It has already been established here at Blogcritics that InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds, using his own standard of logic as a basis, is a fascist hatemonger who is similar to Saddam Hussein and is also quite clearly a communist. (He was also labeled a centrist, but that rumor proved to be unfounded.)
Now Glenn Reynolds outs himself as a paranoid with this post:
PARANOIA STRIKES DEEP: The folks at Democratic Underground are wondering if the Iran earthquake was triggered by Bush.
Yep. And Karl Rove is personally making sure that your skateboarding magazines get lost in the mail. (And scroll down to the post noting that Kucinich opposes such weapons — that guy doesn't miss a thing!)
Now, you might think that because Reynolds wrote, "The folks at Democratic Underground are wondering if the Iran earthquake was triggered by Bush," you might click on over to the Democratic Underground and find some folks wondering if the Iran earthquake was triggered by Bush.
But, of course, if you thought things worked so simply over at InstaPundit.com, you failed to use InstaLogic. With InstaLogic, when you write, "The folks at Democratic Underground are wondering if the Iran earthquake was triggered by Bush," what you really mean is, "One guy at Democratic Underground says he thinks he heard somewhere that the U.S. possesses such technology, and then just about everyone else there ridiculed him for it."
Here's a summary of the posts that, as of the time Reynolds posted his link, were up at Democratic Underground. This is what caused Reynolds to conclude that "the folks at Democratic Underground are wondering if the Iran earthquake was triggered by Bush":
MAIN POST: Writer remembers hearing that U.S. was developing weapons to cause earthquakes, and "thought I'd throw it out there for the conspiracy theorists to chew on."
Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Hal Pawluk
You're right. But the DLC, now that's another story :-)
2 - Al Barger
Look Brian, you can conjure up drivel like this all day long, but you're not going to get a date with Glenn no matter how much you ACT UP.
3 - Mac Diva
Brian can get a date with the Diva whenever he wants, Barger. (Freeing you to do whatever you like with Glenn Reynolds.)
Yes, some Left sites get a little wack at times. But, as he of the soulful eyes has said, this discussion at DU is not an example of that. Furthermore, paranoia is rampant at far Right sites most of the time. Du Toit? Little Green Footballs? Balloon Juice? Please!
4 - Jan Eggers
This is a bit off topic, but you make me wonder if Saddam were an American politician, who would he be, a Democrat or a Republican? I suppose a fascist could rise from either party. But Saddam's tendency to oppress dissent, restrict free speech and spy on his people certainly would make him a fan of Ashcroft. Isn't it ironic that in our supposed battle to fight evil fascists and terrorists we have to become more like them?
5 - Mac Diva
Jan, the baffling question is how people like Reynolds manage to convince themselves they are fair-minded centrists while obviously leaning very far Rightward. I don't get it. Why can't he admit he is not a moderate?
Let's not forget that Saddam was a client of some of the same people eager to try him for war crimes now. I think that answers the question of who folks like him feel most comfortable with.
6 - Al Barger
Diva, I don't think Brian has any interest in you. Which is not a knock on your feminine charms, but his obsession with Mr. Reynolds suggests that he's... um, ready to go to bat for the other team. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I do not see how you make a charge of "paranoia" against LGF, for one. There really ARE evil Islamists killing people, and trying to kill more. It's not just paranoia if there really are people out to get you.
Note that Jan Eggers is an idiot. Someone who posts something both as STUPID and as STALE as the "Ashcroft is a fascist" crap above hardly rates wasting my limited patience for diplomacy. What, you think that comment is insightful or even vaguely clever? Where has Ashcroft even attempted to suppress dissent?
7 - Jan Eggers
Diva, we know that many have complained about a shift to the right in the Democratic Party. When people say centrist, it doesn't always mean what I think it means. Please see my blogs about George Soros and his role with MoveOn.org and about the conservative bent of the glut of Democratic candidates (excepting Kucinich, who apparently has little chance). I wrote a bit about Wesley Clark, who would have been a Rove protege, if Rove had embraced him. Is there any hope for the Democratic Party? If you consider the conservative leanings of Clark, Dean and Lieberman, then wouldn't Glenn Reynolds fit right in there? The meaning of democrat is slipping away from us (some might argue that that reflects the will of people, but I'm not so sure).
8 - Jan Eggers
I believe that Brian has written at length about the idiocy of labeling and attacking character to cover up insufficiency in one's own argument instead of addressing the legitimacy of a person's claim. Al Barger, homophobe, racist, wingnut wacko, Timothy McVeigh sympathizer--these are all labels that can be or have been applied to you. Do they define you? Of course, your assertion that my "crap above hardly rates wasting my limited patience for diplomacy" might make others more inclined to consider what I write--considering all that you have previously posted. Thanks for the endorsement. And thanks for labeling me an idiot.
Despite my post "hardly" rating "wasting" your "limited patience," you did ask two questions. Thanks for lowering yourself down to my level (or elevating yourself, depending on which way you think up is--and how you define "is"). I did make some assumptions in my claims, because I thought that Ashcroft's attacks on our civil liberties have been well established.
Here are some supporting articles, some about measures to supress dissent:
Warning! You Are Being Watched
FBI Anonymous 'Complaints' Spark Probe
Civil Liberties Under Assault
F.B.I. SCRUTINIZES ANTIWAR RALLIES
(If you follow the link to the original NYT article, it will cost you money to read the whole article)
FBI's reading list worries librarians
The Son of COINTELPRO
Big Liberty is Watching
The No-Fly List
War on the Bill of Rights
Big Brother Takes Grip on America
and especially for Al, Big Brother Isn't Coming, He's Already Here (PDF document)
In the above articles, there are descriptions of US citizens being harassed, intimidated, investigated, and threatened. To my knowledge nobody has been killed, and until somebody gets killed Randy Weaver style, maybe Al won't be interested. Until then. . .
9 - Al Barger
Alright Jan, I was being perhaps a little pissy. Let me backpedal then to the extent of de-limiting my claim of your idiocy only to the specific offending comments [#4 above].
Now, John Ashcroft is the Attorney General, so people under his command are SUPPOSED to be checking up on some people. I do not deny that there may be some abuses throughout the whole federal law enforcement system- but those are mostly ongoing policies from before he got into town by career people.
I don't say he's anything near perfect. Hey, I didn't vote for his boss, and I could find things to complain about in his actions.
Nonetheless, he has not gone on any major jackbooted stomp through our civil liberties. I've got some reservations about the Patriot Act, but it's just ridiculous to compare him to Saddam Hussein at all.
And yes, feds murdering peaceful civillians in Ruby Ridge and Waco strikes me as exponentially worse than any civil liberties violations of the current administration.
10 - JR
"And yes, feds murdering peaceful civillians in Ruby Ridge and Waco strikes me as exponentially worse than any civil liberties violations of the current administration."
...that you know about.
11 - Jan Eggers
Come to think of it, I haven't seen my friend Frank lately. The last time I saw him, he was pissing on the big "M" that is embedded in the sidewalk in the middle of the U of M's campus, shouting, "Down with the institutional oppressors."
12 - Al Barger
JR, if the Bush administration murdered a hundredish innocent men, women and children, burned their home down on them or anything equivalent- I think we'd have heard about it.
Perhaps you and Jan and I could get together in California and have some male bonding pissing on Richard Nixon's grave together. Hell, we could make a tour of it. Where's J Edgar Hoover buried, anyway?
Why, we might even invite Brian.
13 - Mac Diva
Barger, Brian will be busy. I'm sure other women think he is just as hot as I do.
Nor does it behoove (a rather appropriate word when referring to Barger) you to hold the current administration up as a paragon of respect for civil liberities. Having thousands of people needlessly imprisoned suggests otherwise.
Furthermore, the only innocents to die at Waco were those used as fodder by the cultists. No innocents, other than a federal officer and a dog, died at Ruby Ridge.
14 - debbie
"No innocents, other than a federal officer and a dog, died at Ruby Ridge."
Oh please, I'm pretty conservative but even I think that Ruby Ridge was botched by the FBI.
Let a local law enforcement agency shoot a 13 year old boy in the back as he was running away from him and the shouting would be so loud you wouldn't be able to hear yourself think. Let alone an unarmed woman holding a baby standing in the doorway being shot in the head and killed.
The FBI totally screwed that one up. They should have announced who they were up front and demanded that they come outside the house.
Waco was just a sad situation all around. It makes me want to cry just thinking about it. They had many opportunities to give themeselves up to the authorities.
15 - Mac Diva
Everyone in white supremacist scum Randy Weaver's household used a firearm that day, including the two Weavers killed. Vickie Weaver was shot while opening the door to let Randy Weaver in as he retreated after firing at federal officers. The boy was running away after shooting at the feds, too. The dog, as I said before, may have been innocent.
Strangely, the murder of a federal officer and Weaver's other crimes are never mentioned in accounts of the episode by the far Right.
16 - debbie
"Strangely, the murder of a federal officer and Weaver's other crimes are never mentioned in accounts of the episode by the far Right."
Probably because he was aquitted of those charges.
According to the Summary Statement (Lexus Nexus)
http://www.byington.org/Carl/ruby/ruby3.htm
"After deliberation for 20 days, on July 8, 1993, the jury acquitted Weaver and Harris of the murder of Deputy Marshal Degan, the conspiracy charge, and the significant remaining charges. Weaver was convicted on charges of failure to appear for trial and committing an offense while on release. On October 26, 1993, Weaver was sentenced to 18 months incarceration, three years probation and a $10,000 fine. The court issued an Order fining the FBI and criticizing it for its failure to produce discovery materials, its failure to obey orders and admonitions of the court, and its indifference to the rights of the defendant and to the administration of justice."
17 - Al Barger
Your hypocrisy astounds, Diva. I can only imagine the hell you'd have been raising if any of these innocent victims had been black. Dumbass black dude in Cincy falls over with a heart attack while he's swinging at police, and you're ready to hang the cops. The federal government sends in an army with a tank to massacre a houseful of innocent people keeping to themselves, and it's THEIR fault.
Ruby Ridge and Waco both involved federal officers making assaults on peaceful families in their homes. All those feds in both cases RICHLY deserved to die.
It's damned unfortunate when a law enforcement officer gets murdered while he's trying to stop a robbery by some jackass thug. That's what most American law enforcement deaths are.
However, when occassionally some officer goes off his beam, then a citizen is doing all of society a favor by putting them down. That's why God and Charlton Heston wrote the Second Ammendment.
18 - Mac Diva
Since when is a white supremacist with a criminal record and an outstanding warrant an innocent person, pray tell? And, in addition you claim innocence for a wacko cult leader and child molester? It is your biases that are showing, batty boy.
For anyone not familiar with the facts of the case, Weaver is way off the heezie. He even had little girls shooting at the feds that day. He now spends his time traveling from state to state urging other white supremacists to harm people. Barger will be inviting the "innocent" man to dinner at the farm, I reckon.
And, let's keep the record straight, Debbie. The federal officers were found to be justified in regard to shooting the two Weavers. Randy Weaver got away with murder but that in no way makes him a hero.
19 - Al Barger
Weaver has issues with minority groups, so that makes it ok to massacre his family apparently, in the constitution according to Diva. Note that his response to not wanting to play nice with others was to disengage and go out in the country. I know of no incident of Mr. Weaver harming anyone else.
Undercover feds conned him into sawing the barrels off of a couple of common shotguns, thus justifying criminal charges and warrants.
Again with Koresh and Waco, you simply assert that he was a "wacko cult leader and child molester" who deserved what he got. He was never ever charged with child molesting, let alone convicted. This had nothing to do with the warrants or murders committed by the feds- as if the proper response to an allegation of molestation would be to kill all the children in the neighborhood.
As for "wacko cult leader," this shows pretty clearly just what level of respect you have for other people's religious beliefs. Heck, if they're in a wacko cult, let's just burn 'em out- even if they are non-violent and keep to themselves.
20 - Mac Diva
Horsefeathers! At the time he refused to present himself to the authorities, Randy Weaver was out on bail after conspiring to illegally sell guns that he told informants he hoped would be used by blacks and Mexicans to kill other people of color. Moved out into the country? That's true. The Weavers resided in a leaky cabin without water, plumbing or electricity. Vickie Weaver, totally dominated by her paranoid spouse, was forced to give birth without medical care. Randy Weaver, who has never been gainfully employed and lived his entire life as a loser, is not the hero Barger wants him to be at all. Barger might as well give up trying to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
21 - Al Barger
Nope, didn't say or imply that Weaver is any HERO. I'm saying that he's a victim. Don't confuse the two. Just saying that he was broadly a loser or even a jerk with a bad attitude doesn't give the feds a right to come kill him, let alone his family.
Private trade in guns should be regarded as a constitutional right. Unlike abortion, guns are actually mentioned in the constitution.
Even if you regard these gun control laws as legitimate however, the feds conjured up a petty entrapment for a very minor infraction- then used that as the basis for coming in to kill his family.
Was Weaver smart to react as he did to the feds? No. However, it was the feds who came in with guns after a non-violent person living peacably with his family- not the other way around.
22 - Mac Diva
Why would a non-violent person be illegally selling arms and on the lam from the law? Both of which Randy Weaver was convicted of, by the way.
23 - Al Barger
Neither selling guns nor running from the law are inherently violent. What violence was Weaver even accused of?
I would tend to regard use of deadly force against someone who has not specifically exhibited violent behavior to be wrong. Deadly force used against the family of someone not even accused of any actual violence seems pretty wrong to me.
But maybe it's just cause I'm a dumb Kentuckian.
24 - bhw
Was Weaver smart to react as he did to the feds? No.
When the feds come a knockin', you're supposed to open the door. Weaver put his family in danger ... deliberately. He used them as human shields. Doesn't that make him at least partly accountable for their deaths?
That's not to say, however, that I think the gov't handled everything well. But Weaver's family members would be alive today if he'd have avoided the "you're going to have to take my gun from my cold dead hands" thing.
25 - Jan Eggers
I would just like to point out that Koresh was the second coming of Jesus, and we killed him again. Doh!