Further down, for those of you who don't read things in their entirety:
NBC News reports the rifle found in the car is a Romarm Cugir Wasr 10, an AK-47-style weapon manufactured in Romania. The gun was legally purchased in Idaho in 2010, although not by Ortega.
White House Shooting Suspect Charged With Attempted Assassination
Charged with attempted assassination
Thursday, Nov 17, 2011 | Updated 9:47 PM EST
Jackie BensenThe suspect in Friday's shooting at the White House appeared in court in Pittsburgh, Pa., and waived extradition.The man accused of firing shots at the White House has been charged with attempting to assassinate President Barack Obama.Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, 21, made his first court appearance Thursday in Pittsburgh. The federal public defender's office in Pittsburgh represented him during the initial hearing.Ortega's feet were shackled during the hearing, but his hands were free. He waived his right to an extradition hearing, and will be flown to Washington, D.C., to face trial on the charge.When asked by a judge whether he understood that he was going back to Washington to face the charge, Ortega replied only, "Yes, ma'am."The assassination charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.Law enforcement sources told the Associated Press earlier Thursday that Ortega would undergo a mental evaluation.The father of Ortega, arrested on Wednesday at a western Pennsylvania hotel, told Telemundo his son was obsessed with the date 11/11/11, believing the world would end that day.The Washington Post reports a police source said Ortega harbored a hatred toward President Barack Obama and society in general.According to court documents, a person in Idaho who knows Ortega well told Park Police and the Secret Service that Ortega believed the government was conspiring against him and said he wanted to hurt the president, who he call "the anti-Christ." Another person also said Ortega called Obama "the anti-Christ" and said he "needed to kill him." That witness said a gun Ortega kept in his room was gone after Ortega left Idaho.A person who knew Ortega for six years also said Ortega had an "AK-47-like gun." Ortega told that acquaintance that Obama was the problem and that Ortega would not "stop until it's done" and Obama "needed to be taken care of."So far, officials have not made a public announcement on the possible motive for the shooting on Friday evening that sparked a multi-agency investigation involving the FBI, the Secret Service, and Park Police.Oscar Ortega was arrested at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday in an operation by Pennsylvania State Police that witnesses said looked like an "armed invasion."A man who was on the phone outside the Hampton Inn near Indiana, Pa., said he watched as law enforcement stormed the hotel. "Five troopers rolled up and took out all their guns and rifles and big ammo," the witness told News4's Jackie Bensen. "And then stormed in the front door and then next thing I saw, they told me to run away."A spokesperson for Pennsylvania State Police said that Ortega asked why he was being arrested, but did not make any other statement.Investigators have not yet conclusively linked the shooting on Constitution Avenue and 16th Street on Friday to the bullets found on White House grounds Tuesday. One of the bullets was found embedded in ballistic glass behind a historic exterior window. Several bullet impact points were found, and several bullets and fragments were collected.A witness told authorities a dark-colored sedan stopped on Constitution Avenue after 9 p.m. Friday and shots were fired "directed at the Ellipse behind the South Lawn of the White House" out the passenger-side window. The witness said the sedan then accelerated.Minutes later, authorities found an abandoned black 1998 Honda Accord near the ramp to the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge.Investigators are still running tests to determine whether the rounds were fired by an assault rifle found in the abandoned car, which Ortega left Idaho with last month, according to authorities in Idaho. Officials have said if the shots were fired from Constitution Avenue, it would have been a low-percentage shot. The round, believed to have been fired from the window of a moving vehicle, would have traveled 800 yards.NBC News reports the rifle found in the car is a Romarm Cugir Wasr 10, an AK-47-style weapon manufactured in Romania. The gun was legally purchased in Idaho in 2010, although not by Ortega.Law enforcement searched for Ortega in the Occupy DC camp in McPherson Square before catching up with him in Pennsylvania. Family members in Idaho reported him missing on Halloween. On the day of the shooting, Arlington police detained Ortega and photographed him after a resident said he was acting suspicious, but he was released.In the last shooting at the White House, a Colorado man sprayed the mansion with at least 27 semiautomatic rifle bullets from Pennsylvania Avenue in an attempt to assassinate President Bill Clinton in October 1994. Bystanders subdued him, and no one was injured. Francisco Martin Duran was later convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison for that shooting.
I am all for keeping guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them, so I understand why you would want to require background checks. I have no problem with requiring background checks for the sale and transfer of any firearm - new or used.
ReplyDeleteBut how in this case, I dont see how a background check would have prevented what he did? It doesn't say how he obtained the gun, so the reader has to make assumptions whether it was legal or illegal. No where in the story does it say he was not allowed to own a firearm. Links in the story do say he has had arrests for minor run ins with the law, but nothing which prevented him from owning a firearm.
It would be great if we had a crystal ball to predict who would go from law abiding to criminal, but we don't.
P.J.,
ReplyDeleteBackground checks are just the first step. Next comes registration. What good is a background check if we can't later determine who bought the gun used in a crime? Of course, registration can be used to require all law-abiding citizens to turn over their guns at some point, as was done with handguns in England.
Wow you reproduced a LOT of that article. Fair use?
ReplyDeletePJ wrote:
ReplyDeleteBut how in this case, I dont see how a background check would have prevented what he did?
Two things; one he appears to have been known to be mentally ill and to be threatening to the President. Two, if we did have background checks and if firearms were tracked in transfers such as this, there wouldn't be a question about how he came to have the weapon.
We need to be tracking where guns go, and to be sure that the people who do have them are safe to do so.
GC wrote:
ReplyDelete"Of course, registration can be used to require all law-abiding citizens to turn over their guns at some point, as was done with handguns in England."
Registration is used in other places, like Australia, without it resulting in people not having guns at all. Ditto across Europe. Registration is an excellent idea.
And you were aware that very few people in England had firearms at the point that occurred?
And did you happen to note that we can through the foundation of representative governments decide through those representatives how we want to regulate dangerous things like firearms, flame throwers, etc.?
We are a helluva lot more free when we are not in fear of firearms than when we all have to go armed and engage in shooting battles with people in your dystopian universe.
Anonymous, who appears to be our ignorant visitor Andrew Rothman, likes to prattle on about fair use, copyright infringement, and theft of intellectual property.
ReplyDeleteAndy's ignorance on the topic includes confusing posting something as being a claim of authorship.
He also likes to make libelous claims that when a person has explicit permission in writing to use a piece of work they are stealing that content.
Little things like facts don't matter to our friend Andy here. He doesn't care about them, he just ignores them when they are inconvenient.
He doesn't understand the distinction between implicit and explicit permission either.
We can only hope that he is more careful in distinguishing who or what he shoots at than he is with his accusations.
I can use ALL of a work, if I choose, in fair use, particularly when that work is news article length rather than book length, so long as it pertains to some kind of commentary. That commentary doesn't even have to be specific to each individual work used, if it is part of a larger body of commentary - like the ongoing commentary here.
I bet our friend dumb Andy doesn't even understand that each of the comments here become part of that commentary and discussion, further contributing to it being fair use.
You embarrassed yet at your own ignorance Andy on the topic? Because if you don't realize it yet, I've been very careful to do my homework on fair use.
Maybe you should go back to something you know...if there is anything you really know well.
The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute I W. & M. st.2. c.2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.
ReplyDeleteSir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England
Hey Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI do not care for the anti 2nd mindset of the moderators here, but I think that you fair use douche-bags are a scummier lot than them......
Dog Gone attributes and links....
So shut your pie-hole sit down and let the adults talk here.....
this is what should happen to people that abuse copyright law.....
ReplyDeletehttp://righthavenlawsuits.com/
Thomas said...
ReplyDeleteHey Anonymous,
I do not care for the anti 2nd mindset of the moderators here, but I think that you fair use douche-bags are a scummier lot than them......
Dog Gone attributes and links....
So shut your pie-hole sit down and let the adults talk here.....
Thank you, Thomas.
We'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool Greg Camp.
ReplyDelete"Background checks are just the first step. Next comes registration. What good is a background check if we can't later determine who bought the gun used in a crime?"
I've been saying that right along. To make background checks on all gun transfers really effective, we'd need licensing and registration.
The biggest objection I hear against this is the paranoid nonsense that confiscation would follow.
Mikeb302000,
ReplyDeleteHow, exactly, is the thought that confiscation comes after registration a paranoid bit of nonsense. Again, look at handguns in England. Anything the government has a list of, it can confiscate when it wants to do so.
The good news is that America is a gun country. There are so many here and we are so committed to keeping them that our government isn't likely to attempt confiscation or even registration. Politicians like keeping their jobs, after all.
GC wrote:
ReplyDelete"How, exactly, is the thought that confiscation comes after registration a paranoid bit of nonsense."
Perhaps we are using a different meaning for the word confiscation?
In the UK and in Australia, so far as I am aware, there was no 'confiscation' in the sense the word usually has. No police force went door to door taking people's weapons from them without compensation.
from dictionary.com:
Origin:
1525–35; < Latin confiscātus (past participle of confiscāre to seize for the public treasury), equivalent to con- con- + fisc ( us ) basket, moneybag, public treasury ( see fiscal) + -ātus -ate1
Related forms
con·fis·cat·a·ble, adjective
con·fis·ca·tion, noun
con·fis·ca·tor, noun
non·con·fis·ca·tion, noun
pro·con·fis·ca·tion, adjective
World English Dictionary
confiscate (ˈkɒnfɪˌskeɪt) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
— vb
1. to seize (property), esp for public use and esp by way of a penalty
— adj
2. seized or confiscated; forfeit
3. having lost or been deprived of property through confiscation
[C16: from Latin confiscāre to seize for the public treasury, from fiscus basket, treasury]
Rather, as through the legislation enacted by duly elected representatives in government, when many if not most handguns became illegal under that widely supported action, the guns were voluntarily turned in to law enforcement for compensation.
No 'confiscation' by jackbooted government thugs pounding on your door stealing your stuff.
Changing the status to make something that is dangerous and harmful illegal and paying people for that thing is NOT confiscation in the accepted sense of the word.
Confiscation means without compensation and usually not a legal act by authorities. This was legal, and compensatory.
So you are writing about something in a paranoid, inaccurate way.
Dog Gone,
ReplyDelete"To seize, especially for public use and especially by way of penalty."
That sounds exactly like what the law created. Were there criminal penalties for not giving up one's guns? Did it become a crime to continue possessing the prohibitied gun, or was the law merely a suggestion?
Confiscation doesn't have to be a door-to-door search. There are other ways of going about it, including seizing property under eminent domain--see the Kelo decision. I wonder if the governments gave actual compensation for those guns, including for the loss of enjoyment of one's property, or if they gave a pittance and told the owners to be satisfied.
But surely you know that we gun owners will accept no scheme whereby the government appropriates our firearms, regardless of how it's done.
GC wrote:
ReplyDeleteThat sounds exactly like what the law created. Were there criminal penalties for not giving up one's guns? Did it become a crime to continue possessing the prohibitied gun, or was the law merely a suggestion?
The process operates by declaring an amnesty transition period during which firearms which have been made illegal for private ownership can be transferred to the police voluntarily without penalty. In Australia the owner was compensated for the value of the firearm; in the UK, I'm not clear on how the compensation aspect was handled. I'll look that up later when I have the time.
If you did not turn in a firearm which had become illegal to own, I suppose you were penalized if you were caught for some other reason with it, but so far as I know,no one came looking for you or the firearm.
It is legal, it is fair and reasonable for dangerous inanimate objects like weapons, to be regulated by appropriate legislative bodies.
Firearm violence, particularly deaths, is lower in the UK than anywhere in Europe, many times lower than in the U.S.
Stricter regulation of firearms seems to equate to that result anywhere and everywhere when it occurs. That is the desideratum, to be free from fear - including of gun nuts losing or misusing their firearms.
First off, Greg, provide a verifiable instance of gun confiscation from a truly law abiding citizen (i.e., other than the possession of the firearm, there was no illegal activity).
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the cost of running house to house firearms searches on the off chance of finding firearms is prohibitive.
The actual mechanics of how this would work from someone who was actually paid to research this topic is that firearms are required to be registered.
There is usually a period in which the firearms are either registered or lawfully disposed: such as sold, turned in for destruction, or gotten out of the jurisdiction.
For example, the 1968 Firearm Act in the UK was accompanied by an Amnesty. There have been subsequent amnesties since that time.
After that period, the firearm is an unregistered item and its possesion would be illegal.
A person isn't charged with possession unless they are caught with the firearm. Usually that is in the commission of a crime.
Ideally, what happens is the weapons supply dries up from lowering the amount of firearms in circulation.
We can get into the technicalities of how this works in practise, but I know it would go over your head, Greg.
But as it is wont to be pointed out, criminals don't register their weapons--which is an important tool to prosecuting them.
It's like they don't have the registration, or permission, to use the stolen car.
Dog Gone and Laci the Dog,
ReplyDeleteYou're only establishing my point. Registration makes a list of lawful gun owners. Then the government makes firearms (of one kind of all kinds) illegal. Finally, anyone caught with a gun is automatically a criminal. Whether it invovles house to house searches or enforcement whenever it's practical, that still makes criminals out of gun owners who choose to keep their firearms. I don't have to provide examples of this happening, since Dog Gone already outlined how it did happen.
Now we're clear. You've stated what you want. American gun owners will never accept your program. Where do we go from here?
Now we're clear. You've stated what you want. American gun owners will never accept your program. Where do we go from here?
ReplyDeleteNovember 21, 2011 5:59 AM
See Gun Control Act of 1935, Gun Control Act of 1968.
So, what you're saying is that American gun owners (all of 'em, not just you gunzloonz?) are criminals? I mean there's a pair of federal laws, one of which has been on the books for 76 years that you say you won't accept. I guess that makes you a criminal, or a potential criminal. So instead of Law Abiding Gun Owners we have Law Abiding (Except For Those Stupid Laws I don't Agree With) Gun Owners? Okay, thanks for the clarification.
Greg may be right that registration and confiscation will never happen in the US. Closing the private sale loophole would enough. Some improvement will be had.
ReplyDeleteGC wrote:
ReplyDelete"Now we're clear. You've stated what you want. American gun owners will never accept your program. Where do we go from here? "
I like the laws in Australia that provide for hunters and people who enjoy shooting sports to have their guns. In Australia and the UK, despite a very small vocal minority, the legislation passed, without too many people having personal meltdowns over it.
I think that could happen here; that if it were passed most people would be law abiding. Only the fanatics would be crazy about it.
I'm not interested in preventing hunters from hunting, or skeet shooters from skeet shooting,target shooters from target shooting.
But this idea of all of us needing to go armed at all times is wrong, it is bad.
The other thing I really really like about laws in places like Australia is the requirement for safer storage than we mandate here.
I found this interesting:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp
Gun ownership is related to hunting and sport, certainly, but self defense is another of its characteristics, and effective self defense has been outlawed in the countries that you name--Canada and England, in particular.
ReplyDeleteYou just can't accept that America is a gun culture. Of course, Laci the Dog and Mikeb302000 live elsewhere, so they're disinterested observers, perhaps. But your proposals aren't going to work. We won't allow them. Look at the recent attempts at gun control. They've either expired with no chance of reauthorization, or they've died in committee.
Democommie,
There are moves to get rid of the laws that you named. Look at Montana; look at the bill that Orrin Hatch is working on.
Laci and MikeB are both U.S. citizens. They are as much involved and vested in this country as you are.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of reasons for people to live abroad. It doesn't negate either their citizenship or their love of this country. No-wrong-bad, GC.
GC wrote:
ReplyDeleteYou just can't accept that America is a gun culture.
You miss the point GC. We don't have to accept that this is what you call a 'gun culture'. What you call a 'gun culture' isn't a healthy culture or society.
It is a far more violent one than other similar cultures and societies - like Canada.
There is an inherent assumption in you carrying a firearm that this is how you resolve conflicts. If it wasn't, you wouldn't wear it.
I'm betting that I go more places, both in the US and outside the US, places that are potentially dangerous than you do - without relying on a firearm for my safety or in response to crime.
As one of my dog handlers pointed out - he's a black gentleman who is equally at home in the worst ghetto and any boardroom - I can do that, because of how I think and how I assess danger.
It's about what is inside that matters, not what is in your holster.
Gun culture is a culture of death and violence, and it IS going to end and be replaced by a more sane and objective and reasonable approach to firearms.
NOT their abandonment, not the ending of all guns, No. But we can certainly do enormously more than we do now to make our society less violent, especially with firearms.
Dog Gone,
ReplyDeleteAgain, you've missed my point in many comments. I've never said that a gun is the answer to every problem. It is, however, an effective answer to some problems.
GC wrote:
ReplyDeleteAgain, you've missed my point in many comments. I've never said that a gun is the answer to every problem. It is, however, an effective answer to some problems.
I got your point GC; I just disagree with it.
You however seem to be missing mine.
If you do not have a gun to fall back on as a solution, you look differently at the alternatives. I'm arguing that you look harder, longer, and BETTER at finding those alternatives to shooting someone, and that those solutions DO exist, and that gun violence is NOT a GOOD solution to pretty much anything. A notable exception would be law enforcement.
In societies where guns are not routinely carried in public places people do just fine, one might argue they do BETTER without guns.
dog gone:
ReplyDeleteGreg Camp doesn't tell us how long he's been carrying a gun, everywhere he goes, all the time. He actually doesn't tell us that he DOES those two things. He hints at it, but he works in a school in, based on his self report on another thread, must be Arkansas. According to this:
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/arcode/Default.asp
it is illegal to carry a gun in any publically owned building in Arkansas, absent being one of a narrow category of those authorized to do so.
So, Greg Camp, are you breaking the law? Are you submitting to the law or are you in some third category?
Dog Gone,
ReplyDeleteA gun is an answer to a limited number of problems, and those problems are rarely resolved in favor of the innocent party through other means. I've mentioned before that using a gun in self defense requires a direct threat to one's own life or the life of another innocent person. I've never suggested using a firearm to answer someone cutting me off in traffic or calling me a name. But you seem incapable of recognizing that rational choice on my part.
Democommie,
You are correct. Carrying a firearm into a college building in Arkansas is against the law. We're trying to get that changed, but for now that's the rule, and I obey it. Of course, you may not believe me.
I also use the firearms ban in the local mall as a reason not to enter that place, although the truth is that I just don't like malls.
Greg Camp:
ReplyDeleteSo, you will obey the law, the law that you say is unfair? Why would you not obey a law to turn in your weapons (as if such a thing was at all likely to happen)?
Democommie,
ReplyDeleteWould you obey any law, no matter how unjust? I have to balance the risk to myself from law enforcement against the injustice of the law. If I get caught with a gun in a campus building, that's the end of my gun ownership, not to mention legal bills and some time behind bars.
On the other hand, if the government bans firearms altogether, we'll have sunk to such a state that the only honorable choice will be to fight back.
I don't see that happening any time soon.
"On the other hand, if the government bans firearms altogether, we'll have sunk to such a state that the only honorable choice will be to fight back."
ReplyDeleteIOW, I'll obey the laws I agree with. Thanks for clearing that up.
So I suppose that when people broke the law as a protest during the Jim Crow days in the South, they were equally offensive to you? How about the resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Europe during the Second World War? Is it your belief that all laws must be obeyed, no matter whether they are just or unjust?
ReplyDeleteGreg, do you understand that for a valid contrast and comparison, things must have some significant commonality?
ReplyDeleteYou write:
' So I suppose that when people broke the law as a protest during the Jim Crow days in the South, they were equally offensive to you?
Do you grasp what non-violent civil disobedience IS? It means you put yourself in a position of passive, peaceful protest, knowing that you will or are likely to be arrested, and then go through the judicial process to challenge the legitimacy of the law you are protesting.
You are speaking of armed, violent activity, NOT passive, peaceful, non-violent judicial challenge, and public persuasion instead of violence.
As an example, I DO equally disapprove of the race riot violence that occurred during the civil rights era.
GC then makes more of the same false analogy arguments here:
How about the resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Europe during the Second World War?
No, there is NO legitimate comparison to a military arms supported effort coordinated with a national military, on behalf of a legitimate national government, in opposition to a foreign invader.
Do you REALLY not see how these things are NOT like the other?
Is it your belief that all laws must be obeyed, no matter whether they are just or unjust?
There is a big BIG difference between opposing a foreign invader or occupier in conjunction with one's national military, compared to a peaceful non-violent civil disobedience protest to one's own legitimate domestic representative government.
The first one is a legitimate military-armed civilian action in support of a valid national military opposition fighting a foreign invader, not one's own domestic military.
The second is only legitimate when it is NON-violent and unarmed. The two do not equate, the two do not properly compare.
One more case of either a bad failure to engage in critical thinking or valid logic on your part.
Dog Gone,
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you just stop talking about logic, O.K.? You've said your piece on that, and I've said mine. Let it go. You're welcome to reply to my statements, but really, I have no need to be told what your overall evaluation is. Pick up the needle, and move it to the next track.
Disobedience is disobedience. Sometimes, it's moral disobedience, and we praise those cases, regardless of what techniques or tools were used. Look at Libya, as an example. That was armed resistance against the current government of that country. The Libyan rebels asked for our help and got it, but they did the hard work themselves, and they did it with violence. So did Americans in our revolution. Gaddafi wasn't a foreign invader, and neither was King George III. In both cases, armed resistance--with some outside help, to be sure--won the day.
Gc wrote:
ReplyDeleteDog Gone,
Why don't you just stop talking about logic, O.K.? You've said your piece on that, and I've said mine.
Because your failures at using logic are part of a continuing problem with any worthwhile discussion.
Let it go. You're welcome to reply to my statements, but really, I have no need to be told what your overall evaluation is. Pick up the needle, and move it to the next track.
I'll be delighted to 'move on' when you improve your logic and reasoning. It is essential to the discussion.
NO, it is not. Civil disobedience is unarmed, it is out in the open -being fully public is part of what defines it. It is peaceful. It is against one's own civil government.
Civil disobedience is entirely different and separate from military / quasi-military resistance against a foreign illegitimate invading force. It is armed, it is secretive, it is not peaceful, it is making war, its purpose is to kill the enemy, completely unlike civil disobedience. Armed resistance in a war is NOTHING like 'disobedience' in concept, in moral right, in practical application.
GC continued to display his fundamental and basic lack of understanding of the relevant concepts:
Sometimes, it's moral disobedience, and we praise those cases, regardless of what techniques or tools were used.
The hell we do. We did not praise the race riots in the 60s. We did not praise the execution ofQu'addafi without a trial. Do you understand ANYTHING about what Gandhi did? Or MLK?
Look at Libya, as an example. That was armed resistance against the current government of that country.
No, at that point largely peaceful civil protest had succeeded, and the next step was to engage, with the military, in a civil war against an illegitimate government.
Do you understand at all the salient differences between civil disobedience, military and paramilitary warfare, and civil war? All three are fundamentally different, not the same, not even remotely.
The Libyan rebels asked for our help and got it, but they did the hard work themselves, and they did it with violence. see above
So did Americans in our revolution. Gaddafi wasn't a foreign invader, and neither was King George III.
The U.S. was a group of colonies in foreign territory that had been claimed by multiple countries which declared itself a sovereign separate country. It was a very different scenario than say, doing the same thing IN ENGLAND. That made it a totally different scenario than a civil war, like Libya, or civil disobedience, like the civil rights Jim Crow protests, or the Maquis in France in WW II.
All three are thoroughly DISSIMILAR.
In both cases, armed resistance--with some outside help, to be sure--won the day.
Not the same, not similar, you appear to have NO grasp of history, the ethics and moral rights behind the above, or the very significant practical differences. Your analogy is a failed one. This discussion only serves to underline how fundamentally flawed your grasp of the issues really is.
Greg, your arguments are like saying a car and a turkey are the same because both are useful as inanimate objects, and both tend to go somewhere to celebrate Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, cars and Turkeys (the edible kind, not the slang term for a poor functioning item) are NOTHING like each other.
Dog Gone,
ReplyDeleteYou're displaying your biases here. You don't believe that armed conflict settles anything. Fine, be a pacifist. The simple fact is that sometimes, violence is the only answer that will work. If you support our military or our police, but refuse to take any such action on your own, what you're doing is outsourcing your violence.
You do love to subdivide every category, but disobedience or resistance of any kind has the common element of a group of people or perhaps even a single person refusing to comply with those in power. Whether that's done by marching down the street or by planting bombs to strike a passing troop convoy, the common element is there. You're debating tactics, but I never said that violence is the only answer to every problem.
I do understand what Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. did. Their solution was one answer, and it has yet to be decided whether what they chose was the best way. India and Pakistan are still struggling to settle things, and race relations in this country are hardly ideal. Time will tell.
"Pick up the needle, and move it to the next track."
ReplyDeleteThis morning I was listening to Black Sabbath's first album, the one I owned in 8-track tape version when it first came out.
You may know about vinyl albums, Greg, but you're not old enough to remember the 8-tracks, are you?
GC wrote:
ReplyDeleteYou're displaying your biases here. You don't believe that armed conflict settles anything. Fine, be a pacifist.
No-wrong-bad again, Greg. That wasn't what I wrote, so either you are deliberately being stupid, or you are deliberately being dishonest.
There are instances where armed conflict is appropriate, as in opposing foreign invasion. I certainly did not state that violence doesn't settle anything. There are very real moral principles - those moral rights from which civil rights develop - about when it is a legitimate option to go to war with another country.
NOT with one's own government however.
You confuse opposition with disobedience. They are not the same.
You confuse protest and dissent with making war; the two are nothing alike, not in moral justification, not in principle, not in practice.
You confuse civil disobedience and civil war. Here is how they are alike; they both have the word civil in the term. That is about the only thing they have in common.
This is about your ignorance, your lack of cogent thought process, your lack of critical thinking ability, not my bias.
The things you call 'alike' is no more alike than a car and a Thanksgiving Turkey.
GC:
The simple fact is that sometimes, violence is the only answer that will work. If you support our military or our police, but refuse to take any such action on your own, what you're doing is outsourcing your violence.
THAT may be the stupidest thing you have ever written here.
MikeB complimented you on writing well.
I don't find you write particularly well, but it's not bad in terms of the age level of the words or your sentence structure.
But the content is deplorable, in terms of research, facts, and reasoning.
I'm curious - did you ever TAKE any course work on logic or critical thinking? Were you ever on a school debate team where someone coached you on making a well reasoned argument?
If I rely on our national military, which I do support, then I am being a good citizen. If I decide to take on the role of the military on my own, to attack the military of another country, independently of our government support and approval, then I am not being a good citizen, I am not being a patriot, I'm just being a lunatic and a stupid one at that.
If I rely on the police to do their designated job of law enforcement, and if I do my best as a citizen to support and cooperate with them to make my community a safe place, then I am a good citizen, a good member of my community.
If I decide instead however to act instead of law enforcement in a violent way, then I am taking the law into my own hands, short circuiting the rule of law and due process and the role of the judiciary, as well. That is what vigilantes do, it is not being a good citizen, it is not being a patriot, it is not being a good member of society or the community.
Outsourcing violence, my ass. Perhaps you don't really understand what outsourcing is. There are some things which require an authority from an entire community, or other entity, that differs from contracting a different company to do your payroll checks or provide janitorial services, or other tasks.
I hope when Thursday rolls around, you are clear about what is on your plate. You need to be careful that you are eating Turkey, and not your dashboard or steering wheel, or fender.
They're inanimate objects, just like the Turkey, so you could get confused by that similarity, since both can be part of celebrating Thanksgiving.
Mikeb302000,
ReplyDeleteYup, I remember 8-tracks. I'm older than my teeth, but not so old as my tongue, as that miraculous line goes.
Dog Gone,
I prefer white dashboard to dark, and don't hog the gravy.
What does this mean, I don't get the reference.
ReplyDelete"I'm older than my teeth, but not so old as my tongue, as that miraculous line goes."