and they appear to do well enough (one of them was in fact the place of a rebellion in 1852 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kautokeino_rebellion), one of few instances of violence at such a scale between the Sami population and Norwegian authorities, and actually instigated by Christian Sami. Fun fact: in terms of land area, this municipality is larger than the US states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined).


The point here is that social problems seem recurrent, but the common denominator is reactionaries. That ethnicity is more fluid than sex or gender doesn't seem relevant to separatism; if anything it undermines it. At any rate, class and religion and other such social markers can also be fluid in their context.

There is an important point here that is implicit. There will always be variation in a population - such as for height and weight - and pretty much everyone will belong to different minorities, memberships that can place them at a disadvantage.

This kind of diversity is more or less avoidable in practice. It contrasts with ethnic diversity within state borders, which in practice in many instances both is and has been easily avoidable through immigration policy. The world view of those who consider migrating is also imporant, and a highly malleable factor.

When it comes those who migrate to the West, and those who considered it, a very interesting concerns precisely worldview: How do they think about ethnic diversity? Do most of them not think about it at all? Is the question so firmly subordinated to the motivation for the migration that the question does not register when it otherwise might have? Do they think they will join a colony of likeminded people in the target country? Are they not aware of how big the cultural differences are between their country of origin and Western countries are?


It's wrong for the same reasons why it's wrong to assert that rape is a problem associated with the existence of women, and that removing women is necessary to preclude rape. I hope most of us understand that education and socioeconomic egalitarianism are what reduce and prevent rape, while providing something of mutual benefit! Yet there are those who go in the opposite direction, who describe contemporary masculine rage and alienation as a key social problem on the margins and one that could and should be assuaged by literally assigning females to young males (see: incel). Such means to stability are as depraved and misguided as they are inefficient.

If you take this argument to its logical conclusion, then unwillingness to let women serve prison time in the same same cell as men convicted of sexual assault would be acquiescence.

Segregation does not in itself imply the removal of one party alone, except for the circumstances when both are already present and you cannot send them both away.

As for your example of incel ideology, people would reject it on the basis that personal autonomy is viewed as fundamentally important. Not allowing people to enter the country, on the other hand, is basically status quo.


When they form minority factions, strengthening democracy and majoritarianism is the most productive and fair approach.

I don't think we are talking about the same scope here. I was thinking more about undesired behaviour in daily life. Preventing relevant groups from organizing into powerful entities is quite a different objective, and presumably much easier.

That said, your short description for places that are not like Hungary sounds like business as usual.


If the US were like Hungary in the distribution of popular sentiment we would be pretty fucked and the world with us. As it is significant mass violence in the medium-term is not out of the question. Not that much of the world can easily escape mass violence this century for a variety of reasons, but I'm referring specifically to conflict over national character and sectarian power.

Let's revisit the US and Hungary in 30 years time and see.

I suspect that the most prescient lesson for the US to take from Hungary is that Orban, once was known as an anti-totalitarian reformer (https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/31/the-regression-of-viktor-orban-hungary-europe/), who rose to prominence in 1989 after a speech on the occasion of the reburial of communist reformer Imre Nagy. Look now where Orban and Hungary is (and indeed Imre Nagy's statue (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46704111)).

Cf. the first paragraph of this post, if you had studied Orban closely in 1989, or earlier, maybe you'd find hints of unsavoury traits that would make you highly skeptic of him. Maybe because he said the right things and stood up against totalitarianism, a good cause, people were initially more inclined to shrug off any gut feeling they may have had that some things were off.


This isn't new ground for humanity. We have many examples of coexistence.

What we are dealing with now is the modern democratic state. Examples of co-existence from ancient or medieval times are not that relevant for modernity, and co-existence in authoritarian and totalitarian states are also providing very different fundaments for co-existence (watch what happens when the dictatorships end).


and my position is that the experiment you propose has always ended in horror

Which 'experiment'?


At any rate, there is no scope or time for iterative "experiments" in our human existence. It would be silly of a Hayekian conservative, for example, to have demanded that select countries implement social welfare states before they be adopted by other countries. It was appropriate for as many countries as possible to converge on social democracy and to "experiment" with the particulars individually.

This time, again, it is really mostly an appeal for those who believe in something to carry it out. I don't think it will do the US any good in the long run, but consenting adults and all that.


I don't understand what you're referring to. Are you speaking from the assumption that immigration should be expected to benefit ethnic groups qua ethnic groups? When I speak of immigrant groups I'm not thinking of them as a subset of the global population of some supercategory, and I doubt it is common to do so. I'm thinking of them as a group in the context of the host society.

It has a special relevance if the immigrants belong to an ethnic group that is disadvantaged locally for some reason, whether due to ethnic persecution or wealth disparity between different ethnic groups.

But in any scenario, if the majority of people staying behind do not benefit from the migration, we return to a question of allocation.


I disagree that living standards are a function of some cladistically-designated ethnic similarity quotient, and don't see how this is backed up by any experience. Are you referring to a separate issue of recent immigrants facing loneliness and other issues due to culture shock and communication barriers? That can be addressed with specific policy, and is moreover cured by time.

One aspect is sticking out as an individual: if wearing certain clothes and speaking the local language is all you need to do to seem like a fellow native to other natives, that can decrease a feeling of not belonging, being different or belonging to a different group than the rest of society.

Another is sticking out culturally: if you follow the same religion as the natives, observe the same holidays and otherwise have similar cultural traditions, you are less likely to feel that you need to defend your beliefs to people that aren't necessarily acting in good faith, more likely to feel unity when you observe the same holidays like the rest of society, less likely to have your traditions treated like something weird or quaint. In short: things that seem natural and fundamentally important to you is more likely to be treated respectfully by the rest of society.


Next you'll be telling me that Palestinians are better off living in Jordan or Lebanon or Egypt than in Germany or the US, by your theory - yet we know that objectively this is not the case.

There are two things to say to this:


In many immigrant-dominated suburbs in Europe (places where they have a significant probability of actually ending up), many or most of them could well be better off - perhaps much better off - in Jordan or Lebanon.
To the extent that they are worse off in, that's likely an effect of the inferior function of the Jordanian and Lebanese states that probably also affects Jordanians and Lebanese, and, at any rate, the solution is to reform the Jordanian and Lebanese states, not to transport the Palestinians to Europe. Jordan and Lebanon might also be over capacity in terms of migrants.



In itself this is not a cause for complaint.

If the cause is mass-migration from dysfunctional countries to highly functional countries, the odds are probably against the change being a net positive.


Why is that fear a sufficient basis for action in your view? By the same token the United States should have become a client of the papacy by now, as many Anglo Protestants warned in the 1800s (regarding the immigration of Irish, Italians, and eventually Latin Americans). We can say, no, back then those were virulent racists who sought to aggrandize their own sectional power at others' expense.

If it is a dead horse, it looks like not everyone is done beating it (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/26/opinion/sunday/amy-coney-barrett-catholic-supreme-court.html).

For Catholicism to become a powerful force in the US, you need massive immigration of Catholics, mass-conversion, or a large amount of both.

Mass-conversion does not sound very realistic unrealistic, and the immigration part looks like it is only happening now (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/14/a-closer-look-at-catholic-america):


Catholics are more likely than other Americans to be immigrants or children of immigrants. Indeed, more than a quarter of U.S. Catholic adults (27%) were born outside the country, compared with 15% of U.S. adults overal

There are a couple of things here that needs to be made explicit regarding desirability. If you think that by your own standards, a country dominated by mainstream Catholicism is no worse than a country dominated by mainstream Protestantism, then Catholicism becoming the dominant religion would not have much of an impact in this context.

Now if you have a mostly secular society, like you have in many European countries, then even if you think swapping Christianity with Islam as the dominant religion is unlikely to generally make things worse (which is not a sentiment I share), then if a secular society is your end goal, an Islamic society represents a step down in desirability.

There is also the ethnic aspect; the earlier immigration of Catholics was immigration of Europeans to a country dominated by people of European ancestry, while the immigration of Muslims to European countries typically is in the form of non-Europeans.

Even if you transit from one secular society to another, presumably extremists of other ethnicities represent a greater threat to a person than extremists from the person's own ethnic group.


The alternative vision is that in the far future what is now Norway will harbor a syncretic culture or cultures that do not yet exist, and the society will have advanced toward mutual material and psychological benefit. That's also a probability, and some appeal to it as a reason to really adopt a policy of rapidly 'dumping' millions of people from poor countries into rich ones right away.

The worst case scenarios introduced with relevant immigration do not appear to replace any worst case scenarios without immigration that are similar or worse, so the new best case scenarios better be a big step up, yet what you offer here seems pretty bland.


(Others who take this view somehow go in the opposite direction in their motivation, arguing that Western societies are so good at assimilating immigrants that if we turbocharge mass immigration then libertarian capitalist Christianity will come to dominate the globe in short order...)

Not sure what you are referring to here; non-Christian immigrants to the West don't tend to end up Christian, as far as I am aware. If you are talking about emptying the non-Western world of Christians and moving them to the West, you might be onto something, although political Christianity in Europe often looks rather different from political Christianity in the US.


Again, who are the actors and what are the tendencies? These aren't pure abstractions. The dysfunctional actors manifest their dysfunction in other domains.

Ordinary citizens that vote for the wrong politicians, for instance.


Here we have an example of Putinist reprisal in the form of quietly-escalating ethnic cleansing against Crimean Tatars, who had just recovered generations after their Stalinist deportation.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/from-stalin-to-putin-the-crimean-tatars-face-a-new-era-of-kremlin-persecution/

By your theory there very existence is the core problem, rather than the novel depredations of an irredentist fascist dictator and his supporters.

Rather, I would say that there are multiple problems; the cohabitation of ethnicities being one of them.

To the specific issues faced by Crimean Tartars today: If the ethnic composition of Krym was strongly dominated by Crimean Tatars, then it would have been more difficult for Russia to annex the peninsula, even if Russia in the scenario also has military bases in Krym prior to the annexation attempt. For one, armed resistance would be much more likely, and a stronger international response would also be more likely; certainly so if Russia also tried to ethnically cleanse the terriorty.


As a standalone proposition I don't think this is quite clear. Radical Islamists are more common, even proportionally, in majority-Muslim societies than otherwise.

The proportions would do well with citation, but it doesn't necessarily have much of a bearing on rehabilitation. The main point is that it is a smaller step to go from a radical Islamist to an Islamist or a conservative Muslim in a Muslim society (a transformation that authorities in Muslim-majority countries might be more than happy with), on the one hand, to a more apathetic Muslim that is content with living in a decadent society (which is more likely to be the desired end-goal in a Western country), on the other.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Sad to say, here in my home state:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/america-will-be-michigan-soon/616635/


Last week, in a 4–3 party-line vote, Republican judges on the Michigan Supreme Court invalidated a law that had empowered a historically popular Democratic chief executive to take emergency actions to combat COVID-19. The basis for the decision was an antiquated doctrine that conservatives on the United States Supreme Court have signaled they want to revive.

Like other governors around the country, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency in March and enacted aggressive emergency measures to fight COVID-19. Those efforts found support in two separate laws, one of which—the Emergency Powers of Governor Act—was adopted in 1945.

By mid-June, statewide cases had dropped to fewer than 200 a day from a peak of more than 1,600. A study out of Imperial College London and the University of Oxford suggested that Whitmer’s efforts saved as many as 74,000 lives. (Full disclosure: I served as special counsel to Whitmer on her COVID-19 response and aided in drafting many of her executive orders.)

The Michigan Supreme Court’s decision last week marks the apotheosis of this “totalitarian” line of thinking. Criticizing the Emergency Powers of Governor Act for giving Whitmer “concentrated and standardless power to regulate the lives of our people,” the Republican majority held that the law was unconstitutional because it violated the so-called nondelegation doctrine.

The doctrine ostensibly prohibits legislatures from passing laws that delegate too much power, or power of the wrong kind, to the executive branch. But the doctrine has never done meaningful work in U.S. constitutional law. It has not been used to strike down an act of Congress since 1935. It has never been used to strike down a Michigan state law, much less an emergency law that has been on the books for three-quarters of a century.

[...] a Republican-controlled court handcuffed a Democratic governor as she moved to address a global pandemic that, to date, has killed more than 7,100 Michiganders. The court’s opinion is almost devoid of citations of Michigan case law, as the law professor Rick Hills has noted. Instead, the court lovingly quotes Gorsuch.

As a result of last week’s decision, Michigan became the only state in the nation that is not operating under some type of state of emergency.

For now, that doesn’t mean the end of all COVID-19 protections. The state’s public-health director has the independent power, not at issue in the Supreme Court’s decision, to take emergency actions to control epidemics. On Monday, the director issued a series of orders incorporating the governor’s prior restrictions, including her mask mandate and limits on gatherings. These orders, too, will surely be challenged.

*sigh*

On a related note:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/courts-are-taking-option-fixing-voting/616634/


Voters in Arkansas, North Dakota, and Idaho took Roberts up on his suggestion to drive reform via citizen-led initiative or by amending their state constitution. In Arkansas, with two different amendments, citizens worked to establish an independent redistricting commission and also open primaries and institute ranked-choice voting. In North Dakota, they looked to strengthen overseas-military voting and election audits, open primaries to all voters, and enact instant runoffs. Idaho voters, meanwhile, sought to expand funding for public education. One by one, these initiatives have been knocked off the ballots this summer by state and federal courts, and for the most tendentious and technical reasons.

These court decisions have limited the ability of the people to hold their representatives accountable through direct democracy. This is frustrating because in many states, such levers are all that citizens have left for addressing both voting and more run-of-the-mill policy concerns, with statehouses gerrymandered beyond use, or otherwise beholden to special interests.

But what is all the more frustrating is that these court decisions threaten the very avenue the chief justice suggested for citizens to do something about their own entrenched representatives. In many red states, this could slam the door on meaningful electoral reform for a generation.

[Gilrandir]

If the ethnic composition of Krym was strongly dominated by Crimean Tatars, then it would have been more difficult for Russia to annex the peninsula, even if Russia in the scenario also has military bases in Krym prior to the annexation attempt. For one, armed resistance would be much more likely, and a stronger international respons would also be more likely; certainly so if Russia also tried to ethnically cleanse the terriorty.


A stronger response? So grave concerns would give way to very grave concerns? That would surely have made Putin think twice before annexing the Crimea.

[ReluctantSamurai]

As expected:

https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-race-and-ethnicity-suburbs-health-racial-injustice-7edf9027af1878283f3818d96c54f748


President Donald Trump portrays the hundreds of people arrested nationwide in protests against racial injustice as violent urban left-wing radicals. But an Associated Press review of thousands of pages of court documents tells a different story.

Very few of those charged appear to be affiliated with highly organized extremist groups, and many are young suburban adults from the very neighborhoods Trump vows to protect from the violence in his reelection push to win support from the suburbs.

Defense attorneys and civil rights activists are questioning why the Department of Justice has taken on cases to begin with. They say most belong in state court, where defendants typically get much lighter sentences. And they argue federal authorities appear to be cracking down on protesters in an effort to stymie demonstrations.

“It is highly unusual, and without precedent in recent American history,” said Ron Kuby, a longtime attorney who isn’t involved in the cases but has represented scores of clients over the years in protest-related incidents. “Almost all of the conduct that’s being charged is conduct that, when it occurs, is prosecuted at the state and local level.”

More than 40% of those facing federal charges are white. At least a third are Black, and about 6% Hispanic. More than two-thirds are under the age of 30 and most are men. More than a quarter have been charged with arson, which if convicted means a five-year minimum prison sentence. More than a dozen are accused of civil disorder, and others are charged with burglary and failing to comply with a federal order. They were arrested in cities across the U.S., from Portland, Oregon, to Minneapolis, Boston and New York.

Barr should get the cell next to his boss when the dust finally settles......:inquisitive:

[ReluctantSamurai]

Another not-so-surprising study:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/26/republican-party-autocratic-hungary-turkey-study-trump


The Republican party has become dramatically more illiberal in the past two decades and now more closely resembles ruling parties in autocratic societies than its former centre-right equivalents in Europe, according to a new international study (https://www.v-dem.net/en/data/data/v-party-dataset/).

In a significant shift since 2000, the GOP has taken to demonising and encouraging violence against its opponents, adopting attitudes and tactics comparable to ruling nationalist parties in Hungary, India, Poland and Turkey.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Video of "the Donald" in his greatcoat and "stern visage" pose has me really flash-backing to shots of Brezhnev on the balcony above Red Square...

We've had Presidents wielding more power and doing so more dictatorially in practice (Lincoln, FDR during the war, Jefferson's foreign policy) but I don't think we have ever had one who actually enjoyed that role and enjoyed the dictator cult trappings so much.

[Pannonian]

Video of "the Donald" in his greatcoat and "stern visage" pose has me really flash-backing to shots of Brezhnev on the balcony above Red Square...

We've had Presidents wielding more power and doing so more dictatorially in practice (Lincoln, FDR during the war, Jefferson's foreign policy) but I don't think we have ever had one who actually enjoyed that role and enjoyed the dictator cult trappings so much.

We've got someone who enjoys being PM without having to do any of the work of a PM or taking any responsibility for decisions as a PM.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

We've got someone who enjoys being PM without having to do any of the work of a PM or taking any responsibility for decisions as a PM.

A number of insiders say that about the donald as well. Enjoys being the Leader just doesn't wish to be bothered with folderol like briefings etc. before making decisions.

[Montmorency]

Report finds that almost all of the late BLM protests had been peaceful, and the majority of the violence was either police violence or damage to public property.
https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/


As expected:

https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-race-and-ethnicity-suburbs-health-racial-injustice-7edf9027af1878283f3818d96c54f748



Barr should get the cell next to his boss when the dust finally settles......:inquisitive:

I recall posting a few months ago about Bill Barratry (look it up, it's a good pun) leaning on prosecutors to trump up charges against protesters.

[Montmorency]

Recent, pre-election polling on political violence we didn't get a chance to cover. Since it's from YouGov, it might be the yearly version of the surveys cited above from 2017-19.

First, I should post an update from within the original article I linked in my earlier post, the one from the beginning of October.


[Update: Since this article published, we’ve received new polling data that strongly suggests the trend is not as large as originally thought. On the question of justifying violence, new data from the same source as the 2017 to 2019 trend suggests there has not been a significant shift in attitudes since December 2019, though there is still a notable increase from 2017. On the question of justifying violence in the event of losing a presidential race, there has been a small increase but not as large as the one we originally described. We’re reviewing the new data and will update further.]

This vague update slotted awkwardly in the very middle of the article can be worth whatever it is. Now, on to the new polling (http://brightlinewatch.org/american-democracy-on-the-eve-of-the-2020-election/), conducted in early October. If there is continuity in YouGov methodology, then these 2020 results follow the clear trend in gradually-rising condonation of political violence. Importantly, the YouGov findings continue to contradict the 2020 Nationscape results, which found much higher levels of tolerance for violence (see image in earlier post). An interesting element of this October survey is that it asks respondents how they feel about political violence framed as retaliatory. In that case, the proportions finding justification in violence double.

24036

Tangentially, but perhaps responsively to the curiosities of some members, at the end of the writeup is a list of democratic principles (from which propositions are sampled as polling questions for respondents, but I'm interested in the propositions themselves here):


The foundation of Bright Line Watch’s surveys is a list of 30 statements expressing a range of democratic principles (the full list is provided below). Democracy is a multidimensional concept. Our goal is to provide a detailed set of measures of democratic values and of the quality of American democracy. We are also interested in the resilience of democracy and the nature of potential threats it faces. Based on the experiences of other countries that have experienced democratic setbacks, we recognize that democratic erosion is not necessarily an across-the-board phenomenon. Some facets of democracy may be undermined first while others remain intact, at least initially. The range of principles that we measure allows us to focus attention on variation in specific institutions and practices that, in combination, shape the overall performance of our democracy.

Elections

Elections are conducted, ballots counted, and winners determined without pervasive fraud or manipulation
Citizens have access to information about candidates that is relevant to how they would govern
The geographic boundaries of electoral districts do not systematically advantage any particular political party
Information about the sources of campaign funding is available to the public
Public policy is not determined by large campaign contributions
Elections are free from foreign influence
Politicians who lose free and fair elections will concede defeat

Voting

All adult citizens have equal opportunity to vote
All votes have equal impact on election outcomes
Voter participation in elections is generally high

Rights

All adult citizens enjoy the same legal and political rights
Parties and candidates are not barred due to their political beliefs and ideologies
Government protects individuals’ right to engage in unpopular speech or expression
Government protects individuals’ right to engage in peaceful protest
Citizens can make their opinions heard in open debate about policies that are under consideration
The law is enforced equally for all persons

Protections

Government does not interfere with journalists or news organizations
Government effectively prevents private actors from engaging in politically-motivated violence or intimidation
Government agencies are not used to monitor, attack, or punish political opponents

Accountability

Government officials are legally sanctioned for misconduct
Government officials do not use public office for private gain
Law enforcement investigations of public officials or their associates are free from political influence or interference
Government statistics and data are produced by experts who are not influenced by political considerations

Institutions

Executive authority cannot be expanded beyond constitutional limits
The legislature is able to effectively limit executive power
The judiciary is able to effectively limit executive power
The elected branches respect judicial independence

Discourse

Even when there are disagreements about ideology or policy, political leaders generally share a common understanding of relevant facts
Elected officials seek compromise with political opponents
Political competition occurs without criticism of opponents’ loyalty or patriotism

To measure perceived democratic performance, the survey asked, “How well do the following statements describe the United States as of today?” Each respondent was then presented with 14 statements of principle, randomly drawn from the set above, and offered the following response options:

The U.S. does not meet this standard
The U.S. partly meets this standard
The U.S. mostly meets this standard
The U.S. fully meets this standard
Not sure

[ReluctantSamurai]

There are plenty of examples of "GOP Fuckery" on this forum. Here's more of the same with a big sprinkling of topping from Democrats:

https://truthout.org/articles/two-democrats-help-senate-kill-effort-to-stop-sale-of-f-35s-and-drones-to-uae/


With the exception of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), every Republican senator present voted against the pair of Democrat-led resolutions. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) joined the GOP in voting against both resolutions, while Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) voted in favor (https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=116&session=2&vote=00262) of blocking the F-35 sale but against (https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=116&session=2&vote=00261) preventing the sale of Reaper drones to UAE — a partner along with the U.S. in the Saudi-led assault on Yemen.

As HuffPost’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed noted (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-uae-senate-weapons-sale_n_5fd1417dc5b61d81b33ba36c), “the defense unit of military contractor Raytheon — which is crucial to the drones being considered — is based in Arizona,” a possible reason behind the two Arizona Democrats’ votes.

The proverbial 'military-industrial complex' is alive and well in 2020...:deal2:

[ReluctantSamurai]

"Monsters are due on Maple Street":

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/12/15/no-the-chinese-are-not-on-the-border-of-maine-and-the-dangers-of-misinformation/


On Monday, the Twitter handle @stormis_us posted that “The F-16 in Michigan was shot down and I now believe that 50,000 Chinese troops were in fact bombed and killed by anti-personnel bombs. At the Maine/Canadian border.”

The information seems farcical on its face, but the handle, which states “THE TRUTH and FACTS. A Warrior for GOD and Christ, #VETERAN (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23VETERAN&src=hashtag_click), #WWG1WGAWORLDWIDE (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23WWG1WGAWORLDWIDE&src=hashtag_click), #MAGA (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23MAGA&src=hashtag_click), #TRUMP2020 (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TRUMP2020&src=hashtag_click), #Conservative (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Conservative&src=hashtag_click)” has nearly 50,000 followers, with more than a mere few believing this post.

Just when you thought it was safe to go out again.....:creep:

[Hooahguy]

So this is definitely a good (https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/532164-biden-team-asks-senate-dems-to-recommend-public-defenders-civil) step in the right direction: "Biden team asks Senate Dems to recommend public defenders, civil rights lawyers for federal bench."


Dana Remus, Biden's pick to serve as White House counsel when he takes office next month, sent a letter to Democratic senators this month soliciting their input on district court seats in their states, saying that the new administration would be emphasizing nominees who are demographically diverse and don't have the corporate law or prosecutor pedigree that is typical of a federal judge.
"With respect to U.S. District Court positions, we are particularly focused on nominating individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench, including those who are public defenders, civil rights and legal aid attorneys, and those who represent Americans in every walk of life," Remus wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Hill.

[rory_20_uk]

I would also like to see the Innocence Project getting asked to work with the Office of Pardons to help clear out of prison the many who have either been wrongly incarcerated or else are victims of the "three strikes and you're out" era of virtue signalling. If nothing else, getting such persons out of jail would save money, even if righting social wrongs and just being the right thing to do aren't big issues.

~:smoking:

[ReluctantSamurai]

Nothing will ever change:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-13/lapd-employee-posts-photo-of-george-floyd-with-caption-you-take-my-breath-away

[ReluctantSamurai]

This is one reason why the law enforcement system is completely broken here in the US, and nothing short of a major overhaul is even going to make a dent:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/16/us-police-officers-public-officials-crowdfunding-website-data-breach


A data breach at a Christian crowdfunding website has revealed that serving police officers and public officials have donated money to fundraisers for accused vigilante murderers, far-right activists, and fellow officers accused of shooting black Americans.

One donation for $25, made on 3 September last year, was made anonymously, but associated with the official email address for Sgt William Kelly, who currently serves as the executive officer of internal affairs in the Norfolk police department in Virginia. That donation also carried a comment, reading: “God bless. Thank you for your courage. Keep your head up. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

"You've done nothing wrong." Jeezus....killing another human being is a crime punishable by death, in some instances......as long as it's not someone black/brown/asian/LGBT or some other that white racists can vilify.

[spmetla]

I just don't get how people think that reforming law enforcement is somehow part of "cancel culture" or "political correctness." The anger isn't over people getting shot that were a threat its cops killing people for non-compliance. Unless someone is a deadly threat to the office or the public lethal force shouldn't be used.

I don't recall in Iraq or Afghanistan being allowed such a liberal use of force. We could defend ourselves and shoot at clear threats, people avoiding us or resisting being detained didn't warrant being shot. Hell, killing someone that's been captured/detained is a war crime. Granted I'm sure plenty of US Soldiers/Marines used force without cause and never suffered any consequences but the Police doing the same within the US is ridiculous.

The problem with overhauling law enforcement is our state based system, short of the FBI investigating every case of someone killed by the police I don't see how it can be fixed at the federal level. Highly doubt the FBI have the resources for that either.

[ReluctantSamurai]

The problem with overhauling law enforcement is our state based system, short of the FBI investigating every case of someone killed by the police I don't see how it can be fixed at the federal level. Highly doubt the FBI have the resources for that either.

The problem, as I see it, is two-fold:

First thing is to reform the screening process when hiring new officers. Weed out the Neo-Nazi types, and those with dishonorable discharges from the military. Use the very same profiling techniques that law enforcement uses on criminals. There will still be a certain amount of riff-raff that slips through, but agencies can certainly reduce the number of officers that would exhibit the kind of behavior of Sgt. Kelly.

Second is to have a yearly review board that is outside the jurisdiction of a locality. This could be done at state level, who then submit their results for review to a Federal agency. Not perfect, but better than the zilch we have now. Officers who garner repeated complaints are then brought before a board of review for additional training/reassignment, or let go if the behavior continues.

Funding, in at least big city police departments, could come from directing money away from the purchases of military equipment, into the proper oversight agencies:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/19/what-does-defund-the-police-mean-and-does-it-have-merit/

This link provides some interesting data on police expenditures:

https://www.statista.com/chart/10593/how-much-do-us-cities-spend-on-policing/

Some of the related infographics provide interesting detail....

And a state-by-state breakdown of expenditures:

https://www.moneygeek.com/living/state-policing-corrections-spending/

[yeah...I know this stuff is all old-hat since last summers protests, but in light of recent police shootings, I thought a revisit would be in order....]

[Montmorency]

Broken windows policing for police, if there were a way to institutionalize that.

The fundamental change needs to be in the culture, incentives, and objectives of policing itself, so that it's not a power-mad, fear-mad insular clique of a notional master race.

Colorado and New Mexico's seeming termination of qualified immunity for civil servants is one step.

[rory_20_uk]

Qualified immunity should be a thing but for the accused to demonstrate why it applies as opposed to bieng almost completely open ended.

Exactly how every part - from politicians to unions to the police themselves would need to do something that is against their self interest.

Just like voting system reform - those with the ability to do something would almost certainly loose out.

~:smoking:

[Hooahguy]

Derek Chauvin, the police officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck, has been found guilty (https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/derek-chauvin-trial-04-20-21/index.html) on all charges.


The 12 jurors found him guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in George Floyd's death in May 2020.

The maximum sentence for second-degree unintentional murder is imprisonment of not more than 40 years. The maximum sentence for third-degree murder is imprisonment of not more than 25 years. The maximum sentence for second-degree manslaughter is 10 years and/or $20,000.

Good. I am sure he will appeal so we will see what happens there.

[Montmorency]

Qualified immunity should be a thing but for the accused to demonstrate why it applies as opposed to bieng almost completely open ended.

Exactly how every part - from politicians to unions to the police themselves would need to do something that is against their self interest.

Just like voting system reform - those with the ability to do something would almost certainly loose out.

~:smoking:

I didn't notice that New York just did this.
https://www.cato.org/blog/nyc-council-passes-qualified-immunity-reform-bill-bolstering-citizens-fourth-amendment-rights


The New York City Council passed landmark legislation last week that will allow citizens to sue police for violations of their Fourth Amendment rights. The bill awaits the signature of Mayor de Blasio, who has indicated support for the measure.

New York is the first city to pass legislation that would allow citizens to sue police officers for excessive force or unlawful searches and seizures without first overcoming the high hurdle of qualified immunity. The NYPD is the largest municipal police force in the United States, underscoring the wide reach of the landmark legislation.

Police reform efforts have gathered steam in the United States, with all eyes on the trial for Derek Chauvin, the former police officer accused of killing George Floyd. But criminal prosecutions of police officers for excessive force are exceedingly rare, causing many to conclude that the best way to keep police accountable for unlawful acts is to allow citizens to sue police forces for damages.

Even so, the Supreme Court has stubbornly refused to reconsider its qualified immunity doctrine, which prevents the majority of lawsuits against officers for excessive force from going to trial. And while some members of Congress are working on eliminating the doctrine, many local governments aren’t waiting to see if they succeed. Instead, they’re introducing legislation that creates a path around the qualified immunity roadblock by establishing a local cause of action.

The NYC bill works the same way: it adds a new chapter to the NYC Administrative code, which establishes a local right to be free from excessive force and unreasonable searches and seizures. This right is designed to mirror the Fourth Amendment, and the legislation calls for it to be interpreted the same way. But it also allows citizens to sue police for the deprivation of that right, while explicitly providing that “qualified immunity or any other substantially equivalent immunity” will not shield officers from responsibility.

It’s not just individual police officers who are held accountable, either. The reform measure takes the major step of holding officers and their departments liable for violations of a citizen’s Fourth Amendment rights. Effectively, this creates two layers of accountability. First, police officers are incentivized to avoid misconduct so they don’t find themselves the target of litigation. But police departments also have to be wary of employing cops with poor track records, since they’re ultimately on the hook for any damages those officers cause. The upshot is that it will be increasingly costly for the NYPD—or, more precisely, New York taxpayers—to employ substandard officers who generate a disproportionate number of damages claims though their serial misconduct.

That provision also helps ensure victims of police misconduct have a complete remedy: if the officer isn’t able to pay for the damage caused, aggrieved individuals can also seek compensation from the officer’s employer. The bill also provides that prevailing plaintiffs may seek both attorney’s fees and punitive damages. It’s even possible to sue in equity: thus, if a police officer took a valuable keepsake while searching someone’s house, a person can sue to have the specific item returned instead of just the item’s monetary value.

The final provision of the bill requires the city to keep records that will allow the policy’s success to be measured. As the home of our nation’s largest municipal police force, New York’s new law sets a tremendous example for other cities to follow.

I have no objections (though ideally the generic application of qualified immunity as pertains broadly to judges, prosecutors, and other civil servants should also be retrenched systematically). The conditions under which a doctrine of qualified immunity for government bodies or agents should fairly be shielding are so limited that it might as well be codified. More debatable is the decision to basically exempt officers from personal liability in this legislation.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Along with the slew of voter restriction bills in many states (read as white supremacy affirmation), there are a number of this kind of legislation "quietly" passing into law:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/us/politics/republican-anti-protest-laws.html


The measures are part of a wave of new anti-protest legislation, sponsored and supported by Republicans, in the 11 months since Black Lives Matter protests swept the country following the death of George Floyd. The Minneapolis police officer who killed Mr. Floyd, Derek Chauvin, was convicted on Tuesday on murder and manslaughter charges, a cathartic end to weeks of tension.

But while Democrats seized on Mr. Floyd’s death last May to highlight racism in policing and other forms of social injustice, Republicans responded to a summer of protests by proposing a raft of punitive new measures governing the right to lawfully assemble. G.O.P. lawmakers in 34 states have introduced 81 anti-protest bills during the 2021 legislative session — more than twice as many proposals as in any other year, according to Elly Page, a senior legal adviser at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, which tracks legislation limiting the right to protest (https://www.icnl.org/usprotestlawtracker/).

So far, three bills aimed at limiting protests have been signed into law — Florida’s and new laws in Arkansas and Kansas that target protesters who seek to disrupt oil pipelines. Others are likely to come soon.

[Montmorency]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deLlROkphCw

[Hooahguy]

Well that disturbing on a number of levels. Police training has broadly failed and Im honestly not entirely sure how this even begins to get fixed.

[ReluctantSamurai]

When I first saw that, I knew in the first few seconds that she had some kind of cognitive difficulty. I've had several relatives with some form of dementia, and that blank stare into space, and uncertain body movement is a dead give away. And the "I'm going home" mantra you'd think would give even a someone who's never had to deal with a person suffering from dementia, some kind of pause to consider that she has a problem.

And maybe police departments should require officers to undergo regular fitness training, as well. Huffing and puffing while restraining a 5' tall 100lb 73 year old, suffering from dementia.....:rolleyes:

The projection of entitlement..."Why are you making me do this?", is part of the core problem. We [law enforement] have the RIGHT to abuse you in any way we see fit, and if you resist....it's YOUR fault for making us use excessive force.

Hopefully, the ensuing law suit against the Loveland police dept. will bring some sort of justice for her.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

When I first saw that, I knew in the first few seconds that she had some kind of cognitive difficulty. I've had several relatives with some form of dementia, and that blank stare into space, and uncertain body movement is a dead give away. And the "I'm going home" mantra you'd think would give even a someone who's never had to deal with a person suffering from dementia, some kind of pause to consider that she has a problem.

And maybe police departments should require officers to undergo regular fitness training, as well. Huffing and puffing while restraining a 5' tall 100lb 73 year old, suffering from dementia.....:rolleyes:

The projection of entitlement..."Why are you making me do this?", is part of the core problem. We [law enforement] have the RIGHT to abuse you in any way we see fit, and if you resist....it's YOUR fault for making us use excessive force.

Hopefully, the ensuing law suit against the Loveland police dept. will bring some sort of justice for her.

My wife used to work with a police department in Virginia, making sure their curriculum met DoJ guidelines etc. This was 20 years ago. They had required training on dementia issues then and the entire force is supposed to get continuing education updating them on such things on a bi-yearly basis. It is a virtual certainty that the officers involved had received training on the issue -- and apparently ignored that training 'in the moment.'

As to your other concern about attitude/entitlement regarding use of force...I tend to agree. It is as though too many of them watched the Kevin Costner rendition of Wyatt Earp and thought to themselves "way cool, I wanna do that." Of course Costner's opponents were all nicely scripted so as to be in the wrong. Maybe if we starting issuing white and black hats to everyone....

[Montmorency]

I'm not sure I've seen Tombstone, so maybe Seth Bullock.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Q3xS8ZVws

[ReluctantSamurai]

Loveland police aren't done yet. I don't know which video is worse, the original arrest, or this (there's an hour-long version available):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmtxTWTTdC4

This makes me even more angry than the arrest video because, as I mentioned earlier, I've had close relatives suffer and die from Alzheimer's, and it always tore my heart to see someone I so enjoyed as a kid be rendered completely helpless. Sorry, but if it were legal, I'd love to kick Officer Hopp's ass.

As if all that shit wasn't enough, these two cops KNEW they had dislocated Garner's shoulder (you can clearly hear Hopp ackowledge that in the video), and they didn't call for medical assistance for 6 HOURS. These two need to be brought up on charges. Better yet, throw them into a ring with a professional wrestler and let them get tossed around by someone much, much bigger than them, then kick them out the back door and keep them restrained in an alley for six hours.

:soapbox:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Regardless of their position vis a vis use of force, not contacting medical assistance for that length of time is inexcusable.

[Montmorency]

It has often been remarked that people who work in any sector of healthcare or social work (often, even education) are expected to resolve and deescalate altercations or other problems without weapons and typically without bodily force - which they regularly accomplish.

Indeed, if some healthcare workers, social workers, or educators behaved like police routinely do, more likely than not they would have police called on them.

Ironies of life.

[rory_20_uk]

"... And now, a breaking news story of police brutality - surely we have now reached the nadir?"

[somewhere else in the USA]

"Hold my tazer. Bodycam on..."

~:smoking:

[Montmorency]

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2021/04/14/fort-jackson-investigating-white-soldier-for-harassing-a-black-man-on-video/ [VIDEO]


A white Army non-commissioned officer depicted in a viral video accosting and shoving a Black man in a South Carolina neighborhood has been charged with third-degree assault.

Jonathan Pentland, 42, was charged Wednesday and listed as detained in the Richland County jail and issued a personal recognizance bond, according to online jail records, which did not show him as having an attorney.

Officials at Fort Jackson are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding a viral video shared online, showing a white man aggressively pursuing a Black man walking through a neighborhood.

Spokesperson Leslie Sully confirmed the white man in the video is a soldier stationed at Fort Jackson, however, she would not confirm his name. He has, however, been identified as Army Sgt. 1st Class Jonathan Pentland by several news organizations and social media users, including those posting to the local law enforcement office’s Facebook page.

“This is by no means condoned by any service member,” Fort Jackson’s Commanding General, Brig. Gen. Milford “Beags” Beagle, Jr., tweeted. “We will get to the bottom of this ASAP.”

The video shows Pentland advancing on, pushing and yelling at the young man, who appears to have been out walking alone on the sidewalk in a Columbia, South Carolina, neighborhood called The Lakes at Barony Place.

“Fort Jackson officials are aware of the video and it has our full attention,” Beagle noted in an email statement to Military Times. “This type of behavior is not consistent with our Army Values and will not be condoned. We have begun our own investigation and are working with the local authorities”


A white Fort Jackson soldier (https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2021/04/23/white-fort-jackson-soldier-charged-in-altercation-with-a-black-man-to-be-prosecuted-in-civilian-courts/) charged in connection with an April 12 altercation with a Black man will be prosecuted by the civilian justice system before the military justice system gets involved, the South Carolina post’s commanding general said Friday.

Sgt. First Class Jonathan Pentland, the Army non-commissioned officer shown confronting a Black man walking in his Columbia, South Carolina, neighborhood in a viral video, was charged with third-degree assault and has been suspended from all instructor duties. The charge is a misdemeanor, and Pentland faces a fine of not more than $500, 30 days imprisonment, or both.

Though the Richland County Sheriff’s Department transferred Pentland to Fort Jackson authorities on April 14, Fort Jackson Commanding General Brig. Gen. Milford “Beags” Beagle Jr. has officially turned over all proceedings to the civilian system.

“While I have the authority to take action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice or take other administrative actions, I have the utmost confidence in our civilian criminal system and trust that it will reach a fair and just resolution of this case,” Beagle said in a statement. “I do not want to take any actions now that could interfere with the fair resolution of civilian criminal charges.”


Turbo-arrested/charged. At least the soldiers don't get immunity (domestically).

[ReluctantSamurai]

A small measure of justice:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/30/colorado-police-loveland-officers-resign

Litigation will likely result is a hefty payout, but I doubt any real change in the Loveland police dept will happen...:shrug:

[Viking]

Looks like their (or their neighbour's) diversity drive wasn't a 10 out of 10.


The new hires are David Zamarron, Luis Carrazco, Juan Quintero, Daria Jalali and Chad Nicaise.

https://www.dailycamera.com/2016/05/13/with-new-hires-lafayette-police-seek-to-improve-diversity/

[ReluctantSamurai]

From the link:


Even with additional council funding however, certification is only one of the first steps to employment. The process, which impacts all applicants, requires several weeks for the department to fully vet individuals.

Tests that gauge IQ, mental stability, integrity, and other metrics, are required of applicants — including investigations into the candidates’ backgrounds.

While a disconnect in minority representation is likely to exist well into the future, Lafayette residents can find encouragement in the recent steps and its leaders’ attitudes toward cultural understanding.

Dollars to doughnuts, the abuse of Karen Garner won't be mentioned, or if it is, will be ignored. Let's just hope there aren't any elderly citizens suffering from dementia in Lafayette to abuse.....:rolleyes:

[Montmorency]

Indeed, if some healthcare workers, social workers, or educators behaved like police routinely do, more likely than not they would have police called on them.

For just such an example (https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article251069219.html) of a teacher roughing up a student!


Kansas state Rep. Mark Samsel was arrested on charges of alleged misdemeanor battery on Thursday after getting into a physical altercation with a student while substitute teaching in Wellsville.

Samsel, 36, was booked into the Franklin County Adult Detention Center after 3:30 p.m. Thursday. He has since been released on $1,000 bond, Sheriff Jeff Richards said. He has not been formally charged.

Superintendent Ryan Bradbury said that Samsel will no longer be allowed to work for the district.

On Wednesday, Samsel, R-Wellsville, was substitute teaching at the Wellsville school district’s secondary school. Throughout the day, high school students began recording videos of the lawmaker talking about suicide, sex, masturbation, God and the Bible.

In one video shared with The Star, Samsel tells students about “a sophomore who’s tried killing himself three times,” adding that it was because “he has two parents and they’re both females.”

In a Snapchat post shared with The Star, Samsel wrote that “it was all planned.”

“Every little bit of it. That’s right. The kids and I planned ALL this to SEND A MESSAGE about art, mental health, teenage suicide, how we treat our educators and one another. To who? Parents. And grandparents. And all of Wellsville,” he posted.

He wrote that he gave one particular student “hope.”

“I went to jail for battery. Does that really make me a criminal? Time will tell.”

He said that the incident happened during fifth period, and that the classes before that hour went as planned, and he shared the same lesson in each one. He said what happened was “exactly what God planned. The kids were in on it. Not all of them. But most.”

This is a - layered - story...


“He’s a foster kid. His alternatives in life were having no parents or foster care parents who are gay,” Samsel tells students. “How do you think I’m going to feel if he commits suicide? Awful.”

In another video, Samsel is recorded telling students, “make babies. Who likes making babies? That feels good, doesn’t it? Procreate ... You haven’t masturbated? Don’t answer that question. ... God already knows.”

Videos shared with The Star — by parents of students in the class — show Samsel focusing most of his attention on one male student. Both Samsel and the student paced around the classroom, talking back and forth. Samsel is shown following the student around and grabbing him. In one video, he puts his arms around the student and says that he was being hard on him.

At one point, Samsel tells the student, “You’re about ready to anger me and get the wrath of God. Do you believe me when I tell you that God has been speaking to me?” He then pushes him, and the student runs to the other side of the classroom.

“You should run and scream.”

In another video, he tells students, “Class, you have permission to kick him in the balls.”

Parents told The Star that Samsel “put hands on the student” and allegedly kneed him in the crotch. In a video apparently taken immediately after the incident, the student is shown on the ground. Samsel is standing over him and says, “did it hurt?”

He then asks him why he is about to start crying, pats him on the shoulder and apologizes, and then says he can “go to the nurse, she can check it for you.”

Samsel addresses another student and says, “do you want to check his nuts for him, please?”

The videos angered dozens of parents, who felt that their children were put in danger. Samsel works with students in several capacities, including as a referee and through church groups, parents said.

“I’m a concerned parent who doesn’t want this swept under the rug,” said father Joshua Zeck. “He’s around kids all the time. He’s a state representative. He’s in a position of power.”

Zeck said that he felt Samsel was “bullying” the student.

In a message to families, Bradbury said that the situation is being investigated.

“Student safety has and always will be our first priority,” he said.

Samsel is the second Kansas lawmaker to be arrested this year. Former Senate Majority Leader Gene Suellentrop, a Wichita Republican, was charged with felony eluding and fleeing from police and also faces misdemeanor charges of drunk and reckless driving after allegedly driving the wrong way on Topeka highways on March 16. He was forced to step down from his leadership post.

In another video, Samsel is shown telling the student about “distractions from the devil,” and then grabs him from behind and lifts him off his feet.

In a different clip, he tells the student to go to the office.

“You were not following — not my rules — God’s rules right now,” he tells the student. “You better take a Bible.”

“Keep denying God, keep denying God, see how it’s going to turn out,” he told the student.

He is also shown in a video instructing some students to go outside, hold hands and run around the track, seemingly as punishment.

“Do you think we want to do this? No, we had a lesson to do. Is it kind of funny? Yeah. Are they ever going to learn? God only knows,” he says while watching the two students run outside.

Videos show Samsel’s classroom in chaos as he talks about the devil, God and how the Bible was edited.

“Are you doing the Lord’s work as you’re listening to the devil’s music?” he asks a student.

And he continually references suicide, and tells the class, “I’m not going to lose one more of my kids to suicide. Are we clear?”

House Speaker Ron Ryckman told The Star that “we’re not yet aware of the details and in the process of gathering as much information as we can.”

Samsel, who is an attorney, is in his second term in the House, where he’s occasionally courted controversy. In February, he was one of just 13 lawmakers to vote against a bill that would have ended an exemption for spouses from the state’s sexual battery law.

Ahead of the vote, he gave a speech in which he appeared to express concerns about criminalizing sexual relations between spouses.

“To me, it gets to what does the sanctity of marriage mean?” Samsel was quoted as saying, according to the Kansas Reflector. “And I’m single, so I’m not the best person to speak to this. But when you do get married, what does that mean? And what implied consent are you giving?”

[ReluctantSamurai]

This is one woman you definitely don't want to eff with:

https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/detroit-woman-tracks-down-stolen-mercedes-suspect-dragged-from-barbershop-by-dreds


Bianca Chambers said for two days, she tracked her car throughout the city until Wednesday when the man parked her car and went to get his hair done. That's when she confronted the thief. "At that point, I was like…I’m not letting this man walk again," she said.

She walked into a barbershop at Greenfield and Grand River and was face-to-face with the guy she says stole her new Benz and asked him point-blank - is that his Benz? When he denied it, she took him down.

Others have made the comment that she should be appointed to the Jan 6 commission. I wholeheartedly agree....:chucks:

~D

[Montmorency]

Some telling details about the legacy of Emmett Till (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/barn-emmett-till-murder/619493/) (a Black boy forcibly disappeared in Mississippi in the 1950s):


For white Mississippians like Jeff Andrews and me, it’s possible to grow up rarely, if ever, hearing Emmett Till’s name. Slipping free of the generational guilt and shame of this particular murder—a proxy for so many acts of violence and cruelty, large and small—remains a central part of a white child’s education in the Delta, where a system of private schools arose in response to integration. “Seg academies,” they’re called. A Mississippi-history textbook taught at one in the early 1990s didn’t mention Till at all. A newer textbook contains 70 words on Till, calling him a “man” and telling the story of his killing through the lens of the damage that two evil men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, did to all the good white folks. Half the passage is about how the segregationist governor was a “moderating force” in a time when media coverage of Till’s murder “painted a poor picture of Mississippi and its white citizens.” This textbook is still in use.

The barn’s history would have remained secret except for a single Mississippian. Early on the last morning of Emmett Till’s life, a Black 18-year-old named Willie Reed awoke and walked toward the town of Drew on the dirt road that still runs past the Andrews place.

Reed was heading to a nearby country store to get breakfast. He saw a green-and-white Chevrolet pickup truck turn onto the path that led up to the barn. Four white men sat shoulder to shoulder in the cab; in the back three Black men sat with a terrified Black child. The child was Emmett Till.

Reed heard Till screaming in the barn. At one point, he saw J. W. Milam take a break and walk with a gun on his hip to a nearby well. Milam drank some cool water, then went back inside and the beating continued. The screams turned to moans.

The men talked about taking Till to a hospital, but they’d beaten him too badly to be saved. So much about this murder remains unknown, but FBI investigators believe a single gunshot to the head ended Till’s life in the barn. The men threw cotton seeds on the floor to soak up the blood and took the body to the Tallahatchie River. They threw Till off a bridge; a cotton-gin fan tied to his neck pulled him down.

Willie Reed went to work the next day. By then word had spread, and people were starting to talk. His grandfather begged him to stay quiet and not create trouble for the family. Reed thought over and over about whether he should tell the truth about what he’d seen and heard.

A retired FBI agent named Dale Killinger knows more about the murder of Emmett Till than anyone else alive. Killinger was the lead agent when the FBI opened a federal investigation in 2004, with the potential to finally bring charges against Carolyn Bryant for her presumed role in the murder.

I talked to Killinger on the phone one afternoon about the violence in the barn. The next time we spoke he told me that his wife had been sitting next to him during that graphic conversation, and when he’d hung up, she’d turned to him with a hollow look in her eyes and asked him why they’d done it. Even when people know generally what happened to Till, the specifics still leave them gasping.

“Rhea, don’t you understand?” he told her. “They were entertained by this.”

“What do you mean?” she said.

“They could’ve killed and tortured him anywhere they wanted to,” he told her. “They chose to take him to a barn where they could control the environment and do what they wanted. In my mind, they were entertaining themselves.”

He told me he’s imagined the sounds of that night over and over. He interviewed Leslie Milam’s widow before she died and found her evasive.

“Frances Milam was home,” he said. “She was in the house. You think she heard what was going on?”

Killinger laughed bitterly and answered his own question.“Hell yeah, she did,” he said. “It’s 1955 and you don’t have air-conditioning. So she admitted that they brought him to the farm in the middle of the night. That’s in the FBI report. So she was there and they were beating him and eventually somebody shot him in that barn in the head. You hear everything in Mississippi! You know? The windows are open. You have window screening—that’s all you have. You hear a car coming a mile away. You hear somebody getting beat in your barn! You hear a gunshot! Think about why they chose to go to that barn. They chose it because Leslie Milam controlled that space. And they could go in there and do what they wanted, how they wanted. And why would you do that? You could have taken him off in the woods and killed him if you wanted to, right? Dump the body anywhere. They went out of their way.”

Over the decades, evidence and facts had slowly vanished. The only copy of the trial transcript disappeared, and FBI agents had to track down a copy of a copy of a copy, which a source led them to at a private residence on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The ring Till had been wearing, which had belonged to his father, vanished. In the 1970s, the Sumner courthouse was renovated and old evidence was discarded. A lawyer in Sumner looked on the curb of the courthouse and saw the gin fan that had been used to sink Till’s body sitting with all sorts of meaningless trash bound for the dump. He took it as a trophy but soon threw it away.

A recording of Roy Bryant’s account of that night in 1955 exists. The tapes are either in Mississippi or in Los Angeles, where the United American Costume Company is based. That’s the company founded by John Wayne’s personal costumer, a native of Ruleville, Mississippi, named Luster Bayless. Decades ago, Bayless decided he wanted to make a movie about the Till murder and so he arranged an interview with Bryant. A microcassette recorder captured every word as Bryant drove around the Delta, re-creating the night of the murder; it is likely the only existing description of what happened inside the barn in the final hour of Till’s life. Bryant even posed for a Polaroid in front of the store. Other than FBI agents and a few random people, nobody has heard the recording.

These tapes contain something other than facts, although they contain lots of those, too. They contain the sound of Bryant’s voice, the way his laugh sounds when he recounts torturing a child, the way he drawls his vowels, the little details that let you know a human being did this terrible thing. Locals remember Bryant as an old man, blinded by a lifetime of welding, working at a store on Highway 49 in Ruleville, eight miles from the barn.

The researcher Bayless hired, a woman named Cecelia Lusk, told me she went to the libraries at Delta State and Ole Miss and was stunned. Stories about Till had been torn out of magazines in the archives. In both of the courthouses in Tallahatchie County, she said, she found the legal file folders for the case. They were empty. “Not one sheet of paper,” she said. “Someone had removed everything. There was absolutely not one piece of paper in those folders.”
[...]
Killinger presented his report and waited; he thought there was enough evidence for an indictment. But nothing happened. A local prosecutor tried—not hard enough, in Killinger’s opinion—to indict Carolyn Bryant for manslaughter, but a grand jury declined. That was 14 years ago. A reporter heard the news and found Simeon Wright at his local church. He said he knew he didn’t have many years left and now he knew he’d die without seeing Carolyn Bryant spend a minute behind bars. The members of the grand jury looked in the mirror, he said, and didn’t like what they saw.

Fourteen years ago, Tallahatchie County issued a formal apology for the acquittal of Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam. The state installed a green historical marker outside the courthouse. Patrick Weems’s office is across the street from that sign, so he can literally point out his window at progress. But he can also point to the repeated vandalism of signs his organization has worked to erect. There was a marker at the Delta Inn, the hotel where jurors were sequestered and where, during the trial, a cross was burned just in case any of the jurors didn’t understand what their neighbors expected of them. That marker was taken down one night by vandals and has not been replaced. A sign was placed along the Tallahatchie River, where Till’s body was found, but someone threw it in the water. A replacement collected more than 100 bullet holes until, made illegible by the violence, it came down and was given to the Smithsonian. A third sign got shot a month after it went up. Three Ole Miss students posed before the sign with guns, and one posted the photo to Instagram. The current sign is bulletproof.

Little about this murder feels safely in the past. Wheeler Parker is alive. So is Carolyn Bryant. Many of the children and grandchildren of the killers and the jurors and the defense attorneys still live in the area. The barn is still just a barn. One man claims that the truck used to kidnap Till is rusting right now on a Glendora plantation. Two of the four men suspected of being in the cab of that truck back in 1955 went unnamed in public until Killinger’s FBI report was released. Till’s ring remains missing, and the legal files remain missing.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

A sad tribute to the racist side of our culture.

While one of your sources noted that it does not feel "safely in the past," none of the participants are criminally or civilly liable any more as statutes of limitations (aside from direct participation in the torture and murder itself) make any and all who knew or watched or approved or turned a blind eye un-prosecutable.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Didn't know where to put this, but in any case, this is hilarious and a sad commentary on the current US Congress:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mtg-scoobie-doo-green-new-deal-b1925702.html

Oops. MTG needs to go back to school and retake her geography class (which she obviously must have failed). The Scooby Doo references aside, you got the wrong flag honey...:embarassed:

A sitting member of the US Congress....:shame:

[Hooahguy]

Didn't know where to put this, but in any case, this is hilarious and a sad commentary on the current US Congress:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mtg-scoobie-doo-green-new-deal-b1925702.html

Oops. MTG needs to go back to school and retake her geography class (which she obviously must have failed). The Scooby Doo references aside, you got the wrong flag honey...:embarassed:

A sitting member of the US Congress....:shame:
Is that any worse than terrible spelling mistakes (https://imgur.com/HUKyvyJ)?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Didn't know where to put this, but in any case, this is hilarious and a sad commentary on the current US Congress:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mtg-scoobie-doo-green-new-deal-b1925702.html

Oops. MTG needs to go back to school and retake her geography class (which she obviously must have failed). The Scooby Doo references aside, you got the wrong flag honey...:embarassed:

A sitting member of the US Congress....:shame:

She earned 74.6% of her constituency's votes in 2020. She is EXACTLY what the founders wanted in a Rep, someone who truly represents what the predominant views of her district are.

Of course, they would have been appalled at the thought of a district with that much ignorance coupled to that little common sense.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Interesting poll:

https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/new-initiative-explores-deep-persistent-divides-between-biden-and-trump-voters/


Significant numbers of both Trump and Biden voters show a willingness to consider violating democratic tendencies and norms if needed to serve their priorities. Roughly 2 in 10 Trump and Biden voters strongly agree it would be better if a “President could take needed actions without being constrained by Congress or courts,” and roughly 4 in 10 (41%) of Biden and half (52%) of Trump voters at least somewhat agree that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union.

Buckle up...:smg:

And then a more sobering look:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/06/americans-national-divorse-theyre-wrong-515443


[...]a National Divorce has nothing to recommend it. The practical obstacles are obvious and insuperable, and the likely effects would be very unwelcome to its proponents. If an insufficient patriotism is one of the ills of contemporary America, National Divorce would prescribe a strong dose of arsenic as a cure. It would burn down America to save America, or at least those parts of it considered salvageable.

The deleterious effects of a breakup would be enormous. A disaggregated United States would be instantly less powerful. Indeed, Russia and China would be delighted and presumably believe that we’d deserve to experience the equivalent of the crackup of the Soviet Union or the Qing dynasty, respectively. Among the catastrophes you wish on an adversary, secessionist movements potentially leading to civil conflict are high on the list.


Secession, of course, isn’t close to going mainstream yet, thankfully. The real impetus for the talk of a breakup is despair. It constitutes giving up — giving up on convincing our fellow Americans, giving up on our common national project, giving up on our birthright.

[Montmorency]

Speaking of British colonies, here's some Australian brutality (though I can't quite discern what exactly is happening in the clip).
https://twitter.com/fictillius/status/1440823564047843334 [VIDEO]


The deleterious effects of a breakup would be enormous. A disaggregated United States would be instantly less powerful. Indeed, Russia and China would be delighted and presumably believe that we’d deserve to experience the equivalent of the crackup of the Soviet Union or the Qing dynasty, respectively. Among the catastrophes you wish on an adversary, secessionist movements potentially leading to civil conflict are high on the list.


If the US could go to war with China over freaking Taiwan, then it would certainly go to war over itself over - to name just a few - land, transportation infrastructure, natural and industrial resources, military arsenals and loyalties, nuclear stockpiles...

Even a geopolitically-insignificant country could never peacefully disintegrate into a constellation of subunits almost evenly geographically-imbricated between each other but still respectively populated with at least 1/3 of the fraternal nationals. Not to mention the collapse of financial and economic stability on the North American landmass as the US dollar and market disappears, triggering a deep and crushing global depression, with attendant regional chaos.

It would be the 1948 war x1000, with potentially-apocalyptic world-war consequences. That's why no American political actor countenances anything but full capture of the ship of state. Which is why we must hope Biden will have the courage to treat the insurrection as such in three years' time, according to his authorities as Commander in Chief.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Unfortunately, we've got nut-jobs like this calling for 'a holy war':

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/10/5/2056056/-Rep-Madison-Cawthorn-posts-clip-calling-for-holy-war-Twitter-mocks-him


“Now is the time for our pastors and our congregations, like this one here, like many that you represent. It's time for us to stand up and declare boldly that as men and women of faith, we have a duty to stand against tyranny, we have a duty to be civically involved, we have a duty to save this country for the next generation.” Cawthorn said in a speech delivered at the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalition's "Salt & Light Conference."

“Look back at the Old Testament. Look at David, look at Daniel, look at Esther, look at all of these people who influenced the governments of their day to uphold Christian principles. It is time for the American Christian church to come out of the shadows, to say ‘No longer are we going to allow our culture to be determined by people who hate the things that we believe in! We are going to stand valiantly for God's incredible inerrant truths that predate any version of government.' Because my friends, if we lose this country today, if we bend the knee to the Democrats today, our country will be lost forever, our children will never know what freedom is,” Cawthorn said.

Except this dip-shit has never even read the bible or he'd have known that:


[...] even one who isn’t Christian knows that no one in the Old Testament was fighting to uphold Christian principles. Christ wasn’t even born at the time of the Old Testament—which is based on the Hebrew Bible, or the Torah.

Unfortunately, that won't matter to right-wingers who love video's of someone punching a punky-soft, dead tree...:rolleyes:

Then, of course, there's this neo-nazi calling for "shock troops":

https://crooksandliars.com/2021/10/steve-bannon-claims-he-has-20k-shock


"If you’re going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately," Bannon said in a telephone interview with NBC News. "I gave 'em fire and brimstone."

"We're winning big in 2024 and we need to get ready now," he said. "Right? We control the country. We've got to start acting like it. And one way we're going to act like it, we're not going to have 4,000 [shock troops] ready to go, we're going to have 20,000 ready to go and we're going to pick the 4,000 best and most ready in every single department."

And unfortunately, there are those who will take this whacko seriously, tho' I think he might have to move the decimal point a couple of spaces to the left of 20000...:crazy:

[Montmorency]

Stories like this (https://www.propublica.org/article/black-children-were-jailed-for-a-crime-that-doesnt-exist) are just insane, but it's what happens when you empower unthinking, unaccountable bureaucracy - that is, police - to wield violence and coercion at all times. TLDR some kids in a poor Black primary school in Tennessee had a baby fight, so police rolled in hard to arrest a large number of bystanders, spreading grief and terror. The juvenile court in the county has been occupied by a single elected judge for the whole existence of the office, and she sees it as her God-given mission to lock up as many kids as possible; nearly 50% of juvenile court cases in her county end in imprisonment.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I don't know which is worse: the traumatization of the children, or the exploitation of these kids for profit:


Rutherford County doesn’t just jail its own kids. It also contracts with other counties to detain their children, charging $175 a day. “If we have empty beds, we will fill them with a paying customer,” Duke said at one public meeting.

Duke reports monthly to the county commission’s Public Safety Committee. At these meetings — we watched more than 100, going back 12 years — commissioners have asked regularly about the number of beds filled. “Just like a hotel,” one commissioner said of the jail. “With breakfast provided, and it’s not a continental,” added a second. At another meeting a commissioner said it would be “cool” if, instead of being a cost center, the jail could be a “profit center.”

When, at one meeting, Duke said “we get a lot of business” from a particular county, a commissioner chuckled at Duke’s word choice. “Business,” he said. This brought awkward laughter from other commissioners, leading the committee chair to say: “Hey, it’s a business. Generating revenue.”

And apparently, "business" is quite profitable:


In Rutherford County, Davenport still runs juvenile court, making $176,000 a year. (She’s up for reelection next year, and has previously said she’d like to run for another eight-year term.) Duke still runs the juvenile detention center, earning $98,000. And the system as a whole continues to grow.

In 2005, the budget for juvenile services, including court and detention center staff, was $962,444. By 2020 it had jumped to $3.69 million.

Earlier this year, Davenport went before the county commission’s public safety committee. “I come to you this year with a huge need,” she said. By now she had two full-time magistrates and another who worked part time. Davenport said she wanted an additional full-time magistrate. And another secretary. She wanted to increase her budget by 23%.

So in Tennessee, it appears, indentured slavery still exists, but instead of slaves working the fields, they sit in cells, often in solitary confinement. Just so Rutherford County can profit off of their "hotel".

Every one of those GD commissioners at the "Public Safety Committee" should be brought up on charges, and placed in a 'hotel' where the breakfast is provided, and definitely not continental...:whip:

[Montmorency]

Mexicanization (https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/117/2/387/30112) in the United States of the 1870s

The idea that the United States could become Mexicanized was pervasive in the public discourse of the 1870s, with common fears of constant civil war and governmental instability looming on the horizon for the young republic - as was the realized case for our cousin south of the Rio Grande.

Of course, rather than reform, the temporary salve to instability happened to be, 'Hey, what if we give racist White elites everything?' And so we still have extant all the shitty Constitutional features that really are now driving polarization, inequality, unresponsiveness, and what has been dryly termed 'presidentialism' (caudillismo) in the context of Latin America.

That the entire national identity is bound up in veneration of the Constitution as a sacralized abstraction of magic freedom paper, rather than as a collection of worthwhile ideas (where its flaws become instantly apparent), is just another potentially-fatal handicap for the country. We literally have nothing to live for as a people if we hold up (the now radically individualized and factionalized reading of) the Constitution as the locus of the American Experiment.

(A major flaw in many European national identities is that they tend to celebrate themselves according to 'look how we killed those other people real good' - which naturally we share - but at least they almost-universally understand their constitutions to be but a provisional scrap of text.)

[Furunculus]

Don't know if this has featured here in the backroom yet, apologies if it has.

Pew Research on voter demographics in the US:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/quiz/political-typology/

I cam out as "Ambivelent Right":
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/ambivalent-right/

[spmetla]

I came out as Committed Conservative which I think I'd disagree with. Not that many questions though so I'd say not too accurate.

I still think the Political Compass quiz is the best one out there, always curious to see how my score shifts over the years: I'm now Economic Left/Right: -2.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.33
Used to be on the positive numbers of authoritarian a few years ago.


(A major flaw in many European national identities is that they tend to celebrate themselves according to 'look how we killed those other people real good' - which naturally we share - but at least they almost-universally understand their constitutions to be but a provisional scrap of text.)

I'd say the major flaw in Europe isn't about who they killed but the desire from the 16th Century onward for similar linguistic, cultural, and religious groups to govern themselves in what came to be Nation-States. The Poles wanting independence for hundreds of years and wanting to retain that independence and their perception of what is 'Polish' is understandable.

It is certainly easier in the US where there is no 'American' ethnicity even though we've been and are flawed in tolerance of others from even a different part of the country or a different neighborhood.
As for the European attitude toward their 'constitutions,' well every European government (except the UK) has gone through so many forms of government in the time period of the US constitution that it's natural that they don't venerate it that much. An EU constitution is something to be suspicious of, a new Polish constitution to replace that of the Soviet imposed communist one is also something to be wary of. The US just hasn't had any sort of experience of that kind. The US has never had the sort of totalitarian experience that Europeans have had under Communism, Fascism, and Absolute-Monarchies that it is easy for people to see the US model as better as our history and the advantage of geography have allowed for so much more relative stability and economic growth and success.

[Montmorency]

The Pew test placed me in Outsider Left, I believe because I assigned only a somewhat-positive rating to the Democratic party lol.


Always good for a laugh (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/11/ohio-senate-jewish-campaign-ad-mandel-521007).


A Republican Senate candidate in Ohio is doubling down on a controversial campaign ad, insisting voters need to be aware of an important fact: that the frontrunner in the primary is Jewish.

Mark Pukita, an IT entrepreneur in the crowded GOP race, during a Thursday night candidate forum defended a campaign ad that questioned the faith of opponent Josh Mandel.

A moderator at the debate, held by the Ohio Press Network at North Columbus Baptist Church, asked for Pukita to respond to claims that he is “antisemitic and intentionally divisive and inflammatory.”

"In terms of antisemitism, all I did in an ad was pointed out that Josh is going around saying he's got the Bible in one hand and the constitution in the other. But he's Jewish,” Pukita said. “Everybody should know that though, right?"

Pukita was referring to a radio ad created by his campaign that criticized Mandel for courting evangelical Christians and frequently visiting churches on the campaign trail.

“Are we seriously supposed to believe the most Christian-values Senate candidate is Jewish?” a voice actor asks in Pukita’s radio ad. “I am so sick of these phony caricatures.”

“I agree,” a woman replies in the ad. “We keep electing people like this, we’ll just keep getting the same terrible results.”

Pukita’s response was quickly condemned by Bernie Moreno, another Republican in the race who had the next turn to speak.

“Josh, nobody should question your faith. That's not right,” Moreno said. “The Jewish religion, the Bible is the Bible. That was hard to hear. I'm sorry about that. That's not right. We're better than that, guys.”

Mandel is the far-right Jew leading the Republican Ohio Senate primary toward the midterms.



The US just hasn't had any sort of experience of that kind.

It's a miracle that our system, which has basically gone out of control everywhere it's been tried, has survived so long here; relative power and wealth is a hell of a thing. A fun alternate history would be a look at US culture following reabsorption and subsequent rebellion into and against the British Empire. Maybe we could get the Slavery Question to blow up both countries (for the better).

[spmetla]

In terms of antisemitism, all I did in an ad was pointed out that Josh is going around saying he's got the Bible in one hand and the constitution in the other. But he's Jewish,” Pukita said. “Everybody should know that though, right?
People think Trump was a good Christian somehow, I think a Jewish person is probably more 'christian' than Trump ever was. lol


It's a miracle that our system, which has basically gone out of control everywhere it's been tried, has survived so long here; relative power and wealth is a hell of a thing. A fun alternate history would be a look at US culture following reabsorption and subsequent rebellion into and against the British Empire. Maybe we could get the Slavery Question to blow up both countries (for the better).

I've always thought that the biggest miracle in the experiment that is the US is that it even lasted the first 50 years. After the debacle that was the Articles of Confederation it's amazing that everyone was brought on board for the new Constitution instead of just half the States going their own way. It's amazing that the War of 1812 didn't shatter the US and it's amazing that the civil war was delayed as long as it was, any earlier than the 1830s-1840s and the Union would surely have shattered.

[Montmorency]

I've always thought that the biggest miracle in the experiment that is the US is that it even lasted the first 50 years.


Yes, and as that historical essay I linked showed, there were plenty of Americans after the Civil War - so I would presume before as well - who were openly concerned that the United States might follow the exact spiral that a hundred years later we began to lovingly deride Latin American countries for.


it's amazing that the civil war was delayed as long as it was, any earlier than the 1830s-1840s and the Union would surely have shattered.

1830 Census:
North: 7m
Border (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware): 1.35m
South: 4.6m

1860 Census:
North: 19+m
Border (ditto + Kansas): 3.2m
South: 9+m

In 1830 the Northern population was barely bigger than the Southern, many (most?) Northern states had not yet completed their abolition of slavery, the immigration wave of Germans and Irish to the North had not yet begun, the settlement of the West Coast had not yet begun, the religious revivalism of the Second Great Enlightenment had not yet begun, industrialization was minimal and hardly existed outside Massachusetts, there were no rail networks (the canalization craze was only just underway), and the English and French had less of a stake in the political survival of the American polity relative to their interest in continued imports of raw agricultural goods (the UK itself was finally but on the cusp of banning slavery). The South only managed to pick the time to make their move after the North was strong enough to crush them - but also distracted enough to allow them to carry the day with "Redemption."

[Montmorency]

SLAVERY IN THE NORTH (http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?slavery_north)
as recorded in the country’s first census, 1790

https://i.imgur.com/UR4HSnZ.png
https://i.imgur.com/8hE8tbA.png
https://i.imgur.com/fyf6Whx.png

Also a striking reminder of how thinly-settled by Europeans were the Allegheny plateau and the future Erie Canal valley.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Interesting, though I wonder why this isn't in the Monastery or its own thread.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Pew Quiz typed me as "ambivalent right." A pretty fair read on the whole, though one or two of the sixteen I would have preferred a 'gah' or 'both' choice.

[Montmorency]

Interesting, though I wonder why this isn't in the Monastery or its own thread.

Fair, so I'll serve up more relevant content.


https://i.imgur.com/v18OMG5.jpg

At the beginning of the week, there was a school shooting in Michigan. The boy, who had been reported as deeply troubled for a long time, was encouraged in his bad habits by his discipline-dismissive parents. They also happened to buy him a pistol for Thanksgiving, and took him training with it days before the shooting. The question of why their son, with reportedly violent and disturbed proclivities, needed or wanted a gun, do not seem to have entered the picture.

The gun itself was kept unsecured and the shooter brought it in to school with him, attended the meeting between his family and school staff in which the parents rebuffed all concerns, and proceeded to launch a rampage.

The parents attempted to flee to Canada but were rapidly apprehended and indicted as co-conspirators.

The father, who has another family, prioritized buying his 15-year-old son a personal firearm (but Black Friday sale!!) over paying child support.

The shooter's mother, besides the notes in the timeline above, is the sort of person who blogged (https://archive.vn/rRL9y) the following after the 2016 election.


Dear President Elect, Mr. Trump. Feels funny to even be writing your name like that, but you made history on Tuesday. I’m not going to lie. I was scared shitless to circle your name on my ballot. I have been back and forth on whether to vote for you, or not vote at all. I struggled to make myself find a way to trust Hillary as a President. I could not. You see, I am an American Woman. I value the equality of the LGBT community, in fact, I hold that in really high regards. I am a feminist. I value womens rights and want to be alive when I see the first woman become President. But as an American Woman, with a 10 year old child I could not have that first woman be Hillary.
Up until the first debate, I was really trying to find a reason to vote for her. Pro-choice, yes, I am a believer in pro-choice, that a woman should have control over her body. That is something right? That was really the only thing that I could find to try to grasp onto as a reason to not vote for you.
The first debate, Mr. Trump you came out like a bucking Bronco, you fell flat. You pretty much sucked at debating. If it’s one thing those Clinton’s have, is the ability to speak in public. But I am also a woman, I have a very strong intuition and I personally have always learned to go with my gut feeling (thanks mom). Hillary started speaking, I listened, I looked at her eyes, her permanent, unchanging smile, her ability to show no emotion and it was then, my heart sank, my mind became clear and I knew, absolutely knew that her intentions were not true. Her promises are false. Her voice has an evil cold. Everything she has done, whether it was proven true or not to the public, I knew in the deepest of my gut that I could not let this woman have control over my son’s future.
Mr. Trump, I actually love that you are a bad public speaker because that showed sincerity, and humility. You changed your mind, and you said “so what”. You made the famous “grab them in the pussy” comment, did it offend me? No. I say things all the time that people take the wrong way, do I mean them, not always. Do I agree that you should of shown your tax returns? No. I don’t care what you do or maybe don’t pay in taxes, I think those are personal and if the Gov’t can lock someone up over $10,000 of unpaid taxes and you slipped on by, then that shows the corruption. I like that you have failed. I love it even more that those failures taught lessons and made you one of the most successful Business Men in my history. I love that you are not from the political spotlight, maybe you are the hope that can really uncover the politicians for what I believe they really are. I have high hopes you will shut down Big Pharma, make health care affordable for me and my MIDDLE CLASS family again. I hope you uncover the cure for cancer, because there is one, we all know it, but you are the one to prove it. I’m not scared of your big personality and quick temper. There is a whole house of representatives that still have to approve if you decide to get pissed at China and blow them up.
The Wall. The famous Wall. See Mr. Trump, I support that wall. I am not racist. In fact my grandfather came straight off the boat in Italy. Fought, struggled and had to prove his way to be an American Citizen. He went through the great depression, he then started a successful coil company here in MI where he employed other hard working Americans and paid them a good wage. I want every non-American that wants to live in this great country to have to go through the same process. I don’t even know where we went wrong with that, but if you want to be here, work here, live here damnit, fucking earn it and prove it.
As a female and a Realtor, thank you for allowing my right to bear arms. Allowing me to be protected if I show a home to someone with bad intentions. Thank you for respecting that Amendment.
Thank you for wanting to put our Veterans first. Why we send so much money overseas when we have so much help we need to provide here is beyond me.
You see Mr. Trump I can go on and on, in fact I used to think Democrat. I don’t believe in God and Im quite opposite of your typical “republican”. But now I am 38 years old. I have a family. My husband and I both work full time jobs. I have watched our insurance premiums double. I cannot afford to buy into this Obamacare. For my family its over $600 a month with deductibles. We bust our ass Mr. Trump. I pay taxes, my husband pays his child support, I donate to charities.. We are good fucking Americans that cannot get ahead. And what makes me sick, is people that come over here from other countries and get free everything.
You see Mr. Trump, I need you to stop common core. My son struggles daily, and my teachers tell me they hate teaching it but the HAVE to. Their pay depends on these stupid fucking test scores. I have to pay for a Tutor, why? Because I can’t figure out 4th grade math. I used to be good at math. I can’t afford a Tutor, in fact I sacrifice car insurance to make sure my son gets a good education and hopefully succeeds in life. My parents teach at a school where their kids come from illegal immigrant parents. Most of their parents are locked up. They don’t care about learning and threaten to kill my mom for caring about their grades. Do you realize Mr. Trump that they get free tutors, free tablets from our Government so they can succeed. Why cant my son get those things, do we as hard working Americans not deserve that too?
My husband suffered a stroke and a broken back and we were with just my income. Do you know how hard it is to support a family on only $40,000 a year? I couldn’t qualify for State Aid. I made to much.
Mr. Trump, this is why I voted for you. I see the change that we so desperately need. I see jobs coming back, people having to work for their handouts, money going to who really deserve it. Big Pharma taken down, Monsanto stop poisoning us. Jobs given back to our American workers. I believe YOU are the President who will make these things happen. I have NEVER had this much belief in one person, and you are it.
If this blog even makes it to your eyes…thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

Yours Truly,
A hard working Middle Class Law Abiding Citizen who is sick of getting fucked in the ass and would rather be grabbed by the pussy.

This appears to have been her only blog post, implying she felt very strongly about her views.

I can't understand why the parents would look 20 years younger (https://static.independent.co.uk/2021/12/02/01/Screen_Shot_2021-12-01_at_4.jpg?width=640&auto=webp&quality=75&crop=1035:695,smart) in their mugshot (https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/12/04/ap21338607143107_wide-8aecd46e0710bbc0c6b22344b5eba23e67f7ea81-s800-c85.webp).

In part because of this shooting and subsequent threats, every public school in Michigan shut down for the next day. And it was bad enough that almost all children growing up in contemporary America have to endure routine "active shooter" (or more euphemistically, "stranger on campus") drills. To my awareness there were air raid/nuclear drills during WW2 and the Cold War, but never any "Islamic terrorism" drills disrupting children's lives...

The Conradian heart of the country.



In other news (vice.com/en/article/n7nnp7/tucker-carlson-hunter-biden-son-college), though I don't know if this has been fully confirmed, according to a leak by the QAnon world, Tucker Carlson (who portrays the Biden family as satanic child predators on his program) had Hunter Biden write a college recommendation letter for his son, in 2014.


“I can't thank you enough for writing that letter to Georgetown on Buckley's behalf,” Carlson wrote in a 2014 email to Biden. “So nice of you. I know it'll help. Hope you're great and we can all get dinner soon.”

Biden responded: “Hey buddy, I need Buckley's CV if you have one handy, thanks.”

Latest on Fox News Online, by Newt Gingrich: "Congress must investigate Hunter Biden – and those protecting him. Here's why (https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/congress-must-investigate-hunter-biden-protectors-newt-gingrich)"

Uh-huh.

[Montmorency]

So this is a novel one*. During the latest School Shooting, the police arrived in force minutes after the incident began just to set up a cordon around the school, keeping parents at gunpoint from entering to look for their children or confront the shooter. Meanwhile, several officers entered the school to extract their own children, while declining to engage the shooter. They make the Stoneman Douglas security guard look like a hero. It seems the local police were only convinced to confront the shooter by federals, one of whom was wounded while eliminating the shooter.

https://twitter.com/paleofuture/status/1529652093354536961 [VIDEO]

19 students died along with their two teachers. The town where the incident occurred spends up to 40% of its municipal budget (https://cms8.revize.com/revize/uvaldetx/Document%20Center/Government/City%20Department/Finance/FY%2019-20%20Adopted%20Budget%20(as%20of%209-27-19)2.pdf) on police.


After entering the building, the perpetrator walked down two short hallways, entered a classroom that was internally connected to another classroom, and opened fire on the children and two teachers in the room.[36] All of the victims were located in the fourth grade classroom where he locked the door.[54] According to a male student who hid in the adjoining classroom, the perpetrator came in and crouched a bit, saying "it's time to die", before starting shooting.[55] Afterwards, an officer had called out "Yell if you need help!" In response, a girl in the same classroom said "Help", the perpetrator heard the girl, entered the classroom, and shot her.[56]

https://i.imgur.com/suGgIeV.jpg

Meanwhile, just as research has found that stronger state oversight capacity reduces tax evasion, stronger state oversight capacity prevents non-reporting of killings (http://www.davidfortunato.com/apsr2022.pdf) by police.

#Refundtheadministrativestate


*Not novel in the aggregate of police encounters

[spmetla]

Well, it's certainly been a good example to show how arming teachers and staff is not the solution the Republicans think it is. If properly trained police can fail why would we expect a teacher to do better.

I honestly think semi-automatic rifles of all types should only be available to citizens in a state-santioned militia, are serving or honorably discharged military or law enforcement members, with only a few exceptions for some special circumstances (movie props, controlled gun ranges, certain types of hunting, etc...).

I'll never understand the hype against registering firearms, it's not difficult to do and is what separates legal gun owners from the criminal community. Not to mention it's hard to have a "well-regulated militia" if you don't know who to call up in the community in case of invasion.

This kid turning 18 and buying guns super easy just blows my mind. At least in Hawaii there's some wait periods and applying for a permit to buy guns that only lasts for a year.

[Montmorency]

Well, it's certainly been a good example to show how arming teachers and staff is not the solution the Republicans think it is. If properly trained police can fail why would we expect a teacher to do better.

I honestly think semi-automatic rifles of all types should only be available to citizens in a state-santioned militia, are serving or honorably discharged military or law enforcement members, with only a few exceptions for some special circumstances (movie props, controlled gun ranges, certain types of hunting, etc...).

I'll never understand the hype against registering firearms, it's not difficult to do and is what separates legal gun owners from the criminal community. Not to mention it's hard to have a "well-regulated militia" if you don't know who to call up in the community in case of invasion.

This kid turning 18 and buying guns super easy just blows my mind. At least in Hawaii there's some wait periods and applying for a permit to buy guns that only lasts for a year.

Reportedly (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/us/trump-gun-control.html) Trump has the same instinct, until the NRA reps pay him visits to quell it.


One of the most extraordinary moments of Donald J. Trump’s presidency was an hourlong meeting with U.S. senators in the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in which he forcefully argued for a litany of gun safety measures that the National Rifle Association had long opposed.

Mr. Trump’s support for gun control measures — which he unrolled on live television from the White House on Feb. 28, 2018 — astonished lawmakers from both parties. But the next day, N.R.A. officials met with Mr. Trump without any cameras or reporters in the room, and he immediately backed down.

That apparent surrender to N.R.A. pressure came to sum up Mr. Trump’s record on gun control in the eyes of his critics.

Unbeknownst to the public, however, Mr. Trump again pushed inside the White House for significant new gun-control measures more than a year later, after a pair of gruesome shooting sprees that unfolded over 13 hours. Those discussions have not previously been reported.

On Aug. 3, 2019, a far-right gunman killed 23 people at a Walmart store in El Paso. Early the next morning, a man shot and killed nine people outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio. Both assailants used semiautomatic rifles.

At the White House the next day, Mr. Trump was so shaken by the weekend’s violence that he questioned aides about a specific potential solution and made clear he wanted to take action, according to three people present during the conversation.

“What are we going to do about assault rifles?” Mr. Trump asked.

“Not a damn thing,” Mick Mulvaney, his acting chief of staff, replied.

"Take the guns first, go through due process second" - Donald Trump


Hey, what you can say about the man is that he's a New Yorker born and bred. Among the other things that can be said about him.

But I do think our gun culture madness is something that ironically has to be carefully taught, it goes so far against normal human psychology. Or maybe once everyone is made out as your blood enemy it's natural no one would submit to being "disarmed" by the enemy.

So of course the statistical core of the gun problem is the level of availability and supply, with pistols being the biggest day-to-day risk factor.

Canada's government has just proposed halting nationally the sale and transfer of handguns, which the Federalist SCOTUS would never permit here. Something that could at extremity, in theory, garner a minimum level of Republican support is another component to Canada's proposal, which is restricting firearm access to those with convictions for harrassment and domestic violence (which are in fact very prominent indicators of propensity to gun violence). And since a preponderance of gun crimes are perpetrated by young men with no or little criminal history, raising the age of majority with respect to purchase/ownership from 18 to 21 is another decen small-bore proposal (arguably needs to be even higher...).

It's all nibbling around the edges of course, and might have been viable a decade ago, before it became a partisan consensus that any putative restriction on firearms is just a ploy by the liberal Marxists to suppress White Christian liberation.

[Pannonian]

Reportedly (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/us/trump-gun-control.html) Trump has the same instinct, until the NRA reps pay him visits to quell it.



"Take the guns first, go through due process second" - Donald Trump


Hey, what you can say about the man is that he's a New Yorker born and bred. Among the other things that can be said about him.

But I do think our gun culture madness is something that ironically has to be carefully taught, it goes so far against normal human psychology. Or maybe once everyone is made out as your blood enemy it's natural no one would submit to being "disarmed" by the enemy.

So of course the statistical core of the gun problem is the level of availability and supply, with pistols being the biggest day-to-day risk factor.

Canada's government has just proposed halting nationally the sale and transfer of handguns, which the Federalist SCOTUS would never permit here. Something that could at extremity, in theory, garner a minimum level of Republican support is another component to Canada's proposal, which is restricting firearm access to those with convictions for harrassment and domestic violence (which are in fact very prominent indicators of propensity to gun violence). And since a preponderance of gun crimes are perpetrated by young men with no or little criminal history, raising the age of majority with respect to purchase/ownership from 18 to 21 is another decen small-bore proposal (arguably needs to be even higher...).

It's all nibbling around the edges of course, and might have been viable a decade ago, before it became a partisan consensus that any putative restriction on firearms is just a ploy by the liberal Marxists to suppress White Christian liberation.

What's the argument against following through with the Second Amendment and requiring registering of all firearms, as per a well ordered militia?

[Montmorency]

What's the argument against following through with the Second Amendment and requiring registering of all firearms, as per a well ordered militia?

The SCOTUS is deciding a case (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-court-verge-expanding-second-amendment-gun-rights) on public carry licensing that may be the next landmark case in expanding the Second Amendment. Their arguments against any putative licensing would probably be similar to those espoused in the Florida law (http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0790/Sections/0790.335.html) forbidding firearm registration:


A list, record, or registry of legally owned firearms or law-abiding firearm owners is not a law enforcement tool and can become an instrument for profiling, harassing, or abusing law-abiding citizens based on their choice to own a firearm and exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed under the United States Constitution. Further, such a list, record, or registry has the potential to fall into the wrong hands and become a shopping list for thieves.
3. A list, record, or registry of legally owned firearms or law-abiding firearm owners is not a tool for fighting terrorism, but rather is an instrument that can be used as a means to profile innocent citizens and to harass and abuse American citizens based solely on their choice to own firearms and exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed under the United States Constitution.

[Pannonian]

The SCOTUS is deciding a case (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-court-verge-expanding-second-amendment-gun-rights) on public carry licensing that may be the next landmark case in expanding the Second Amendment. Their arguments against any putative licensing would probably be similar to those espoused in the Florida law (http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0790/Sections/0790.335.html) forbidding firearm registration:

What are the arguments against a well ordered militia? It's an integral part of the Second Amendment, but the above makes no mention of it at all. I don't think I've ever seen any Second Amendmenters mention it either.

[spmetla]

The gun lobby likes to ignore the "well-regulated militia" portion. I've always loved arguing with fellow gun fans by pointing out that 2nd and 3rd words of the second amendment are "well-regulated" with no mention of needing to stockpile to fight against government tyranny or anything looney like that.

Crazy thing is that the NRA was actually pro-regulations in the 30s and 40s, the same time period people love looking back to with its "greatest generation."

1934–1970s
After the passage of the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934, the first federal gun-control law in the US, the NRA formed its Legislative Affairs Division to update members with facts and analysis of upcoming bills.[36][37] Karl Frederick, NRA president in 1934, during congressional NFA hearings testified "I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I seldom carry one. ... I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses."[38] Four years later, the NRA backed the Federal Firearms Act of 1938.[39]

The NRA supported the NFA along with the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), which together created a system to federally license gun dealers and established restrictions on particular categories and classes of firearms.[40] The organization opposed a national firearms registry, an initiative favored by then-President Lyndon Johnson.[39]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association#1934%E2%80%931970s

Over the last half century though it transitioned from being something for responsible gun ownership into a cult of zero regulations.

As a firearm owner I think that in the US with its massive quantity of firearms around and often poorly stored that firearms safety should be one of the many things added to High School civics classes. Hundreds of americans die annually just from gun accidents, I'd also like there to be stronger regulations for firearms storage, especially for households with children. A loaded revolver in a bedstand drawer should not be acceptable. If you live in a place where you feel the need to really need gun access that quickly there are quick-access pistol safes available. Yes, the costs are prohibitive, but is it worth not having your kid accidently kill themselves or something else when rooting around in dad's drawer.

[Montmorency]

Another choice reference to present:


A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

SEC. 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

XIII. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
[...]
SECT. 5. The freemen of this commonwealth and their sons shall be trained and armed for its defence under such regulations, restrictions, and exceptions as the general assembly shall by law direct, preserving always to the people the right of choosing their colonels and all commissioned officers under that rank, in such manner and as often as by the said laws shall be directed.

That the right of the citizens to bear arms, in defence of themselves and the state, shall not be questioned.

Note both the overlap and contrast of the Virginia and Pennsylvania state constitutions, and to the federal constitution. Some people want us to pretend that the federal constitution says what the Pennsylvania constitution says.

If they all mean the same thing, why don't they say the same thing? 18th-century statesmen were very deliberate with their phrasing, as SCOTUS jurisprudence has always recognized in principle.

But the "debate" in the US has come far beyond such abstractions as textualism and enumerated vs. unenumerated vs. common law rights. We as individuals and a society have a significant rights-based interest in defending ourselves from :daisy: guns and the assholes who love them for the sake of the violence they can unleash against "domestic enemies." This interest is rejected by a vehement minority that stands in consistent revulsion towards all liberal values, and an industrial lobby that in (inadvertent) collaboration with Hollywood and others has convinced much of the general population that the mere availability of firearms could enhance their personal security.

Private guns are not permitted in the presence of former or current presidents, and this restriction is broadly without challenge. The common folk do not dare hope to be conferred with such a level of security I guess.

[Pannonian]

Has anyone suggested that gun owners should pass physical and tactical tests? Surely anyone who can't run or fight worth a damn isn't part of a well regulated militia.

[Montmorency]

In Missouri: (https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1531824917095886848)
1. Gunman A is open carrying his rifle at the store
2. He is accosted outside by gunman B who robs A of the rifle
3. A retrieves another gun from his car and fires at B, who is struck. A flees.
5. Unknown gunman C arrives, shoots B, flees.

Booker was shot several times. Two innocent bystanders, both women, had just pulled up to the market and were also shot, Martin said. Their injuries were not life-threatening.

Fucking degeneracy.

:wall:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNyuVQHwrp0&list=FLnV16lLmZdGUyvrHqSwjkcQ&index=3


Run... they say it's Armageddon
Hide... we're very near the end
Fear... the promise of a nation
That's getting harder to defend

Come in, come in
Relax, relax
There's no secrecy
Please take more than I have
I know, I know
You are, you are
Trying to scare me
I've got nothing to spare
Save all, save all the shit about spreading freedom
It sounds like a scam to me

Holy war...
Show me what you've been concealing
All in the name of peace and love
What are we fighting for?
I thought the point was healing
Clearly I was dead wrong

Truth... beyond your comprehension
Lies... above and far beyond
Have faith that every execution
Will be televised onto your phone

Come in, come in
Relax, relax
There's no privacy
'Cause I am what I am
I know, I know
You are, you are
Trying to shock me
I don't easily scare
Spare all, spare all the shit about spreading freedom
It's a shameless lie to me

Holy war...
Show me what you've been concealing
All in the name of peace and love
What are we fighting for?
I thought the point was healing
Clearly I was dead wrong

[Pannonian]

Fucking degeneracy.

:wall:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNyuVQHwrp0&list=FLnV16lLmZdGUyvrHqSwjkcQ&index=3

Sounds like one of those GTA videos you'd see on youtube showcasing some particularly puzzling AI interactions. Typically Franklin harassing some random in the presence of police, until the random loses patience and pulls out a gun, upon which the police pull their guns, and the resultant shootout ends with several bystanders dead and the rest running screaming.

[Montmorency]

There aren't many franchises more quintessentially American than GTA. Though I suppose one could invent an analogous sandbox for Mexico or Brazil.

[Shaka_Khan]

Rockstar should do that in their next GTA game. Add in the ability to travel back and forth from an American city by plane.

[Montmorency]

In one recent poll (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-prevent-opinion-poll-2022-06-05/), 31% of Democrats and 3% of Republicans felt the country would be safer if there were no guns, compared to 3% and 21% respectively for everyone having guns. 85% of Democrats believe we could stop mass shootings if we really tried, compared to 56% of Republicans (the other option was "Mass shootings are unfortunately something we have to accept as part of a free society").

A friendly reminder (https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/30586/the-u-s-firearms-industry-needs-to-upgrade-its-controls) that American arms proliferation is a global problem.


The U.S. has a long history of exporting firearms and ammunition to support its security partners. Yet few citizens are fully aware of the sheer scale of this trade and the central role the U.S. government plays in brokering these deals. It works mainly through two federal mechanisms: Foreign Military Sales, in which the Defense Department facilitates arms deals with foreign governments, and the recently created Direct Commercial Sales, in which other U.S. agencies issue export licenses to industry vendors so they can sell directly to foreign customers.

As a result of these programs, U.S. arms sales have quickened in recent years. One example of this is the Merida Initiative, a U.S.-Mexico counternarcotics program launched in 2008, which quadrupled exports of U.S. military firearms, parts and ammunition to Mexico from less than $10 million annually to roughly $40 million per year. This expansion has been criticized for lacking the oversight needed to help ensure that weaponry was not being diverted to Mexican security forces involved in human rights violations or criminal activity. Over the past 10 years, lethal violence has also exploded in Mexico, and the proportion of homicides involving firearms soared.

Mexico’s gun violence epidemic is complicated by a steady flow of illegal firearms coming across the border from the United States. While legal firearm purchases in Mexico can only be made in a single gun store located on a Mexico City army base, an average of 212,000 firearms are trafficked illegally into Mexico each year as a result of straw-man purchases in the more than 52,000 federally licensed dealers in the U.S. It is for this reason that, after determining that more than 70 percent of the firearms recovered in crime scenes in Mexico could be traced back to the U.S., the Mexican government filed a lawsuit against major U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors in 2021 seeking punitive damages of at least $10 billion.

Arms sales from the U.S. got another boost more recently, during the administration of former U.S. President Trump. Domestic gun production fell sharply between 2016 and 2018—the so-called Trump Slump—owing to diminished fears of gun restrictions during a Republican administration. This incentivized U.S. gun manufacturers to scale up sales to foreign markets. They exported a record-breaking 488,000 firearms in 2017 and another 554,000 in 2018, along with tens of millions of rounds of ammunition, including to countries affected by conflict and systemic human rights abuses. That year, the U.S. authorized the transfer of more than 117,000 Sig Sauer pistols to Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. In 2018, more than 86,000 semi-automatic handguns, mostly Glocks, went to the Philippines. And in 2020, overseas sales of semi-automatic pistols more than doubled, with many going to Brazil and Mexico, countries with some of the highest levels of homicide and police violence in the world.

[Montmorency]

Not much new, but deserves to be reposted (https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/07/06/gun-culture-rural-kentucky/):


I think about guns, because our country is addicted to guns.

I live in rural Kentucky, in a county with a population of 23,000 people, and I have been told half a dozen times lately that I should be carrying a gun when I jog at the local park. What kind of gun? I wonder, as I lie there in the soft, predawn dark. What size gun? How often would I need to practice to remember how to use it? Where, in my spandex running clothes, would I carry a gun? I tripped on a tree root back in December and fell flat on my face. Would the gun go off if I fell? What if I shot myself? What if I shot someone else? Could I shoot someone?

I think about guns because guns are what I talked about most for the last several months as I ran in our local Republican primary for county magistrate. Not gas prices. Not the “stolen” election. Not caravans at the southern border. Not abortion. Not the mundane, budget-related duties of the seat I was running for. I talked about guns.

I am a Democrat who ran for local office as a Republican because in Anderson County, Kentucky, right down the road from the state capitol, Democrats no longer have a prayer of winning a partisan election, even if it is to serve in a nonpartisan job. This is die-hard Trump country now. Donald Trump won the county in both 2016 and 2020 with more than 70 percent of the vote. I figured that running on the Republican ticket, talking neighbor to neighbor with Republicans in a sensible manner about issues like guns would give me a fair shot.

I was wrong. I not only lost, I lost spectacularly. No matter how I tried, I could not convince voters that I was not going to show up at their door one day with a checklist, authorized by either our Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, or Democratic president, Joe Biden, and seize their guns. And when I was honest in telling them I believe AR-15-style guns are weapons of war and should be banned altogether? Voters laughed.

The term “gun culture” gets tossed around. But what does it mean to live in a place rooted in Trumpian (angry, unabashed, aggrieved, armed-to-the-teeth) 2022 gun culture?

I think about guns because, two days before our May 17 primary, a friend removed my campaign signs from his yard. Around 9:30 that morning, while I was driving to Sunday school and church, he had heard the pop-pop of gunshots as men in trucks drove by, randomly yelling my name and Hillary Clinton’s and cursing about liberals.


I think about guns because, in mid-April, it was rumored that a local machine parts shop had a doormat in the store with the face of a longtime female magistrate on it. It read “Wipe Your Feet Here.” I wanted to see this doormat for myself and ask some questions: Did they have a supply? Was it for sale? Who created it? The first two friends I told begged me not to go. Did I know the owner carries a gun? If I went, they each cautioned independently, would I take a law enforcement officer with me. I thought this sounded ridiculous. “Just have the officer wait for you in the parking lot!” one insisted. When I arrived at the shop, without the police, I pulled in behind a grayish gold truck with a “Let’s Go Brandon” sticker on the back window, and sat there thinking, “I don’t belong here. What am I doing?” I left.

I think about guns because, later the same day, I made myself go back to the shop. The owner was not there, so I asked the woman behind the counter my questions. She was angry. She went in the back to get a man. What man? Would he be armed and angry? I left as fast as I could.

People here openly carry their guns. Whether I am stopping by Kroger to pick up ice cream, grabbing a coffee on Main Street or stocking up on household supplies at Walmart, I am constantly aware that there are people around me carrying guns.


Who are the good guys with guns? Who are the bad guys with guns? How do you know?

I think about guns because, in the March 23 issue of the Anderson News, our weekly newspaper, there was a front-page story about a Republican state senator, Adrienne Southworth, who lives in my town, headlined, “Southworth bill would alter guns in school law.” Southworth’s bill proposed that citizens be allowed to carry guns in school buildings when students are not present.

I think about guns because I believe the Southworth bill was in response to the man who came to our school board meeting a few months earlier wearing a gun on his person. I was the citizen who pointed out the gun to the superintendent, after which the man was led outside to put his gun in his vehicle before returning to speak during the public comments section of the meeting.


I think about guns because the editor of our weekly newspaper regularly voices his full-throated support for guns. On June 14, he wrote, “Even in a nation so thoroughly divided by the 2nd Amendment, it’s nearly impossible to find anyone who doesn’t think schools need to be protected by trained professionals with guns and hardened as well as possible against intruders.” Nearly impossible? Really?

I think about guns because, in the previous week’s newspaper, the same editor wrote that when we reelected our county attorney “in last month’s primary, there isn’t a question that his pro-gun campaign messaging had something to do with it.” The county attorney won his primary handily. He will face no Democratic opposition in the general election.

Gun culture in the United States is like kudzu, often called “the invasive vine that ate the South” because of the way it systematically, over time, suffocated and destroyed native grasses, trees and plants until they became extinct. We can no longer go to school, parades, shopping malls, restaurants, concerts, night clubs, the grocery store, without wondering whether this is where we will get shot.


Guns culture is destroying our lives. And the solution most often proposed? More guns.

I have been waking up thinking about guns because, suddenly, there is a suspicious man hanging around the park trail where I jog. One day he drove up to talk to me. I thought he was trying to sell me drugs. A few days later, he tried to get a woman to go home with him. One morning I was running my last lap and spotted the man in a dark corner of the park, under some trees, as if he was lying in wait for me. I called law enforcement. As I stood next to the police car giving a description, I wondered, Would I feel safer here with a gun?

I think about guns, because thinking about guns in 2022 America is part of our all-day, everyday lives. When I warned a woman who often walks her dogs at the park about the suspicious man, she said as casually as if she were offering me a mint, “Oh, I’ll start carrying my gun. Do you have a gun?”

[Montmorency]

Good thing this fellow had cultural capital.


Last summer (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/realestate/housing-discrimination-maryland.html), Nathan Connolly and his wife, Shani Mott, welcomed an appraiser into their house in Baltimore, hoping to take advantage of historically low interest rates and refinance their mortgage.

They believed that their house — improved with a new $5,000 tankless water heater and $35,000 in other renovations — was worth much more than the $450,000 that they paid for it in 2017. Home prices have been on the rise nationwide since the pandemic; in Baltimore, they have gone up 42 percent in the past five years, according to Zillow.com.

But 20/20 Valuations, a Maryland appraisal company, put the home’s value at $472,000, and in turn, loanDepot, a mortgage lender, denied the couple a refinance loan.

Dr. Connolly said he knew why: He, his wife and three children, aged 15, 12 and 9, are Black. A professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Connolly is an expert on redlining and the legacy of white supremacy in American cities, and much of his research focuses on the role of race in the housing market.

Months after that first appraisal, the couple applied for another refinance loan, removed family photos and had a white male colleague — another Johns Hopkins professor — stand in for them. The second appraiser valued the house at $750,000.

The professor's best-known work (https://www.amazon.com/World-More-Concrete-Remaking-Historical/dp/022637842X):


Many people characterize urban renewal projects and the power of eminent domain as two of the most widely despised and often racist tools for reshaping American cities in the postwar period. In A World More Concrete, N. D. B. Connolly uses the history of South Florida to unearth an older and far more complex story. Connolly captures nearly eighty years of political and land transactions to reveal how real estate and redevelopment created and preserved metropolitan growth and racial peace under white supremacy. Using a materialist approach, he offers a long view of capitalism and the color line, following much of the money that made land taking and Jim Crow segregation profitable and preferred approaches to governing cities throughout the twentieth century.

A World More Concrete argues that black and white landlords, entrepreneurs, and even liberal community leaders used tenements and repeated land dispossession to take advantage of the poor and generate remarkable wealth. Through a political culture built on real estate, South Florida’s landlords and homeowners advanced property rights and white property rights, especially, at the expense of more inclusive visions of equality. For black people and many of their white allies, uses of eminent domain helped to harden class and color lines. Yet, for many reformers, confiscating certain kinds of real estate through eminent domain also promised to help improve housing conditions, to undermine the neighborhood influence of powerful slumlords, and to open new opportunities for suburban life for black Floridians.

[Montmorency]

LAPD officer who reported colleagues for rape was accidentally beaten to death during a training exercise.

https://i.imgur.com/5hRqBbq.png

[Montmorency]

KCPD Said Missing Black Women Reports In KC Were “Completely Unfounded.” Less Than A Month Later, One Escaped After Being Kidnapped From Prospect & Tortured in a Basement For Over A Month (https://kansascitydefender.com/justice/black-woman-kidnapped-prospect-excelsior-springs-serial-killer/)

The bombshell revelations and horrifically tragic events explicitly disprove KCPD’s earlier statement that there are no missing Black women from this area and that the potential of a KC serial killer is “completely unfounded.” The woman also told investigators her friends “didn’t make it out” and had been murdered by the man.

Oh COME ON. But it's not really surprising; police have notoriously - and I mean notoriously - always ignored reports of serial killings, since serial killers usually don't target (straight) White men.



Mostly unrelated, some details from Senator Pat Leahy's (https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1580949199151325184) memoir:


THREAD: In @SenatorLeahy's new memoir, there's a wild story in it that I haven't ever seen before—a rare glimpse into the shadowy way that the intel agencies interact with Members of Congress. It feels ripped from a political thriller movie...: https://phoenixbooks.biz/book/9781982157357

1) In the midst of the Iraq War debate, Leahy was one of the few Senators pushing back against the Bush admin race to war and the threats of WMDs. He'd been reading the classified intel that the Bush admin was providing to Congress and had real doubts that it justified war....

2) The Sunday after he read the intel, he was out walking with his wife in his McLean neighborhood when "two fit joggers trailed behind us. They stopped and asked what I thought of the intelligence briefings I'd been getting."...

3) The joggers asked Leahy if the briefers had showed him "File Eight"? Leahy writes, "It was obvious from the look on my face that I had not seen such a file. They suggested I should and that I might find it interesting."....

4) Leahy went back to the intel officers at the Capitol SCIF and requested "File Eight," and it contradicted what the Bush administration was saying publicly about the WMDs....

5) A few days later, Leahy and his wife are out walking in the neighborhood again and the same two joggers pass by, stop, and say, basically, “We heard you read Five Eight. Isn’t it interesting? Now you should ask for File Twelve” ….

6) [[Leahy explained to me when I asked him about this incident this month that "File Eight" and "File Twelve" are pseudonyms for specific secret codeword names the joggers told him to ask for.]] ....

7) The next day, Leahy again goes to the Capitol SCIF and asks for "File Twelve." It again contradicts what VP Cheney was saying publicly. Leahy decides to vote against the war based on these secret reports and tips...

8) I asked @senatorleahy about this incident when I interviewed him at @bearpondbooks
earlier this month, if he knew the joggers ever, and he said, "You don't understand—I didn't *want* to know who they were." …

9) tl;dr: Leahy ends up voting against the war because some corner of the intel world tracked when he was out exercising, intercepted him, and pointed him to secret intelligence reports.


I still can't imagine being as comprehensively and catastrophically wrong about something as supporting the Iraq War. A lot of these same people were the ones telling us that the Taliban would take it nice and easy with the ANA, so their having gone unpunished, un-ostracized, is really a national security hazard.

[spmetla]

Supreme Court hears arguments on college affirmative action cases
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/supreme-court-affirmative-action-oral-arguments/index.html


Conservative Supreme Court justices were hostile on Monday to the ongoing use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions.

The court took nearly five hours to debate affirmative action policies at the University of North Carolina and Harvard.

Based on Monday?s oral arguments, the six conservative justices appear ready to end the use of affirmative action in admissions, overturning a precedent from 1978.


Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that if colleges are prohibited from making any consideration of race, it risks violating the Constitution?s equal protection protections for students who will not be able to present that background in their applications.

?I hear a process in which there's a form that says tell us about yourself and people can put all sorts of things. I'm Catholic, I'm from, you know, Los Angeles, I'm Latina, whatever,? she said. ?But now we're ? we're entertaining a rule in which some people can say the things they want, about who they are and have that valued in the system. But other people are not going to be able to. Because they won't be able to reveal that they're Latino or African American or whatever. And I'm worried that that creates an inequity in the system.?

Live Updates: Supreme Court Hears Affirmative Action Cases From Harvard and U.N.C.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/31/us/affirmative-action-supreme-court


In San Francisco, Asian Americans ? especially Chinese Americans ? mobilized in large numbers this year to oust three members of the city?s school board. One driving reason for their high turnout was the board?s vote to put in place a lottery system at the highly competitive Lowell High School, replacing an admissions process that primarily selected students with the highest grades and test scores. That change in effect cut the number of Asian and white ninth graders at Lowell by around one-quarter and increased Black and Latino ninth graders by more than 40 percent, inciting backlash from many Asian parents.

Posting in here as I imagine we'll have the usual rioting and looting that happens if this gets overturned. I'm actually okay with the policy going away as it isn't really necessary anymore unless someone can stake out some clear guidelines for what conditions net to be met for its repeal. If state or federally sponsored schools deny students because of race, well, they should be sued.
If someone wants to found their own private university that only allows race 'x', gender 'x', religion 'x', and sexual orientation 'x' that's fine with me so long as they get ZERO federal or state level funding, research grants, ROTC programs etc...

[Montmorency]

Without affirmative action of the sort this case considers, universities would be 2/3 women. I would call that suboptimal.

I'm not aware of any usual rioting and looting in response to court actions in the states.