Comments by "wily wascal" (@wilywascal2024) on "VICE News"
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"The cartels will continue as long as the Mexican government allows it." The government includes the Mexican federal, state, and local governments, the military controlled by the federal government, and the various law enforcement and judicial agencies at all levels of the Mexican government. Mostly, though, it's the corruption of the federal government of Mexico that is the decisive factor. To a large extent, the appetite of the American people for illegal drugs and contraband is also to blame. It's a matter of supply and demand, and the huge amount of money involved is the corrupting influence. America shares much of the blame for the violence occurring mostly in Mexico, but we are loath to admit it. For some powerful and moving insight into the problem of the Mexican cartels, Don Winslow's fictional trilogy about them gives a fair and impartial account, and makes for some truly engrossing reading.
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Baby Hunn ~ The comment is overly simplistic, but so is your reply. Your reply is also propagating an extremist form of Islam, which is not necessarily embraced by "a large majority" or even a majority of Afghanis. Before the Russian invasion and U.S. backing of jihadists in Afghanistan, the people of Afghanistan were generally far more tolerant, and it was not all that unusual to see Afghan women, particularly younger women, in Western dress, sporting the latest fashions, and going to schools. Kabul used to be a vibrant, tolerant, cosmopolitan city.
Your reply reflects and breeds the ignorance of misogyny, ignores the suffering of women under the radical extremist forms of Islam forced upon Afghanis, often against their will, by the Taliban and other groups, and blames others instead of the perpetrators, the Taliban, for exacting retribution upon women and other Afghanis seeking their natural civil and human rights that are deserved by everyone, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, creed, status, or political ideology. The Islam religion was once renowned for its tolerance and relative progressivism, before being hijacked by religious extremists and those seeking to gain and maintain power like the Saud dynasty. It's true that a majority of Afghanis are Muslim, and as such are more comfortable with Sharia law. But democracy and Islam are compatible, and modern Islamic governments have incorporated Sharia law into governmental law. And while Afghanis are a fiercely independent people, that does not mean they wish to isolate their nation from all other nations, Western or otherwise. It just means that they are opposed to foreign occupations. In that, they are no different than most other peoples and nations.
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@Schlabbeflicker ~ CRT is actually a subgroup of Critical Legal Theory, more commonly known as Critical Legal Studies.
CLS includes several subgroups with fundamentally different, even contradictory, views. Feminist legal theory examines the role of gender in the law. Critical race theory (CRT) examines the role of race in the law. Postmodernism is a critique of the law influenced by developments in literary theory, and it emphasizes political economy and the economic context of legal decisions and issues.
Critical legal studies (CLS) is a theory which states that the law is necessarily intertwined with social issues, particularly stating that the law has inherent social biases. Proponents of CLS believe that the law supports the interests of those who create the law. As such, CLS states that the law supports a power dynamic which favors the historically privileged and disadvantages the historically underprivileged. CLS finds that the wealthy and the powerful use the law as an instrument for oppression in order to maintain their place in hierarchy. Many in the CLS movement want to overturn the hierarchical structures of modern society and they focus on the law as a tool in achieving this goal. CLS was officially started in 1977 at a conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but its roots extend earlier to when many of its founding members participated in social activism surrounding the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. The founders of CLS borrowed from non-legal fields such as social theory, political philosophy, economics, and literary theory. Among noted CLS theorists are Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Robert W. Gordon, and Duncan Kennedy. CLS has been largely contained within the United States. While influenced to some extent by European philosophers, such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, Max Horkheimer, Antonio Gramsci, and Michel Foucault, CLS has borrowed heavily from Legal Realism, the school of legal thought that flourished in America in the 1920s and 1930s. Like CLS scholars, legal realists rebelled against accepted legal theories of the day and urged the legal field to pay more attention to the social context of the law.
Legal realism is a naturalistic approach to law. It is the view that jurisprudence should emulate the methods of natural science, i.e., rely on empirical evidence. Hypotheses must be tested against observations of the world. Legal realists believe that legal science should only investigate law with the value-free methods of natural sciences, rather than through philosophical inquiries into the nature and meaning of the law that are separate and distinct from the law as it is actually practiced. Indeed, legal realism asserts that the law cannot be separated from its application, nor can it be understood outside of its application. As such, legal realism emphasizes law as it actually exists, rather than the law as it ought to be. Locating the meaning of law in areas like legal opinions issued by judges and their deference or dismissal of the past precedent and the doctrine of stare decisis, it stresses the importance of understanding the factors involved in judicial decision making.
Legal realism is associated with American jurisprudence during the 1920s and 1930s, particularly amongst federal judges and lawyers within the Roosevelt administration. Notable jurists associated with legal realism include Felix Cohen, Morris Cohen, Arthur Corbin, Walter Wheeler Cook, Robert Hale, Wesley Hohfeld, Karl Llewellyn, Underhill Moore, Herman Oliphant and Warren Seavey, many of whom were associated with Yale Law School. As Keith Bybee argues, "legal realism exposed the role played by politics in judicial decision-making and, in doing so, called into question conventional efforts to anchor judicial power on a fixed, impartial foundation." Contemporary legal scholars working within the Law and Society tradition have expanded upon the foundations set by legal realism to postulate what has been referred to as new legal realism.
As a form of jurisprudence, legal realism is defined by its focus on the law as it actually exists in practice, rather than how it exists on the books. To this end, it was primarily concerned with the actions of judges and the factors that influenced processes of judicial decision making. As Karl Llewellyn argues, “behind decisions stand judges; judges are men; as men they have human backgrounds.” The law, therefore, did not exist in a metaphysical realm of fundamental rules or principles, but was inseparable from human action and the power of judges to determine the law. In order to understand the decisions and actions of legal actors, legal realists turned to the ideas of the social sciences in order to understand the human behavior and relationships that culminated in a given legal outcome.
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More accurately, "...will continue as long as the Mexican government allows it." The government includes the Mexican federal, state, and local governments, the military controlled by the federal government, and the various law enforcement and judicial agencies at all levels of the Mexican government. Mostly, though, it's the corruption of the federal government of Mexico that is the decisive factor. To a large extent, the appetite of the American people for illegal drugs and contraband is also to blame. It's a matter of supply and demand, and the huge amount of money involved is the corrupting influence. America shares much of the blame for the violence occurring mostly in Mexico, but we are loath to admit it. For some powerful and moving insight into the problem of the Mexican cartels, Don Winslow's fictional trilogy about them gives a fair and impartial account, and makes for some truly engrossing reading.
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@punkgrl325 ~ You got it backwards. If anything, it would be neo-Marxism being a cornerstone of CRT. But I don't think that's quite accurate, either. While it may have provided some inspiration and some aspects of it share rough similarities, don't find that as forming the basis for CRT. Critical race theory examines social, cultural and legal issues as they relate to race and racism, particularly institutionalized and systemic racism. Don't think it is based upon or confined to any one socio-political ideology. Unlike socio-political ideologies like neo-Marxism, while it may have broader application, it was designed and intended primarily as a way of perceiving and addressing problems specifically in regard to racism in America.
Generally agree with the rest of your reply, although I think there is more to it than just a contrived culture war issue and reactionary politics. It is a thinly veiled appeal to white supremacists and an attempt to perpetuate racism by the right. It's not a dog-whistle; it's a bullhorn. It's the right-wing transforming itself into the Reich-wing and unabashedly embracing fascism. That's what really needs to be recognized, acknowledged, and addressed----not the resulting dishonest conflation of CRT with Marxism, which is used to distract and deflect. And, ironically, the recent backlash it has generated only further validates the concept and teaching of CRT, while simultaneously underscoring the descent of the GOP into an evil entity that can no longer be considered loyal opposition.
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Instead of embracing the reverence for nature and sustainability practiced by the America's indigenous peoples, we have entered into a death pact with capitalism, consumerism, greed, and selfishness, largely forced upon the common person by large businesses and the wealthy, who continue exploiting us for the own short-sighted, immediate benefit. We bear some responsibility for that, too. For taking part, for allowing it to happen, and for allowing it to continue as long as it has. Until enough of us average citizens wake up and become active in changing how our cultures and societies operate, the downward spiral of our environment will continue leading us into a dead-end death trap. Capitalism and consumerism can serve a purpose. However, they should be viewed and utilized as just one tool at our disposal in our toolbox, and not overly relied upon, like a hammer used for every job, which does more destruction than good.
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--Instead of striving to bring out the best in people, Toxic Trump reveled in bringing out the very worst.
--Instead of uniting the country, Toxic Trump sought to divide us.
--Instead of abiding by and honoring our Constitution and the rule of law, Toxic Trump held them in disdain, disregarded them, and degraded them, running the most corrupt and least transparent administration in U.S. history.
--Instead of strengthening democracy and our cherished institutions, Toxic Trump worked to diminish and destroy them, inciting a terrorist insurrection against his own government, attempting a coup to steal an election.
--Instead of ensuring a peaceful transfer power after losing the election, Toxic Trump kept insisting against all evidence that he won, continuously repeating the Big Lie that the election was "stolen," inciting the terrorist insurrection against the nation's Capitol.
--Instead of confronting a serious threat to Americans with a deadly global pandemic, Toxic Trump lied to the American people about it, ignored it, and refused to take any responsibility for his gross homicidal criminal negligence that resulted in one out of every 800 Americans dying from COVID-19--over 411,000 American lives in just ten months, as many casualties as all of WWII.
--Instead of confronting the ever-increasing existential crisis from climate change and its harmful effects, Toxic Trump gutted regulations and withdrew from the voluntary Paris climate accords, exacerbating the problem and poisoning citizens.
--The eight largest single-day net drops in the Dow Jones Industrial Average occurred under Toxic Trump.
--Instead of creating jobs, Toxic Trump was the first President since the Great Depression to preside over a net loss of jobs over his tenure.
--Instead of lowering the national deficit, Toxic Trump increased it from 19.2 trillion to 27 trillion, eight trillion dollars in four years----the highest rate of increase of ANY President, ever.
--Instead of helping out the least among us, Toxic Trump widened the wealth and income disparity gap. 50% of his $1.9 trillion tax cut went to the top 5%; 65% went to the top 20%, with the top 40% benefiting next most, and the bottom 20% only receiving 1%. Moreover, his huge tax cut for big corporations and the wealthy left a legacy adding $1,000,000,000,000 a year to the federal deficit while lowering federal revenue.
--Instead of building bridges, humane immigration reform, and infrastructure, Toxic Trump built walls, cages, and concentration camps, separated children from mothers, allowed American infrastructure to decline and deteriorate, rejected economic opportunity.
--Instead of raising our standing and security in the world, Toxic Trump lowered and weakened it.
--Instead of draining the swamp, Toxic Trump turned it into a noxious overflowing sewer of Republican corruption.
--U.S. poverty level steadily rose under Reagan, steadily decreased under Clinton, steadily rose again under Bush, steadily decreased again under Obama after recovering from Bush's recession. Trump inherited a booming economy and declining poverty level from Obama, but the poverty level increased sharply during his last two years in office.
--Toxic Trump spent more time on the golf course and watching TV than he spent doing his job, golfing over 300 rounds while in office, almost always at his own golf courses, where he could enrich himself at taxpayer's expense.
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"I have a chapter in the book on malignant narcissism as a characteristic of destructive cult leaders. These are people who have a deep need for grandiosity, to be the center of attention, who need to control others, and who lack empathy and lie without hesitation. These are psychological traits perfectly attuned to manipulation and projection.
But the malignant part is about sociopathic tendencies. Almost every cult leader thinks he’s above the law, which is why he’s allowed to persecute and harass or harm anyone he wants. When someone really believes this, they can rationalize all kinds of destructive behavior."
--Steven Hassan, The Cult of Trump
Narcissistic cult leaders like Trump thrive on chaos. They'll create crisis situations. When they walk in the room, you never know if they're going to be good and kind-hearted or be mean and call someone out or create some kind of dangerous situation.
A cult leader is also a master of manipulating information, so that his followers will only trust details that come from him. This is what Trump accomplishes every time he cries "fake news" or discredits a reporter as "terrible" or "nasty." He knows that Americans have access to all sorts of information, so he has to make his followers distrust other sources.
A cult environment like "Q" and Trumpism discourages critical thinking, making it hard to voice doubts, when everyone around you is displaying dogmatic faith and obedience to their leader. A process of indoctrination is in use that can be seen as coercive persuasion, or thought reform, commonly called "brainwashing". The resulting internal conflict, known as cognitive dissonance, keeps them trapped, as each compromise makes it more painful to admit that you've been deceived..
“Shared psychosis”—which is also called “folie à millions” [“madness for millions”] when occurring at the national level or “induced delusions”—refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology.
When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person’s symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia and a propensity for violence—even in previously healthy individuals.
Destructiveness is a core characteristic of mental pathology, whether directed toward the self or others. When mental pathology is accompanied by criminal-mindedness, the combination can make individuals far more dangerous than either alone.
In my textbook on violence, I emphasize the symbolic nature of violence and how it is a life impulse gone awry. Briefly, if one cannot have love, one resorts to respect. And when respect is unavailable, one resorts to fear. Trump is now living through an intolerable loss of respect: rejection by a nation in his election defeat.
Violence helps compensate for feelings of powerlessness, inadequacy and lack of real productivity."
--Bandy Lee
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@michaelt779 ~ It was reported that according to the Sheriff Department's own data, just 3% of the illegal grows are on Hmong property. Not all of the Hmong there are involved, but all of the Hmong there are being harassed, profiled, and targeted by law enforcement and county government. That's racist, and it's wrong. Which is why the judge granted the Hmong an injunction against the laws denying them a basic human necessity: water.
Aside from that, the comment is about Vice not doing a good job, a point which your reply ignores, and you're not speaking for the Hmong people, or answering all the pertinent questions raised, either.
Marijuana cultivation uses the same amount of water as growing tomatoes. If marijuana is legal in California, why should it require a license for farmer's to grow? Contrary to your assertion, this California county bans ALL marijuana cultivation, unlike many other California counties. Then they use the law to only target the Hmong. And you don't see anything wrong with that?
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The problem at the heart of all this is a Republican cult built up over four decades by the GOP, plutocrats, Reich-wing demagogues, Reich-wing Christian nationalism religious leaders, and Reich-wing print, radio, TV, and social media, programmed 24/7, radicalizing them and creating mass delusion. A straight line can be drawn through to the inevitable catastrophic conclusion witnessed today from Lee Atwater, Roger Aisles, Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, Lou Dobbs, Mitch McConnell, Billy Graham, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jim Jordan, to Donald J. Trump, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Sure, some in the Republican cult truly are that ignorant or gullible; but most are willfully ignorant, being fed the lies they want to hear. They bear personal responsibility. Part of it's a cultural problem, as some mostly older white people's mistaken perception is that the America they knew is slipping away. Well, America is still America, but--like most nations--is constantly evolving, as progress invariably rolls on, but they are unwilling to accept that, or change with the times.
Those Americans elected that pitiful, pathetic puerile President, and have continued to support him no matter what travesty he committed! The creators of the Republican cult have always been weak men, and now find themselves harnessed by those they sought to enslave, subject to the fickle whims of a moronic madman and the mob whose ignorance they relentlessly nourished and cultivated. They created the beast, thought they could ride the tiger, exploit it for their own greed, vanity, and power, too stupid or uncaring to realize that it would instead inevitably come to consume them.
American conservatism has always been the endless, futile quest to justify greed, but the coin of the realm in GOP land is fear; it’s what they peddle, it’s what they traffic in, it’s what they carry in their pocket at all times. Then, they turn that fear into hate. And that hate is the poison killing them, America, and all of us. It’s the poison to which the Republican cult has become addicted.
Republican cultism is the disease, Toxic Trump is merely the most visible symptom and but one carrier of that disease. It existed before Trump, and it will continue when Trump is gone—unless or until the problem is adequately addressed. COVID-19 is also a disease; but a virus is blameless, unlike those who engage in willful ignorance. America would have confronted and easily conquered COVID-19 disease, had America not already been diseased for so long with Republican tribalistic partisan cultism. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny and religious bigotry all were central to the formation of the Republican cult, and remain its lifeblood.
"United we stand, divided we fall." A simple concept, really, that too many Americans seem to have forgotten or abandoned. Our nation is like an airplane; it requires both the left and right wings working together in tandem to operate properly and safely. Only problem is the Reich-wing decided to try flying solo, forcing us all into a nose-dive! Care about the issues, disdain political gamesmanship, while still recognizing politics is an inseparable and necessary element. Have always respected and valued loyal opposition, even if in disagreement with the ideology. Fact is, though, the GOP has abdicated the requisite role of loyal opposition to become a mindless, tribalistic, nihilistic, hyper-partisan fascist cult that places greed and political party over truth, reason, decency, and country.
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Because dropping 2,000lb, 5,000lb, and MOAB's with B-52's from high altitudes is better? Because tank, artillery, and rocket fire is so much more accurate? Because the Taliban made friends by its indiscriminate killing and terrorizing of civilians?
Yes, extraordinary effort needs to be taken to prevent civilian deaths, and not just because it risks alienating the very people we are trying to help or hurts our own efforts, which are only secondary reasons. But this comment is a gross oversimplification displaying little thought. Drones are not robots acting on their own; they are UAV's controlled by humans. Nearly all of our military hardware is automated to some extent. If you're on the battlefield risking your life, would you want the latest military advantages available to help save the lives of you and your fellow soldiers, to help you prevail against the enemy in defense of your country? I'm not a fan of drones, but the ethics and issues involved are much deeper and more complex than what you are attempting to portray.
Beyond that the comment is also a gross oversimplification of the U.S. failure in Afghanistan, because civilian deaths from drone strikes don't even begin to compare with civilian deaths from Taliban terrorist operations. The reasons for the failure are varied and numerous, and can't be blamed on any one single cause, or solely upon the U.S.
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Baby Hunn ~ You seem to be clueless because you have a reading comprehension problem, Doc! You're also being selective in your response, which is dishonest. My reply had already pointed out most Afghanis support Sharia law. In fact, the figure for Afghanistan is 99% support for Sharia law. But why is that? Is it not because they have had little reason to trust their governments? In other more modern Islamic nations with better governments, there are only small minorities supporting Sharia law.
By the same token, why do many Muslims in the Middle East have majorities that favor the death penalty for apostasy? Isn't it because of a long tradition in Islam about leaving the faith? Outside of Islamic culture, one may disagree with the practice and find it a barbaric violation of human rights, but how many Muslims in Afghanistan are abandoning Islam altogether, switching faiths? It's a rare occurrence, and those who do leave the faith or practice different faiths in Muslim nations with extremist views hide their conversions and different faith, so as not to be put to death.
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@Ew-wth ~ Thanks for posting, saving me the trouble of debunking racist Republicans xenophobic propaganda. Studies have shown that while there are costs to illegal immigration, those costs are recouped in a number of ways. Bottom line is that there is no significant cost to the taxpayer----unless wasting billions on building a wall that can be quickly and easily breached with a $100 Sawzall.
Another dishonest argument is the suggestion that Democrats want to do nothing, which just isn't true. Truth is, there are no simple, easy solutions to the problem, which requires meaningful immigration reform legislation and a multi-faceted, flexible approach.
Last, but not least, is the fact that the influx now involves mostly asylum seekers, which are seeking legal entry. It is not illegal to cross into the U.S. and apply for asylum here. So, the racists and xenophobes are dishonestly attempting to conflate illegal immigration with asylum-seeking refugees, most of whom do not want to leave their home nations, choosing to make the long, arduous, and dangerous journey to America with their children only because situations in their native lands have become so dire and untenable.
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David Straight is just one of many grifters working this scam. Anna von Rietz is another one. They're all very similar, albeit each have slightly different twists. The different groups mostly interact with those in their respective group, but also communicate with and relate to each other. They use legal harassment and legal chicanery to clog up judicial and governmental systems, a tactic designed to make them unpalatable to legal and civic enforcement of the law. Besides being detrimental and destructive to our society, people within the sovereign citizen movement can be violent and dangerous. Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing were closely associated with and motivated by this movement.
The reason I know all of this is because my brother got involved in the sovereign citizen movement over five years ago. It's actually a movement that has been around for 50 years, although I had never heard of it before then. I asked him some questions about it, had him show me the mission statement of the group to which he was engaged with, and told him right away that it was obviously a scam, pointing out a number of problems and flaws with what they were preaching. He wasn't convinced, so I took time to do the research on the movement, and presented him with key facts about it that I though should surely be enough to dissuade him and disassociate himself from the movement. Unfortunately, regardless of any facts or reason presented, he refused to be convinced, and is still a "true believer" to this day, no matter what additional arguments and evidence provided since. To demonstrate how insidious this movement is, I should note that my brother is a very generous, reserved, and nice person, one who is not racist or right-wing, someone who is never violent, of fair intelligence, and has always had his head on straight.
The concept of a sovereign citizen originated in 1971 in the Posse Comitatus movement as a teaching of Christian Identity minister William P. Gale. The concept has influenced the tax protester movement, the Christian Patriot movement, and the redemption movement—the last of which claims that the U.S. government uses its citizens as collateral against foreign debt.
~ Wikipedia
The "sovereign citizen" movement is a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted a right-wing anarchist ideology originating in the theories of a group called the Posse Comitatus in the 1970s. Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to "restore" an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed. To this end, sovereign citizens wage war against the government and other forms of authority using "paper terrorism" harassment and intimidation tactics, and occasionally resorting to violence. The key distinguishing characteristic of the sovereign citizen movement is its extreme anti-government ideology, couched in conspiratorial, pseudohistorical, pseudolegal and sometimes racist language.
Beginning in the late 1960s, a number of right-wing fringe groups formed that questioned the authority and nature of the federal government. Most grew out of a recently emergent right-wing tax-protest movement: arguments about the illegitimacy of income tax laws were easily expanded or altered to challenge the legitimacy of the government itself. The most important of these groups was the Posse Comitatus, which originated in Oregon and California around 1970.
Members of the Posse Comitatus believed that the county was the true seat of government in the United States. They did not deny the legal existence of federal or state governments, but rather claimed that the county level was the "highest authority of government in our Republic as it is closest to the people." The basic Posse manual stated that there had been "subtle subversion" of the Constitution by various arms and levels of government, especially the judiciary. There was, in fact, a "criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice, disfranchise citizens and liquidate the Constitutional Republic of these United States."
The ideology of the sovereign citizen movement had matured and crystallized by the 1980s as an unusual form of right-wing anarchism that focuses, on the one hand on the importance of local control and, on the other hand, on the avoidance of virtually all forms of authority and obligation.
Sovereign citizen ideology justifies these goals by claiming that at one time there was an American utopia governed by English "common law," a utopia in which every citizen was a "sovereign," and there were no oppressive laws, taxes, regulations or court orders. However, a conspiracy gradually subverted this system, replacing it with an illegitimate successor. Different sovereign citizen theorists have varying versions of this progression, but most include the following elements: the alleged suppression of a "missing" 13th Amendment that would have disallowed citizenship for attorneys; the Reconstruction amendments; the 16th Amendment (allowing an income tax); the 17th Amendment (allowing popular election of senators); the Federal Reserve Act and the 1933 removal of United States currency from the gold standard. By that time, many sovereign citizen theorists agree, the United States government was completely illegitimate, using emergency war powers and other unlawful measures to rule unconstitutionally.
Among the various subjects of energetic sovereign citizen revisionism, perhaps none is more important than the 14th Amendment. Ratified in 1868, the Amendment had several aims, including the guaranteeing of United States citizenship for the ex-slaves. But to sovereign citizens it did much more; they claim that before its ratification, virtually no one was a "citizen of the United States."
~ ADL (Anti-Defamation League)
Domestic Terrorism
The Sovereign Citizen Movement
Sovereign citizens are anti-government extremists who believe that even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or “sovereign” from the United States. As a result, they believe they don’t have to answer to any government authority, including courts, taxing entities, motor vehicle departments, or law enforcement.
This causes all kinds of problems—and crimes. For example, many sovereign citizens don’t pay their taxes. They hold illegal courts that issue warrants for judges and police officers. They clog up the court system with frivolous lawsuits and liens against public officials to harass them. And they use fake money orders, personal checks, and the like at government agencies, banks, and businesses.
That’s just the beginning. Not every action taken in the name of the sovereign citizen ideology is a crime, but the list of illegal actions committed by these groups, cells, and individuals is extensive (and puts them squarely on our radar). In addition to the above, sovereign citizens:
Commit murder and physical assault;
Threaten judges, law enforcement professionals, and government personnel;
Impersonate police officers and diplomats;
Use fake currency, passports, license plates, and driver’s licenses; and
Engineer various white-collar scams, including mortgage fraud and so-called “redemption” schemes.
~ FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
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"Peace is not a very big thing to ask for, is it?" ~ Fatima Gailani, Afghan activist and negotiator, pleading for continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan
It is when asking the Taliban, who do not seek peace or to bargain in good faith, but total domination once again. U.S. has spent 20 years and $2 trillion trying to achieve peace in Afghanistan, losing over 4000 American lives (military and civilian contractors), with tens of thousands of Americans wounded there.
"The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials … have given Afghans little reason to support their government," Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of U.S. forces in the country, wrote in a 2009 memorandum. "This crisis of confidence, coupled with a distinct lack of economic and educational opportunity, has created fertile ground for the insurgency."
That was 11 years ago, and little has changed since. Thought the invasion of Afghanistan by Bush was a mistake that would lead to a quagmire, and have been proven correct. Still, initially supported efforts to bring peace and stability there, along with basic human and civil-rights, because after invading felt we had an obligation to rebuild. However, while U.S. blunders there have contributed to a failure, Afghans are their own worst enemy, and no one can help them until enough of them are willing to help themselves.
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“I'm not scared of the Maos and the Stalins and the Hitlers.
I'm scared of the thousands of millions of people that hallucinate them to be "authority", and so do their bidding, and pay for their empires, and carry out their orders.
I don't care if there's one looney with a stupid moustache. He's not a threat if the people do not believe in "authority".” ― Larken Rose
Setting aside the sleazy immoral Reich-wing grifters at the top -- people like Trump, Congressional Republicans, Reich-wing demagogues and media -- the rank-and-file of the GOP has become a fascist cult. To be clear, Trump did not create the cult, it existed before him. He merely served as a unifying figure they chose to rally around and worship as their fool's gold god. Trump appealed to their basest nature and told them what they wanted to hear. Now, those Reich-wing grifters may have cultivated their cult to exploit for their own greed, power and vanity, but at least to some extent the Republican cult in turn seeks to exploit the GOP for their own various misguided purposes. They CHOOSE to be willfully ignorant, to believe or espouse the lies, because as a political calculus they shortsightedly see it as expedient to their ends.
What must also be taken into consideration are the characteristics of a cult. Why do people join a cult? Why do they choose to remain in a cult? No need to go into detail; the answers are largely common knowledge or easily researched. But it should be pointed out that in a complex world, the simplistic and rigid beliefs embraced by cults can be very alluring, no matter how fantastical and removed from reality. It should also be acknowledged that the Republican cult is not a monolithic entity, but an amalgamation of sects, including White supremacists, Christian nationalists, libertarians, sovereign nationals, anarchists, tax resistors, Qanon and other extremist fringe groups. Of course, not every Republican is an extremist, a fascist, or untethered from reality. But this latter more benign group is nevertheless part of the fascist Republican cult, complicit in their support of the whole, whether through their silent acquiescence and votes or willing assistance.
It's a very dangerous feedback loop, a vicious circle, one that as it sinks further into depravity its threat correspondingly rises, for as the Republican cult has over time been becoming increasingly more radicalized, we witness the election of more radical politicians to represent them, more radicalized Reich-wing media and demagogues to feed them propaganda. While some Republicans are leaving the GOP and some others are speaking out and trying to save their party, they constitute a weak minority, unfortunately.
In a normal, sane world, the Republican cult would have ended or been marginalized after the Mueller Report, after Trump's Ukraine shakedown and impeachment, after Trump's horrendous handling of a deadly global pandemic, after his election defeat, or after January 6th and his second impeachment. But that hasn't happened. Instead, the Republican cult continues to become increasingly more radicalized and extreme. As President Biden says, "We are in a battle for the soul of this nation." And that battle is far from over.
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"Until Republicans return to reality and become responsible, they should not be trusted with power again."
That's been obvious for some time, the same warning others like me have been advocating, but it's good that Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney is amplifying that message. More Americans need to understand this.
The constant lies, denials, deceits, delusions, gaslighting, dog-whistles, crackpot conspiracy theories, projectionism, Whataboutism, bogus victimhood, and hypocrisy of Republicans is disgusting and alarming. The Republican cult has poisoned itself with its own propaganda, choosing to live in a dystopian fascist Orwellian fantasy world. The Republican cult has been radicalized to such extent that it poses a clear and present danger to our society, our democracy, our country, and the world.
Republicans have been programmed into a mindless fascist partisan cult that is unhinged, delusional and evil. They're essentially a domestic terrorist group, and we should be targeting the leaders of that group with the same vigor and determination we would a foreign terrorist group attacking our country. Don't know of a time since the Civil War when our nation has been at greater peril, and we need to recognize that, acknowledge it, and act upon it accordingly.
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Republicans: "I pledge allegiance to the lies of Trump, and to the racism, bigotry, crimes, corruption, crackpot conspiracies, delusions and ignorance for which he stands, one dysfunctional lunatic fascist cult under Trump, a nation forever divided, with plutocracy, autocracy and injustice for all."
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@g1u2y345 ~ Nothing you said changes the facts stated in my comment, so your objection is rather pointless.
Crimean Tatars are a Turkic ethnic group and nation, who are an indigenous people of Crimea. The formation and ethnogenesis of Crimean Tatars occurred during the 13th–17th centuries, from Cumans that appeared in Crimea in the 10th century, with strong contributions from all the peoples who ever inhabited Crimea, including Greeks, Italians and Goths.
Crimean Tatars constituted the majority of Crimea's population from the time of ethnogenesis until the mid-19th century, and the largest ethnic population until the end of the 19th century. Almost immediately after the retaking of Crimea from Axis forces, in May 1944, the USSR State Defense Committee ordered the deportation of all of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea, including the families of Crimean Tatars serving in the Soviet Army. The deportees were transported in trains and boxcars to Central Asia, primarily to Uzbekistan. The Crimean Tatars lost a significant portion of their population as a result of the deportation.
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@g1u2y345 ~ Like I said, argue with the Association of Indigenous Peoples and the experts. You won't do that, of course, because you know the case you are trying to make is complete BS. Personally, I find your arguments rather ignorant, narrow-minded, and unconvincing, and the sum of your replies to constitute intellectual dishonesty. Trying to educate people who are stupid, pig-headed, dishonest and don't want to be educated is a waste of time.
From the start, it's been obvious that all you've been doing is trying to blow smoke. And what is it, anyway, that you hoped to prove; that Russia's ethnic cleansing of Tatars and its Crimean land grab from Ukraine wasn't wrong? You're defending crimes against humanity and Putin? Really?
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GOP cult: “Democracy is great…only so long as we can subvert it with lies, cheating, a multitude of Jim Crow voter suppression laws, egregious gerrymandering, obstruction, coups, election interference, sedition, and terrorism to gain power and maintain our corrupt, plutocratic, minority fascist rule!”
It's quite obvious that these Republican efforts purportedly to promote election integrity are a sham and a fraud designed to do exactly the opposite: undermine confidence in the electoral process in America, and undermine our democracy. Republicans are doing this to impose their minority rule over the majority----the very antithesis of democracy.
Whole story of the fascist Republican cult: "If you see nothing, keep looking so you can pretend it's something!"
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Merrick Garland’s House Testimony Demonstrated the Failure of His Hyper-Cautious Approach to His Job
Despite Garland’s many efforts to not appear political by declining to investigate Trump and his cronies for possible crimes and by using DOJ resources to actively protect Trump from civil liability, Republicans are still portraying him as the most political attorney general in history.
The other weakness of Garland’s timid approach was on full view during his opening statement and responses to Democratic members of Congress. “The essence of the rule of law is that like cases are treated alike. That there not be one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans; one rule for friends, another for foes,” Garland stated grandly. But by declining to investigate Trump and his associates, Garland is enabling further attacks on our democracy. (While proving inequity by putting Republicans above the law.)
Crucially, the two parties are not the same. Garland’s standard sets up a false equivalency between the Democratic Party and a political party whose national leader, Donald Trump, incited and celebrated a violent assault on our nation’s Capitol to overthrow the results of a free and fair election and who continues to portray the insurrection as a glorious “protest.” To that end, in the middle of the attorney general’s testimony, Trump issued a statement highlighting Garland’s feebleness at failing to even investigate the organizers and leaders of the Jan. 6 events, declaring “the insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day. January 6 was the Protest!”
Garland’s efforts to depoliticize the DOJ have proved to be an abdication of his responsibility to protect the rule of law. Take just a few examples: Garland’s failure to reconsider the obstruction of justice case against the former president, his deferral of an investigation of possible financial crimes by Trump and his organization to local prosecutors in New York City and Westchester, his use of the DOJ to protect Trump from defamation allegations, and his deferral of a soliciting of voter fraud felony probe in Georgia to local prosecutors there. By abdicating his responsibility, Garland is also opening the door for Trump to commit these possibly criminal abuses all over again, this time with the full support of the Republican Party, and maybe ultimately return to power.
--Mark Stern
"Try as he may, Merrick Garland cannot perform boring independence fast enough to outrun GOP claims that he’s a wild-eyed, violent socialist. And while the GOP currently exists only to cast everything you thought you believed into doubt, the real endgame is vigilantism. The endgame is to ensure that people mistrust government, election systems, school boards, (teachers, health care officials) the media, and the justice system enough to lend a hand in their destruction."
--Dahlia Lithwick
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As political commentator and former Republican presidential advisor Mark McKinnon so aptly put it recently, "The Republican party is at dysfunction junction." May disagree with conservative ideology and with their stances on many issues, but do value and respect LOYAL opposition--a duty that the GOP has for too long forgotten and abdicated, putting personal and party interests before country. That is not only harmful to their party, it is harmful to our democracy and institutions. And it has come to represent a clear a present danger to our nation, a serious threat to our very security.
All of this is mentioned because it is firmly believed that this is not a time for diplomatic, soft-spoken words. This is not a time to be timid or Pollyannaish about our current political landscape, but a time for frankness, a time for acknowledgment of defects, a time for courageously confronting stark unpleasant realities. Our democracy is a fragile construct, only as sturdy, vibrant, and enduring as we maintain it, requiring constant vigilance and due diligence. Just as we don't forget Pearl Harbor, or 9/11, even more so the attack against our nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021 by fascist Reich-wing domestic terrorists incited to insurrection by a deranged President against his own government must never be forgotten or forgiven.
Thus, we MUST condemn both cowardly, corrupt Republican so-called "leaders" defying truth, justice, duty, democracy, and Constitution--and their dysfunctional political party that behaves as a cult--in the strongest possible terms, using the most muscular language that can be mustered. For it is necessary; the very fate of our nation depends upon it. Disaster was narrowly averted with the defeat of Trump, with Democratic control of the House and Senate, but the battle for the soul of this nation is far from over, and we must never again allow ourselves to become complacent. And so it is vitally imperative that we remind each other of this, that we impress these things upon our children and fellow citizens of this nation.
"Call this civic barbarism. Instead of promoting the values of responsible citizenship, Trump, Republican leadership, and their media enablers have elevated and blessed the very worst among us. They are making many Americans less suited for self-government and more dangerous to their neighbors. And they are doing so for the reason some of the Founders most feared: To lead the mob against true democracy."
~ Michael Gerson, from 'Trumpism is American Fascism'
(NOTE: Gerson is a staunch life-long conservative, who served as former President George W. Bush's chief speech writer.)
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