Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
So this Austyn Crites character who caused an uproar by approaching Donald Trump with a “Republicans Against Trump” sign…
He had some interesting things to say.
He said he could not be sure but “it looked like” Trump was pointing at him, and may have been “instigating something”. Either way, the crowd piled on him, he said, kicking, punching, holding him on the ground and grabbing his testicles.
Initially, there was the expected reaction of people around him booing, he said. “And then all of a sudden people next to me are starting to get violent; they’re grabbing at my arm, trying to rip the sign out of my hand,” he said.
He said he was a wrestler in his youth and used his training to turn his head to the side to maintain an airway open as he was being choked by one man who had him in a headlock. “But there were people wrenching on my neck they could have strangled me to death,” he added.
Crites said when he was on the ground he heard someone yell “something about a gun” and he kept telling those on top of him that he had merely been holding a sign.
For his part, Crites said he felt relieved when police arrived and placed him in handcuffs, but said officers had to fend off Trump supporters who continued to attack him. “As I was taken from the room, people are just looking at me like I’m a demon,” he said.
Or…looking at you like you crashed their rally. Which you did.
Reports that Crites had a gun, at this time, appear to be completely unfounded. So why did the Secret Service freak out about a sign? Well it could have had something to do with a prior incident:
The No. 1 trending question related to Donald Trump on Google right now is “Who tried to shoot Trump?” Which means a lot of people don’t know the answer. Which is probably because the assassination attempt on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee hasn’t been covered as a major news story.
The answer, authorities say, is Michael Steven Sandford, a 20-year-old British citizen who was in the United States illegally after overstaying his visa. Sandford allegedly tried to pull a gun from the holster of a police officer at a Trump rally in Las Vegas on Saturday. He was arrested and later told the Secret Service that he had driven to the event from California and had been planning to kill the candidate for a year, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Nevada.
Trump’s supporters are also feeling the wrath…
While the mainstream media has relentlessly promoted Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, it has largely ignored or downplayed these violent attacks against supporters of Donald Trump.
For example, the national media paid little attention to a Trump supporter being shot by a Trump detractor in Ohio.
In late July an unidentified 60-year-old man was shot in the leg at Winston’s Bar on Cleveland’s East Side. His assailant, Darnell Hall, 45, shot him after their discussion of presidential politics grew heated. The attacker “was enraged that anyone in the overwhelmingly African-American bar would support the GOP nominee,” the Plain Dealer reports. Hall later surrendered to police and was charged with felonious assault.
Two UCLA students told Sean Hannity on Oct. 25 they’ve seen a lot of anti-Trump violence on campus. Haley Nieves said protesters crashed one of their pro-Trump rallies. “They were stomping on the American flag during the event and even attempting to burn it afterward.” Dominique Blair said, “You face crazy leftist mobs that are not tolerant of your views whatsoever, and it turns into a lot of bad debates. Sometimes violent, sometimes hitting and fights. I’ve been all around it.” Blair added, “I am treated very poorly on my campus and other campuses. It’s very hard to be a conservative activist in Los Angeles.”
On Oct. 26 a man dressed as a construction worker took a sledgehammer and a pick-ax to Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Deadline Hollywood reports. The vandalism obliterated Trump’s name on the sidewalk. The man identified himself to a reporter as Jamie Otis. Trump’s star was dedicated in 2007 to recognize his work on the NBC TV show “The Apprentice.” Otis “said he originally intended to remove Trump’s star completely to auction it off next month in New York to raise funds for the women who have recently come forward to accuse Trump of sexually assaulting them over the decades.”
Afterwards, a homeless black woman guarded what was left of the star. The woman held a sign that reads, “20 Million Illegals and Americans Sleep on the Streets in Tents. Vote Trump.” Clinton supporters raided the woman’s shopping cart and hurled abuse at her.
As an angry mob tore up her signs, one man told her “You spewed hate and you got hate.” He added, “You got exactly what you were dishing out. I told you. I warned you.”
Even now…
An unthinkable crime along the Sacramento River — only five days before the presidential election a random act of violence was aimed at a Donald Trump supporter.
Hao Lee had taken his 2-year-old son fishing on what seemed like a beautiful November afternoon. He parked his white Dodge Ram truck along Garden Highway near Elverta Road. The back bumper sporting a pair of Donald Trump stickers.
“About a couple hours into fishing I heard someone yelling out ‘F’ Trump,” recalled Lee.
Lee and his son were only about 50 yards from where his truck was parked, near the edge of the river.
Their peaceful fishing trip was about to take an abrupt and scary turn.
“After that I heard glass breaking, I called 911 and a couple of minutes later I saw smoke,” he said.
Lee’s first concern was the safety of his son. So he decided to stay put, near the water. When the voices and commotion were gone, Lee approached his truck. But it was too late. Flames were shooting out the windows. The truck was a complete loss.
We frequently hear some pablum about the passions involved in this particular election getting out-of-hand, with a subtle implication that there is symmetry: For every Trump fan bullied, threatened, injured, his property vandalized, there is a reverse-image correlation involving a Hillary fan suffering something identical from a vindictive Trump supporter. It’s one of those things people don’t say outright, but they want everyone within earshot and line-of-sight to go away thinking it. Well, I have my doubts. “Violence at Trump rallies” was the clarion call all throughout this past summer; and if you paid close attention, you realized the violence at the Trump rallies was being brought to the Trump rallies, by Hillary Clinton supporters. Exactly like this Crites character. And then Project Veritas came along and made it known to us that this was not only true, but far from spontaneous; it was engineered. And then, by way of Wikileaks, this claim found additional support.
The asymmetry, however, is not what interests me. The right, and the left, advocating for civilization’s preservation, or destruction, respectively. There’s nothing new about this. I’ve called it out a few times myself.
I’m interested in this attitude. “I came to crash this Trump rally, and the people there made me feel uncomfortable so that makes me the victim.” My hope is that it is completely fraudulent. This would indicate we’re up to our eyeballs lately in people who are dishonest…but, at least, sane. This is the true nature of bullying. Anyone who’s been bullied in school understands this. The bully takes perverse pleasure in convincing others that he’s the one being bullied, and the target of his bullying is the “real bully.” When we hear about “peaceful protesters,” that’s usually the real story I’ve noticed: The peaceful-protesters were actually rioters, crashing a rally. It’s all about the public-relations, so after the crashing is done the next chore is to make the public think of the bullies as the victims and the victims as the real-bullies. These are undefiners, intent on muddying the waters so that the public will respond with confusion, fatigue, an attitude of “I dunno whom to believe so I’ll just be glad when this is all over.” That’s how undefiners work.
I was thinking about this when I saw in my e-mail this morning that Quora wanted to know: “Is the Democratic party a ‘bully’ party?” Something in Quora’s algorithms sends the comments from the few moderate to rightward-leaning participants down to the bottom, with the smug lefty agitprop floating to the top. I don’t know why that is. It’s interesting. But anyway, it allows for an examination into this question of “Are they lying their asses off or are they batshit crazy?” The very first response provides some clues:
My former boss lives in Florida and has a Clinton bumper sticker on her car. This is her account of a recent encounter with a Trump supporter:
“Stopped at a light, a young nice-looking white guy in his 20s jumped out of his car which was right behind us, carrying a Trump Pence poster. He banged on our window, whereupon my husband rolled it down to see what he wanted. What he wanted was to let out a stream of expletives and ask why we weren’t asking whether he and his girlfriend were registered to vote and trying to register Spanish people and illegals instead. We had no idea what he was talking about and, fortunately, the light changed so we didn’t have to find out. I am thinking that he was unhappy with our Clinton/Kaine bumper sticker. He continued to follow us and, as he moved alongside us, he was mouthing ‘motherfucker’ and giving us the finger. As we turned, he continued to follow. When we had to stop for another light, he jumped out of his car again with his Trump poster in hand, and banged on our window, cursing apoplectically and screaming that people like us have ruined this country along with all the other traitors, Spanish and illegals, and Trump was going to get rid of them all. He then said that we looked like we were probably motherfucker Jew bastards and, well, you get the picture. It was a VERY LONG red light. His anger bordered on derangement, and I have no doubt that had he had a gun, he would have killed us. A black woman in a van next to his car, listening to his diatribe, did what few others in her situation would have – she got involved and tried to shout him down. I was so grateful, and she was my hero of the day. He then shifted his full attention to her, calling her a nigger and telling her to to hurry so she wouldn’t be late for her job at Steak ‘n Shake. Whatever that means. At this point, as his (poor) girlfriend started getting out of the car, he got back in, and that was that. Shocked and subdued by this unusual and unexpected encounter, my husband and I drove in silence for the next ten or so minutes, lost in our thoughts. He then commented quietly, ‘He was a deplorable.’ If this is part of the plan to make America great again, then I don’t want any part of it.”
A week after my husband and I moved to our home in a very red state, he was accosted by a woman—who identified herself as a nurse, of all things—who wanted to argue with him about Obama because our car had an I [heart] OBAMACARE bumper sticker. The only Clinton signs we have seen in this city have been in minority neighborhoods, and some of them have been stolen, according to the residents.
It wasn’t Hillary who talked about “Second Amendment people” reversing the results of the election. From where I sit, it’s Hillary supporters who have more to fear, not the other way around.
Let’s assume this is truthful. A question is raised: How come when it is the Trump fan who endures injury, there’s evidence; and when it’s the Hillary fan enduring injury it’s this friend-of-a-friend-said-so stuff? It is not a pattern we see disrupted often. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it disrupted at all.
We should at least assume that the feelings are sincere: “From where I sit, it’s Hillary supporters who have more to fear, not the other way around.” The prelude “from where I sit” is a rather clever way of concealing the fact we’re dealing with feelings, not thoughts. Which is a problem. Since the disagreement is over whether to revolutionize — destroy — civilization, or preserve it, this naturally leads to a disagreement over feeling versus thinking. I’ve observed this, many times, as well. This leads to a conflict between obfuscating details, versus paying attention to them. The reason for all this alignment is actually pretty simple: Preserving details, and thinking as opposed to feeling, these things take some effort; maturity; work. They’re a pain in the ass. But, you can’t build or preserve anything without persevering, getting it done. Without that creation and preservation are impossible. But you can sure as fuck wreck a few things, and have fun doing it.
So I’m sure Mr. Crites felt threatened as he lay there, immobilized by others — for the sake of maintaining security and safety. The smug know-it-all on Quora who thinks Trump fans are posing all the danger, probably feels that way too. Maybe even the firebug on the Sacramento river feels threatened. Well yeah…that’s why civilization operates the way it does. There’s an implied social contract that we do our thinking by thinking, not by feeling.
That’s part of what the revolutionaries want to destroy. It’s too hard and stuff.
Civilization itself, when we look into it a bit deeper, is pretty much an antithesis of that. “I’m the bully, I’m stronger than you, you do what I say.” If civilization means anything at all, it means there are complications involved — no, you don’t get to take my stuff and firebomb my truck just because you’re bigger, quicker, stronger. Also, I get to think some thoughts I want to think, even if it makes powerful people angry. Can we have civilization, without having those things? I don’t think so.
I hope people don’t read this and think I’m trying to imply Trump fans are more civilized than Hillary fans. That would be a shame, for I do not mean to imply any such thing. I’m saying it outright.
Related: The Left’s Impulse to Bully Is Universal.
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A simple suggestion for the snowflake whose “former boss lives in Florida”…
Don’t put bumper stickers on your car for any reason.
No one cares what you care about and putting those types of political messages on your car INVITES the crazies (of any persuasion) to confront you.
Same goes for yard signs.
- bammit | 11/09/2016 @ 14:22