Comments on: Resisting the urge to fly towards the flame

By: Deodorant

Deodorant — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 20:22:04 +0000

Many here seem to think that once slavery ended, African Americans suddenly had an equal chance. In reality, slavery was replaced with peonage. Laws required ex-slaves to work as sharecroppers until they paid off ther ‘debts’. The accounting was done by the ex-massa. They bought their supplies from the ex-massa’s company store.

Blacks were rountinely arrested for crimes like vagrancy. When they couldn’t pay their fines, a white guy would pay their debt and they would be forced to work to pay it off. They would be incarcerated on the property of the guy who paid the fine. Convicts were leased out.

The peonage system was worse than slavery. The people running the system had no long term interest in the peons because they didn’t own them. Thousands died in US Steel mines and working on the coke ovens.

This went on until the civil rights era. I thought people who came to this site revered history.

By: Deodorant

Deodorant — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 20:03:25 +0000

Cattle “don’t harm the land. They graze.” Cattle are not native to the dry grasslands. They can cause desertification. When they drink from a stream they destroy the bank, muddy and contaminate the streams.

“It is OURS, and the government is supposed to managed it for our benefit” That is exactly what they are doing. It is ours, not exclusively Bundy’s. Maybe I would prefer that Bundy doesn’t turn it into a complete desert. He has had a free ride, like the ‘Negroes’, for 20 years. If it is ours, he should pay up and stop abusing the land.

I am glad you made that point.

By: Deodorant

Deodorant — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 19:53:39 +0000

“It’s pretty much the same argument that apologists for the welfare state make now.” What exactly is that argument? Please explain how it is ‘more or less’ the same.

By: Deodorant

Deodorant — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 19:47:08 +0000

and people, including the press, have a right to publicize his delusions and ridicule him He lost no rights by making idiotic comments. He may have lost some followers that didn’t want to be associated with him. That is their right.

By: Deodorant

Deodorant — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 19:41:00 +0000

Do you know of a case where that happened? This isn’t a law school hypothetical. Women do get denied justice in rape cases all the time. “look at the clothes she was wearing” “She was asking or it”. But I have yet to hear of a case not being persued because the alleged victim was a racist; especially if the victim was white. Maybe if there was no physical evidence and the accuser lacked credibility, there might be a problem.

Emitt Till was lynched for whistling at a white woman. That is racism.

By: Deodorant

Deodorant — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 19:34:28 +0000

The BLM better be back. He violated the terms that allowed him to graze his cattle on public lands. He refused to pay the heavily subsidized rate. He has declare himself immune to the law. That should not be left as a precedent.

By: Deodorant

Deodorant — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 19:31:05 +0000

He also denied that the federal government existed. His delusional thinking is consistent. The slavery comment was just more sensational. But all his comments on the actual dispute are delusional.

By: Deodorant

Deodorant — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 19:18:08 +0000

“what’s wrong with telling the truth” Where to begin? Did Bundy do a study? He based his observation on a drive by housing project?

“their young men are in jail” Yeah, but why? Perhaps the answer is complex and involves the very prejudice that Bundy expresses. Anyway, it is beyond the scope of a comment. People have written whole books on this.

“when they were slaves, and they was able to have their family structure together” This is total bunk; perhaps based on watching ‘Gone with the Wind’ or 4th grade history taught by a white teacher in an all white classroom. Families were routinely broken up to meet the economic needs of the owner. Women were raped and their progeny was sold down the river.

What a happy picure he paints. The happy slaves singing and eathing chicken. No whips. No hangings. No runaways. 179,000 didn’t join the Union Army.

I could go on. But what is the point. The whole quote is delusional. It is a Disney version of slavery.

By: Deodorant

Deodorant — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 18:57:54 +0000

“uncontested property” Sorry the property (cattle) was rightly contested. There was a court order. He was warned multiple times. The cattle was seized because he did not pay 1.35/month/steer to graze on public land. That is cheaper than state land. That is cheaper than private land.

He also ignored a directive that some land was taken out of use for grazing. I live near a town park. Some of the park became bare from over use. It was reseeded and fenced off in order to repair it. Do I have the right to use that part of the park because it is a public park? Can I decide I don’t recognize the town government and I don’t care if the land is bare?

By: Deodorant

Deodorant — Sat, 26 Apr 2014 18:44:54 +0000

“dropped on by Leviathan in a completely inordinate manner” Actually he refused to pay fees that were way below market rates for 20 years. He abused the range. He owed over 1 million dollars. A court order was obtained. They went out in force because it has been determined that is is safer. Some people might resist 1 or 2 officers. But they are likely to be safely subued by a significant force. If the offender wants to fight anyway, the force will be less likely to suffer casualties.

I remember a incident some years ago before LEAs developed these tactics. A game warden attempted to arrest a poacher. The warden was murdered. The poacher, now a murderer, killed others before he was caught.

By: Xand3791

Xand3791 — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 23:55:38 +0000

I’m one of the disappointed ones, too.
I understand the desire to jump at a chance to prove a point you were hoping to be able to make, but it’s not really a good strategy to try to prove that being a moth flying towards a flame is a bad thing by being a moth flying towards a flame.

By: tom swift

tom swift — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 23:22:01 +0000

We seem to be spending a lot of time complaining about how unfair this all is. It’s as if nobody on the right understood that the media has a visciously leftward tilt.

That’s not what the thread is about; not at all.

The tactics of the leftoid press are obvious and well understood. But the Professor’s post was about

(i) accepting the press’s hatchet job on Bundy, and

(ii) congratulating himself for sitting on the sidelines during this affair, particularly in light of (i).

Some of his regulars disagree with the wisdom or the virtue of this.

That’s what the thread is about.

By: snopercod

snopercod — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 22:25:52 +0000

Beck joined the “Bundy is a Racist” lynch mob today, so I’m done listening to him.

By: DuraMater

DuraMater — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 20:12:05 +0000

Yes. Yes. Yes to all of your points. But most especially I thank you for calling out two personalities on talk radio who present themselves as conservative champions of the common man. Their sanctimonious indignation over what Mr. Bundy had reportedly said (according to the NYT) revealed a shallow and cowardly character much akin to several of our most despised elected leaders. Mr.s Beck and Hannity are no longer welcome in my home.

By: Phillep Harding

Phillep Harding — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 19:50:43 +0000

“I will repeat again, that nobody, I mean nobody, can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like a Republican can.”

“Did Reid also snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?”

Reid is not a Republican. Reid also has the legacy media covering for him.

By: Phillep Harding

Phillep Harding — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 19:31:19 +0000

A recent example being the dozen or so reasons Bush gave for going back in to Iraq. The public was not able to handle multiple reasons and the news media simplified to a single, dramatic reason; WMDs. Rove went along with it, and that was a mistake.

By: Phillep Harding

Phillep Harding — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 19:13:37 +0000

“First they come for…”

By: SmokeVanThorn

SmokeVanThorn — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 18:39:32 +0000

A useful idiot, happy to keep doing the work of the left.

By: gs

gs — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 18:05:58 +0000

MABAW, it can make sense if you concede that Republicans are also selling out their base (albeit in a different, and more short-term, way than Democrats are).

By: gs

gs — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 18:02:03 +0000

This myopic vision normalized by incompetent or malicious individuals needs to be addressed.

It’s unlikely to be addressed while many swing voters believe that anti-abortion absolutists are the tail which wags the GOP elephant. I trust the Right on abortion as much as I trust the Left on “common-sense” gun control.