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Today's Assault on Constitutional Democracy Gamethread

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31 minutes ago, FresnoFacts said:

The Daily Caller posted an article and pictures discussing all the various logos and colors from far-right groups at the rally.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/07/political-symbols-washington-dc-capitol-riot/

“What I think is most notable for a Conservative audience is that the most militant Trump supporters have turned against more mainstream Conservatives including but not limited to, Vice President Pence, Chief Justice Roberts, lawmakers who did not raise objections and law enforcement,” Levin added.”This is a troubling sign of a new insurgency, somewhat similar to the rise of the violent hard left in early 70s which also bombed the Capitol.”

From the time of Watergate, there were lunatic fringe groups like the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army which decided that people who merely voted leftist weren’t doing what was necessary to change America and so for several years engaged in coordinated armed insurrection against society. If past is predicate, Levin is correct that we’re now going to see that type of coordinated violence from lunatics on the far right.

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53 minutes ago, smltwnrckr said:

JFC, can we bring the temperature down in here a bit? I feel like it's Christmas dinner and my parents are going after each other over the roast. 

 

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Trump insurrectionists smeared human shit on the walls of the Capitol

 

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-trump-capitol-riot-poopers-20210107-prlsqytyabgdhnexushotl4nam-story.html

 

 

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On 12/1/2016 at 12:26 PM, WyomingCoog said:

I own a vehicle likely worth more than everything you own combined and just flew first class (including a ticket for a 2 1/2 year old), round trip to Las Vegas and I'm not 35 yet. When you accomplish something outside of finishing a book, let me know. When's the last time you saw a 2 year old fly first class in their own seat? Don't tell me about elite.  

28 minutes ago, NorCalCoug said:

I’d happily compare IQ’s with you any day of the week.

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Just now, AndroidAggie said:

i am not a lawyer

sure, i'm willing to concede the point that a law broken is a law broken.  if that conclusion is the primary take away, and the one that influences emotional temperature around reaction to that broken law, then we have really missed the point.

A broken law should be treated as a broken law, but we mustn't let the message be lost because we are focused on the broken law.  It's what I have stood on the whole summer.  I will stump for finding ways to fix police behavior, disparate punishments in the judicial system and police moving with impugnity.  I won't stump for whatever it is the MAGA crew believes happened with their leader.  But I respect both of their rights to speak out, and condemn those who take away from their messages by crime and violence.  

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2 minutes ago, East Coast Aztec said:

A broken law should be treated as a broken law, but we mustn't let the message be lost because we are focused on the broken law.  It's what I have stood on the whole summer.  I will stump for finding ways to fix police behavior, disparate punishments in the judicial system and police moving with impugnity.  I won't stump for whatever it is the MAGA crew believes happened with their leader.  But I respect both of their rights to speak out, and condemn those who take away from their messages by crime and violence.  

i would agree.

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10 minutes ago, AndroidAggie said:

you have to be friends with people like that.  it's the only way you can be in a position to call them out for their beliefs and then still be their friend afterwards so they don't go down the rabbit hole.

you have to have stronger ties of friendship, loyalty, trust, and love than the appealing draw of the people who think like them.

without that love and trust there are no words that'll work.

The most effective way to get people to view those who look and think differently like them as non-threatening is to have them be in a community together. My aunt and uncle are pretty conservative and would certainly be Trump fans about 8 years ago. But since my cousin married a wonderful woman who is the daughter of almost certainly illegal, spanish-speaking immigrants, they were not fans of Trump because of his anti-immigrant stances. They still are conservative and are not fond of illegal immigration. They also still say "intolerant" things. But they also know first hand that most of those people are hard working people whose children are as American as anyone else. They didn't get there by being told they're stupid or racist. They got there by being part of a family, and by being shown through love and a sense of community that brown illegal immigrants often result in good things (like grandchildren for my aunt and uncle). 

They're less racist and Trump-like conservative than they were 10 years ago. Their son is less racist than them (though still a Republican who doesn't like Trump). His kids will be less so. Not every story is like that, but this is the way to help fix some of the cultural issues that are being discussed here. It's about a long game. 

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Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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13 minutes ago, smltwnrckr said:

A good start is assuming the world is a complicated place, and human psychology is a complicated phenomenon. All of those terms are situated and contingent. One man's intolerance is another man's liberal, depending on when and where the man is standing. 

Some fat old white dude not liking Mexicans and wanting to outlaw abortions didn't cause the events on Wednesday to happen. I wish he didn't vote for Trump four years ago, and I'm glad he didn't get his way this time around. I loathe his personal beliefs But me going out of my way to point to him and publicly deride him for not liking Mexicans and hating abortions and make him feel ashamed for it isn't going to make him love Mexicans and abortion. It's going to make him hang out with a bunch of people who also hate Mexicans and abortions. 

That’s the thing. Yes, there are racists and bigots on the right. But too often those who are traditional Republicans because of their beliefs on the economy, traditional family values, or more benign things like that, they get lumped in with the worst of the extreme fringe. I know many people who held their noses and voted for Trump simply because they were Republicans, not because they’re racists or bigots. 

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49 minutes ago, thelawlorfaithful said:

They were tear gassed.

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They fought with non lethal means

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These people were completely surrounded. Abandoned! By the Federal and city government! The rebels are behind them and on all of their flanks in the stupid viral video. 

Sorry they didn’t empty a clip before being torn apart, people. But this bs needs to stop. The Capitol police did everything short of going full Alamo. The city didn’t prepare for BLM level violence because before that day Trump rallies didn’t end in BLM violence. It’s the executives job to protect our government. It’s his fault the police were overwhelmed at a place and on a day they should never be overwhelmed.

But Lawlor, a simple sampling of social media would have revealed that there was for more risk at play on the 6th than they were ready for. I’m not blaming the Capitol Police officers, but the their leadership was woefully unprepared and refused offered assistance. 

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3 minutes ago, BSUTOP25 said:

That’s the thing. Yes, there are racists and bigots on the right. But too often those who are traditional Republicans because of their beliefs on the economy, traditional family values, or more benign things like that, they get lumped in with the worst of the extreme fringe. I know many people who held their noses and voted for Trump simply because they were Republicans, not because they’re racists or bigots. 

But Trump was always clearly a racist and a bigot, and they voted for him anyway.

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Just now, Old_SD_Dude said:

But Trump was always clearly a resist and a bigot, and they voted for him anyway.

That's where it gets complicated... it's reasonable to suggest that voting for a racist is a racist act. But does that make someone irredeemable racist?

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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22 minutes ago, Billings said:

Trying to get to that spot that is was incompetence and not being prepared.  However there was plenty of social media buzz about this becoming ugly and that is why the feds offered to help.  They were warned and ignored it.  Like I said leading toward total incompetence and that is why the leadership is all being fired.  As they should be

Leadership of the Capitol police already resigned, as they should have. This besmirching of the rank and file as closet white supremacists or 5th column Trumpists needs to stop. Those people fought to save our government with every tool that was available to them. Many were injured in doing so, one of them died. 

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We’re all sitting in the dugout. Thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch.

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41 minutes ago, renoskier said:

But how do you change the hearts and minds of the many folks who are racist, xenophobic, chauvinistic, intolerant, etc.? How do you reach these people?

One thing that can be done - no, must be done - is to guard against being complicit in such anti-social behavior. As an L.A. Times columnist well put it today, FoxNews has failed to abide by that admonition for at least the last five years. Donald Trump has been Fox's cash cow creating hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue from the "folks" to whom you refer as they watched Fox religiously defend the guy.

That said, I don't want to over-generalize here. I've come to think that over the last couple years Bret Baier and Mike Wallace have probably become the most objective reporters on any of the cable news networks. They're the antithesis of ratings whores like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

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Just now, smltwnrckr said:

That's where it gets complicated... it's reasonable to suggest that voting for a racist is a racist act. But does that make someone irredeemable racist?

Well, I supposed someone that repents on their deathbed is technically redeemed. But if someone votes for someone who is clearly a racist, and continues to support that person as they implement racist policies, then short of reeducation camps I’m not sure what to do. 

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4 minutes ago, BSUTOP25 said:

That’s the thing. Yes, there are racists and bigots on the right. But too often those who are traditional Republicans because of their beliefs on the economy, traditional family values, or more benign things like that, they get lumped in with the worst of the extreme fringe. I know many people who held their noses and voted for Trump simply because they were Republicans, not because they’re racists or bigots. 

Here's an example...

One of the most striking things about the people who are really true believers in the Trump movement is their sense of entitlement. They're entitled to having "their" country the way they want it, and they're entitled to have whatever it is they think that the deep state and the government and the coastal elites are supposedly preventing them from having. They're entitled to economic, political and social systems continuing to favor them and their sensibilities. It's pretty much the opposite of how the American dream is supposed to work, but it's what they seem to believe. 

Now, it's undeniable that this sense of entitlement is connected to race. White people, including myself, often have that sense of entitlement driven by certain assumptions based on their personal experiences... experiences that people of color and immigrants don't have. Is it the same for ALL white people? No. And I know a bunch of entitled people who are not white. But it's clearly there in the aggregate. And while there are similar senses of entitlement that go with class standing, I don't get that many of those guys and gals storming the capitol run hedge funds or work in Silicon Valley.

Yet, if one of those guys was sitting in a bar or in my house and said we need to take our country back, standing up and calling them out as loudly as possible (heck, maybe I would do it on Twitter) and saying "That's your WHITE PRIVILEGE talking!!! Check it, you piece of sh!t" would be the least effective way of making them question the assumptions that feed that sense of entitlement. 

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Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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8 minutes ago, Old_SD_Dude said:

Well, I supposed someone that repents on their deathbed is technically redeemed. But if someone votes for someone who is clearly a racist, and continues to support that person as they implement racist policies, then short of reeducation camps I’m not sure what to do. 

In America, we convince more people who agree with us to vote against that other person's ideas and we embrace robust institutions that protect people as much as possible if that guy is better at convincing the majority that he's right. 

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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