The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Classic-Xer]

(07-28-2020, 10:23 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Thing is, some ideologues will state all A believe B.  Then, someone will respond, I am A and do not believe B.  The response by the ideologue is all A believe B.  Again.  Rinse.  Repeat.  They have created a false idea and will cling to it no matter how often they are corrected.

In particular some of many races have what I call the ghetto ethic.  In short, drug pushers are seen driving fancy cars, wearing fancy jewelry, and are therefore to be imitated when you grow up.  Using violence to establish your monopoly is cool.  It is reasonable to assume this mentality is real, to take precautions against it.  If you can afford it, you move to places where it is not prevalent.  If you can’t afford it, you take such precautions as you can, which might include joining a neighborhood watch group and telling your kids to stay away from areas the pushers may be active.  You do not want them to catch a stray bullet.

That is rational.

What is not rational is thinking all people with a certain skin pigmentation have ghetto ethics and deserve to be shot.  What is not rational is believing all liberals believe a certain thing when you know many liberals who do not believe this thing.  Yet the devout conservative will insist they do.  They will cling to their false motivations tightly, thus justifying their own mindset, and making any sort of conversation impossible.

Now, Classic is useful.  You can make an argument that opposes him ever clearer in hopes of convincing more rational people.  Convincing Classic?  Unlikely.  He is stuck somewhere between rinse and repeat.

But lately I can repeat a question that he can’t answer and he responds by changing the subject.  You get to know his values well enough to ask what he cannot answer.  Instead he will make silly threats and repeat distractions.

Not only not rational, but not constructive.

Yep. Classic is useful. Classic can be used to teach others about yourselves. Classic can be generalized or painted as being this or that, believing this or that, supporting this or that, supportive of this or that and so forth. Classic is as useful to liberals as liberals are useful to him these days. It's kind of funny, you can be rational and speak about certain black people but I have to be racist for doing the same thing. Do/can you see why you're going to be let go of and left to deal with the savages on your own?

[Classic-Xer]

(07-28-2020, 04:20 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 02:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I answered your question. You are one of the three ideologues who have it backwards these days.

You know how many blacks live by my place near Cape Cod?  If I had any desire to act in a racist fashion, I am sure living in the wrong place to have a chance.  I have already explained that in my career the colored people I met were just fine.  You insist otherwise, but you have never met them or seen me interact with them.  The prejudice comes from your own head.

Ideologues?  They are the sort that stay with their chosen philosophy no matter where in the cycles they are.  Someone who has a scientific mind set compares the ideas he holds against realty, and changes his view to suit.  I have different definition of ideologue than you.

(07-28-2020, 02:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I see others like you in Congress too but they're not here to take your place. They're in cozy Washington DC not listening, not using their minds to learn and spouting their big mouths and repeating the same old shit like usual.

Stuff like comply with the Constitution, checks and balances, human rights, equality and democracy?  These are not empty words to me or the Democrats in Washington.  When someone advocating and living selfishness, narcissism and personal gain achieves power, I don't follow him in order to keep power of my own.  Republicans seem to these days.  Either that or they turn blue.

(07-28-2020, 02:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've  also been telling you that war/violence represents one viable  option that Americans are free to choose and support as a means to oppose these days.

It is an option.  It is always an option.  In saying why the Founding Fathers put the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights, I wind up trying to convince blue folk that the Founding Fathers truly considered violence as one of the key checks and balances, and wrote this clearly enough.  The blues were almost as stubborn as you are in denying this obvious truth.  During the revolutionary era violence might well have been one the key checks and balances, manifesting all the others.

In the Information Age, it is obsolete.  Americans through protest and legislation can transform the culture.  No need for violence.  You will see.  You are obsessed with violence.  You spout nonsense about violence.  You threaten to use violence to implement your own prejudices.  But you will see.

I'm sure the blacks you worked with were just as acceptable/friendly as the blacks that I've worked with, done business with, socialized with and employed over the years. No, I don't know how many blacks live near you by Cape Cod. So, how many of them live near you? You wouldn't happen to be the descendant of a rich white person. Didn't the rich and famous Kennedy's have a place by Cape Cod? I'm sorry but the protests, the revolution and all the big government legislation that took place afterwards in Russia didn't make Russia a better country. Dude, as long as mankind is divided between the good and the bad, the forces of good and evil, have and have nots, the sane and the delusional there is going to be a need for violence and might makes right. As I've said many times, we don't live in heaven dude. I have to say, for a self proclaimed none believer, you sure preach a lot and condemn a lot with the exception of whatever is related to you and your political affiliation. So, did the blacks you worked with stay in their place as you say or were they free to challenge you?

[Classic-Xer]

(07-28-2020, 03:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 02:46 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You're free to disagree, free to ignore and free to refute, free to believe in Progressives and their ideology, free to remain with the Progressives and free to promote their ideology, free go down with the Progressives and die with Progressives or exterminated by Progressives. America is free to watch, free to oppose and free remain largely idle as it occurs within American territory and America  free to send in American troops and America is free to use guns to defend themselves, its property and its communities as well  and their isn't a fucking thing that the Progressives in Washington can to about it or do about the Americans who live among them either. I don't mean to be mean or get personal by stating the obvious truth that three out of four liberals/Progressives have some kind of mental disorder.

Your ideology has the gun culture, and I wouldn't trust it when people get angry and boozed-up. People who believe as you do will end up killing each other. 

As for claiming that people who disagree with the official state orthodoxy... just remember the psychiatric abuse within the old Soviet Union and its satellites. Your side could never do that? You just said that it could by stating that disagreement with you is most likely to be a mental disorder.

Q.E.D.

American culture teaches it's own not to mix the two and teaches its own that guns aren't toys. Are you now saying that your mental disorder hasn't had a negative impact and hasn't caused trouble during your life and doesn't affect your judgement and ability to reason these days? Question, isn't there a better liberal spokesman out there than you guys these days?

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-28-2020, 06:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You wouldn't happen to be the descendant of a rich white person. Didn't the rich and famous Kennedy's have a place by Cape Cod?

My great grandfather Alton Butler at one point owned a Studabaker dealership, but let go of it.  They were getting too involved in the new fangled horseless carriage fad, and not concentrating on their traditional core enterprise.  He was also a Massachusetts state legislator for a while.  Not really up there in wealth or government responsibility with the Kennedys, but in the junior leagues.  But he was sort of the exception.  Most of my family tree is full of working guys.  Lots of phone company people on my father's side.  Lots of fishermen on my mother's.  All three of my father's kids got to college, as did many of our generation and very few of previous generations, but that is more a function of our time than something unique to the family.

The other oddity was Alton's wife Alma.  Believe it or not, the young kids on horseback liked to drive fast even before the automobile.  Her father was rich.  Her horse was really good.  She was small and light.  She was for a time the fastest thing on the streets of Brockton.  The males at the time were not amused.  This was scandalous in a time when ladies were not supposed to behave that way.  To make her behave, they dosed her with something called laudanum.  Must keep in one's place.  Must have decorum.  Grrrrrr...  Someone was born too soon.

I still have her pocket knife and a cup he won for having the best cow in Brockton.  They are the highlight of the family tree.  Most of the tree is fairly boring.  Well, maybe I should make an exception for John and Pricilla Alden.  They got caught up in some sort of argument over religious freedom that left them taking a ride on a ship called the Mayflower.

Would you believe that Alma was a direct descendant of Pricilla?

(07-28-2020, 06:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: So, did the blacks you worked with stay in their place as you say or were they free to challenge you?

The one guy who came closest was a former military person.  He was a procurement guy in uniform, turned boss of a contract selling a rack in civilian life.  He didn't really challenge me nor I him.  He was more the boss of my boss.  He likely tweaked the software development somewhat.  He certainly helped define the requirements that defined my work writing software.  But if we bumped heads I don't remember it and would have brought the woman in charge of software into the loop.  

The requirements really had to do with how various types of telephone lines are supposed to act and the military rules for priority that they wanted to add.  For some reason they wanted the general to be able to kick the private off a needed line.  Everything was very well defined. The only thing that might have come up was to point out something that was missed.

But this was my second project after college, so my memories of that time are vague.

[pbrower2a]

(07-28-2020, 10:23 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Thing is, some ideologues will state all A believe B.  Then, someone will respond, I am A and do not believe B.  The response by the ideologue is all A believe B.  Again.  Rinse.  Repeat.  They have created a false idea and will cling to it no matter how often they are corrected.

That's Classic X'er for you. 

In one respect there is one reality that can define one as an American: having US citizenship. It is apparently easier to get American citizenship (so long as one is not a criminal, prostitute, dullard, or lunatic) than to lose US citizenship. US citizenship has no connection to ethnicity, religion, linguistic practice, social class, or political ideology. 

I once heard someone claim that he had "Tenth Amendment citizenship". It's as if citizenship not attwained through Constitutional amendments to the tenth were somehow cheap. 

(thirteenth amendment)

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.[1]


(fourteenth)

 Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article

(fifteenth)


Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.[2]


It is safe to assume that any freed slave in the United States had earned his citizenship either through his toil or that of his parents. There is nothing cheap about achieving citizenship in the United States as a conseque3nce of emancipation.   

Wikipedia recognizes four ways in which to lose US citizenship

Loss of national citizenship is possible only under the following circumstances:

• Fraud in the naturalization process. Technically, this is not a loss of citizenship but rather a voiding of the purported naturalization and a declaration that the immigrant never was a citizen of the United States.[68]
  
  
  
  
• Affiliation with "anti-American" organizations (e.g., the Communist party, other totalitarian party, or terrorist organizations) within five years of naturalization. The State Department views such affiliations as sufficient evidence that an applicant must have lied or concealed evidence in the naturalization process.[68]
  
  
  
  
• Other-than-honorable discharge from the U.S. armed forces before five years of honorable service, if honorable service was the basis for the naturalization.[68]
  
  
  
  
• Voluntary relinquishment of citizenship. This may be accomplished either through renunciation procedures specially established by the State Department or through other actions that demonstrate desire to give up national citizenship.[69]
  

The first three involve persons not originally citizens losing recognition as citizens. In the first, a prime example is Feodor Fedorenko, a former citizen of the Soviet Union captured by the Nazis and then was recruited into "auxiliary police". The Nazis trained him to shoot escaping or unruly prisoners at concentration camps, and he "served" the Nazis at the mass-murder camp at Treblinka. He eventually led a detachment of collaborators who brutalized and eventually gassed prisoners at the camp, and he was involved in round-ups of Jews for transfer to sure death in camps of mass murder. 

In time he was eventually identified as a war criminal and denaturalized.  In 1984 he was deported to the Soviet Union, tried and convicted of treason and war crimes, and executed.   

The next two involve either a fraudulent statement on an application for citizenship or failure to meet a condition of US citizenship. The fourth is not over a triviality. One of the most common circumstances is that in some countries one has dual citizenship in a father's country (let us say the USA) and a mother's country (let us say Japan). At the age of majority in Japan one cannot keep both and must choose.     

Quote:In particular some of many races have what I call the ghetto ethic.  In short, drug pushers are seen driving fancy cars, wearing fancy jewelry, and are therefore to be imitated when you grow up.  Using violence to establish your monopoly is cool.  It is reasonable to assume this mentality is real, to take precautions against it.  If you can afford it, you move to places where it is not prevalent.  If you can’t afford it, you take such precautions as you can, which might include joining a neighborhood watch group and telling your kids to stay away from areas the pushers may be active.  You do not want them to catch a stray bullet.

That is rational.

The ghetto ethic is a losing proposition, but so can be following the straight-and-narrow path while consigned to the ghetto. Maximal profits in the capitalist system (this, I regret to say, is the objective of the owners and executives in most cases) depends upon as many people being as poor as is possible and in as large numbers as possible. Such is the very definition of exploitation no matter what one's ideology. Where pathological narcissism is the norm among economic elites, then exploitation will be particularly severe. It is not my desire to stumble into a Marxist argument against capitalism; much of the problem is not capitalism itself so much as it is a moral pathology characteristic of contemporary elites. Boomers remain much of the executive elite even as they approach retirement age, and Boomer executives from an early time set themselves as a small and exclusive circle that did extremely well by treating subordinates badly in a time in which the formation of small businesses was largely impractical in accordance with tax laws that favored giant, bureaucratic corporations at the expense of small-scale business.

That could change as we go from a 4T to a 1T. Maybe we will be obliged to raise taxes heavily upon economic elites just to pay off 4T deficits that result from saving businesses Too Big to Fail or covering the social costs of COVID-19. Maybe we will recognize that small business is less likely to have the means for corrupting the political process, as it cannot buy politicians or lobbyists as can tycoons and executives.  On the other side, maybe there will be businesses Too Big to Save in the event of another 2008-style crash, and people who don't want to work for near-minimum-wage pay will instead start businesses when they lose their once-plush jobs.

Maybe in a more collegial 1T we will undo the easy practice of gutting cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis with efforts to revive them into livable places with genuine opportunity again. Such could involve huge tax credits. As I see it we are closer to the end of the 4T than to its beginning unless we have some catastrophically fcuked-up leadership (such as a second term of Donald Trump) that causes more and worse problems than it solves.         

OK, back to the urban poor. It will be far better if the jobs that were once readily available in now-ravaged cities returned or (more likely) if new opportunities supplanted those. I have seen adaptations already. On one of the few days that I had to take someone to the Detroit airport I took a side trip to see some parts of the Detroit metro area that I had never seen. I was amazed to find that commute traffic, which in most cities is going one way toward the concentrations of employment in or near the downtown central business district was going both ways. The people in the reverse commute were largely African-American. Because there is no strong proclivity for white people to reject night-shift work and blacks to do such work, and that the people leaving Detroit at the time were driving generally older and cheaper vehicles, I could only figure that black workers in Detroit are working jobs in the suburbs as in food service and retailing. Work such jobs and you will still be poor. (OK -- what if one becomes a meat-cutter? Then one has a skilled trade, and one is not likely still poor).  

The work ethic is real. All it takes for bringing it forth is the incentive of a good life, or at the least an improvement in a rotten life.   

Quote:What is not rational is thinking all people with a certain skin pigmentation have ghetto ethics and deserve to be shot.  What is not rational is believing all liberals believe a certain thing when you know many liberals who do not believe this thing.  Yet the devout conservative will insist they do.  They will cling to their false motivations tightly, thus justifying their own mindset, and making any sort of conversation impossible.

People who believe that about people of differing race, ethnicity, or religion and get to do what fits their view will commit crimes against humanity. I have a classic solution for such people: a well-tied rope and the standard drop based upon their weight. You and I can likely size up a black (or any other) person quickly and determine much about that person's social-economic status. Conversation is remarkably good for that. Smart people talk about certain things and avoid talking about certain others. A black person could be very militant about his position... but if I were black, I would likely be rather militant. 

Quote:Now, Classic is useful.  You can make an argument that opposes him ever clearer in hopes of convincing more rational people.  Convincing Classic?  Unlikely.  He is stuck somewhere between rinse and repeat.

He's almost comic in the sense that Archie Bunker was comic. But Archie Bunker at least wasn't seething with violent rage as is Classic X'er. Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) is the naif who demonstrates the Dunning-Krueger effect to an extreme degree. His ignorance is excusable because he sacrificed schooling (back when such was commonplace) to put food on the table when his father died, and his rigidity of thought makes him the butt of the joke. Remember: Carroll O'Connor was strictly a dramatic actor, and he mouthed his lines seriously. He was not a funny man. The malaprop words that he used (like "groin-ecologist" for "gynecologist" were jokes in themselves and did not depend upon him mugging for a laugh).

One thing that Archie Bunker was not... was evil. Even if he was a bigoted ignoramus, his ethical values were quite conventional. He might have been a male-chauvinist pig, but at least he did not beat his wife -- and he is loyal to her. He may work on the dock, but he does not have a house full of pilfered stuff. He has only one television in his house (unless Mike and Gloria have one in their bedroom -- and they bought it fair and square), and there isn't a large liquor collection (liquor and televisions were then commonplace objects of pilferage).*   

Should there ever be an ethnic schism in America as there was in Rwanda or Yugoslavia, then I would not want to meet Classic X'er. He might not be the leader, but I could see him herding people to their doom because those unfortunate people are not "Americans" to him.  I hope that he does not have the same banality of evil in him that Adolf Eichmann... or for that matter, Feodor Fedorenko... had. Maybe he sees me as evil because if he did stuff like Fedorenko did to Chinese-Americans I would denounce him without hesitation to Chinese authorities intent on prosecuting him if I got the chance. He might think such a betrayal of a fellow American... betrayal of the ordinary decencies that we can all expect would strip me of any loyalty toward him. 
 

Quote:But lately I can repeat a question that he can’t answer and he responds by changing the subject.  You get to know his values well enough to ask what he cannot answer.  Instead he will make silly threats and repeat distractions.

Not only not rational, but not constructive.

I give him plenty of opportunity to recant and to contemplate the consequences of his beliefs. It seems so obvious! 

* If you are wondering why we have containerized freight which never get opened by dock-hands... in the old days, pilferage was common, and dock-hands often ended up helping themselves to consumer electronics, liquor, clothes, expensive foodstuffs, and other luxuries so that a load of French wine might go down from 1000 bottles to 900 between the dock in New York and the destination in, let's say, Indianapolis.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-28-2020, 10:23 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-28-2020, 09:26 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Most of us know the rules for getting along. Do not assume evil in a difference unless the behavior is inexcusable in any culture. No culture can excuse murder, rape, or theft. Most cultures have a mainstream in which rogues who take the outer identity of the group and do horrible things are objects of hatred. Mexican-Americans hated serial-killer and demon-worshiper Richard Ramirez. Blacks recognize serial killer and thug Alton Coleman with about as much sympathy as white people hold Ted Bundy. What people hate the Mafia thugs most? You guessed it: Italian-Americans who have legitimate ways of making a living. You find few German-Americans showing admiration for John Dillinger -- or Nazis. Jews do not defend the Jewish monbsters of about eighty years ago or such scum as Bernie Madoff, Harvey Weinstein, or Jeffrey Epstein. 

For some reason, the 9/11 plotters stayed clear of Dearborn, Michigan, a community with a large Arab Muslim (and lots of people of Middle-Eastern origin who might not be Arab or Muslim) community.

Thing is, some ideologues will state all A believe B.  Then, someone will respond, I am A and do not believe B.  The response by the ideologue is all A believe B.  Again.  Rinse.  Repeat.  They have created a false idea and will cling to it no matter how often they are corrected.

In particular some of many races have what I call the ghetto ethic.  In short, drug pushers are seen driving fancy cars, wearing fancy jewelry, and are therefore to be imitated when you grow up.  Using violence to establish your monopoly is cool.  It is reasonable to assume this mentality is real, to take precautions against it.  If you can afford it, you move to places where it is not prevalent.  If you can’t afford it, you take such precautions as you can, which might include joining a neighborhood watch group and telling your kids to stay away from areas the pushers may be active.  You do not want them to catch a stray bullet.

That is rational.

What is not rational is thinking all people with a certain skin pigmentation have ghetto ethics and deserve to be shot.  What is not rational is believing all liberals believe a certain thing when you know many liberals who do not believe this thing.  Yet the devout conservative will insist they do.  They will cling to their false motivations tightly, thus justifying their own mindset, and making any sort of conversation impossible.

Now, Classic is useful.  You can make an argument that opposes him ever clearer in hopes of convincing more rational people.  Convincing Classic?  Unlikely.  He is stuck somewhere between rinse and repeat.

But lately I can repeat a question that he can’t answer and he responds by changing the subject.  You get to know his values well enough to ask what he cannot answer.  Instead he will make silly threats and repeat distractions.

Not only not rational, but not constructive.

[Bob Butler 54]

The AP has an article up on how the Oregon governor is announcing a phased withdrawal of federal agents from Portland.

Homeland Security Wrote:State and local law enforcement will begin securing properties and streets, especially those surrounding federal properties, that have been under nightly attack for the past two months.

A strong presence of state police has apparently been promised to take over.

Worth watching for a while.

[Bob Butler 54]

The AP reviewed the Portland arrests.  It showed a mix of why people were arrested and motivations,  For example if you tried to protect a black man who was being sprayed, you were interfering with the police.

Quote:The AP found that 95% of those arrested by police and federal agents were local. The vast majority have no criminal record in Oregon. Many appear to be college students. Their average age was 28, court records show.

They’re mostly charged with misdemeanors like failing to comply with a lawful order, while some face felonies like arson and assault on an officer. Most people have been released, and some have been arrested more than once for similar offenses.

[Bob Butler 54]

It seems the locals are defending the courthouse and the protests in Portland remain protests.  One night quiet?

The AP reports.

[Bob Butler 54]

According to the AP, another night of quiet in Portland.  The protesters seem to be pushing back against the folks trying to promote violence.  The Oregon state police seem to be showing much more restraint than the federal secret police.

[Bob Butler 54]

CNN has Trump complaining....  'Nobody likes me,'

I wonder why that is?

[pbrower2a]

(08-01-2020, 09:02 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has Trump complaining....  'Nobody likes me,'

I wonder why that is?

[Bob Butler 54]

CNN has a article up which criticizes white parents who don't want minority children bussed into their schools.  It was somewhat similar to Classic's theory of liberal racism, but not quite the same.  I thought it a more believable perspective.

[Bob Butler 54]

Not all quiet in Portland.  Unlike the last few days, the violent people amidst the protestor ranks managed to set the local police off.  AP reports.

[David Horn]

(08-02-2020, 05:59 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not all quiet in Portland.  Unlike the last few days, the violent people amidst the protestor ranks managed to set the local police off.  AP reports.

Some people just want to start trouble, the cause being protested having little to no consequence.  It's hard for the real demonstrators to police them, and it's even harder to invite the actual police in to do it for them.  The French, with their centuries of active protest, call them agents provocateur.  I find that fitting and accurate.  FWIW, the FBI provided them during the antiwar protests, so this could have the Trump stamp on it.

[pbrower2a]

(08-03-2020, 05:14 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-02-2020, 05:59 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not all quiet in Portland.  Unlike the last few days, the violent people amidst the protestor ranks managed to set the local police off.  AP reports.

Some people just want to start trouble, the cause being protested having little to no consequence.  It's hard for the real demonstrators to police them, and it's even harder to invite the actual police in to do it for them.  The French, with their centuries of active protest, call them agents provocateur.  I find that fitting and accurate.  FWIW, the FBI provided them during the antiwar protests, so this could have the Trump stamp on it.

A warning to people who exploit a protest to do something wrong:

1. The news media aren't your friends. They gladly give footage of criminal misconduct to law enforcement.

2. Protesters are not your friends. Some of them have cameras rolling to document police brutality and end up getting video of you. They see someone torching a car and think... "Oh, my God! I don't want someone torching my car! I brought Fluffy along!"

3. The local police might infiltrate a protest. I recall seeing that the San Francisco PD found its way into Gay Pride rallies... and broke off to bust the disorderly, often drunks who had nothing to do with Gay Pride. The cops often busted people who did violence against gays.  

4. Legitimate protesters are well-behaved people. It's not that I define 'legitimate' by whether I agree with their agenda. Fred Phelps' Godh@tesf@gs can behave at times even the late Fred Phelps was extremely unpleasant and provocative.  Assault, vandalism, arson, and looting are not acceptable behavior. 

5. Agents provocateurs are to be avoided. They are trouble-makers, often professional in competence at what they do

[Bob Butler 54]

CNN has the State of New York as trying to dissolve the NRA.  The NRA is headquartered elsewhere, but has be legally a New York nonprofit for some time, giving them jurisdiction.  Too many high executives making profits and violating laws regulating nonprofit organizations.

[David Horn]

(08-06-2020, 11:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: CNN has the State of New York as trying to dissolve the NRA.  The NRA is headquartered elsewhere, but has be legally a New York nonprofit for some time, giving them jurisdiction.  Too many high executives making profits and violating laws regulating nonprofit organizations.

Embarrassing admission: Wayne Lapierre was born and raised in Roanoke, a very blue city about 40 miles from my home.  Needless to say, he's not well received there, but comes occasionally to visit relatives.  Maybe not anymore.

[Bob Butler 54]

The AP is back to a State of Portland article today.

Mayor Ted Wheeler Wrote:Don’t think for a moment that if you are participating in this activity, you are not being a prop for the reelection campaign of Donald Trump — because you absolutely are,” the mayor had said. “If you don’t want to be part of that, then don’t show up.

Meanwhile in Milwaukee the Fire and Police Commission has demoted police chief Morales down to captain for using tear gas and pepper spray on protestors.

[Bob Butler 54]

The AP is reporting that how Russia is interfering with the election as they did last time to reelect Trump, but that China...  

Well, China pretty much agrees with the Lincoln Project people that Trump stinks and that he ought to loose. They are saying it fairly openly using their official channels, but are not trying to be sneaky about it.  Can't say that they are wrong.  I'm mildly surprised there is no attachment by the intelligence deep state that China is correct.