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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Making It Up As They Go Along

Making It Up As They Go Along

by Tim F|  September 22, 20073:34 pm| 70 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Republican Stupidity

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Nothing in modern politics seems to defy the laws of physics more than the Rudolph Giuliani campaign for the Republican nomination. Watching a thrice-married serial adulterer who supports abortion rights and gay rights and knows less most policy matters than your average rhododendron try to win over Dobson and Tancredo’s loyal minions has the roughly the same feel as watching the test car approach the striped wall in super-slow motion.

Rudy’s latest incoherent policy position concerns an ongoing gun control lawsuit that he himself filed. The suit, which goes on without him, puts an amusingly ironic light on the 9/11 mayor’s newfound need for guns ‘n gays value voters. Giuliani has stuck to his cross-dressing guns better than the other GOP frontrunners, but when he agreed to speak directly to the NRA everyone got ready for philosophical acrobatics worthy of a judge panel. But, BUT, how would a guy who works 9/11 into every third sentence justify such an abject flipflop? Nobody could have anticipated (via Benen):

“That lawsuit has taken several turns and several twists that I don’t agree with,” he said, without going into specifics. “I also think that there are some major intervening events — September 11, which cast somewhat of a different light on the Second Amendment, doesn’t change it fundamentally but perhaps highlights the necessity of it.”

From Benen:

Asked to explain the shift, a campaign spokesperson said Giuliani was “making a point that personal rights such as the 2nd Amendment are even more critical in a post-September 11th world.”

Absolutely right. Indeed this stance dovetails perfectly with the other freedoms that post-9/11 Giuliani has embraced, such as…wait, I can’t think of any. Since 9/11 Giuliani has decided that the government can eavesdrop on anyone it wants without any of that pesky oversight stuff (to be fair, his behavior as mayor suggests that isn’t new). He rejects habeas corpus for foreigners and Americans designated by the president without independent review. He supports torture, approves of unchecked executive power and hates freedom of speech. The few socially liberal positions that Rudy hasn’t yet given up (teh ghey!) hardly count as post-9/11 revelations.

Rudy and the rest of his post-9/11 party seem to want a totalitarian police state, but one where a terrorist can buy an assault weapon without waiting, without a background check and without a permanent record of the transaction. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

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70Comments

  1. 1.

    John Cole

    September 22, 2007 at 3:38 pm

    It doesn’t matter if it makes sense- the Republicans are “winning!” John McCain “beat” the anti-war crowd yesterday!

    Republicans are winners, you guys are losers!

    Suck it, Trebek!

  2. 2.

    Wilfred

    September 22, 2007 at 3:48 pm

    Don’t underestimate him. He has impeccable anti-brown people credentials and has come out firmly against the creation of a Palestinian state. He panders better than anybody else out there.

  3. 3.

    PeterJ

    September 22, 2007 at 3:55 pm

    If you believe that the second amendment isn’t so much about being able to have guns to hunt or even to protect your life and property from criminals but more about being able to protect the country from enemies within and without then there really hasn’t been a more important time for the second amendment than right now.

    Only problem is that what you’re currently allowed to own really isn’t enough to protect the country from enemies within…

  4. 4.

    RSA

    September 22, 2007 at 3:56 pm

    personal rights such as the 2nd Amendment are even more critical in a post-September 11th world

    So the importance of so-called “inalienable” rights depends on stuff that’s happened within the past decade. . . Would that be part of Rudy’s “strict constructionist” view of the Constitution?

  5. 5.

    Mike

    September 22, 2007 at 3:57 pm

    In a country with unchecked executive power, state torture, and no habeas corpus, I’m also finding the Second Amendment more and more critical.

  6. 6.

    Tim F.

    September 22, 2007 at 4:02 pm

    In a country with unchecked executive power, state torture, and no habeas corpus, I’m also finding the Second Amendment more and more critical.

    Yes, and that is why his position is incoherent. Governments which concentrate power in the executive and strip away rights from citizens always take gun rights as well. Uncontrolled militias are a real problem when citizens begin viewing state power as illegitimate.

    If the post-9/11 Republicans get power and use it the way they say propose then the NRA will simply be the last interest group under the bus.

  7. 7.

    stickler

    September 22, 2007 at 4:28 pm

    The last six years, in a nutshell:

    It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

    Applies to almost everything, really.

  8. 8.

    Doug H.

    September 22, 2007 at 4:31 pm

    If the post-9/11 Republicans get power and use it the way they say propose then the NRA will simply be the last interest group under the bus.

    Assuming the NRA doesn’t get enlisted as the local Blackshirts/SA. I mean, if you’re looking for armed people wedded to the cause, where else would you start looking?

  9. 9.

    Elvis Elvisberg

    September 22, 2007 at 4:46 pm

    He just can’t. He can’t win the GOP nomination. Much less the presidency.

    I mean, I’m not a Republican. In fact– even though I think I’d be a Republican if the northeastern version of party from 20-30 years ago still existed– I hate the Gingrich-Delay-Rove-era Republican Party.

    But even I think they have more intellectual coherence than this.

    Go ahead, prove me wrong.

  10. 10.

    Rick Taylor

    September 22, 2007 at 5:09 pm

    John Cole Said:

    It doesn’t matter if it makes sense- the Republicans are “winning!” John McCain “beat” the anti-war crowd yesterday!

    Republicans are winners, you guys are losers!

    I’ve been visiting some conservative sites, and that’s exactly what it’s like only worse. It’s not, you guys are losers. It’s, you guys want America to loose, and you ought to be hung from the gallows.

    There isn’t much discussion of what winning and loosing might mean. There isn’t a discussion of, is this the best use of hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of our troops over the next decade. It’s we have to win, and we will win in spite of those traitorous Democrats who want us to loose for their own partisan reasons.

    They don’t seem to be aware that whether we win or loose doesn’t depend upon the courage of our soldiers. No one’s pointing out that no matter how well our soldiers fight, if the Maliki government continues to act as a government of the Shiites and kurds only, if the Sunni continue to fight, the civil war will coninue no matter what we do. They don’t that.

    It’s really strange, because in general conservatives aren’t known for their high opinion of foreign governments; and they’re certainly not known for their high opinion of government made up largely of Muslim fundamentalist groups who are friendly with Iran. But they are pinning their hopes on exactly such a government. Maybe if we can get that through to them, it will wake a few of them up.

  11. 11.

    Rick Taylor

    September 22, 2007 at 5:13 pm

    Asked to explain the shift, a campaign spokesperson said Giuliani was “making a point that personal rights such as the 2nd Amendment are even more critical in a post-September 11th world.”

    I suspect this will make sense to at least some right wingers. We need our fire arms for when the Islamofascists come to invade. Imagine, if only some of the passengers on those airliners that went down had been packing heat; 9/11 might not have happened.

  12. 12.

    Incertus (Brian)

    September 22, 2007 at 5:35 pm

    I suspect this will make sense to at least some right wingers. We need our fire arms for when the Islamofascists come to invade. Imagine, if only some of the passengers on those airliners that went down had been packing heat; 9/11 might not have happened.

    I’ve often wondered what the right-wingers actually expect to happen. Do they think al Qaeda has landing craft that’s going to come ashore at Boston Harbor, guns blazing? How big do they think al Qaeda is? And if liberals are supposed to simultaneously allied with al Qaeda but also the biggest bunch of gun-hating pussies ever, how is that supposed to work?

    My fucking head hurts now. I’m getting a beer.

  13. 13.

    ThymeZone

    September 22, 2007 at 5:35 pm

    Giuliani is a complete idiot and a moral trainwreck. He has no understanding of international affairs, he has no sense of restraint or finesse, he paints himself into verbal corners and then walks away.

    Who does he remind me of? Hmmmm. HMMMMmmmm. hmmmMMMM.

    Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

  14. 14.

    OxyCon

    September 22, 2007 at 5:41 pm

    9-11 changed everything!
    That’s why Rudy dumped his second wife and married his concubine.

  15. 15.

    PK

    September 22, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    If only those people in the towers had guns. They could have killed themselves instead of having to throw themselves down from the burning buildings.

  16. 16.

    alphie

    September 22, 2007 at 6:07 pm

    If Republican presidential candidates are forced to cover themselves in the far-right slime of bigotry and mindless belligerence to have a shot at the nomination, is that a bad thing?

    Not this time around.

  17. 17.

    Dennis-SGMM

    September 22, 2007 at 7:20 pm

    There’s always a subtext. In this case the subtext of Giuliani’s pandering to the NRA is not just that we need to keep that ol’ Barrett Light .50 around to protect us from the hordes of Islamofascist landing boats lurking just beyond our RADAR horizon – we need it to protect the right-minded people from liberals and gays and anti-creationists and atheists and the ACLU and brown people and Socialized Medicine and diversity and librarians and Unitarians and vegetarians and black helicopters and heavy petting and Welfare Mothers and protest songs and mileage standards and…

  18. 18.

    incontrolados

    September 22, 2007 at 8:01 pm

    protest songs and mileage standards and…

    and seatbelts . . .

  19. 19.

    JWW

    September 22, 2007 at 8:05 pm

    Tim,

    You still haven’t answered a very simple question, do you know where Mosher Hill is?

  20. 20.

    Tim F.

    September 22, 2007 at 8:22 pm

    You still haven’t answered a very simple question, do you know where Mosher Hill is?

    You still haven’t explained how you could be so ludicrously wrong about Americans serving in past wars. If you want to rant about some hill in Maine, use an open thread.

  21. 21.

    garyb50

    September 22, 2007 at 9:11 pm

    I wouldn’t mind 4 years of Giuliani if he PROMISED to take a phone call from his wife at every public appearance and tell her, while we watch, what he’s doing.

  22. 22.

    VidaLoca

    September 22, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    I wouldn’t mind 4 years of Giuliani if he PROMISED to take a phone call from his wife at every public appearance and tell her, while we watch, what he’s doing.

    Sorry, not good enough. He’d have to promise all that AND promise to be wearing skirt, heels, and makup too.

    Oh, and he’d have to promise to show up at his inaugural ball in a full evening gown.

  23. 23.

    Rick Taylor

    September 22, 2007 at 10:16 pm

    If Republican presidential candidates are forced to cover themselves in the far-right slime of bigotry and mindless belligerence to have a shot at the nomination, is that a bad thing?

    Yup. When Bush won the Republican nomination back in 2000, I was happy. It seemed to me that through some bizarre inexplicable circumstances, the Republicans had selected an incompetent who couldn’t possibly win the election. I don’t think that way anymore.

  24. 24.

    Ryan

    September 22, 2007 at 10:26 pm

    Who’s crazier? Rudy or his third wife?

    It’s like a zen riddle.

  25. 25.

    Chuck Butcher

    September 22, 2007 at 10:33 pm

    In today’s world the 2nd doesn’t mean going toe to toe with an army, it means mutually assured destruction. I am a well armed very left Democrat. I find Guilani a really scary individual, and if the NRA doesn’t – they’ve lost their collective minds.

    I have no idea what it is the Republicans think they’re doing on the national level, but the States may be interesting.

  26. 26.

    Tayi

    September 22, 2007 at 10:52 pm

    I grew up in a pretty fundie community. My parents didn’t own guns, but we homeschooled, and went to church three times a week, and knew lots and lots of people who owned guns. Everyone I ever knew who got into the theory behind the 2nd Amendment claimed that the reason every citizen should have a gun was so that we could revolt against the government when necessary. The framing of this argument was phrased in all kinds of ways, from pseudo-philosophical ‘government is a monopoly on the use of force, but the United States is a government of the people, so the people have a right to use force’ to bat-shit-crazy ‘the government is listening to my phone and flying around in black helicopters trying to kill me.’ But it all came down to the same thing: they need guns because they don’t trust the boys in DC.

    Now that I consider myself a liberal hippy type, I find that I agree with my family still on one issue. I don’t trust the boys in DC either. And it would make me feel a lot better to know that, when they came for me, I’d be waiting with a gun.

    I don’t think Rudy really knows what he’s getting into, pandering to the fundies. I think he might realize, if he was paying attention, that the people he says should own guns would put him up against the wall if they could.

  27. 27.

    TenguPhule

    September 22, 2007 at 10:54 pm

    Rudy and the rest of his post-9/11 party seem to want a totalitarian police state, but one where a terrorist can buy an assault weapon without waiting, without a background check and without a permanent record of the transaction. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

    It makes perfect sense…for the Right Wing Terrorists.

    They have abortion clinics/federal buildings to bomb and Supreme Court Justices/Doctors to asassinate.

  28. 28.

    El Cruzado

    September 22, 2007 at 11:03 pm

    Don’t underestimate Rudy. He’s great at hating liberals, and that’s all what the target audience really wants. It’s all that’s left to ‘movement conservatism’ these days, and it’s likely that it’s all it has always been about.

  29. 29.

    TenguPhule

    September 22, 2007 at 11:09 pm

    Who’s crazier? Rudy or his third wife?

    My money is on whoever runs his campaign.

  30. 30.

    ThymeZone

    September 22, 2007 at 11:24 pm

    El Cruzado is exactly right.

    As no less than Andrew Sullivan said on Matthews’ show today: If Bush were as intent at fighting terrorists as he is at fighting Democrats, we might not be in the mess we’re in today.

    NBC’s site is hosed, or I could get you a link or a transcript snipped, but I can’t, and I am not wasting any more of my time on fucked up wesbites which these days are a dime a dozen.

  31. 31.

    Anne Laurie

    September 22, 2007 at 11:32 pm

    I wouldn’t mind 4 years of Giuliani if he PROMISED to take a phone call from his wife at every public appearance and tell her, while we watch, what he’s doing.

    No, see, the Phone Call (apart from distracting the media whores) reassures the Repub “base” that Rudy *might* have had some “zipper problems” in his past, but that’s ALL OVER now. Decent NRA fambly guys need not fear a repeat of the dread Clenis in a Guiliani-occupied Oval Office, now that Official Campaign Wife (#3) has Rudy’s nu-nu on speed dial. Because trigger locks are for pants, not for guns!

  32. 32.

    Jinchi

    September 23, 2007 at 1:13 am

    He supports torture, approves of unchecked executive power and hates freedom of speech.

    In Rudy’s defense, 9/11 didn’t affect his opinion on those issues at all.

  33. 33.

    mclaren

    September 23, 2007 at 4:35 am

    Various folks seem nonplussed at what the GOP thinks it’s doing with these wacko nominees. Folks, it’s all about hate. That’s what the GOP has become — a giant hate machine. And Rudy is giving ’em what they want — more hate than you can possibly imagine. Boy, this guy has got mussolinismo in spades. By the time we get near November 2008, I betcha Rudy’s rallies eclipse those 1930s torchlight festivities at Nuremberg.

    That’s where the GOP is nowadays. The GOP no longer stands for anything. They’re all about hate. Hate for civil rights, hate for the rule of law, hate for constraints on executive power, hate for taxes, hate for government, hate for welfare, ahte for education, hate for liberals, hate for gays, hate for feminists, hate for brown people, hate for Latinos, hate for Islam, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. And good ole Rudy is the greatest hater of ’em all. Just listen to the poison that drips from his mouth on the campaign trail — he’s constantly screaming about how “they” don’t want “you” to [fill in the blank] so “you” have to be “afraid of” and hate “them.”
    Trouble is, America seems to have grown tired of the hatemongering over the last 6 years. Still, Rudy’s a great hater. Time will tell whether he can whip up his audiences into a sufficient heel-clicking goose-stepping arm-saluting frenzy to make headway.

  34. 34.

    Pb

    September 23, 2007 at 4:36 am

    The few socially liberal positions that Rudy hasn’t yet given up (teh ghey!) hardly count as post-9/11 revelations.

    9/11 changed everything, moonbat!

  35. 35.

    Tsulagi

    September 23, 2007 at 10:31 am

    Learning more about Rudy these past months, he’s the last one I’d want to see in the WH in 09. He’s Bush and Cheney together in one cross-dressing package.

    He would absolutely love the new war-forever unitary executive powers. He’d expand them and use them. Probably while wearing a tiara.

  36. 36.

    The Other Steve

    September 23, 2007 at 10:56 am

    The NRA is simply irrelevant today.

    A bunch of old fools who shit their pants imagining things that never happen.

    Why are we even talking about them?

  37. 37.

    Jay C

    September 23, 2007 at 11:31 am

    Rudy and the rest of his post-9/11 party seem to want a totalitarian police state, but one where a terrorist can buy an assault weapon without waiting, without a background check and without a permanent record of the transaction. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

    But of course, to the GOP “base” Rudy! is pandering to, the issue of “terrorists” getting guns is pretty much irrelevant: their big fear (for whatever reason) is the prospect of them not (for whatever tortured pseudo-Constitutional rationale they can conjure up) being able to stock up on as many firearms as they can afford. I’m sure that they also trust Rudy! to make sure (somehow) that the “wrong” (i.e. brown or Muslim) sort of folks won’t have the same level of access to armaments as the decent and law-abiding.

  38. 38.

    laneman

    September 23, 2007 at 11:35 am

    Rudy is an authoritarian on crack – he scares teh bejebus out of me.

    The present wife is just a whack-job, though I fear her, too.

  39. 39.

    laneman

    September 23, 2007 at 11:36 am

    Rudy is an authoritarian on crack – he scares teh bejebus out of me.

    The present wife is just a whack-job, though I fear her, too.

  40. 40.

    laneman

    September 23, 2007 at 11:36 am

    kill the extra comment, plx

  41. 41.

    Duane

    September 23, 2007 at 12:23 pm

    If only those people in the towers had guns. They could have killed themselves instead of having to throw themselves down from the burning buildings.

    LOL.

    If only..

  42. 42.

    Badtux

    September 23, 2007 at 1:18 pm

    Actually, it makes a lot of sense to a) want a totalitarian state, and b) want it possible for people to buy assault weapons anonymously. Any totalitarian state depends upon a plentiful supply of anonymous “brownshirts” to enforce their rule. Furthermore, any totalitarian state relies on the fact that people with moral qualms are less efficient and effective at using things like assault weapons and less likely to purchase them than amoral people who enjoy killing. The net result is that any “successful” totalitarianism relies on the support of anonymous amoral murderers for its “success” in keeping the remainder of the populace under control, and by and large does not mind that the majority of the population is heavily armed, because the minority of amoral murderers has far greater combat effectiveness due to their willingness to use their weapons and the fact that there is no list of who is one of the “brownshirts” thus you can’t know whether any particular person you encounter is a “brownshirt” or not. See: Sadaam’s Iraq, where everybody had an AK-47 in the bedroom and an RPG launcher and extra ammo buried in the garden, but Sadaam generally had no problem staying in power as long as he paid off the amoral murderer minority by giving them special privileges and goodies.

    In short, there is no contradiction between a nation flooded with firearms and dictatorship. As long as the dictatorship provides special privileges and such to the minority of people who are amoral murderers, the amoral murderers will then keep the rest of the populace in check no matter how many weapons the rest of the populace possesses. It’s much like the reason why despite owning firearms I do not carry a firearm in public, even back when I lived in a state where they handed out concealed weapon permits like candy. The reality is that in a face-off between me and an amoral murderer, I would still be trying to figure out whether the situation called for deadly force at the same time that the amoral murderer was plugging my plump penguin ass. Those “moral qualms” things just don’t make for effective use of firearms, which is why one of the first things that the military does with new recruits is make sure that any moral qualms about use of firearms to kill people get quite thoroughly squashed under layers of training.

    – Badtux the Gun Penguin

  43. 43.

    sparky

    September 23, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    Hate: tastes Great!

    Plus, with new, many-monster-under-the-bed hate, you can fill up on hate and you’re hungry for more hate in an hour!

    Oh, and you people wanting logic: eat mush.

  44. 44.

    timb

    September 23, 2007 at 1:47 pm

    Tayi Says:

    I grew up in a pretty fundie community. My parents didn’t own guns, but we homeschooled, and went to church three times a week, and knew lots and lots of people who owned guns. Everyone I ever knew who got into the theory behind the 2nd Amendment claimed that the reason every citizen should have a gun was so that we could revolt against the government when necessary. The framing of this argument was phrased in all kinds of ways, from pseudo-philosophical ‘government is a monopoly on the use of force, but the United States is a government of the people, so the people have a right to use force’ to bat-shit-crazy ‘the government is listening to my phone and flying around in black helicopters trying to kill me.’ But it all came down to the same thing: they need guns because they don’t trust the boys in DC.

    See, it just doesn’t work like that. In 1783 with the memory of every guy with a musket and one trip by Harry Knox to Fort Ticonderoga makes a rabble a basic army. If those fundies wanted to fight Washington, they’d be fighting night vvision goggles, At-10’s and Blakhawks. Simply put, you can ask David Koresh if having a lot of guns allows one to effectively challenge the government….or any Indian tribe from 1880’s. Pistols and shotguns aren’t preserving anyone’s liberty.

    I say this as a person who reads the Constitution guaranteeing an individual’s right to bear arms, but a person who is desperately tired of hearing the “revolution” crap.

  45. 45.

    Zifnab25

    September 23, 2007 at 1:54 pm

    Furthermore, any totalitarian state relies on the fact that people with moral qualms are less efficient and effective at using things like assault weapons and less likely to purchase them than amoral people who enjoy killing. The net result is that any “successful” totalitarianism relies on the support of anonymous amoral murderers for its “success” in keeping the remainder of the populace under control, and by and large does not mind that the majority of the population is heavily armed, because the minority of amoral murderers has far greater combat effectiveness due to their willingness to use their weapons and the fact that there is no list of who is one of the “brownshirts” thus you can’t know whether any particular person you encounter is a “brownshirt” or not. See: Sadaam’s Iraq, where everybody had an AK-47 in the bedroom and an RPG launcher and extra ammo buried in the garden, but Sadaam generally had no problem staying in power as long as he paid off the amoral murderer minority by giving them special privileges and goodies.

    And don’t forget that a totalitarian regime can only exist effectively if it has something to protect us all from. If 1984 has taught us anything, its that every Big Brother needs a Goldstein and his band of loyal minions to war against. 2nd Amendment Rights are a great way of keeping the bad guys armed – and thus scary. When everyone’s got a gun and everyone is scared shitless, who are we to question no-knock raids with police who gun down a house full of inhabitants. I mean, those bastards all had guns! If the police had gone easy, an officer could have been killed.

    And who can question a shoot/taz-first, ask questions later enforcement policy? Or a full search-and-seizure policy in violation of 4th amendment protections? We live in an armed society after all. Can’t let a bunch of armed, terrorist-loving moonbats go around freely.

  46. 46.

    Tim F.

    September 23, 2007 at 2:16 pm

    Simply put, you can ask David Koresh if having a lot of guns allows one to effectively challenge the government….or any Indian tribe from 1880’s. Pistols and shotguns aren’t preserving anyone’s liberty.

    Yep. Keeping arms in the hope of resisting a modern state is just another form of suicide by cop.

  47. 47.

    Badtux

    September 23, 2007 at 3:04 pm

    Well, Tim F., not quite *that* bad. Keeping arms in the hope of resisting your *own* modern state is just another form of suicide by cop, because a modern state has sufficient support from various internal factions to keep the remainder of the population compliant. However, as Iraq shows, it is certainly possible to keep an invading army on its heels with sufficient arms if said invading army does not take effective measures to obtain sufficient support from internal factions to keep the remainder of the population compliant.

    In short, the modern state relies on the support of a violent and amoral portion of the population, a portion of the population with no qualms about shooting (or tasering) someone, in order to obtain compliance of the majority. If you do not have the support of that violent and amoral portion of the population, you do not remain in power for long. The challenge of American democracy since the beginning has been how to balance the need to retain the support of the violent and amoral minority while still providing some measure of civil rights for the majority in order to obtain the prosperity that only a compliant and largely contented population can provide. Outright oppression tends to send productivity into the crapper, after all, as well as driving away investment money to other states. Thus far it has been accomplished via a “divide and conquer” strategy, where various factions of violent amoral people are set against each other (e.g. white Southern crackers vs. urban gang bangers), but that strategy is arguably falling apart under the weight of its massive costs (the prison-industrial complex). Something’s going to give, and I don’t know what, but I don’t think it’s going to be good for the rest of us who are not violent amoral people.

  48. 48.

    Andrew

    September 23, 2007 at 4:28 pm

    Wolverines!!!

  49. 49.

    cs

    September 23, 2007 at 6:15 pm

    Actually David Koresh didn’t do so badly. His group managed to kill four the first day of the attack and then held off the FBI for 51 days. And had he been a sympathetic figure, as opposed to a pedophilic religious nutjob, his experience probably would have inspired further acts of insurrection. Even as an unsympathetic character, he partially inspired the OKC attack.

    And that is part of the point of a guerilla war. In the beginning, anyone who resists will lose and lose badly to the government forces. But that part doesn’t matter. What does matter is winning the propaganda war. If your struggle can give some sort of illusion that there is a viable anti-government force, even in the early days when it really isn’t, and if the government is stupid enough to repress the population to the point where fighting seems like a preferrable alternative, then you’ll probably win in the long run. Or at least fuck shit up royally for a while.

    And thats what an armed populace with handguns and deer rifles can accomplish.

  50. 50.

    timb

    September 23, 2007 at 7:31 pm

    He only pulled that off because he did NOT live in a totalitarian state or one sliding toward it. In an actual situation like that the government wouldn’t have tried to arrest him. It would have fired a cruise missile at his compound and killed him with no warning.

  51. 51.

    The Sanity Inspector

    September 23, 2007 at 9:42 pm

    H. L. Mencken once said that every wave of popular enthusiasm rolling up from the Midwest is dashed to spray once it hits the rocks of Manhattan. The struggling Giuliani campaign is a rare example of the reverse phenomenon.

  52. 52.

    Fledermaus

    September 23, 2007 at 9:45 pm

    Oh c’mon Tim I can top that one:

    Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Friday that the alternative minimum tax — which is expected to generate as much as $1 trillion over the next 10 years — could be eliminated over the long term by balancing it out with even more tax cuts.

    But, naturally, that tax cut would need an additional tax cut to pay for it.

    “Giuliani is the quintessential supply-sider,” said spokeswoman Maria Comella.

    No argument there.

  53. 53.

    incontrolados

    September 23, 2007 at 11:44 pm

    Technical question:

    Perhaps I am a dumbass, or maybe it’s this site, but why can’t I see the images that some add to their comments? I’m hoping that by asking this late on a Sunday, I might get an answer and then seem all knowing tomorrow :)

    Is it IE? That’s what I use at home and work.

    Andrew’s Wolverines comment reminded me — and nailed the point at the same time.

    Thanks in advance — or not.

  54. 54.

    Chuck Butcher

    September 24, 2007 at 1:23 am

    If you have an idea that you could exercise the end consequence of the 2nd by holing up in your house and keeping ‘the fed’ at bay, you have no understanding of things like tanks or rocket launchers. That scenario presumes absolute stupidity.

    I am not about to go into the tactics involved in “successful” resistance, but stupidity is not involved nor is making oneself a fixed target. FYI, I’m only good with firearms and at 600yd with an M1 Garrand and open sights I can reach out and touch you. At 100yds that same M1 will zip most body armor. And just as a point of information there are very few actual assault rifles in private hands, there are a lot of “ugly” semi-autos. You could append the adjective “style” to them, but they are not such a thing – despite what you might hear.

    Raising an insurrection is not ever an easy sort of thing, history shows that it takes extremes of personal suffering to accomplish, take Nazi Germany as an example, the suffering pre-war was not sufficiently wide spread, the French Revolution or Russian Revolution involved widespread suffering with an insulated ruling class. How that would translate to the US is a difficult question, but the chances that it would be over narrow Constitutional questions is debatable. Roll back our clock to the 1890s and you find a society starting to come unglued…

    I am a strong advocate of political activism, and at least one reason for that is that I’m perfectly aware of the destructive capabilities of firearms. I own a fair number, each one is particularly good at a specific task, which is why I have it. Besides, I like things that go bang…

  55. 55.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    September 24, 2007 at 3:25 am

    Watching a thrice-married serial adulterer who supports abortion rights and gay rights and knows less most policy matters than your average rhododendron

    Now, now – that’s going a bit too far. Admittedly, the rhododendron probably has a better grasp on atmospheric carbon and climate change, but that’s about it.

  56. 56.

    jenniebee

    September 24, 2007 at 7:41 am

    I suspect this will make sense to at least some right wingers. We need our fire arms for when the Islamofascists come to invade. Imagine, if only some of the passengers on those airliners that went down had been packing heat; 9/11 might not have happened.

    Yes, because if it was legal to take guns on planes, the hijackers would totally still have used boxcutters anyway. It’s true that they would, technically, “know” that they could bring guns, but sometimes they forget. They’re like that.

  57. 57.

    jenniebee

    September 24, 2007 at 8:03 am

    See, it just doesn’t work like that. In 1783 with the memory of every guy with a musket and one trip by Harry Knox to Fort Ticonderoga makes a rabble a basic army. If those fundies wanted to fight Washington, they’d be fighting night vvision goggles, At-10’s and Blakhawks. Simply put, you can ask David Koresh if having a lot of guns allows one to effectively challenge the government….or any Indian tribe from 1880’s. Pistols and shotguns aren’t preserving anyone’s liberty.

    I used to think like that, too. Then I saw what “a few dead-enders” could do with AK-47s.

    Our Army is very, very good at rolling Soviet tanks back across the plains of Eastern Europe. When Teh Enemy doesn’t use tanks and doesn’t stay out there in the open on plains, our Army gets very, very put out.

  58. 58.

    Tim F.

    September 24, 2007 at 9:07 am

    Perhaps I am a dumbass, or maybe it’s this site, but why can’t I see the images that some add to their comments?

    Comments don’t support embedded images.

  59. 59.

    Xenos

    September 24, 2007 at 9:40 am

    Our Army is very, very good at rolling Soviet tanks back across the plains of Eastern Europe. When Teh Enemy doesn’t use tanks and doesn’t stay out there in the open on plains, our Army gets very, very put out.

    The point you make has less to do with civilians stockpiling weapons, than it does for stockpiling explosives.

    But bombs alone are not what is tying us up in Iraq: the limited intelligence, plus the flood of explosives, makes the difference. Our government has extensive intelligence on which of its citizens and residents might be planning for revolution. How long would it take for a functionary at the NSA to track down every person posting on this thread, then to locate all of their real estate, bank accounts, business interests and tax returns, and then do the same for all immediate family members and business associates?

    I can do a lot of this through an account at Lexis-Nexis, for maybe 50$ per person, although I would be breaking the law and risking my law license to do so. Just imagine what our friends in DC, unhindered from law, can put together on you? The FBI has by now put agents into every major anti-war group in the country. They know all of us, and as a matter of logistics can have us disappeared within a week.

  60. 60.

    Andrew

    September 24, 2007 at 9:47 am

    Well, it should have been “Wolverines!” but the Nazi punctuation filter stole my exclamation points. No images, but here’s a movie trailer for your viewing pleasure.

  61. 61.

    Zifnab

    September 24, 2007 at 10:21 am

    Our Army is very, very good at rolling Soviet tanks back across the plains of Eastern Europe. When Teh Enemy doesn’t use tanks and doesn’t stay out there in the open on plains, our Army gets very, very put out.

    Tell that to David Koresh. The problem the US Army has isn’t defeating an insurgent, or even an insurgent cell. The problem they have is the collateral damage mess they make every time they do squash an insurgent sect. It’s like kicking an anthill. You crush a big one to make ten smaller ones out of the spouses and siblings and children left behind in a ‘Shock and Awe’ campaign.

    Blow up a dozen Soviet Tanks, and the USSR doesn’t magically create two dozen more. Drop a 500-lb bomb on an insurgent hideout, and kill a dozen extra civilians in the process, and you get two dozen very angry relatives. That’s why Counterinsurgency isn’t the same game as traditional warfare. All that stuff about “winning the hearts and minds of the people” is very critical to winning an occupation. Unfortunately for us, the people running the war are much better at quoting the soldier’s scripture than they are at following it.

  62. 62.

    jenniebee

    September 24, 2007 at 1:00 pm

    Tell that to David Koresh.

    Fucking amateur using fucking stupid tactics. Stayed in one fucking place with no escape routes planned and used kids as human shields. Despicable, idiotic and messianic – the jackass hit the trifecta on that one.

  63. 63.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    September 24, 2007 at 1:14 pm

    But bombs alone are not what is tying us up in Iraq: the limited intelligence, plus the flood of explosives, makes the difference.

    Plus you don’t know too much about the situation or people there…

  64. 64.

    Johnny Pez

    September 24, 2007 at 2:33 pm

    Ten years ago, we saw all the drones that make up the Beltway Borg express their collective horror at the thought of having an adulterer occupying the Oval Office. After Disco Rudy wins the Republican nomination (and he will win the nomination, mark my words), you can expect to see these very same drones insist that a man’s personal life has absolutely no bearing on whether he can do the vitally important job of protecting us from The Terrorists. In fact, you’ll even see some of them (yeah, I’m lookin’ at you, Tweety) explain that when Rudy gets some on the side it just proves what a virile, manly, man’s man he is.

    Does anyone here think I’m wrong?

  65. 65.

    incontrolados

    September 24, 2007 at 6:51 pm

    Many thanks!

  66. 66.

    Chuck Butcher

    September 25, 2007 at 2:13 am

    guns vs boxcutters is a stupid exercise, I use those things every day, they’ll cut you bad, but not very deep, if you were pretty determined about it a person depending on a box cutter is going to lose to bare hands. But…I fogot, make a stupid statement about guns to devalue the item, regardless of whether it bears on anything.

    If you are making the effort to prove how liberal and left you are, the proposal that a left government is the likely cause of repression is unlikely. Now, the right… I really can’t think of anything much more like irrational thinking for the right to arm and the left disarm, hmmm. Think about Rudy inheriting BushCo’s so-called perogatives.

  67. 67.

    TenguPhule

    September 25, 2007 at 2:28 am

    I use those things every day, they’ll cut you bad, but not very deep, if you were pretty determined about it a person depending on a box cutter is going to lose to bare hands.

    You’d be surprised how fragile the human body is. A box cutter in the hands of someone who knows how to use it and has no qualms about killing someone else in a confined area is arguably more dangerous then someone with a gun.

    IIRC, cops are warned that someone with a sharp object like a knife

  68. 68.

    TenguPhule

    September 25, 2007 at 2:29 am

    IIRC, cops are warned that someone with a sharp object like a knife within 30 feet range are just as dangerous to the person holding the gun as the gun is to them.

  69. 69.

    Langs

    September 25, 2007 at 3:56 am

    At one time I was totally against the NRA.

    But after 7 years of the bush presidency I am in total support of the second amendment. We may need it to save ourselves from our own government one day. Especially if Rudi wins.

  70. 70.

    Chuck Butcher

    September 28, 2007 at 3:04 am

    Tengu,
    If a person is within reaction time distance a gun is simply an impediment, and since I drag race I’m very familiar with RT. At close quarters any hand weapon is dangerous, but knowlege of use is also of paramount importance and amongst amatures hands trump. But the real factor is determination, it is very hard to disable a person quickly, that’s why guns are so fearsome and that fragility you speak of is not factual, people with 7 fatal injuries and 20 gunshot wounds have continued to attack cops, that’s factual.

    I don’t pick stuff out of my butt for posting, if I don’t know what I’m talking about, my computer stays silent. There are a gadzillion mythes in circulation at any time – things like knock down power and fragility…

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