beawr4What mischief is this chap getting ready to cause?  The little guy wasn’t very old.

The mother was no where to be seen.  That’s unusual.

I am reminded of the advice hikers give when being confronted by a bear.  Look Large.

Looking Large isn’t just for those confronting bears.  People in politics also Look Large.   Looking Large attempts to throw off one’s contenders.  Birds do the same thing.  They Look Large by puffing their feathers up.  Some birds can look twice their size.

Some dogs and cats can do this trick also.

 

99 Thoughts to “Open Thread………………………………………..Tuesday, August 19”

  1. Rick Bentley

    So, rather than providing discincentive for illegal immigrants and children to come here, we’re running ads in Mexico trying to encourage those who self-deported to come back – http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/08/28/Feds-Agree-Buy-Ads-on-Mexican-Media-Place-Billboards-on-Border-to-Reach-Deported-Illegals-Allowed-to-Return

    This is why I’m not going to vote for the Democratic Party again. No more voting for me. The one side (Republicans) are trying desperately to crawl back into childhood, and the other (Democrats) are actually working against any sense of structure and building an America with no wage protection and no safety net. I’m giving up on any pretense that the future is going to be something I can recognize or relate to.

    1. I never read Breitbart. He was a prevaricator.

      I don’t understand enough about the court case to even comment. I would like more facts..

  2. Censored by SoN

    SoN has become the new BVBL – only interested in Groupthink. Apparently, posters must agree with the Big S and revere his Supervisor.

    1. There do seem to be similarities.

      I am very leery of blogs that seem to start up in support of one person at the expense of all others. Strange how that happened with both Gainesville Truth Squad and SoN.

      Truth or myopic one-sided perspective?

  3. Ed Myers

    @cargo.. Voting is a right but we have restrictions on exercising it: age, photo ID, not being a felon, etc. Your view that fundamental rights are unregulatable is wrong. SCOTUS isn’t hot on the notion that 2nd amendment gives you super-rights without regulation. Regulations to prevent gun violence victims is a compelling state interest and as long as the regulations are the minimum restrictions required to achieve that goal the regulations are likely constitutional.

  4. Wolve

    @Moon-howler

    Actually, I think that Scarborough was being rather silly. A leader can look strong and determined without revealing his plans. Imagine if FDR had gone to the podium after 7 December 1941 and told everyone to wait because he didn’t have a plan yet. Certainly Pearl Harbor was of greater historical moment than this ISIS case. But FDR also didn’t really know for sure what our next moves would be in 1941. Nevertheless, he certainly gave confidence to his listeners everywhere that America could and would kick some serious ass.

    1. I don’t see a comparable here.

      I don’t think Scarborough was “being silly.” I think he was attempting to explain criticism of words taken out of context. You don’t hear the question that was asked and the President’s entire answer. That is the important thing to remember.

  5. Rick Bentley

    Yeah, my initial thought on Iraq coming apart again was that it wasn’t Obama’s fault – that in fact it was an inevitable occurrence, a reality that Bush and the neocons have lived in denial of.

    But Obama should have had some thoughts on the matter by now. He seems detached in a dangerous way. Drifting. Content to let subordinates do the work. Content to go golfing rather than to try to galvanize Americans.

  6. Cargosquid

    @Ed Myers
    Compelling a person to buy insurance is the same as a poll tax. Thus…no.

    Those interested in creating those requirements cannot be trusted to keep the requirements at a minimum and not to abuse them. Gun control advocates routinely lie and then push the goal posts for “just one more “commonsense” rule.

    1. Those rascally common sense rules!

      So you think people should just be able to drive vehicles anywhere and the driver gets to decide if he or she carries insurance? Bullcrap.

  7. Rick Bentley

    That only works if you’re an illegal immigrant.

  8. Wolve

    Very good response, Mr. Bentley.

  9. @Rick Bentley
    That is a real problem. They aren’t allowed to carry insurance on cars because they aren’t allowed to have licenses.

    I would prefer a tier 2 iicense and mandatory insurance, having been the victim of that issue.

  10. Ed Myers

    A poll tax is intended to prevent poor people from voting. There is no justification for that. But we do require people to register to prevent fraud. Requiring gun insurance, like requiring voter registration, is a minimum government intrusion into a right in order to prevent abuse. Without regulation the only rights people have are those that they can get through force. We do not want a society in which the only people with rights that are respected are those with guns who are willing to kill others.

    1. When I was a kid I asked about that poll tax and was told it was “to keep colored people from voting.” I also asked about the back of the bus and got strong armed so I would shut up and stop embarrassing my mother.

      Stuff like that doesn’t make sense to little kids.

  11. Cargosquid

    @Ed Myers
    Requiring insurance pushes the cost of gun ownership out of the hands of poor people. Many locales require arbitrary conditions to restrict gun ownership. They were all instigated to restrict minority ownership.

    Since we have owned guns since day one…and we DON’T have a society in which the only people with rights that are respected are those with guns who are willing to kill others……your fears are completely overblown.

    Voter registration protects your right to vote. Gun registration does not protect your 2nd Amendment rights. The civil right to vote is not the same as a civil liberty such as the 2nd Amendment. States have historically put conditions upon who could vote and the requirements to do so. It was only “recently” that that changed. The state cannot restrict your right without due process. Civil liberties are protections against government actions. Civil rights, in contrast, refer to positive actions that government should take to create equal conditions for all Americans. That is the difference between “shall not be infringed” and setting conditions for voting.

    @Moon-howler
    Actually, yes. The government should not be mandating a requirement for citizens to purchase a product from a third party. However, since one does not have a right to drive a car, the state has ruled that requiring insurance is a valid requirement for utilizing the privilege of driving.

    The right to keep and bear arms is an inalienable natural right, not a privilege. It is a civil liberty.

    1. Ah, sort of like abortion is a civil liberty. See where that gets you. I just watched “After Tiller” this morning. Anyone can take your civil liberties.

    2. Keeping and bearing arms is very vague. That’s the reason I don’t have a nuclear weapon.

  12. Cargosquid

    @Moon-howler
    OR………

    we could actually enforce the immigration laws and deport the illegal aliens that are found driving.

    1. Some of them are deported. Do you want to deport those riding bikes also? That’s often a dead giveaway.

  13. Rick Bentley

    “we could actually enforce the immigration laws and deport the illegal aliens that are found driving.”

    Yeah, we could. But that would mean less cheap labor to undercut wages. And, it might hurt democratic chances in the 2016 elections.

    1. Rick, explain to me how that is going to hurt Democratic chances? I am calling BS on that one. Since when can illegal immigrants vote?

  14. Rick Bentley

    Who wants to pay a few cents more for their McDonald’s burger? Or see American citizens working jobs as janitors and landscapers? Better to let them all stay and just pray they can read the traffic signs.

  15. punchak

    Don’t you know that American citizens were not meant to work
    as janitors and landscapers? Or to sweep floors and wash dishes in
    restaurant kitchens. And for Pete’s sake – no American woman
    should ever have to change sheets and scrub toilets in cheap motels.

  16. Ed Myers

    Cars are an updated version of horses. We grandfathered transportation by horse without insurance. We can do the same for guns. Any single shot gun with muzzle loading does not need insurance. Guns with multi-shot capability do. If gun owners want the added power and convenience of modern weapons that can kill many people quickly, then it comes with restrictions. If you want the freedom as agreed to by the founders, no problem….just stick with the same antique hardware and stop moving the goal posts of ever more lethal “rights”.

    The right to travel freely within the US is just as much a civil right as free speech (especially after slavery was abolished.)

    1. Ed, I particularly like your opening sentence about horses.

      You make some very good points.

      My problem continues to be these high powered rifles that seem to fall into the hands of the crazed. I don’t have a solution but I sure do see problems.

  17. Cargosquid

    @Ed Myers
    The right to travel IS recognized. Start walking.
    Driving a car is considered a privilege. You do not have a right to drive a car on public roads. I don’t agree with that interpretation, but the courts have not recognized a right to drive.

    If you want the freedom of speech as agreed to by the founders, no problem….just stick with the same antique hardware and stop moving the goal posts of ever more widespread dangerous speech. Stick to your voice and the printing press.

    If I had the same rights as our Founders, I would have access to the same equipment as the military. We had privately owned cannon, armed ships, privately raised militias, etc. Still want me to “stick” with what the Founders had?

    1. Then there was Blackbeard…. Poor dude’s rights were violated all the time.

  18. Cargosquid

    @Ed Myers
    This is what happens when you have a society terrified of guns and afraid of free speech.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/in-cambridge-md-a-soviet-style-punishment-for-a-novelist/379431/

    excerpt:
    A 23-year-old teacher at a Cambridge, Md. middle school has been placed on leave and—in the words of a local news report—”taken in for an emergency medical evaluation” for publishing, under a pseudonym, a novel about a school shooting. The novelist, Patrick McLaw, an eighth-grade language-arts teacher at the Mace’s Lane Middle School, was placed on leave by the Dorchester County Board of Education, and is being investigated by the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office, according to news reports from Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The novel, by the way, is set 900 years in the future. . . .

    1. Where did he publish? There is a lot of information missing here. Did he exhibit abnormal behavior? Were student names used?

      I think you might be jumping to conclusions–the conclusions that go along with your own world view.

      There might just be way too much information involved in the “novel” such as school name, students, various locations in the school. If I were in charge, something like that might make me very edgy.

    2. You might want to ask why you think there is a society terrified by guns. How about the 30,000 deaths a year by gunshot wound?

      Guns have one purpose. Spare me the bullcrap about marksmanship. Their purpose is to stop something or someone in its tracks. Unlike cars, that is the only purpose. Cars are often used as a strawman. Cars are to transport people and things from point A to point B.

      People walking around armed to the teeth do nothing to exacerbate that fear. It doesn’t help that the people who often walk around visible armed look like Charles Manson’s first cousin.

  19. Pat.Herve

    @Cargosquid
    so, you are defending tenure?

  20. [raising hand!] I can defend tenure!! I can defend tenure! Call on me, Mr. Kotter.

  21. ed myers

    Went back-to-school shopping last weekend at a second-hand store. Some dude with sunglasses and a motorcycle gang tee shirt and lots of ink walked in with a handgun strapped on. When he didn’t remove his sunglasses and swaggered a bit I decided that this was not a good situation and rounded up my family and left. On the way out I told the manager that if other patrons were so fearful of violent crime occurring in the store that they had to bring their own guns that the store had a serious security problem and I would not shop again there until it was fixed. She explained that since they did not post a “no guns” sign that people could legally open carry in the store.

    Who deserved to shop in the store? The guy who felt insecure without his gun or someone who felt insecure because others had guns. This isn’t a constitutional rights issue since it is private property and the store owner gets to decide what works best. If you are a store owner would you place a “guns welcomed” or “No guns” sign in your front door?

  22. ed myers

    @Cargo You might want to go back and read the updates to that story you posted. The additional information ruins your conspiracy theory.

  23. ed myers

    @Cargo, I’m ok with you having muzzle loaded guns, even cannons to defend your home or person. When I see you start to load one on the sidewalk or in a store I’ll have enough time to put distance between us even without a motor vehicle. Seems fair to me.

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