US Politics: Meet the New Right, same as the Old Right

[Shryke]

Was watching the Maddow show last night and apparently the left-over militia men (and it is mostly men, from the clips I saw) are now forming check points around Bunkerville and stopping motorists to ask for IDs.

What?

First, how does a group of people loosely affiliated with the idea of personal freedom decide that they need to stop other people from moving around? Isn't that, like, anti-freedom?

Second, what authority do they think they have to erect barracades in Bunkerville, Nevada? Most of these peopel are not from the area. They do not live there. They do not own properties there. They do not work there.

Third, what sort of ID are they looking for? I am guessing it would have to be something issued by a government? Wouldn't that go against their anti-government thing? Or do they behave like that enigmatic Bundy reasoning that "Federal governemnt bad, state government good"? Or are they accepting non-government issued IDs like Blockbuster cards (do they have a Blockbuster in Bunkerville?)?

Forth, when will they start shooting each other and save the Feds the trouble? And can I donate money to supply them with bullets when that happens? Or will the Federal government give them tax exemption on the cost of bullets in their next year's income tax, if any of them actually file income tax?

I been mentioning this for days!

But anyway, are you really surprised that the "freedom" lovers are really in to armed intimidation to stop that evil government from getting them? It's perfectly in line with their king-of-the-castle where the king has an assault rifle style belief in personal autonomy.

Also, the Rep from the area has been complaining about it as have the residents, but nobody has done anything about it so far. Just like they've done little about the entire situation so far. They are too scared of another Waco.

And the issue with them shooting each other is there's probably still a bunch of non-gun-toating loons, including their wives and children, in the area/crossfire.

[Shryke]

I'm trying to do a thought experiment of imagining the experience of encountering these people on the road.

How do they stop you? Do they shoot at you if you don't stop? Do you roll down your window and kindly tell them you're just going to visit your friends in Colorado? Do they search your vehicle? How do they decide if they search your vehicle? Do they have a written protocol for check point management?

Apparently, from what I read, they stop you because a guy holding an assault rifle asking you to stop is fucking scary and then they give you a look and probably warn you about the government coming to get you while scaring the ever loving fuck out of you.

[Suttree]

Interesting articles. So consistent with reports about the armed standoff that occured bewteen Bundy supporters and the BLM, a militia member recounts wielding his weapon in one part of the standoff under a freeway over pass. I would find this whole "they blinked first" mentality somewhat funny if you didn't get the sense that these nutters are fully buying into the narrative that their guns made all the difference in defeating those dang cowardly feds.

Rachel Maddow :)

Lindsey Graham :cheers:

[TerraPrime]

Re: Shryke

Surprised? No. Like you, I've always seen them as gun-totting bullies (note to the conservatives: not all bullies are gun-totters and not all gun owners are bullies), not freedom fighters.

Speaking of wives and children, I still chuckle at the proclaimed strategy of ringing their camps with women and kids during the anticipated shooting match with the Feds to make sure that the Feds end up killing some women to make for a better story for them. It exemplifies what is so utterly fucking wrong with these people.

Re: Trisk and Shryke

And I imagine that if I were a gun owner in my car and some yahoo in paramilitary uniform stopped me and approached me with a shotgun, I would seriously consider shooting them. Are they robbers? Are they kidnappers? Who the fuck knows? Better protect me and my truck and shoot first.

[Commodore]

the problem is not the substance of Common Core, it's the idea that there must be a consensus curricula and that it must be imposed by the state

[Shryke]

the problem is not the substance of Common Core, it's the idea that there must be a consensus curricula and that it must be imposed by the state

"This discussion of education wasn't balls to the wall crazy enough. I gotta fix that!!"

[Shryke]

Re: Shryke

Surprised? No. Like you, I've always seen them as gun-totting bullies (note to the conservatives: not all bullies are gun-totters and not all gun owners are bullies), not freedom fighters.

Speaking of wives and children, I still chuckle at the proclaimed strategy of ringing their camps with women and kids during the anticipated shooting match with the Feds to make sure that the Feds end up killing some women to make for a better story for them. It exemplifies what is so utterly fucking wrong with these people.

They are an apocalyptic cult. They believe in trying to force a confrontation with the US government that gets innocent people killed to spark a second revolution. And they aren't even coy about it.

That they have political support in this goal is one of the reasons your country is fucking bonkers.

Re: Trisk and Shryke

And I imagine that if I were a gun owner in my car and some yahoo in paramilitary uniform stopped me and approached me with a shotgun, I would seriously consider shooting them. Are they robbers? Are they kidnappers? Who the fuck knows? Better protect me and my truck and shoot first.

I generally imagine anyone thinking that is already with or supporting the militia. It's the non-crazy people, gun-owners or otherwise, who just wanna drive to their destination with committing a murder, who are stopping and annoyed by this bullshit.

[Commodore]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377137/awol-commander-chief-andrew-c-mccarthy

Outnumbered and fighting off wave after jihadist wave, Americans were left to die in Benghazi while administration officials huddled, not to devise a rescue strategy, but to spin the election-year politics. The most powerful and capable armed forces in the history of the world idled, looking not to their commander-in-chief but to a State Department that busied itself writing press releases about phantom Islamophobia. The president of the United States, the only constitutional official responsible for responding, was nowhere to be found.

We are left with four dead Americans and an emerging paper trail of dereliction stretching from Benghazi to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Benghazi is not about what Hillary Clinton or Leon Panetta or Susan Rice or Ben Rhodes or Jay Carney or Robert Lovell did or didn’t do. The only question is: What was President Barack Obama doing, and not doing, during the critical hours when his sworn duty required decisive action? Mr. Obama owes Americans a detailed answer. Now.

[Inigima]

Re: Common Core, I've discussed this elsewhere, but judging from the discussion so far, I need to repeat myself because most of you have no idea what you're talking about. This includes literally everyone commenting on it so far.

1. If you have a problem with the Common Core, fine, but most of the complaints so far evidence a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Common Core is. If your kid is bringing home worksheets with weird ways to do math, it isn't because of the Common Core. Common Core is not a curriculum in anyway, only a set of standards: the consensus on what kids should know by the time they graduate from high school. It doesn't dictate how those skills are to be taught.
   
2. The program people usually point to for new math curricula that they hate is called "Everyday Math." Reviews are mixed. Some people like it a lot, some people hate it. Either way, a. it has nothing to do with Common Core, and b. quite rightly, no one really gives a shit if parents don't understand it, if it proves to be better. My parents don't understand lots of shit that's perfectly good. If you don't like the curriculum, fine, but you need to get your arguments straight. The idea behind Everyday Math is to teach students to understand why their math works, rather than just memorizing tables. I have no idea if that's a good approach or not. I'm not an educator. But neither are most of you, and I'm willing to bet most of you don't know either.
   
3. I do think the Common Core overemphasizes STEM research at the expense of the humanities, because we have turned public education into a worker production machine. Put kids in, get employees out.
   
4. Common Core is the darling of the school reform movement, which if I could have I would have strangled in its infancy. Point (3) above is one big reason why, but there are many reasons to despise it. Again, these things should be separated. If, after separating them, you still hate them both, fine, but at least you'll have a coherent reason why.
   
5. Common Core is not a federal program. It is a program created by the National Governor's Association. If you don't like it, take it up with your state government and stop blaming the feds.

[Shryke]

Re: Common Core, I've discussed this elsewhere, but judging from the discussion so far, I need to repeat myself because most of you have no idea what you're talking about. This includes literally everyone commenting on it so far.

1. If you have a problem with the Common Core, fine, but most of the complaints so far evidence a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Common Core is. If your kid is bringing home worksheets with weird ways to do math, it isn't because of the Common Core. Common Core is not a curriculum in anyway, only a set of standards: the consensus on what kids should know by the time they graduate from high school. It doesn't dictate how those skills are to be taught.

2. The program people usually point to for new math curricula that they hate is called "Everyday Math." Reviews are mixed. Some people like it a lot, some people hate it. Either way, a. it has nothing to do with Common Core, and b. quite rightly, no one really gives a shit if parents don't understand it, if it proves to be better. My parents don't understand lots of shit that's perfectly good. If you don't like the curriculum, fine, but you need to get your arguments straight. The idea behind Everyday Math is to teach students to understand why their math works, rather than just memorizing tables. I have no idea if that's a good approach or not. I'm not an educator. But neither are most of you, and I'm willing to bet most of you don't know either.

3. I do think the Common Core overemphasizes STEM research at the expense of the humanities, because we have turned public education into a worker production machine. Put kids in, get employees out.

4. Common Core is the darling of the school reform movement, which if I could have I would have strangled in its infancy. Point (3) above is one big reason why, but there are many reasons to despise it. Again, these things should be separated. If, after separating them, you still hate them both, fine, but at least you'll have a coherent reason why.

5. Common Core is not a federal program. It is a program created by the National Governor's Association. If you don't like it, take it up with your state government and stop blaming the feds.

I agree with everything here. But I really wanted to focus on 2, which seems to be people's biggest issue.

Institutional Intertia is not a sign of quality people. Just cause it's not taught the way you were taught doesn't mean it's a bad way to teach it.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377137/awol-commander-chief-andrew-c-mccarthy

Outnumbered and fighting off wave after jihadist wave, Americans were left to die in Benghazi while administration officials huddled, not to devise a rescue strategy, but to spin the election-year politics. The most powerful and capable armed forces in the history of the world idled, looking not to their commander-in-chief but to a State Department that busied itself writing press releases about phantom Islamophobia. The president of the United States, the only constitutional official responsible for responding, was nowhere to be found.

We are left with four dead Americans and an emerging paper trail of dereliction stretching from Benghazi to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Benghazi is not about what Hillary Clinton or Leon Panetta or Susan Rice or Ben Rhodes or Jay Carney or Robert Lovell did or didn’t do. The only question is: What was President Barack Obama doing, and not doing, during the critical hours when his sworn duty required decisive action? Mr. Obama owes Americans a detailed answer. Now.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/05/08/timeline-military-response-to-benghazi-attacks/

Testimony before a House committee Wednesday gave rise to new questions about whether the U.S. military could have done more to intervene during the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. Here is a timeline of the U.S. military’s response to the Benghazi attacks, as compiled by the Defense Department (all times local):

9:42 p.m.: U.S. consulate in Benghazi is attacked.

11:30 p.m.: Consulate personnel who survived the attack leave consulate for the nearby annex.

12:30 a.m. (approximately): A six-man security team — four are part of a quick-reaction force and two are special-operations force members — leave Tripoli on a Learjet to Benghazi.

12:30 a.m. (approximately): In a different part of Tripoli, four of the Army’s Green Berets, who are in Libya on a training mission, are asked to awaken U.S. personnel and help with a preventive evacuation in Tripoli.

1:30 a.m.: The six-man security force arrives in Benghazi.

Look, I'm not going to categorically state that Benghazi was handled perfectly by the Obama administration, but the National Review claiming that the administration was too busy huddling to make campaign strategy to respond to the attack is just patently false. What's the thinking behind this silliness, that the Federal government is comprised of a few guys in a room who can either choose discuss campaign strategy and labor for hours to come up with a nefarious lie about a youtube video or to respond to global security threats?

[Shryke]

Regarding point #2 and institutional inertia - I agree it's not a problem if the parents don't understand it. When it becomes a problem is when the kids know how to do the work (e.g. addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), but they're getting hung up on all the other bullshit that goes along with it, and then neither the kids nor the parents understand what the hell is going on. Then both the kids and parents end up frustrated, and that seriously interferes with the whole point of education.

But that's the thing: is the "bullshit that goes along with it" a problem or is it actually the point of the exercise? And do the kids actually not understand it or are they reflecting the parents reaction to it as the parents try to help the kids? Hell, would the kid be having trouble regardless of the system used because maybe he's not that great at math for whatever reason and the parents are just projecting that issue onto the new curriculum? And is the problem the way the question is written or the type of question being asked all together? Is it a good idea badly implemented?

These things are all tangled up together and it's not as cut and dry as "My kid hates his school work, RARR COMMON CORE SUCKS!!", despite that being the overall message. Parents are not necessarily in any position to know what the best school curriculum looks like or to evaluated the reasons for issues they may be having.

[Shryke]

The only experience I've had with the work is when helping my fiancee's daughters. When both of them can actually do the math, but are having trouble with the other stuff, that makes me think there's a problem.

What "other stuff" are we talking about here though?

When both of them start crying from frustration after two hours of working on math homework, and then are getting C's or D's on their tests even though they can do the math right, that leads me to believe it's a problem with the curriculum. When I go with my fiancee to their school to discuss these issues with the teacher, and even the teacher can't explain these concepts in a way that makes sense, that leads me to believe the whole system is fucked.

1) If they can do the math, why the low marks? What part of the cirriculm is causing the problem?

2) Maybe the reason they are crying with frustration is because holy fuck 2 hours of math work. Maybe the issue is amount of work rather then content.

[Shryke]

That said, there are serious concerns about who is writing the actual questions for many of these assignments/tests/etc and whether they have any background in actual educational science.

[Inigima]

South Carolina: Still relitigating the Civil War https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/t1.0-9/p526x296/10301300_10203051337558389_3223161833470282950_n.jpg

[Galactus]

South Carolina: Still relitigating the Civil War https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/t1.0-9/p526x296/10301300_10203051337558389_3223161833470282950_n.jpg

Fucking scum.

[NoneofYourBiz]

Random question for anyone who can answer: did Congress ever actually vote on Syria? I know that Obama was going to ask them to, but did that vote ever actually happen?

Nope, Putin came in with a save.

[TrackerNeil]

There's an interesting and somewhat counter-intuitive take on what the Senate would be like in O's final two years should the Republicans take it here, and the summary is that perhaps they wouldn't want to go too full-on Teahad because it would poison the waters for their 2016 nominee.

I read this:

If Justice Ginsburg steps down in 2015 and Obama nominates a liberal female or ethnic minority, or a female ethnic minority to replace her what would Majority Leader Mitch McConnell do? If past is prologue, he'd just refuse to confirm anyone until 2017, banking on the chance that a Republican will replace Obama in the White House.

I just don't believe it. It's one thing to blockade the DC court, which Americans don't care about, but quite another to do the same with the Supreme Court of the United States. That would not only catch the attention of the media; it would dominate the news cycle for a long time. Republicans would try to spin things their way, of course, but in the end I expect most Americans are going to (properly) see ther intransigence as an attempt to strip the president of his constitutionally guaranteed appointment power. There would be constant and, in my view, ever-mounting pressure for Senate Republicans to relent and confirm someone that Obama chose, or else risk a constitutional crisis. So I think that although Republicans could take that position, they couldn't hold it for long.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Inigma,

The American Civil War wasn't litigation. People don't, usually, die as a result of litigation. What was the event behind the display on the State House steps?

I was downtown today to go to the Farmer's market and didn't see what was going on.

[Inigima]

Inigma,

The American Civil War wasn't litigation. People don't, usually, die as a result of litigation. What was the event behind the display on the State House steps?

I was downtown today to go to the Farmer's market and didn't see what was going on.

It's a common turn of phrase, Scot.

I have no idea what it was for, still trying to find out.

I read this:

I just don't believe it. It's one thing to blockade the DC court, which Americans don't care about, but quite another to do the same with the Supreme Court of the United States. That would not only catch the attention of the media; it would dominate the news cycle for a long time. Republicans would try to spin things their way, of course, but in the end I expect most Americans are going to (properly) see ther intransigence as an attempt to strip the president of his constitutionally guaranteed appointment power. There would be constant and, in my view, ever-mounting pressure for Senate Republicans to relent and confirm someone that Obama chose, or else risk a constitutional crisis. So I think that although Republicans could take that position, they couldn't hold it for long.

I don't know if they will or they won't, but the story of the Republican party since, basically, the turn of the millenium has been realizing that they can get away with virtually anything if it isn't actually illegal. External "pressure" and "shame" do not appear to apply to them at this point.

That said, they did confirm Obama's previous nominees.