I think that poll was out of line for ATMB.
Don’t know what to say. Not in a shit-taking mood today.
On a positive note, did get Octo to admit that his side is so deadly violent that merely standing outside a FBI office with a sign is ‘brave’.
Plus it didn’t have an option for preferring that he stop using all language altogether.
I don’t think he does see that. I think he sees “sides”, and if the police are after “the other side” it’s good, and if they are after “my side” it’s bad. At least, that’s what I’m gathering from this.
@octopus, if you honestly think there’s a problem with the FBI retrieving ultra-high-security documents from Trump’s home, because it’s somehow weaponizing the police, you should be comparing it to how the FBI used to raid all the customers of magazines that gave advice on growing cannabis. (A lot of orchid growers had their homes destroyed in unannounced raids during those days) or using homeland security to separate kids from their families. Those are examples of police over-reach for political purposes. But comparing it to police illegally killing people, in violation of police procedures, (which I think is what you were doing) just makes you look indifferent to law. So no one sees anything resembling inconsistency when they support legal police actions and oppose illegal ones.
That is a lie, unless you mean you take offense when someone other than you makes personal insults outside The BBQ Pit.
That’s a mischaracterization. I said in today’s environment. I wasn’t saying the right or the left are solely responsible for increased heat in their rhetoric nor do I believe political violence is monopolized by one side of the political spectrum.
Of course I see sides and factions. However, I also believe that law enforcement should be apolitical.
I do have a problem with police over reach and I have a problem with the justice system and the way prisons are run in America as well. I don’t think the solution is rioting and opportunistic looting while attempting to dismantle law enforcement in general. Furthermore, I do see a problem with the hostility towards state security when one’s preferred party is out of power and an obsequiousness and deference to the same apparatus when one’s preferred party in in power.
Everything from civil forfeiture, plea bargains, the advocation of extrajudicial punishment of prisoners including rape I have opposed and I believe I have opposed on these forums. So to say I want to weaponize law enforcement on the “other side” is not a fair assessment of my position.
The reason I do respond in such threads that I responded in is I feel that having an intellectual stance on issues such as law enforcement, health and science, free speech and the concept of individual liberty that is contingent upon short term political gain is very counterproductive.
As an example, Salmon Rushdie was stabbed. Do you all think that this was a product of classical liberal thought or regressive illiberal thought? We’d probably agree that it was most likely a product of a person motivated by regressive illiberal thought. This is why it’s important in enlightened societies to have an unwavering support of fundamental rights that aren’t dependent upon which party or which faction in a party supports them. Otherwise the whole argument advocated by said faction appears to be nothing but politics and that cynicism and the undermining of rational thought and argument is undermined.
So, as I said, I found it jarring that the progressive left with their radical language about defunding the police, abolishing the police, community justice, elimination of incarceration, etc… were now changing their tune and changing it quite aggressively. All it demonstrates is that the message and demand for change weren’t honest and instead they were and are a mechanism to exploit emotions to energize an electorate.
To address the FBI retrieving documents, of course at this stage it’s going to appear politically motivated. I don’t think there is anything wrong if the FBI consistently follows the law and doesn’t pick sides but in the past 4-8 years the FBI has not appeared to be neutral. With regards to homeland security separating kids from parents I do believe that that is quite wrong. I believe we should have robust border security and actually enforce immigration law, however it does not need to be enforced in an inhumane or monstrous way.
With regards to drug growers? I’m of two minds, one is libertarian where I think the state ought to stay out of it and let Darwin do the work. The other is practical where I know that due to the human tragedy of addiction and overdose, especially with more and more dangerous drugs entering society, the negative externalities of letting Darwin do the work would make that approach unacceptable. That said, even with a crackdown on narcotics being the law, I do think we need to be very careful about the erosion of civil liberties while enforcing the law.
It’s not really relevant, but i want to be clear what i was talking about.
The “weaponizing the police” with regards to drugs that i tried to describe wasn’t them raiding drug dealers/growers, it was about them trying to put magazines (protected by the first amendment) out of business by attacking anyone who bought from companies that advertised in those magazines. So, if a company that made plant lights advertised both in an orchid magazine and in the targeted cannabis magazine, their orchid customers were targeted and harassed, to force them to stop advertising in the cannabis magazine.
If you think it’s inappropriate that the FBI raided trump’s home to collect secret documents, you presumably think that was inappropriate, as well. Or at least, that seems at least a little related.
I don’t think many on this board were lobbying to eliminate the police altogether, so your attacking the “hive” that favored that really missed the mark.
My misunderstanding. It happens, perhaps my response should be reported for trolling or hijacking since it was addressing something not asked…
I find it very problematic to harass and use the power of the state to bankrupt companies or harm individuals who are acting legally. I was unaware of this specific example until today but I do condemn it now that I’ve been made aware.
If the FBI are following the law and this isn’t politically motivated I don’t think the FBI’s actions are inappropriate. However, I can understand why people perceive the actions to be politically motivated since the FBI has acted in a partisan manner in recent years.
I admit that my perception of others’ motivations may not be 100% accurate. We are all human here and memories and reasoning are not entirely infallible or entirely logically correct. Being wrong on a subject shouldn’t be an offense.
Nobody thinks that the solution to police overreach is “rioting and opportunistic looting”. Not even, or especially not, the organizers and majority of protestors at the BLM demonstrations against police overreach that were hijacked by a minority of rioters and opportunistic looters.
And hardly anybody seriously supports totally “dismantling” law enforcement in general. Certainly the vast majority of the non-Trumpists concerned about Trump’s apparently illegal behavior in mishandling classified documents don’t support such utopian schemes.
So you can be reassured that the potential large-scale liberal hypocrisy you seem to be worrying about is not in fact occurring.
Sheesh, just like a conservative: Support the partisan conservative abuse of government power that destroys public trust in the government, and then whine that the government needs to avoid taking action because people don’t trust the government. 
Dude, people “perceive the actions to be politically motivated” primarily because right-wing media propaganda in “recent years” has been feeding their viewers unending streams of lies about Democrats and mainstream media. They haven’t been telling people about the year-long battle on the part of National Archives and Records Adminstration to get Trump to comply with document handling regulations, or anything else except baseless accusations that ANYTHING the Democrats or mainstream media do MUST be solely “politically motivated”.
Of course their low-information audience doesn’t trust any Democrats or mainstream media outlets or government agencies, because the Pravda-like propaganda that they exclusively consume tells them not to.
Not giving a shit whether you are right or wrong, as long as you have supposedly done damage to your perceived “enemy”, is very offensive. If people think you are this way deliberately you have only yourself to blame (or, as I highly suspect, to take credit).
Well, I’ll be on the veranda, since you’re already on the cross…
Do you know how hard it is to crucify an octopus?
It’s like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
Who changed their tune? Be specific, with cites. I’m unaware of any poster, or even any significant liberal, who had been in favor of abolishing the FBI (or the police in general) and then reversed their stance because the FBI was investigating Trump. I don’t believe this assertion you’re making without specific cited claims.
Mostly the calls of action against police have been against local police departments with histories of racial discrimination. Some of those calls to action have been to get federal oversight from the DOJ.
Here is the ACLU decrying the Trump administration dismantling those oversight programs that the Obama administration had put into effect.
It’s not the DOJ/FBI that the left has been complaining about.
Well, this decade, tbf.
Nobody thinks that now, since they have been shown to be separate groups, but when it seemed that the line between protestors and rioters and looters was much more blurred, the standard line was “I’m not saying it’s okay, but it’s okay if they’re really, really angry.”
Senseless waste of 8 nails too.
You can use 4 staples.
Or line up all the limbs and use a single spike.
Not through the hectocotylus! Noooooooooooooooo!
(From Wiki: " Depending on the species, the male may use it merely as a conduit to the female, analogously to a penis in other animals, or he may wrench it off and present it to the female.")