It might have been Mc Guinness who said that when he was in the IRA. I can't remember.
Saying ____ is needed and etc. is all some kind of lame value judgment, which I'll shy away from.
I am perfectly served in my life by peacefulness and political disengagement and all of that, but if your goal in life was to say, maximize the level of collective prosperity, utility, or liberty in society, then "violence" would really be the only logical course of action.
edited 11th Jan '11 8:16:49 AM by Tsukubus
"I didn't steal it; I'm borrowing it until I die."Citation
: Democratic Leadership Council's Website.
Can you provide citations that the Tea Party uses firearm/second amendment rhetoric in a "Using it as a political tool to get what you want because you want to manipulate the electorate" sense?
Please spay/neuter your pets. Also, defang your copperheads.Ah, my mistake. It didn't click for me.
Fight smart, not fair.No, because Sarah Palin took down her tweet and picture after the recent shooting because she was paranoid it'd be politically damning :P
I'll see if I can't find a link.
Ultimately, I get that the idea is that they're basically the same thing. The difference is, the Democrats used dart board bullseyes, whereas Palin (The Tea Party darlin') used crosshairs-which, I'm sure you'll concede, is more directly related to guns. You could make the argument that it's just a natural evolution of the discourse, which I think is BS, but I'll still grant that. We want there to be ways of marking "Important Districts" sure, but we don't want it to be framed in a violent fashion.
edited 11th Jan '11 8:26:50 AM by TheyCallMeTomu
I'm surprised (no, not really) that Major Tom needs to be reminded that one difference between this incident and the Ft. Hood shooting is that Ft. Hood wasn't preceded by high-profile national candidates urging their supporters to take action using gun-themed rhetoric ("Don't retreat, reload!
", voting or Harry Reid might justify "using Second Amendment remedies,"
etc.).
Though I find it amusing that Major Tom is apparently channeling Michael Moore.
—R.J.
edited 11th Jan '11 8:29:19 AM by rjung
Political parties can quickly become hotbeds of revolutionary fervor when the elite classes align their interests entirely with one party, use a mixture of cultural hegemony (media control, control of the education establishment. etc) and identity politics (changing demographics of USA makes this especially easy) to gain a permanent majority, the minority party becomes a culturally distinct block highly protective of their heritage, and standards of living decrease.
This is kind of how Singapore worked out to be, except governance tends to be somewhat competent and standards of living are good so the structure doesn't fall apart. Of course, in America, the elites aren't very good at governance or economics, so... yeah.
edited 11th Jan '11 8:32:02 AM by Tsukubus
"I didn't steal it; I'm borrowing it until I die."I think that, individually, none of the pieces are really that big of an issue. Crosshairs in place of Bullseyes? Totally understandable. "Don't Retreat Reload" sure, that's an inspiration of "Keep on fighting." I'd certainly concede that when you don't take all of the imagery together, when it's only piece by piece, it's not a big deal.
But you see Tea Party goers at rallies with guns, you see every third Tea Party candidate essentially encouraging more and more violent rhetoric-if not outright acting violently-and the trend isn't exactly reversing itself (Though, it may do so now, if the Tea Party and friends want to divorce themselves from the shooting-if that happens, then my work here is done and I have no further complaints).
Here, something that undercuts my point but that I agree with: [1]
edited 11th Jan '11 8:37:42 AM by TheyCallMeTomu
The reason teapartiers have and encourage the use of guns is not because the government as it is now needs to be violently and physically revolted against, but because the government has gotten to the point where it COULD get to that level at any time. And now that the second amendment has been rendered largely irrelevant, we need to make sure that we keep our guns to create a strong negative incentive for the government to get that bad.
"That bad" is VERY bad, and ideally we would prevent that politically. "That bad" would be the government setting up concentration camps, or the government postponing a federal election, or the government not retaliating in any way to a nuclear strike.
I'm feeling strangely happy now, contented and serene. Oh don't you see, finally I'll be, somewhere that's green...Wait, seriously? They have those?
I'm tired of arguing over what the Tea Party and Conservatives did. I just want it to stop. Let's stop the violent rhetoric, let's stop the implicit calls to violence, let's stop this crap.
We should all be horrified at the idea of people using physical violence like this. This is not a revolution, this is madness. And we should act in a way that is consistent with that ability to be horrified.
edited 11th Jan '11 8:46:47 AM by TheyCallMeTomu
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They also make Kill Bush T-Shirts.
Yes. This.
edited 11th Jan '11 8:53:14 AM by OscarWildecat
Please spay/neuter your pets. Also, defang your copperheads.Then let's stop the Kill Bush T-shirts.
If anyone involved in the Kill Bush T-Shirt business runs for office, I'll make sure to marginalize them, in the same way I would hope that anyone involved in "Liberal Hunting Season Pass Tickets" is marginalized. How about that?
edited 11th Jan '11 8:51:17 AM by TheyCallMeTomu
@OOZE: No it couldn't. All of those seem incredibly unlikely. To be honest, I question the need for the Second Amendment at all in most places. But that's off-topic.
Yeah, the right wing is way more violent than the left. And less credible. It's why I never stand with the Republicans, despite sharing a lot of economic views with them.
Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Tsukubus, are you suggesting that physical violence is needed in this day and age?
Because that's kind of the message I'm getting from you.
edited 11th Jan '11 8:13:49 AM by TheyCallMeTomu