Not surprised McArdle is in the club. But Will Wilkinson disappoints me.
Kind of funny to see these two babbling about how about how assassination is no big deal the day after the brother of RFK and JFK died.
Heh.
Update. Perhaps this is unfair, but I wonder if they’d feel differently if they thought about the fact that the last time a president was killed, the country ended up with Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare.
gonzone
As always:
IOKIYAR.
MikeJ
People will be a lot less glib about gun violence when ten guys with ACORN t shirts show up at a right wing rally peacefully carrying.
Doctor Science
I think you (and they) are overlooking that the gun-toters are implicitly threatening the mass of their fellow citizens. It’s a brownshirt thing to do.
PaulW
But you seeeeeeeee (whine mode activated) GUUUUUNNNSSS ARE SOOOOOOO IMPPORTANT TO AMERICANS!!! GUUUUUUNNNNSSS ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYONE’S SAFETY!!! So what if we’re making hunks of metal forged into weaponry more valuable that, you know, actual f-cking people? WAAAAAAAAAHHHH (/whine)
Sorry for the CAPSLOCK, but this *is* how the wingnuts will answer this.
Be grateful I didn’t misspeel.
joes527
@MikeJ:
It is an established fact that the shirt itself is the danger.
John Cole
I loved her stats about the danger of guns.
Here is a stat for you Megan. You know what was present every time a President was shot? A gun. 100% of the time.
Wankers.
Demo Woman
From the comments, Will’s response to the folks who disagree is I don’t think you’re willing to have a reasoned conversation about this.
Shorter Will, if you disagree with me, you must be an idiot!
different church-lady
Forget the Kennedys for a second: if I recall correctly (and I do), way back in 2003 if you merely disagreed with the President in any way, shape or form, you were a traitor, a terrorist sympathizer, and a danger to the country itself.
Six years later, making jokes about hunting the president are just good fun and packing heat at a presidential event is exercising your constitutional rights.
I wonder… what could possibly have changed in those six years?
Max
I would love to see a bunch of middle eastern, hispanic, gay and black folks arm themselves (legally) and start showing up at some GOP townhalls.
geg6
Why, exactly, would you feel disappointed in Wilkerson feelin’ fine about gun toters taking aim at the preznit?
When will you learn, Doug? These people have no shame, no shame at all. None of them. You know, I don’t think anyone anywhere could have hated Bush and Cheney more than I did (or do). And do I wish them miserable lives and even more miserable deaths? Yes. But do I advocate stalking them with assault rifles or murdering them? No. But I have come to conclude that is the difference between Dems and Pugs. We Dems may wish for bad things for our political opponents, but we don’t try to actualize it. They do. They are murderous, lying sociopaths. They didn’t used to be, way back in the halcyon days of my childhood, I don’t think. But they are now.
SGEW
No! The opposite of “heh”! As in “Aaaargh!”
asiangrrlMN
@John Cole: Heh. Best response so far.
I posted a response over at TBoggs about MM and her idiocy, but I have nothing to add to this nonsense.
OT: I got called a pin-head the day before yesterday by a glibertarian. I just heard on Keith that O’Reilly has been tossing out pin-head lately, so I know where the glibby got it from.
MikeJ
To be fair, John Wilkes Booth was a Democrat, but he was a conservative who murdered a liberal.
GReynoldsCT00
@different church-lady:
yeah, and the bushies felt threatened it you had the “wrong” kind of t-shirt on… and had you removed… ratfucking hypocrites
Jon H
Well, we know McCardle is in favor of violence against political opposition. Usually she goes for lumber, but whatevs.
Michael
My personal preference for dealing with these sorts is to have a Secret Service agent tag along with the gun toter, holding a chambered glock at the back of the gun toter’s head, watching for the merest twitch.
A few dead gun toting wingnuts isn’t a bad thing.
gnomedad
@MikeJ:
I’d love to see some brave souls try this. With toy guns, even. The winger reaction would be teh awesome.
Bellwetherman
Now, why would Megan McCardle need a prosthetic penis?
cleek
McArdle is low-hanging fruit. hell, she’s not even hanging, shes lying on the round, attracting bees and green bottle flies with her stench.
it’s best if you just ignore her.
Shinobi
I am a big supporter of gun rights. Frankly however there are SO MANY rational reasons not to bring a gun to a political rally that it hurts me that people are defending the concept. Tactically openly carrying a firearm makes you, both threatening and also a tool to be used by actually crazy people.
Carrying a firearm doesn’t make you a threat, it makes you a TARGET. The secret service, the military, the police, they have back up, hundreds of guys on the radio, an arsenal of weapons, actual tactics and plans about how to handle you if you step one pinky toe out of line. All you have is ONE gun and your own probably limited ability to defend yourself against a grouop of tactically superior operatives. A group of armed civilians probably would actually be removed from the event by police because you would appear to have planned something more straight forward than one lunatic with a gun, so that’s not a great option either.
Secondly unless you are highly trained there are lots of ways to get a gun away from someone. Guns, especially assault rifles, are not that effective in close quarters, if someone is grappling with you hand to hand and you don’t end up with your finger on the trigger you, and everyone around you are screwed. In large crowds it is irresponsible to assume that you are safe because you have a gun, especially if the crowds are in close quarters and it will be difficult to identify a threat.
If no one has a gun, no one can get shot. Even at most “gun shows” they recognize this and require the action on every gun to be stopped. (Though I gues syou could cut the little plastic thingy if you wanted.)
I wish that the NRA and other gun rights groups would come out against this practice, it is un safe and gives responsible gun owners a bad reputation.
mistermix
I really don’t get why Wilkinson is so respected. That piece is just full of confusion. A cost-benefit analysis of protecting a head of state that just blithely assumes that Presidents are replaceable units?
The good news is that his regular commenters are upset, some are leaving, others saying stuff like this:
“The descriptive word “glibertarian” is beginning to take hold in the blogosphere, perhaps as a result of articles like the one here.”
General Winfield Stuck
@John Cole:
Fish, Barrel — Boom/
BC
I’ve felt for some time that Glenn Beck has been disappointed that none of the people who listen to him have so much as taken a potshot at the president. I really think he and maybe Rush are pushing buttons on this as hard as they can and in private are frustrated that no one seems to follow the plan. They want to be subtle but on the other hand they want someone to take out Obama. I think security for this president is probably on a level higher than anything we’ve seen – and I think some of these gun toters in the vicinity of events where Obama is are putting themselves in some jeopardy, because the Secret Service is not going to wait and see if you are actually going to shoot the president, they are just seeing where your gun is pointed, and one wrong move and that gun toter may wake up dead. This rightwing fantasy that they can stage an armed revolution against the US government is really off the chart crazy – they can never get as many guns, have as many trained people, and will always be outpowered by the government.
vacuumslayer
@John Cole: Cannot deny THOSE stats!
kth
It really isn’t about someone getting shot. Even if no shots are ever fired, guns at political events is totally messed up. The point of the guns is to say “we are an insurgency. If the democratic process falls out in a way we don’t like, we will not hesitate to resort to violence”.
joe from Lowell
I spent years living, Jane Goodall-like, among the libertarians, as a frequent commenter on Reason’s blog, before the combination of a deregulation-induced financial meltdown and a popular Democratic president sent them into the gutter.
These people never stop making the point that the 2nd Amendment is not just for the “Elmers,” for hunting and sport-shooting and even personal defense. The primary purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to provide private citizens with the power to intimidate and resist the government in case it grows too powerful and attempts to take away their liberty. They like the old line about “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is freedom.”
So now, they wail about health care reform taking away their liberty, and do so in willfully homicidal language. The government is going to start killing people. Death panels. Death books. They make it clear that this is exactly the sort of totalitarian tyranny that the 2nd Amendment exists to defend against.
And yet, if you dare draw the obvious conclusion – that they’re talking about making the “government” afraid – in the person of the President and Democratic Congressmen, they act outraged. If you dare suggest that they are encouraging people to take up arms to resist “tyranny” – exactly the thing they’ve been saying the Second Amendment is for – they accuse you of making things up, ,i>even as they keep talking about 2nd Amendment rights.
We’re not the ones who made up the idea that “exercising your Second Amendment rights” is about using guns to intimidate the government. They did, they speak often and proudly about it.
Tom G
Doctor Science (#3)-
So simply having a gun on one’s person is implicitly threatening everyone around you? Are you THAT afraid of guns? If the safety was off, yeah perhaps.
If it was pointed AT SOMEONE, sure.
But maybe you need to calm down a bit and not jump to conclusions.
Xanthippas
Come on. That’s not what they’re saying, and they’re not “for shooting the President” either. Yes I get humorous hyperbole, but you shouldn’t use it to the extent that it undermines your whole point. And anyway you don’t need to with those two clowns. To be fair, liberals aren’t making a very good argument for why you shouldn’t show up with a gun at a Presidential appearance. Who seriously believes that a guy who wears a gun out in the open at a rally is going to actually try and shoot somebody with it? The problem is not that it’ll be used; it’s the message being sent by the guy holding the gun, which is one of intimidation (not some kind of idiotic exercise of Constitutional rights like McArdle and Wilkinson believe.) So, make it illegal to carry a gun within 5,000 feet of a Presidentialy appearance. There, problem solved.
Napoleon
@Max:
You know what will happen? The same thing that happened when Black Pathners start carrying guns in public when Ronald Regaen was Gov of Cal., a law that outlawed it.
adolphus
One thing that I don’t understand is how the right and libertarians can ignore the real world politics of all this. If people keep bringing guns, one of them will go off. It’s fairly inevitable. If anyone is hit, President, Secret Service, janitor, protester, left or right, it doesn’t matter. Voice over of all the republicans talking about revolution and such, images of wounded, protesters with Hitler/Obama signs, that Jefferson quote about the tree of liberty. The commercial practically writes itself. I have given up expecting much real world savvy from libertarians, but you’d think the right (the professional pols and pundits, not the tea-baggers) would care a little more about how this is playing to ordinary voters and would play if something were to happen.
Also, if this is ironic, did anyone see Law and Order last night. A rerun of the episode in which a man who may or may not be JFK’s bastard child is responsible for killing several people and the Kennedy’s use the power of the DOJ to hush everything up. I thought that an interesting choice to air two days after Ted’s death.
Max
@BC: I don’t think you are wrong. My take, the President is very well protected and I think the greater possibility in the event a shot is popped off is that a bystander or staff member will take a bullet.
Jim Brady.
Comrade Dread
Reading her post, it was not for shooting the president. She was saying that carrying a gun (if it’s legal) to a meeting is not a big deal indicative of a coming attack.
If you have a constitutional right to carry a gun and the relevant (and also constitutional) local, state, or federal laws do not restrict that right in that venue, than she is right that it shouldn’t be a big deal.
Of course, we all live in the real world, and I would expect that if the President happened to be at the meeting, the Secret Service would be there screening for weapons and would lawfully detain you for questioning should you show up packing.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
Once again this morning I’ve tried to parse McArdle, and once again I’ve failed. I’m not sure that I can name another paid writer who gets so badly tangled in the weeds. The part about the bet was incomprehensible.
Zifnab
McArdle:
If this wasn’t the lead in a major magazine, I’d be calling spoof or troll.
I’d love to get Megan’s opinion if these guys suddenly started showing up in her church or at her bank or in her grocery store. As a counterpoint: “Ten armed men walk into a movie theater carrying threatening signs and trying to drown out the show with anti-Brad Pitt chants. Are the movie-goers who become concerned for their own safety irrational or insane?”
JGabriel
That just means Oswald didn’t carry enough bullets!
(/wingerlogic)
.
Shinobi
@Tom G:
One of the big things about being a gun owner, is that you don’t bring a gun with unless you are fully prepared to shoot something. Otherwise what is the point? Obviously they are not there for fucking target practice. And it’s probably not gonna be their buddies unless they start getting aggressive. So maybe a politician, maybe someone I disagreed with who hassels them, maybe a cop?
Having a gun is an implicit threat, don’t behave in a way I disagree with or I will shoot your ass. This is why we do what police officers say, and it is why having a gun at a political rally is threatening to those around you.
Xanthippas
“Megan McArdle: making illogical arguments sound reasonable since 2001.”
geg6
@Tom G:
“So simply having a gun on one’s person is implicitly threatening everyone around you? Are you THAT afraid of guns? If the safety was off, yeah perhaps.
If it was pointed AT SOMEONE, sure.”
Bringing a gun to a political meeting is not only a physical threat, it is a way of intimidating people into not stating their own views. It is the most anti-democratic thing imaginable.
Comrade Jake
Some of the comments in that McArdle piece are straight out of freeper world.
Citizen_X
Jesus, why did you send me to that idiot Wilkerson? Liberals think handguns are “bewitched totems of death?” (Neutron bombs, maybe, not freaking pistols.)
No, mister, small arms are just one class of weapons, one that is superior against knives or clubs at distances of over, say, ten feet, but is inferior against, say, tanks.
And this guy Bruno Frey?
[P]oliticians are overprotected. The costs of political assassination differ systematically depending on whether a private or a public point of view is taken. A politician attributes a very high (if not infinite) cost to his or her survival. The social cost of political assassination is much smaller as politicians are replaceable.
Three words: Franz Fucking Ferdinand.
I swear, if civilization breaks down utterly, I am going to take up hunting libertarians.
cleek
why wouldn’t i believe that ?
now that the taboo of carrying weapons to presidential events has been breached, a potential assassin no longer has to conceal his own weapon. hell, he can brandish it with the same idiotic glee as the other gun-wavers.
the secret service, and the rest of the crowd, however, has no way to know which one to be wary of. used to be, a gun shows up in a crowd watching a politician, people react. now, people won’t.
but, it’s ok because it’s a Democratic president. things would be much different if we were watching angry lefties bringing rifles to events where a GOP president was speaking.
different church-lady
@Zifnab:
Oh, what the hell, let’s go all the way with the hypothetical: 10 BLACK men decide to exercise their 2nd amendment rights at Megan’s local grocery store. What do we suppose the reaction might be? Hmmmm….
Matt
The one quote from McFiancee is this
“Jason Zengerle indicates that the real point is that openly carrying weapons at a protest makes it harder for the Secret Service to do their job. Probably. On the other hand, lots of things make it harder for the Secret Service to do their job.”
This is just glib nonsense. She concedes that Zengerle is right, but then lumps carrying guns to presidential rallies to protests in general just so she can stay in the conversation. This isn’t libertarianism, this is immaturity. I beginning to think there is no difference between the two. Is libertarianism just the ability to move the goal posts anywhere on the field to where you can compare any sanction to government tyranny?
Reading through the comment section at McFiancee, a lot of people make the point that if having guns at a presidential rallies is a bad thing, then why do we allow the Secret Service to carry guns? *Head hits desk*
For. Fuck. Sake.
Bender
You’re an appallingly bad liar, Doug. If McArdle (or Wilkinson) had said any such thing, you’d have quoted her. But she didn’t, so you can’t, and you have to lie about her article to your drooling BJ drones who won’t (or, more likely, can’t) read it. The hilarious thing is, Megan was talking about YOU in that piece. It must kill you (figuratively, of course) how she has your number exactly.
You’re illustrating her point perfectly. You’ve had to blatantly lie in order to create a fantasy (“They’re fer shootin’ Obama!”) where your political enemies are as bad as you wish they were, so you could feel superior to them. It’s pure dementia, pure delusion. Ted Rall made a semi-career of it, before it drove him insane.
Yeah, she’s “for shooting the President” — that’s why she cleverly doesn’t say that, but rather calls people who would do such a thing “thugs” and “murderers.” If she runs, she’s a VC — if she doesn’t run, she’s a well-disciplined VC!
I’ll expect your retraction about never.
adolphus
Another thing bewilders me.
Just a few weeks ago a healthy proportion of this country thought it was perfectly acceptable, indeed praiseworthy, for a cop to arrest a man in his own home for behaving tumultuously in the interests of maintaining order.
Yet now we are being told, by many of the same people (though not always the EXACT same people) that it would not be okay to do ANYTHING about people bringing guns to political rallies to maintain order.
So do we as a country really believe that shouting “racist” in front of a handful of housewives and a couple of cops is more threatening to “order” than loaded assault rifles at a crowded political rally. Really?
Or is it that in both cases an uppity black man is on the shitty end of the stick? Nah, that can’t be it.
cleek
carrying a gun to a meeting is, however, a prerequisite to an attack.
why can’t we bring loaded rifles onto airplanes ?
Michael
Libertarianism got stealthily taken over by Dominionists long ago, which accounts for the amount of stupid that oozes from the movement.
Tzal
McArdle has this bizarre habit of building her arguments on baseless assumptions. Or making up a baseless assumption in an attempt to direct a failing argument back on the rails. It’s dumb and embarrasses the Atlantic.
But I don’t even understand the point of this “argument.” Are they trying to prove that people have the right to bear arms? That the people bringing guns to healthcare rallies likely won’t kill the president or someone else? That the media’s reaction to these people has been overwrought? That it’s wrong to jump to conclusions about people we haven’t met?
Fucking pointless. And since when did being a libertarian require abandoning all common sense?
kth
Bender, the Wilkinson piece approvingly cites a piece of glibertarian research that suggests that political leaders are interchangeable enough that, so long as there are well-defined rules for succession, keeping them from being assassinated may fail a cost-benefit analysis.
“Glibertarians for shooting the president” is a perfectly defensible gloss on such reasoning.
Stacy
Who seriously believes that a guy who wears a gun out in the open at a rally is going to actually try and shoot somebody with it?
The problem isn’t that carrying a gun = intent to shoot someone. The problem is if the situation gets escalated and panic ensues, having guns there can make a dangerous situation more deadly.
Even Police panic in situations and fire on people, and they are trained to deal with that sort of high-stress situation. Yet I’m supposed to give these yahoos that show up at health care debates with guns the benefit of the doubt that they can keep cool if trouble arises? We’ve already had reports of fist-fights breaking out at these things. Adding guns into that mix has disaster written all over it.
I’m not too worried about these particular guys shooting the president, although I do think that it’s probably not good that the secret service has to babysit them. I’m worried that their dumbassery is going to get the citizens out there in the street with them killed.
Greg
Do these people also believe it would be OK to let people start taking guns on airplanes? If not, what is the difference?
Kryptik
So….
Shorter Gilbertarians: Guns are irreplaceable. Politicians are not. Protect our rights to wave guns at politicians.
That about right there?
Leelee for Obama
@Citizen_X: The First WW is so early 20th century, dontchaknow? Santayana was the wisest of philosophers-these dimbulbs won’t learn-learning is for elitists. And they like guns, cause it makes them feel powerful, in a world their chosen leaders try to use to dis-empower them.
@cleek:Three works-Free Speech Zones. Guns would have gotten the protesters a great view of the 23rd street piers during the 2004 Convention.
cleek
exactly.
by bringing guns to town hall discussions, the yahoos have clearly demonstrated that they have serious issues when it comes to political conflict.
we do not solve political problems with guns in the US. but these idiots apparently think they’ve just discovered some kind of +5 Argument Enhancer which will scare the government into listening to them.
it’s terrorism, frankly.
Mike P
While Chris Bodenner, one of Sully’s stand in’s, comes down on the McArdle/Wilkinson side of the debate, but he does make this point, which is worth talking about:
“I’m just waiting for the media circus when a small militia shows up to the next rally. Or, conversely, when a liberal protester of Arab descent shows up with a turban and AK-47, just to make Republicans squirm.”
It really is too bad that Kal Penn is now working in the White House because we could see a real life version of “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo” if he showed up with a gun at a town hall held by say, Grassley.
kay
Libertarians have to hurry-up-quick exploit their status in the conservative movement while liberals are in power.
When conservatives are in power, they’re completely (and happily! with their consent! ) marginalized, in service to the The Greater Republican Agenda.
Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s the 90’s all over again.
I’m glad they’ve “found their voice”, again.
Why do they keep losing it? And why do they always misplace it during Republican President’s terms?
Christ. You could plot it on a timeline, over decades.
SGEW
Everyone’s a libertarian. When they’re four. Most people grow out of it.
Also, re Bender: I’m not going to put money on there being another terrorist attack on my town – but I still want the Federal government to do everything they (constitutionally!) can to prevent it. I’m not going to put money on getting into a car accident – but I still buckle my seat belt. Just because there’s a low probability of something calamitously awful happening (and if it’s a low probability, reasonable people will not bet money on it) doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to prevent it.
And no, we don’t think that all of the protesters with guns are “thugs intent on murder” – we are legitimately concerned with the guns’ presence a) making it easier for thugs intent on murder to succeed, b) harming the democratic process through physical intimidation, and c) creating an environment where accidental manslaughter has a higher chance of occurring.
Leelee for Obama
@Leelee for Obama: Of course I meant three words-damnit!
JK
McArdle and Wilkinson are sickos defending other sickos.
Megan is the same knucklehead who posted this message on her putrid, nauseating blog back in Nov
“I’m not voting because I forgot to register. But that doesn’t absolve me from whatever happens next, because I wanted Obama to win.”
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/vote_though_it_pains_you.php#comments
McArdle is the horse’s rear-end of libertarian pundits.
vacuumslayer
For me, the issue is not whether a gun goes off or not. The act of carrying a gun is meant to intimidate political foes, plain and simple, and it’s disingenuous to suggest otherwise. And here’s the thing: I won’t be intimidated. And I’m going to contradict myself here by saying what if a bunch of armed douchebags is suddenly faced with a bunch of unarmed citizens who REFUSE to be cowed by their show of force? I’m a stubborn, big-mouthed bitch. Sometimes. I don’t know…I can see things getting…out of hand. And it won’t be MY fault. This is all hypothetical of course. But I don’t know. I feel like I’m being challenged and I bet I’m not the only out there who feels that way. I’m just waiting for the fuse to be lit.
In summary: guns at a political event VERY BAD IDEA.
Bender
You guys should really work this stuff out in advance. “We loves Master Frodo! We hatessssss Master Frodo.”
Mike P
This, from the comments at Wilkinson’s, was good:
” ‘The social cost of political assassination is much smaller as politicians are replaceable.
I sure hope this guy mentioned Archduke Ferdinand. Small costs indeed.
And he’s an idiot if he doesn’t think the assassination of the first black president in U.S. history wouldn’t cause enormous psychological and social damage to the U.S. People riot over sports championships, fer pete’s sake.”
I think that’s another thing that bothers me about the line of reasoning that McArdle/Wilkinson are pushing…they don’t seem to want to wrestle with the possibility of being wrong. They say, “well X could happen, but on the other hand…” instead of saying that the murder of the first black president would probably tear the country in half and that Barack Obama isn’t “replaceable” just as Ronald Regan wasn’t “replaceable”.
Chad N Freude
@Citizen_X:
I wanted to post that quote but you beat me to it. I am fascinated by the isolated-from-reality pure economic analysis, as though all of the costs and all of the benefits are monetary. Human psychology and non-rational behavior don’t exist, and in a perfect world, all decisions would be based on a monetary cost/benefit analysis.
(This is what the death panel fearers fear, and their fear would be justified if the world conformed to the theoretical assumptions of traditional rationalist economists. But the world doesn’t work that way.)
Both of these articles would be great material for a class in logic. Assumptions stated as facts, implicit assumptions not stated, inappropriate analogies, multiple possible causes and effects ignored, … If Pythagoras had reasoned this way, we would have four-sided circular triangles.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Shinobi:
That was well put. I would go further and say that while there are probably plenty of irrational reasons to bring guns to a political rally, the dude in Phoenix who showed up outside where Obama was speaking with his assault weapon stepped over a line beyond which there are no rational, lucid reasons for acting that way, except one. And that is to symbolically threaten the POTUS – to say with symbols rather than with speech, do it “my way”, or else. The gun serves one purpose – as a reminder. And in the context of that reminder, everybody knows what “or else” really means, it doesn’t need to be spelled out any further. And the implied threat is effective as a chilling tactic even if the guy does nothing overt which is sufficient to justify the Secret Service or local LEOs hustling him away from the scene.
Anybody who does this is either incapable of rational lucid thought, or is just plain evil. In either case, the intent is to attack the very foundations of our democratic system of governance. I have no qualms about calling this sedition by symbolic means. This is one area where I’m just not into nuance. If you show up with a deadly weapon openly displayed in a symbolic manner at an event like that, you are a bad guy, and yes, you are somebody who hates the rest of us for our freedoms – such as the freedom to choose our own leaders via peaceful, fair and free elections.
vacuumslayer
@Mike P: Well said. I’d take it one step further and say that perhaps people should just adopt the attitude that human beings are not replaceable, no matter their station in life.
SGEW
@Bender: Look at your quotes again, and then think about what the words “wish” and “actualize” mean. Yeesh.
freelancer
On what ideological point did Conservative pivot from William Buckley to Travis Bickle?
Chad N Freude
@Xanthippas:
Change “is going to” to “may” and I raise my hand and shout “Hey, over here!”
Bender
Suuure it is. As long as you ignore the tiny, inconvenient truth that they — and McArdle specifically, who never mentioned these succession issues at all — aren’t actually “for shooting the president,” which you are all-too-willing to do, for reasons McArdle explained.
Come on, I’d have a little respect for the intellectual strength of this deranged echo chamber if any of you had the guts to call Doug on his obvious, demonstrable lies. What are you guys, scared of him?
SGEW
@freelancer:
I’m still waiting for one of the right wing blogs to post something like this:
Sounds an awful lot like most Freeper threads, don’t it?
[Only Travis!]
SGEW
@Bender: You are stuck on intent. DougJ is talking about consequences.
Chad N Freude
@JK:
Bad Analogy Alert!
Forgetting to register to vote is like forgetting to go to the bathroom. “I forgot to go to the bathroom, but that doesn’t absolve me from peeing on the seat of my friend’s car.”
I guess where she lives there are no Remember-to-Register-and-Vote campaigns.
Bender
@SGEW:
A perfectly rational and arguable proposition. You should have a blog. You can make a point without having to lie. Cheers.
(…although I hear the Obama justice department isn’t concerned so much with physical intimidation with weapons at political events, are they?)
Tzal
@Bender: I think Doug was being snarky.
Megan’s wager and Wilkinson’s cost-benefit analysis are a bit morbid, don’t you think?
JackieBinAZ
She may suck but who are you all talking about (and linking to) this morning AGAIN? She’s earned her paycheck today.
Chad N Freude
@Bender:
What are you referring to?
Dave Herman
@Tzal:
Wikipedia puts The Fountainhead‘s publication at 1943.
Waynski
If anything happens to President Obama, I think we all should follow Limbaugh, Beck, et al and throw pig blood in their faces every time they attempt to show them in public. The people at the presidential events openly with guns are unlikely to make an attempt on the president’s life, but are clearly there to intimidate. It’s not a big leap for someone listening to the Obama’s a Nazi, Socialist babykiller crap to go from intimidation with a visible weapon to action with a concealed one.
Stacy
Meh, me thinks Bender’s high horse threw a shoe about a half-mile back when s/he desperately hoped that no one on this board would know what the word “actualize” means.
Coming on a thread to whine about a misinterpretation of someone’s words while hoping to misinterpret someone’s words when it suits one to do so does that.
bcinaz
Didn’t she mis-speak? Assassination of a Democratic President is no big deal. If Reagan had died the day he was shot, it would have been some monumental Conservative turning point and a really big pain in the ass for the NRA. If the rightwing reaction to that were equal to the right wing reaction to 911 – NOBODY would have been allowed to legally carry a gun in this country for a generation.
Shinobi
@bcinaz: For a while there you couldn’t buy an f-ing squirt gun at Wal Mart.
@Dave Herman: Win
JK
@Chad N Freude:
LOL.
McArdle and Wilkerson are Wankertarians.
liberal
@Doctor Science:
Agreed. People who bring guns to political functions are thugs, whose purpose is to intimidate.
geg6
@SGEW:
Not to mention that he’s somehow trying to make the case that the Secret Service agents are all Dems.
El Cid
No far.
(1) That is unhistory.
(2) It is different when angry black men carry guns. They can’t be trusted.
(3) How dare you politicize Ronald Reagan’s death?
Michael
Lets not forget the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, the two greatest evils that ever befell white men in the South.
I’ve typically eschewed conspiracy theories, but I find myself wondering whether Oswald and Sirhan were patsies for shadowy operators. I figure that some wingnut was bound to take a try at King, so they didn’t have to hunt for somebody to do that.
Sentient Puddle
Me, I’m hung up over the fact that they’re so fixated on whether or not Obama gets offed by one of these crazies. That’s not anywhere near being close to the entire point. You ask me, the worry should be somebody taking the bullet from one of these guns.
Broadening the distinction here, so let me illustrate. Take your idiot who is carrying a gun in a holster on his ankle while holding a “Tree of Liberty” sign with both hands and standing in a crowd. Someone comes up behind him, sees the gun, and decides to take it and go on a holiday. Guy carrying the sign ain’t exactly in a position to swat back this other guy, and even if the rest of the crowd tries to restrain gun thief, by the time anyone gets a good sense of what’s happening, that gun is probably going to go off.
I mean Jesus Christ, this isn’t mere stupidity, as McArdle might say. It’s gross negligence, and just asking for something stupid to happen.
Shinobi
@Sentient Puddle:
Exactly Sentient.
None of these guys are behaving in a responsible manner towards their firearms. It is downright dangerous to have one in a crowded situation like that when some crazy fuck might try to use it against you or against someone else. And I really doubt most of them have enough training to keep their gun away from someone who really wanted it.
Tsulagi
Bender, you’re a stupid jackass; Tom G., just merely dumb.
There is no good reason to bring firearms to a political rally, townhall meeting, or anything of the like. Period. Not even for one where the subject would be 2nd Amendment rights, of which I am a strong supporter. Said by someone who has two full, large gun cabinets in which two of the rifles require ATF stamps.
This is just getting idiotic. A couple of days ago one of the drool cup type of conservatives running for governor in Idaho said he’d be up for buying Obama tags. You know, have an open season with state permission to hunt and kill Obama. When called on it, he said he was just joking. I love black humor, but there is absolutely no humor in that bullshit.
Probably no need for any concerns, though. Given the standard intelligence and especially competence level of typical blithering Rush/Beck tards if more start coming armed, they’ll probably just wind up (See Cheney) shooting each other. Maybe that’s Obama’s and the Secret Service’s secret plan, give Darwin an assist.
RSA
I think the gun toters have kinda lost sight of what town hall meetings are about. They’re not held just so people can show up and be seen, but to foster communication and even learning, possibly by way of vigorous debate. Which makes me ask this: How vigorously does anyone argue with someone carrying a gun?
Josh
@ Chad
“What are you referring to?”
I think he means the Secret Service.
I read a comment by someone on the McArdle board about how the President uses the Secret Service to intimidate people, so I’m going to just assume, based on the minute amount of information Bender has given, that this is what he means.
John T
“One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” —Anton Chekhov
Mark S.
No, the silliest thing is Wilkinson’s understanding of how the Supreme Court has interpreted the Second Amendment. The Court has never subjected gun laws to the strict scrutiny it applies to First Amendment protections.
kay
@Chad N Freude:
Conservatives are smearing Holder because they believe he is sympathetic to ‘the Black Panthers”.
Here are the individuals who made the charge:
“But that explanation has not satisfied most of the members of the Commission on Civil Rights. For eight years, President George W. Bush had the right to make appointments; the commission now consists of four Republican appointees, two conservative-leaning independent appointees, and two Democrats. The three African-American members of the panel, including Chairman Gerald A. Reynolds, are Republican appointees with ties to the conservative legal movement. Ashley Taylor, a Virginia lawyer, was a counsel to the McCain campaign in that state in 2008. Peter Kirsanow, who lives in Ohio, has helped lead the Center for New Black Leadership, a leading black conservative group. Chairman Reynolds served in the Department of Education and the Department of Justice under Bush. The fourth Republican appointee, Abigail Thernstrom, is a scholar who has produced some of the definitive arguments against affirmative action and racial preferences, most recently in “Voting Rights–and Wrongs: The Elusive Quest for Racially Fair Elections.” Independent commission member Gail Heroit is a conservative law professor at the University of San Diego who has argued against affirmative action and hate crimes legislation; the other independent member, Todd Gaziano, is a scholar at the Heritage Foundation.”
Bender
No, Megan’s wager is the opposite of morbid. She’s saying that the left is making too much of people carrying guns, that nothing will ever come of it, and that the left knows that nothing will come of it. How is that morbid?
WIlkinson? Yeah, that was out there, but he knew this, writing, “Here’s another (sure-to-be-unpopular) thought.” He was trying to tie this snarkily into health care and death panels and cost-benefit, and it all ended in the haze between snark and honest argument.
But neither is for shooting Obama, like the kook preacher.
RSA
I wonder if Wilkinson would be just as strong a defender of people who try to carry fake bombs onto airplanes, in the name of performance art? After all, it only takes up government resources that might otherwise be used to identify real bombs.
CMcC
Wilkinson wants to talk about “an enumerated constitutional right.”
OK. Let’s check out this “enumerated” business: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
How about hitting the “well regulated” part of that just a little bit more. Maybe take these arms-toting folks and put them in a “militia” (don’t forget, it has to be a “well regulated” outfit) and make ’em do a few forced marching drills.
Maybe putting “well regulated” and “shall not be infringed” into the same sentence doesn’t make much sense. But the Founders wrote what they wrote. So let’s at least get some balance here, and do as much well regulating as we do not infringing.
Joel
Megan McCardle is the living, breathing, female form of Maury Levy from the Wire.
Bender
I don’t recall saying there was. But there’s no good reason to do a lot of the legal stuff that protesters do to assert their rights. If it’s legal, there really doesn’t have to be a reason.
steve s
@Xanthippas: Gotta agree with Xanthippas here. If I want inaccurate exaggerations I’ll go to the right-wing blogs.
DonkeyKong
I know what we’re all bringing (packing) to McMuffins wedding!
Oh, and let’s get her and her “hubby” plane ticket’s to honeymoon in Somalia.
Trollhattan
Whingers are never going to stop saying shit and immediately denying they just said it, all while still believing it. And when it comes to the magic that is pakcking heat, well, there’s a reverence there that megachurch ministers everywhere must envy.
This just in from Idaho: wingnut candidate wants Obama hunting tags.
http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/republican_candidate_for_idaho_governor_rex_rammell_jokes_about_buying_hunt/
In my wildest imagination I just can’t approach what’s actually happening. What I can imagine is where it’s leading.
steve s
Libertarians should stick to arguments that don’t make them look like idiots, such as opposing this kind of nanny-state-ism:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/banning_beer_gl.html
Bender
@kay:
Yeah, funny how dropping an investigation due to “shut up, we won” when the perpetrator is on YouTube committing the crime — and when the perps didn’t even show up to the court to offer a defense! — might lead some to believe that the Obama Justice Department might be sympathetic to the Black Panthers! I am shocked!
And as to your weak, weak argument regarding the right-wing (and probably racist!) bent of anyone who dares question Holder’s idea of “justice for all,” one of the witnesses to the crime was the former 1960s civil rights activist and publisher of the Village Voice:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574361071968458430.html
Trollhattan
TBogg has a go:
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2009/08/27/chekovs-gun/
In which I discover McMegan’s been crowned America’s Stupidest Blogger(tm). Hard to argue.
kay
@Bender:
Bullshit, Bender. Career prosecutors issued an injunction and then dropped the case. Career prosecutors. Not political appointees. The WSJ article spins like a top, and the DOJ lawyers involved are now defending themselves from the smear.
I think it is fucking laughable that you’re hanging your smear on the AG personally intervening in a case about a precinct poll worker, because that poll worker is a BLACK PANTHER. Where is Holder’s intervention? Because you’re spreading this smear it’s “true”? You looked at a video. Did you look at the statutory elements of intimidation? Where do you get off making a legal determination based on a video? Who named Malkin lead prosecutor?
If conservatives want NOT to be accused of targeting minorities, try this: make your accusations less laughable and less race-based.
Try harder. This is just ludicrous.
kay
@Bender:
It’s not enough that Malkin thinks she witnessed a violation of a statute, when she was watching FOX. That’s not enough.
You have to violate a “real” law to be indicted.
This is like the Gates case, it really is. I ended up posting the elements of disorderly because the morons on the Right had Gates convicted. They convicted Gates before the audio came out. It was INCREDIBLE. Not a care in the world for the actual law. Gates was guilty. Slam dunk!
The state has the burden. Every element. Because you and Michelle Malkin want scalps doesn’t mean anyone committed a crime, or that the state can prove it.
I felt the same when Libby lied his ass off and Fitzgerald couldn’t convict. Unlike you, I didn’t trash his integrity.
This is a smear campaign, and it has a nasty race-based fear element.
Par for the course on the Right.
kay
@Bender:
Here locally, interested parties that smear the prosecutor who has just launched an investigation into their activities are taken with a huge grain of salt.
I have to say, the difference is striking. I don’t know a single liberal who accused Fitzgerald of bias when he failed to make his case against Scooter Libby. Instead, I read conservatives on the pages of the WSJ whining about “rogue prosecutors” because Fitzgerald brought an indictment. Smearing the prosecutor is just standard practice on the Right, now.
If you’re a conservative, dropping charges is per se evidence of prosecutorial bias, based on your careful legal analysis conducted on you tube.
Thank god we don’t actually take state action based on evidentiary standards of the Right. We’d all be in prison.
bellatrys
I have a sword. I have, in fact, carried my sword openly down main street – but under my arm like an umbrella, as it was to my mind a historic collectible from the antique store.
It still freaked the guys out mightily.
I was then a teenage library aide, dressed like a stereotypical librarian with a dowdy skirt, blouse, bun and glasses.
It didn’t matter – the “OMG!BFSWORD!HIGHLANDER” hindbrain triggers still went off.
I am now wondering if I should take it off the wall hooks where it has hung lo these many years, belt it on and wear it to a town hall meeting and babble about “tradition” and the 2nd amendment (since when does “arms” get limited to “guns” anyways?)
Given the number of fellow fen on this side of Blogistan, in fact, I think we could probably “represent” quite scarily without any guns whatsoever. And might get the point across to the Beckistas, if enough of us showed up in garb (even w/peacebonding…)
Comrade Dread
Again, if this is something you find worrisome, then change the laws at the local, state, or Federal levels and/or if the meeting is on private property, the owner can make said restrictions on guns as a prerequisite to getting into the event. Most stadiums and convention halls are already gun-free zones (at least that I know of) and the ones I’ve been to do weapons checks at the door either via wands or walkthrough metal detectors.
SGEW
@bellatrys:
Librarians with swords: super awesome sauce.
[requisite video link, natch]
FlipYrWhig
Shorter Gilbertarians: Guns are irreplaceable. Politicians are not.
Even shorter glibertarians: Guns are irreplaceable. So am I.
Tzal
@Trollhattan: I went back through some of Tbogg’s old post and learned that Megan used to blog under the pseudonym “Jane Galt.” I did not know that. Awesome.
Bender
@kay:
Really? I think it’s fucking laughable that you are apparently unable to understand English, as I did not say Holder personally intervened. It is his department, though, is it not? Shouldn’t he be responsible for the blatant injustice in his department? Or are you so eager to charge me with racism that you didn’t even bother to read?
Oh, please. You realize you are making this statement on a thread where your fellow travelers are all upset because a man on video was “intimidating” people by carrying a legal weapon in a legal place somewhat close to a political event, right? Does the irony of your whining strike you as hilarious, because it made me laugh!
I’m positive that the intimidation case could be made by an eighth-grader. Or do you think what the lawmakers had in mind when they drew up the 1965 Voting Act saying “No person,. . . shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce . . . any person for voting or attempting to vote.” was that it would be totally cool if people in paramilitary garb carried weapons in front of the door to the polling place, yelling racial threats? So it would be cool if white supremacists did it next election? Yeah, voting rights!
Malkin? Who said anything about her? That was insane.
Finally, what was “race-based” or “laughable” about the allegation? The accusation was very much “billy club outside the polling place and shouting racial threats” based. Hey — I have an idea! Why don’t the Black Panthers make THEIR actions a little less race-based? “You’re about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!” So post-racial. Change. Hope.
Ask yourself: Why are you condoning such un-American behaviour? Good luck with that answer.
Barry
(sorry if this is rehashing something; I skipped most of the comments to save time):
different church-lady
“Forget the Kennedys for a second: if I recall correctly (and I do), way back in 2003 if you merely disagreed with the President in any way, shape or form, you were a traitor, a terrorist sympathizer, and a danger to the country itself.”
If *I* remember correctly, Megan McBS was peeing herself in glee at the thought of some NYC construction worker taking a 2×4 to a liberal protester. Not that she was *endorsing* such action, of cours.
With that sort of easy 360 turn upon need, she’ll rise high in the ranks of the Evul Librul Statist Media.
kay
@Bender:
Why this case? How many intimidation claims were made that day? Do you know that? How many were pursued, and how many dropped?
I think it’s lazy and sloppy to crow that you looked at a video that FOX put into endless rotation and from that smear Holder.
Again: why this case? Because the visuals were good?
kay
@Bender:
“I’m positive that the intimidation case could be made by an eighth-grader.”
You also convicted Gates on the basis of “killer audio” that turned out to be, um, not so killer.
Leave it to the professionals.
b-psycho
@Napoleon: Hence the irony of “gun control” being considered a liberal thing. Disarming minorities was the original point of it, as demonstrated by Reagan-era California & gun laws in the Jim Crow-era South.
As for Megan & Will: I don’t think they realize that there’s a humongous gulf between “it’s a crazy idea to bring a gun to a political rally that has nothing to do with gun laws” & “guns should be banned”. I for one figured the protesters for nutjobs before they were revealed as such on TV & online, based on the fact that their wailing about tyranny could conveniently wait until the president was a Democrat. It sucks that neither Megan nor Will took that into account.
The gun-toting protesters were apparently far enough away from Obama that they weren’t deemed a threat to him. Fine, that’s what the Secret Service is for after all. One CAN personally feel that the State is indefensible while still realizing that it’s dumb to expect agents of it to ignore their own safety, it’s not that hard.
liberal
@Barry:
Yep. McArdle’s a thug. Not a particularly intelligent one, either.
Bender
So you think it’s totally legal under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to wear paramilitary uniforms, carry a weapon, and station yourself in front of the door to the polling place, yelling “You’re about to be ruled by the white man, N*****!”?
And not only do you think it’s totally legal, but you think it shouldn’t even be tried. Even if no defense is offered by the named parties, and they don’t show up to answer the suit in court.
I just want to gauge the depths to which you are willing to submerge yourself to defend this Administration.
Somehow this got truncated from the last post:
Link, or it’s bullshit:
Bender
Keeping your 100% wrong record intact. Good for you!
Bender
@kay:
Six of them wanted to go the case to go forward. They were overruled by an Obama political appointee.
RememberNovember
Mary Todd Lincoln would have been pro gun control I bet.
RememberNovember
@geg6:
G Gordon Liddy ring a bell?
RememberNovember
@Shinobi:
And for those of us who prefer to wield cold naked steel, we are often asked to “peace tie” zip tie our blades at Faires and Cons. Which we happily do, as for many it is just a costume item but for others ( like myself) who have been trained it is a deadly weapon.
Your Glock may be set to semi-auto, my sword is set to decapitate, heh.
Bender
So now your defense is, “There might have been other people who got away with voter intimidation, too?” Ouch. That’ll leave a mark.
I would hope that each case is treated with utmost respect for voting rights and justice is carried out in that spirit. That clearly was not done in this case.
Tzal
@Bender: The Black Panther’s were trying to intimidate black voters into voting for Obama? Is that what the quote is supposed to imply?
Midnight Marauder
I’ve gotta say after scanning through this thread so far…
It feels nice not to be feeding trolls anymore. Real niiiiice.
Sentient Puddle
And from where I’m sitting, BoB was at least a funny troll. What he said was unintentionally(?) stupid and eminently mockable. Bender is about as amusing as an old fart yelling “GET OFF MY LAWN!”
Midnight Marauder
@Sentient Puddle:
Exactly. I thought we had a commentariat chat the other day about this particular issue. Because what started off as an interesting and engaging discussion is currently on the road to degenerating into Nonsenseville.
kay
@Bender:
You don’t know anything. Like lots of conservatives, you’re most comfortable while playing policeman. Just become one!
By the way, I disagree with Doug. I’m not frightened of conservatives packing pistols. I think they’re clowns. From what I’ve seen of teabaggers, they’re “patriots” who collect federal benefits, but are opposed to paying for federal benefits. We have a lot of them where I live. They’re called “farmers”. I call them “deadbeats”.
I actually got a big kick out of the idiot who strapped his sidearm 6 inches from his own crotch, so thank you for that. Not a real brainy bunch, on the Right.
Mike P
I just did a Google search using the following terms:
“case dropped + black panthers + philadelphia + obama”
The first hit is the John Fund article which everyone seems to quote (and it appears to be a column, not a news story).
The next hits, in order, are:
A piece from the SF Examiner
The Washington Times
Fox News
Hot Air
Now, perhaps it’s just because this was a local story, but if this were as awful as some are saying it was, some other national news outlet (at bare minimum, the A.P.) I would think, would have run something on this because it sounds truly bad.
But I wonder why there’s not more out there. Thoughts? Suggestions? Maybe I should re-run the search with different terms and I’ll find a better series of hits?
Tzal
@Mike P: I did the same thing because it made no sense to me for a few reasons. Here is a nice run down.
Brachiator
Every Republican officeholder should invite weapons carrying individuals to attend every public speaking engagement they hold.
Every pundit who has written or spoken approvingly of this vigorous exercise of the 2nd Amendment should allow weapons to be present at every public appearance they make, whether at a public or private venue.
Every person who brings a weapon to a public appearance by the president should agree to the following: “If a credible threat is made against the president, it will be assumed that you are a party to the threat and you will immediately be shot to death.”
Mike P
@Tzal:
Good link. It does seem like more should have been done about this.
Tzal
@Mike P:
To be fair, if this happened, then it sounds like some intimidating may have gone on:
That sounds like something that should be investigated. Maybe it was.
jl
They would have to deal with the Bidenator, who would be much more willing to respond, gaffes and all. And Biden would respond to nonsense about his gaffes by telling them to ‘**** off’
Then there would be, I think, Pelosi and Clinton.
It is appalling that the GOP is allowing this kind of talk. It is a raw attempt at intimidation through threats of violence. The corporate paid for and bought press are revealing their cowardice and weaselhood by standing by and making excuses, or worse, acting as if this were some legitimate sign of popular unrest.
My country’s leadership lass disgusts me now, becasue they are truly disgusting.
jl
I meant ‘leadership class’
Unless I meant Palin.
Trollhattan
Oh boy, this is rich.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/pastor_of_gun-toter_at_obama_event_day_before_even.php
‘Scuse me while I go home and hide from the black panthers.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
Jesus Fucking Christ on a Pogo Stick, Bender! The Black Panthers?! A moment’s reflection will reveal to you that the last Presidential election took place in 2008, not 1968. The Black Panthers still exist only in the diseased imagination of right-wing maroons like you.
Sure, I believe the Black Panthers intimidated people at polling places in 2008. Couldn’t have been hired actors, because they all wear Brooks Brothers suits. I believe the drug-crazed hippies who killed that Army doctor’s family wrote “Acid is Groovy!” on the walls in their blood, too.
Seriously, that throbbing in your temple? It’s probably a brain tumor. If HCR goes through, maybe you can afford to have that looked at—but in the meantime, that’s the source of your blindness to simple facts.
b-psycho
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge: He probably means the fake-ass NOI offshoot that stole the Panthers identity long after the original group fell apart in a failed bid at getting people to take them seriously. Those people have zilch to do with the actual Black Panthers.
The Crafty Trilobite
the last time a president was killed, the country ended up with Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare
Yeah, but that was just ’cause the Veep was a prominent Senator who knew where all the bodies were buried, and was more liberal than the President, and there was a big Democratic majority in the House. Nothing like that could happen now!
ruemara
@Bender:
nothing like hearsay to prove…nothing.
Nancy Irving
Actually, AFDC (“Welfare”), like Social Security, was a New Deal program.
RememberNovember
The more you try to apply reason to them , the more they froth and issue veiled death threats to those who oppose their worldview.
I hope they are logging “uknowbetter’s” IP address and email Guy’s about to go postal it seems.
The crazy, it burns