American Wahabbis and the Ten Commandments

[Troubleshooter]

It's my fault. I mentioned buying bulk ammo after seeing the post about the religious wackos who are getting ready to try to take over America.

I will not go quietly in the long night, etc, etc, etc...

[wolf]

I believe that TS is half-jokingly discussing the possibility of a "constitutional crisis". I'm just along for the ride.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by wolf

I believe that TS is half-jokingly discussing the possibility of a "constitutional crisis". I'm just along for the ride.

Only half?

That reminds me. Where's Slang?

[wolf]

Good question ... what does is location say on his profile right now? That's the only way to keep track.

[Troubleshooter]

Location:
rural Minnesota - It could be worse

Ugh...

[wolf]

It's cold it's closer to the Artic Circle, so the days stay darker longer, I could live with that. And they got concealed carry now, I believe.

I may be going to a conference at the Mall of America in Sept 2006 ... okay, in the Hotel connected to the MOA, but you know what I mean.

Do they let you get drunk and then ride on the rollercoaster at Camp Snoopy?

[Troubleshooter]

Hey Wolf,

I spoke to my gunsmith today about the Keltec/hi-point carbine question and he said that he has a keltec. So I guess that answers my question, he said the hi-point is the gun to buy if you have to have a gun but don't have much money to spend and since this is not the kind of item you want to cheap out on Keltec it is.

[wolf]

Have fun with it.

Oh, and it makes a hell of a stir when you take it to the range and unfold it.

I had mine right after they came out ... so there weren't a lot of them in the distribution stream at that time. I was shooting it for the first time and everybody in the place wanted to try it ... the range master even came in for a look-see, and he went and got the salesmen from out front ...

Not that this is an issue for you ... but it's New York (State, not city) legal, last time I checked. It's a rifle, so there are fewer restrictions on where you're allowed to transport it and how.

[vsp]

Living In Interesting Times, Vol. 495:

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38308-2005Apr8.html">And The Verdict On Justice Kennedy Is: Guilty</a> (washingtonpost.com)

I am clasping my head like a stunned monkey over ultraconservatives <i>quoting Joseph Stalin approvingly</i>, even at one of their own gatherings.

Originally Posted by article

Ominously, (lawyer-author Edwin) Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.

<b>The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem."</b> Presumably, Vieira had in mind something less extreme than Stalin did and was not actually advocating violence. But then, these are scary times for the judiciary. An anti-judge furor may help confirm President Bush's judicial nominees, but it also has the potential to turn ugly.

A judge in Atlanta and the husband and mother of a judge in Chicago were murdered in recent weeks. After federal courts spurned a request from Congress to revisit the Terri Schiavo case, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) mused about how a perception that judges are making political decisions could lead people to "engage in violence."

[wolf]

Originally Posted by vsp

I am clasping my head like a stunned monkey over ultraconservatives <i>quoting Joseph Stalin approvingly</i>, even at one of their own gatherings.

I suppose that it is unusual for you to hear conservatives referencing someone that the liberals have been worshiping and apologizing for for the last 60-odd years ...

I think somebody at the Post needs to readjust their tinfoil hat, and take a couple Xanax for the hysteria ...

[Undertoad]

It's not hysteria when they're quoting.

[Happy Monkey]

You seem to be receiving some Stalin-approving liberals in your tinfoil hat, while the Washington Post has an actual quote:

Invoking Stalin, Vieira delivered the "no man, no problem" line twice for emphasis. "This is not a structural problem we have; this is a problem of personnel," he said. "We are in this mess because we have the wrong people as judges."

The title of the discussion they were attending was "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny". This is the current goal of the current Republican leadership - to remove the Judicial branch of government as a check to the others. You can only keep pretending that this is just some fringe group for so long.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

The title of the discussion they were attending was "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny". This is the current goal of the current Republican leadership - to remove the Judicial branch of government as a check to the others. You can only keep pretending that this is just some fringe group for so long.

'First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.'
Pastor Martin Niemöller

You know, I wonder what it was like to be one of the groups on the 'list' in 1930's Germany, watching the government crack down on some other group, and then watch them pass the first laws restricting your movements or other freedoms. A lot of people, at least the majority who still believe the Holocaust actually happened, probably believe that the death camps went up overnight and caught everyone by surprise.

A lot of people thought the Nazi's were a 'bunch of crackpots' or 'a passing fad'. Some even allied themselves with the group in the hopes of gaining some benefit or saving themselves from harm.

By the time the hammer came down, the victims were so legally and politically marginalized that there was no legal solution, since the law itself had been corrupted.

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. - George Santayana

[vsp]

Originally Posted by wolf

I suppose that it is unusual for you to hear conservatives referencing someone that the liberals have been worshiping and apologizing for for the last 60-odd years ...

Hysteria? "Liberals worshiping Stalin?" Physician, heal thyself.

If there's one thing that most ultraconservatives have always had in common, it's been their staunch belief that Communism is THE ENEMY, to the point that some are _still_ flinging "socialist" at American leftists as the ultimate pejorative. (Which dates them nicely, as Communism is old and busted and Islamofascism is the new hotness. Didn't you get the memo?)

So when an ultraconservative endorses one of the slogans of the most infamous and brutal Soviet leader of the 20th Century, pointing at him and saying "Hey, here's a guy who said something intelligent that we should learn from, and it involves killing those who oppose your goals," am I entitled to allow my jaw to drop a little bit?

Just a little tiny bit?

Thanks.

EDIT: No, I'm not done after all, because this is the second time Wolf has snipped at me in this thread, and I'm more than a little annoyed at being dismissed again like a know-nothing conspiracy crank or a Phil Hendrie caller.

You can call them "Dominionists." You can call them "Christian Reconstructionists." They have a variety of names, organizations and support structures. But the bottom line is this: there _are_ a bunch of people out there who want nothing less than to replace as much of our American system of government and laws as possible with a system that'll govern according to a much stricter Biblical worldview.

Are they the majority (or even a sizeable minority) among religious people in general or Christians, Republicans or conservatives specifically? No, which is what allows me to sleep at night. But they're out there, and you can't just fucking wish them into the cornfield and pretend that they don't exist.

Randall Terry just spent a couple of weeks on CNN and Fox News and such as a high-profile spokesman in an issue of high national interest, and they treated him like someone with a shred of credibility rather than as a raving fucking loon, someone who matches the definition of "terrorist" more closely than a lot of people in Guantanamo Bay and someone who's openly stated repeatedly that the US needs to become a theocracy yesterday. RANDALL FUCKING TERRY!

Things like that wouldn't unsettle me so much if _some of our elected officials_ weren't openly receptive to these people. This isn't just Sean Hannity saying "I need ratings and the far right watches me, so I'll invite some fundie huckleberries onto Hannity and Idiot tonight"; there are far too many Dobson-types who have at least some of the ear of Bush and some of Congress. The Republican Party grew and nurtured Frankenfundie through the 80's and 90's as part of their support base, and they have to feed it once in a while; some of them aren't even shy about throwing red meat to that crowd. DeLay. Santorum. Brownback. The dearly departed Zell Miller. Shelby. Coburn. Musgrave. My OWN REP, Joe Pitts, isn't too far off; he's cosponsored both years' versions of the Constitution Restoration Act.

When my own rep wants officials to be able to "act in the name of God being the sovereign source of law and government" without any federal judicial review, and when one of my own senators feels that the government _should_ be able to prohibit consenting adults from playing with each other behind their own closed doors, I have to whack myself in the head with a Wiffle Ball bat and remind myself that I'm _not_ in deepest Alabama, I'm _not_ in Mississippi, I'm _not_ in some heavily segregated Bible Study university somewhere in the hinterlands, I'm living in an affluent suburb of a major city that's _supposed_ to have joined everyone else in the 21st Century a few years back instead of regressing to the 17th.

Am I going to wake up tomorrow in Gilead, with cross-wearing troops at my door ready to drag me off for heresy? No, of course not. There will be no "Oh, by the way, GOD is in charge now and we're about to nuke the heathens" coup in America. But the fundies _are_ calling in their markers and saying "We voted you in, you have both houses of Congress and the Presidency, now give us what we want." Even incremental change along the lines of what they really want is detrimental to this nation, because the average church-going person won't wake the fuck up and oppose it until laws and "judicial reform" have changed to the point where he's personally affected, and by _that_ time it may be too late to easily rectify things. It's a good thing that the Constitution is very difficult to amend, else the _real_ fun would've started already.

But in the short run, I'm damned glad that I'm not a judge or related to one, just like I'm glad that I'm not related to anyone who works in a facility that performs abortions. Why? Because I don't want to even think about knowing what it must feel like to feel an imaginary laser-sight or bull's-eye on my back 24-7, wondering when some ultrafundie with a gun and a grudge is going to take a shot at me. People like DeLay and Cornyn and those quoted in the article I linked are stirring up the anger as hard as they can, and if some Matt Hale/Paul Hill/Eric Rudolph/Hal Turner type decides to take action and snuff someone who he's convinced is An Enemy Of God, the blood will be on their hands. (The one good thing that the Schindlers did in the entire Terri saga was to come out in the end and specifically denounce violent action taken on "their behalf.")

There is scary shit in the works right now, more unsettling than anything I've seen or felt in the past 20-25 years. I don't think violence against judges is a possibility right now; I think it's a sure thing, and the countdown is ticking. And once it starts, this country is going to get ugly in ways not seen since the height of the Vietnam era. I hope I'm wrong. I really do. But I don't make a habit of making outlandish predictions often, because I'm not often far off.

And, quite frankly, I'm more than a little surprised to see someone whose own spiritual beliefs (as far as I've gathered from years of her posts) are most definitely on the Dobsonites' "Not Approved" list lining up to defend them.

[Undertoad]

They just went over this on Fox News.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) mused about how a perception that judges are making political decisions could lead people to "engage in violence."

Cormyn was on trying desperately to step away from these remarks. He swore he wasn't saying there should be violence and that it was poorly stated remarks and that they were taken out of context of a 30-minute speech etc. etc.