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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
The Department of Justice said it was creating a task force to determine how federal enforcement tools could be used to prosecute criminal conduct toward teachers, and how to assist state and local authorities investigate such threats where such instances may not constitute federal crimes. (The Hill)
What does a progressive totalitarian do when her ideology is challenged by people demanding facts? Refuse to debate, obfuscate, deploy shifty taxonomy and strain to reframe the issue.
Most those who have heard of critical race theory and think they have a good idea of what it is believe that teaching it in schools is bad for America (55%). More than one-third of this group (37%) thinks that it is good for America. (YouGov Poll)
What if she still can't convince normal people? Call them racists.
What if shouting "Racist" doesn't work?
Get the bureaucratic police state to declare your enemies terrorists.
George Bush took a giant step towards building a totalitarian police state after 9/11, and the bureaucracies have been building it out ever since, yearning to replicate communist Eastern Europe or 1950's Latin American dictatorships. Yes, the US Postal Service carries out a domestic spying operation on US citizens residing in the nation we once thought was ours.
Someone shouting at a school board meeting is not terrorism. Threatening violence is not terrorism--It is a crime that local police departments and local prosecutors know how to handle. This is way over the top. Our federal government is out of control and I don't know how we stop it.
America has seen terrorism. Bubba threatening to kick a school board member's ass ain't it. Please read this short article for a dose of reality: A History of Attacks at the US Capitol
I agree that 'terrorism' is overused, much like most other labels we used to take for granted [like 'patriot'].
ReplyDeleteBut we can thank our elected representatives for overly-broad legislation.
"A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act "dangerous to human life" that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping." - 18 U.S. Code § 2331
Boxes i & ii are being checked, by the Left and the Right.
Of course, actors are using this paradigm for their own instigative gains as well:
"The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory" - Christopher Rufo
I'm reminded of a similar tactic used by the gun control cabal.
Play stupid games....win stupid prizes
I don't think even the criteria for i and ii are checked. Certainly not by the BLM Corporation, and not by Antifa. They are violent street rabble meeting criteria for i, but not the rest. They are not a terrorist organization.
DeleteThe term--like many terms as you just stated--is way overused, and I think this is part of an info ops against "the MAGAts."
I'm not saying that most instances that we can point to, meets 'our' common definition of terrorism. But we have certainly witnessed overt, specific and in many cases, calculated, acts of violent intimidation against government and/or fellow Citizens.
DeletePerhaps if the electorate were more involved/informed in the crafting of our laws, we wouldn't be left with countless loopholes and intentionally vague parameters, that almost universally benefit the State.
It doesn't matter if i, ii, iii or all three are checked if the definition of "an act dangerous to human life" is not met. What act inherently "dangerous to human life" did the protestors of Jan 6 perform?
DeleteAsk the injured law enforcement officers from that day, if they felt that the assaults were 'dangerous to human life'.
DeleteCi, thank you for that language. The perpetrators who attacked police on that day, committed criminal assault. Not terrorism. Also, the term extremist gets thrown around a lot. I should have included that use in this post but I didn't.
DeleteYou'll love this then. The FBI and DHS have four categories of 'extremism': Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism, Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremism, Animal Rights/Environmental Violent Extremism, Abortion-Related Violent Extremism.
Deleteand a catch-all: All Other Domestic Terrorism Threats: This category encompasses threats involving the potentially unlawful use or threat of force or violence in furtherance of ideological agendas which are not otherwise defined under or primarily motivated by one of the other Domestic Terrorism threat categories. Such agendas could flow from, but are not limited to, a combination of personal grievances and beliefs, including those described in the other Domestic Terrorism threat categories. Some actors in this category may also carry bias related to religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
That gives federal LEOs enough cover the apprehend a jaywalker for 'extremism' [anti-traffic?]
The applicable category for the topic at hand is defined as: Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremism: This threat encompasses the potentially unlawful use or threat of force or violence in furtherance of ideological agendas, derived from anti-government or anti-authority sentiment, including opposition to perceived economic, social, or racial hierarchies, or perceived government overreach, negligence, or illegitimacy.
I have little sympathy for the violent, insulting tantrum-throwers who comprise the 'Cult of the Asshole'.....but day by day, every dystopian, security state book and movie we've ever come across.....is becoming reality.
Could there be starker evidence of the power of the teacher's unions within the Democratic Party?
ReplyDeleteDomestic "Terrorism" is when DOJ threatens to intervene in local School Board meetings with criminal prosecution of stake holders (parents of children).
DeleteJoe... if they are violent. If they physically attack ppl as we have seen happen. Peaceful protest is fine and guaranteed by the Constitution. But you are not guaranteed a right to physically attack someone, be in a school board meeting, or at the US Capitol.
DeleteGarland's letter is a threat of physical violence... for the DOJ/FBI complex have a legal monopoly on the use and application of force. THAT is why it is so inappropriate, especially in a venue that caters to LOCAL and not interstate political issue
DeleteAll law enforcement is a threat of physical violence, no matter the jurisdiction.
DeleteIndeed, against "illegal behaviours" and not "free speech".
Delete...and local school boards have local leo's to "enforce the laws". There's no need for a "federal" intervention unless the intent is to intimidate. And THAT is what it is. Federal "terror".
DeleteOf course.....illegal behaviors such as.....assault.
Delete...or it's current extension (speech as violence).
DeleteDOJ Mission creep.
DeleteSlavoj Zizek, "The Liberal Utopia, Section II: The Market Mechanism for the Race of Devils"
DeleteAs every close observer of the deadlocks of Political Correctness knows, the separation of legal Justice from moral Goodness - which should be relativized-historicized - ends up in a stifling oppressive moralism full of resentment. Without any "organic" social substance grounding the standards of what Orwell approvingly referred to as "common decency" (all such standards are dismissed as subordinating individual freedom to proto-Fascist organic social forms), the minimalist program of laws which should just prevent individuals to encroach upon each other (to annoy or "harass" each other) reverts into an explosion of legal and moral rules, into an endless process of legalization/moralization called "the fight against all forms of discrimination." If there are no shared mores that are allowed to influence the law, only the fact of "harassing" other subjects, who - in the absence of such mores - will decide what counts as "harassment"? There are, in France, associations of obese people which demand that all public campaigns against obesity and for healthy eating habits be stopped, since they hurt the self-esteem of obese persons. And so on and so on: incest-marriage, consensual murder and cannibalism... The problem is here the obvious arbitrariness of the ever new rules - let us take child sexuality: one can argue that its criminalization is an unwarranted discrimination, but one can also argue that children should be protected from sexual molestation by adults. And we could go on here: the same people who advocate the legalization of soft drugs usually support the prohibition of smoking in public places; the same people who protest against the patriarchal abuse of small children in our societies, worry when someone condemns members of foreign cultures who live among us for doing exactly this (say, Gypsies - preventing children from attending public schools), claiming that this is a case of meddling with other "ways of life"... It is thus for necessary structural reasons that this "fight against discrimination" is an endless process endlessly postponing its final point, a society freed of all moral prejudices which, as Jean-Claude Michea put it, "would be on this very account a society condemned to see crimes everywhere."
Liberals are seeing crimes everywhere... especially in the speech of Conservatives.
Deleteibid.
perhaps, the time has come to focus on the liberal utopia itself. For liberalism, at least in its radical form, the wish to submit people to an ethical ideal that we hold for universal is "the crime which contains all crimes," the mother of all crimes - it amounts to the brutal imposition of one's own view onto others, the cause of civil disorder. Which is why, if one wants to establish civil peace and tolerance, the first condition is to get rid of "moral temptation": politics should be thoroughly purged of moral ideals and rendered "realistic," taking people as they are, counting on their true nature, not on moral exhortations. Market is here exemplary: human nature is egotistic, there is no way to change it - what is needed is a mechanism that would make private vices work for common good (the "Cunning of Reason"). In his "Perpetual Peace," Kant provided a precise formulation of this key feature:
many say a republic would have to be a nation of angels, because men with their selfish inclinations are not capable of a constitution of such sublime form. But precisely with these inclinations nature comes to the aid of the general will established on reason, which is revered even though impotent in practice. Thus it is only a question of a good organization of the state (which does lie in man's power), whereby the powers of each selfish inclination are so arranged in opposition that one moderates or destroys the ruinous effect of the other. The consequence for reason is the same as if none of them existed, and man is forced to be a good citizen even if not a morally good person. The problem of organizing a state, however hard it may seem, can be solved even for a race of devils. 2
One should follow this line to its conclusion: a fully self-conscious liberal should intentionally limit his altruistic readiness to sacrifice his own good for the others' Good, aware that the most efficient way to act for the common good is to follow one's private egotism. The inevitable obverse of the Cunning of Reason motto "private vices, common good" is: "private goodness, common disaster."
So, defund the police state?
ReplyDelete...or apply for a job as a Praetorian.
DeleteNo, Sandy. Reform it. Put it back in its box.
DeleteMerrick Garland is a Federalist Society guy, out of his box lol
DeleteI did not know he was in the Federalist Society. I thought they only admitted scary, extreme rightwingers who wanted to install fascism...
DeleteI have mixed feelings about Merrick Garland. The Federalist Society credentials would suggest a strict Constitutionalist, conservative and / or libertarian bent. I suspect much of the Republican opposition to confirming him to the Supreme Court had more to do with denying Obama a pick than any ideological red lines crossed. Obama could've nominated pure whackadoo instead of the seemingly tame Garland. His notable points of history is that as a federal prosecutor he went after the militia movements of the Clinton years, such as the Montana Freemen and had a hand in trial of Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber. So there is an angle to this domestic terrorism concern in his past. I'd like to see if there's a Garland-directed agenda really there.
DeleteTC ++
DeleteI just don't see how that evolves from vigilance against Timothy McVeigh / Ted Kaczinski / Cliven Bundy types to trying to cow angry parents at a PTA meeting. More info needed.
DeletePartisan politics explains everything--on both sides.
DeleteAl Gore was pro-life before he joined the Clinton Crime Syndicate.
Al Gore was raised and mentored by Dixiecrat segregationists before he began advocating environmental policies that would create more homeless black people. A leopard's spots never change.
DeleteInteresting poll. More democrats than republicans have heard of critical race theory, but more republicans reckon they could have a crack at defining it! I suspect that says more about the relative hubris in each camp than it does about whether it is dangerous to introduce the hypothesis that structural racism exists to our students. (I remember some thoughtful investigations on this blog, but I very much doubt many households, republican or democrat, have been talking about CRT in as much detail as you have).
ReplyDeleteI notice that nearly two thirds responded that the criminal justice system, the police and the news media operate in a racist way. Combining those figures, there must be a significant overlap between people who acknowledge that racism, but are scared of CRT. It isn't impossible to reconcile those opinions, but the options I can think of are a little uncomfortable. Seems like they must think that either there is no structural racism (implies widespread individual racism in those institutions, coupled with a lack of oversight from the good apples); or there is structural racism but it isn't worth acknowledging it (would cause more disruption than it's worth) so let's hide it from the children; or there is structural racism but they like it*. Are there any others?
Further confusing the issue, no one can even agree on what CRT is. The left in particular, the intellectual left, and the taste makers, like to employ terms and then go all squishy and slithery over what the definitions are
DeleteThere seems to be quite a bit of agreement across races on one particular aspect of this colon racial determinism. Being black does not make you holy, and being white does not make you a devil. We have to judge people on the content of their character, not the color of their skin
Progressive do love their Motte and Bailey defense of CRT...
DeleteI try to avoid shenanigans... I'm willing to defend my beliefs or at least admit when they are tentative.
DeleteJez, Please don't think I was attacking you or lumping you in with the people in my comment. I was not.
DeleteSF, we understand each other :)
DeleteI was making the point to FJ.
^^rara avis^^
Deletethat's me!
Delete:P
DeleteRelated (in case this information has not come up here in this thread at Always On Watch):
ReplyDeleteAG Garland – daughter married to founder of company providing critical race theory materials to schools.
PLEASE READ THE ABOVE!
Nice find! Always follow the money.
DeleteIf I had to classify the 6 Jan event, I would say it was more of a hoax gone wrong than an insurrection. Actually, I’ve never heard of an insurrection without a lot of guns. The only firearm discharge was that of a Capitol Hill police officer who shot an unarmed woman. It was an event that lasted a few hours with minimal damage (in contrast with the riots in 2020 exceeding $2 billion in damage) — hardly anything rivaling the assault on our democracy on 9/11 or Pearl Harbor ... or the Civil War. I think Pelosi misspoke when she claimed, “an assault on our democracy.” I think what she meant to say was an assault on their oligarchy ... and I think that’s what it was, perpetrated by a few goof-balls. BTW, goof-balling does not warrant an armed response. So then, what was the Democrat’s response all about if it wasn’t saving America from Japanese pilots? It was all designed to discredit Trump, who needed no help from anyone in that regard. But anyway, thank goodness for the Gesta ... um, FBI who are sworn to upon federal laws governing school board meetings. Our country would be lost without them.
ReplyDeleteI would agree that 'insurrection' is an emotionally chosen label for the events of that sad day in American history, it is worth considering the verbiage of the law:
Delete18 U.S. Code § 2383 - Rebellion or insurrection
Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
There is little doubt of the aims of the protestors/rioters/"tourists" that day.......
That reads pretty broad.
DeleteOf course, just like the 'domestic terrorism' statute. But it's specific enough to charge the 6 Jan participants.
DeleteWell CI... and therein lies the problem for many. Based on the law that we have, which you have cited, it is hard to come to any other conclusion that people breaking down doors, windows, beating people, and invading the Capitol with the stated intent to stop a legal proceeding of the US Congress is/was anything other than an insurrection.
DeletePeople can complain all they want, but that does not mean their words are factual or in accordance with US law.
+1
DeleteCall it whatever you want. Democrats have been needling, goading and hoping against hope for the Reichstag Fire, and this case of trespassing and vandalism, with some criminal assault thrown in has given it to them. Good luck trying to ride it to 2022...
Delete2022... Republicans squirming to avoid the kiss of death, er, Trump's endorsement, while simultaneously trying to put faith back into the election process.
DeleteWheels coming off during a tire shortage lol
Black Lives Matter and Antifa have done considerably more violence and damage than anyone on the far-right did on that So Called Terrible Day January 6th, or any white supremacy groups in recent years. That's a fact - so let's put this in its proper perspective!
ReplyDeleteA proper perspective should imo include the violence and damage caused (alongside the benefits afforded) by government and the police etc. alongside the protest movements you listed. Otherwise you're always going to prefer the least disruptive protests, without regard for the moral urgency of their protest.
Deletelol! Moral outrage=0
Delete@ Jez "Government and Police."
DeleteGovernment and Police? They haven't caused BLM/Antifa-scale destruction since 1985 Philly
Arguably the police etc. in the course of normal operation cause damage which, because it's business as usual, we don't recognise as disruption.
DeleteNot only damage, but actual murder of innocent civilians. Given the history of policing in this country [nit much different than others]....it should come as no great shock that it still occurs, and they're a still protected class.
DeleteJoe,
DeleteMoral outrage=0
People have grown inured and shrug.
@always, inured is a good word for what I'm talking about regarding police brutality etc. I don't think people are indifferent to crime, it's just a non sequitur or at least I don't understand the relevance to this conversation.
Deleteyou're always going to prefer the least disruptive protests, without regard for the moral urgency of their protest.
DeleteI compare the "police criminality" rates with the "non-police criminality" rates when deciding "moral urgencies" or my protests.
A better question would be why are black people killed more often in cities governed by Democrats?
DeleteI disagree that police criminality is equivalent to non-police criminality. If my neighbour threatens me, I can call the cops. If the cops are bent, what recourse do I have? What alternative is there to the police?
DeleteFrom who, and by what evidence?
ReplyDelete