So let me try and explain why this particular incident got up our collective wick so quickly and so badly.
First, a lot of it is the cumulative hammering you've been doing since...well, it feels like forever but at least the fifteen years since 9/11. We got used to - not okay with, but used to - being called "traitors" and "cowards" and "pussies" because we questioned your excitement about bombing and/or shooting the shit out of the public enemy de jour. We grew to expect that you would call anything we supported, whether it was abortion or freedom from theocracy or using cunning (or economics, or diplomacy, or pretty much anything) instead of bullets, "foolish", "impractical", "cowardly", and "anti-American".
We got used to hearing you describe our belief that taxes are the price of civilization as "stealing" and our conviction that regulation of the commons helped prevent the sort of greed and selfishness that got these Hammond people in trouble as "tyranny".
We didn't like it. Oh, hells, no. But we pretty much gave up trying to unscrew your heads on that subject, figuring that this was just your default setting.
We also got used to the big media outlets giving your whackadoodle ideas equal time just like they were actual human thoughts. So when we tried to discuss things like heading off climate change or not going all Operation Wetback or treating women as women and not as life-support systems for wombs and you started shrieking "Liar!" and "Babykiller!" we just sighed. Forget it, Jake, it's Wingnuttown, we would mutter. It's not worth the aggravation.
We especially gave up trying to warn you, and the newspeople, about the fire you were fucking with your fondness for wild talk about "Second Amendment solutions" to "government is the problem". See, we kept saying, We the People ARE "the government"; that's the idea, anyway.
Right? Kinda baked into the pie back in 1789?
That the problem with "Second Amendment solutions" pretty much led to the sort of "solutions" proposed by the western Pennsylvania whisky distillers and Dan Shays and Jeff Davis. And that those "solutions" were the kind of solutions that led to "solutions" like burning down your kitchen to get the roaches out of the oatmeal bin; ugly and violent and not really "solutions" at all.
Because every time we'd bring that up you'd start shrieking about "gungrabbers!" and "tyranny!".
So. Here we are.
A bunch of your pals - or, at least, people who claim to be your pals - have taken their bullet launchers and their energy drinks (but not enough jerky or cheeze doodles, apparently...) and done, in effect, what Shays and Davis and the whisky rebels did; taken a patch of ground that the U.S. government claims and broken rules the U.S. government has made and are defying the U.S. government to come and make them behave.
And are you guys ashamed about this, this armed sedition? Are you angry that these stupid jamokes are saying the quiet parts of Tentherism and "Second Amendment solutions" out loud? Are you out there with a bullhorn telling these screwheads to knock it the fuck off?
Hells, no. Once again, we're left to remind you that part of "a republic, if you can keep it..." is not losing the fucking Whisky Rebellion.
And, once again, the news media is fucked up like a football bat about this and giving your screwhead pals all sorts of free airtime to blarb their nonsensical screeds and, once again, you're giving, and going to give, us nothing but shit about it.
And we're really, really, really fucking sick and tired of it.
But since we've long figured out that arguing with you about this stuff is like trying to teach German irregular verbs to a cat we're reduced to screaming at these HeeHawsbullah morons and at our federal government to quite treating them like they have a point other than on their fucking heads so's we don't lose the fucking Whisky Rebellion.
Will that work? Doubtful. It hasn't so far. Christ, you're on the verge of electing Donald Fucking Trump your presidential candidate, forcryinoutloud, and the feds have let these goddamn screwhead VanillaISIS teahadis off the hook before. It's not like we're really hoping to get you knuckleheads to try a taste of realism for once.
It's just that sometimes the bullshit gets to the point where a liberal's just gotta fucking vent.
8 comments:
There exist rumbles that the armed rebels will face charges.
Of course, it is only the County Sheriff saying it, so he could be tossed under the bus.
Hi Chief
I'd like to post this in your comments, with your permission. I don't do twitter or facebook, so it's kind of a word of mouth appeal.
https://www.gofundme.com/vvhqgm7x
"Send Oregon Y'all Quaida to Somalia
You've probably all heard of the Y'all Quaida YeeHawdists who are living in their own Brokeback Mountain fantasy sequel in rural Eastern Oregon. They don't like having anyone, especially the government, tell them what they can and can't do. So I propose to make them ecstatic by buying them passage to Somalia on the slowest, leakiest boat that I can find. They'll be thrilled -- a place where there is no government and where everyone has firearms -- and we'll be thrilled to be well rid of them. And we can have betting pools on how long they last once they get there.
Win-Win-Win.
In the event that they don't want to go, or can't be lured up the gangway with shiny objects (and snacks!), I'll donate everything collected (less Gofundme fees and charges) to the Southern Poverty Law Center https://www.splcenter.org/ who tracks mentally deficient bigoted ammosexuals like this in the (unlikely) event that maybe, someday, the FBI will get around to doing something about them, rather than peaceful unarmed protestors on the left end of the political spectrum."
Appreciate it if you could post it or pass it along. Regardless, I appreciate your writing and the time you put into your blog.
The stupid is weapons grade, isn't it? I've been being a hermit more and more and frankly the comparative silence is very restful. But there is no escape from the lunacy. I hope, like Badtux says, that they can just turn off the power (and hope for not too much damage) so the idiots can do without power without going outdoors to deal with generators and all that wintertime fun.
Well, the low temperatures are below freezing right now.
Turning off the power will likely prevent the furnace from operating and potentially breaking all the pipes / toilets.
My problem is that I'm afraid that the feds will let these people slink away or, worse, let them march out, heads up, which will just feed the goddamn myth and make the NEXT inevitable guntard uprising more difficult to deal with.
It's like any other insurrection; you need to do a little instructive hanging and burning to impress the yokels with your conviction.
I know this thread might be dead by now, but everyone should go to https://walden.house.gov/ and listen to hes very sympathetic discourse on how scum like the Bundy boys "came to feel this way". I remember after 9-11 anyone who tried to talk about, you know, history, got labeled a terrorist sympathizer / apologist if not an outright traitor for the same thing. He's also calling for these fat gangbangers to "leave peacefully" but doesn't mention anything about arrests. If you go to the bottom of his webpage you'll find a list of contact numbers which you can use to let our "moderate" repub congressman know how you feel about treason.
I'd agree, Paul, except talking to Walden is like trying to read Moby Dick in Korean. He's a total wingnut who represents wingnuts. He would love to turn every wildlife reserve and park in Oregon into a fucking strip-mine and feedlot because freedummm...
Computer networks are typically defended by firewalls. Once inside the network, the defenses get weaker. Looks like the rebels have been mucking about inside the federal governments network/computers.
I sure hope that none of the rebs knows much about computers.
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