An interesting angle has been to excuse Bundy as a freedom fighter whose duty is higher than legal niceties. National Review's Kevin D. Williamson, for example, compares Bundy to Gandhi and George Washington. I don't remember Gandhi pulling a gun on his enemies, but I fell asleep in the middle of that long Ben Kingsley movie, so maybe I missed that part. As for Washington, I believe he was fighting tyrants to found a nation, to which he colleagues had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their scared honor, whereas Bundy just wants something for nothing.
Williamson does attach a cause to Bundy's freeloading, suggesting the response should be "legislation that would oblige the federal government to divest itself of 1 percent of its land and other real estate each year for the foreseeable future through an open auction process." So Bundyism in his view is about taking resources that belong to all Americans and giving them to rich people -- that is, traditional conservatism -- and, in lieu of getting enough votes to do it legally, threatening violence -- that is, next-wave conservatism, otherwise known as fascism.
But the best so far is former Republican Senate candidate Alan Keyes:
At the Bundy ranch: A 'Rosa Parks moment'?Again, I didn't know Rosa Parks refused to pay her bus fare for 20 years and whipped out a gun when challenged, but I'm sure I don't read the same history books as they do.
Kevin Williamson is an embarrassment to political essayists. then again, I'd say that of anyone who is quoted approvingly by Mark "Buy Gold" Levin
ReplyDeleteNational Review's Kevin D. Williamson, for example, compares Bundy to Gandhi and George Washington.
ReplyDeleteA comparison to a pacifist and to the president who called up a 13,000-strong government militia in response to some New York farmers not wanting to pay their whiskey tax. The parallels are amazing ... in a non-Euclidean sense.
Williamson wants to use Bundy Ranch as a stepping stone towards selling off all our national assets to the rich, while Keyes rails against the elitist oligarchy enriching themselves through the government. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if pundits actually listened to what their colleagues were saying.
ReplyDeleteAs for Washington, I believe he was fighting tyrants to found a nation,
ReplyDeleteAnd, later, he was also fighting the Whiskey Rebellion nitwits--who today's conservatives would also be calling freedom fighters while declaring Washington a fascist.
Newly minted, even.
ReplyDelete"legislation that would oblige the federal government to divest itself
ReplyDeleteof 1 percent of its land and other real estate each year for the
foreseeable future through an open auction process."
Gosh, I wonder how would they respond if the next time Bundy balked on paying usage fees, the new private owner seized the trespassing cows and Bundy pulled the same act?
How do you know those lines are really parallel? Have you followed them all the way to their ends and measured them?
ReplyDeleteKW seems not to remember that all of the recent (last 15 years or so) development in Las Vegas, Pahrump and various other Nevada communities took place on land auctioned by the BLM to private owners. The auctions in 2005 were for more than $1 million per acre.
ReplyDeleteThe developers walked away from a good amount of that land sticking the banks that financed them with the bad loans which as I recall were socialized as well.
But, as usual, Williamson never let's facts obviate a bad argument.
Netflix already has a writing team on site completing the pilot and prepping the first season finale.
ReplyDeleteFirst they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they splatter your brains over the desert. (Sorry. I just can't seem to let that go.)
ReplyDeleteWait, it's coming clear:
ReplyDeleteBundy = Gandhi
Bundy = Rosa Parks
Got it. Take a "conservative" nutbar, lunatic action, or moran-based rally/demonstration/protest. Liken it to a liberal icon, principle, or historic moment. Voila: punditry.
Can't we do that? Mutatis mutandis? E.g., "Affordable Care Act: A Fall-of-Communism Moment?" Or: "Higher Taxes, the Way Reagan Liked 'em!"
Just crazy enough to work?
Just imagine Alan Keyes's parallel universe in which Rosa Parks went strapped. I'm sitting here trying to imagine how long the Montgomery Bus Standoff would have lasted. Probably somewhere between 15 and 45 seconds. "Need a cleaning crew for the front of the cabin on the Cleveland Avenue line..."
ReplyDeleteHigher Taxes, the Way Reagan Liked 'em!
ReplyDeleteConsidering St. Ronnie raised taxed 6 times in eight years, he MUST have loved higher taxes.
In all seriousness, Reagan--however dopey and dim he was--at least recognized the financial catastrophe his first round of tax cuts unleashed. He then used those facts as a basis for trying to get the fiscal house in order (albeit by increasing taxes on the middle class). Today's rightwing idiots look at the exploding deficit caused by tax cuts and screech for more tax cuts.
"legislation that would oblige the federal government to divest itself of 1 percent of its land and other real estate each year for the foreseeable future through an open auction process."
ReplyDeleteBecause ... just because?
Do they understand why countries exist? Why societies exist?
Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you'll live -- at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they maytake our lives, but they'll never take our grazing fees!!!
ReplyDeleteFreebird, I mean freegraze!!!!
FREELOAD!!!
ReplyDeleteA small nitpick: King George was no tyrant, the British Empire,as far as the White Colonists were concerned, was not an oppressor, and there is a good case to be made that they had no legitimate grievance that justified a revolution. In other words, Bundy and Washington are not as far from each other as we'd like to think..
ReplyDeleteSo Bundyism in his view is about taking resources that belong to all Americans and giving them to rich people -- that is, traditional conservatism -- and, in lieu of getting enough votes to do it legally, threatening violence -- that is, next-wave conservatism, otherwise known as fascism.
ReplyDeleteFucking brilliant distillation there, Edroso.
What, you don't remember when General Washington held Martha in front of him at Bound Brook so the Redcoats would look bad when they shot at him?
ReplyDeletePfft, liberal history books. They always leave out the good parts.
Bundy = Gandhi
ReplyDeleteBundy = Rosa Parks
They're pulling their punches, I'm waiting til they go full Jesus.
From each according to his ability to backstop massive losses, to each according to his political donations.
ReplyDeleteTo enable the oligarchy?
ReplyDeleteThis point is not mentioned often. The hotheads who started the revolution, well, i root for them, but I still do not understand what had happened to them that they imagined killing people was the answer.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, the Revolution had some happy occurrences, i.e. the creating of this nation, so the point about Sam Adams being a penis is largely forgotten
Again, I didn't know Rosa Parks refused to pay her bus fare for 20 years
ReplyDeleteand whipped out a gun when challenged, but I'm sure I don't read the
same history books as they do.
By the time David Barton gets around to the re-write, she'll be an AR15-toting white lady who owns a fertilizer plant.
Is your first day? Of course, they don't. They only understand a society of the individual, until their feelings get hurt by criticism. At that point, everyone has a moral responsibility to tell them everything is gonna be okay
ReplyDeleteCome on, Kevin is way too stupid to know any of that
ReplyDeleteNo brains, no splatter.
ReplyDeleteSince they apparently don't expect the US to survive more than a few hundred years into the future what difference does it make if we sell off all the public lands? There won't be any public to care by the end.
ReplyDelete"You can't spell freeload without reload."
ReplyDeleteIs there an expression equivalent to "that's not even wrong that can be applied to BBBB's prediction. Like "That's not merely right? ITs like, supercalifragilisticallyquantum right?
ReplyDeleteThey can remake 300 with an all-cow cast. Hmmm... if you flip that "3", it looks like an "M"... M00?
ReplyDeleteHeh, moolon labe!
They don't even listen to what they themselves are saying.
ReplyDeleteBehold - The only time someone like Bundy will let you get away with comparing him to a furrin brown dude or a blah woman is if he's threatening to kill someone.
ReplyDeleteTHIS. IS. ANGUS!
ReplyDeleteMaybe they can get the Kochs to steak them to the production costs? The script would, obviously, be udder fantasy. But they could dress it up with some song-and-dance numbers--if they can find the right hoofers.
ReplyDeleteWell, that about rounds up this comment. I'll be resting my doggies over by the chuckwagon.
I'm as free as a load now,
ReplyDeleteand this load you cannot cha-a-a-a-a-a-a-nge.
The only thing that NRA Jesus loves as much as guns is the sacredness of a contract?
ReplyDeleteUnless said contract is with a labor union, in which case break into as many pieces as necessary for profit.
This is National Review, inventor of the argumentum ad culus. Research is for peasants and interns.
ReplyDeleteThe regulator rebellion in NC against the lords proprietors and other tax farmers was a stab at justice. It was too left wing for the likes of Washington. Some his cronies were among the people who put it down and hung the rebels.
ReplyDeleteIf they do it as cinema verite with the Bundy family stripped to the waist, they could call it 300lbs.
ReplyDeleteIt can be a side project for these already-employed actors:
ReplyDeleteat least recognized the financial catastrophe his first round of tax cuts unleashed. He then used those facts as a basis for trying to get the fiscal house in order (albeit by increasing taxes on the middle class
ReplyDeleteWell, that's how it was sold, at any rate, though theft is theft, even if you try to be all "responsible" about it.
Bartonian mechanics.
ReplyDeleteSri Bundhi should just call his cows religious objects and be done with it. Probably end up with a nice tax break to boot...
ReplyDeleteThe taxes they were all complaining about were taxes levied to pay for the French and Indian War, which occurred in large part because American colonists refused to stay on their side of the border.
ReplyDeleteImagine a surly teenager who is not only bitching about having to pay for the increased insurance bill after he flipped over the family minivan, but thinks he's entitled to a Camaro as well.
I was gonna make a beefcake joke, but this is better.
ReplyDelete"EXTREMISM IN DEFENSE OF FREEBIES IS NO VICE."One of the best post titles ever!!! Have you been saving that one, or did it just come to you? Oh well, I guess it's some sort of knack, and if I haven't got it, I won't get it now.
ReplyDelete"Fucking brilliant distillation there, Edroso."
ReplyDeleteBoosted by that title (Extremeism in defense of freebies....) there was, and I mean it in a good way, no where to go but up.
Wow, they found time for that between eradicating the Native American, surveying and stealing their land and selling it off?
ReplyDeleteAh, what brilliant men they were.
A few hundred years into the future?
ReplyDeleteDepends on how they do on their Mission.
ReplyDeleteThey're so shiny when they pop out of the press.
ReplyDeleteThat's the B-side of Stairway to Kolob.
ReplyDeleteI've wondered what would have happened if some Koch-owned oil company wanted to frack on the land, rather than the government wanting to protect it?
ReplyDeleteI'll bet you Bundy has a large amount of gold stashed on his ranch.... or maybe on government lands.
ReplyDeleteI may have worn out the elbows on this quote in discussions of the sobby wahabbis at Hobby Lobby, but hey, it's Good Friday... Romans 13:
ReplyDeleteLet every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; 4 for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority[a] does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. 6 For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.
"but I'm sure I don't read the
ReplyDeletesame history books as they do"
Oh, of course you do! The difference is, you know they are movies and TV shows.
I've wondered what would have happened if some Koch-owned oil company
ReplyDeletewanted to frack on the land, rather than the government wanting to
protect it?
Disqus says you wrote that 14 minutes ago. I'm assuming you stopped wondering about 13.8 minutes ago.
Aw, you know what Williamson really means: Bundy gets to buy the land cheap, thus solving the problem of pesky BLM types rummaging under his couch cushions for nickels and dimes.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of like the priest I knew in the `50s who just happened to win the church lottery for the brand-new `57 Plymouth.
"A small nitpick: King George was no tyrant, the British Empire,as far as
ReplyDeletethe White Colonists were concerned, was not an oppressor, and there is a
good case to be made that they had no legitimate grievance that
justified a revolution."
Jeez... have you not been watching the new AMC series "Turn"? The one about spies during the American Revolution which portrays the British as red-coated powdered-wigged SS Storm Troopers?
Nitpick: If you mean that they invented pulling arguments out of their asses then it is argumentum ex culo. It's AFAIK an ablative.
ReplyDeleteObviously you're missing the footnote for this passage: Only applies to the little people.
ReplyDeleteOr, what this dude said.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that if the Revolutionary War had not been fought when it was, it would have been fought, at least in the South, when Britain passed the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which ended slavery in the colonies (with the exceptions "of the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company," the "Island of Ceylon," and "the Island of Saint Helena".)
ReplyDeleteThere are several things to consider. Firstly the dems held the House for all of the eight years and the Senate for the last two. Furthermore the republicans including Reagan's handlers weren't as irrational and crazy as today though at least as callous. Finally republicans then and now have no compunctions about raising the tax burden of low earners and the cuts were redistributionist in that regard. They only fear the political backlash of raising taxes on a numerous minority of the electorate.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Latin's not even my fifteenth language. (Which reminds me--after the British evacuation of Crete in 1941, the War Office supposedly had to be dissuaded from issuing the troops an "Ex Creta" medal.)
ReplyDeleteA contract is a contract is a contract ... but only between Ferengi white male property owners.
ReplyDeleteAll very true. And let's not forget Reagan's other favorite "revenue enhancer:" user fees. These served several good purposes beyond just bringing in money. They were largely regressive in nature for those fees that ended up being paid directly by the public.
ReplyDeleteAND for those fees that were paid by industry, the fees produced regulatory capture (e.g., the pharmaceutical industry funding FDA's operations through user fees, thus making FDA answerable to industry and not the public).
Indeed, and I really appreciate Roy's establishment of it as a recognizable philosophy by terming it "Bundyism." And, with luck, it will forever be confused with Al and Ted.
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that there will be panels created to discuss the etiology and principles of Bundyism at the next regional Tea Party conventions, and how Bundyism can be incorporated into the Partiers' daily lives. Eventually, there will be books written about Bundyism and will spawn many serious histories of the movement, although most will read like Robert Coover's The Origin of the Brunists.
Funny how bad-faith arguments flow out of their asses like water, yet it takes the jaws of life to pry even grudging acceptance of reality out of them.
ReplyDeleteWingnuts love their fiction.
ReplyDeleteWhich brings me to conservatives and historical revisionism (I like the german Geschichtsfälschung better) Given that according to Scott Lively, Jonah Goldberg and others the Nazis were all gay I wonder what will happen to colored Germans of that era in future rewrites of history. One thing is certain, you can't spell conservative without "con".
ReplyDeleteDo they understand why countries exist? Why societies exist?
ReplyDeleteNo they don't. SATSQ. They are not up to speed with concepts like "society", "modernity" or "civilization"
I prefer the album version that was on There Goes Jivin' Cliven.
ReplyDeleteAlso too: if pro is the opposite of con, then the opposite of "progress" is ....
ReplyDeleteSomething about "highest moral argument for selfishness?"
ReplyDelete...and then they call the EPA to clean up the bio-hazard splattered all over, and make the desert safe for tortoises again.
ReplyDelete"legislation that would oblige the federal government to divest itself
ReplyDeleteof 1 percent of its land and other real estate each year for the
foreseeable future through an open auction process."
Ok [wets end of pencil, protrudes tongue juuust right] .01 x 100....carry the two....would "the
foreseeable future" be oh, right around a hundred years, Kevin?
So now the plan isn't "shrink the Gov't till we can drown it in the bathtub", but "we'll buy up all the Gov't's property, raise the rents, then evict it, and watch it die trying to find one of the homeless shelters there used to be till we bought them up, too".
Right.
W/o a Revolution we could have been Canada too! But no ...
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, all the banks guilty of bid-rigging will be tasked with the auctions, becuz they understand the free markets.
ReplyDeleteWell, in fairness, people who rent a house for a sufficiently long time can legally force the owner to sell it to them at below market value. It's right there in the Constitution, beneath the Vice President's duty to protect the spacetime continuum.
ReplyDeleteThey're pulling their punches
ReplyDeleteYeah, wait till they start comparing him to more white people.
On the other hand, one could imagine that the South would have added quite a bit to the power of the West Indies lobby, and could have delayed abolition for a while. Could be cool to write an alternative history where the American Revolution is a slavers' rebellion taking place in 1861-1865...
ReplyDeleteSee, if I had just kept scrolling down, I would have found that someone had already said it better, as usual.
ReplyDeleteObviously the "forseeable future" part indicates that Williamson's intention is for the federal government to divest itself of one percent of its land and other real estate each year relative to the latest total. Think of it as a paradox, like a footrace between Achilles and a desert tortoise.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember Gandhi pulling a gun on his enemies, but I fell asleep
ReplyDeletein the middle of that long Ben Kingsley movie, so maybe I missed that
part.
that's okay; it's just in the sequel.
Hard to say... it seems like yesterday's Confederate seditionists are the direct forebears of today's wingnuts, and I'm not sure that there were ever THAT many crazy people in Canada.
ReplyDeleteBull!
ReplyDeleteOkay, so, the problem with federal land is this:
ReplyDeleteEven though it's theoretically "owned" by all of us, all decisions about its use are made by distant bureaucrats whom we can only influence indirectly and with great difficulty.
A legitimate problem, to be sure.
Selling it off would involve keeping the distant, difficult to influence bureaucrats, while getting rid of the idea that the land is owned by all of us.
Not sure that that's the best solution to the problem, frankly.
Actually parallels intersect when they are infinite
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that there were ever THAT many crazy people in Canada.
ReplyDeleteBut how do you explain the Harper administration
Heh, moolon labe!
ReplyDeleteCareful there. Graham Chapman will stop this thread any minute now, telling you that it has become too silly.
I'm sorry but why has SOBBY WAHABIS not been valuted to the heights of the internet? There just isn't enough respect in the universe for this locution.
ReplyDeleteI guess by then Classical educations had declined from the days of General Sir Charles Napier, who, after conquering the (now-Pakistani) province of Sindh, supposedly sent a communique back to London bearing the single word "Peccavi" (Latin for "I have [wait for it ...] sinned). Ain't imperialism hilarious?
ReplyDeleteThat is a really interesting idea. Would've sucked for the South, though, having to fight the North AND the British. I'd like to see Confederates fight some Gurkhas, while the world's largest navy blocks every southern port.
ReplyDeleteI preferred Sleepy Hollow, which portrayed the American Revolution as a conflict between the Freemasons and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I think. Actually, I have no idea what that show was about, although I'm pretty sure the people who made it, who also had the settlers of Jamestown speaking Middle English, had no idea what they were doing either other than thinking that a machine-gun toting Headless Horseman was pretty badass, about which I concur.
ReplyDeleteAlan Keyes? Well, consider the source.
ReplyDeleteSelling it off would involve keeping the distant, difficult to influence bureaucrats, while getting rid of the idea that the land is owned by all of us.
ReplyDeletesurely you're not serious, are you? Distant bureaucrats? Au contraire, you'd have very present rapacious exploiters, wringing every dollar they could out of the land until it's not fit to be on.
a pseudo-Riemannian space might explain a lot of wingnut logic, at that.
ReplyDeleteGood ol' Rule of Whitey Acquisition 17.
ReplyDeleteAnd Jonah's orange minions.
ReplyDeleteYeah! I got a tense right in Latin! Whoo hoo!
ReplyDeleteNope. The vacuous area inside their crainia implodes, leaving remarkably little miss.
ReplyDeleteDon't you mean 'Full Metal Jesus'?
ReplyDeleteIf you comment on my comment you might as well like! Please, I feel so unloved!
ReplyDeleteHuh? I see no verb here. And no verb means no tense.
ReplyDeleteTaxes are the user fees of civilization.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans hate them.
Therefore, Republicans are objectively anti-civilization.
Seriously. They want to go back to the Dark Ages, when Biggus Dickus told you how to live. If you have pissed off Biggus in any way, 'bring on the stoning!'.
These idiots have absolutely no idea of the fragility of civilization.
Aw, can't you give a guy a break? I didn't know why it was wrong, I just thought 'shouldn't that be culo?' I'm entirely (badly) self-taught in the Latin department; can't I just have my cookie in peace?
ReplyDelete:(
MacFergus!
ReplyDeleteSo simple, like compound interest, it plumb evaded me...
ReplyDeleteSomebody set up us the bomb!
ReplyDeleteSupercalifragilisticquantumaladosis,
ReplyDeleteAnything can happen then,
It's something quite atrocious
We never know where it appears
Until it goes and pokes us
Supercalifragilisticquantumaladosis!
Now I feel bad. But seriously if you want to master Latin grammar start with the grammar of your own language. It's fun.
ReplyDeleteBiggus Dickus
ReplyDeleteShouldn't that be "Sōpiō"? :-)
I sowwy.
ReplyDeleteCan't spell it without ELO, either. zOMG, it's The Battle of Marston Moor! OK, on four...
ReplyDeleteSufficiently low voter turnout combined with a first-past-the-post multiparty system and flagrant fraud by the Tories? I mean, they got an outright parliamentary majority with 40 % of the vote and 61% turnout, and even then it could still have gone the other way without shenanigans in whisker-thin ridings. So they barely won total control with less than 25% of eligible voters. And sure enough, they've decided that the best strategy going into the next election is to pass a law making it harder to vote, stripping the elections oversight agency of its independence, and opening the money floodgates.
ReplyDelete... Sorry, quite the rant in response to a clever quip. But it really chafes me how effective reactionary sociopaths have been the world over at seizing electoral power.
So they barely won total control with less than 25% of eligible voters.
ReplyDeleteThat's awfully close to 27%. ZOMG, the MAGIC NUMBER.
But it really chafes me how effective reactionary sociopaths have been the world over at seizing electoral power.
You and me both. And even the "moderate" reactionaries are quite insane and reality averse. See the Tories in the UK.
But seriously, would maybe compulsory voting help with that, at least in Canada?
I'm sure I don't read the same history books as they do
ReplyDeleteYou read the Pantload's opus, didn't you? That's their idea of a history book.
Ah yes, the magnum dopus. The ur-text.
ReplyDeleteHey, Tiny Hermaphrodite is already eating my lunch today. Don't drink my milkshake.
ReplyDeleteOh boy, Latin profanity! I am in my element now.
ReplyDeleteThere's a feeling I get
ReplyDeleteWhen I look to the West
And all of the freebies
Are leaving
In a tree by the brook,
there's no songbird who sings
because Bundy diverted
the water...
Upvoted for the Parrothead love!
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm watchin' Fox teevee
ReplyDeleteAnd that man comes on to tell me
How white my skin should be
But he can't be a man cause he doesn't read the same history book as me
I can't get no
Oh no no no
Hey hey hey
That's what I say
I think in this case, it's the faaaaaaaarrrtt-text.
ReplyDeleteHey! Don't have a cow, man!
ReplyDeleteIf there's a sniper in your fencerow
ReplyDeleteDon't be alarmed now
It's just a wingnut who is LARPing...
I'm a fan of "Sleepy Hollow" too, and it sounds like your grasp of the show is pretty solid.
ReplyDeleteI can't NOT think of them as Wahhabi Lobby now.
ReplyDeleteThis Bundy thing is the most blatant example of tribalism in politics I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteThe entire thought process seems to boil down to "Nevada Ranchers are on OUR side and the federal government is on THEIR side".
Williamson spends paragraphs comparing Bundy with other people who have resisted the law to fight for a moral principle, but he never gets around to explaining what moral principle Bundy is defending.
When you talk about how the debt skyrocketed under Reagan, Republicans will always blame it on the Democratic congress.
ReplyDeleteI always bring up the government shutdowns under Clinton and Obama with Republican congresses. Both Clinton and Obama stood up to congress and didn't get pushed around like that little pussy Reagan.
Oh, I thought that was understood. It's the moral right of inherited wealth to ignore the law when convenient.
ReplyDeleteThats my favorite latin story, c'mon! It does make imperialism fun.
ReplyDeleteI wish everyone would read and understand your post. Marvelous, thank you.
ReplyDelete'the response should be "legislation that would oblige the federal government to divest itself of 1 percent of its land and other real estate each year for the foreseeable future through an open auction process."'
ReplyDeleteThat's the real agenda here. There's nothing conservative about it; it's just manic capitalist outrage that something is not being commodified for private profit.
I thought George Washington was fighting for the right to invade French Canada and to sell smuggled tea at jacked-up prices.
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally or otherwise, the "lawless Obama Administration" meme will provide a first-class "they started it so what choice do we have?" cover for actions like Bundy's. I'm surprised I haven't already read arguments that Bundy's offence is trivial compared to the IRS, NSA, Benghazi and the rest but I'm sure it won't be long.
ReplyDeleteCheney definitely fucked that one up, then. He ripped a big hole in the sonofabitch. Sent us thrashing back into the 1500s.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone remember Romney?!
ReplyDeleteWe've tried invading Canada a few times and it never really worked out that well.
ReplyDeleteBundy the Deadbeat is fighting for what he considers a higher cause - his own greed.
ReplyDeleteWay to milk that joke!
ReplyDeleteNow that the standoff is over the Republican party in Nevada is starting to find its frightened little voice. Its decided to go with a Benghazzzzzi approach: i.e. "this needs to be investigated." What needs to be investigated? The arrival of the BLM, the "pointing of guns at american citizens" and the euthanizing of two cows. So far both the Republican Senator and a Congresswoman have gone there.
ReplyDeleteThe Obama administration's backing off of actually shooting these bozos seems smarter than ever--if one hair of Cliven Bundy's balding pate had been touched Issa would have held hearings until the end of Malia Obama's second term in office.
I loved that part where the cursed Jamestowners spoke Middle English. The whole thing is at such an emotionally soporific level that it didn't hold my attention--not enough to pay to see it anyway--but I did like its occasional forays into wit. Like the scene where Ichabod exchanges passionately empathetic observations on the Onstar capabilities in the car.
ReplyDeleteI herd about that.
ReplyDeleteIf these cops aren't otherwise engaged in pepper spraying jaywalkers or Frisbee players, maybe we could get them to have a word or two with Cliven and his pals...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4
the "pointing of guns at american citizens"
ReplyDeleteI'm outraged by that one, too. Especially when the American citizens in question are just trying to do their jobs and collect from a lawbreaking parasite.
Of course, he also advocated double entry book-keeping.
ReplyDeleteCowghazi.
ReplyDeleteNo shit?
ReplyDeleteWell, *somebody* had to say it...
Unless a private property owner wants to ban guns on that property.
ReplyDeleteI think what really needs to be investigated is the BLM's collusion with Las Vegas to get at the aquifer, as some astute commenter noted earlier. That sounds like a real political scandal. I propose that it be referred to as "Water-gate."
ReplyDeleteAimai has a good point. Privatisation is just part of Rapture Readiness.
ReplyDeleteDarell Issa is going to hold hearings no matter what the Obama administration does or does not do.
ReplyDeleteI like that quip about Malia though.
How Un-American.
ReplyDeleteSounds like the social mores of Old World Europe to me.
They take "all your base belong to us" as a directive, not a threat.
ReplyDeleteI actually think Daryll is getting a little tired of these hearings. Cummings is making him work for every soundbite and slapping him back over and over again.
ReplyDeleteI still do not understand what had happened to them that they imagined killing people was the answer.
ReplyDeleteThe Sons of Liberty were called The Sons of Violence by Tories and the like.
A good place to start is the book Those Damned Rebels.
Through the entire book he has shown the effect on the outcome of military campaigns of personality clashes among high-ranking officers, disturbing in almost any war in human history, but lethal in its effect on the outcome of the American Revolution. General William Howe, for instance, frigidly ignored his second-in-command, Major-General Sir Henry Clinton, rarely using any of his barrage of suggestions and battle plans. Howe was relaxed, a man for whom there was always a tomorrow in which to execute a plan. Clinton was "up-tight," always watching his superior with ironic detachment, unfavorably judging Howe's every move; he was a solitary man, incapable of making friends or trusting anyone.
http://ojs.libraries.psu.edu/index.php/wph/article/view/3182/3013
We had a lot of help from the French and others, and, as the old saying goes, those who pay the piper call the tune. Another review of the same book:
Two aspects of this book are particularly noteworthy. The first is the
tremendous resistance among the British themselves to military
involvement against the North American colonies, a resistance that
undermined the King's political and military commitment to quelling the
American revolution. Centered in Parliament and supported by parts of
the British media, such resistance provided "those damned rebels" with a
great deal of political and moral support.
A second aspect is
the key role played in the American victory in 1782 by allies -
especially France, Spain and Holland. All provided troops, weapons and
equipment and expanded the American revolt into a world war. It was a
war the British had problems sustaining.
According to author
Michael Pearson, it was the threatened involvement of Russia in support
of the Americans that finally broke British resistance to a settlement
with the revolutionaries.
http://www.amazon.com/Those-Damned-Rebels-American-Revolution/product-reviews/0306809834/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_btm?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Oh, that war would have been over quickly and decisively, as the British navy would not only blockade every port they had, but also sail up every navigable river and land 250,000 soldiers (experienced and trained ones, mind you) in the heart of Confederate territory within six months of secession, instead of fumbling around the way the Union did. They also wouldn't have had the tender forgiveness the North did after the war, and they would have hung a lot of slaveholders that signed those secession documents.
ReplyDeletePity things didn't work out that way.
Sometimes I think that much of the USA's cultural troubles can be traced to the fact that it was founded in armed rebellion against a bunch of imperial douchebags, fought a civil war where a major point of contention was the abolition of slavery, and then, just to top it off, got to turn the tide of one of the few wars in history where one side really was batshit crazy, evil to the core and bent on world domination.
ReplyDeleteAfter all of that, it's perhaps not so strange that there is an ingrained idea that superior firepower = high moral ground. To the point where Gandhi and Parks are compared to gun-toting lunatics, because even though they weren't violent, to a certain type of USian their non-violence was a flaw that should be charitably overlooked. :P
The problem with this theory is that the craziest people in the US tend to be on the pro slavery side.
ReplyDeleteAhem. I would personally consider the happiness of that particular occurrence debatable, considering that the US has since taken over the British Empire's old role as The Big Bastard Who Lords It Over Everyone. :P
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Canada and Australia are nations too, without the need for rebellion. It just took them longer, which probably made a difference for the ancestors of the people live there today but makes no particular difference for those people themselves.
They probably would have started with Royal Marines burning Charleston to the ground.
ReplyDeleteEh, if anything, it would have just created another source of redneck resentment.
ReplyDeleteBasically, your Confederate army was essentially wingnuttia in uniform and armed - a bunch of poor and working class, poorly educated white guys fighting on behalf of rich white guys, so they could continue to hold down black people. In other words, the Tea Party.
You also have to factor in the idea that This Continent Is Ours And Pay No Attention To Those Aboriginal Types What We Are Doing Away With juxtaposed with a fetish for property rights and an admiration for the Noble Red Man. Our violence was violence in service to nonviolence, just as our theft and pillage was in service to .property rights, just as our oppressions were in service to freedom. Orwell didn't invent this shit.
ReplyDelete"I don't remember Gandhi pulling a gun on his enemies, but I fell asleep in the middle of that long Ben Kingsley movie, so maybe I missed that part."
ReplyDelete"Is that a gun in your loincloth or are you just glad...oh, never mind."
Forget it, Pseud, it's Federal-town.
ReplyDeleteConservative political tract should be footnoted with links to IMDB.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking more, the bunnyranch, really? I don't have a gold medallion to match my chest hair.
ReplyDeleteJust a crazy whay if, but who would you rather play that role? China, Russia?
ReplyDeleteOr, there shouldn't be anyone? The first is sobering. The latter is a fairy tale
He thinks...I myself am of the view that there is a great deal of real estate between complete submission and civil war, and that acts such as Mr. Bundy’s are not only bearable in a free republic but positively salubrious.
ReplyDeleteI think a little sedition is like being a little pregnant.