Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Lord Liaden]

 

[TrickstaPriest]

My feelings about this crap is well talked about by Elie Mystal here.  It's quite harsh and not friendly, so view at your own risk.

 

 

[Cygnia]

 

[Starlord]

Trump retweets video of man shouting "White Power!" and thanks people for their support

[Lord Liaden]

To move away from American politics for a moment: China forces birth control on Muslims to suppress population

 

I was struck by how one academic observer of Uighur affairs characterized it as "slow, painful, creeping genocide."

[Dr. MID-Nite]

We advance technologically at light speed and socially at a snail's pace.....

[Lord Liaden]

This is another reason America's longtime allies hope it can get its act together. China as the world's dominant power is a frightening prospect.

[Sociotard]

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/this-russia-afghanistan-story-is-western-propaganda-at-its-most-vile-abe6084845f2

 

As we discussed yesterday, the only correct response to unsubstantiated claims by anonymous spooks in a post-Iraq invasion world is to assume that they are lying until you’ve been provided with a mountain of hard, independently verifiable evidence to the contrary. The fact that The New York Times instead chose to uncritically parrot these evidence-free claims made by operatives within intelligence agencies with a known track record of lying about exactly these things is nothing short of journalistic malpractice. The fact that western media outlets are now unanimously regurgitating these still 100 percent baseless assertions is nothing short of state propaganda.

 

John Hudson’s claim that the Washington Post article he co-authored “confirmed the New York Times’ scoop” twice uses the words “if confirmed” with regard to his central claim, saying “Russian involvement in operations targeting Americans, if confirmed,” and "The attempt to stoke violence against Americans, if confirmed”. This is of course an acknowledgement that these things have not, in fact, been confirmed.

[Old Man]

I see Caitlin has finally moved on from pushing the Seth Rich conspiracy. 

[Sociotard]

I just saw her article on the Antiwar subreddit. Does she have an unsavory history?

[Twilight]

9 hours ago, Cygnia said:

 

Yeah I saw that on Twitter a little while ago.  The amount of racists bending over backward to justify the behavior of those two is absolutely disgusting.

[Matt the Bruins]

They'd better pray no one ever gets shot or otherwise suspiciously harmed on/near their property. The DA will be able to show these pictures to the judge or jury and say "the prosecutiion rests."

[Lord Liaden]

Assuming they choose to prosecute. I don't take anything for granted anymore.

[Twilight]

Their poor firearm safety is liable to get themselves killed, rather then anybody else.  They had their fingers on the triggers and had the guns pointed at each other almost as often as they had them at the people they were threatening.

[Sociotard]

There was a case recently (haven't re-found it yet) where a man shot his own adult son, thinking he was an intruder. The sheriff, speaking to reporters, said, iirc, 'this is an example of why you should show caution entering any home and identify yourself, especially if you know the person is armed.'

 

I was just so struck by the idea that the onus is on the potential target to identify themselves and make sure they didn't get shot, not on the armed individual to make sure they confirm the target needs shot at before they do so. The only exceptions seem to be:

don't shoot at cops. Cops can have an oopsie shooting at you, but not the other way around.

don't be a minority. Minorities shooting seem to have a harder time using self-defense arguments.

[Twilight]

So people were claiming that it was a private street.  However somebody on Twitter pointed out the city zoning laws are available to the public and while the houses, as houses generally are, are private, the street is maintained by the city and thus public.

[ScottishFox]

On 6/24/2020 at 1:41 PM, Starlord said:

Do you tear down Lincoln statues because he allegedly jury-rigged the 1860 Presidential nomination?  No human is perfect and everyone has made bad decisions or took part in things that were wrong. 

 

Really good post and, in fairness, some of the mob has attacked statues that actually support their cause.  Knocking over the statues of abolitionists??  The guy that freed the slaves?  The guy that multiple times tried to free the slaves legislatively and failed?

 

If the purity test becomes too strict then nobody can pass it and we're going to have a country devoid of statues.

[Pariah]

"It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another."

-Malcolm Reynolds 

[ScottishFox]

15 hours ago, Cygnia said:

 

 

Even conservative talking heads are dismayed by the complete and utter lack of firearm safety displayed by these two.  The first time I saw the video I was all, "Good, defend your home - only right." which rapidly turned into "Jesus, dude!.  Stop pointing your gun at your wife.  OMG she's never actually held a gun before!  You're going to kill each other!  Stop!".

Edited June 30, 2020 by ScottishFox
typo

[Twilight]

9 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

 

Even conservative talking heads are dismayed by the complete and utter lack of firearm safety displayed by these two.  The first time I saw the video I was all, "Good, defend your home - only right." which rapidly turned into "Jesus, dude!.  Stop pointing your gun at your wife.  OMG she's never actually held a gun before!  You're going to kill each other!  Stop!".

But they're not defending their home.  The black guys are walking by on the sidewalk and there's no indication that they have any intention of causing trouble for these people.  They'd probably have walked on by if this nitwits hadn't utterly failed at trying to appear badass.

[Pariah]

16 hours ago, Cygnia said:

 

 

Those two folks look like the patron saints of "I want to speak to your manager".

[ScottishFox]

40 minutes ago, Twilight said:

But they're not defending their home.  The black guys are walking by on the sidewalk and there's no indication that they have any intention of causing trouble for these people.  They'd probably have walked on by if this nitwits hadn't utterly failed at trying to appear badass.

 

It was private property and the protesters had to break a gate to get onto the private street leading by that residence.  Everyone in that crowd was criminally trespassing.

 

I would have preferred they kept their weapons out of sight until it became clear they would need them to defend their homes.  Those two were so incompetent with their firearms handling they were as likely to kill themselves or someone in the crowd with no intention of attacking their property as not.  Bad-ass is not the term that comes to mind.

[Twilight]

15 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

 

It was private property and the protesters had to break a gate to get onto the private street leading by that residence.  Everyone in that crowd was criminally trespassing.

 

I would have preferred they kept their weapons out of sight until it became clear they would need them to defend their homes.  Those two were so incompetent with their firearms handling they were as likely to kill themselves or someone in the crowd with no intention of attacking their property as not.  Bad-ass is not the term that comes to mind.

Only the house is private property, the street and the sidewalk are maintained by the city and are thus public property.  So long as they didn't actually walk onto the front yard of the house, which they clearly didn't, they're not trespassing.

[ScottishFox]

40 minutes ago, Twilight said:

Only the house is private property, the street and the sidewalk are maintained by the city and are thus public property.  So long as they didn't actually walk onto the front yard of the house, which they clearly didn't, they're not trespassing.

 

It was a gated community and my understanding is the road was private and there was a sign posted to that effect.

 

I'll see if I can find the post...

 

Not the one I was looking for, but here you go.

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/couple-points-guns-at-protesters-marching-to-st-louis-mayor-s-home-to-demand-resignation/article_9edc57ed-c307-583f-9226-a44ba6ac9c03.html

 

You can see the private street sign on this one.  It was not a public road.

 

Quote from article: 

The McCloskeys had been at home and heard a loud commotion coming from the street; they went to investigate and saw “a large group of subjects forcefully break an iron gate marked with ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘Private Street’ signs,” police said. 

“The group began yelling obscenities and threats of harm to both victims,” police said. “When the victims observed multiple subjects who were armed, they then armed themselves and contacted police.”

 

[Twilight]

13 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

*Shameless vilification of black people*

If it's a private road then they're scamming money from the city of St Louis because the zoning law says said roads are being maintained by the city of St Louis.  If they city's maintaining it then it's public property plain and simple but there I go being logical rather then mindlessly swallowing whatever story de jour they're using to vilify the black people being threatened by the gun wielding idjits.