I didn’t think it would, but I was hoping that it might sink in eventually. Like the slow, eternal drip of water can eat through even the toughest stone or the bird sharpening it’s beak on the mountain, I keep hoping that, if you hear it enough, you’ll eventually wake up and stop spending a good chunk of your time on this board being a pathetic partisan hack.
So it seems like in some proportion of discussions, **Bricker **is a viciously effective legalist, wielding the twin weapons of Statute and Case Law to effectively cut down points in a flurry of inescapable logical conclusions.
And in some proportion of discussions, **Bricker **is Plastic Man–contorting in fifteen different directions at once to make an utterly insane argument solely because it supports someone he perceives as his political ally.
While I’m more inclined than most liberals on this board to believe the first is more common than the second, this 2nd Amendment thing is one of those latter times.
Seriously, Bricker, this ought to be beneath you. It obviously isn’t, because you’re doing it and acting like you’re doing it in good faith.
Yes, I must admit I didn’t carefully read each quote that was offered there. I know I must have seen those posts, but obvious I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have.
OK, point conceded. Angle’s quote that you’ve provided was not metaphorical, and that of course strongly suggests that her OTHER quotes were not either.
Damn, good on you for retracting your error.
But, by the same token, it would be a very good idea for you to look at just how and why you made such an error when just a bit of research would have shown you that the “it was metaphoric” defense of her comments was absurd.
Yeah, he’s a class act. Totally a thoughtful poster and not a partisan hack.
Salinger’s been around longer, so it’s an unfair comparison. And I agree with the idea that you, as “Bricker”, are immune to any plausible physical threat, but Harry Reid is clearly not, because as you yourself point out, there is ample historical precedent for assassination and assassination attempts.
If anything, I’d say the original statement is cowardly, in the sense that after making it, she has to explain that she doesn’t really mean it. She should have just said nothing, let the statement stand on its own.
You’re misremembering. See below.
Basically, Bricker is a lying douchebag partisan hack. He’ll tell any lie at all that supports his “side”, and then when called on it, try and claim ignorance of the facts and that he had, goshdarnit, been arguing in good faith. Here’s one example from just a few weeks ago.
I’m sorry. I skimmed over that quote, assuming it was the same as what had been discussed earlier. I simply didn’t notice that it was a different quote.
Why the fury? If the purpose of this thread was to present a case that Angle’s language could not possibly have been metaphorical, you’ve succeeded, and I have conceded the point.
It’s not fury, it’s utter amusement. Basically, either you didn’t read the context of the quotes and defended it blindly or you’re simply pretending you never did. Both make you look like a partisan clown and clowns are funny.
To add to Snowboarder Bo’s example, here’s another from within the last couple of weeks.
The quote that I read (and heard) was the following:
"You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.
I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."
ETA: that’ll teach me to read all the responses before I reply. Sorry!
See, he’s apologized. He’s a terrific poster who can apologize! Other posters don’t apologize anywhere near as often as Bricker does.
It’s a gift.
I think Bricker’s only argument was essentially personal incredulity at the idea that a major party candidate for senate wouldn’t say such a thing, therefore it must mean something else. Full stop.
I think that’s excessively naive for someone who keeps current with politics and political movements, and who obviously possesses the brainpower to process what he’s seen. Essentially, as I stated in the other thread, at some point he knew better, but he decided that “my party right or wrong” is more important than any sort of rationality. Which makes him an apologist - and an apologist no less for some of the most evil shit that has come out of our political system.
I was not incredulous at all at the idea that Sharon Angle meant what she obviously meant because A) Bitch is crazy. She said all sorts of crazy shit, couched up a lot of her campaign in terms of appeals to violent and revolutionary imagery, demanded the media let her have editorial control of everything they did - and when they refused she and her staff would literally run away from reporters and B) the Republican party has been catering to this sort of crazy in a more and more blatant way for years. Angle is not that atypical in today’s Republican party - the only unusual thing was that she was running for an office as important at senator, and against the Senate Majority leader and had a real chance of winning.
Republicans have been couching their rhetoric with violent and revolutionary imagery for years now. They’ve dropped any pretense that their opponents are good people on which they have political disagreements - instead liberals are traitors, socialists, communists, not “real americans” etc. There’s an entire media industry run off the idea of THOSE LIBERAL TRAITORS ARE DESTROYING EVERYTHING YOU KNOW AND LOVE ABOUT AMERICA AND ONLY THE REAL AMERICANS CAN TAKE IT BACK!
They’re treading a dangerous line. They can invoke the passion of the crazies by appealing to the crazy, but what this has meant was that the crazies were energized and powerful and mainstream. They started getting actual crazies in on the ballot box. “Oh, but the real crazies would never actually get in power”, right? Well, Angle almost did. If you’re a partisan hack who believes “my party right or wrong”, you’d vote for Angle even if you knew she was nuts.
And that’s part of the point. The main check on the crazies getting power amongst your partisan allies is for you to keep them in check (and to not cater to them in the first place). But you are unwilling to do that. Instead of saying “wow, Angle is fucking crazy and needs to be stopped”, you defended her. If you, Bricker, who I don’t doubt is near the intellectual top of the republican base, aren’t willing to see the obvious and condemn her, who would? So your choice of partisanship over what is obviously right, twisting your mind into a pretzel to justify it, is absolutely part of the reason someone like her had a serious shot at being a senator. Your apologetics and refusal to condemn all of the wrong your party is doing makes you at least partly responsible for it.
Incidentally, as far as Bricker admitting she meant what she meant now that he’s seen another quote (which had already been posted twice in threads he’s participated in) - it’s nice that he’s coming around to admitting reality on this one, but I’m pretty sure it’s only because he realized how ridiculous his position is, and how much respect he’s losing on the boards to stick to it, so he grabbed at the first face-saving excuse (“oh I hadn’t noticed that other quote before, this changes everything!”) to change his position.
But really - the original quote, by itself, talking about how she was worried that voting wouldn’t work, and then we’d have to move on to other solutions - second amendment remedies, and that (in the same statement) we need to “take out Harry Reid” - his proposal that it was a metaphor for citizen action and voting is so absurd on the face of it that it’s ridiculous that it took this second quote to show him the errors of his ways.
And it wasn’t just a “hey, maybe she meant this” sort of thing - it’s something he stuck to for weeks in protracted discussions about it.
You’re wrong. I remember watching John McCain interrupt a woman at his rally saying she was afraid of Obama because he’s a Muslim. McCain interrupted her to correct the Muslim misinformation, and took it a step further, saying Obama is a “good man” and would be “a good president, but I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I would be a better one.”
Pretty much the opposite of what your accusations would have predicted.
When I’ve made a mistake, I acknowledge it.
Your position appears to be that it would be better if I never erred.
I agree. But that doesn’t appear to be an ability within my reach just yet. Perhaps after I evolve into a being of pure energy, I’ll be more infalliable.
I’ll let you know (if at that point letting you know still seems important).
I actually thought about that exchange when I was writing that. You’re right that it’s a counter-example, but the McCain campaign didn’t exactly do its best otherwise to act in that way. In general, they had Palin specifically throwing that sort of shit against the wall and seeing what stuck.
When actually faced with the implications - a woman screaming about a terrorist evil right to McCain’s face, he had no choice but to half-ass deny it otherwise he would look ridiculous - but his campaign as a whole stirred up the sort of shit that lead to that woman saying that.
The campaign (not saying McCain personally necesarily) knew what it was doing, but it had to keep it subtle, and not blatant have McCain nodding along as this woman spewed her bullshit on national tv.
Actually… yes. That’s pretty much what drove my initial analysis. Obviously the quote, standing alone, lends itself to both the alarming as well as the more sedate interpretation. I chose the more sedate for precisely that reason: that a major party candidate deserves the benefit of the doubt.
I’ve taken similar positions with candidates and office holders from both parties, without regard to affiliation.
Interestingly, when I defended Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama, I wasn’t seen here as an apologist, but as fair-minded and reasonable. When I took Rep. Kennedy’s side after the car accident, I was praised for my views.
Why is that?
Is it because Pelosi and Obama and Kennedy are, in fact, actually fair-minded and reasonable, and because Republicans are actually evil, so that when I defend the Democrats it’s objectively correct and when I defend the Republicans its objectively wrong?
I don’t know - were the issues you were defending them about fair-minded and reasonable?
Are you saying something like “I both admitted that Obama is a US citizen, and that Sharon Angle wasn’t referring to violent resolution - see, I’m an apologist for both sides, so why would you only criticize me for one side? HAHAHA GOTCHA YA!!!”?
If you were saying something ridiculous in defense of Pelosi/Obama/Kennedy and it was something I noticed, I’d call you out on it too.
I realize you say this mockingly as if it weren’t a possibility, but what if it was?
I’m no big fan of those three (Well, Obama is alright), but you’re doing the thing that’s so common amongst political hacks - you’re assuming from the beginning that all sides are equally right/guilty/whatever. Therefore, if you defend one thing that one side says, and defend something the other side says, you must being fair. Even if the thing you’re defending on one side is actually truthful and reasonable and the thing you’re defending on the other side is batshit insane.
So I’m saying yes - I don’t know what specific positions of Pelosi/Obama/Kennedy you’re referring to, but it’s entirely possible that you have defended them on an issue on which they’re being fair-minded and reasonable, and that you’ve defended certain republicans on issues on which they are evil.
I realize you think you’ve somehow trapped me in a gotcha ya here, but actually this isn’t at all a difficult position for someone to hold who doesn’t view the world in a way a partisan hack/apologist does.
That was “Maverick” McCain. He was much more palatable when he shot from the hip. I don’t think you’d see the current version of McCain respond the same way.
He **was **very much the exception.
The current GOP is much more successful at getting their people to toe the line publicly.
Isn’t it obvious? Everyone except you is partisan. Crazy world we live in. Show us the light, brother Bricker. Don’t let that innocent fallibility slow you down for a second.