I gave you the chance to clarify “routinely” by asking a very simple question about the numbers.
Adverbs are not facts. They are opinion.
“He ran a 4.3 40-yard dash” versus “He is very fast.”
This joint LOVES adverbs and adjectives.
RIP, Randy Weaver
- Thread starter TheOriginalHappyGoat
- Start date
Adverbs are not facts. They are opinion.
“He ran a 4.3 40-yard dash” versus “He is very fast.”
This joint LOVES adverbs and adjectives.
I think I have a much better way of responding to your post than my previous effort.
We both know the word routinely has multiple meanings. I think you are able to understand, now, the meaning I intended. I definitely see the meaning you guys took. I also see how it would be easy for you guys to assume I meant what you thought I meant.
What I don’t understand is how you guys could think that was what I intended to communicate. I happen to have the greatest respect for police officers and what they do to safeguard our world. The notion that they routinely use lethal force as part of their every day, moment to moment job is absurd. If you or anyone else were to post that here and I understood it as such, my response would be wow, that’s weird, am I understanding this right? What is he really trying to say here?.
I literally do that frequently when I’m reading people’s posts here. Most people make very abbreviated posts so it requires a lot of careful understanding if one wants to ensure quality understanding.
There is a growing synergy between big money and government. Throw in the massive amount of official fear mongering related to terror, white supremacy, Covid, and more and we see government being more controlling, more corrupt, and even itself being more afraid of grass-roots populism by the day.
I think on a much smaller scale. For example, we didn’t mind illegal wire taps on the mob, but that quickly grew into ubiquitous eavesdropping on anybody.
+1
There has always been a disproportionate synergy between vested interests and government. What is profoundly exacerbating this is Big Money growing by orders of magnitude upon orders of magnitude.
Pretty clear that they had good reason to resist a corrupt government.The man who kicked off the modern era of anti-government hatred has passed away.
Randy Weaver, participant in Ruby Ridge standoff, dies at 74
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Randy Weaver, patriarch of a family that was involved in an 11-day Idaho standoff with federal agents 30 years ago that left three people dead and helped spark the growth of anti-government extremists, has died at the age of 74.apnews.com
Rudy Ridge was a watershed moment in American history. The previous bout of anti-government agitation, during the 60s and 70s, was largely driven by the left, the young, peaceniks, minorities, etc. Then, we got sick of that, and moved into the materialistic 80s. But in 1992, anti-government sentiment flared again, and this movement was quite different from the counterculture of earlier decades. This time, the hatred was coming from disaffected whites and conservatives. Not people who felt the nation was never for them, but rather people who felt the nation has been taken from them. A line runs from Ruby Ridge through Waco and Oklahoma City, up to the Bundy standoffs and Charlottesville and other recent events.
And yet, that's not to dismiss Weaver as some radical zealot undeserving of sympathy. The feds killed his wife and son. Leadership at the FBI at the time the siege was happening was wary about their own legal footing. After he and his friend were acquitted of almost everything, and he settled a wrongful death suit against the government, an anonymous FBI informant told WaPo that the government's case was so bad, Weaver probably would have won his case if it had gone to trial.
Those worried about current divisions in America becoming inflamed would do well to look at the 90s again. It all started with Ruby Ridge, and it quickly built to a catastrophic climax in Oklahoma City. Like an earthquake relieving some tension in the fault, the bombing may have cooled things for a while, but it didn't end the conflict.
The FBI didn't just suddenly become corrupt in 2016 - that started way before then. The targeting of conservative groups has brought this on, as your post shows.
I was thinking Vietnam protest surveillance, or harassment of MLK.
There was always corruption and ineptness. What has changed is the magnitude of the problem due to the size of govt. To illustrate, 4 of the top 7 richest counties in the US are in northern Virginia.
I would posit only that police routinely use force in situations where someone resists arrest or fails to cooperate. I don't think the force applied is routinely lethal although I would also suspect that most lethal encounters do not start out lethally, they end up there through an escalation of force. Often this probably begins with a lack of cooperation, which escalates to resisting, which escalates to physicality, which escalates to shooting. Obviously this doesn't ALWAYS happen. I suspect the police are damn good enough at subduing the vast, vast majority of offenders by just getting them to the ground.
Was Randy Weaver set up? Hmmmm...possibly
Was Randy Weaver going to sell a sawed off shotgun to someone? Yes, yes he was.
Is setting someone up like this SOP when the FBI or a police force is trying to infiltrate a gang/organization? Yes
Does this happen all the time without violence? I'm sure it does
Randy didn't want to face the consequences of his actions.
The FBI handled it incredibly poorly and without any real strategic thinking.
Those two things contributed to the shootings. In equal measures? Maybe not. But Randy Weaver is hardly the innocent bystander/martyr many make him out to be.
It may be that nobody knows the exact details of this gunfight but it occurred a day earlier and is crucial context in my opinion:
“To avoid arrest, Weaver holed up on his land near Naples, Idaho.
On Aug. 21, 1992, a team of U.S. marshals scouting the forest to find suitable places to ambush and arrest Weaver came across his friend, Kevin Harris, and Weaver’s 14-year-old son Samuel in the woods. A gunfight broke out. Samuel Weaver and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan were killed.”
They had already lost one US Marshall and they had no idea what lay in store when they reach the ranch. They surely didn’t want to lose any more of their own. That wasn’t part of the deal.
After Degan was killed there was an element of revenge involved on the part of the authorities. It became personal.
Same thing happened at WACO, did it not? Wasn't there an agent killed early on?
Those too. I thought mob wiretaps was tge best example because there was little or no public pushback about that. There many who said MLK surveillance was improper.
As far as Vietnam protests is concerned, . I thought the FBI just took pictures. Was there more?
Read about Cointelpro
COINTELPRO - Wikipedia
They infiltrated left and right groups. I certainly have no love of the KKK or the communists but they are Americans and have the same rights I have.
From another article:
Stern would play a crucial role in the FBI’s unraveling when he seized on one word in one stolen document that neither the media nor the burglars had examined: “COINTELPRO.” He began asking what that word meant. No one would tell him. Eventually, he and NBC sued to find out what it meant, and won. And after he began receiving COINTELPRO documents in 1973, he helped unearth some of the FBI’s worst crimes:
— The surveillance and harassment of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., sending him letters urging him to commit suicide, sending a recording of him having sex with other women to King’s wife (and offering it to journalists) and attempting to blackmail King.
— The murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton by Chicago police, set up by an FBI informant.
— The suicide of actress Jean Seberg, after the FBI planted a story with a news columnist that she was pregnant by a Black Panther.
You can look up any of them. I just looked up Jean Seberg, and yes, the FBI admitted to planting a false story about her to the media.
Column: How the FBI and the Los Angeles Times destroyed a young actress' life 50 years ago
A malicious tip from the FBI to the L.A. Times 50 years ago sent a rising young actress spiraling into depression.
www.latimes.com
there hasn't been confirmation on Hampton, so who knows how accurate that is.
Fred Hampton - Wikipedia
And yes, the FBI sent blackmail letter to King that he believed to be a request he commit suicide:
FBI–King letter - Wikipedia
Yes, if not killed then seriously wounded. I don’t remember exactly what happened but I know there was a shootout when the feds showed up with a warrant.
I think the Davidians had been tipped off to the raid but I’m not going down a Waco rabbit hole to figure it out when I have so much to do.
There seems to be a theme of duality with the FBI. On one side going after actual criminals, on the other side creating a false narrative of innocent people being criminals so they could then go after them.Read about Cointelpro
COINTELPRO - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
They infiltrated left and right groups. I certainly have no love of the KKK or the communists but they are Americans and have the same rights I have.
From another article:
Stern would play a crucial role in the FBI’s unraveling when he seized on one word in one stolen document that neither the media nor the burglars had examined: “COINTELPRO.” He began asking what that word meant. No one would tell him. Eventually, he and NBC sued to find out what it meant, and won. And after he began receiving COINTELPRO documents in 1973, he helped unearth some of the FBI’s worst crimes:— The surveillance and harassment of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., sending him letters urging him to commit suicide, sending a recording of him having sex with other women to King’s wife (and offering it to journalists) and attempting to blackmail King.— The murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton by Chicago police, set up by an FBI informant.— The suicide of actress Jean Seberg, after the FBI planted a story with a news columnist that she was pregnant by a Black Panther.
You can look up any of them. I just looked up Jean Seberg, and yes, the FBI admitted to planting a false story about her to the media.
Column: How the FBI and the Los Angeles Times destroyed a young actress' life 50 years ago
A malicious tip from the FBI to the L.A. Times 50 years ago sent a rising young actress spiraling into depression.
there hasn't been confirmation on Hampton, so who knows how accurate that is.
Fred Hampton - Wikipedia
And yes, the FBI sent blackmail letter to King that he believed to be a request he commit suicide:
FBI–King letter - Wikipedia
A
anon_6hv78pr714xta
Guest
I think this whole narrative is a stretch with respect to Waco and Ruby Ridge. Three things in common there:
1. People involved were white
2. People involved committed crimes
3. Fed gov. used very poor judgment in apprehending the suspects and tragedy ensued
I don't see any unifying anti-government theme in the people involved, what they did, etc.
I will grant that the militia types now, mostly white but not exclusively, point to both instances as reasons why they don't trust the federal government. I think we'd both agree they take it too far, but they certainly have some good data points here.
As for tying them in with Charlottsville, I don't get it. But I'm not well read on the tiki-torch squad down there: do they claim Waco and Ruby Ridge as rallying points? Weren't they portrayed as Nazis? Aren't the militia, anti-govt crowd more anarcho-capitalsits/libertarians?
All of this is reminding me I need to finish watching Yellowstone and work on my plans to move out there and open up a train station and crematorium on the border of Wyoming.
