We want to shame them.
The FBI has suspended door-to-door interviewsin the area where Sparkman’s body was found.
This is weird. Apparently, he’d been missing for a while, and his body was “decomposed” when it was found. By the way, the linked article says his body was found on Sept. 12. So, apparently he was killed some time before that, if his body was already decomposed by the time they found it.
The linked article also raises the suggestion that this could be related to drugs rather than anti-government sentiment. It looks like the guy was without steady work. Maybe (and I stress that this is a WAG) he was trying to earn a few bucks, either by getting into the drug trade himself or by informing on what he saw while taking census. It’s possible that didn’t out well.
Do “writing on the body” cases ever turn out to be what they seem? I seem to recall a number of cases where someone turns up, either dead or claiming to have been attacked, with stuff written on their body, and the writing turns out to be some kind of diversion. There was, of course, the “B-carved-on-the-face” lady from the campaign. And, I have a dim memory of a woman some years ago claiming to have been raped and have had racial slurs scrawled on her body, which turned out to be a hoax. Am I off-base thinking that this sounds suspiciously hoaxy?
I don’t discount the possibility that this is some dimwitted political attack. But, my BS meter is creeping up.
(Obviously the guy’s murder isn’t a hoax – I mean that the writing-on-the-body sounds to me like a tactic taken from the hoaxers playbook.)
Except, of course, that neither Tawana Brawley nor Ashley Todd were actually, y’know, KILLED. I seriously doubt that this guy carved “FED” in his own chest then hung himself.
I don’t want to prosecute them, or muzzle them. I want people to know them for what they are. I want decent people to stand up and say enough, and stop listening to them, and to stop buying the products shilled on their shows.
It’s not really the speculating that bugs me. It’s the fact that every single one of the right wing knuckledraggers on this forum will come to or back to this thread to claim that “SEE! You accuse us of X!” They’ll pull it up even years from now in order to say how biased and kneejerk teh libruls are.
Besides, if Beck and Bachmann get accused of too much that turns out to be false, they’ll skate on the real things.
I couldn’t remember if it was Tawana Brawley I was thinking about or not. Thanks.
Anyway, I know that there’s a big difference here because the guy was killed. I doubt that he wrote on his own body and then hung himself. I just mean that I wonder how often real attackers of any kind actually write the reason for the attack on the victim. I don’t know. I just don’t hear about it really happening all that often. Is it more likely that an attacker motived by something else entirely would write on Sparkman’s body as a diversion?
Are the militias and gun-extremists getting guns in order to kill “liberals”? No? Then “liberals” aren’t trying to “muzzle” them.
WTF? Who is showing deep contempt for certain sections of the populace in the course of successfully competing for attention?
The entire right wing movement is currently based on nothing BUT contempt, fear and hatred for large swaths of the population.
Have you ever seen someone do something that was legal, but you found it offensive or irresponsible? If so, then you’d probably like for them to stop. Would you like to make them stop by passing a law against what they are doing or throwing them into jail? Naw, you’d probably just want to let them know why they are doing wrong, warn others, and make sure the blame lies squarely at their feet should the consequences of their actions spin out of control. Make sense?
The first amendment has no place in any argument where nobody is asking for the government to prosecute speech. Most misused argument ever.
Hanging him is intended to send a message. Writing on him makes the message clear (well clearer, anyway). It is a typical act of terrorism, and terrorists of all stripes frequently issue a statement taking credit for their acts and stating their justification for committing them. By doing this they have succeeded in stopping all census interviewers in the county. If he had been found shot or stabbed, it might be just this one.
I don’t know it for a fact, but I’ve been talking to people from the other end of that state and they would agree: lots of drugs come out of there, it’s a very poor region.
Making it clear the man was killed because he was working for The Man by scrawling Fed across his chest is one of the best ways to get the attention of the FBI I can think of.
That’s the working hypothesis, yes.
We want them to police themselves, idiot. Telling people that Liberal Policy X will be bad for the economy is one thing.
Telling people that Liberal Policy X will lead to FEMA death camp czars coming to perform mandatory abortions on your children and indoctrinate them with alternating readings of Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto is another.
Actually, the article doesn’t say that; it says the federal government has suspended interviews. And other articles make it clear that the Census Bureau has suspended interviews:
While Sparkman grew up outside the area, and it isn’t clear when he moved there, it sounds as if he’d been there long enough to know the territory. It’s hard for me to believe he was confused with the DEA, or the FBI, or the IRS. And after at least 6 years in the area, he surely knew enough to ‘hello the house’ before coming up the driveway, if he was out in the country. So I’m just not seeing this as a case of tripping over a meth lab or pot farm. Could be, but I’d sure bet the other way.
Are you serious? If they’re gaining massive audiences by doing what they’re doing, and they are, why the hell should they ‘police’ themselves to please liberals? The idea is bizarre in the extreme. But I guess hope springs eternal.
:smack: You’re right, of course. I was thinking “interview” in the sense of law enforcement interview, which was kind of dumb of me.
So, you’re basically just coming right out and saying, as a conservative, that it’s unreasonable to expect conservatives to practice basic decency and honesty?
That’s a hell of an admission, aldi, but I guess you’re in a better position to know that sort of thing than I am.
That’s pure capitalism for you. Morality and ethics mean nothing, only profit.
They shouldn’t police themselves to please us, you festering pus-boil on the anus of humanity. They should police themselves because by not doing so, they may very well have incited the death of multiple innocents. And I probably shouldn’t have to be telling you that it’s a good thing that innocent people don’t die, but apparently I do.
If you can win the arguments through debate, do it. But by consistently demonizing your opponent into some nefarious “other,” it makes it easy for the steadily increasing nutcase component of your political persuasion to justify going out and FUCKING KILLING them. Which, you know (apparently only since I just told you), isn’t all that great.
Lord Voldemort, or aldiboronti? Sometimes it’s hard to tell…