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thoreau wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 00:56And if the worst fears from initial reports are not 100% born out then it's all "FAKE NEWS!!!!"

Eric the .5b wrote: ↑17 Sep 2020, 18:28 Well, most of them may not really believe much of Qanon. Kinda like people dropped Birtherism pretty hard after Obama was out of office, at least in my neck of the woods. It's something to profess in order to signal, like the idea that Harris was a progressive prosecutor.

JD wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 09:30

Eric the .5b wrote: ↑17 Sep 2020, 18:28 Well, most of them may not really believe much of Qanon. Kinda like people dropped Birtherism pretty hard after Obama was out of office, at least in my neck of the woods. It's something to profess in order to signal, like the idea that Harris was a progressive prosecutor.

This is pretty much my feeling too (admittedly I have little hard evidence to back it up). Of course I'm sure there are some true believers, but it's kind of like how when people sing their school's fight song, it's not about whether they literally believe every word.

Number 6 wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 12:23

JD wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 09:30

Eric the .5b wrote: ↑17 Sep 2020, 18:28 Well, most of them may not really believe much of Qanon. Kinda like people dropped Birtherism pretty hard after Obama was out of office, at least in my neck of the woods. It's something to profess in order to signal, like the idea that Harris was a progressive prosecutor.

This is pretty much my feeling too (admittedly I have little hard evidence to back it up). Of course I'm sure there are some true believers, but it's kind of like how when people sing their school's fight song, it's not about whether they literally believe every word.

I don’t get that. I suppose it’s kind of like people who mouth the Apostle’s Creed in church. But even those people must at least have some belief in Jesus. In the same way, the QAnon people must at least take a big sip of the kool aid.

Number 6 wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 12:23

JD wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 09:30

Eric the .5b wrote: ↑17 Sep 2020, 18:28 Well, most of them may not really believe much of Qanon. Kinda like people dropped Birtherism pretty hard after Obama was out of office, at least in my neck of the woods. It's something to profess in order to signal, like the idea that Harris was a progressive prosecutor.

This is pretty much my feeling too (admittedly I have little hard evidence to back it up). Of course I'm sure there are some true believers, but it's kind of like how when people sing their school's fight song, it's not about whether they literally believe every word.

I don’t get that. I suppose it’s kind of like people who mouth the Apostle’s Creed in church. But even those people must at least have some belief in Jesus. In the same way, the QAnon people must at least take a big sip of the kool aid.

Jennifer wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 19:41 Crap. Justice GInsburg is dead. I shudder to think who Trump will pick to replace her.

Jennifer wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 19:41 Crap. Justice GInsburg is dead. I shudder to think who Trump will pick to replace her.

Jake wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 23:40

Jennifer wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 19:41 Crap. Justice GInsburg is dead. I shudder to think who Trump will pick to replace her.

Those two gun-waving nutters in St. Louis are both lawyers, aren't they?

thoreau wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 23:43

Jake wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 23:40

Jennifer wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 19:41 Crap. Justice GInsburg is dead. I shudder to think who Trump will pick to replace her.

Those two gun-waving nutters in St. Louis are both lawyers, aren't they?

Yeah, but so are his daughter Tiffany and his sister Maryanne. And he's all about the nepotism.

D.A. Ridgely wrote: ↑19 Sep 2020, 00:08

thoreau wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 23:43

Jake wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 23:40

Jennifer wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 19:41 Crap. Justice GInsburg is dead. I shudder to think who Trump will pick to replace her.

Those two gun-waving nutters in St. Louis are both lawyers, aren't they?

Yeah, but so are his daughter Tiffany and his sister Maryanne. And he's all about the nepotism.

Actually, there's no legal requirement that a Supreme Court justice be a lawyer. Trump could nominate himself!

thoreau wrote: ↑19 Sep 2020, 00:11

D.A. Ridgely wrote: ↑19 Sep 2020, 00:08

thoreau wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 23:43

Jake wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 23:40

Jennifer wrote: ↑18 Sep 2020, 19:41 Crap. Justice GInsburg is dead. I shudder to think who Trump will pick to replace her.

Those two gun-waving nutters in St. Louis are both lawyers, aren't they?

Yeah, but so are his daughter Tiffany and his sister Maryanne. And he's all about the nepotism.

Actually, there's no legal requirement that a Supreme Court justice be a lawyer. Trump could nominate himself!

He'd rather nominate himself to a federal bankruptcy court. It would play to his experience. And he could do himself some favors.

That or host the next season of Divorce Court. He knows divorce AND reality TV!

Eric the .5b wrote: ↑23 Sep 2020, 12:45 If course, if state Reds decide to just pull the ultimate faithless electors stunt, as Trump is supposedly trying to encourage in Red-dominated state legislatures, actual votes might not matter.

Aresen wrote: ↑23 Sep 2020, 13:17

Eric the .5b wrote: ↑23 Sep 2020, 12:45 If course, if state Reds decide to just pull the ultimate faithless electors stunt, as Trump is supposedly trying to encourage in Red-dominated state legislatures, actual votes might not matter.

??? I hadn't heard of this.

I assume you mean Red State legislators attempting to tell the state's electors to vote red even though the popular vote went blue.

According to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly. The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires.

Eric the .5b wrote: ↑23 Sep 2020, 13:45

According to sources in the Republican Party at the state and national levels, the Trump campaign is discussing contingency plans to bypass election results and appoint loyal electors in battleground states where Republicans hold the legislative majority. With a justification based on claims of rampant fraud, Trump would ask state legislators to set aside the popular vote and exercise their power to choose a slate of electors directly. The longer Trump succeeds in keeping the vote count in doubt, the more pressure legislators will feel to act before the safe-harbor deadline expires.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... de/616424/

Which would actually be an appropriate time for protestors to storm legislatures while waving guns, but those assholes would just stay home and cheer.

I've said this before and will again: the very heart of the "widespread gun ownership checks tyranny" argument has been tested and failed completely.

For twenty years or more, political discourse in a whole lot of online forums was swamped by people telling the rest of us how the US was getting ever more tyrannical, and that the day would come when on some flimsy pretext the government would abandon habeaus corpus, engage in unlimited surveillance of everyone it felt like spying on, arrest people on arbitrary grounds and then abuse them any way the captors felt like, and so on.

It turns out they were right about that part.

They also told the rest of us that when this happened, they would rise up en masse. They would free unjustly held prisoners, put terror into the hearts of agents of tyranny, maybe even overthrow the tyrant him/herself. (As the '90s went on, the hypothetical tyrant was increasingly likely to be portrayed as a woman.) And did they? Did they hell.

There are no martyrs from the RKBA crowd. Their organizations sometimes join in efforts mostly initiated and staffed by others, but apart from objections to a handful of specific proposed restrictions on gun sales and such, one hears of no RKBA leadership on any of the rest. To the contrary, one hears a great deal of cheerleading for warmaking abroad and tyranny at home as long as all the right people get it, and one hears silence. Where are those freed prisoners? Nowhere. Where are those terrified agents? Nowhere. It was all the purest bloviation.

It's really very rare for such ambitious claims about what one will do oneself and what one's allies will do in a moment of profound crisis. But Bush/Cheney gave us all the chance. And all of you going on about how guns keep the republic safe and free are completely full of it. All the things you warned us about came to pass, and where are you? Right here with the bulk of us, and well behind some - there are individual posters here who as single people have done more actual good for American liberty than half the membership of the NRA and such groups.

It's liberal lawyers, academics, journalists, and the like who are actually pressing the government, pretty much, and liberals at large funding them, while conservatives and libertarians (with way, way too few exceptions) either cheer and keep voting for the tyranny or sigh and shake a finger and then keep voting for it. The RKBA claims about guns' role in society are demonstrably false for America at the beginning of the 21st century, and no amount of dithering over 18th century will change that. The Second Amendment as constituted is useless not because of then, but because of now, because of you its champions.

Posted by: Bruce Baugh | June 27, 2008 at 03:44 AM

Eric the .5b wrote: ↑23 Sep 2020, 15:14 Eh, RKBA could certainly check tyranny. Note all the efforts to keep guns out of black peoples' hands—someone in power has frequently been afraid. More cynically, see all the paranoia on the left about militias, even to this day.

thoreau wrote: ↑23 Sep 2020, 16:51The fear of militias is less that guys in husky-size camouflage will do significant damage to the state and more that they'll become martyrs and energize the right.

thoreau wrote: ↑23 Sep 2020, 18:13That's fair. Many on the left definitely view the militias in the same way that a lot of white people view black people with guns (or without guns, for that matter). But this doesn't really support a narrative of militias' guns checking tyranny.

thoreau wrote: ↑23 Sep 2020, 19:54The guys with guns have shown themselves to be completely and utterly intertwined with one side of power. What I go back and forth on is whether they're Team Red's dobermans, i.e. something that Team Red might use to hurt people if shit goes down, or Team Red's chihuahuas in purses, i.e. something that growls while being shown off.