Nothing could go wrong here:
A Louisiana sheriff has begun training 200 local volunteers in basic hand-to-hand combat techniques as part of Project Exodus aimed at protecting the northwestern corner of the state from the danger of terrorists, the Shreveport Times reports.
Reporter Drew Pierson writes that Bossier Parish Sheriff Larry Deen’s policing plan involves “a mostly white group of ex-police volunteers and a .50-caliber machine gun” and was inspired in part from the Book of Exodus in the Bible.
The only acts of terrorism we have faced int he states involve blowing up planes, attempts and plans to blow up mass transit and bridges, and a truck bomb, and anthrax mailings. Could someone please explain to me what a few geriatrics with limited hand-to-hand combat experience is going to do to help that? Although since most of these folks are Vitter voters, I suppose they could help provide defense in a national run on diapers.
What the hell is wrong with the south?
Jude
I left. I was the only thing holding back the madness.
Crusty Dem
I thought the Sheriff there was Rosco P. Coltrane..
kommrade reproductive vigor
Wow. The fact that they’ve confused Charlton Heston with Moses AND are heavily armed does not bode well for … anyone.
Tax Analyst
Well that’s what the .50-caliber machine guns are for, silly.
When the Brown Mooslim Terrorist Hordes descend upon Bossier Parish the Louisiana Geriatric Depends & Polydent Division will be there to mow ’em down in a red-hot jiffy, by gum.
Governor Bobby better be careful to call ahead if he plans on visiting – or put on a several thick layers of pancake make-up.
calipygian
Gotta tell that black president guy to get off their lawns, don’t you know.
Remember November
They skipped the part of American history that depicted such “deputized” vigilante groups as essentially terror cells themselves. With no way to really “police” these goons, The Big Easy is gonna have Big Problems. Why don’t they just go take karate themselves without the local govt getting involved? Oh right, because that would mean they couldn’t use Nuremburg caveats.
Mike Kay
WOLVERINE!
DonkeyKong
Does “opps I crapped my pants” come in kevlar?
malraux
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20100227/NEWS01/2270314/1060/NEWS01
This really doesn’t sound like terrorist protection. Sounds more like white over-reaction to Katrina.
Mike Kay
… from my cold arthritic hand!
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I think this segways quite nicely with Dougj’s previous post. What’s wrong with the south? They have never given up nor accepted the loss of their beloved Aristocratic way of life. It sleeps and stumbles along in a slumber, but is quite intact, only needing the right alarm clock to snap to, and chocked full of lily white fear.
danadevin74
mostly white?
hhhmmm somebody needs to show me a picture
Mike Kay
… and keep government out of Medicare!
Mike Kay
@danadevin74:
well, most of them are white, but some of them have rednecks.
Pat
I’m pretty sure the Piggly-Wigglys of Texarkana were on that al-Qaeda list found in that trunk. I have it on good authority UBL really, really hates Canonball Run.
Zifnab
Ninjas! They’re undergoing ninja training!
I’ve been saying for years that the only way to combat air piracy and unprovoked rogue attacks was to fight it the right way. With ninjas.
Crusty Dem
I was going to make a joke about these idiots confusing “DieHard” for a documentary, but let’s face it, these people have no idea what a documentary is.
A reality show on the other hand…
Elisabeth
I used to live in Bossier Parish. Worked for a casino that got into heaps of trouble donating pumpkins to local elementary schools at Halloween. Apparently, we were trying to corrupt the youth.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@danadevin74: Here is a link to my comment on this last night. Click the link for a picture of these white fat fools
mr. whipple
OMG…that clip is hilarious. What a bunch of freaking pissy pants nutter bars.
John W.
You know the children’s crusade? Think the exact inverse. I say we hit them over the head, drop them in Waziristan, and hope for the best.
gypsy howell
It’s the Southern septuagenarian version of Dwight Schrute.
Allan
I’m confused.
How does arming Alzheimer’s patients with machine guns rescue people from the clutches of homosexuality?
Leisureguy
Mark Twain wrote a lot about the South and what was wrong with it: an unrealistic infatuation with Walter Scott novels and notions of chivalry, honor, and the like. I’ve also read that the South was settled by people with little to their name other than their honor, and they were excessively touchy about that (duels, etc.). But there is something peculiar down there, no doubt about it. I think some is a mental partitioning and careful ignorance that was necessary when the economy was built on slavery, and those habits of mind became fixed in the culture down there.
You can read some of the Twain remarks here, and more can be found by reading Life on the Mississippi
Moonbatting Average
Everything, basically.
demkat620
I seem to recall this already happened on a bridge out of NOLA in August of 2005.
Terrorists were trying to escape after the destruction they had caused in the city and a brave band of patriots using only a gum wrapper and a used kleenex forced them back into the city to face justice for their crimes. It was a tough fight. The terrorists were well prepared but freedom and justice prevailed in the end.
At least that’s the way I heard it.
SpotWeld
Given that the main rationale for spending time and money on this is to prepare for another Katrina type emergency….
…wouldn’t it have made more sense for the sheriff to invest in planning and preparation for evacuation?
…or maybe training up a civilian core of volunteers for level inspection?
…or how about working with sister departments in neighboring states to stockpile a emergency responce kit of supplies and communication equipment.
LA isn’t that isloated from mainland US.
The main problem following Katrina wasn’t the mobs, it was the inability of local, state and federal organizations from getting food & supplies into the state to help citizens.
This guy is activly looking for trouble. He assumes that people will riot, and he’s part of the problem because he’s actively undercutting his state’s ability to respond to an ermegency that would arguably remove the situation that would cause the riot in the first place.
Let me re-state. He *wants* there to be a riot!
kommrade reproductive vigor
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Except that 99.9% of the assholes screaming the South Will Rise Again are the descendants of people who got their share of boots to the head from ole massa.
Rey
Nothing- this just gives Paw-Paw a reason to keep living until that Palin lady becomes President. Oh yeah, and that “nigra” that’s in the Whitehouse, this will send a clear message to him too.
It’s the South baby, can’t explain it but, I love it so…..
BombIranForChrist
I spent the first 35+ years of my life in the South, and here are some reasons that everyone is so angry and stupid in the South.
1. It is very hot and very humid.
2. It has about 1000 different species of biting insects, all of which survive and thrive through the mild winters, hot springs, hot summers, and hot autumns.
3. If you don’t like hunting, fishing, or domestic violence, there is nothing to do.
You could take f’in Elie Wiesel and turn him into David Duke by just forcing him to live in Mississippi for a week.
Speedy
Praise the Lord , and pass the ammunition……and the doughnuts.
Zifnab
@SpotWeld: Fucking Commie.
SpotWeld
@Zifnab: Wolverines!!!
(also… Go Blue!!!)
celticdragonchick
Who in the holy hell decided that a fucking .50 caliber Ma Deuce machine gun was appropriate for law enforcement??!!
Some of the Rambo SWAT team idiots in South Carolina have been photographed posing with an M113 APC and a cupola mounted .50 cal they got for “homeland security”
What the fuck??!!
A .50 is a battlefield weapon!!
It will go through your house, the next house and the 10 houses after that and still wreck the engine block of a truck and anybody in the cab! The power of this thing is truly frightening. I have shot it!
It does not have any more law enforcement capacity than does an M-1Abrams tank. It is a weapon designed to destroy lightly armored vehicles and kill people behind substantial cover. I do not want anything like going off in my county, much less my neighborhood.
Christ!
El Cid
I’d like to see what happens if these morons think their hand-to-hand combat training would suffice against a few Latin American immigrants a bit more used to actual hard work.
FlipYrWhig
How is it inspired by the Book of Exodus? Are they killing the firstborn terrorist children?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
And that is why it’s crazy. i lived and worked in southern MS through most of the nineties, and the white guys I worked with were governed by the olde caste like system. I used to ask them why they never asked for raises and promotions, or to better their lot in some way. And all of them would tell me it wasn’t their place to do such things, that they were doing what they were meant to do and that was serve their bosses.
And they, like the crackers who yell soshulist on my teevee, don’t have a clue that they are supporting forces that will screw them, and opposing that which will serve their interest. The old south way of life, still lives in the countryside of the new south, trust me.
SpotWeld
@celticdragonchick: Because, to some folks guns are flags that say “do what I tell you”, and big guns are the same thing, just in a larger font with exclaimation points.
maus
They’re going to protect the state from people like them. Please, please, please drink the flavor-aid.
nancydarling
Blanche Dubois is a perfect metaphor for the modern south—dependent on the kindness of strangers. All or most of the red states are net gainers in dividing up the federal pie. Arkansas (where I now live) gets $1.41 back for every tax dollar paid in to the Feds. California gets $.78. NJ really gets screwed and gets something like $.57.
Nine of the ten healthiest states voted for Obama. Colorado is the tenth and it is trending blue. All of the ten states at the bottom of health measures voted for McCain. Also, the highest teen pregnancies and the highest divorce rates are mostly in the south. I honestly think the more educated classes moved on pretty quickly after the Civil War. The resentment seems to come mostly from the lower and lower middle classes.
I think if the South had won and formed their own country, today the Yankees would be building a wall along the Mason-Dixon Line to keep out Confederate economic refugees as it would be a third world country.
Sometimes I despair. Halter’s run lifted the cloud a little.
On the other hand I have 23 of the sweetest acres, a pond, and a wonderful garden. Mijo (my dog) and I just came in from a walk up the hill to see if the daffodils are up. No daffodils yet, but the irises are poking through.
latts
@Leisureguy:
True, and the openly racist Southern strategy of forty years ago was child’s play compared to the media-age Walter Mittyism that continues & expands on those old narratives. This also fits in with Spotsweld’s post @ 25: of course the crazy sheriff wants a riot, so he can play the hero role that real life has so far denied him. No one makes blockbuster movies about sensible, prudent people, after all.
@BombIranForChrist:
Hey, I lived in Mississippi until I was almost 23 and have always been a DFH. Which I guess is why no one from there asks me to come back to visit– I’d rather enjoy refusing– any more.
Kyle
What is wrong with the South? Fear. Fear that the way they do things is suspect, so when other people do things differently, they have to rail against it. Because if someone does something in a manner that is different from the way folks in the south do it, that is viewed as a judgment on the way southerners do it, and therefore, you have to be against it.
It doesn’t help that they have every reason to suspect that the way they do things is wrong. The South has been wrong on just about every major issue this country has faced (slavery, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights).
I’m not sure if it’s the fear that leads to religiosity or if it is religiosity that leads to the fear, but rest assured, they feel they are in over their heads, and only by being raging asses are they able to mask it.
MikeBoyScout
Two birds with one stone?
What if we sent the NRA gun safety instructor, Michael Phillips, down there to train them all?
The South always rises again cuz it always ends up on its face. :-D
Church Lady
Please don’t confuse the rest of the South with Louisiana. That state is a country unto itself and most of the population there is somewhat crazy.
Just Some Fuckhead
Nothing a little blood on the doorposts won’t fix.
Speedy
They ought to rename themselves “The Bossier Parish Hoveround Brigade”.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@John W.:
And the sad thing is, these guys have more or less exact counterparts in Waziristan, only with the skin color and religious bigotry reversed.
Hopefully someday they will learn to get along, or at least to ignore each other – like that scene in the move “If it’s Tuesday this must be Belgium” where the two old, fat German and American tourists are at the WW2 war memorial in Bastogne and are reliving their wartime experiences by giving an excited narrative to their bored spouses while making machine gun noises (with lots of spittle), while walking right past each other in opposite directions.
Fwiffo
Didn’t you know that Al-Qaeda’s aspiration caliphate has its capitol in Northwest Louisiana?
twiffer
wait, they have machine guns in the bible now? i don’t recall them being in the king james version. must be that new conservative translation, right?
also, who the fuck is going to attack northwestern louisiana? besides a wayward hurricane, that is. seems like they are taking bogey a little too literally: “You don’t like it, do you Rocco, the storm? Show it your gun, why don’t you? If it doesn’t stop, shoot it.”
Bruce Webb
@malraux: Bingo!! (A word that group looks to be fully familiar with)
Middle Age white guys with riot shields and shotguns backed up by a mounted 50 cal are useless as tits on a boar in all but one circumstance:
blocking an Exodus of nigras from New Orleans in case of a natural disaster. Last time they were only able to bag two on the bridge, next time they will be prepared with over-lapping fields of fire.
In the 60s Bull Conner could only get away with firehoses, mounted cops and police dogs, now they get to move up to crew manned machine guns.
celticdragonchick
@SpotWeld:
That.
II know that I am one of the more prominent 2nd Amendment supporters here, but there have to be some frakking limits somewhere!
Cops do not need a .50 cal machine gun for law enforcement. In fact, if you are using it, then you definitially are no longer engaged in law enforcement. You are fighting a battle at that point. You are endangering people literally for miles around who have nothing to do with whatever it is you are up to.
No thanks.
There are a few in private collections in states that allow Title II weapons, and some in movie weapon rental companies.
Leave it at that.
gnomedad
@Jude:
Since Jude is too modest to blogwhore, I will point out that the graphic he found is teh awesome.
SiubhanDuinne
@BombIranForChrist:
I would give anything to have come up with this line.
daveNYC
Unfortunately.
Tsulagi
Damn I hope they take video of that. Sure to be way more laughs than even the classic side straddle hop challenged IAs vid.
Maybe once they’re all trained and stuff, they could share their M2 with the Army of God in nearby Texas for their missions. Repent Amarillo has already identified a target rich environment in their midst. As an example, clicking on one of the pushpins on their Warfare Map, this target descriptor pops up…
Darwin has been on vacation way too long.
Tax Analyst
@gnomedad:
Oh, that link is just too rich for words. Good show.
malraux
@Bruce Webb: I doubt its about people from New Orleans. Shreveport/Bossier City has its own racial divide.
celticdragonchick
@Tsulagi:
I really loved the warfare map, and especially the bullet holes around the borders.
An example of a “sexual business”:
MikeBoyScout
@Church Lady:
You’re kidding, right?
You are certainly not claiming that the wingnuts of LA are the exception in the Confederate States… are you?
I can accept BombIranForChrist’s rationalization that the weather and those damn fire ants and no see ’ems mess with their minds, but the only difference between one stupid group of southerners and another group of stupid southerners is the type of stupid. And they do like to do stupid in groups; Confederacy, KKK, SEC…. ;-)
celticdragonchick
@gnomedad:
That was the best laugh I’ve had today :D
Hiram Taine
You know you’re in the deep south when you see a bumper sticker that reads: “Happiness Is A Belt Fed Weapon”.
Yes, I’ve seen that one in my county..
I’ve also seen this sign in my county..
And here is the story behind the sign.
It’s really a crying shame that stupidity isn’t painful, this place would be in agony.
freelancer
@Hiram Taine:
I want my country back!
Srsly. Medieval fuckheads GTFO.
Tsulagi
@celticdragonchick:
You need sound on to fully appreciate that site put up by the “Special Forces of spiritual warfare.” To hear shots fired and stuff. Jesus would approve.
Chris
I personally think our own particular brand of wingnut here in NC….the kind with protective coating of normalcy…are far more dangerous than those geriatric wienies down in LA.
Josh Huaco
That ‘Repent Amarillo’ site *has* to be a Calvinists for Conservatism style spoof.
celticdragonchick
@Tsulagi:
I got that too. I had to turn the sound off.
Who would Jesus shoot with a crew served weapon?
Gwangung
My rule of thumb is if you have a high possibility of collaterall damage in the normal, expert use of a weapon, then it’s use should be regulated.
PTirebiter
Since Bobby J is so tax adverse, I’d like to know who funded their 50 cal. Muslim/persons of color killer.
Comrade Kevin
Hey, it’s Dad’s Army!
Tax Analyst
@Gwangung:
Methinks that would be a good regulatory standard, except it runs in opposition to the 2nd Amendment that states that each U.S. Citizen has the inalienable right to massive weaponry firepower to use whenever he or she feels threatened in any way, except that they really didn’t mean the “she” part, and when they say “each” they really don’t mean black or brown people either.
Other than that it’s a cracker-jack idea.
kormgar
It’s the south
demkat620
@Chris: Plus speargun attacks by monkeys on the 1-95 corridor have increased 1000%
celticdragonchick
@Gwangung:
Thank you! What you said.
gypsy howell
I can only assume that while the men are “training,” all the women are in the back room ironing the white sheets.
AhabTRuler
Bwah-hah-hah! In America? You must be joking. People are arming for war, dammit.
Although, at the least I imagine that we can all agree that SAMs and ICBMs should remain verboten, for now.
demimondian
I’d think that the euphemistically-named “clinic violence” would also qualify as domestic terrorism. I wonder if this clown was planning on providing protection to the Planned Parenthood clinic in New Orleans.
WereBear
@Leisureguy: That was my conclusion.
From the founding of these plantation colonies, they were doing terrible things to people who vastly outnumbered them.
Quaker in a Basement
A-skeered o’ black folks.
Next?
Chris
@demkat620:
Oh man…Will Farrell nailed him! And that explains the funky metal spears in the back of my I-95 corridor garage…LOL
Corner Stone
I thought everything related to guns was explained by the pen1s.
Origuy
@BombIranForChrist: You left out the hookworms.
joeyess
Lincoln knew:
colleeniem
@celticdragonchick: That’s what I fucking want to know. That’s a weapon of war and no mistake.
HRA
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
ummm – no these are not the “Aristocrats” of the Old South. These are deranged people.
ruemara
hm, I have a solution. I can teach them how to fight, how to fight real ninjas. Just give me a few gallons of gas. Ninjas can’t catch you when you’re on fire.
Jon H
“LA isn’t that isloated from mainland US.”
I like to think of LA and the rest of the deep south as being separated from ME by a massive shit moat.
Might as well be, you couldn’t pay me enough to go down there.
Roger Moore
@Tsulagi:
Please tell me that’s a spoof. Pretty please.
demimondian
@kommrade reproductive vigor: I’m still seething that I’d been married for twenty years before my marriage wasn’t illegal under the laws of the State of Alabama. Thank you, Mrs. Loving. (I know, who am I to complain? There are couples with members who comment here who’d give almost anything to even be that far along.)
Seanly
Most everything. Taxes are too low, ignorance is a treasured commodity and the sun has baked our brains.
Add to those that a lot of the older white males are gripped by fear of a black planet.
Bubblegum Tate
Instead of addressing that, let’s ask the question with the shorter answer: What’s right with the south?
1. Good cooking
2. Cheap cost of living
3. ???
Svensker
@Bubblegum Tate:
Good a/c.
Interesting accents.
Cool architecture (the old stuff).
Great literature.
Florida Cynic
As an original Son of the South, I offer this in the defense of Southerners . . .
The hell with it. I’m going back to trying to find the quicktime format Crazy Frog videos. A much better use of my time.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Why is it that I’m reminded of nothing other than “The Dome” by Stephen King?
Snarky Pickles
@danadevin74:
Maddow did a long segment about them. Of 200 “volunteers” — individually invited and selected by the sheriff — 195 are white men.
Maddow didn’t get to interview the sheriff personally, but I think it’s this guy.
Llelldorin
The amazing thing is that the quoted paragraphs don’t quite cover the sheer volume of stupid. My favorite sentence:
I suppose it was inevitable that eventually these morons would decide to fight terrorism with a trukk with moar dakka. Have they painted it red yet?
Arclite
@ John Cole
Um, you live there. Don’t you know?
flukebucket
SEC Football.
Fear not good people. The south will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
Granted it might be the 22nd century before we get there but we as a people will get there.
sparky
@Leisureguy: thanks for the linky. i had forgotten about Sir Walter. can’t really blame Twain for getting a bit pessimistic about mankind by the end of his life.
the problem is that guys are stupid. unlike males, who never grow up and continue to espouse a political philosophy based on Red Dawn and Atlas Shrugged, at least teen girls stop relying on Titanic as their manifesto. maybe if guys didn’t go bald they could worry about something else, like their hair.
sheesh.
stevie avebury
Remember Katrina. These are the people who will be shooting minorities in their area as they flee the next natural disaster. It really makes me sick.
celticdragonchick
@Llelldorin:
Only a Warhammer 40K player would get that joke! :D
I assume you play Orks?
Jamie
Generations of inbreeding?