2016 US ELECTION: Official Results Thread

[Flagg]

I think Hitler banned smoking in public, but I could be wrong on that. So every state that bans smoking indoors is equatable to Hitler now. Or I could be full of shit.

Hitler probably took more inspiration from Mussolini and made the German trains run on time too. Trains are important man. Hence why Long Island's transportation system is fascist! q.e.d.

The Italian trains never ran on time. Mussolini just huffed and puffed and said they were, and people believed him because he looked good with his shirt off pretending to chop wood for a photo op.

Honestly, I think that "Trumpolini" is the most apt 'Trump name slur' I've heard so far. We shouldn't compare him to Hitler.

Hitler was a man who, in addition to his rabble-rousing, had some really terrifying abilities. He had an excellent eye for his opponents' jugular, at least until the overconfidence ran away with him. And he had remarkable memory and grasp of detail, even if his leadership abilities were fatally compromised by his megalomania.

Mussolini, by contrast, had nothing but his rabble-rousing. As soon as he was truly put to the test by the need to provide wartime leadership, he turned out to be an incompetent, farcical, blundering shell of a man.

Trump deserves to be compared to Mussolini.

Benito was also a well known rapist.

[Dragon Angel]

I've never extensively studied the machinations behind the Axis, and I'd always wondered why Italy was more or less a footnote in comparison to Germany and Japan. This really explains so much.....

[Simon_Jester]

I've never extensively studied the machinations behind the Axis, and I'd always wondered why Italy was more or less a footnote in comparison to Germany and Japan. This really explains so much.....

Italy being relatively poor in resources and industry didn't help, but yeah. Frankly, Mussolini was kind of a big puffed-up balloon dictator. Lots of style, short on substance.

Ostensibly we are not going to come to an agreement here, as I don't see compromised cases being accepted statistically widespread enough--being anywhere close to a problem--to be that much of an image breaker. If you can name several other similarly problematic cases, I'd be more open to considering your position.

The two biggest cases that flowed into Black Lives Matter were Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. We've already discussed Brown. In the Martin case, having it come out weeks later that Zimmerman had been injured the night of the shooting, in ways that strongly suggested he'd been physically harmed... That was damaging.

The reason I can't list several others is because frankly, those two got about as much press as everyone else put together, maybe more. That's the problem. Through some unspecified process, the left is nailing its colors to the mast on specific cases, preferentially, and then getting its asses kicked in ways that make us easy targets for mockery and less likely to win over the open minds that remain accessible.

Do you want it to be easy for others to present you, before such an audience, as being dishonest? They've made it fairly easy for you to do the same to them. Why make that a weapon that can be easily turned around to hit you in turn?

Of course I don't. My argument is one of boldness, not recklessness. Perhaps I am misunderstanding your argument; I've been seeing talk upon talk of needing to compromise and suck up over and over ad nauseum to the right, that what you're saying is ending up mentally equating to that. The NCGOP debacle was just one example of it, as well as a false moral and tactical dilemma.

It is in my strongly held opinion that we are too concerned with defending ourselves from the right's movements than launching our own crusade against them. This is the angle I am coming from.

There is ideological boldness, and there is tactical recklessness.

Boldness is staking out positions that are ambitious compared to the status quo. Recklessness is trying to take on cases as poster children without being prepared to accept that the case may not turn out to fit the narrative it's "supposed to" fit.

When "Joe the plumber from Ohio" turns out neither Joe nor a plumber, it undermines his message.

When we make the poster boy for "Black Lives Matter" a guy who within a few days is revealed to have robbed a convenience store, it undermines our message. Because just saying... we could have picked a different guy.

When we start re-tweeting about an article about a rape that turns out not to have happened as far as anyone investigating the case in good faith can determine... it undermines our message. We could have picked a different woman. Just saying.

Now, could we have foreseen in advance that cases like this would backfire? No. But the decision to make our ideological stances ABOUT specific cases, and then to shout at people for trying to disagree about those cases on their independent merits... is undermining our message.

That is a type of grenade we don't need exploding on the inside of our tent.

Thus, for instance, the reason Rodney King made a good high-profile case is that he actually suffered a wrong. There was video evidence he'd suffered a wrong, that the police kept beating him far past the point where he had ceased to resist. Regardless of anything else that did or didn't happen in his past, that one fact remained in play.

Michael Brown's being shot multiple times being excessive force is in dispute? Even if he was charging toward the officer, was it at all necessary to empty the clip on him?

Would you like me to go into detail on the psychology of armed force and practical means of self-defense? I could, but only if you think I'm worth taking seriously on the issue.

The problem isn't waiting to find a saint. The problem is that in the eyes of people who are anywhere near the fence, it looks really bad when the activist circuit tries to play up a rape case where there actually is strong reason to think the accused is innocent, or a police shooting where half the eyewitnesses say the dead man attacked the police officer and the other half are describing the incident in ways that contradict both each other and the forensics report.

We really do need to make a constant effort to ensure that the minimum, elementary facts are on our side. Otherwise a difficult struggle becomes impossible.

Once again, I don't see how this is as much of a problem as you and others are making this out to be. Yes, it's an issue if something with inconsistent facts is trumpeted, but now I ask, how much of this was known while the proceedings were going on? Law enforcement and the courts did not help themselves either with the shady maneuvers they were throwing around. I find it ridiculously unfair that their mistakes are not being attacked like the alleged mistakes of the activists. I mean, yeah, "life isn't fair", but if honest discussion is to be made then we have to talk about that too.

What I'm trying to get at is that this is a potentially serious problem if it has the effect I fear. Which is that large numbers of open-minded people (most of them young, hence their political views are still in flux) are coming away from this with the takeaway lesson "activists are crazy" instead of "the establishment is a bunch of snakes."

Coming across as a committed but rational person is very important when you want to lead a political crusade. It doesn't take many flecks of foam at the mouth to undermine my ability to recruit people that are themselves trying to be sane.

And I suppose that is the sum total of what I'm saying. We can redirect blame, and a lot of blame justly belongs on other's shoulders, but there's no reason we should be foaming at the mouth, or should reflexively agree with things purely because they fit our narratives.

The issue isn't people so on the fence that one imperfect victim jeopardizes the movement. It's that if we wind up publicizing five victims and three or four cases out of five turn out to simply not be what we painted them as, that can add up to discrediting the movement in the eyes of people who really are sincerely trying to be intellectually honest and listen to us.

Hmm... conceptually I have a serious problem with founding movements around particular ad-hoc incidents. If you're basing a general movement around one particular guy who got screwed over in some way, you're risking a lot of credibility because in many cases there are a lot of gray areas and case-specific details are often unclear and messy. This has been a consistent weak point with movements like Black Lives Matter, and in general with the media's tendency to push "narratives" based around a particular case study rather than actual statistics. Obviously, a particular case study is useful as a framing device, and also because human beings are naturally more inclined to care about individuals, but it inevitably results in a breakdown of logic when the movement's defenders end up actually having to defend the details of a particular case, rather than the issues at hand. It shouldn't matter if Michael Brown turns out to be a serial killer who tortures kittens for fun, what matters is there's a statistically relevant trend of black people being disproportionately targeted by the cops.

Secondly, what this election cycle showed me is that the left does in fact tend to get hysterical over the wrong details, which in turn seriously erodes their credibility on the issues that matter. The thing that really struck a chord with me this election cycle was Steve K. mother-fucking Bannon. The guy is obviously a total piece of shit. But what scared me personally was when mainstream outlets like CNN and MSNBC were constantly running pieces about his anti-Semitism. That was actually a scary moment for me. I'm Jewish, and I've always felt very safe and welcome in the United States (or at least, in the Northeast) - I've always felt fortunate enough to be a very privileged minority, to the extent that I never really felt threatened by any particular anti-Semitic event that happened, because I always felt that society at-large was on my side. But then I heard that the Chief Strategist of the President Elect is anti-Semitic?? Uh oh...

The left already has the facts on their side. So why the fuck are we resorting to this stuff?

Agreed, and that ties strongly into my point, I think.

See the thing is, the alt-right and the associated organizations kind of do have a semi-centralized power structure. It's not 100% centralized but some central directing intelligences exist. Fox News is one of the obvious ones.

Dude, if you think Fox News is alt-right, either you're using the nebulous, everyone-I-don't-like categorization or you have no idea just how deep that rabbit hole goes. "Moderate" alt-right ideas won't get anywhere near a TV network.

I will be up-front about this and admit that, possibly due to the lateness of the hour, I admittedly used the large, nebulous categorization.

That said, the right does have such organizations, even if the specific cesspool known as the "alt-right" does not. So while my choice of term was wrong, I don't think this represents a flaw in my actual point.

"The South Park-ish "Lol, they're all rats and everyone is equally shitty, so it doesn't make any difference who you support" attitude is a major source of the problem here. That mindset does a lot more to strip away our ability to distinguish between good and evil, or between truth and lies, than does having people yell "LIAR! EVIL!" louder than necessary.

On the contrary, I think this demonstrates that people needing to break things down to "good vs evil" is the problem. Clinton was a bad candidate for [reasons]. Trump was also a bad candidate for [different reasons]. People can (and do, and did) disagree on who is worse overall, and why. The breakdown comes when we get to TRUMP EVIL LITERALLY HITLER or CLINTON EVIL PIZZAGATE SATANISM. When we can't talk about "Trump is bad but probably doesn't want to commit genocide, and Clinton is bad but probably doesn't molest children" everything falls apart. That isn't "lol equally shitty", that's dealing with the real world instead of caricatures.

Bluntly, a non-caricature version of Donald Trump still comes out looking pretty damn bad.

I, for example, haven't compared Trump to Hitler- but I have compared him to Mussolini, and I think I have valid reasons to do so.

Trying to form a movement that specializes in telling people that it's wrong to strongly criticize abusive assholes and corrupt rats isn't doing anyone any favors. And that is the effect of what has happened in the rise of the "death to SJWs" movement. Your argument about leaving the house unguarded after Christmas applies just as well to this as it does to the people you're targeting it against. Certain actions have predictable bad consequences.

Predictable consequences of crying wolf with insufficient grounds to do so is that people stop believing you when a wolf appears. Either be prepared to accept that squarely, or don't cry wolf. I get it.

Now it's your turn to get it. Predictable bad consequences of forming an anti-SJW movement is that the people who really, really want to avoid justice start using you as foot soldiers and as amplifiers. Either be prepared to accept that squarely, or don't nail your colors to the mast and proclaim your allegiance to the destruction of social justice.

So you're getting it backwards.

My criticism is not that you personally are an evil liar because of a decision to associate with a group that opposes the people who shout "LIAR! EVIL!"

My criticism is that a movement you've aligned myself with is one that will predictably work to the benefit of evil liars. And has indeed done so.

I'm not guilting you, it's not about discrediting you personally. It's about discrediting a movement that is indirectly hurting our country. By reinforcing our indifference to problems, and by giving people trite excuses for ignoring those problems.

"The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less." Not my circus, not my monkeys. (Not my country, while we're at it. Damn Canadians, influencing the election again.)

And by 'our' perhaps I meant me and Dragon Angel's, eh?

[But point taken]

What it comes down to is a matter of degree of support. Looking back over the high-profile online outrage cases of the past few years, I've been pro-outrage in some instances, anti-outrage in others. I use my own judgment, and largely ignore the social media tidal waves that sweep through pop culture, because I think they're foolish.

That said, I don't make my opposition to getting riled a major point of my worldview. And I don't ramble about SJWs every time someone uses the word 'misogyny.' Because that would be deeply stupid and counterproductive. People on the left-center have done a great deal to empower the far right by doing that, in my opinion.

[Flagg]

In relation to the Martin murder, a white kid being chased through his own neighborhood by an adult male (who for all the kid knows wants to rape him), then being shot in what could easily be a case of self defense on the victim's (Martin) part would have sent Georgie the psychopath to prison for a good 25 to life. But that case has been argued enough.

[Dragon Angel]

The two biggest cases that flowed into Black Lives Matter were Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. We've already discussed Brown. In the Martin case, having it come out weeks later that Zimmerman had been injured the night of the shooting, in ways that strongly suggested he'd been physically harmed... That was damaging.

The reason I can't list several others is because frankly, those two got about as much press as everyone else put together, maybe more. That's the problem. Through some unspecified process, the left is nailing its colors to the mast on specific cases, preferentially, and then getting its asses kicked in ways that make us easy targets for mockery and less likely to win over the open minds that remain accessible.

Hmm..... I can ... perhaps ... see what you're trying to say now. I'll admit, the reason behind this effect where it exists is probably the same as the reason I'm being somewhat aggressively inquisitive into your thought process. (more details in a bit)

There is ideological boldness, and there is tactical recklessness.

Boldness is staking out positions that are ambitious compared to the status quo. Recklessness is trying to take on cases as poster children without being prepared to accept that the case may not turn out to fit the narrative it's "supposed to" fit.

When "Joe the plumber from Ohio" turns out neither Joe nor a plumber, it undermines his message.

When we make the poster boy for "Black Lives Matter" a guy who within a few days is revealed to have robbed a convenience store, it undermines our message. Because just saying... we could have picked a different guy.

From my vantage point, while Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown have been two of the big case studies of the movement, I don't see them really being flung higher in precedence compared to cases such as Tamir Rice's, Philando Castile's, Eric Garner's ... basically, I believe we seem to be coming from two completely different viewports into who the movement is using as examples, what details the movement is emphasizing besides their mistreatment by authority officials.

Which is part of why I first thought of everyone wanting to find the perfect victim. From my vantage point, I don't see the problematic cases being promoted moreso than the non-problematic cases, and/or promoted in such a way as to totally ignore unfavorable context. It came off as an unnecessary filter for unnecessary bureaucracy, in response to a questionable statistical concern that seemed more based on right-wing propaganda than much happening in reality. (not calling you right-wing here, but ... well, I'll explain this soon)

Then again, I tend to pay more attention to the lower-level people within the movement rather than the overarching organization's proclamations, so what the organization decides may paint a different picture from how the lower-level people act.

When we start re-tweeting about an article about a rape that turns out not to have happened as far as anyone investigating the case in good faith can determine... it undermines our message. We could have picked a different woman. Just saying.

Now, could we have foreseen in advance that cases like this would backfire? No. But the decision to make our ideological stances ABOUT specific cases, and then to shout at people for trying to disagree about those cases on their independent merits... is undermining our message.

That is a type of grenade we don't need exploding on the inside of our tent.

Yet, even the cases you mention cannot be compared to something like false accusations of rape. A rape that never happened is a rape that never happened; Brown and Martin, both had died under circumstances that did not equate to full innocence for the law. A false accusation of rape has no gray area. Brown's death has shades of gray in various directions, whereas Martin's death has shades of gray heavily implicating blame to Zimmerman.

In the case of Brown, his death had many complications behind it. It would still be oversimplification to say there is too much gray to discuss his death in the greater context of the movement, because the system's hands are still not clean.

Would you like me to go into detail on the psychology of armed force and practical means of self-defense? I could, but only if you think I'm worth taking seriously on the issue.

Okay, so I'll get into my reasoning for inquisitiveness now: Aside from the usual trolls who do what they do for the lulz, a problem that has been constantly run into since BLM's inception is the right deliberately trying to sabotage the discourse. This isn't a new revelation, but parts of this end up seeping into the mainstream's perception of BLM, and the mainstream tends to favor the police since there is implicit bias both for law enforcement, and against racial minorities.

With both the right trying to cut the movement's legs before the gate, and the mainstream already more inclined to favor the system, finding it difficult to believe the system has such grave systemic errors, it causes people in the movement or sympathizers to become very defensive of those whom they see the system has wronged. It's a fact that black offenders tend to be given harsher treatment by the cops, the courts, and the media than white offenders. It's a fact that the average Joe and Jane who don't have color in their skin will unquestionably believe authority figures, unless extensive proof far above the standards for non-people of color is provided.

The system itself also contributes to mucking this up. In Michael Brown's case, there were highly unusual procedures done by law enforcement and the courts that painted a very dishonest picture of their motivations. In Trayvon Martin's case, Zimmerman literally ignored a directive to not interact with Martin and chose to be a cowboy. Whatever happened between them, it cannot be denied Zimmerman was the instigator. Even the right's bugbear of "identity politics" was used, ironically, in his defense, claiming that he couldn't possibly be racist in any way because of his Hispanic heritage.

I trust I don't have to get into other actions of the blue wall. Keeping all this in mind, I tend to view attacks against Martin and Brown with a very skeptical eye, as Martin may still be alive if Zimmerman chose not to play cowboy cop, and Brown had the system making extremely questionable actions to bury his image in dirt. The right's narratives meld with the system's and dominates the discourse just by the mainstream's preference toward the system.

Even I have found myself influenced by misrepresentations of the mainstream over the course of time since their deaths. Anyone can still carry on that tainted baggage in their minds. Even people in this thread. Even leftists and liberals. Even you.

None of this is to doubt your character. It's to get to the bottom of how you think these.

What I'm trying to get at is that this is a potentially serious problem if it has the effect I fear. Which is that large numbers of open-minded people (most of them young, hence their political views are still in flux) are coming away from this with the takeaway lesson "activists are crazy" instead of "the establishment is a bunch of snakes."

Coming across as a committed but rational person is very important when you want to lead a political crusade. It doesn't take many flecks of foam at the mouth to undermine my ability to recruit people that are themselves trying to be sane.

And I suppose that is the sum total of what I'm saying. We can redirect blame, and a lot of blame justly belongs on other's shoulders, but there's no reason we should be foaming at the mouth, or should reflexively agree with things purely because they fit our narratives.

I understand this concern. We just seem to have vastly different views as to what affects people to take the former position instead of the latter. I believe the mainstream discourse is dominated by favor of the status quo, the system. You believe activists are perhaps unintentionally breaking their own cause. We might agree that each other's position perhaps has some effect, but we disagree as to which effect has more severity than the other.

Or, let me know if I have you right.

That said, the right does have such organizations, even if the specific cesspool known as the "alt-right" does not. So while my choice of term was wrong, I don't think this represents a flaw in my actual point.

There are still examples. Breitbart represents much of the "greater alt right's" views, the Daily Stormer is dedicated to represent the white supremacists. Figureheads such as Milo are very popular for the "alt right" (fuck this euphemism, seriously) to rally around.

[Flagg]

We need the forum to automatically change "alt-right" to "Nazi Fuckfaces".

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm..... I can ... perhaps ... see what you're trying to say now. I'll admit, the reason behind this effect where it exists is probably the same as the reason I'm being somewhat aggressively inquisitive into your thought process. (more details in a bit)

What my thought process comes down to is that when I see a force that I want to win, I do not want that force to get sucked into a trap.

And there are traps to be found here. Most of which involve the practice of, again, 'nailing the colors to the mast.' This is an old symbolic gesture that has an important meaning in context. Because the act of nailing your flag to the mast in a sea battle was equivalent to pre-committing to fight forever without surrender or retreat, even if that battle went against you and you were badly outgunned and clearly doomed.

It was generally agreed that a captain who nailed his flag to the mast was being very brave... but under some circumstances, it was also agreed that he was being very stupid.

To construct some hypothetical examples of when it is a bad idea to commit to "I will fight this issue forever, I will never admit a misunderstanding or a mistake..."

...

HYPOTHETICAL #1:

It is walking into a trap to support someone who's making a rape accusation when there are several independent reasons to believe the accusation is false. Even if there are ideological reasons for always showing a great deal of sympathy and moral support for anyone who says they have been raped, it is not a good idea to act against the accused, when the target of the accusations can readily present evidence that they are false.

This will predictably cause all accusations to boomerang back on the people acting against the accused. A person who has been falsely accused of a crime they have video evidence they didn't commit creates a sympathetic poster child for the misogynists. Since misogyny is normally very bad at creating sympathetic poster children, you are effectively gift-wrapping for them a powerful propaganda tool they could never have created for themselves.

This is a very simple, realistic, understandable consequence of walking into this trap. And yet there are people who would will walk into this trap anyway. Because they have nailed their feminist colors to the mast, and will fight on what they perceive as the feminist side of an argument regardless of the cost, the consequences, or the underlying facts.

...

HYPOTHETICAL #2:

It is walking into a trap when we continue to behave as though we're dealing with clear-cut murder of an innocent, when this ceases to appear so clear-cut. When the grey gets thick, we are falling into a trap if we continue to behave as if there is no grey. Obviously we can keep doing this forever. What, there's awkward witness testimony? Surely the witnesses are evil people with base motives, or innocents intimidated into lying by the local police! The forensics? A base fabrication! We can keep moving the goalposts too- saying one day that this is about the murder of an innocent, but then the next day it's about improper disposal of the body.

By nailing our flag to the mast on the issue of this particular racial cause célèbre, we paint ourselves further and further into a corner, discrediting ourselves in the eyes of people who agree that trigger-happy cops are bad, but don't see evidence of a major problem when someone picks a fight with an armed man and ends up dead as a result.

Pushing that specific category of thing is a trap. Historically, Black Lives Matter fell into this trap, which I greatly regret because it has resulted in their political impact being almost totally neutralized.

Can we continue to look for gray and for suspicion of conspiracy, to keep the fight going a little longer, and a little longer after that? Sure. Can we nail our colors to the mast and refuse to admit mistakes? Sure.

But is this winning? Is this the strategy of a crusader who is likely, one day, to actually succeed in taking Jerusalem from the heathens?

No, not really.

There is ideological boldness, and there is tactical recklessness.

Boldness is staking out positions that are ambitious compared to the status quo. Recklessness is trying to take on cases as poster children without being prepared to accept that the case may not turn out to fit the narrative it's "supposed to" fit.

When "Joe the plumber from Ohio" turns out neither Joe nor a plumber, it undermines his message.

When we make the poster boy for "Black Lives Matter" a guy who within a few days is revealed to have robbed a convenience store, it undermines our message. Because just saying... we could have picked a different guy.

From my vantage point, while Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown have been two of the big case studies of the movement, I don't see them really being flung higher in precedence compared to cases such as Tamir Rice's, Philando Castile's, Eric Garner's ... basically, I believe we seem to be coming from two completely different viewports into who the movement is using as examples, what details the movement is emphasizing besides their mistreatment by authority officials.

I suppose I cannot easily analyze in more detail. My perception is that Martin and Brown got more exposure than Rice and Garner (or Castile who I can't even remember having heard of). But I could be wrong.

Which is part of why I first thought of everyone wanting to find the perfect victim. From my vantage point, I don't see the problematic cases being promoted moreso than the non-problematic cases, and/or promoted in such a way as to totally ignore unfavorable context. It came off as an unnecessary filter for unnecessary bureaucracy, in response to a questionable statistical concern that seemed more based on right-wing propaganda than much happening in reality. (not calling you right-wing here, but ... well, I'll explain this soon)

Your concern is that said right-wing propaganda is coloring how I perceive the movement's activity and choice of targets to defend, right?

Well... maybe. I don't know. How can I know?

What I do know is that we're not going to succeed in out-lying or out-deceiving the American right wing. It's not going to happen, especially if we concentrate our energies on deceiving ourselves too.

My own response to this is to back up the good guys when the facts are on our side, and admit mistakes when they're not. And to try and avoid staking out positions that will prove humiliating later on if it is revealed that the facts turned out not to be what I thought.

I think that's a smart strategy all around.

When we start re-tweeting about an article about a rape that turns out not to have happened as far as anyone investigating the case in good faith can determine... it undermines our message. We could have picked a different woman. Just saying.

Now, could we have foreseen in advance that cases like this would backfire? No. But the decision to make our ideological stances ABOUT specific cases, and then to shout at people for trying to disagree about those cases on their independent merits... is undermining our message.

That is a type of grenade we don't need exploding on the inside of our tent.

Yet, even the cases you mention cannot be compared to something like false accusations of rape. A rape that never happened is a rape that never happened; Brown and Martin, both had died under circumstances that did not equate to full innocence for the law...

Okay, but do you get what I'm saying?

I keep coming back to this idea of us nailing our colors to the mast- refusing to admit that we could ever be wrong about the facts of a specific case, because we get so caught up in the narrative of "this was a good person and something bad happened to them, so we need to stick up for this person."

And it strikes me that this an extremely dangerous, insidious way of thinking.

To shift away from the specific examples of rape accusations and police shootings, the practice of nailing up the flag and going into eternal battle to face death or glory also leads to things like "Shirtstorm," which was kind of a waste of time and energy all around. And one that, like other such issues, made the left wing advocates who pushed it look stupid to people who would not otherwise have that opinion about left wing advocates.

Even I have found myself influenced by misrepresentations of the mainstream over the course of time since their deaths. Anyone can still carry on that tainted baggage in their minds. Even people in this thread. Even leftists and liberals. Even you.

None of this is to doubt your character. It's to get to the bottom of how you think these.

Well, what I think is that I want the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose. I want the good peoples to pursue optimal, effective strategies for success.

And I want to always be on the same side as the facts, because truth is important to me. There cannot be other lasting values in society without a commitment to truth. And if my desire for truth causes me to often be irritated and wish I could form facts into a big physical bludgeon for thwacking things with... well, that's the cost of being alive as an honest person.

That is how I think about this stuff, to the best of my ability.

Or is that not a helpful answer?

[Dragon Angel]

What my thought process comes down to is that when I see a force that I want to win, I do not want that force to get sucked into a trap.

And there are traps to be found here. Most of which involve the practice of, again, 'nailing the colors to the mast.' This is an old symbolic gesture that has an important meaning in context. Because the act of nailing your flag to the mast in a sea battle was equivalent to pre-committing to fight forever without surrender or retreat, even if that battle went against you and you were badly outgunned and clearly doomed.

It was generally agreed that a captain who nailed his flag to the mast was being very brave... but under some circumstances, it was also agreed that he was being very stupid.

To construct some hypothetical examples of when it is a bad idea to commit to "I will fight this issue forever, I will never admit a misunderstanding or a mistake..."

Who is doing this, though? Who is virtually pressing on as if Michael Brown is free of sin? The movement as a whole? A sizable group of the people within the movement? A few random social media users who may or may not consider themselves part of the movement? Do you have more information on this? Since...

I suppose I cannot easily analyze in more detail. My perception is that Martin and Brown got more exposure than Rice and Garner (or Castile who I can't even remember having heard of). But I could be wrong.

I found this to be alarming. Because, well, Rice had gotten a huge amount of attention, especially because of the circumstances behind his murder. A straight up drive-by execution. Jesse Williams took his moment on the BET Awards to discuss Tamir Rice. Castile is the man who was shot in his car and his girlfriend streamed their story in a now viral video (GRAPHIC). These were big stories even within the mainstream media when they happened, in as much as the aftermath including investigations and trials were not as extensively covered as Brown's and Martin's cases.

But if that is what you are talking about, then it is not the activists' faults that Brown and Martin became more popularized. It's the media's for concentrating more on them. Explain to me this.

If we are going to continue using military analogies, then I'm having the sense that the intel briefings you are receiving are incomplete or incorrect. You are cautious of traps, but you may be seeing traps where none are existing. This will lead you to be afraid of engaging in any battle within that turf, and the enemy wins without a single shot fired.

I do not see people surrendering themselves to fight a battle to the death on hopeless grounds, the homeland's ideology burning forever in their hearts. I see people using guerilla strikes to target weak points whenever they appear. Quickly in, quickly out, and as clean as possible. Hence, I don't believe people are washing away Michael Brown's actions. What happened to him, however, that's a ground many including me do not feel can be completely abandoned of all context and nuance, without consequence.

As you mentioned Shirtgate, that was a disaster because the scale of the retribution against the shirt was disproportionately horrid compared to the perceived offense. It never should have happened, and I don't say that because I happen to disagree with the ones pushing for it (in fact, I could sympathize with those offended), but because the punishment vastly eclipsed the impropriety.

HYPOTHETICAL #1:

It is walking into a trap to support someone who's making a rape accusation when there are several independent reasons to believe the accusation is false. Even if there are ideological reasons for always showing a great deal of sympathy and moral support for anyone who says they have been raped, it is not a good idea to act against the accused, when the target of the accusations can readily present evidence that they are false.

This will predictably cause all accusations to boomerang back on the people acting against the accused. A person who has been falsely accused of a crime they have video evidence they didn't commit creates a sympathetic poster child for the misogynists. Since misogyny is normally very bad at creating sympathetic poster children, you are effectively gift-wrapping for them a powerful propaganda tool they could never have created for themselves.

This is a very simple, realistic, understandable consequence of walking into this trap. And yet there are people who would will walk into this trap anyway. Because they have nailed their feminist colors to the mast, and will fight on what they perceive as the feminist side of an argument regardless of the cost, the consequences, or the underlying facts.

While I understand the intent of this hypothetical, allow me to add a shade of gray: In the course of investigating the accused (we will assume video evidence is in the authorities' hands and is, itself, being investigated), the authorities take measures to intimidate the alleged victim(s) into silence by some means, and also deliberately spread smears to the characters of the victim(s) outside of the accusations. The outside world does not have full knowledge of what is happening behind the scenes, or what evidence the authorities are presenting to support the accused.

Would this not look suspicious? Would this not be problematic in the context of the authorities' actions? Rape culture is already a hotly controversial subject, and the authorities bungling their procedures would taint the authenticity of what they may later present. Their story may end up being 90-99% true in the end, but their lack of care during their investigations itself leaves an indelible mark. That in itself merits its own attention.

The "victim(s)" bringing out the false accusation? They would surely be recognized as they are, I have no doubt, by anyone with any sense of rationality. The law enforcement officials' actions, though, would cast a dark shadow over them still for years to come. These actions were not necessary and were damaging to their credibility, and the only reason for them getting out of this with any shred of dignity left is because their paths happened to coincidentally match the discovered truth.

HYPOTHETICAL #2:

It is walking into a trap when we continue to behave as though we're dealing with clear-cut murder of an innocent, when this ceases to appear so clear-cut. When the grey gets thick, we are falling into a trap if we continue to behave as if there is no grey. Obviously we can keep doing this forever. What, there's awkward witness testimony? Surely the witnesses are evil people with base motives, or innocents intimidated into lying by the local police! The forensics? A base fabrication! We can keep moving the goalposts too- saying one day that this is about the murder of an innocent, but then the next day it's about improper disposal of the body.

If I was acting as if the situation was clear-cut, we wouldn't be having this discussion now. I do hope you are not implying I'm making up a conspiracy of falsifying forensics or mind-controlling witnesses.

By nailing our flag to the mast on the issue of this particular racial cause célèbre, we paint ourselves further and further into a corner, discrediting ourselves in the eyes of people who agree that trigger-happy cops are bad, but don't see evidence of a major problem when someone picks a fight with an armed man and ends up dead as a result.

Pushing that specific category of thing is a trap. Historically, Black Lives Matter fell into this trap, which I greatly regret because it has resulted in their political impact being almost totally neutralized.

Almost totally neutralized...? Okay, I'm going to have to ask you now to source this claim, and prove it was because of BLM's actions. You're beginning to sound like Zontargs.

Can we continue to look for gray and for suspicion of conspiracy, to keep the fight going a little longer, and a little longer after that? Sure. Can we nail our colors to the mast and refuse to admit mistakes? Sure.

But is this winning? Is this the strategy of a crusader who is likely, one day, to actually succeed in taking Jerusalem from the heathens?

No, not really.

It's reducing to the absurd my position into something like "continue to look for reasons, even where none may exist". My position isn't that of an obsessed detective harassing a suspect and digging deeper and deeper. These procedural missteps by the Ferguson and St. Louis law enforcement and courts were already apparent long before the investigations and proceedings had concluded. No one had to dig obsessively to uncover them.

On the other side of this coin I think you're bringing up, though: Is reality really so black and white that people who are trying their damnedest to be intellectually honest, who are researching every possible angle they can, that even the consideration of a morally gray situation will jeopardize all credibility of an activist movement? Because this does not sound like real, healthy intellectual honesty. A mind that has the capacity to learn many sides of a matter should, by definition, be capable of processing gray situations. If that mind is going to be dissuaded or implode because of one extremely complex matter, then is the battle not already lost? It more sounds like that mind was looking for a reason to doubt the greater whole!

The perceived mistakes of BLM, I go back again to how you hadn't even heard of Philando Castile. Is the intel you are receiving accurate and precise enough for you to make a rational judgement of the people within?

Your concern is that said right-wing propaganda is coloring how I perceive the movement's activity and choice of targets to defend, right?

Well... maybe. I don't know. How can I know?

What I do know is that we're not going to succeed in out-lying or out-deceiving the American right wing. It's not going to happen, especially if we concentrate our energies on deceiving ourselves too.

My own response to this is to back up the good guys when the facts are on our side, and admit mistakes when they're not. And to try and avoid staking out positions that will prove humiliating later on if it is revealed that the facts turned out not to be what I thought.

I think that's a smart strategy all around.

You're starting from the basis that the greater movement is intentionally trying to pull the wool over people's eyes, or they are obstinately unwilling to admit any mistakes whatsoever, and working your way up from either of those. This negative foundation is part of why I'm thinking some untruth has entered your perception. I do not know if it's because the mainstream media is plain sloppy, or if the right wing in any microscopic way affected you with a conspiracy, or any other reason. But I'm seeing your perception is different from what is actually happening on the front lines.

Treat them with skepticism at first glance if you must, or sym/empathize with their plight while you check their facts. Don't start with an image that may have possibly been influenced by wrong statements somewhere in the past, that leads you to doubt their intentions or motives. I know this is at least partially the case, because of the perception issue where you think Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin received orders of magnitudes more pushing from the movement than other cases.

Okay, but do you get what I'm saying?

I keep coming back to this idea of us nailing our colors to the mast- refusing to admit that we could ever be wrong about the facts of a specific case, because we get so caught up in the narrative of "this was a good person and something bad happened to them, so we need to stick up for this person."

And it strikes me that this an extremely dangerous, insidious way of thinking.

Again... Who is pressing on, insisting that Michael Brown is free of sin? What I find more insidious is the assumption that people are unable to process any morally gray situation. I have infinitely more faith in the intellectually honest and curious seeing these ... I suppose.

Well, what I think is that I want the good guys to win and the bad guys to lose. I want the good peoples to pursue optimal, effective strategies for success.

And I want to always be on the same side as the facts, because truth is important to me. There cannot be other lasting values in society without a commitment to truth. And if my desire for truth causes me to often be irritated and wish I could form facts into a big physical bludgeon for thwacking things with... well, that's the cost of being alive as an honest person.

That is how I think about this stuff, to the best of my ability.

Or is that not a helpful answer?

It is helpful.

I want to be on the same side of facts, of truth, scientific and sociological, as well. More so perhaps than I believe you are ascribing to me. I don't desire to believe in a world where gray areas are so feared, that treading into one conjures a fear that anyone witnessing me stepping into them will see me as morally unclean. Few morals and ethics are binary: Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not rape and pillage thy neighbor. However, many have so many shades in between the black and the white that refusing to see them could prove to be a grave injustice.

I have problems with several leftist communities for this reason: A refusal to consider the shades of gray between one leftist group versus another leftist group, and ideological wars emerge. Circles of activists and friends literally tear themselves apart. No one ever patches up relations, and keeps their colors nailed to their respective masts for as long as they exist within the sphere.

No, you are understanding me wrong. I am against nailing colors to one's mast. Because I have personally seen the effects of people doing exactly so.

I also recognize that I live in a world of great nuance, where images are not bicolor line art.

[Simon_Jester]

Fine. I give up. Sorry for bothering you.

[Dragon Angel]

I, uh, what? I thought we were getting to some kind of understanding but ..... OK.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, we reached enough semblance of agreement that I no longer feel it to be a productive use of my time to keep trying to restate my point in hopes that if I do it juuuust right you'll agree with me. Or, for that matter, fully sense the extent to which I... fondly imagine I don't to apply the customary canon of anti-left stereotypes to people I actually talk to- a thing which is often foreign to the experience of people to the left of me.

That is where the "I give up" part comes from.

And I infer you put a lot of time and effort into your side of the conversation, which is where the "sorry for bothering you" part comes from.

[Wild Zontargs]

Oh, dump some fucking NAPALM on the post-election tensions, why don't you?

4 in custody after mentally disabled man tied up, tortured on Facebook Live

Chicago investigators are questioning four African-Americans after a Facebook Live video shows a group of people torturing a white mentally disabled man while someone yelled "F*** Trump!" and "F*** white people!"

Chicago police were made aware of the video Tuesday afternoon. A young African American woman streamed the video live on Facebook showing at least four people holding the young white man hostage.

"The video is reprehensible," said police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.

"It's sickening. You know it makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that," Police Supt. Eddie Johnson added.

Throughout the video, the victim is repeatedly kicked and hit, his scalp is cut, all while he is tied up with his mouth taped shut.

At one point, the victim is held at knife point and told to curse President-elect Donald Trump. The group also forces the victim to drink water from a toilet.

The suspects can be heard saying they want the video to go viral.

Detectives think the victim, who lives in the suburbs and appeared to be in his late teens or early 20s, met some acquaintances in northwest suburban Streamwood and they drove him to Chicago in a stolen vehicle, Guglielmi said.

The victim is then believed to have been held hostage and tortured in an apartment in the 3400 block of West Lexington on the West Side, Guglielmi said.

On Tuesday afternoon, police officers spotted the victim walking on a street on the West Side wearing shorts, Guglielmi said. Because it was unusual to see a man in shorts in the cold weather, the officers stopped to talk to the man, who appeared disoriented, and he was taken to a hospital to be treated for his injuries.

Toxicology tests were performed at the hospital to determine if the victim was under the influence of anything.

Police said the victim was a classmate of one of the suspects. He was held hostage for at least 24 hours and as long as 48 hours.

"It's quite a possibility that this is a kidnapping and that's certainly one of the charges we'll be seeking if it turns out to be that. But, he's traumatized by the incident and it's tough to communicate with him at this point," said Chicago Police Commander Kevin Duffin.

Community activist Andrew Holmes was made aware of the disturbing video, which he is calling a "hate crime."

Although President-elect Donald Trump was mentioned, Chicago Police do not believe the crime was politically motivated.

"I think some of it is just stupidity, people just ranting about something that they think might make a headline. I don't think that at this point we have anything concrete to really point us in that direction, but we'll keep investigating and we'll let the facts guide us on how this concludes," Supt. Johnson said.

Charges are expected to be filed in the next 24 hours.

You can find the (NSFW, obviously) full video floating around online.

[Patroklos]

I gave this 24 hours before believing it because even with the explosion of violence and invective from the left the past few years this is pretty out there.

So, for all the regulars talking about right crazies starting Civil War 2.0 and brown-shirt alt right analoges decending upon America, I offer this as the time to bring that up...

[Wild Zontargs]

I gave this 24 hours before believing it because even with the explosion of violence and invective from the left the past few years this is pretty out there.

I've seen the video. Unless it was an elaborately staged event, it's the real deal. He was reported missing, and he's been hospitalized due to his injuries.
CPD: Attack on mentally disabled man posted on social media

Chicago Police detectives are questioning four African-Americans suspected of torturing a white mentally disabled man and recording the attack, while someone yelled “F— Trump!” and “F— white people!”

Police officials did not specify which charges they were seeking, though they did not rule out classifying the attack as a hate crime.

The case’s executive officer, Capt. Steven Sesso of the Harrison District, said officers on patrol Tuesday near Homan and Lexington encountered the man.

“They saw clearly that this individual was in distress and he was in crisis. And they cared enough to do something about it.”

The victim, an 18-year-old man, is believed to have been held hostage and tortured in an apartment in the 3400 block of West Lexington on the West Side, Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

One reason officers initially stopped to talk to the man was that he was wearing shorts despite the day’s frigid temperature, Guglielmi said.

Several videos of the incident were posted on Facebook. In one of them, on a woman’s Facebook page, a man threatens the victim with a knife. Someone tells the victim, “kiss the floor, b—-!” and “nobody can help you anymore.” At one point, someone tells the man, “say ‘I love black people.’ ”

About 5:30 p.m., officers were called to a battery in progress about half a block away from where the victim was picked up. At the battery scene, “they discovered signs of a struggle and damage to property and were able to link this evidence to the disoriented male,” according to a statement from police.

After being made aware of the video, police felt certain the disoriented man and the battery were connected.

The victim, a resident of northwest suburban Crystal Lake, knew one of the people arrested in connection with his attack from school, according to Area North Detectives Commander Kevin Duffin.

From Streamwood — where the man was reported to local police as missing — the four took a stolen vehicle to the West Side, officials said.

Wednesday night, Streamwood police issued a statement saying the man’s parents had not heard from him since Dec. 31 after they dropped him off at a McDonald’s in Schaumburg.

Streamwood police also said that, during their investigation, the victim’s parents started “receiving text messages from persons claiming to be holding him captive.”

He was with the four for about 24 hours until, police believe, they decided to release him.

Johnson said he was “very proud of those officers and proud of the detectives’ work.”

Johson added that the videos are “just sickening.”

“It makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that,” Johnson said. “I’ve been a cop for 28 years and I’ve seen things that you shouldn’t see in a lifetime, but it still amazes me how you still see things that you just shouldn’t.”

The politically motivated language may have been “stupid ranting and raving,” but police are looking into if the four were sincere and, if so, that could factor into potential hate crime charges, Duffin said.

“Although they are adults, they’re 18,” Duffin said. “They’re young adults and they make stupid decisions.”

Duffin declined to specify the extent of the man’s injuries, but did say he was “traumatized.” Guglielmi said he suffered cuts and burns.

Community activist Andrew Holmes said of the incident: “In so many ways this was a hate crime because of what they said to him — saying he’s with Trump. When you make a person say, ‘I love black people,’ that’s a hate crime all the way.”

Holmes said he hopes the video doesn’t provoke a racial backlash in Chicago.

“Let the chips fall where they may, and let the judicial system work,” he said.

In November, the day after the election, an online video showed a man being attacked in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side, while bystanders taunted him, saying he had voted for Donald Trump.

[underlining mine]

[Simon_Jester]

I could launch into detailed speculations- my take on how this particular subspecies of homo violentfuckwitensis originates, the mindset that leads them to behave as they behave and engage in the criminality they have engaged in. Not sure I'm inclined to do so.

Suffice to say that I am very much dismayed, and less surprised than I'd like to be.

I wouldn't be surprised if these particular specimens of violentfuckwitensis didn't actually vote, despite (according to the articles quoted) being eighteen, and despite apparently (if you take them at their word, which I'm not sure you should) caring very much about the outcome of said election.

It's all part of the same set of idiot-complexes.

[Wild Zontargs]

HATE CRIME CHARGES FILED AGAINST 4 IN FACEBOOK LIVE TORTURE CASE

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Four people were charged Thursday are charged in connection with the apparent torture of an 18-year-old man with special needs that was streamed live on Facebook. They each face several other charges.

Jordan Hill, 18, of Carpentersville; Tesfaye Cooper, 18, of Chicago; Brittany Covington, 18, of Chicago; and Tanishia Covington, 24, of Chicago; were each charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crime, aggravated unlawful restraint, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and residential burglary, according to the Cook County state's attorney. Hill was also charged with robbery and possession of a stolen motor vehicle.

The video shows the victim being forced to drink toilet water, tied up, slashed, beaten and yelled at.

"Bro look. (Screaming). Get to the corner, put your hands against the wall, bro," one of the attackers said.

The victim, who is from northwest suburban Crystal Lake, was reported missing from nearby Streamwood by his parents on Monday. Police said they had not heard from him since Saturday, when they dropped him off at the McDonald's near Schaumburg and Barrington roads.

A manager told ABC7 Eyewitness News the young man often came to the restaurant to eat and would hang out until it was time for closing.

Chicago police said the victim encountered one of the suspects on Monday - apparently someone he'd met before - and he was driven into the city. They did not say which suspect that was.

"He is an acquaintance of one of these subjects. They stole a van and brought him to Chicago," Area North CPD Commander Kevin Duffin said Wednesday.

The manager said he did not see the 18-year-old leave with anyone, so he doesn't know when he came into contact with the group.

The victim's parents told officers they had received text messages from people who claimed to be holding him captive. During their investigation, Streamwood investigators found the disturbing video on Facebook, which showed he had been verbally and physically abused.

They were then notified by Chicago police that the young man had been found Tuesday wandering in distress in the 3400-block of West Lexington Street in the city's Homan Square neighborhood on the West Side. They said he was clearly traumatized.

Then investigators determined that between the time he'd been reported missing and when he was seen wandering, the victim was held between 24 and 48 hours by the group.

Police said they don't know the motive behind the apparent torture or the suspects' decision to film it. But they investigated the attack as a hate crime. At one point, the teens, who are black, told the victim, who is white, to say he loves black people.

A Facebook spokesperson released this statement Thursday: "We do not allow people to celebrate or glorify crimes on Facebook and have removed the original video for this reason. In many instances, though, when people share this type of content, they are doing so to condemn violence or raise awareness about it. In that case, the video would be allowed."

Facebook's community standards with regard to Facebook Live state, "We understand the unique challenges of live video. We know it's important to have a responsible approach. That's why we make it easy for people to report live videos to us as they're happening. We have a team on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, dedicated to responding to these reports immediately."

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday he has not spoken to President Obama about whether he's seen the video, but said he's "confident he'd be angered by the images that are depicted on that video." Earnest described the images as "disturbing" and said they demonstrate "a level of depravity that is an outrage to a lot of Americans."

A joint investigation between Streamwood police and Chicago police is ongoing.

All four suspects will appear in Bond Court around 1:30 p.m. Friday.

After all the dancing around the subject, I'm glad they're dropping the "just stupidity" nonsense, especially with the "hate crime" business.

[Flagg]

I gave this 24 hours before believing it because even with the explosion of violence and invective from the left the past few years this is pretty out there.

So, for all the regulars talking about right crazies starting Civil War 2.0 and brown-shirt alt right analoges decending upon America, I offer this as the time to bring that up...

Wait, they were arrested and actually charged? They didn't just put women and children in front of them while armed and pointing guns at the police daring them to try and arrest them only to end up causing a bloodbath until the police went away?

[The Romulan Republic]

Oh goodie, more of Patroklos's "Left wingers are the real terrorists" pet hobby horse.

Their are, sadly, terrorists on all sides of the political spectrum. No faction has a monopoly on that. Perhaps their is more of it from the Right in recent years, but we've seen a resurgence of Left wing violence lately that is deeply disturbing. Though I will point out that, while it offers no excuse, the Left wingers at least tend to have grievances beyond things like "their's a dirty black Democrat in the White House" or "I don't like having to pay taxes" or "Not everyone is a fundamentalist Christian".

But the big difference (as I believe Flagg is trying to point out) is in how they are treated by law enforcement and the powerful people in our society. Left wing thugs and terrorists do not enjoy the public support of a Presidential candidate (now the President elect, and just typing those words make me want to spit). Left wing thugs and terrorists don't seize federal land and then get off scott-free for the most part.

[The Romulan Republic]

Of course, terrorism shouldn't be a partisan issue. The use of violence to further ideological ends should be regarded as evil and met with severe legal consequences weather its a racist black asshole in Chicago, a racist white asshole in Oregon, a Jihadi asshole in New York, or some God Damn eco-nut.

[Dragon Angel]

A vast group of social media partisans (cough, white supremacists) have (or had, maybe it's lost its steam) started a massive trending hashtag attributing the kidnapping entirely to BLM. These people really waste no time don't they.

I gave this 24 hours before believing it because even with the explosion of violence and invective from the left the past few years this is pretty out there.

So, for all the regulars talking about right crazies starting Civil War 2.0 and brown-shirt alt right analoges decending upon America, I offer this as the time to bring that up...

Ah, yes, history is much easier to twist if you can conveniently erase basic facts. The obvious ones being the Bundy militias.

[Raw Shark]

Of course, terrorism shouldn't be a partisan issue. The use of violence to further ideological ends should be regarded as evil and met with severe legal consequences weather its a racist black asshole in Chicago, a racist white asshole in Oregon, a Jihadi asshole in New York, or some God Damn eco-nut.

Occupy Denver got treated like terrorists just for being on the left. The bastard cops kicked their non-violent protest off public property hard enough to score a field goal. 1st Amendment? What 1st Amendment? Uphold the law? What the fuck are you talking about?

[Flagg]

Of course, terrorism shouldn't be a partisan issue. The use of violence to further ideological ends should be regarded as evil and met with severe legal consequences weather its a racist black asshole in Chicago, a racist white asshole in Oregon, a Jihadi asshole in New York, or some God Damn eco-nut.

Occupy Denver got treated like terrorists just for being on the left. The bastard cops kicked their non-violent protest off public property hard enough to score a field goal. 1st Amendment? What 1st Amendment? Uphold the law? What the fuck are you talking about?

Yeah, I seem to recall an Iraq war vet being given a skull fracture by the police at one event. Fucking terrorist scum had it coming! He was standing there peacefully and everything. Real men need AR-15s!

[Raw Shark]

Yeah, I seem to recall an Iraq war vet being given a skull fracture by the police at one event. Fucking terrorist scum had it coming! He was standing there peacefully and everything. Real men need AR-15s!

Well, don't get me wrong. I own a rifle responsibly and I am a real man. But I use it to shoot food, and I don't eat humans.

1st Amendment all the way! Police Officers, I disagree with your actions that time.

[Simon_Jester]

A vast group of social media partisans (cough, white supremacists) have (or had, maybe it's lost its steam) started a massive trending hashtag attributing the kidnapping entirely to BLM. These people really waste no time don't they.

I gave this 24 hours before believing it because even with the explosion of violence and invective from the left the past few years this is pretty out there.

So, for all the regulars talking about right crazies starting Civil War 2.0 and brown-shirt alt right analoges decending upon America, I offer this as the time to bring that up...

Ah, yes, history is much easier to twist if you can conveniently erase basic facts. The obvious ones being the Bundy militias.

To be fair, the Bundy militias never kidnapped and tortured anybody that I know of. They just pulled an armed version of Occupy Federal Government that got farther because, well, not dirty commieliberals.

For the kidnapping/torturing angle, you'd have to find another right-wing group for that.

Were I a betting man, I'd bet on you being able to do that.

[The Romulan Republic]

No, the Bundys didn't torture anyone. Their gang did threaten to use of human shields to escape justice, however. Different varieties of loathsomeness, but both pretty damn loathsome, and both worthy of being considered terrorism in my opinion, given the presence of an ideological motive.

Edit: And while I do not wish for one second to diminish the horror of this attack in Chicago, the Bundys operated on a far larger scale, directly challenging the rule of law. The only reason, frankly, that it didn't end in a bloodbath is exemplary restraint on law enforcement's part, to a degree that I'm skeptical would have been shown if they offenders were not overwhelmingly white conservatives.