Thanks to Chuck Gilligan I finally saw the Mountain Goats this week.
Liked it all, but this song really jumped up and grabbed my throat.
• Charles C.W. Cooke takes me to task -- rather gently, considering how abusive I've been toward him -- for my review of his column on the Walter Scott video. Let me try and return the favor. I thought that column showed him resistant to the lessons of a long and depressing trend of which Scott's killing is a part (notwithstanding Scott's is less likely to go unpunished since someone took video of it):
...I think that [Michael Graham] is confusing conviction for humility. Pace Roy Edroso, I am not at all “sure” what happened in the cases of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. On the contrary: I have written repeatedly that I do not — and I cannot — know what happened in those instances, and that, in all likelihood, nor can a jury...He then goes on about Blackstone and the presumption of innocence, as if my argument (and those of the others) were for a presumption of guilt in murder cases. Let me clarify, then: that is not what I'm arguing for at all. I'm arguing instead for an acknowledgement that cops (and would-be cops) sometimes treat black citizens differently from white ones, and not in a good way. This is not just the fantasy of "those among us who are convinced that the United States is an irredeemably racist nation," as Cooke described us in his original column, but a judgment based on years of bitter evidence. I'm arguing this not to begin any bogus race "conversation," nor to agitate for some quota of cop convictions. I'm arguing this because it's a plain fact that some folks seem committed to ignoring and to slurring other people for noticing, and that's one of the big reasons why, 150 years after Appomattox, this country remains totally nuts about race.
• With his latest on the death penalty, Jonah Goldberg not only keeps up with the worst-thing-ever-written pledge I made on his behalf some time ago, he actually outdoes himself. First, he argues, that Tsarnaev bastard deserves the death penalty, doesn't he, and if you don't think so, what about that cop who shot that black guy 'cause you love black guys when the cops shoot them:
Wait, before you answer that, consider Michael Slager. He’s the North Charleston, S.C., cop who shot Walter Scott in the back as he was fleeing and then allegedly lied about why he did it.
I don’t have to say he allegedly shot Scott because Slager admitted that much.Huh, what about that, libtards? The smarter libtards take a seat and wait, and sure enough Goldberg starts pee-dancing around:
Legally, it’s harder to argue that Slager should get the death penalty if convicted. Not all murders are equal before the law. It’s unclear how much premeditation, if any, there was in this case. Presumably Slager didn’t know Scott before he pulled him over for a traffic stop.
Still, I think you could make a case for the death penalty in cases like this.[Libtards light cigarettes, read Elizabeth Bruenig on their phones.]
The analogy that comes to mind is the wartime military.[One libtard looks up expectantly.]
There are capital offenses for crimes other than murder because the integrity and effectiveness of the armed forces is a priority. We are not a martial society, but I could make a similar argument about police officers who murder and lie about it. Faith in the fairness of the justice system is simply indispensable to a democracy and social peace. Lack of such faith may be why Scott ran from Officer Slager.[By now all the libtards have turned their attention to him.]
If so, his mistrust was tragically well placed.[The sneering laughter comes but is soon drowned out by the most insidious weapon in Goldberg's flatularium, the Cloaking Fart.] Sometimes I think Goldberg is a gift from the muses.
Heard this quoted the other day, by an elderly professor shopping at the meat counter in my neighborhood grocery store. (It wasn't said in a mean way, he was just sharing his love of Schiller with our somewhat bewildered butcher). At any rate, it seems apposite here.
ReplyDeleteMit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens
Translation: Ya can't fix stupid!
ReplyDeleteThe US (probably) isn't irredeemably racist. It's fundamentally racist. It's foundation is racist exploitation and genocide. Just like every other empire in the last 2000 years. But just because we have been all too eager to use racist justification to build and expand our nation, is no reason to continue in that ongoing crime. Because we can be, and should be, better than that in a country founded on the ideal that all men are created equal.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Roy. One does not get to write for the lofty National Review if one takes notice of this country's long history of abusing and destroying its black citizens. At least not if one thinks that's a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteAlso too: Cooke writes for a publication which up until 3 short years ago played host to John Derbyshire, whose views on race were not exactly hidden prior to his stepping so far over the line that he became a liability for even NRO. Am I saying this proves Cooke is a racist? No, I'm saying that Cooke associates with, and is employed by, a publication which has a long and sorry history of tolerating and promoting racist attitudes so long as they are couched in anything other than the most blatant terms. As such it's unsurprising that he and his colleagues are resistant to reaching obvious conclusions regarding the continuing racial inequality that persists in this country.
ReplyDelete"This Year" is a great place to start your Mountain Goats investigation. John has written about 50 of my favorite songs ever.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that Tsarnaev or Slager should get the death penalty *because I don't believe in the fucking death penalty, Jonah*.
ReplyDeleteAs always, their expectations of bad faith in the other side are visions from the mirror.
"Nonsense on stilts".
ReplyDeleteI cannot — know what happened in those instances, and that, in all likelihood, nor can a jury...
ReplyDeleteSo what we have here is a framework to escape any murder conviction, if you're white, and especially if you're a white cop. This is why assloads of southern legislators want to make it illegal for bystanders to film arrests.
Strangely, "not knowing what happened in those instances" was no impediment to Cooke and his magazine ascribing guilt to Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin.
Righties are never keen on blind justice when it comes to an opportunity to stoke white rage. You must have drawn blood, Roy, to make Chucky four names put on his barrister's wig.
We are not a martial society...
ReplyDelete...if you neglect the fact that we have more guns, more gun deaths, more militarized police forces, more citizens killed by police, higher incarceration rates, higher military spending, and a record of more military engagements per decade than any other nation in the world, then no, we are not a martial society.
We're only forced to kiss someone's ass if they worked in the motor pool for some bird colonel in Vietnam or loaded cargo planes in Kuwait, or ran grift in Paris while the rest of the army had it's ass chewed up in the Ardennes.
ReplyDeleteNot a martial society at all, but we fake it pretty fucking hard.
tolerating and promoting racist attitudes so long as they are couched in anything other than the most blatant terms.
ReplyDeleteSTILL MISSING
I will never understand why conservatives, who talk about principles all the time, fail to understand what a principle actually means in action. My emotional response to [the appropriately-named] Officer Slager is "Put the worthless bastard down like a dog." My principled response, however, is "It's immoral to kill people in order to demonstrate that killing people is wrong, so no death penalty for this asshole -- or any other asshole, either." Does not judicially killing Slager make him less of an asshole? Of course not. But as far as I can tell, CTMIC & Jonah the Doughy's principles only apply to people they like.
ReplyDeletebut a judgment based on years of bitter evidence.
ReplyDeleteThere's your problem right there. As long as you libtards keep relying on things like evidence and experience and data and actual results, none of the promises of conservatism will ever come true!
Prominent wingnut adopts sincere pose, wrings his hands, says, "Oh...if only we knew what really happened."
ReplyDeleteHow rich! His side, every single time, with each shooting or killing of a African-American citizen, never even want these things investigated. They cheer wildly for the cops, demonize the victims and the wider black race as criminal savages, dismiss all references to history or context and refuse to recognize these incidents as tragedies that will reverberate for years in the lives of families and communities.
Irredeemably racist is a polite way of putting it.
Faith in the fairness of the justice system is simply indispensable to a democracy and social peace
ReplyDeleteThere's a guy who has slept through the last 200 years or so. Jesus, even his side screams and whines about activist judges. And certainly the black experience in America isn't exactly rife with examples of the fairness of the justice system.
Sometimes I think Goldberg is a gift from the muses.
ReplyDelete*shakes fists at sky* O MUSES! WHY DO YOU HATE US SO?
(Extra credit question: Figure out which Muse exactly Jonah's sharts would fall under.)
Derpsichoria
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, the NRO has a storied history of being very, very, racist. On the other, they hired Tom Sowell to shine Rich Lowry's turds. It all evens out.
ReplyDeleteOh, god, I miss Ten.
ReplyDeleteHe shouldn't have allonz-y'd.
...
ReplyDeleteAlso, too - Jonah, Jonah, Jonah. *shakes head*
ReplyDeleteFor someone who constantly asserts that D'Gummint can't do anything right, you sure leap to their defense when there's someone to be killed, preferably someone dusky.
An example:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/gqdXD-KokAI
"The Mirror Cracked"
ReplyDelete"BeanO"
ReplyDeleteDid they ever change official positions from Buckley's pro-segregation column? I thought that was still what they believed. If not, one would expect some debate and ultimately acceptance of an integrated society. There would be some introspection as to why Buckley got it wrong, and how the new position was both right and fitting with conservatism.
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha. Introspection...
I will never understand why conservatives, who talk about principles all the time, fail to understand what a principle actually means in action.
ReplyDeleteBecause but does it work in theory? is more than just an Econ joke to them. It's an ethos. Only actions that support their principles are ever taken into account (or made up.)
I haven't got up to Capaldi yet - I'm still watching the first season of Matt Smith, who's fucking great.
ReplyDeleteBut Donna Noble will always be my new favorite Companion.
Still, I think you could make a case for the death penalty in cases like this.
ReplyDeleteCan he find a single liberal media personality who is making that case? I'm not pro-death penalty for anyone.
I judge a society by how it treats its most despised members, not its best-beloved members.
I love "All Hail West Texas" to the end of the world. (However I feel on the remastered edition, the added bonus tracks dilute it a bit, so on the first few listens, I'd exclude those.)
ReplyDeleteI would love to take this comment out for a night of dancing.
ReplyDeleteI just finished Smith. Probably my favorite after Tom Baker. Poor Donna...
ReplyDeletethe Cloaking Fart
ReplyDeleteDELIVERY GUY: C'mon, Mr. Goldberg, do we have to go through this every time? I know you're in here. I need you to sign for these pizzas before I pass out.
I dunno, I'm fairly liberal, but I'd pull the lever on Tsarnaev myself if that's what the jury wants.
ReplyDeleteCooke and his magazine, like Darren Wilson and George Zimmerman's magazines, exist mostly to empty their contents against black people.
ReplyDeleteO tempura! O morons!
ReplyDeleteWe blow up other countries for their own good!!
ReplyDelete~
Perpetually Shorter Goldberg: For the record, without any doubt, I can say absolutely and unequivocally: it depends.
ReplyDeleteThat was the basis for the title of the Asimov novel The Gods Themselves. I believe it won the Hugo for that year. I once saw him plain in 1985 at the World Con.
ReplyDeleteWould you pull it on Slager? That's the false equivalency he's trying to make.
ReplyDeleteWell it wouldn't win a Hugo in our brave new Sad Puppies Hugo award era. Got to have more boobs and laser blasts.
ReplyDeleteCalliope-yew!
ReplyDeleteBesides which, that's bass-ackwards, isn't it? I mean, ACTUAL fairness of the justice system is what's indispensable to a democracy and social peace, and if you've really got a fair system people see that and are therefore confident in it. Unless he's referring to a more religious sort of faith, believing something despite absence of proof and our own lying eyes? Because that would be kind of dumb.
ReplyDeleteOr Failliope?
ReplyDeleteFull Force Galesburg is my jam, especially "Twin Human Highway Flares". But there's such a huge catalog to love. I haven't heard the new "wrestling" bum yet.
ReplyDeleteSyncope?
ReplyDeleteI think their position is "That's a liberal lie, never happened, all segregationists were Democrats." Try to post a Buckley pro segregation quote over there and count how many seconds before it gets deleted.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of despised, we've gotten thrown out of the other Wegmans parking lot this morning. She said it was a lot nice than last time, but still the "*ehrm ehrm* complaints have been made nothing definite but you know... " So I dunno where we go tonight.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good saw!
ReplyDeletehttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s2lrFLiArXY/Ut6-evjwPeI/AAAAAAAADAk/jEBozBAFcq4/s1600/CamoChickenSaddlesforHenProtection01.jpg
ReplyDeleteHonestly I can't tell what point Jonah is trying to make. "We should kill Slager so people trust the police"? But... we'd kill Slager because he deserves it, not to protect an institution, right? Is Jonah arguing we should kill to make an institution look better? That is about as fascist as it gets. If that's what he means.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it's a hell of a thing to kill a person. What do I know about Slager? Right now, not enough to say he should die.
And for the record: I am against the death penalty in most cases, probably including Slager's. With Tsarnaev, the sheer number of deaths and maimings, the planning, the cold-blooded carrying out -- there's video of him planting the bomb near the 8-year-old kid. He's the guy I make an exception for, if Boston wants it. (And if they go the other way, Supermax is no picnic.)
assloads of southern legislators
ReplyDeleteAnd the NYPD, it seems:
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/9/as_video_exposes_walter_scott_police
~
Tsarnaev is a piker compared to the people who run our country.
ReplyDelete~
Even if you believe that, it doesn't justify, excuse, or mitigate his crime.
ReplyDeleteI thought that column showed him resistant to the lessons of a long and depressing trend of which Scott's killing is a part
ReplyDeleteOy vey, Ed. You can't talk about a trend until you establish using specific points of data and examples, that such a trend exists. Yes, he IS resistant to "lessons of a long and depressing trend" because such a trend has been FAR from established.
And your "bitter evidence" links are insanely stupid. Who cares why white folks riot? Such behavior has about the same bearing on the Ferguson riots and it's causus belli as the Roman Circus does.
Oh, and unarmed people of color are killed? That page to which you linked really does tug at the heart strings . . . and does NOTHING to establish a trend, Ed, NOTHING to prove that black life is less precious to us as a nation, to cops in general, than white life.
I tell ya, bud, every time I read a liberal piece such as this, the more I conclude that you lot simply haven't got a brain cell to share amongst you.
Here in MA, the media can't go wrong interviewing the "Man (or Woman) In The Street" on the subject of whether Dzhokhar Tsnarnaev deserves death or life in ADX Florence, Colorado. These pieces are usually accompanied by the video of Tsarnaev setting down his backpack near the unsuspecting women and children who will be his victims. I often find myself of two minds regarding such interviews, which I suppose are inevitable, and victim impact statements as part of trials. Interviewees are entitled to their opinions, and victims are entitled to give voice to their suffering, but I've long felt that criminal trials trials are about guilt or innocence, and not so much the suffering of the victims. If the brothers had blown up homeless people with no friends or family, would their crime have been less? Are we interested in justice or vengeance, and what is the difference between the two, anyway. Victim impact statements are always emotional, and they have the potential to incite even hardened judges to emotional verdicts. Can you say you're opposed to the death penalty, but depending on the number of children killed, maybe you could be persuaded to go for it? Thinking back to Michael Dukakis's bloodless answer to Bernie Shaw's inflammatory question regarding his wife's hypothetical rape and murder, my answer would have been something like "If one of the victims had been my wife or kid, personally, I'd want to personally beat Tsarnaev to death with a brick, and that would be vengeance. When society metes out justice, it's got to mean something more."
ReplyDeleteOr boobs that shoot laser blasts.
ReplyDeleteI don't favor the death penalty, though I believe there are some extremely rare instances in which an argument can be made that it is necessary (think Ted Bundy, who escaped from jail once and continued killing) in order to protect society from a very dangerous individual. In the vast majority of instances, life imprisonment for violent individuals is adequate protection for society.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I have for quite some time thought that it would be a very good idea if we had penalty enhancements for public officials and employees convicted for abuse of office, which would cover everything from corruption to unjustified shootings or brutality by police, for the simple reason that these people are sworn to serve the public interest. When they do not, they undermine trust in our public institutions which is an additional harm and one that warrants additional punishment, in much the same way that hate crime penalty enhancements are meant to address the terroristic threatening aspect to the larger community whenever an individual is singled out for attack on the basis of their race, orientation, etc. IOW, if a person or group targets and beats a gay man on the basis of his orientation, they are also sending a message to the larger gay community: we don't tolerate you being who you are - be afraid. That is a clear civil rights violation committed against the larger community. In the same way, abuse of public office or position is also a violation committed against the public as a whole, and it should be recognized and punished as such, with additional time, penalties, or both.
OMFG Katwillow - did you just do what I think you did? omg omg omg omg omg
ReplyDeleteI'm about to cry here. You guys are the fucking best.
I firmly expect that in the next John Ringo book.
ReplyDelete(Come to think of it, I think the ugly bag of mostly bullshit known as Tom Kratman has already done it. Have I mentioned how much I hate him?)
Tsarnaev and his brother were limited in their destructive act only by the means available to them--their motivations and their cruelty were unlimited. As or more unlimited than the "people who run our country." They were happy to engage directly in the murder and maiming of people they knew, or potentially knew, as well as perfect strangers just to make a point. They were as guilty of attempting an act of "shock and awe" as Bush was and had they had his power at their fingertips they would have done the same as he. In other words: human beings are shitty to each other, and deadly to each other, in proportion to the power they have to deal out death and suffering while avoiding it themselves. Tsarnaev and his brother had no original intention of getting caught in their own attack. So what's the difference between them and "the people who run our country?" Not much.
ReplyDeleteis there a link we need?
ReplyDeleteWell said, and sure: emotion is part of my conclusion here. But I also think the photos and impact statements can be useful and legit. It is one thing to be told "A woman was hospitalized and required surgery; we must punish the man who caused this" -- it is a lot more informative to see the photo that shows her on the scene, leg shredded, the look on her face. It is one thing to be told the guy placed a bomb in a crowded area -- another thing to see personally how he walked through the crowd of families having a good time on a great day, how he never veered off course despite seeing exactly who he was going to kill and ruin.
ReplyDeleteI don't think people are interested in justice or vengeance and i think the question skews the answers. Most people, after the bombing, went back to their ordinary lives and didn't give it much thought. But the larger number of people polled on the death penalty in the abstract, here in MA, continue to oppose it.
ReplyDeleteO, NO, John Ringo. However, I didn't mean those boobs--Heinlein and E.E. Doc Smith had plenty of boobs wielding lasers. I meant bosoms.
ReplyDeleteThis?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youcaring.com/other/it-s-a-leaning-time/299835
If you haven't seen the trend, it's because you have willfully ignored it. In just the time since the Michael Brown shooting, we've seen a 12 year old gunned down for having - not pointing - a toy gun, we've seen a black man escape punishment only because a dash cam proved he didn't do anything wrong, we've seen another black man in SC shot for attempting to retrieve license and registration as demanded by a cop who stopped him for failing to wear a seat belt in a parking lot, we've seen Eric Garner choked to death, we've seen numerous instances of "malfunctioning" or "turned off" cop cams that propitiously failed to film suspicious shootings or beatings, and on and on.
ReplyDeleteYou obviously have some emotional investment in continuing to believe that this kind of stuff is extremely rare. I wonder why.
So what's the difference between them and "the people who run our country?"
ReplyDeleteRetail vs. wholesale.
If you haven't seen the trend, it's because you have willfully ignored it.
ReplyDeleteProve it. Statistically. Anecdotes won't do. I'll wait.
You obviously have some emotional investment in continuing to believe that this kind of stuff is extremely rare. I wonder why.
I do. Fact and accuracy matter to me. I'm odd that way.
If this comment were...oh, no, I can't even joke about it. Thank you, JennofArk.
ReplyDeleteFact and accuracy matter to me.
ReplyDeletesuuuuuuuuurrrrrre they do...
Statistically? Fine. Young black men are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than white men.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.propublica.org/article/deadly-force-in-black-and-white
Well, how could I possibly respond to such a whithering retort? And you wonder why we thing you're complete idiots.
ReplyDeleteThe real unforgivable acts are committed by calm men in beautiful green silk rooms, who deal death wholesale, by the shipload, without lust, without anger, or desire, or any redeeming emotion to excuse them but cold fear of some pretended future.
ReplyDeleteBut the crimes they hope to prevent in that future are imaginary. The ones they commit in the present - they are real.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour
You could do your own research--the google is at your fingertips. Why don't you? This isn't really a question that can be settled by someone else doing the thinking and researching for you any more than you will feel full if we eat your dinner for you. Try not to be simultaneously lazy and stupid--its a terrible combination. Do your own research, understand our shared world, and come back here when you can act and speak like a grownup.
ReplyDeleteAh... in other words, Dick Cheney's One PerCent Doctrine.
ReplyDeleteWorse yet, those calm men usually use fear as an excuse to justify their actions to the public; their real motive is profit.
ReplyDeleteFirst, that examination would have to be examined/vetted. It is not.
ReplyDeleteSecond, blacks commit roughly four times the violent crime than their representation in the population.
Third, even were this fact true, it does NOT prove that such deaths, such killings, are disproportionately without cause. Do blacks find and place themselves in more life-threatening encounters with police? Do they respond appropriately when they do?
Yeah, Jenn, statistics is hard stuff, but without them, you have no story. Back to the drawing board.
Yeah, I'm going to waste my time going full D'Bergerac on a pissant troll like you.
ReplyDeleteGo 'way, sonny. I have more important things to deal with.
Now we HAVE to find a house so I can invite you all over for dinner.
ReplyDeleteIf you have so many more important things to do, why did you respond? Again, the genius of the liberal . . .
ReplyDeleteYour method of "vetting" is dismissal.
ReplyDeleteSecond, cite please.
Third, police seem capable of arresting white madmen on a regular basis rather than shooting them. Like the Aurora shooter. Like the guy recently in Arizona. Like quite a few more I could list if it would make any difference, which it won't. Because you have already decided that black people are shot by police many times more often than white people because they had it coming. Apparently for being black.
LOL, "The officially gathered data you link to don't count. But now I'll baselessly assert a ballpark number I approve of!"
ReplyDeleteHere ya go:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States
"Police 'seem' this and they 'seem' that . . ." STATISTICS, JENN, NOT FEELINGS.
Because you have already decided that black people are shot by police many times more often than white people because they had it coming. Apparently for being black.
And there's the eye-roller of the day. Congratulations.
Black people are shot by police at the rate at which they are shot by police because they behave FAR more badly, statistically, as a group.
Now, if you can prove, statistically, that the rules of engagement police use for blacks is markedly, systemically different than it is for whites, I'll absolutely hear you out . . . and I'll join you in calling for reform and calling for it loudly.
You aren't even CLOSE to proving any such thing.
Link in my response to Jenn below, cupcake.
ReplyDelete"Charles C.W. Cooke takes me to task" which is rather akin to being mauled by a toothless chihuahua.
ReplyDeleteshorter racist: "Wikipedia is a more reliable source than federal data because it says what I want to believe."
ReplyDeleteIs this what you libs do on your boards? Meaningless yuck, yucks about how stupid Chuckie is?
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm all for a good, nasty, biting insult, but it does sorta have to be backed by an argument.
Go see if you can find one, Johnny Boy.
We are not a martial society.
ReplyDeleteNo, we're a marital society. Marriage makes you rich!
Here's a better idea, Dennis: go fuck yourself, 'cause no one else is gonna do it.
ReplyDeleteWho's Dennis?
ReplyDeleteAs for the rest . . . typical. "My argument is clearly inadequate so leave me alone or I'm gonna cry."
"Black people are shot by police at the rate at which they are shot by police because they behave FAR more badly, statistically, as a group.
ReplyDelete"Now, if you can prove, statistically, that the rules of engagement..."
Goodbye forever, KTM whatever.
You mistake your inability to understand the argument for the failure of it having been made.
ReplyDeleteWe have made for you the argument; we are not obligated to understand it for you as well.
I'd gladly refute your arguments but you haven't actually made any.
ReplyDelete"have to be backed by an argument." Why do I have to follow rules that Cooke doesn't?
ReplyDeleteUh-oh, I'm not sure I understand your reply. You seem to be quoting me saying "the people who run our country," but I never said those words.
ReplyDeleteAs to the difference between Bush and Tsarnaev: Obviously, civilians died as a direct result of Bush's decision to attack, and he knew they would. But it is worth noting that civilians were not the main, intended target. Also worth noting that the attack on Iraq was not a surprise -- there was practically a date circled in red on the calendar and loudly announced (though unlikely) conditions Iraq could meet to avert it. Tsarnaev did not give Boston a chance to avert anything and specifically targeted unsuspecting innocents.
Please understand I am not justifying our invasion of Iraq. Bush was terrible for us and the world -- but I see important differences between him and Tsarnaev! Great now I sound like Lindsey Graham, thanks a lot.
No, that was a response to ITTDGY but I put it under your comment to try to continue the thread.
ReplyDeletesimultaneously lazy and stupid
ReplyDeleteAnd positively swaggering with it!
I figured this out seconds after posting -- sorry. I added an "EDIT" to my comment but not in time to catch you.
ReplyDeleteNeeds more boob-mounted lasers.
ReplyDeleteFunny image,that, "catching" me before I comment again. I see your avatar wrestling mine to the ground before I can accidentally shoot my mouth off again. (Joke!)
ReplyDeleteI absolutely think that higher status people should have points leveled against them when they are convicted of crimes. This wouldn't come up in the first trial, but only at sentencing. The higher the income, or the more significant the status (Police Officer vs. Meter Maid) the higher the punishment.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Mr. Serial Number, when you first came crashing in here up above playing Smartest Guy In The Room, you got our esteemed host's name wrong. That's kinda the internet equivalent of showing up at a barbecue uninvited with a piece of toilet paper hanging out of your shorts.
ReplyDeleteBest you sign off, lick your wounds, change your handle (again) and come up with some better material before you next come in to a place like this looking to school some liberals.
victims are entitled to give voice to their suffering, but I've long felt that criminal trials are about guilt or innocence, and not so much the suffering of the victims.Precisely. This is why it's "The State of ... vs. the Accused", not "The Victims &/or Survivors vs. The Accused".
ReplyDeleteAn argument that crops up from time to time, the one which absolutely underlines how planet wingnut and libtardia are different worlds, is how apparently being pro-choice and anti-death penalty = MASSIVE HYPOCRISY!!#!1! Democraps suck, Jesus FTW!!!
ReplyDeleteIf us libtards aren't being accused of treasonous moral relativism, we're being accused of having invalid principles. You really can't even have a discussion with these people, and disingenuous fucknozzles like Jonah make a living keeping it that way.
Hey, I'm all for a good, nasty, biting insult, but it does sorta have to be backed by an argument.
ReplyDeleteYou're projecting like a boob with lasers, Denny.
"Thank you for your service!"
ReplyDeleteAnd you wonder why "stupid or evil?" is an established meme when discussing right wing antics.
ReplyDeleteOther suggestions are admirable, but Jonah clearly has a Uranian muse.
ReplyDeleteDid you send that to Victor Davis Hanson as a cruel joke or as a ransom note?
ReplyDelete"Prove it. Statistically. Anecdotes won't do."
ReplyDeleteRemember the initial story from the N.Charleston PD? The one that went: "The suspect attempted to overpower the officer and grab his taser, at which point the suspect was shot during the struggle"? Until the video surfaced, this case would have been filed as just one more in a series of "Suspect shot while resisting arrest" cases, and added to the stats as such. The video proved that the initial story was completely fabricated, and we start to wonder how many other stories would have turned out differently if someone had been on the scene shooting video. I realize you'd like to blur the lines in this case with a blizzard of crime statistics which have no bearing on THIS case, unless you can prove that Officer Slager was running those stats and probabilities in his head while he was emptying the magazine of his service weapon at a fleeing suspect who was no threat to the officer or anyone else, and then did the taser drop on the body because he thought "Hey, it's how this incident would have played out statistically." The Scott case is exactly why statistics won't tell the story you want to tell, and trying to minimize this "anecdote" with a flurry of statistical chaff won't help you make... whatever point you're trying to make.
I think his "point" is that liberals are dummies and blacks are scaaaaaaaarrrryyyyyy.
ReplyDeleteFIND ME VIC! WHERE AM I VIC? HOW COULD YOU LET THEM TAKE ME LOVER?
ReplyDeleteI go back and forth between "This Year" and "Heretic Pride" as personal favorites.
ReplyDeleteIf only Michael Dukakis had had this response ready at that 1998 Presidential debate
ReplyDeleteFailliope
ReplyDeleteDammit. I should have read down.
ReplyDeleteThis. You always voice my thoughts much better than I can.
ReplyDeleteAnd why does an insult require an argument?
ReplyDeleteNot true, but thanks.
ReplyDeleteBecause otherwise you're not following the rules of debate, old sock, and that's right uncivil.
ReplyDeletePolyhernia?
ReplyDeleteMelamine?
Errata?
(Unfortunately, I can't come up with something quick-witted that rhymes nicely with Clio, the muse of History, which is clearly the temple where Doughy's flatularium resides. Oleo? Taco? Jello? Nolo? Cluo? Now I'm just getting silly.)
Urinea?
Ah, well, in this guy's world, lazy and stupid are virtues.
ReplyDeleteHmm. He's a model number, not a serial number. This is a guy with so many warm human qualities that his identity is defined by the wheels on his dirt bike.
ReplyDelete"I am not a number! I am a... umm, [mumbles] Big Wheel!"
Much better than my shitty Ryobi.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that's a full-bird colonel?
ReplyDeleteDerpsichorean ejectamenta.
ReplyDeleteAlong with the wise-cracking robots, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteWho doesn't? God knows I do. Especially when I'm driving.
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell do you drive that the dashboard and doors don't get in the way? (And one stray reflection of the rear-view mirror could definitely ruin your day.)
ReplyDeleteJesus, Roy, that Mountain Goats track is just killer. Acoustic Punk. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteA good bra should LIFT and separate.
ReplyDeleteBut only if it's man on women and no trannies in there please. /s
ReplyDeletewe've seen a 12 year old gunned down for having - not pointing - a toy gun
ReplyDeleteIn, it must be emphasized, an open carry state. Where he was killed by the cop less than three seconds after first contact.
Ever since Rolling Stone’s asinine cover story on the murderer, Tsarnaev has become something of a sex symbol for the morally stunted and chronically stupid.
ReplyDeleteWhat? This is something I never knew about, Tsarnaev's rock star status among moral/mental defectives. How did Jonah get the inside line on...
Never mind, I figured it out.
Errata is perfect, given Jonah's proclivities.
ReplyDeleteHe'd have a better success rate if they put him on ropes-of-sand duty.
ReplyDeleteMan. I'm sorry, Pere Ubu. I hope you find a place soon.
ReplyDeleteFebreze?
ReplyDeleteflatularium
ReplyDeleteIf I were your boss, I'd give you a raise for that one...
The one thing that might mitigate his crime is that from a very impressionable age he was under the influence of his brother, who was both a fanatic and a sociopath. Still, can we expect him to ever become a decent person? Does society want that, or dare hope for it? I don't like the death penalty at all, but I recognize that I've never been tested on it by losing someone to violent crime myself. Tsarnaev's lawyers do exhibit guts and deep faith in arguing for his life, and I have to admire them for it.
ReplyDeleteI'm enjoying Capaldi a great deal so far. He brings just the right amount of Scottish bite to the role.
ReplyDelete"The suspect attempted to overpower the officer and grab his taser, at which point the suspect was shot during the struggle"
ReplyDeleteI gotta say, if that was his story, and he'd been able to stick to it, the case would have floundered badly at the autopsy. How the fuck do you shoot a suspect 5 times in the back during a struggle and not get any GSR on him? Depends, I suppose, on the integrity/courage of the ME.
You had to say it...
ReplyDeleteActually, no, we don't. When the facts all argue against you, you have little choice but to consider--as loudly as possible--all those who agree with (or worse yet, point out) the facts, to be idiots. It's Human nature. Or, phrased somewhat differently, the nature of simple Humans...
ReplyDeleteYeah, Jenn, statistics is hard stuff
ReplyDeleteI dunno, you're making them look pretty soft and pliable now.
Yeah, that "we are not a martial society" stuff is pretty rich. It certainly invites a "let me count the ways" response, but it's hardly necessary to engage in that exercise to see just how mind-numbingly stupid the remark is, if only because most of the government and no small percentage of the population take it for granted that it's our job to arm and police most of the world against the remainder in the sacred duty of defending predatory capitalism, and that it's been that way ever since WWII.
ReplyDeleteI suspect Der Pantload thinks he can get away with that sort of bullshit backwards generalization because we don't have armed troops goose-stepping in the streets, or May Day parades of missiles, or compulsory military service (now), but those are only the most ostentatious of indicators (and are probably signs of no small degree of insecurity).
Any country that routinely dismisses advocates of peace as fringe kooks is a martial society.
Oh come on, guys who are handcuffed in the back seat of police cruisers manage to shoot themselves in the back all the time, so clearly Slager's story was completely plausible.
ReplyDeleteIt has its parallel in the Roman vomitorium.
ReplyDeleteYeah, all a cop has to do is make sure no one is filming it, along with a little evidence planting and trading on people's willingness to believe the police are current knights in shining armor and no conviction is possible.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Cooke thinks that all the videos of police brutality we've seen recently are a new phenomenon caused by the cops performing for the cameras as opposed to them just getting caught doing what they've always done.
Amen. Homelessness sucks. BTDT, briefly.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just Derbyshire. As Bizarro Mike reminds us downthread, Buckley himself defended segregationist violence against blacks in columns that need to be thrown in the magazine's face every time it starts excreting conservative pieties about race. NR employed the (happily, now deceased) anti-Semite Joseph Sobran until he, like Derbyshire, relaxed his guard just a bit too much. And they employed Peter Brimelow, whose white supremacism had none of Derbyshire's coyness about it. So far as I know NR never fired Brimelow; he burrowed voluntarily through the barrel's bottom to write for VDARE (which is, basically, just a National Review that has stopped pretending.)
ReplyDeleteOf course they aren't fooling their audience. If they were, they wouldn't have that audience. They are giving it exactly what it wants: resentment-stoking and strapping bucks with T-bones, with a dash of what they fondly imagine to be plausible deniability on the side.
Now I want to shop at Aimai's neighbourhood grocery store and bewilder the butcher even more.
ReplyDeleteWould that be Urolagnia, the Muse of Derp?
ReplyDeleteI was almost homeless for three years: only a series of gigs taking care of friends places (generally this involved animal and yard care) while they were gone on extended vacations or missionary trips, and yes, the kindness of strangers, kept me in a place to live, and I stayed with friends too often...of course, now i know who my real friends are...
ReplyDeleteA few years ago, before many of the Baen stable were well-known, a friend asked me if I was going to a localish regional sf convention because John Ringo was going to be there. I thought he was joking and cracked back, "Only if George Paul is coming, too."
ReplyDeleteI guess you had to be there.
They aren't fooling their audience--their audience is fooling themselves.
ReplyDeleteAsk any NRO reader and they'll tell you right up front: "I'm not a racist." And the word "racist" will always be followed by a "but." And after the "but" will comes whatever racist trope is current. In the aftermath of the Scott shooting, for example, the current trope is "the cop can't be convicted of murder because the Black guy ran! He ran!"
And as our NR readers will happily explain, it's acceptable practice to empty an entire clip into the back of an unarmed Black man as long as he's running away. However, when a White person is armed with a semi-auto assault rifle with extended clips and is shooting up the neighborhood, police MUST exercise discretion and seek to de-escalate the situation so that nobody's rights get violated.
Its quite a place, actually.
ReplyDeleteNR response: That was a long time ago, and I had nothing to do with it. BTW, Liberals, what about Alger Hiss, huh? He was guilty!
ReplyDeleteA cop shoots an unarmed black man in the back, and they get all squishy over the death penalty. He didn't even know the guy!
ReplyDelete"Hail Muse! Et cetera."
ReplyDelete—Lord Byron, Don Juan
"Uranus is big and gassy, isn't it?" —Crow, MST3K
ReplyDeleteJohar went to the local public high school--and I know people with sons his age who knew him, who had him at their houses. The wrestling coach from the team that he wrestled on is very local and very loved. My point here is that of course he was "under the influence" of his older brother and his shitty parents (and they were pretty awful) but he was also nested in a warm, loving, world of classmates and wrestling team mates and its precisely those people who he was willing to see die when he joined in the blowing up of a local festival. Two people who live around the corner from me are the husband/wife newlyweds who both had a leg blown off simultaneously. I've met their mother. Its pretty up close and personal here because its so familial. And that is something that people online or nationally don't seem to get. Despite the size of the metro boston area and the international nature of the event it was, for all intents and purposes, a very intimate, local, tiny social world that got blown up. Both men had every reason to assume that lots of people they knew well, they had grown up with, would be there at the finish line.
ReplyDeleteThis does not incline me to support the Death Penalty at all as a matter of public policy or even in this case. But I guess I think that the farther away from this event you are in social distance and in impact the less posing I think people should do about what they would or wouldn't feel if it were up to them.
There are people in this world who I (personally, not speaking for anyone else) sometimes think deserve the death penalty. Jenn mentioned Ted Bundy, I would also throw in Anders Breivik. There are some kinds of moral depravity mixed with real harm that just should be brought to an end and buried in salted ground. For all our sakes, not just for the victims.
I don't think Tsarnaev rises, or sinks, to that level because of his youth and his presumed mental immaturity. But I could be wrong. I wouldn't argue that someone else who knew him, who understands him, and who feels personally betrayed by his actions as well as harmed by them, might not have the right to feel differently.
Capaldi is what the Sixth Doctor could have been if everybody wasn't blasted on coke, and the Beeb wasn't trying to drown the whole show in the bathtub.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't recommend Capaldi to a newbie. I'd go with "Girl In The FIreplace." "Blink" or, "The Eleventh Hour."
I love the Capaldi episodes so far. I tear up every time I watch "Listen"
No, Heinlein may have had bosoms wielding lasers, but "Doc" Smith had boobs wielding lasers while bosoms heaved off to the side. They were called Lensmen for a reason; women could aspire to nurse, secretary, heiress, dancer, drug smuggler, or naked matriarch.
ReplyDeletehis barrister's wig.
ReplyDeleteThat's no wig.
I have for quite some time thought that it would be a very good idea if
ReplyDeletewe had penalty enhancements for public officials and employees convicted
for abuse of officeOr, and hear me out here, we could have penalty diminishments for them, to the point where many of them don't even get charged with a crime in the first place. The very highest would suffer not the least social sanction, either. Scoff if you must, but my system has the advantage of needing zero work to implement.
He then goes on about Blackstone and the presumption of innocence, as if
ReplyDeletemy argument (and those of the others) were for a presumption of guilt
in murder cases.Yo, Charles, presumptions of innocence or guilt normally require an actual trial ... an occurrence which is notably absent in most of these cases of police violence.
I dropped that phrase into Google Image Search, not really expecting to get a hit, but surprise, surprise...
ReplyDelete(I put the black rectangle on it because I don't know what the rules are for nudity around here.)
And if they shoot someone in the face, the person they shot has to apologize!
ReplyDeleteI posted this picture at another blog. The child is a 4 years old girl in a mid-east refugee camp. She thought the photographer's camera was a gun, and raised her hands. Maybe Tsar-whatever was this kid at one time.
ReplyDeletepower.
ReplyDeleteI'm lucky. I'm not near homelessness quite yet, but I can feel it stalking me. I'm trying to formulate a plan. Unfortunately, in my county the waiting lists for the roster of affordable housing have been closed since 2012. The waiting lists. I'm downsizing as fast as I can. If anyone wants a stack of Locus zines from the 1980s, let me know. I can't bring myself to put them in the recycling bin.
ReplyDeleteAnd besides, Byrd was in the Klan!
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. But even if he was he made the leap from victim to agressor seamlessly. I don't think there's anything to be gained in picking over the corpse of this decision looking for reasons to excuse Tsarnaev. Its an illusion--his brother (and possibly he, as well) also engaged in the straight up murder/beheading of personal friends in a triple homicide a few years before the bombing. Are we going to excuse this as well on the grounds that they were somehow the result of childhood trauma? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Waltham_triple_murder
ReplyDeleteI'm sympathetic to Tsarnaev because he's such a cute, giant megafauna type teenage boy--and I know a lot of them--but come on. being a willing tool of a dominant personality doesn't make you an innocent devoid of responsibility for the cruelty you inflict. It just makes you an initiate, someone who willingly or accidentally turns your morality over to someone you admire in exchange for their protection or admiration. This is increibly common--quite traditional even, in many cultures that exalt the warrior or the killer. It has nothing to do with any early childhood trauma.
I'm so sorry.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was urban camping six yrs. ago, the City of Los Angeles provided a Section 8 housing subsidy after about a four month wait, but you had to be actually homeless. (People living in their cars went on a less-prioritized list.10-yr. or more wait for people who are housed. And sequestration has cut Federal funding. Of course once SSI & disability are cut it won't matter.)
ReplyDeleteNo idea what else to say, but my thoughts are w/ you all.
Flatularium, Dayenu. The Cloaking Fart? Priceless.
ReplyDeleteHe may be confusing it with the assumption of regularity. Which the cops are in imminent danger of wearing out.
ReplyDeleteMy hair is a bird; Byrd was in the Klan.
ReplyDeleteRules?
ReplyDeleteYes, its a snark blog, not a hate-site.
ReplyDeleteIts fantastic how often civilians attempt to disarm cops, in the cop's stories. I'd like to know how many police have been shot by civilians/criminals with their own guns? There is something to be said for facts & figures.
ReplyDeletesimultaneously lazy and stupid--its a terrible combination Sorry Aimai, I have to disagree with that. ArgleBargle, Goldberg, O'Reilly, and a humungous host of other conservatives make their living by being lazy & stupid in public!
ReplyDeleteWatch for KTM450SXF on Fox!
ReplyDelete"Black people are shot by police at the rate at which they are shot by police because they behave FAR more badly, statistically, as a group... ..... and that's why more wives are beaten by their husbands, and kids by parents, and nerdy scared guys & girls at school are picked on! Why it explains everything! And then some.
ReplyDeleteTry ebay?
ReplyDeleteYeah, but they wouldn't have it any other way. Where would they be without "You cussed, I win!!!11!"...
ReplyDeletean actual trial ... an occurrence which is notably absent in most of these cases of police violence.
ReplyDeleteIndeedly-doodly - wonder if anyone's pointed out to Chuckles that that's why "those people" who march and complain after one of these things are so damn angry.
not "The Victims &/or Survivors vs. The Accused".
ReplyDeleteNaturally I am protective of the rights of unpopular outsiders, and seems to me that the murder of someone without family, mourned by no-one, counts as much as the murder of anyone else.
The Saudi Arabian justice system seems to give a big role to the victim of family thereof -- that's how bad an idea it is. Convince a court that you have actually suffered? Fuck that noise.
the rules are for nudity around here
ReplyDeleteNo, honestly, I am completely dressed! With clothes!
The "coining the faceless wind" position was already taken.
ReplyDeleteI hope those search beams will help her find the cheeseburgers.
ReplyDeletePlus Luci Baines Johnson and her sister Lynda Bird Johnson went all wonky with the spelling of their names. Y? Coincidence? I want to know Y. Although they both seem nice.
ReplyDeleteLet's discuss this thing that I just thought of: if you could go back in time to the exact moment during the event in which either Tsarnaev was conceived, would you interrupt that coitus? Or would you be thwarting the will of the almighty? You would be inflicting your choice on those people, and essentially you'd be denying that every sperm is sacred. Personally I would not go back in time to actually do anything because of unintended consequences. Stephen King knows what I am talking about.
ReplyDeleteThose statistics are collected by police and flouted by police to keep them sucking that white power tit. You want a better statistician than some guy whose uncle/brother/daddy/cock botherer scooped him up out of a drug ring to put him on a path to owning a modular home.
ReplyDeleteThere's the tell, Donald.
ReplyDeleteSurf school dipshit.
Thanks. It's not dire yet. I live in a very wealthy area, and I house and dog-sit a lot, so as long as I'm walking and talking, I could probably get by with very little actually living out of my car time. I would just like my own little modest studio apartment, and those are rare.
ReplyDeleteBut there's this giant house on a road where I walk dogs, and it looks like no one lives there. I think (from what I've been able to find out) that the owners were elderly and moved into assisted living, and their son lives on the other coast, and apparently keeps paying property taxes. But there are vehicles that haven't been moved in years, and the place is overgrown to the point of being a fire hazard in these dry hills. A few times a year I call the Mosquito Abatement people and they come out and the pool turns not-green for a while. It's probably terribly unsafe. The lot is worth a fortune, the house is a tear-down. I may just move the hell in, see how long it takes someone to notice.
Uh, just to straighten the record a little bit:
ReplyDelete1) When someone is highly concerned with "fact" and "accuracy," statistics might not the best place to look.
2) "Statistics" is too often just a highfalutin' word for "DATA."
Yeah, I should. I emailed the Locus site itself, because they seem to offer back issues for sale, but I've never heard back from them. I think it's recycling time.
ReplyDelete