Wednesday, July 1, 2015

We don't know where we are going...but I think we got there already



The people that brought you the demonstrations that resulted in two New York City police officers being murdered are at it again.

A group that titles itself "Disarm the NYPD" is having a flag burning Festival in Fort Greene Park here in Brooklyn.

Quoting the story in todays New York Post:

Organizers say the rally is a response to Charleston shooter Dylann Roof because he is a “product of a consistent pattern of state-sponsored terrorism and radicalized dehumanization in America.”
They originally intended to burn just the Confederate flag, but they’re now taking aim at the stars and stripes as well.
“The Confederate flag has long been a symbol of white supremacy, slavery, and Jim Crow,” the group wrote in a Facebook post. “However, the Confederacy lost the war, but the American flag has unceasingly, from the first day it was ever hung, represented the exact same thing.”
“Disarm” member Carlos Cabeza, 21, said the group didn’t even bother asking for a permit from the Parks Department, knowing they wouldn’t be approved.
The activists intend to set fire to a large American flag, as well as a Confederate battle flag, he said. They’re also encouraging others to bring along their own flags to burn.
“We think these flags symbolize white supremacy and racism that is embedded into the American society and culture,” Cabeza said.
So the protests that started with the Confederate Flag are now morphing into the burning and desecration of the American Flag. It is all the same to these jokers. 
If you want a full discussion by a competent law professor be sure to check out the post at Legal Insurrection. Professor Jacobson should be your go-to guy on legal questions. He is a class act.

45 comments:

Fr Martin Fox said...

I wonder what might happen if someone burned the rainbow flag?

Methadras said...

Fr Martin Fox said...

I wonder what might happen if someone burned the rainbow flag?


Oh, there would be a lot of hissing, claws would come out, some frothing at the mouth, wrist flapping, snarky criticisms of your fashion sense. Then the real hatred would ensue followed by collective back-of-hand-over-forehead fainting. The usual.

Shouting Thomas said...

Nihilistic destruction for the sake of destruction.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

"The best part of the Obama era is all the racial healing."

Shouting Thomas said...

The Mafia, back in the good old days of the Wise Guys, pulled the same type of stunts, disguising their rackets behind street protests about discrimination against Italian-Americans.

They also were trying to get law enforcement off their backs so that they could operate with impunity.

History repeats itself.

edutcher said...

What did I tell you?

This is what people get for trying to be reasonable saying, "I, for one, am glad we allow flag burning as free speech. it means we have free speech", instead of, "Flag burning would be banned if they tried to get it approved under the peaceable assembly clause. It's a phony as abortion of same sex marriage".

Everything the Lefties said about the Stars and Bars, they said about the Stars and Stripes.

And now they have the bit in their teeth.

See Hitler, A.; Reichstag, burning of; Long Knives, Night of.

Fr Martin Fox said...

I wonder what might happen if someone burned the rainbow flag?

In the immortal words of Trevor Howard to Edward Mulhare, "Padre, you are priceless".

Shouting Thomas said...

Nihilistic destruction for the sake of destruction.

No, the Stalinization of history. We'll need a new flag, of course.

edutcher said...

s/b

It's as phony as abortion or same sex marriage

ricpic said...

I wish I could say I'm shocked but from my earliest ventures out into the streets as a teenager it was impossible not to see that a significant percentage of the hoi polloi were filled with resentment at "America." It took me years to realize that their gripe with America is that here there is actual - as opposed to social - justice. In other words here those who make a sustained effort and actually offer something of value to others are rewarded and those who don't are less rewarded. That's what the resent-filled call oppression. And that's what the socialists they vote into power fix.

edutcher said...

But that oppression never ends.

If it did, the socialists would be out of a job.

I saw that 40 years ago. You'd think it would be that obvios for everybody.

Rabel said...

Trivia. Who said, "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pick-up trucks."

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Maybe if more black churches are burned things like this will stop.

Titus said...

Today at work I made the North Shore Header receptionist smash her big tits against my interior office window, and then I pretended to lick them.

We couldn't stop laughing.

She left the hallway and flashed her shaved cooch at me.

She told me straight are so not fun like that.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I wonder what might happen if someone burned the rainbow flag?

I know, right? That's just the sort of thing a so-called Man of God should be wondering about.

Shouting Thomas said...

You are, as always, Ritmo, utterly and intentionally vicious.

Have you ever had a religious education?

Shouting Thomas said...

You are the web champion, Ritmo, at conveying a loathsome and despicable character.

It would be interesting, in an odd sort of way, to meet you in person to find out if you are really as irredeemably awful, hateful and bitterly stupid as you appear to be in print.

edutcher said...

Shouting Thomas said...

You are, as always, Ritmo, utterly and intentionally vicious.

Have you ever had a religious education?


You might as well want to ask him if he's had any education.

Rhythm and Balls said...

Maybe if more black churches are burned things like this will stop.

Especially since it turns out most things like that turn out to be false flags.

Or fags, if you prefer.

Shouting Thomas said...

The black churches burning meme comes around every few years, and never pans out the way people like Ritmo hopes.

I recall the fake black church arson meme in the 90s. It was supposedly proof that the KKK was alive.

The hysteria turned out to be entirely false. Churches burn down all the time, just like houses do. I was an EMT for several years, and I was amazed to discover how frequently houses burn down. I had thought that such occurrences were rare.

Arsons occur for all sorts of reasons, ranging from insurance scams to personal vendettas, etc. Black churches often exist in very high crime areas, which leads... amazingly enough... to a high rate of arson.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I am just stating facts and asking questions.

Stephen: Sometimes you have a habit of not realizing how out of control you get; how much control over your own emotions you lose. Maybe you feel your religious ideas provide comforting explanations for that behavior and how to rationalize it. I don't know. It's not my business what people believe, and I don't much care; just what they say and how they act.

You don't seem to realize that you're not only letting people get the better of you; you're even getting the better of yourself. Others might barely even open their mouths or just utter a single letter before you go wild.

It really takes some negligence to get to a point where Meade seems like the reasonable and merciful one, as you apparently did last night. That thread, which I've just read, is a really sad one.

What I would suggest you do, is ask a good friend to review your use of words like "loathsome, despicable, irredeemably awful, hateful and bitterly stupid" in that short 7:00 PM post of yours. Ask them if it conveys a sound mindset and, apparently, the type of character you find fault with me for not emulating. Ask someone you trust (and not just "online") if that much pointed language in two short sentences is warranted.

Exactly what kind of example are you trying to set that you think I'm supposed to follow?

All I can see is a man who loses all control, is not even sure what he's trying to say, and all in the service of hating people for not being more like him.

Describe in calm, objective, neighborly language what it is I'm missing in your approach or thoughts that I'm supposed to be mindful of and learn to copy.

If you can't do that, will you blame me, as well?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The black churches burning meme comes around every few years, and never pans out the way people like Ritmo hopes.

I recall the fake black church arson meme in the 90s. It was supposedly proof that the KKK was alive.

The hysteria turned out to be entirely false. Churches burn down all the time, just like houses do. I was an EMT for several years, and I was amazed to discover how frequently houses burn down. I had thought that such occurrences were rare.


Then apparently the local authorities would have experience sorting out accidents from arsons. And yet, three are being investigated as such. Is this a normal number of incidents to have occurred in this time frame, statistically speaking?

Shouting Thomas said...

CNN reports that the most highly publicized fire was caused by lightning.

Then the CNN article reports as follows:

The other black churches that have burned since June 17 are:

-- June 26: Greater Miracle Apostolic in Tallahassee, Florida. The fire was likely caused by a tree limb falling on power lines.

-- June 26: Glover Grovery Baptist in Warrenville, South Carolina. The cause has not been determined, but investigators observed no element of criminal intent.

-- June 24: Briar Creek Road Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, which houses both black and Nepalese congregations. Fire investigators ruled that fire an arson, and though they have not seen evidence that hate was a motivation for the crime, they are not ruling it out.

-- June 21: College Hill Seventh-day Adventist in Knoxville, Tennessee. Investigators ruled it an arson but they say nothing so far has indicated a hate crime. ATF and other agencies said that it looked like vandalism.

-- June 21: God's Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia. Investigators believe the blaze might be arson. ATF is investigating but no ruling has been made. The church had recently been broken into and air conditioners and sound systems stolen.

edutcher said...

Rhythm and Balls said...

I am just stating facts and asking questions.

Facts, no.

Everything is disinformation, to make your side look falsely good.

"words like 'loathsome, despicable, irredeemably awful, hateful and bitterly stupid'"

God forbid, maybe they are an accurate estimation.

In this case, your kind of people.

Shouting Thomas said...

My response to you was completely in control, and precisely what I intended, Ritmo.

See the bit about what really is being reported about church fires, versus your hysterical determination to blame these events on your political enemies.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Maybe they were all caused by lightning, even though at least a number keep arson ruled in.

It just seems strange to me that in a region obsessed with preserving its "pride" in its history, its terrible history of doing destructively incendiary things to black churches wouldn't make black church arsons slightly more likely there than elsewhere.

Freed slaves had very little institutions of their own from which to learn to organize and become socially functional. This further angered resentful former slave-owners, who took to attacks on the black churches. That's an undisputed part of the history that survived at least through to a few decades ago.

Whether or not it survives today, I don't know. But it seems like it would be premature to rule it out.

Hatred and resentment are more powerful and salient social forces than some people seem to want to acknowledge at times. For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me.

Shouting Thomas said...

So, none of these church fires look like KKK work to me.

The two that authorities suspect might be arson have been subjected to repeated break-ins and vandalism, which suggests to me that those churches were in very high crime areas..

So, who's out of control, Ritmo?

You've intimated here that your political opponents want to see black churches burned down by KKK arsonists.

It took me 30 seconds to do a Google search and find out that this is completely false.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

See the bit about what really is being reported about church fires, versus your hysterical determination to blame these events on your political enemies.

As I said, I don't know who did them. But at least four haven't ruled out a possible to probably chance of arson.

Is it wrong for me to appreciate Union/Civil War history to see Confederate sympathy as, at the very least, not a political "ally"? I ask because this history seems to get revisited a lot on the part of people who want to be proud of the losing side, even if they don't really seem all that sure of what its cause was about. Am I supposed to sympathize with Confederate revivalism or hate Lincoln or the Union cause of the Civil War? I really would like a Northerner who seems to find interest in this stuff to explain it to me. Because all the time I run into Confederate sympathizers on YouTube, etc., and their cause and motivations seem baffling to me, as I always assumed the right side won that war. But maybe you can help me make better sense of it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I never said "KKK" and arson investigations require no "intimation" by me. Those are causes still ruled in. Why is it my job to rule them out when the authorities have done no such thing? How would that make any sense?

Shouting Thomas said...

Hatred and resentment are more powerful and salient social forces than some people seem to want to acknowledge at times. For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me.

You might try the old Christian belief that humans are sinners and that evil is real.

My family was driven out of Ft. Greene Park in Brooklyn (the area under discussion in this post) by black gangs. They found out where we lived, and started to follow and harass my wife and children every time we left our apartment, usually muttering something along the lines of: "What the fuck you doin' in my neighborhood, cracker?"

Every member of my family was attacked. I was attacked with every weapon you can imagine. We left rather precipitously when my wife was saved by gracious onlookers from a gang of blacks who tried to abduct her by pushing her into a van in broad daylight on a major street.

Blacks can be incredibly racist, too.

This all happened during the last period (late 70s to early 80s) when progressives formed an alliance with black gangs to, essentially, end law enforcement in black neighborhoods.

Leland said...

Groovy. Detroit is a wasteland. Homicides up in Baltimore, and Chicago is still pretty high. Now NYC is ready for riots and increased crime. Oh, the left would love to bring this to red states like SC, but they are not stupid. So if the red state won't riot, then the blue state will. Have fun with it.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

"...from my earliest ventures out into the streets as a teenager it was impossible not to see that a significant percentage of the hoi polloi were filled with resentment at "America."

That is not something born of the streets. Hatred of America is a product of higher education. Like all leftism, it's grows in an atmosphere where elitism and arrogance pushes aside life's most valuable mental state: gratitude.

Shouting Thomas said...

I'm something of a Lincoln buff, since my hometown of Watseka is very close to where Lincoln spent most of his childhood, New Salem.

You might want to read about Lincoln's attitude toward the South. He considered himself as much a southerner as a midwesterner, because his family originally settled (just like mine) in Kentucky.

Lincoln opposed punishing and destroying the South after the Civil War. His opponents in the North used his assassination as a pretext for throwing away Lincoln's plans for reconciliation, and opted to, essentially, loot, punish and destroy the South after the end of the Civil War.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

You might try the old Christian belief that humans are sinners and that evil is real.

I think its fine to acknowledge fallibility. But ascribing everything that goes wrong to sin and everything troubling to evil sounds like it goes beyond that, and into acknowledging or even embracing futility. And that would trouble me. I would like to think that any divine presence would be one that helps those who help themselves, as well as others. To be motivated to do so requires a positive mindset, at least some of the time, rather than futility. At least, that's my take at the moment.

My family was driven out of Ft. Greene Park in Brooklyn (the area under discussion in this post) by black gangs. They found out where we lived, and started to follow and harass my wife and children every time we left our apartment, usually muttering something along the lines of: "What the fuck you doin' in my neighborhood, cracker?"

That sounds like a horrible experience, and one that was very wrong. I wouldn't think to make light of it any more than I would make light of something like that happening to any other family, of any color.

Every member of my family was attacked. I was attacked with every weapon you can imagine. We left rather precipitously when my wife was saved by gracious onlookers from a gang of blacks who tried to abduct her by pushing her into a van in broad daylight on a major street.

That's a truly horrible experience that I could understand how it would shape your attitude.

Blacks can be incredibly racist, too.

Of course.

And of course, they can also be just plain ignorant. As can anyone. Racism as I see it is some combination of hate and/or ignorance.

This all happened during the last period (late 70s to early 80s) when progressives formed an alliance with black gangs to, essentially, end law enforcement in black neighborhoods.

That sounds like a more complicated thing and goes somewhat before my time (at least in the 70s) if not my place as I wasn't in NYC.

But the pendulum of history swings. Giuliani's time and the practices he implemented intervened well between then and now.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I'm something of a Lincoln buff, since my hometown of Watseka is very close to where Lincoln spent most of his childhood, New Salem.

That's cool. I think Lincoln is one of the most fascinating presidential personalities.

You might want to read about Lincoln's attitude toward the South. He considered himself as much a southerner as a midwesterner, because his family originally settled (just like mine) in Kentucky.

I did know that. But his upbringing in IN and IL might have represented a deliberate political move away from a slave state. This occurred every now and then, where moves took place for political reasons, at least according to what I saw on that genealogy show. Whether Lincoln's father hated slavery as much as he did I couldn't remember; they apparently didn't have the closest relationship.

Lincoln opposed punishing and destroying the South after the Civil War. His opponents in the North used his assassination as a pretext for throwing away Lincoln's plans for reconciliation, and opted to, essentially, loot, punish and destroy the South after the end of the Civil War.

The first part of what you say is true, as is the first part of the second. But in between those things the disastrous presidency of Andrew Johnson intervened, who made calamitous throwaway concessions to the Confederates while he could. You have to understand that there were a wide range of sentiments and options; some just wanted to end the war and regain union without any change to the status quo ante. Had it not been for both Lincoln's assassination and the disastrous Andrew Johnson administration, it's likely that things would have gone much, much better. In any event, Radical Republicans would have been much less dead-set on vengeance one they ousted him.

edutcher said...

Leland said...

Groovy. Detroit is a wasteland. Homicides up in Baltimore, and Chicago is still pretty high. Now NYC is ready for riots and increased crime. Oh, the left would love to bring this to red states like SC, but they are not stupid. So if the red state won't riot, then the blue state will. Have fun with it.

Your use of Groovy is right on the money.

The now-Blue states quickly tired of this back in the mid-60s and Stokeley Carmichael and Rap Brown quickly became persona non grata.

Be interesting to see how long it takes now.

Shouting Thomas said...

Lincoln was not an abolitionist. There is a long running debate about whether the Emancipation Proclamation was a political and military act of expediency intended to provoke a slave rebellion in the South, or whether it was an act of conscience.

I think it was probably both.

One of the more unique theories about the genesis of Lincoln's opposition to slavery goes like this... Lincoln's father demanded that he turn over all his earnings from his employment until he was, I think, 18 years old, and Lincoln nurtured tremendous resentment over this, believing that that was a form of enslavement.

edutcher said...

Shouting Thomas said...

Lincoln was not an abolitionist. There is a long running debate about whether the Emancipation Proclamation was a political and military act of expediency intended to provoke a slave rebellion in the South, or whether it was an act of conscience.

I think it was probably both.


No, it was a fiscal necessity. Secession bled the North of revenue. The New England manufacturers had a captive market in the South, and the last straw appears to have been the Morrill tariff of 1861.

Remember, Lincoln had to impose the first income tax to help pay for the War, but that wasn't enough, so he went to the big money Abolitionists (the limousine Liberals of their time) asking for money. Their price was the Emancipation Proclamation.

At the announcement of which, 50,000 Union soldiers deserted.

(Ritmo calls me a neo-Confederate in 5, 4,...)

Titus said...

Hillary is in Ptown tomorrow. This is an abs huge international gay week for monied fags around the world in Ptown.

The memo has been delivered and the torched pass to all of us homosexuals. We are now going to be delivering the White House to Hillary.

We decide what you watch, wear and think politically. Yes, you won't see the designs of us fags on the runways but eventually they filter down to WalMart. We even produce and direct Duck Dynasty!

Sorry, but we have decided, and Hillary will be your next president.

take care and have a super 4th!

virgil xenophon said...

@Ritmo/

You're knowledge of the cultural geography of Illinois & Ind is obviously limited. The sympathies of people in Southern Ill and Ind during the Civil War were mainly with the Confederacy(and in the case of Ill practically everything south of "Chicago-land" is culturally southern as most of Ill & Ind were settled by Eastern Ky and Tenn hill people) especially in the East Central part of Ill. near the Ill/Ind border. My hometown of Charleston, site of one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates at the Coles Co Fairgrounds, is famous for the fact that Lincoln's comments in that debate are considered by most historians to be his most "racist" in all of his debates(by way of playing to the crowd.) Charleston was also home to the "Copperhead Rebellion" of Southern sympathizers during the Civil War and a hotbed of Southern support.

(**Thomas Lincolns Cabin is restored as a historic site in nearby Fox-Ridge State Park and Thomas and Sara Bush Lincoln are buried in nearby Shiloh Cemetery.)

Shouting Thomas said...

The history of the Klan is a mixed bag, in terms of my own family.

Although liberals often taunt me with the Klan stuff when they don't like my views about blacks, my family was targeted by the Klan in the early 20th century. The second appearance of the KKK was aimed at terrorizing Catholics, mainly of German origin in Indiana and Illinois. My family is Catholic and my mother was born in Bloomington, IN.

According to Wikipedia: [The Klan's] appeal was directed exclusively at white Protestants... Some local groups threatened violence against rum runners and notorious sinners; the violent episodes were generally in the South.

My maternal grandfather was a bootlegger and one hell of a sinner.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

@ Leland
Groovy. Detroit is a wasteland. Homicides up in Baltimore, and Chicago is still pretty high. Now NYC is ready for riots and increased crime. Oh, the left would love to bring this to red states like SC, but they are not stupid. So if the red state won't riot, then the blue state will. Have fun with it.

This.

Why aren't leftists responsible for the messes they create?

edutcher said...

Shouting Thomas said...

The second appearance of the KKK was aimed at terrorizing Catholics, mainly of German origin in Indiana and Illinois. My family is Catholic and my mother was born in Bloomington, IN.

They still hated blacks, but added Catholics, immigrants, and Jews

My mom was a little girl in those days and said the running gag in those days was "KKK stood for Kikes, Katholics, and Koloreds".

Robert Simmons wanted something to crusade against all the isms and that suit Woody Wilson just fine.

edutcher said...

AprilApple said...

Why aren't leftists responsible for the messes they create?

Ritmo notwithstanding, they depend on the Rs to be intelligent enough to clean up the mess.

Selfie is pulling a Hitler and destroying everything so nothing short of a complete fix by the Conservatives could save it.

And we will.

bagoh20 said...

"Why aren't leftists responsible for the messes they create?"

It's central to leftists philosophy. People are not responsible for their success or failure. Failure is just bad luck. Most everything they push is based on that principle.

Leland said...

Is there any ideological difference between this and ritmo above?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

In 1816 the family moved north across the Ohio River to Indiana, a free, non-slaveholding territory, where they settled in an "unbroken forest" in Hurricane Township, Perry County. (Their land in southern Indiana became part of Spencer County, Indiana, when the county was established in 1818.) The farm is preserved as part of the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. In 1860 Lincoln noted that the family's move to Indiana was "partly on account of slavery"; but mainly due to land title difficulties in Kentucky.

William E. Bartelt (2008). There I Grew Up: Remembering Abraham Lincoln's Indiana Youth. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press.
Donald, David Herbert (1996) [1995]. Lincoln. Simon and Schuster.
Sandburg, Carl (2002). Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Louis A. Warren (1991). Lincoln's Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-One, 1816–1830. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society.