The funny thing about making monsters is that they have this nasty historical habit of turning upon those they know best.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, state Senate President Andy Biggs (R) and “constitutional sheriff” movement leader Richard Mack were all on hand at an event on May 5 in Tempe, Arizona. The stated topic of discussion at the event, which was hosted by a group called the Arizona Liberty Caucus, was the “Dangers of an Article V / Constitutional Convention.”
Rhodes recalled serving as a Nevada delegate for former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) during the 2008 presidential campaign. He accused McCain and the “GOP machine” of manipulating the convention to sabotage Paul’s chances of winning the state’s delegates, according to a video of his speech posted by Right Wing Watch.
“John Cain (sic) is a traitor to the Constitution,” Rhodes later said, misstating the senator’s last name. “He should be tried for treason before a jury of his peers — which he would deny you.”
“He would deny you the right for trial to jury, but we would give him a trial by jury,” Rhodes added. “Then after we convict him he should be hung by the neck until dead. But that was their candidate!”
All that wacky fun “destroy the government” right wing nonsense is all fun and games until somebody reminds the monster that Republicans are part of that government, and that they haven’t exactly delivered on their promises to the fever-bright beast.
The monster is still necessary, representing a healthy chunk of Republican primary voters as it does, so it will get invited to parties and functions and generally treated well, rather than taken down. But at this point that monster is well and fully in charge of the Republican party, and with more than a score of GOP hopefuls looking for 2016 glory, there is no shortage of red meat being thrown at it in order to feed it and make it stronger.
And so it will continue to rampage around, and the Villagers will pretend like one of our major political parties isn’t controlled by the kind of bloodlust that wants to see open conflict in this country, the kind that ends with lots of ropes, lots of bullets, and lots of bodies.
What rough beast, indeed.
Karen in GA
I’m surprised that they turned out to be unreasonable crackpots. Oh, well. Good thing they’re armed.
Yatsuno
Say it with me now people:
HOOCODANODE???
PurpleGirl
I’m not dumbfounded or surprised by this man’s words. I am, however, saddened that our politics has come to this. They are evil, just evil. They would have been perfectly at home in Tudor England.
Snarki, child of Loki
Looking forward to “open carry” at the GOP presidential nominating debates.
Watch out for Cruz, everyone, he tends to shoot from the hip.
Ajabu
Yes, be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
Sometimes I’m glad I’m old and (probably) won’t have to experience the 2nd civil war but I do fear for my grandchildren. It’s really just a matter of time, I’m afraid.
My family was Caribbean based during the first one and after they ended slavery there (earlier than the US) reconstruction was a whole lot different – and better for us. Black folk do run things in the islands, you know.
NotMax
So when is Rhodes announcing he’s running for prez?
chopper
i’m sure walnuts will handle this in his usual calm demeanor.
Punchy
That’s some pre-K grammar construction. Methinks Stewie wasn’t in the top 50th percentile of his Conrinthian College class.
Chris
The problem with blowing crazy people full of hot air and conspiracy theories is that, while John McCain and the others think it’s just throwing a bone to a dog so that he’ll come out on election day, the crazy people think it’s all real. So they wonder why you’re not following up on it. Why haven’t John McCain and the other Republicans staged an uprising against Obama? Isn’t he an illegitimate Kenyan Usurper creating death panels?
Eventually, they decide that if the Republicans aren’t following up on it, it can only be because they too are part of the Big Conspiracy.
NotMax
@Punchy
Not to mention saying “hung” instead of “hanged.”
r€nato
OK, let’s see if I have this straight:
*The organization is called “Oath Keepers”.
*It is very likely that every single one of them owns at least one and probably several firearms.
*It is also very likely that every single one of them believes that the 2nd Amendment exists as a check on government tyranny. To be much more specific and clear about it, that Americans have a right to violently resist government tyranny with lethal force.
*It is also very likely that every single one of them sincerely believes that President Obama is a dictator, a tyrant, and a traitor who has trashed the Constitution and is bent on grabbing all their guns, and that they have been very vocal about this belief.
So… when are these oh-so-brave “patriots” going to put their money where their big, fat mouths are? Must we pull out the Crayolas and coloring book and help draw them a picture? Why aren’t they keeping their oath to protect the Constitution from its domestic enemies?
Chris
@Ajabu:
I’m not exactly on a “Second Civil War” bandwagon, but I do increasingly think that we’re eventually counting down to a crisis on the same scale as the Civil War or the Great Depression. No idea what that crisis will be, but given the degree of intransigence and lunacy on the other side, and how universal these things are on the other side, I don’t see how we don’t eventually reach that kind of nation-threatening crisis.
SuperHrefna
It just seems like there is nothing, nothing, these people can do to bring themselves into widespread disrepute. Domestic terrorism? I’ll see your Timothy McVeigh and raise you a Cliven Bundy. Some insanely large percentage of the population considers Jade Helm to be a credible threat to their liberty. Now death threats against McCain. And it’s all just business as usual, shrugged off. I despair, I really do.
raven
@Karen in GA: You are aware that these morons are in Athens this weekend?
r€nato
@Chris: They talk and talk and talk but a President Bernie Sanders just might be the thing that gets them off their Barcaloungers. I can think of many reasons to vote for Bernie, but all their carping about Obama being a socialist is reason #1 for me. Let’s give them a real quasi-socialist to whine about.
Cervantes
It’s been a week or so since the event. So far as I can tell, McCain hasn’t been asked about it on the record, and he hasn’t said anything about it, either. If only he wasn’t one to shy away from reporters and TV shows, we might know what he wants us to think about his proposed (trial and) execution.
As for Biggs, the state Republican bigwig who was there at the event, he has told a local reporter that he thought he was attending a Promise Keepers’ event. (“Oath,” you see, is almost synonymous with “promise,” he did not dare to explain.) And when he heard the man speak about the maybe-forthcoming (trial and) execution, (he told the reporter) he felt he could not respond because the First Amendment required him to keep silent.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Run away! Run away!
Face
Combining all four of those names, I got “Stewart Rhodes Biggs Dick”. Sounds about right for these a-holes.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: On the way to the beach early Saturday. I have had two people ask me if we are going to “allow” work on the addition while we are gone. WTF?
chopper
@raven:
too close for my comfort.
NotMax
@raven
Dang. Is it already time for the Purity of Essence conclave again?
:)
the Conster
@Cervantes:
That’s actually something I don’t think I’ve heard before from these nutbars. That is so dumb it makes my hair hurt.
benw
Aww, your stupid fringe candidate lost in the Republican primary and now you want to see someone die for it in a gruesome way. My heart breaks for you psychos.
Cervantes
@Karen in GA:
If anything I’m even more relieved than you are!
Further, commenting on oaths taken by US military personnel, they say this:
PurpleGirl
@Cervantes:
…he felt he could not respond because the First Amendment required him to keep silent.
No, no, NO. The 1st Amendment means that he too could respond. Although, discretion being the better part of valor, he probably felt that if he did say something, he’d be the next one on their list for trial and execution. So, he was really trying to stay safe.
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes:
Wow. Nothing says “free speech” like holding your tongue when a wingnut spouts b#tsh!ttery because it’s his (and yes, usually his) right to say this stuff without being challenged with pesky things like facts. Just wow.
Dipstick state bigwig didn’t think for a minute that he had the selfsame right to state his position in public without fear of arrest or prosecution, did he? But then it’s not “arrest or prosecution” anyone surrounded by armed wingnuts is afraid of.
NotMax
@boatboy_srq
Also too, unless he was tied to the chair, nothing was preventing his getting up and walking out.
Mike in NC
I keep confusing those Oath Keepers with the Promise Keepers, a bunch of creepy religious extremists. No doubt there’s a lot of crossover.
Iowa Old Lady
I suppose there’s no point to asking what Rhodes is talking about. John McCain would somehow for some reason prevent these people from having a trial by jury for some unnamed offense? The world must look very confusing from inside this guy’s head.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Well, you know how those carpenters and plumbers are. When the cat’s away, the mice will play! And fwck up everything. Also we’re all thieves and ex-cons, so don’t leave the family jewels laying about.
Many years ago (20?) I worked on a job at the home of a Sinclair gas heiress, building a 1/4 million $ deck. She would hide in the woods with binoculars trying to catch people doing stuff. I walked off that job 3 times and never got fired for it. The woman just was not right. How bad was she? The brick layer called the previous brick layer to get the recipe for the mortar. The conversation went like this:
BL 1: I need the recipe for the mortar on the Sinclair house.
BL 2: Do you havfe your tools on the jobsite yet?
BL 1: Noooo… Not yet.
BL 2: Leave. Now. Run as far and fast as you can. NOW.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Cervantes: I see no reason for him to respond at all. He’s been threatened with that and worse, and been subjected to worse, and he’s still here and the people calling for his head in the noose are meaningless Paultard blowhards who have never seen a day of real danger or pain in their lives – and everybody knows that.
The president of the Arizona Senate – not just a senator, but a STATE SENATOR, mind you, has revealed himself as the craven piece of shit that he is, but hey, he chose to live in Arizona with the lunatics (can we start calling it West South Carolina?). He can pay the price of knowing that he’s a coward when he can’t sleep at night.
Bill
@Chris:
I certainly don’t want a war, but I’ve been saying for a while that it’s time to seriously discuss whether the American experiment has failed and it’s time for a break up. I think we need to have that discussion, in part, to avoid the possibility of a war.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Jeez. Solid mahogany 4 by 16s?
Karen in GA
@raven: Hadn’t heard about that. For this weekend, at least, I’m glad I’m 30 miles away.
Howard Beale IV
These folks’ intelligence is so low that if it was measured in voltage it wouldn’t even light up a good ol’ fasioned NE 222 light bulb.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Fuck that. When my bride got antsy a few weeks back and wanted to contact our contractor about the delay I said “listen, we either trust him (and his guys) or we don’t”. I am not going to be a pain in the ass even though it does bother me not to be able to get in there and carry some hod!
Karen in GA
@Cervantes: Oh, hooray.
Thor Heyerdahl
@NotMax:
Blazing Saddles provides important grammar lessons.
Charlie: “They said you was hung.”
Sheriff Bart: “And they was right!”
raven
@Karen in GA: Republicans Are Invading Athens This Weekend
Cervantes
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
You mean he was a … POW!?
But seriously, do you think he’s the only one being threatened by these lunatics? How about any of his constituents? How about anyone else? Would you keep silent? Even if you were a distinguished part-time US Senator and full-time war hero?
Karen in GA
@Cervantes:
SSSSSHHHHHHHH! He hates when people bring that up!
kindness
I grew up in the 60s & 70s. Back then the media was complicit but it at least questioned the lunatics and treated them as such. Nowdays the media ‘claims’ it has to give all sides equal standing regardless of the level of sheer crazy. That is our biggest failing. Not being able to be honest.
Fun modern twist. Now Fox questions the (Dem) moderates and treats them as lunatics. Go figure.
raven
@Cervantes: Ted Sampley sweated his ass for years. And then there is this dude
MattF
I’m just wondering what choosing delegates to a state convention has to do with the Constitution. Silly me, I know.
Just for amusement I’ll note that, as reported in the NYT, the Rs are struggling to define the criteria for participation in ‘debates’ that could include up to twenty candidates. One, apparently serious, proposal is to just leave the whole thing up to FOX News.
Betty Cracker
A timely reminder that as maddening as the absolutists and crybabies on our side can be, they’re infinitely preferable to their counterparts on the right.
Eric U.
granted, the repubs have managed to propagandize their rubes into thinking that they needed to revere the rich, but when that, “hey, wait a minute” event happens they are going to be in real trouble. And it doesn’t have to happen to all of the idiots they have brainwashed either.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: It was a thing of beauty, I can tell you that. It was 3 segmented arcs across the front with a 3 piece handrail and 6×6 turned balusters (I showed up one day and she and the architect were out in the garage weighing the balusters on a bathroom scale to check for moisture content. I could not convince them that wood varies in density from tree to tree and that they needed a moisture meter for that purpose to begin with) The fascia was this ridiculous 7 piece monstrosity that my boss could make neither heads nor tails of from the blueprints and the decking was all 1/4 sawn old growth redwood. The stairs alone took more than a week for me and another carpenter to build. Of course, my walking off the job again might have had something to with that. ;-)
At first I felt sorry for her husband, he was always having to apologize for her (one day came running up the driveway chasing me, begging me to come back)(“Not today.” I replied), but then I thought, “Well, he did marry her.”
Also, $250,000, 20 years ago… Half a Mil these days?
Germy Shoemangler
I would love to see the hosts of “Meet The Press” and “Face The Nation” ask him about it.
@Cervantes:
A few years ago when we were living in an extremely red town, my son had a nose bleed. My wife panicked and called 911. The men (there were four of them, two helped my son, the other two just stood around looking at my house and out my window at my back yard) actually made me more uncomfortable than my son’s nosebleed.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven:
I always knew there was something wrong with you.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: He picked a hell of a week to stop sniffing Agent Orange.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Cervantes: Yeah, because what they want is the attention. I don’t take threats as anything more than the yapping of a poodle from behind its owner’s fence unless the person delivering said threat has any capacity whatsoever to make good on it.
These guys don’t.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Sampley was worse but at least he died. He ran a bunch of the gedunk stands between the Wall and the Lincoln Memorial back in the day. he was a real fucking blight.
Cervantes
@MattF:
That would only be fitting, given how much Roger Ailes has done for Republican propaganda all these years, beginning with the pornography he started producing for Nixon in 1967.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: This is a house my buddy built for an MD from Atlanta. He went to Vancouver with a Japanese and Norwegian carpenters. The selected the logs, rough built it there and then put it on trucks to Georgia. There is a 150ft snake sculpture in the driveway and they made the decks out of “iptay”?
Iowa Old Lady
@MattF: I think it was Rachel Maddow who reported another proposal was to base debate participation on how much money the candidate has raised.
Face
@Germy Shoemangler: Calling 911 for a nosebleed? Yikes.
raven
The stairway was made from a huge tree and had a copper snake as the handrail.
Snake head.
The owner has Hitler’s cufflinks and a padlock from a farmhouse at the Battle of Waterloo!
Germy Shoemangler
@Face: He was dizzy and about to black out. But thanks for playing,
They gave him oxygen.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Nice. Reminds me of Sam Maloof’s house. The man built every inch of it with all the love and care he put into his chairs. (his rockers went for $10,000 and the waiting list was years long)
Some day I would like to do the same for our house. Sigh… A man can dream, can’t he?
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
He’s been sniffing John Boehner???
Ewww.
Cervantes
@raven:
@raven:
A complete jerk. And he made millions of dollars selling those T-shirts.
It’s also worth noting that he assaulted McCain’s chief of staff — inside the US Capitol.
SRW1
@r€nato:
Unfortunately, they can’t agree to a date for the Restore Liberty Uprising cause there’s always some of ’em who have a conflict with a pre-arranged barbecue.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Ooo, I see the similarities!
NotMax
@raven
Termite’s idea of heaven.
@MattF
Make it into a series. Possible titles:
So You Think You Can Govern A Country?
President Island
Top Chief
Truthiness or Consequences
(Sadly, Mad Men is already taken.)
Aleta
Seems like only yesterday that Stewart and the Oathkeepers were themselves convicted of treason, with potential punishment of being shot in the back, back at the old Bundy Ranch.
From the video:
Germy Shoemangler
@NotMax:
Mitch Hedberg said a guy building a table is a cooking show for termites.
gogol's wife
OT, but this is hilarious — a comment on an article about Shirley Temple’s ex-husband trying to derail her government career in 1969:
“Shirley would tell you that herself but she died. Obama was responsible.”
I believe it’s serious, not snark. Add the death of Shirley Temple to the list of Obama’s crimes!
gogol's wife
@Germy Shoemangler:
How dare you call 911 for your bleeding son.
ETA: I’m not being serious, in case it’s not obvious. I know reading comprehension is poor around here.
Frankensteinbeck
These cranks have always been around, but their positions have become part of the mainstream debate. Why? Because a black man was elected president, and the more moderately racist elements of the GOP (IE, most of it) were forced to face that the Paulites and Birchers were right all along. Their predictions that minorities would gain enough power to override the white establishment came true. In this post-apocalyptic world, all the other fringe positions must be taken seriously.
@Eric U.:
Forget it. There are no rubes here. We’ve gotten as close as we’re going to get, a GOP base so panicked with racism that they lurch from one Great White Hope to another. They’re electing Teahaddis as crazy as they are, and frankly the only difference between the Teabaggers and the ‘establishment’ was who was smart enough to aim the gun at blacks and not at their own face.
scav
So the Rough Beast is now Perambulating them? How time flies — it seems only yesterday they were pushing it around in its Perambulator.
Germy Shoemangler
@gogol’s wife: My son has a bunch of health problems. I think my wife made the right call. This was about fifteen years ago.
But the guys who showed up, two helped, two were just sight-seeing.
My reading comprehension is fine, despite my age. Our son is now out of college, so he survived that emergency.
Elie
Every western first world country is experiencing some sort of right wing movement. Ours unfortunately are armed but the sentiment to break apart from the main government that is seen as not representing their interests, particularly their antipathy toward “the other” — is common. Some of that could tear apart Great Britain. France and most European countries are dealing with right wingers who though not as violent as ours, have that potential — Germany as well. These groups also feed off of each other thanks to the internet, they are encouraged to scale up rhetoric and public displays. Eventually, as we have already seen, some of their more crazy people act on the threats and incitements. I am pretty sure that the FBI keeps a pretty good eye on them, but has to be very careful. I don’t believe, however, that these folks yet represent enough of an impetus to really start a civil war, but it we had some big national catastrophe that fanned our fear further, maybe they could.
All of this is fear and insecurity — all of it — unlike the first civil war which was more about true politics and economics. These guys are scared and stupid with few prospects in a changing world. No one and nothing can fix their insecurity… the world has changed.
JPL
@raven: What time is your appt.?
SatanicPanic
GREAT! Seriously, I hope these morons demand a place front and center at the next GOP convention.
gogol's wife
@Germy Shoemangler:
I’m glad he’s fine. I know the feeling of being slightly uncomfortable with “first responders.”
raven
@JPL: 1, but we’ll see. This joint is a zoo.
trollhattan
@Iowa Old Lady:
They’re both doubtless direct descendents of the Firearms Keepers(tm).
Am I misreading or is the douchecanoe cited in the post threatening to kill a sitting senator? I don’t read code, but that doesn’t seem heavily encoded either.
Germy Shoemangler
@SatanicPanic: To win the hearts and minds of the general electorate?
the Conster
@Elie:
What we’re witnessing is their desperate and ultimately futile need to control something – anything in a world that just screams “you’re not the boss of me!!!”. Their whiteness is all they’ve got, and by god, guns. Lots and lots of guns. How many guns can you shoot at a time though? And by the looks of things, they can’t organize themselves out of a paper bag because fortunately as armed as they are, they’re even dumber.
A Ghost To Most
@gogol’s wife:
But willful ignorance is strong.
SFAW
@gogol’s wife:
Unlikely, since her full name was Shirley Temple BLACK. And you know how those people stick together.
shell
Red Queen: Sentence first, verdict afterwards!
SatanicPanic
@Germy Shoemangler: Push down their popular vote total to where it belongs= 27%
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Someday I hope to make a pilgrimage there.
Germy Shoemangler
I think Shirley Temple was somewhat like Ronald Reagan. Shirley ALMOST got the part of Dorothy in the Wizard Of Oz. Ronnie ALMOST got the starring role in Casablanca.
If their film careers had gone differently, maybe they wouldn’t have ventured into republican politics.
SatanicPanic
@gogol’s wife:
What are you trying to say?
trollhattan
@SatanicPanic:
Heh.
shell
@Germy Shoemangler: Ronnie as Rick? Nope, just can’t picture it.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: In the early 90s an acquaintance told me that her brother had just finished building a $600k deck for a house in Marin County. I’m trying to remember the name of the town, very expensive place. My mind was thoroughly blown.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: This was nice, my wife’s dad was an old school builder and we were able to take him for a tour before it was finished. I would have never seen that they matched the grain in the wood on every turn and that the bathroom countertop was some marble that looked like rocks on the bottom of a stream.
Germy Shoemangler
@opiejeanne: Most ordinary folks have no idea what the rich do with their money. $600k decks, $20k bottles of wine.
Didn’t Chris Rock talk about that in an interview recently? If most people knew how the rich live, there’d be a revolution.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elie:
Kind of have to disagree with that italicized part, the first civil war was very much based on fear, the fear of “losing our way of life”.
Calouste
@Elie:
The Scottish National Party, despite their name, are solid socialists. The right wing movement in the UK (UKIP) doesn’t have a direct interest in tearing the country apart.
Germy Shoemangler
@SatanicPanic:
If they were completely honest about their goals and beliefs, wouldn’t it be even lower than that?
Last month I copied and pasted Koch’s 1980 libertarian platform. People here commented it read like something out of the ferengi rules of acquisition.
trollhattan
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not to ignore losing that human “property.”
150 years on and they’re still petitioning the league office to review the results.
gogol's wife
@Germy Shoemangler:
But Ronnie started out as a Democrat, he should have known better. Shirley’s family were Republicans from way back.
Bubblegum Tate
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yeah, I need somebody to unpack that one, too. I’m fairly up on current Wingnutese, but I’m kinda lost as to what, exactly, that bit is supposed to mean.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I did the matching grain with our cabinet fronts. Nobody has ever noticed. Heh. The countertops look somewhat similar to what a buddy of mine did for his. There is a process whereby you pour concrete for the tops, then grind them down so the aggregate is exposed, and then finish that. Pretty cool stuff, but I’d hate be there for the grinding… The dust would choke a rhino.
OzarkHillbilly
@Germy Shoemangler: $179.3m for a Picasso.
J R in WV
We get a lot of our food from Mexico and Canada, winter asparagus from Peru in giant containers via freighters, etc. limes from Mexico (essential for gin and tonic!!) lettuce and tomatoes. With no water left in California for Ag, unless FL can start growing more winter vegetables, we’ll be back to cabbage to prevent scurvy in February.
If there is no fruit nor vegges in the grocery stores, what will Oath Keepers do?
Tommy
@raven: McCain is close to a rock star. Or so I thought. My father took me to see him speak when he was a professor at the Amry War College. I thought he was the coolest thing in the world. I now question most of his life story.
Karen in GA
@gogol’s wife:
He didn’t leave the Democratic Party — the Democratic Party left him. Who could blame him, what with all those unions and Medicare-wanters? He was never in a union, and he spent his later years healthy as an ox, so… oh, wait.
SFAW
@opiejeanne:
Oakland? East PA?
Germy Shoemangler
@Karen in GA:
Ronald Reagan speaks out against Medicare (socialized medicine)
I would have cast him in Casablanca if it would have kept him out of Washington.
SFAW
@Germy Shoemangler:
I feel as though there should be a tie-in with the Luis Lang thing, somehow.
scav
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m not sure I would have ever caught the grain thing in corners (also as I probably just wander in the deprived crowds, although maybe now I’ll be called out for peering attentively into odd places) but doors and cabinet fronts can be easier (especially when they, um, butterfly / spatchcock it). Might not have mentioned it though.
rlrr
@Germy Shoemangler:
http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/reaganincasablanca.asp
trollhattan
@Germy Shoemangler:
Local friends have a nice house, on the river. They’re not extravagant, but they are well off. Wonderful people, wonderful kids.
The neighbors on one side bought the house on the other side, knocked it down and began building. And building and building. On visits my buddy would take me on site tours, pointing out the elevator, the various “great rooms” such as the library, the boat dock with the million-buck yacht, etc. etc.
Library really got my attention because the “finish carpentry” budget was estimated at close to $200k. The uncut timber was laying around the room–a virtual who’s who of exotic tropical hardwoods, and lord knows how and whence they were obtained. Basically, whatever the wife wanted the wife bought. Years later they moved in and began working my friends on selling their house, peskily preventing them from joining their two properties. Not gonna happen.
Anyway, I was unsurprised when the neighbor turned out to be a neo-Libertarian asshat.
I still get a little teary-eyed thinking about his suffering.
SFAW
@rlrr:
When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
Tommy
@Germy Shoemangler: My parents have more money than they can spend in a lifetime. They don’t do the 30K bottle of wine. I had my father call me the other day. Tell me if I had not used the hedge chipper I just bought, Menards had a sale going on. I could put it back in the box and save 11%. I’d take it back and we’d rebuy the darn thing for the discount.
That isn’t a man that buys a $30,000 bottle of wine ….
feebog
It was pointed out upthread, but apparently what this jackass is upset about is how Nevada delegates to the Republican National convention were selected in 2008. McCain didn’t set those rules, the Nevada Republican party did. And if I recall, Ron Paul supporters gamed a lot of caucus states around the country to gain delegates to the convention. What it comes down to is a bunch of whinny babies who couldn’t get their foot in the door because they didn’t have the votes. Rooting for injuries on this one.
Karen in GA
@Germy Shoemangler: To be fair, the creation of Medicare did, in fact, kill freedom. And by “freedom” I mean “freedom to fear suffering and dying of preventable illnesses when/if I retire.”
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s rock.
Germy Shoemangler
@trollhattan:
Every place I’ve ever lived (including the house we now own) the wood cabinets all still have the assembly instruction stickers on the inside. Installers didn’t bother removing them, and after all these years they seem to be stuck on for good.
The libertarian dude only wants government for defense and a justice system. Does that include environmental protections and food safety? Or do we leave that up to the courts?
Germy Shoemangler
@Karen in GA: And yet at the old tea party rallies I remember seeing “keep the government out of my medicare” signs.
I’m convinced if Teddy Roosevelt (or even Nixon) had pushed through universal healthcare, they tea party oldsters in their motorized scooters would be holding up signs saying “government hands off my single payer universal healthcare, you libtard morans”
I’ve had too many office co-worker libertarian conservatives who could never be counted on to work the weekend, enjoying their 40-hour weeks and paid vacations. While spouting whatever latest anti-union witticism they’d heard from Lush Rimbaugh
Ruckus
@Iowa Old Lady:
The world must look very confusing from inside this guy’s head.
Bet it doesn’t. He’s very clear, very focused. It’s not clarity that’s his problem, it’s reality.
catclub
@Tommy: I have just one question. Hedge trimmer or wood chipper? Cause I have a hedge that I would like to chip into sawdust.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Wonder how long before they had it torn down to put something else up because you know they used it once and could no longer walk on it.
Matt McIrvin
@gogol’s wife: That comment actually drove me to look up the circumstances of her death, to try to figure out what this person might have been talking about.
She was a lifelong smoker and died at age 85 of COPD, so I got nothing.
Germy Shoemangler
@Matt McIrvin: I am a connoisseur of wingnut internet comments. I read them on the web editions of my local newspapers and on blogs. They usually echo stuff from the blaze or breitbart but sometimes they get creative and form their own narratives.
Yesterday I learned that Obama was the affirmative action president. I used to respond, but there is simply no way I can win, so now I just read for enjoyment.
Someone here said that engaging the RWNJs is like playing chess with a pigeon. The pigeon poops all over the board and claims victory, no matter what you do.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: A realtor who helped us with three real estate transactions, married Sam Maloof in 2001. I hadn’t thought of her in a while, so thanks for bringing her to mind; she was a wonderful person.
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
You could play their game and shoot them for shitting all over the board.
Don’t worry I’m just parroting VDE.
gelfling545
@Cervantes: Could he possibly have meant the 5th(if, indeed, he actually meant anything at all)?
Germy Shoemangler
@Ruckus: I said pigeons, not parrots.
What’s funny is that the RWNJ comments will appear after stories that have nothing to do with politics. If there’s an article about music, or food or any random thing, someone will feel compelled to turn it into a discussion about those damn libruls.
Thanks Obama.
opiejeanne
@Germy Shoemangler: When we visited Versailles a few years ago, and had just stepped inside the first astonishing room on the tour, we and everyone around us wondered aloud that the revolution hadn’t happened sooner.
Allan
@Cervantes: This is the most awesome thing I have ever read. Thanks for sharing it!
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: Pfft! My grandpa could have bought a van Gogh for a little less than $250 in the early 1900s.
opiejeanne
@J R in WV: I always envision those guys as the ones who don’t eat a lot of salad or fruit. In 1978 we drove from California to Kansas City, MO and everywhere we ate after leaving Arizona we were asked if we wanted the salad that came with the meal.
opiejeanne
@SFAW: Tiburon, CA.
There is an expensive neighborhood surrounded by Oakland called Piedmont. I don’t think we could have afforded a garage there.
Kathleen
@SuperHrefna: It will be interesting to see if the Mainslime Media cover this story now since one of their “own” (not some commie lib or brown person) has been targeted.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
Was thinking you might have meant Ross. Or possibly Belvedere.
Just One More Canuck
@Germy Shoemangler: It’s funny how people use the phrase “affirmative action” when talking about Obama, but not when talking about people like Bush. Is there any possibility that he would have gotten into Yale, then Harvard, if it weren’t for his family connections? How is that not a form of ‘affirmative’ actions
Ajabu
@Chris:
I wouldn’t say I’m on a “bandwagon”. I’m looking at the situation with trepidation and, like you, definitely expect something real ugly is going to happen. It can’t go on like this permanently.
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
I said pigeons, not parrots
Understood. I said parroting not parrot. I was riffing off of a possible comment by Villago Delenda Est.
boatboy_srq
@Tommy: The problem isn’t the 10%, or the 1%. It’s the 0.01%. The trouble is that the 0.01% can persuade the other 0.99% that they have more in common with the 0.01% than they do with the 99%.
boatboy_srq
@Ruckus: The world inside his head is very neat, very ordered – and very, very flat.
Ruckus
@boatboy_srq:
Nice.
Patricia Kayden
I’m curious to know exactly what McGrumpy did that should earn him the death penalty. And it’s quite amazing that T’Baggers just know that someone is guilty before they even try him/her. These people are so bloodthirsty. Dracula must be jealous.
Germy Shoemangler
This bird has flown
Germy Shoemangler
@Patricia Kayden:
Something about preventing Ron Paul from being president. It’s all very fuzzy. What worries me is these people show up at every town hall meeting. And they never miss an election.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: Yeah, those are pricey too. I had to look at a map to spot the name.
My friend said she had seen pictures of the deck, that it was on something like six levels overlooking the water. I still couldn’t figure out how a deck could cost that much.
Ajabu
@opiejeanne:
And right above Piedmont in the hills is Montclair. Also very expensive.
Please don’t ask me about the house I bought there (as a fixer) in 1970 for $27K.
Sold it six years later for $62K thinking I was making a killing.
It sold in the late 90s for $1.4 million.
That’s one of the reasons I beg for CD funding. Great business acumen!
Patricia Kayden
@Germy Shoemangler: What worries me is that their words can be put into action and someone is going to get killed. Could you imagine the furor if someone on the Left got up during a meeting and made a similar comment? I can. Look at the fuss on the Right about Mrs. Obama’s recent, innocent comments in regard to the racism she and her family have faced.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
Just too ironic. Do these people even know or acknowledge the collective action that got them the 8 hour workday, or do they think that Ayn Rand did it?
Ian
@Elie:
It was about slavery. The people who led the rebellion stated as much in their private conversation and letters. The myth of the war being for state’s rights can be seen clearly in the South’s support for the fugitive slave act, the largest expansion of federal police power of the time.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
Had customers in those areas. They don’t think about money like mere mortals. You know how people dream about what they’d do if they won the lottery? People that build 6 level decks out of more trees than it takes to build a nice house? They live like that. And many of them think everyone else could if they only worked a little harder. Or they think how nice it is to be better than others and how nasty it is to have to put up with the help.
Germy Shoemangler
@Ruckus: You’re right. I had a boss, the owner of a small company I worked for. One xmas he invited everyone over to his house for a party. His wife talked about her hobby of watching home shopping networks and impulsively buying whatever caught her eye (usually after a few glasses of wine) no matter what the cost.
And their deck cost more than my whole little house.
Tree With Water
@feebog: Not sure why, but these Memo From Turner lyrics came to mind after reading your comment:
“..When the old men do the fighting and the young men all look on.
And the young girls eat their mothers meat from tubes of plasticon.
Be wary of these my gentle friends of all the skins you breed.
They have a tasty habit – they eat the hands that bleed…”.
Elie
@Ian:
That (slavery) represented an economic reality of much cheaper labor compared to the north, which was by that time entering the industrial revolution. This would impact the incomes of thousand white northenners if slavery was exported to other states (as the southeners wanted to do), depriving a lot of those folks of incomes against which they couldn’t compete if they were working in competition with slaves. Obviously, controlling production and how the economy was going to function is also political. So yes, it was slavery but that was slavery not only as a social institution, but an economic and political force.
raven
Since ya’ll have been so nice. As I posted they found no cancer on the lesion. The ortho said “man, you’ve taken a beating”! However, there is a severed nerve in the finger and he’s going to reattach it in the morning. Meeting with him it seemed like no big deal but then the hospital called and they are going to put me under and then want it “elevated” so I think I’m back tom square one on the healing. It’s minor compared to the cancer and a cut never can cause problems so here we go!
raven
dupe
Tree With Water
@raven: Geoerge Castanza: “Hello, doctor, is there word yet? Benign? Oh my god.. why? why? why? why me, why now? …what?… benign is good news?”.
eyelessgame
Can’t help but think of the greatest Western ever made…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqdXD-KokAI
Ruckus
@raven:
Hope the reattachment works. When I did my thumb the doc said he couldn’t do the nerve but it may grow back on it’s own. It didn’t, at least not fully nor properly. Been fun for the last 27 yrs. with it getting worse, slowly but surly. Oh well, no one said life is fair or easy. But so far I’ve had it better than many, worse than many. Even, average, not bad.
opiejeanne
@Ajabu: Well, you did make a killing for then. We bought a house in 76 for $42k, six months later it was worth $80k, and sold it in 84 for $125k. The buyers sold it two years later for $140 and have lived there ever since. It’s value is estimated at around $470k.
We did well but the place was a bit of a shambles when we bought it, but it didn’t show. It was the kind of place where you’d go to replace a lightbulb and you’d discover you’d have to rewire the house. My dad talked us through that nightmare and we learned a lot about how to look at a house when buying.
SFAW
@eyelessgame:
I clicked on the link, thinking you were serious.
Wasn’t as bad as getting Rick-rolled, but …
SFAW
@Germy Shoemangler:
Well, they’re obviously better people than you, since they get all their work done, etc., etc.
Added to that: “witticism”? From any RWTM? Might as well have written “rational, intelligent comment.”
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
The furor was because she misspoke; she meant to say “Racism that I have shown towards Whitey.”
If you don’t believe me, I’ll just post the video I received from Chief Editor Korir, via Larry Johnson. All will become clear.
Chris
@Ajabu:
Basically, yeah.
I don’t even agree with @Bill: about needing a conversation to break up the Union so much either, but I think a conversation on that level is coming eventually whether we want it or not, because the right simply can’t leave well enough alone.
One of the more telling elements of this happens when you look at issues on which the right has completely won the conversation, e.g. gun control or Israel policy. It doesn’t make them moderate and satisfied (like, say, the populist left on economic issues after the New Deal). Instead, they only get crazier and more conspiratorial. So even giving up the fight, lying down and letting them walk all over us isn’t an option; it’ll only make them madder.
Barry
@Cervantes: “Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association …”
I won’t say that there are zero liberals there, because people are weird, but I’ll bet $20 that the ratio is 99:1 against.
And of that 99; I’ll lay another $20 that it breaks down to no more than 10 sane, and 89 crazy/Klan/neo-nazis.