ThomStratton.com

This does not, sadly, surprise me. The big kerfuffle over a petition to allow open carry at the GOP National Convention? Brought to you by a Democrat:

Jim wouldn’t say where he lives, only that he has roots in Philadelphia and works in the public health sector. Jim is a self-described liberal Democrat who intends to vote for Hillary Clinton should she become the Democratic nominee. He isn’t affiliated with a campaign or any advocacy group, but did some volunteer work on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Jim is no fan of guns and he’s “pretty passionate” about his activism, he says.

Jim says he wrote the petition knowing it was somewhat preposterous — that law enforcement would never allow the Republican presidential candidates inside an arena with potentially thousands of armed individuals. “There were never going to be guns at the convention. Not a million signatures were going to make that happen,” Jim said.

And, no doubt, if it did happen, and a massive gunfight broke out during the convention, our dear Jim wouldn’t feel the least bit responsible for any of the damage, injury, or loss of life.

Just the other day I was talking to my wife about the whole controversy. She thought I was being paranoid when I suggested that, if they did ultimately allow open carry, some liberal true believer would try to get in and open fire, hoping to touch off a gunfight amongst thousands of hardliner GOP. But considering that the entire controversy was started by a Democrat with questionable intent (it certainly wasn’t out of kindness and charity, certainly), is it so hard to imagine someone even more fanatical would go that far?

I’m certainly not liking Jim’s explanation of why he did it:

But he also knew that if the Republican candidates sincerely meant what they have been saying about expanding Second Amendment rights, it would logically follow that they should support a move to allow firearms at the convention. “If they can’t live in accordance with the policies they impose upon us, they owe us that rational conversation,” Jim said.

He continued, “I thought, ‘How do we square how unsafe they’re going to be with what they say makes them safe?”‘ The petition was born.

Bogus logic. He is assuming they would be unsafe. He is assuming that they should want open carry at the convention. He is imposing his own beliefs on them, and then purposely trying to set up conditions where his beliefs can reach fruition. He seems to feel it is perfectly okay to behave badly because he wants to expose others behaving badly. There’s many problems with that approach, not the least of which is that liberals are always telling us that violence does not solve violence, war is not the answer to war. Do they really believe that is the lone exception? So while you can’t solve violence with violence, you can solve corruption with corruption? You can solve bad behavior with bad behavior? You can solve unemployment with unemployment?

Male domestic bovine excrement. Starting a fake petition to try and embarrass another party is bad behavior. Unacceptable behavior. I don’t care for the bad behavior of GOP candidates, either. But sinking to or below their level is not the answer. But Jim will be quickly forgotten. Frankly, I’m surprised that CBS even bothered to check–though they are still burning over Rathergate, and so maybe have learned to be a little more curious about sourcing. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for other media sources to pick this up or for any talking heads on MSNBC or CNN to get worked up about the bad behavior of Democrats. Not going to happen.

Does Jim’s actions excuse the GOP? No. That’s my point here. Bad behavior breeds bad behavior. Excusing it on one side without clamping down on the other only continues the death spiral into the gutter. And no one seems the least bit interested in cleaning up their side in order to give the other side room to follow suit, well…see you in gutter. Are we really that surprised that this is the slate of candidates we wound up with? These are the candidates we deserve. These are the parties we deserve. This is the America we deserve.

James Veitch, comedian from the UK, gave a TED talk on his interactions with email scammers. The result is quite amusing:

https://youtu.be/_QdPW8JrYzQ

I just looked back over my list of posts for the last few weeks, and I’ve noticed that in spite of a personal goal to not get too political, I’m getting too political again. And while I think I try to keep things broad and high-level without focusing in on any one group or resorting to “meme-pic rhetoric”, I’m not sure I’ve been successful. I try to write in a semi-passive, calm tone, but I’m pretty sure I’ve failed there. And I’ve allowed the less-than-generous rhetoric (and meme pics–anyone who knows me knows how much those annoy me) of others to induce me to commenting that was likely interpreted as an attack rather than a defense. Yes, some responsibility for that lies with the beholder, but I still should have known better.

I won’t promise not to post political stuff from time to time. I get annoyed by current events as much as the next person. But I’ll do my best to keep my posts averaging on the positive, light, apolitical side. Toward that end (perhaps I’ve posted this before–if so, mea culpa):

Apparently I’m not the only one who has noticed that “drunk bumps” or rumble strips produce discernible tones, though I’ve clearly missed the boat on taking the logical next step. Someone’s taken a section of Route 66 and engineered a series of rumble strips to play a portion of “America the Beautiful”, followed by a word (or jingle) from their sponsor. It’s kinda cool, in a “wow, people sure take the time to do odd things” sort of way.

Recently President Obama criticized Ted Cruz, who has called for heightened policing in Muslim communities in the US:

President Obama on Wednesday delivered a sharply personal rebuke of GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz for his call to institute surveillance on Muslim communities in response to the Brussels terrorist attacks.

During a press conference in Argentina, Obama called such a proposal “wrong and un-American” and said it would undermine the U.S. campaign against Islamic extremists.

Note the word “surveillance” used here, which is usually reserved for targeted spying, such as police stake-outs and wire-tapping–things no police force is able to sustain for long against a single suspect, let alone an entire community. But that’s not what Cruz is calling for:

Cruz touched off a political firestorm Tuesday with his call to “patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods” in the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels, for which the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility.

Patrolling and community policing, not wire-tapping and late-night stake-outs with coffee and binoculars. Now, I will gladly concede that Cruz’s idea is not the greatest and seriously lacking in detail. But it’s disingenuous for the media to purposely mischaracterize Cruz’ idea, and even more so for President Obama to criticize the idea when his own IRS has been tasked with monitoring American churches for political speech, his own NSA is monitoring phone calls of all Americans, his DHS has designated veteran soldiers as a threat group, and whose administration still hasn’t answered for purposely putting guns in the hands of Mexican drug gangs in an attempt to track them. I don’t think President Obama is the best person to be lecturing the rest of us on what is necessary to keep our country safe. Does he seriously believe that checking to see if churches are mentioning politics is a better use of government resources than keeping us safe from terrorist violence? And are we to expect that the IRS is giving the same attention to radical mosques as Christian churches for political speech?

It’s this foolish double-standard that gives rise to people like Trump and Cruz, Mr. President. If you would show for one moment that you take our foreign enemies as seriously as you take your political enemies we wouldn’t be in this position. Your “surveillance for me, but not for thee” attitude is one of the main reasons why so many people are convinced the government either can’t or doesn’t want to keep us safe.

From Popular Mechanics:

When the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) spent millions of dollars outfitting a boat for latest in polar research technology, someone got the bright idea: What if we let the Internet vote on the name of the ship?

…

The internet was glad to help, offering up names like “Usain Bolt,” “Ice Ice Baby,” and “Notthetitanic.” The ultimate winner? The RMS Boaty McBoatface.

Bill, you been stuffing the ballot box again?

So, it was Caucus Night here in Utah last night, and I nearly didn’t go. I’ve been conflicted on the matter for some time. I went to my first ever caucus four years ago, and I don’t recall it being a pleasant experience. It was hot, crowded, and dominated by people to whom politics is their religion–at least that’s my recollection four years later.

But, speaking of religion, my church specifically cancelled all church meetings for Tuesday night in order to encourage members to participate in the political process (and no, they made no statement as to which party anyone should support, saying only that elements of both parties’ platforms are consistent with church principles). If the church feels its important enough to give me the night off (Tuesday night is Cub Scouts night, and every member of our family usually has some church activity) I should probably take it seriously.

But as much as I like to think about politics as a private exercise, I dislike engaging in politics as a public exercise. I’ve been to precisely one political rally in my lifetime, and I don’t even vote as regularly as I should. But I want to set a good example for my kids and my immigrant wife trying to understand the American political process, so I went.

There were two caucuses taking place within a block of my home. The Democrats were at one local school, the Republicans at another. Both were madhouses of activity, and parking was so in demand that people were even parking on my street, three turns off the main street. Something’s got everyone riled up this year.

I’ve heard reports that many caucus locations were overwhelmed this year; my location was busy, but not horribly disorganized–not compared to the horror stories I’ve heard about the other location, where people were lined up outside for several blocks. I was able to find my precinct, get credentialed and arrive in the auditorium for the initial meeting more or less on time. There we sang the National Anthem, said the Pledge of Allegiance, had a prayer, sang “God Bless America”, and then received instructions on what would happen next. From there we broke off to individual classrooms, organized by precinct. That’s a good thing, in that I knew a large number of people there–my neighbors. It was not such a good thing, in that I knew a large number of people there.

The first order of business was to nominate and elect local precinct leadership. That’s where the “it was not such a good thing” came up. I was immediately nominated for precinct chair by someone I attend church with. Granted, I could have declined the nomination, but there’s a part of me that likes to be needed, and feels a duty to step up and make sure things I believe to be good get done. So I didn’t say no. I didn’t vote for myself, either.

So then I was nominated for vice chair, along with most of the same people who didn’t get the chair position. By then I saw the writing on the wall–I would either have to start declining nominations or sooner or later I’d be elected; we were running out of useful idiots–I mean, willing volunteers. I was hoping for secretary/treasurer, but I won for vice chair. That’s okay. I can handle that. I don’t mind helping someone else get things done.

After electing a secretary/treasurer (the only guy that had done any of these positions before, and who was a reluctant “I’ve had my chance, but I’ll do it again if no one else wants to do it” type), we got down to the “sexy” positions: delegates. We had two levels of delegates: State level delegates, who would help choose our party’s candidates for national and top state positions (Congress, governor, etc), and county level delegates who help choose candidates for state legislature on down to local positions. These are mostly a one-and-done position. You go to a convention for one day and that’s it until the next year. You get to represent the entire neighborhood, and politicians pay attention to you. If there’s anything sexy about local politics, it’s largely concentrated in this position.

We ended up with about five candidates vying for the two state-level delegates, and seven candidates for the five county-level delegates. I was also nominated for the county level, and won. So I get to be sexy and responsible. And I really have to pay attention to who is running this year.

Last but not least we voted our preference for the presidential election. By then it was after 9:00 pm, it was hot, and we were all getting a little burned out. We wrapped up, those of us elected hung around long enough to officially register our contact info, and then I walked back home. It didn’t feel nearly so sexy trying to describe to my kids what I’d be doing. Somehow it just doesn’t sound as cool to them now as it did eight years ago telling them I was now the president of the neighborhood. (I still think I’d take this over HOA president any day.)

A few little details made the process a little more pleasant in my mind. We were assigned the biology classroom. Our current precinct chair emphasized several times that this was a classroom, and there would be no janitorial service after we left, and so we had to leave everything the way we found it or better. From what I saw, I believe we did that. Also, as a gesture of support and as a gesture to the teacher for our potentially messing with her classroom, our precinct leaders left her a rose, a box of chocolates, and a thank you card.

For some reason this was a more positive experience for me than the previous caucus I attended. I’m not sure what the difference was, but it was different. Whether I’d willingly go again is moot, now. I’m committed to attend the next one if only to make sure someone else gets my position. But for now I’ve still got to figure out just what it is I’m supposed to do–and who my options are to vote for at the county convention. It should be an interesting three weeks.

I’ve long maintained that the breakup of the Balkans during the Clinton Era was not a one-off problem limited to “those crazy people who can’t get over the distant past”. It’s the shape of things to come unless we stop taking for granted that Western societies will cling to the rule of law long after it’s dead. Whether he wins or not, Donald Trump is the squire to  first horseman of the apocalypse. Ignore the simmering anger that sustains his campaign at your peril. I’m not the only one who thinks so, either.

If you’re a conservative, this piece by Kurt Schlichter, who did time on the ground in Kosovo, won’t come as any surprise. If you’re a liberal you’ll likely be tempted to skip reading this because you can’t believe anything a conservative writes anyway. I recommend you read it, if for no other reason than the famous adage, “Know thy enemy.” If you continue to ignore analyses like this you have no business acting surprised when they start to play out.

From the article “Liberals May Regret Their New Rules“:

Today in America, a despised minority that is really no minority is the target of an establishment that considers this minority unworthy of respect, unworthy of rights, and unworthy of having a say in the direction of this country. It’s an establishment that has one law for itself, and another for its enemies. It’s an establishment that inflicts an ever-increasing series of petty humiliations on its opponents and considers this all hilarious.

That’s a recipe for disaster. You cannot expect to change the status quo for yourself and then expect those you victimize not to play by the new rules you have created. You cannot expect to be able to discard the rule of law in favor of the rule of force and have those you target not respond in kind.

…

I’m not advocating violence – I am warning liberals that they are setting the conditions for violence.

And that better worry them, for the coastal elites are uniquely unsuited to a world where force rules instead of law. The Serbs were, at least, a warrior people. The soft boys and girls who brought us helicopter parenting, “trigger warnings” and coffee cups with diversity slogans are not.

I know the endgame of discarding the rule of law for short-term advantage because I stood in its ruins. Liberals think this free society just sort of happened, that they can poke and tear at its fabric and things will just go on as before. But they won’t. So at the end of the day, if you want a society governed by the rule of force, you better pray that you’re on the side with the guns and those who know how to use them.

Considering what Trump rallies have turned into lately, the liberals are not just setting the conditions for violence, they’re touching it off. Oh, they think they are only applying proper force to fight what they see as conservative hatred, but they have no idea what true force–or hatred–looks like. When it comes they’re going to wish they’d reached out to moderate conservatives to help keep such in check instead of shouting down, vilifying, slandering, and mocking even the moderates who don’t offer full-throated agreement with them. They’ll be shocked to find moderates too weary–and leary–to do anything other than stay out of the way. Oh sure, it’d be a mistake for moderates to sit by when it happens, but it will be understandable.

I, too, am not advocating violence. On the contrary. I’m advocating a return to rule of law–TRUE rule of law, where everyone plays by the rules and gets duly punished when they don’t. It would be uncomfortable, but it’d sure beat what’s coming if rule of law breaks down entirely. There is a lot of anger in this country, and as big as it is, we could make the Balkans look like Downton Abby.

Let’s not, please?

Updated: On a related note, here’s the ever-chipper-sounding Glenn Reynolds on how the Pro-Trump movement is the result of ignoring, maligning, and betraying the Tea Party movement. The Trump crowd today are much closer to what detractors accused the Tea Party of being eight years ago than what the Tea Party really was at the time. And yet their opponents hauled out every epithet they could find, sent operatives to make them look bad, and did their best to ignore anything they really believed. Guess what: the people who insist that demeaning, ignoring, and persecuting blacks led to Ferguson can’t seem to fathom that demeaning, ignoring, and persecuting the Tea Party could perhaps lead to the Trump-ites of today–who are still no worse or better behaved than the Ferguson rioters or the Sanders attack dogs determined to block their rallies.

In San Francisco, too, tea party protesters met pro-Obama activists and picked up their trash. “John,” author of The City Square blog wrote: “As Obama supporters moved along in the line to get into the fundraiser, they left behind an impressive amount of trash … Tea Partiers shouted ‘pick up your garbage’ and ‘this is San Francisco, what about recycling?’There was no response. They chanted ‘Obama leaves a mess.’Still no response. Eventually, a tea partier (wearing the black cowboy hat) crosses over and starts to pick up the trash on his own. Other tea partiers join him. Another manages to find a trash bag. Soon the trash is being collected.”

Yet the tea party movement was smeared as racist, denounced as fascist, harassed with impunity by the IRS and generally treated with contempt by the political establishment — and by pundits like Brooks, who declared “I’m not a fan of this movement.” After handing the GOP big legislative victories in 2010 and 2014, it was largely betrayed by the Republicans in Congress, who broke their promises to shrink government and block Obama’s initiatives.

So now we have Trump instead, who tells people to punch counterprotesters instead of picking up their trash.

Note how Tea Partiers did not attempt to stop Obama supporters from getting to their rally? This is how free speech and the right to protests is handled, not violently trying keep people from exercising their right to peaceably assemble. If Trump supporters are out of control, so are Democrat supporters. A pox on both your houses. Why should I vote for any of you? You want civility? Try demonstrating it.