I was thinking the same thing last night, Bob. Wondering how it is that during the Bush years if anyone disagreed with the president they were traitors and now those same people are hording weapons and talking revolution. How is this being encouraged? Aren't these actions and statements a form of threat against the president and congress? How explicit does that threat have to be before it becomes a problem? I'm not suggesting I know the answer to that. I'm just wondering because the Dixie Chicks were made pariahs for so little while people are saying and doing things now that go further than I ever dreamed anyone would.

My coworkers talk about buying more guns. They've got to protect themselves. They're not going to be victims. And when I ask them shouldn't they spend their money hording food and water for "when shit goes down," they say they don't need to because they'll have guns and will be able to get what they need. It's a mentality that is so far gone there is no response and it's a huge portion of the country.

Because we've had a great measure of success with killing them with kindness, they are up in arms, this 30-some percent, because this is the tv-watching croud and take their marching orders from the pundits on Fox-the only thing they watch. Have you noticed that since Obama took to wearing the little flag pin on their demand, all of the Republican congressmen no longer wear theirs-now its some shiny little round thing, probably signifying their status as lawmakers-so much more immportant now than being American, I guess.

I just wonder how bad the rhetoric would be today if Hilary had won.

I'm glad you're finally seeing it as I do. And if you think this is alarming to you, just how alarming do you think it is to me?

Matt: All you have to do is look at the crazy racist PUMA movement to know how much less violent this movement would have been. More rhetoric? Maybe. But not violent.

QT

I recall FrictionSoul posting here and at HuffPo about how these people are all for trying to force the return of Christ, but that Christ isn't coming back.

FS: are you out there?

This related to that dog whistle thing I mentioned on the radio show - the mainsteam media and most normal people don't get the underlying level of dog whistle crazy going on here. It's nearly impossible to 'relate to' - but it CAN be exposed for what it is.

Maybe they should be reminded that the unfettered unitary executive powers they championed for eight years are still vested in the presidency. Maybe they should be reminded that Guantanamo, another authoritarian leftover from the previous administration, is still open for business. Maybe they should be reminded that their emails, web-surfing and phone calls, part of a surveillance program they insisted was necessary to protect us from foreign brown people, are still being monitored.

This is a little spooky. I ridiculed the idea just last week but remember saying last year that most of the South was probably was probably busy scratching Obama's name onto bullets in preparation for another glorious rebellion.

They are truly frightened and, like good authoritarian followers, looking for someone to tell them what to be frightened of.

Well fucking add Pennsylvania to the list of THREE states committing assault weapon attacks.

2-3 Police Officers dead in Pittsburgh. 80 rounds, yes, 80 rounds of ammunition were fired.

I am continuing to blame Glenn Beck until he is stopped or the assault weapon ban/recovery bill is enacted.

Yesterday, I came up with the solution to the gun ownership problem. Every single weapon is turned into the government and in return EVERYONE gets the FAMILY SINGLE SHOT MUZZLELOADER, you know 1700's style without rifling. This was the technology available during the birth of the Second Amendment and GOD/FSM knows that the Constitution was perfect the first time and shouldn't be "Engineered".

scary as hell

You're not thinking Wingnutty enough, Joe.

My father sincerely believes that the Second Amendment right to bear arms means he can have any weapon. A Sherman tank, a nuke, anything.

Literal interpretation of the Constitution results in them believing it can be interpreted to mean anything they are thinking at the moment through whatever twisted and faulty logic they have at their disposal. That coupled with their scary interpretation of the Bible, which of course the Constitution was based upon, compels them to "act", however violently, to "save" America.

There is a bright side to all this fear-mongering, riot inducing crap. It would appear that there is something like a 1:1 ratio between the degree to which one buys into this stream of foolishness and the degree of stupidity required to buy it.
Thus, I have high expectations that many of the gun-toting defenders of freedom will fall either as the result of self-inflicted wounds or in friendly fire incidents. If this is true, then the solution really IS more guns.

I am not a supporter of the far right or the far left, but, Bob, are you really claiming that there weren't any rhetorically violent individuals/groups existing on the extreme left during the Bush administration? I've seen you use this logic time and again on this blog, and would appreciate it if you could back up this particular argument more thoroughly.

Bob,

People aren't buying guns to join a militia. There has been increased gun purchasing since before President Obama was elected, and this increase is based solely on the idea that gun purchase laws will become more stringent now that the legislative and executive branches are Democratic. People are buying them because they believe the Democrats will fuck with the second amendment, or re-define it. It has nothing to do with any militia.

It simply has to do with the belief that it is much easier to keep and hide a gun than it will be to buy a gun when gun ownership is restricted or outlawed.

And Joe, you want everyone to turn in their gun? Good luck with that. If you really, really want this to turn into a revolution, just tell law abiding citizens to turn in their guns. They will, of course, about ten million of them, on the steps of the White House. Is that really what you want?

Let them have their guns; it's the easiest way to shut people like Beck up. But you don't seem to understand that. You give him massive credibility every time you open your mouth about forcing Americans to turn their guns in.

You act as though law abiding citizens can't be trusted with guns. I'm a law abiding citizen, Joe. Can I be trusted to be safe with my guns?

"Any society who's safety depends on the militia rests upon a splintered staff at best." -George Washington

>>You act as though law abiding citizens can't be trusted with guns. I'm a law abiding citizen, Joe. Can I be trusted to be safe with my guns?

NO!!!! I don't trust you and your wingnuttery. I don't trust anyone that isn't actively serving in the law enforcement community or armed forces. Sorry!

Oh.....I WAS FUCKING JOKING YOU GIANT TOOLBOX!!!

More....

How the fuck did I want everyone to turn in their guns if I wanted to give them a government issued muzzleloader?

But, Beck is responsible for this. I am not going to stop saying that.

>>People are buying them because they believe the Democrats will fuck with the second amendment, or re-define it. It has nothing to do with any militia.

What is there to redefine about this:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

"A well regulated Militia"-An ORGANIZED group of hillbillies.

"being necessary to the security of a free State"-said group is ORGANZIED to DEFEND the FREE STATE not THEMSELVES or their WINGNUTTERY.

"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms"-the ORGANIZED group of hillbillies can have a smooth bored, single shot, black powder, weapon, NOT an AK47.

"shall not be infringed"-"To transgress or exceed the limits of; violate" I see the words, "EXCEED LIMITS" Thus a gas operated, air cooled, 5.56 millimeter, magazine fed, semi automatic weapon that is fired from the shoulder might have qualified by the founders as, "EXCEED THE LIMIT"!

But who am I? I am no expert of gun control, search and seizure, cordon, cache hunting. We called them Easter Egg hunts in Iraq.

Theghostsong,

EXCELLENT, SIR/MADAM!

@ GItheKing

Your reasoning and argument (not to mention your nickname) are not merely suspect, but cratered with potholes.

Your powers of statutory interpretation on are par with Sarah Palin's command of the English language - not dissimilar to the Queen of Hearts in Through the Looking Glass, where words mean what you wish them to mean.
The THING that shall not be infringed (exceeded, violated) is the right itself. There is nothing there that requires some ridiculous rambling about air-cooled automatic elephant guns or whatever the fuck you're yammering about. You may investigate further (for your own edification) or you may take it from someone who has some experience with ferreting out the more subtle interpretations - the elastic possibilities AND the narrow constraints - of the written law: YOU have your head all the way up your ass.
In America, at the very least, the Gun Genie is not only out of the bottle...it's on a drunken rampage. The idea of gun control (much less getting the inbred fuckers to surrender their arms) is wrapped up in demanding that paranoid stupid people cooperate with you. Check that...wrapped up in paranoid, stupid, ARMED people cooperate with you. Good luck with that. I'll leave the service of warrants to you, thanks.

PPP is exactly correct in that most of the upswing in gun and ammunition sales is because of the fear that the Obama administration would try to restrict the sale of guns. There was also fear about a huge increase in a tax on ammunition, so folks were buying it up to beat the percieved potential tax increase.

The other reason for the increase is fear over the continuing decline in the economy, and about the increase in crime that could come along with that. They want the guns & ammo for personal protection.

The stories about shortages of ammo and increased sales are not fabrications, but the reasons for these increase in sales are personal and economic, not political 99.9 % of the time.

I was going to say some of what PPP and AZDem posted. It has more to do with the belief that Obama will make buying guns much more difficult.

Check out some of the survival and preparedness blogs. Scary. And it's not really about Obama making gun sales difficult, it's much, much than that. Some of them are doomers, some are seriously into revolution.

@ wildrabbit

Those twisted Ruby Ridge freaks were always out there. Making moonshine, failing to report income, mudding, cockfighting, breeding Pit Bulls, swearing to God A'mighty they was gonna fix up them Buicks on blocks in the yard...
The difference then was that they knew one of their own - a white, gun-loving, gas burning, electric chair switch flippin', Leave it to Beaver moron - was running the show.
Now...great googly jesus on skis...the PRESIDENT is a secret socialist Muslim nigger gon' take our guns n' all the money don't have and now ain't never gonna git.

It's really very much like that old canard about the single certain way to get all of humanity to pull together as one: A Martian attack (tho any ET will do) - the alien invader...the threat from outside.
Now, all the disparate, ignorant, paranoid, stunned, backward, illiterate, racist, creationist, stunted, redneck fuckwit hicks have a bonfire around which to git nekid and stomp.
Rush Limbaugh is selling cured hardwood by cord and Glenn Beck is scampering around with a bucket of lighter fluid. It's really only a matter of time until the next Waco. But this one will be far more special. Watergate with flames and body armor. The American Masada. And mark this: It will be entirely superficial to lay the blame for it at the feet of Limbaugh and Beck. The assembled crowd...the stompers...they were looking to burn something down long before the whoopers and hollerers showed up. Rush and Beck score no points for surfing that wave...but surfers are not what's eroding the beach.
It's not the incitement to riot that scares me. It's the depth of the cracks and the width of the divide. There's just no talking to the mindless fuckers. It's Lord of the Flies out there.

Calling them names is pretty much the same way they react when confronted, and I've had my share of it. A lot of them are educated, (if you can call what has happened in our schools for the last 30 years education), hold jobs,(when they can find them. Good jobs are extremely rare and the asskissing involved is difficult for them), cherish their families, and are good people most of the time. Yes, a lot are racist, but even so, quite a few of them are embarrassed by it. Really. The main problem is fear of the future, as in not having one or not having any control of it. There isn't an equivalent of Rush or Beck on the left, thus no propaganda (in the good? sense of the word), to bring them into the fold. Most of what they see from the left is elitism and sly jabs about trailer parks. These are proud people, and quite a few of them join the military to not just escape from the near poverty, but to defend our country. They believe in it. Perhaps fewer snarky comments would help, country don't mean stupid, man.

@ rabbit

Oh...I see. The problem is my snark. I need to make room for the fact that they really believe their racist, inbred, tailer park bullshit counts for something in order to bring them into the fold.
It doesn't matter that their perspective is constructed on willful blindness, stubborn ignorance and a a variety of debilitating inbred mutations...the problem is that I refuse to deal with their delusions on the basis that they are honestly held.
I'm trying to imagine who DOES have control over their future, and it seems a short list. All the way from turkey geekers to the former CEO of General Motors, it would seem unanticipated surprise is the order of the day.
Country may not equate with stupid, but I never suggested that stupid was strictly a rural quality.

@ cousinavi
You're living proof of that, bro.

Sorry, kinda snarky, wasn't it? Piss you off? GOOD, now you can walk in their shoes for a while. You make a very good argument for joining them if you are the alternative.

@ rabbit

What's most curious to me is that you think there's something you might post here that would piss me off.
GOOD! ??? Walk in their shoes?
What the fuck do you presume to know about my moccasins?
The difference between making demographic assumptions about those who respond to Glenn Beck's tepid piss stream of paranoid delusions, and making specific assumption about which demographic slit I fit into is not only fraught with structural chasms, it's just a really fucking bad bet on which I'll lay long odds and take heavy weight.
Are you serious. Look, BRO...I'm not aiming at pissing you off, I'm aiming at getting you to think a little more clearly.
Perhaps my snark gets in the way. So it goes. Amusement or progress...I'll take what comes.

@cousinavi
Not demographic assumptions, I live around these people, work with them, and yes, party with them from time to time. They're fun. I repeat, most of them are good people, although manipulated, misguided, and very, very afraid. And very pissed off.
Most of them are Libertarian-ish and call down curses on both the Republican and Democratic houses. They do honestly have concerns about the erosion of our constitutional rights. Don't you?
Look, these people lived through the Bush years too, and look at the situation as that the new boss is the same as the old boss, only Socialist, not Corporate. They're really not sure which is worse.
Google up Oathkeepers, these people are not "trailer-trash" (though I don't understand the use of the only affordable housing as a pejorative. It's been a long 30 years for the working class, I lived it). These guys fight for the Constitution. They do not discuss it as an intellectual abstraction, they live and die for it.
The Fascist talk is by hucksters who don't realize these people know how to Google. They don't resent it, however. Getting all riled up is also a form of entertainment.
The hucksters provide an entertaining, if vague reinforcement of their beliefs, though not as intelligently as they themselves can. Once again, these people are not stupid.
The Doomer culture has a lot to do with it also. There's a lot of people out there, and I'm one of them, that believe the whole system is broken. It doesn't look too good right now, what with climate change, peak oil, the world economy in the tank and the host of other problems we've got to deal with in short order.
This is the real point: I voted for Obama, and I have the tiniest bit of hope. These people haven't any hope for themselves or their families and panic is setting in.
Glen Beck, Bachman and the rest are taking advantage of the fear, whipping it up for entertainment and commercial gain. But the fear is still real. That's the actual problem.
"Perhaps my snark gets in the way. So it goes. Amusement or progress...I'll take what comes"
Try heartless cynicism. People have died, and more blood is coming. This is not progress, so by your lights is this amusing? Maybe these guys have another reason to be afraid.

Hoe-LEE fuck me sideways...
I shall endeavor to persevere. Line by twisted line, I shall endeavor to persevere.

Most of them are Libertarian-ish and call down curses on both the Republican and Democratic houses. They do honestly have concerns about the erosion of our constitutional rights. Don't you?

Odd we didn't hear from them...they never made a fucking peep at the passage of The Patriot Act, warrrentless wiretapping, Gitmo, the whole "STFU Don't Ask Questions Ass Raping" of the Constitution over the past decade. You are not permitted to play them off NOW as simmering libertarians after they jammed their hands up their ass for eight solid years.

Look, these people lived through the Bush years too, and look at the situation as that the new boss is the same as the old boss, only Socialist, not Corporate. They're really not sure which is worse.

Do you, or "they" even know what the fucking word means. Socialist. Socialism. I'm getting rather tired of you ignorant fuckwits tossing the term around as a pejorative without the first fucking clue...a goddamn barnyard hint...what the word means. You are welcome to tell your pig-fucking shit kicking neighbors to stop hammering about nouns they only recognize on sight but fail to comprehend.

Google up Oathkeepers, these people are not "trailer-trash" (though I don't understand the use of the only affordable housing as a pejorative. It's been a long 30 years for the working class, I lived it). These guys fight for the Constitution. They do not discuss it as an intellectual abstraction, they live and die for it.

There's not a single repressed gay-hugging for Jeebus "Oathkeeper" who has the first fucking clue what the founding document says, nor any reasonable interpretation thereof.

The Fascist talk is by hucksters who don't realize these people know how to Google. They don't resent it, however. Getting all riled up is also a form of entertainment.
The hucksters provide an entertaining, if vague reinforcement of their beliefs, though not as intelligently as they themselves can. Once again, these people are not stupid.

The foregoing makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever, with the exception of the one thing to which I object: They ARE stupid. The fact that they gather together and agree with one another does not make them insightful or worth attention.

The Doomer culture has a lot to do with it also. There's a lot of people out there, and I'm one of them, that believe the whole system is broken. It doesn't look too good right now, what with climate change, peak oil, the world economy in the tank and the host of other problems we've got to deal with in short order.

Another tinfoil hat and three more excuses why in this drastic time your drastic foolishness is acceptable.
Sorry. Your drastic foolishness is still foolish, no matter how skin it. Peak Oil! Global Warming! Al Gore's Grandmother's Dry Puss!
Amplitude doesn't make stupid less stupid.

This is the real point: I voted for Obama, and I have the tiniest bit of hope. These people haven't any hope for themselves or their families and panic is setting in.

Ooh...they're freaking out!!! We had best accomodate the imbeciles who can't manage reason!

Glen Beck, Bachman and the rest are taking advantage of the fear, whipping it up for entertainment and commercial gain. But the fear is still real. That's the actual problem.

Irrational fear, even if it's real, is still irrational. I am not willing to devote dollars to the threat of angry leprechauns, no matter how certain you that the wee green fuckers are out to get you.

"Perhaps my snark gets in the way. So it goes. Amusement or progress...I'll take what comes"
Try heartless cynicism. People have died, and more blood is coming. This is not progress, so by your lights is this amusing? Maybe these guys have another reason to be afraid.

Nothing heartless about it. Dismissive, maybe...and from the thrust of your counterpoint, obviously properly so.
Blood is coming? Is that a threat? Listen up, Beckazoid Freak...when the time comes that you actually work up the balls to pull the trigger while screaming DOWN WITH SOCILAISM, I suspect (and tho I would gladly do it myself) you will encounter REAL patriots who will immediately and with multiple rounds, refuse to put up with your fake ass plastic patriotism.

And if I do say so myself, in the midst of a drugged rum haze...
I fucking rock.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

/Elvis

Someone get me a radio show. I already have balls the size of James Earl Jones...all I need is frequency. I'll BURY that fat, ignorant fuck Limbaugh.