No thank you please (LGF as liberal website)

In reply to: Tea Party Derangement Syndrome: Tennessee Flag Is Neo-Nazi Symbol � The Republican Heretic

I'm sorry, but on behalf of the vast leftwing conspiracy, I'm authorized to inform you that we want no part of Charles Johnson or LGF, no matter what political group he wishes to align himself with these days... (I remember something about him renouncing his years as a rightwing blogger, but has he actually tried to claim he's a liberal now, or are conservatives trying to lessen the stink in the wingnut war room he used to occupy by claiming he's a lib yourselves?) He made his bones as a conservative, and while we understand he's no longer acting like one of them either, that doesn't make him one of ours...

Thanks, but no thanks...

The left
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Submitted for approval 3/31/10, 3:47 PM (IM blog time)

Protesting as racist, violent, and unpatriotic... Say what?

In reply to: Evan Coyne Maloney’s Trip Down Memory Lane : Founding Bloggers
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So, is the argument that two wrongs make the latter bad actors more right, somehow?

Because so far, I haven't seen much of anyone denying that individuals on the left also behaved poorly, or that anyone who held a Bushitler sign is coming out against those carrying Hitlerbama signs.

Is there some hypocrisy, in that the more mainstream people on the left back then said less about BusHitler signs than they do Hitlerbama signs, while the better behaved folks on the Right back then complained more about BusHitler signs than they do Hitlerbama signs? Sure... It's wrong, but it's also to be expected... Part of the reason for having an "other" is how it unites the group attacking that "other," even when the attacks sometimes go too far...

But by and large, I think the video is answering a charge that very few are making, because I've not seen many people claiming that these signs didn't exist...

In the cool light of day, the real question is whether or not one believes such rhetoric is appropriate, and whether their answer depends on whose hands are holding the signposts.
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Submitted for moderator approval 3/31/10, 12:14 PM (IM blog time)

"Last time I looked, wanting to start a civil war (insane as it is) was not a crime..."

In reply to: Classical Values: Local news that's not local news yet?
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I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that, compared to some of the others mentioned in the more leftward leaning blog posts-- Ex: In the Wake of Arrests in Three States, Right-Wingers Rush to Defend Terror Suspects, Criticize FBI | Firedoglake, or my favorite bigoted bloggers, who saw the word "Christian" and immediately jumped to speculating as to why why they weren't arresting the "muzzies," instead... Actual facts/charges be damned... Donald Douglas and Pam Geller spring to mind...) --you got a raw deal on this one...

As you (along with we "commies" who support the ACLU) have learned, it ain't easy speaking up for the right to express dangerous, bigoted, hurtful, hateful thoughts... You're right... It isn't a crime to want to start a civil war, or even to say so... That isn't to say that we citizens, and law enforcement too, ought not pay close attention to the crackpots who express views like this, so that expressing that opinion never reaches the stage that these asses got to (with rights come responsibilities), but no, there is no crime in thinkin' it, or even saying it...

Except for the last lines--I do think there's something special about US citizenship, and I do think it ought to afford those who have it special privileges not offered to non-citizens--I agree with the anonymous fellow above (3/30/10, 12:40 PM, just in case). The way I read the Constitution, it's "all men, not all citizens," and I do believe that because our legal system is the best in the world, we ought to use it whenever we detain or put anyone, citizen or otherwise, on trial... I'm not opposed to military trials, but I don't believe in this "not enemy soldiers subject to Geneva, not citizens subject to US protections" limbo we put them in at the start of this conflict... We're America, and we should abide by the ideals for which we fight, or amend them so that we once again can... (It's like civil commitment for pedophiles... Increase the legal penalties for the crime, but don't create some kind of civil fiction to continue detaining people who've served their prison time...) We're a nation ruled by laws and ideals, not by the things we want, short term... No one said it was supposed to be easy living up to our values... YMMV...
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Submitted for blog owner approval 3/31/10, 4:44 AM (IM blog time)
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Added to the "hall of shame" list of bloggers who moderate for content with which they disagree, 4/1/10

Did Occam's Razor cut that Democrat's gas line?

In reply to The Oracular Opinion: Innocent Until Proven Guilty—The American Way Gone Astray, and in particular bluepitbull's March 30, 2010 5:46 PM comment, reproduced in full here. My moderator-removed reply follows:

Fair enough, I will explain my point.

When you control the message, you control the perceptions. Ergo, the simplest explanation is that Tea Party members are all crazed, mind numbed zombies who are mostly white and republican (your media definition). Don't deny it. If you control the media you can say anything you want and make alot out of nothing.

I still believe that if there were any concrete proof, it would have come out by now. And I think that you and I both know that Pelosi wouldn't have waited to stand up with her giant gavel and tell all about it since it would have furthered her cause, which was to ram a pos legislation down the throats of those who don't support it. And yes, it all does come back to the healthcare debate. That still seems to be the one polarizing argument in front of all of us.

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Ergo, the simplest explanation is that Tea Party members are all crazed, mind numbed zombies who are mostly white and republican (your media definition).

I don't know who you're talking to, but I've neither said or suggested anything of the kind (and for my money, neither has much of the media... though, I'm open to reviewing quotes from said media proving otherwise.)

The simplest explanation to which I was referring says that the windows that were broken out at Dem offices, the nasty messages critical of health care votes that were left on Dem answering machines, the cut gas line at the Dem rep's brother's house (after his home address was posted on a Tea Party "patriot's" website, rather than the rep's home address), and the bigoted comments that were alleged to've come from the middle of the Tea Party crowd a week or so ago were most likely done by people critical of those Democrats, rather than by false flag agent provocateur Democrats looking to frame the Tea Party, which is a far more convoluted, conspiracy-minded theory (both on the part of the provocateurs committing the acts, and the right wingers who're now claiming--with no more proof than they're demanding of those who say they know those acts were committed by the right--that that's what happened...)

Don't deny it.

I have no need to deny anything... I hold to the idea that the onus is on the individual(s) making the charge to back it up with whatever evidence (or speculation) they have... That's why you'll never hear me say that I know John Lewis was in fact called anything by anyone last week... I do find him credible and I do believe his story, but I also agree with you folks that so far, there is no concrete proof...

As far as these things go, I find Occam's Razor and plain old common sense to be persuasive... But that doesn't prove that I'm right, or that you're wrong, or much of anything else... As I said in a previous comment, unless/until someone offers something more concrete, folks'll just have to weigh what little evidence and "testimony" there is, put it together with common sense and human nature, and draw their own conclusions...

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Posted by repsac3 to The Oracular Opinion at March 30, 2010 6:48 PM, OO time (and apparently removed by the moderator sometime later, for reasons that are so far unclear to me... ...though I do intend to ask for clarification...

The Lyin' King of the wingnut Savannah fears trackbacks, too

In reply to American Power: Obonics

(The reply--a trackback, as quoted below--did appear at the post, but was promptly removed by the blog owner, Donald Douglas (the Lyin' King), for reasons I leave for the reader to figure out for him/herself.):
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American Nihilist tracked back with Donald's Bigotronics
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Submitted (& posted, briefly) by repsac3 to American Power at March 25, 2010 5:32 AM (AmPow blog time)

Feelings of Political Bigotry

In reply to: Want to see why I have grown to hate the left? | Political Byline, and recreated from memory, because someone accidentally closed a page he intended to leave open... (It was early, and I was still sleepy...)

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Well, there's no point in my debating against your feelings, I guess (only you can change how you feel)... ...but I still maintain that the blogesphere would be a whole lot more civil (and perhaps even more respectful, too) if folks would stick to attacking the individuals who actually say or do the bad things, rather than everyone who happens to be in the same political or social group as that one bad actor. (It'd be even better if we could all stick to attacking the behaviors and ideas with which we disagree, and not attack the people at all, but I can see where that might be a flag too high to capture, given where we're starting out...)

I urge you to give this whole political bigotry idea some thought as you read (& reply to) the things posted out there in the vast political blogesphere, and I hope you enjoy your day...
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Submitted for moderator approval somewhere in the neighborhood of 5:30 AM, IM blog time (and rejected, I think, because my other moderated comment offered at Political Byline this morning is still on the site (as moderated), while this one is nowhere to be found... "Freedom of speech" only goes so far, I guess...) ((Yes, I know it's not really a free speech issue... but them's the words Pat (the owner of the PB blog) used in explaining (& later defending) his decision to allow my earlier comment(s) to appear, and I don't want to cloud the issue now by bringin' the government into it...))

UPDATE, 6:30PM: Yep, it's confirmed... According to the e-mail I just received from the man himself, Patrick moderated away my comment because he felt it insulted him and his right to hate the left... So there you have it, as straight from the horses mouth as I can give you. (While I do think that one has the right to cut'n'paste the private e-mails to which one is a party into a blog post, I think it's cheesy to do so unless it's absolutely necessary.)

As to his allegation that my comment was insulting or in any way infringed on his rights, I'll simply note that I said nothing of rights, and only discussed the ethics of hating entire groups of people for espousing a particular political philosophy with which one disagrees... Given his plea for civility earlier on in that very post, I find his insistence on holding on to his hate pretty disturbing... But so it goes, I guess... (And his initial posts and comments at Don's place seemed pretty reasonable, too... Sad.)

Touchy…Touchy..., Touché.

In reply to: Touchy…Touchy…Touchy…. | Political Byline
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AmericanNeocon IS Donald Douglas.

Well technically, Donald Douglas IS American eocon (there’s no second “N,” perhaps because, in his mind, being a neocon is the only way to be a “real” American.) But yes, I was aware. As Ex-DLB–and to some extent, Donald himself–pointed out, the professor and I go back a long way… I only used his Americaneocon appellation here because that is the name under which he posted.

Please Do.

I thought a good bit about whether to engage on this point, but I’m going to decline, at least until goaded on further… Several instances of this kind of behavior are posted on my blog and on his own, and I just don’t have the energy to dig ‘em all up and rehash them again. (Besides, is this really the kinda thing you want filling up your comment section?) If I were to name names though, I’d probably begin by suggesting that you do a search of a guy named Paleo Pat, and read the unpleasant comments Donald Douglas would write in reply to that guy when he made occasional comments at American Power… (And for the record, I know who Paleo Pat IS, too…) Then you might wish to check out the Erin Andrews saga (one example, from a third party), faux Liberty Bell situation, his war on Conner Friedersdorf, his war on the Ordinary Gentlemen blog and everyone who writes for it, … (and yes, there are others… But given your feelings as expressed elsewhere, I hesitate to bother going on, fearful that you will just refuse to see any of it… …and besides, I said I wasn’t going to get into it, didn’t I? )

As I said in my earlier comment, you’re welcome to think and feel as you will… …but from where I’m sitting, one is only Don’s friend as long as s/he’s willing to tow his particular party line… Strike too far out on your own (or use sarcasm or some other literary device he fails to comprehend), and you get added to his ever-growing enemies list–your willingness to take the punch and give him the benefit of the doubt notwithstanding…
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Submitted for moderator approval March 15th, 2010 at 5:52 am, Political Byline blog time