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  1. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    What the Rittenhouse affair has definitely revealed—though no one seems to be emphasizing this?—is the demographic composition of at least the riotous end of those Mostly Peaceful Protests. After all, what are the odds that Rittenhouse shot three men, and all three turned out to be white felons? It’s like rolling dice and getting snake eyes three times.

    Jump Kick man was black. He’s been identified. And hey, guess what? His 21-year criminal record supposedly includes “acts of criminal violence, destruction of property, possession of controlled substances, traffic offenses, family court violations, and escape from custody.” Clearly an Eagle Scout.

    He must have gotten different merit badges than I did.

    Leftist merits are… different.

    • #181
  2. Charles Mark Member
    Charles Mark
    @CharlesMark

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    DoubleDare (View Comment):

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    I have a theory that the Far Left never got over the collapse of the Soviet Union, or the role played in that great event by the GOP and the Catholic Church; and that this trauma has driven them around the bend. It’s a pretty crude theory, but I believe that there is something to it.

    I think you should work out an elaboration of your “crude theory.”

    I’ll have a stab. What I think has changed in the last 30 years or so is the evolution of “Derangement Syndromes”. It’s not good enough for the Left to disagree with or dislike their opponents- they have to despise them, to consider them a threat to the World and to Democracy, the embodiment of evil. I hardly need to recite the attitude of the left to the last several GOP Presidents. And if the GOP is evil incarnate, anything that damages the Party is fair game, even murderous riots. The media feel no need to report fairly because to do so might contradict the narrative. There are many examples: to me the refusal to hold China to account for its part in the spread of Covid is right up there.

    No doubt there are elements on the GOP side who are equally execrable, but they are nowhere near the mainstream of the Party. 

    Another, more international example, is the hatred for Israel, ally of the US. I have a sub- theory that when the Deranged don’t have a Republican President to hate, Israel is the substitute of choice. As it happens, the left in my Country are particular sinners in this regard. 

     

    • #182
  3. Basil Fawlty Member
    Basil Fawlty
    @BasilFawlty

    kedavis (View Comment):

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    What the Rittenhouse affair has definitely revealed—though no one seems to be emphasizing this?—is the demographic composition of at least the riotous end of those Mostly Peaceful Protests. After all, what are the odds that Rittenhouse shot three men, and all three turned out to be white felons? It’s like rolling dice and getting snake eyes three times.

    Jump Kick man was black. He’s been identified. And hey, guess what? His 21-year criminal record supposedly includes “acts of criminal violence, destruction of property, possession of controlled substances, traffic offenses, family court violations, and escape from custody.” Clearly an Eagle Scout.

    He must have gotten different merit badges than I did.

    Leftist merits are… different.

    Instead of a merit badge, you get a merit garland.

    • #183
  4. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Basil Fawlty (View Comment):
    Instead of a merit badge, you get a merit garland.

    !

    • #184
  5. DrewInWisconsin, Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    What the Rittenhouse affair has definitely revealed—though no one seems to be emphasizing this?—is the demographic composition of at least the riotous end of those Mostly Peaceful Protests. After all, what are the odds that Rittenhouse shot three men, and all three turned out to be white felons? It’s like rolling dice and getting snake eyes three times.

    In fact, these are exactly the people Antifa recruits and literally pays to riot.

    • #185
  6. OwnedByDogs Lincoln
    OwnedByDogs
    @JuliaBlaschke

    Charles Mark (View Comment):
    Anarchists are perennial losers. The fools in Portland will fade away. Civilisation is stronger than you think- with respect. 

    I believe this is true and there have been signs that it is. The election of Youngkin in Virginia and the verdict in this trial. But things were looking very shaky for a while there and continue to do so in way too many parts of the USA. There was just another looting of a Nordstrom store in California and car jackings are happening all over the place.  Government agencies subject their employees to struggle sessions. The public schools are a bad joke. Etc.

    Meanwhile Democrats just keep doubling down. My 68 year old husband was hoping to retire next year and now we have rampant inflation and a feeble old President handled by what seems to be a bunch of stoned teenagers with Daddy’s credit card.

    The country of my birth and early life, Australia, has lost its collective mind over Covid.

    I worry for my kids and grandkids.

     

    • #186
  7. OwnedByDogs Lincoln
    OwnedByDogs
    @JuliaBlaschke

    Basil Fawlty (View Comment):
    Yep. Civilization is only as strong as the people willing to defend it.

    Indeed.

    1. Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don’t do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free. – 1961 Ronald Reagan
    • #187
  8. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Stina (View Comment):

    Charles Mark (View Comment):
    Civilisation is stronger than you think- with respect.

    Only if there is a will to keep it. And I’m not entirely certain if it is. Especially given the bellyaching over 17 year olds.

    Like I said, if it bugs you that much, than do what you can to keep that from happening where you live. But don’t judge people for choices made in circumstances you are unfamiliar with.

    Sometimes it’s just a matter of differing perspectives about the details, Stina. I’ve raised five young men. All of them owned guns long before they were 17. All of them grew up on a farm, free to go out and hunt and shoot whenever they wished. I’ve had a boy sitting on the garage roof for hours with a Russian sniper rifle, waiting for the snapping turtles in our bass pond to surface so he could kill them. I’ve had kids in tree stands in our back woods long before I woke up in the morning, waiting for deer. My youngest, my daughter, got her first rifle and shotgun when she was ten.

    My third son became the youngest college graduate accepted into the Army the year he graduated and went off to command tanks in South Korea. The next in line is a cop and gunsmith. My family owns a lot of guns, and all of us are proficient with them. There’s no squeamishness here as regards guns, nor even as regards the use of lethal force.

    At the same time, I’m a parent. That, more than anything else, is how I self-identify. Part of my job as a parent has been to try to instill in my children a sense of responsibility and an ability to reasonably assess risk. Had any of my children approached me, at age 17, and said that they wanted to enter a riot area with a rifle (or handgun, or shotgun, or anything else), I’d have encouraged them to not do so, because I would have concluded that the risk to my child did not justify any gains that were likely to occur. Had I not been available to advise the child, and had the child subsequently entered the riot zone as Mr. Rittenhouse did, I’d have judged the action unwise.

    I don’t know why saying this gets folks’ undies all bunched up. It seems like a logical parental response to risk, to me. In any case, confusing that statement with a condemnation of Mr. Rittenhouse would be a mistake, at least in my case: as I’ve posted elsewhere, I’m delighted by the court outcome and wish the young man the best — and hope he shows slightly better judgment in the future.

    • #188
  9. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    What the Rittenhouse affair has definitely revealed—though no one seems to be emphasizing this?—is the demographic composition of at least the riotous end of those Mostly Peaceful Protests. After all, what are the odds that Rittenhouse shot three men, and all three turned out to be white felons? It’s like rolling dice and getting snake eyes three times.

    The odds might have been better than you think.  These were not random shootings.  He didn’t pick three out of a crowd.  These three thugs stepped up and attacked Rittenhouse.  They were bad guys who wanted to do bad things to somebody.  They chose their fates.

    • #189
  10. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Manny (View Comment):

    GrannyDude (View Comment):

    What the Rittenhouse affair has definitely revealed—though no one seems to be emphasizing this?—is the demographic composition of at least the riotous end of those Mostly Peaceful Protests. After all, what are the odds that Rittenhouse shot three men, and all three turned out to be white felons? It’s like rolling dice and getting snake eyes three times.

    The odds might have been better than you think. These were not random shootings. He didn’t pick three out of a crowd. These three thugs stepped up and attacked the Rittenhouse. They were bad guys who wanted to do bad things to somebody. They chose their fates.

    Jump-Kick Man was black. Rittenhouse was lucky enough to have missed him. But Jump-kick Man had a record as long as the other two. That was why the prosecution did not call him as a witness.

    • #190
  11. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Charles Mark (View Comment):
    I’ll have a stab. What I think has changed in the last 30 years or so is the evolution of “Derangement Syndromes”. It’s not good enough for the Left to disagree with or dislike their opponents- they have to despise them, to consider them a threat to the World and to Democracy, the embodiment of evil. I hardly need to recite the attitude of the left to the last several GOP Presidents. And if the GOP is evil incarnate, anything that damages the Party is fair game, even murderous riots. The media feel no need to report fairly because to do so might contradict the narrative. There are many examples: to me the refusal to hold China to account for its part in the spread of Covid is right up there.

    I’m going to have to disagree.  That animus toward tradition and the norm was there from the founding of leftism since Karl Marx, and probably going back to the Enlightenment thugs of the French Revolution.  That hatred of western civilization has been foundational for the left.  What’s different today – and I think this is a distinction in history since the French Revolution – is the demographics.  How many are far left.  When the far left is able to accumulate a sizable population that shares their views, then they feel confident to go on a rampage.  The French and Russian revolutions as prime evidence.  Today the far left is now dominating the Democratic party.  What was once a fringe wing of a once centrist Democratic Party is probably now a majority of the party.  And that is why the last decade since Obama’s election has been what it has been.  Their increased demographic gives them strength and confidence. Can anyone imagine twenty years ago that gay marriage would be the norm?

    • #191
  12. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Joseph Stanko (View Comment):

    Django (View Comment):

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    Roderic (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Yeah, come to think of it, was there a night of rioting in Kenosha following the shooting?

    Someone finally showed up at one of these riots armed and ready to defend people and property from the rioters. When some rioters were killed the shooter was exonerated in court.

    Imagine what these goons will think when people show up at the next riot with semi-automatic rifles. That the left’s violence may have consequences must be a nightmare for them.

    I watched an interview on a Portland TV station with a lefty (shocker!) law professor who worried about the “precedent” of armed citizens protecting property. Why does it never occur to these great intellects that the real issue is the abdication of government’s duty to provide protection for life and property and the consequences of the refusal to imprison thugs and arsonists?

    I thought that the only issue was the use of “lethal force” to protect property. If one is not armed, what does he use to protect anything? Strong words?

    You’re not supposed to protect anything yourself, you should leave that entirely to the professionals. You know, the police, the ones the left want to defund.

    Being ‘liberal’ means never having to make logical sense.

    • #192
  13. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Columbo (View Comment):

    Joseph Stanko (View Comment):

    Django (View Comment):

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    Roderic (View Comment):

    Flicker (View Comment):
    Yeah, come to think of it, was there a night of rioting in Kenosha following the shooting?

    Someone finally showed up at one of these riots armed and ready to defend people and property from the rioters. When some rioters were killed the shooter was exonerated in court.

    Imagine what these goons will think when people show up at the next riot with semi-automatic rifles. That the left’s violence may have consequences must be a nightmare for them.

    I watched an interview on a Portland TV station with a lefty (shocker!) law professor who worried about the “precedent” of armed citizens protecting property. Why does it never occur to these great intellects that the real issue is the abdication of government’s duty to provide protection for life and property and the consequences of the refusal to imprison thugs and arsonists?

    I thought that the only issue was the use of “lethal force” to protect property. If one is not armed, what does he use to protect anything? Strong words?

    You’re not supposed to protect anything yourself, you should leave that entirely to the professionals. You know, the police, the ones the left want to defund.

    Being ‘liberal’ means never having to make logical sense.

    Maybe they think social workers and mental health counsellors will protect them?

    • #193
  14. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Whoops

    • #194
  15. BDB Inactive
    BDB
    @BDB

    Percival (View Comment):

    We usually referred to the input as weight-on-wheels (WOW). A lot of stuff uses that to determine what is allowed to happen. It would seem that there ought to be a little delay built into retracting the gear, but that is for the gearheads to puzzle out. I just turn the actuators on and off.

    Wrong thread, eh.

    • #195
  16. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    BDB (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    We usually referred to the input as weight-on-wheels (WOW). A lot of stuff uses that to determine what is allowed to happen. It would seem that there ought to be a little delay built into retracting the gear, but that is for the gearheads to puzzle out. I just turn the actuators on and off.

    Wrong thread, eh.

    • #196
  17. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    Columbo (View Comment):

    BDB (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    We usually referred to the input as weight-on-wheels (WOW). A lot of stuff uses that to determine what is allowed to happen. It would seem that there ought to be a little delay built into retracting the gear, but that is for the gearheads to puzzle out. I just turn the actuators on and off.

    Wrong thread, eh.

    “And Bob was there, too.” 

    • #197
  18. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    DoubleDare (View Comment):

    Charles Mark (View Comment):

    Stina (View Comment):

    Charles Mark (View Comment):
    That’s a tricky one for me to answer Manny, since my basic point is that he should not have been there. But in the moment when his life was under threat, I’m glad that he was able to defend himself and that he was acquitted on grounds of self-defence.

    This is something conservatives should be hyper aware of. The issue isn’t that the 17 year old went out to protect his neighborhood. It was a good and right thing that he did. The issue is that our inability to hold the left accountable LED TO THE NEED for citizens to defend their homes and livelihoods. If 17 year olds fighting to keep the corn fields from being razed makes you uncomfortable, then fight harder to rid us of the plague of dyscivic monsters that are doing all in their power to destroy the civilization our ancestors bequeathed us.

    I really hope things aren’t that bad in the USA. When people here in Ireland tell me that the US is in its death throes, I reply that there are vast swathes of the country where people get on with their lives quietly and peacefully and pay little or no attention to the media/political/social media noise. I’m well aware that there are flash points and I need no lectures about the malignancy of the Far Left. (The next Government in Ireland will most likely be led by comrades and former(?) members of the terrorist Marxist IRA). I understand that passions are high. But I don’t recognise the dystopian present you portray here. I hope I am right.

    Things really were that bad in the summer of 2020 in a lot of Democrat-dominated cities in the U.S. They’ve moderated now, as the lack of rioting (outside of Portland) last night demonstrates. My own cynical view is that now that Trump is no longer in office, the Dems find that the chaotic violence and destruction no longer serve their political purposes.

    But they’ve set the precedent now that if it ever does suit their purposes again, the rest of us are on our own. And to me, that’s exactly what Stina is pointing out.

    I have a theory that the Far Left never got over the collapse of the Soviet Union, or the role played in that great event by the GOP and the Catholic Church; and that this trauma has driven them around the bend. It’s a pretty crude theory, but I believe that there is something to it.

     

    • #198
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