When we have a problem, we can complain about it, or we can do our best to find a solution and implement that solution (see ARE YOU FOCUSING ON THE PROBLEM OR THE SOLUTION? – Citizen Tom).
Here of late we have had a big problem, and we have focused on the problem, not the solution. We have been engaged in a great struggle we call an election, a highly contested, angry election. On Wednesday that anger apparently boiled over. People — who is still being debated — stormed the Capitol Building. Supposedly, Trump incited his supporters to violence (not true, see PERFECTLY DIVIDED AND THEREFORE CONQUERED? – Citizen Tom). The accusation, unsupported by the content of Trump’s speech, is that Trump stirred up his supporters to invade the Capitol Building.
Here is a personal testimony. As a Trump supporter who was at the rally, I was astonished to hear about storming of the Capitol Building. The funny thing is I first heard the news of the invasion of the Capitol from Democrats, not Republicans, and I was angry about it. That was the last thing I wanted, and I think the most disappointed soul was President Donald Trump.
Who stormed the Capitol Building. Well, as Congressman Mo Brooks (Congressman Mo Brooks | Representing the 5th District of Alabama (house.gov)) is pointing out we need to wait for the facts to come out.
It is a simple fact that the vast majority of the so-called mainstream news media is highly partisan. That is why supposedly logical, sane people rail against Trump, call him awful names, but cannot explain what he has done wrong, and here is just another example.
What is the complaint from Liberal Democrats? Supposedly, President Trump whipped his supporters into a frenzy, and they attacked the Capitol Building. Yet most of the people at the rally were among the last to know that the Capitol Building had been assaulted, and they were shocked that anyone would do such a thing in their name.
Therefore, consider the irony. The demagoguery started as soon as the news came out, but before anyone knew who did what. Using the assault on the Capitol Building as an excuse, the so-called mainstream news media and demagogic Democrat politicians began whipping up hatred of all things Trump: Trump, Trump’s family, Trump’s administration officials, Trump’s supporters, anything Trump did, anything Trump stood for,…. Without doubt this is the pot calling the kettle black (see The phrase ‘The pot calling the kettle black’ – meaning and origin. (phrases.org.uk).
Unfortunately, even though the hypocrisy should be obvious, rabble rousing can be very effective. Something very dark in us finds blaming others for our own sins very appealing. The Bible puts it this way.
Proverbs 21:4 New American Standard Bible
4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart,
The lamp of the wicked, is sin.
When we start signaling our virtue by castigating others, we need to stop and think. It is not as if Democrats have never encouraged riots (see the list related to the death of George Floyd here, PERFECTLY DIVIDED AND THEREFORE CONQUERED? – Citizen Tom). They have even seized a state Capitol, but our memories can be remarkably short and selective.
Thousands of protesters rushed to the state Capitol Wednesday night, forcing their way through doors, crawling through windows and jamming corridors, as word spread of hastily called votes on Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial bill limiting collective bargaining rights for public workers.
The Capitol overnight crowd had gone mostly silent by 2:15 a.m. Thursday after a nearly continuous stream of protest songs, drumming and the occasional bagpiping since about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Protesters on the ground floor of the state Capitol rotunda led others in Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Our Land” just after 2 a.m. then joined about 200 others snoozing in sleeping bags along the Capitol walls.
Thousands storm Capitol as GOP takes action | Local Government | madison.com
Was the seizure of the Wisconsin state capitol building and the attempt to intimidate state legislators domestic terrorism? Maybe, but who among us would waste their time looking for a Liberal Democrat news media publication that suggested such a thing?
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat politicians, their news media allies, Big Tech censors, and corporate giants have begun to cancel all things Trump. So, those fearful of losing their high status are fleeing the Trump administration and denouncing the man they once supported. People are losing their jobs, book deals are being canceled, Big Tech is censoring Internet, CEOs are signaling their support for the cancel culture, and so forth.
Effectively, Liberal Democrat elites will use every tool they have to exclude Conservatives and differences from whatever is deemed politically incorrect from the public square. That includes stamping out every religious belief that runs counter to their desire for complete domination. Carried to its logical conclusion, the cancel culture will end of our First Amendment Rights (see The Bill of Rights: A Transcription | National Archives).
Think! If Big Tech, Big Media, and Big Corporations do it for the government, does the government have to directly deprive you of your First Amendment Rights? You still don’t have them.
Anything new about any of this? No. Those with a totalitarian bent have always use anything that even looks like a crisis as an excuse to seize more power. Adolf Hitler used Reichstag fire.
The Reichstag fire (German: Reichstagsbrand, listen(help·info)) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler’s government stated that Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was the culprit, and it attributed the fire to communist agitators. A German court decided later that year that Van der Lubbe had acted alone, as he had claimed. The day after the fire, the Reichstag Fire Decree was passed. The Nazi Party used the fire as a pretext to claim that communists were plotting against the German government, which made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany. (continued)
Reichstag fire – Wikipedia
To make our republic work — to remain a free people — we must accept the rule of law and protect each others God-given rights. That means we must accept the right of others to live in accordance with their own beliefs. These are the precepts our nation’s Founding Fathers carefully stated in our Declaration of Independence. These are the precepts that our country was founded upon. However, if we are offended by the mere existence of someone who dares to disagree with us, we cannot make our republic work. It is over. Then, all that is left is tyranny.
You a Democrat? They are your leaders, and they now hold power. Your leaders have the tools to implement tyranny, and Republicans can only hope to slow them down. Make no mistake, if tyranny becomes our new normal, everyone will be subject to it. In a tyrannical state, even those who enforce the will of the leader must submit. In a tyrannical state, those closest to the seat of power can only keep their privileged positions by submitting to tyranny with the greatest enthusiasm.
There is only one leader worthy of our complete submission. That is God, and He is merciful and gracious.
Psalm 66:16-20 New American Standard Bible
16 Come and hear, all who [a]fear God,
And I will tell of what He has done for my soul.
17 I cried to Him with my mouth,
And [b]He was exalted with my tongue.
18 If I [c]regard wickedness in my heart,
The Lord will not hear;
19 But God has heard;
He has given attention to the sound of my prayer.
20 Blessed be God,
Who has not turned away my prayer
Nor His favor from me.
So long as we are willing to enslave our neighbors to our own beliefs, we are not worthy of freedom. To be free, we must love our neighbors. We must allow each of our neighbors, even those we most disagree with, the right to worship the One he calls God as he thinks appropriate.
Be they Democrat or Republican, demagogic politicians with haughty eyes and a proud hearts will not allow us to express a free thought. Therefore, as citizens we each have the responsibility to hold the people we elect accountable to the Law. That requires us to know the truth. Hate President Trump all you want, but he is not guilty anything just because you may want him to be, and neither are the people who supported him.
Citizen Tom
Citizen Tom 
Reblogged this on boudica.us.
Thanks!
Tom,
One more thing and then you can go on with your wildly irrelevant whataboutisms, false equivalencies and cartoonish demonizing of those wrascally diobolical Democrats. By popular vote standards, this was not even a close election. The only way that Trump got elected last time and came close in some states this time is because we don’t hold national elections with nationalized rules, but instead have an arcane constitutional system where states maje up their own voting (and voter suppression) laws to chose their electors state by state. By challenging individual states’ laws and voting processes (especially those of Republican and mostly Republican states), then you are questioning the whole Republican concept of such federalism, and encouraging the nationalization of election laws. Good job helping the Democrats!😄
@tsalmon
You never examined the evidence for election fraud. Instead, you condemn my “whataboutisms”. Yet your comment is a series of whataboutisms.
Have you seriously debated the subject of election integrity? Not unless a relentless stream of personal attacks on Trump and myself constitute a debate.
Has the so-called mainstream news media made any effort to examine and evaluate the integrity of our elections? Sure, they have. They have moved from election fraud doesn’t exist to it was not significant enough to change the outcome.
If you were not at least trying to be serious, I would regard your last whataboutism as a hoot. Where have I advocated the nationalization of election laws? I have not. You are just trying to accuse me of hypocrisy. Am I a hypocrite? Yes, but not in this case.
The Constitution is the law of the land. Even the states are required to follow it. Without that provision, federalism is a meaningless concept. That is why the core of the Texas filing with the Supreme Court involved several significant violations of the Constitution.
Consider how you have responded to my posts. Did you actually respond when I wrote about election fraud? To a small extent, but mostly you just ridiculed what I wrote.
We actually had a somewhat useful discussion on the “due process”. You argued that that clause did not apply. Why? Well, you did provide a somewhat useful explanation of the clause, but I still don’t know why you think it would not apply. When I pointed out all the opportunities for election fraud that the Democrats you voted for have promoted, you immediately went into self defense mode and declared you had not voted for that. Yet the issue remains. Does a process that no one should trust provide for due process? Is an election system that does not make serious effort to ensure that only legal votes are counted an example of due process?
Now, when I point out that you have “won”, and you have an obligation to keep what you have wrought under control, you accuse Trump of sedition. How reassuring!
I am not happy with the results of the election. Worse, I don’t think the election should have been certified by Congress. You think that makes me an extremist? Even if my opinion is extreme, does that make me wrong? Should I be happy with the vindictive way your leaders and the news media is behaving? Even you, supposedly a moderate, are making absurd charges of sedition.
What do I expect? I expect that Democrats will attempt to use their bare majorities to push through a vicious agenda. Their hatred of Trump is even now turning towards the people who supported him. If they are allowed to succeed the purges will become more and more lethal.
Meanwhile, I expect you will pat yourself on the back for a job well done. It is a cinch the news media won’t upset you by telling you what is going on. Remember all the Jews the Nazis killed. Remember how well the highly esteemed New York Times reported on the genocide in the USSR. Well, if I am an alarmist, I think I have good reason to be.
Given what serious student of history should know, are these Democrats people anyone should want in charge of our government, people who think government is the solution for every problem regardless of what the Constitution says?
Are we losing our republic? Probably. Can the situation be reversed? God only knows.
God help us!
“You never examined the evidence for election fraud. Instead, you condemn my ‘whataboutisms’ your comment is a series of whataboutisms.
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF ELECTION FRAUD. So says the 60 some courts that this “Big Lie” has been brought in to. So says the Trump’s former attorney general and supposed “law and order” lackey Bill Barr. So says the governor, the Secretary of State and the top election official in GA. So says the outgoing Senator from PA. So says the former head of CISA. So even finally admitted Moscow Mitch and Trump’s bootlicking political chameleon Lindsey Graham.
Every time you bring up some dumb election fraud example, MW or I debunk it. But you want to believe this Big Lie so mightily because it so conforms to your hatreds of your fellow Americans that you simply ignore all evidence to the contrary and instead worship at the alter of our great deceiver.
Tom, you claim to be dedicated to God’s truth (and yes that is an admirable, if humble, ambition). Here’s the truth. On Wednesday, inspired and egged on by Trump, following the playbook laid out in what has been called their “Bible”, “The Turner Diaries”, and aided and abetted by a mob of deranged Trump supporters only slightly more self righteously resolved to mob violence than yourself, a buffet of White Nationalist movement extremists stormed the Capital Building searching for Democratic law makers and those they see as Republican turncoats (including Mike Pence) to kidnap and hang or behead on the gallows and guillotine that they had erected in plain sight on Capital Grounds outside. A police officer was killed. A a sadly deceived Trump supporter was killed. Nothing about this is simple, but that much is the plain simple truth.
How do we know all this is true? Because these White Nationalist fascists that Trump unleashed (and retains to unleash in the future) were emboldened enough by Trump’s lies and your media’s perpetuation of those lies that they live streamed themselves in real time committing these atrocities, and they continue to brag about it right now in the slime media that they thrive in. They are even insulted by standard Conservative news media’s facile attempts to blame Trump’s Brown Shirt brigade’s insurrection on a secret Antifa plot to make Trump look bad. These White Nationalists and their Qanon companions think that this is just the beginning, and they want the Trump media like yourself to keep fomenting Trump’s dangerous conspiracy theory lie that the election was somehow stolen from Trump, and that he actually won in a landslide. Look at the violence you are enabling with this lie. Stop giving false choices to excuse the Big Lie that you’re helping foment.
This is not over yet. These fascists hope to turn the democratic peaceful transition if power into another riot. Will you abet them? Excuse them? Encourage them? Join them?
This is an inflection point in the history of our country where you and your Trump cult here have your chance to wake up from the spell of lies and conspiracies that Trump has enthralled you into, a time where you can choose process institutions like constitutional democracy and the Rule of Law over fascist White Nationalism and mob rule. You can choose true conservatism over the increasing radicalism of this demagogic Trump populism. You can get back on the right side of history or, to your lasting disgrace, you can forever regret your own sad role in perpetuating these lies, and the inevitable violence such lies engender. You will come to this realization eventually. My guess is that you and other good and well meaning souls here are already starting to feel the twinge of a healthy moral skepticism about what happened Wednesday. Let that moral conscience of the heart be you guide. Let the love of the always incarnate and resurrected Christ enter the peace of our Savior into your heart and chase away the demons of hate and deception that now bewilder your better angels.
Politics in a democratic republic is the art of compromise, not open warfare by another means until it inexorably escalates to become actual warfare. Hitler used the false, either/or choice of socialism verses fascism to deceive a nation into willingly turning themselves into the tyrants, those they terrorized and those that just stood by like sheep and watched. Only when it leads to such tyranny are we forced into such terrible binary choices, such deadly sacrifices. Love means making making a thousand compromises so that it never gets to the horror show of the binary choice. Anyone who has been married very long knows this. The living marriage between Democrats and Republicans in a democratic republic can be no less compromising and therefore resilient if it is to continue being the last, best hope on Earth. This is the love of Christ that is the only thing that can save us.
@tsalmon
Actually, that is the big lie. There were in fact some courts that accepted the “evidence”, but they refused to throw out the votes, arguing that the solution went too far.
I suggest you do what Trump did. Instead of pointlessly fighting the 2020 elect fraud battle over and over again, move on. When half the population does not trust our election system — and for good reason — there is a problem that needs to be fixed, and calling people fascists does not fix it.
It is also a fact that Democrats are very likely to abolish the filibuster, pack the courts, make DC and Puerto Rico states, and ram through a grisly agenda that busts the budget, wrecks the economy for the sake of “climate change”, denies freedom of religion, and so forth.
Dislike Trump all you want, but he was not trying to transform America — the American people — into something we would not recognize as American. Trump was not turning us into impoverished nation with some extremely rich and numerous extremely poor ignorant people. He did not propose to mask sexual immorality as “freedom” when we were actually being dominated by a tyrannical regime.
So now your election fraud is supposedly just a “little lie” of some small irregularities that courts decided were not substantive enough to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters, not the land slide victory for Trump “Big Lie”that Trump and his minions proclaimed at the rally and that less sophisticated people believe because that is what the POTUS they worship keeps proclaiming. This is a sad sort of vacillating big brother. Either you believe the misleading embellishments, gross exaggerations and especially, the Big Lies that Trump tells his followers to incite them into thinking they need to overthrow their government by force, or you don’t. If so you are, like them, a hapless fool or just a sad tool. To paraphrase an old Navy phrase, decide one way or another to shit or get off the pot. Forgive me for continuing the scatological metaphor, but I recommend getting of what my wife calls the whole “Trump Shit Show” before it’s too late.
“Trump was not turning us into impoverished nation with some extremely rich and numerous extremely poor ignorant people. He did not propose to mask sexual immorality as “freedom” when we were actually being dominated by a tyrannical regime.”
Hitler too came for the gays before he went after the Jews. Judging from Trump’s MAGA supporters who stormed the Capital and killed a policeman, they would like that kind of revanchist retransformation of America too. This is the Trump MAGA Army that decided to turn Trump’s Big Lie into action rather than just pundit repontificating of Trump lies, but one thing inevitably and predictably leads to another.
Starting to get horrified by the monster you’re creating by fomenting this Big Lie and now you want to change the subject? Just going to keep equivocating until you end up saying you never really believed Trump’s nonsense about winning and his being your savior? If not, and your are resolved in your complete Trump delusion, then these MAGA heads that ransacked the Capital are your people – if you are going to own Trump and his lies, then have the courage to own them too and for who they really are. To varying degrees they were just carrying out the natural consequences of the Big Lie Trump told them, weren’t they. At least that shows some courage of conviction, no matter how deluded. What’s your excuse?
@tsalmon
You want to punish me with ridicule for disagreeing with you. Since the facts are not on your side, I could not care less if you think differently. There is nothing I can do to change your mind, and you cannot change my mind.
You can hound me, and I don’t have to respond. So, I won’t anymore. I don’t have time to argue endlessly about something I cannot change.
Think about it. Your side won the election. Instead of being happy about it, you side is angry. If they had won honestly, they would be relieved. Instead, they are furious that anyone dared to oppose them and point to their cheating,
You? You are being riled up to attack Trump supporters. And what we did we do? What is the true summary of our crimes? A demonstration on the mall.
Some people, not clear who, used our demonstration as cover to storm the Capitol, and they caught the Capitol Police, run by Speaker Pelosi, unprepared. That is Trump’s fault?
The storming of the Capitol resulted in at least couple deaths. A policeman shot an unarmed female military veteran, and someone killed one of the Capitol Police.
You going to blame me? I don’t even own a gun.
Instead of blaming Trump for every damn stupid thing the Democrats would love to blame him for, why don’t you ask yourself why the guy in charge of the Capitol Police resigned.
If we can keep lunatics out of the White House, we can keep them out of the Capitol. The whole thing is weird, and the full story remains to be told, but you are all set to call people fascists. Well, shit happens, but that sort of shit you can do something about. Wash you mouth out.
“Instead of pointlessly fighting the 2020 elect fraud battle over and over again, move on. When half the population does not trust our election system — and for good reason — there is a problem that needs to be fixed, and calling people fascists does not fix it”
That is rich! “Hey, I spread lies about there being massive election fraud, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, …. and look at how many people that trust me believed the lies that I and others have spread. Now it is your turn to accomdate the wrongheaded believes that people hold, because I spread the lies as there were no tomorrow.”
You, Tom, willingly and gleefully helped to set the house on fire, fell into the arms of the people coming running with water buckets to douse the fire, and now, now you are asking others to pick up the rubble, while accusing them of being arsonists. Look into the mirror, Tom, if you still can endure that sight. Take a deep hard look.
@marmoewp
You remind me of a high school bully or an Internet troll. I don’t have time to waste with either.
You say you are German. Well, you should know better than most the consequences of giving politicians too much power. Look at your own willingness to persecute me. And yes, that is what you are doing. You are not making anything that resembles an argument.
Ja, Tom, ich bin Deutscher. Ich bin in Deinem Blog hängengeblieben, weil mein Freund Keith Dich und Deine Leser hier für wert hielt, mit Ihnen Zeit zu verbringen. Ich halte sie für ehrliche, patriotische Menschen. Es macht mich wütend, wie sie in die Irre geführt wurden. Verliere ich manchmal meine Contenance? Klar. Ich hoffe einfach, dass es hier noch ein paar Leute gibt, die aus Trumps Labyrinth der Lügen wieder herausfinden. Deshalb bin ich noch hier, weil hier Leute sind, die mein Freund Keith mochte, und die ich daher für wert halte, dass man sich kümmert. Und ja, es ist für mich auch ein Blick in eine fremde Welt, mit sehr anderen politischen Vorstellungen. Und ich werde diese nicht dadurch besser verstehen, dass ich mich von ihr abkapsel.
@marmoewp
I took German for a reading knowledge for a degree in Chemistry over forty years ago. Have not used it since then. No reason to.
I suggest you consider the fact that you are gleeful about the storming of the US Capitol. Not good.
You also expect me to be ashamed of the fact that people associated with the Rally for Trump attacked the US Capitol. Think about that. If I don’t approve and the guy I supported, Trump, has not given any indication that he wanted or expected such a thing, then what is the point of trying to shame me for a deed I wanted nothing to do with? If someone stole your car, and you had it locked and parked in a supposedly safe spot, would you expect people to make fun of you for being robbed.
People rioted repeatedly following the death of George Floyd, and Democrats called that mostly peaceful. Now they jumping with both feet on Trump and his supporters. That’s just hypocrisy.
Does that sort of thing happen in Germany? Of course, it does. Otherwise, no one lives there.
@marmoewp
First time I bothered to use the translate function. Actually works well, I guess. Output made sense, at least.
Thanks for the comment.
You seemed to doubt I’m German. Simply run it through google translate.
As for being gleeful? No, absolutely not. Try shocked, devastated and taken aback.
@marmoewp
When I first heard about the attack on the Capitol I was furious. I wanted the subject of discussion to be election fraud, not an attack on the Capitol. When I heard people had been hurt and killed, I just got more angry.
When Democrats and the so-called mainstream news media blamed Trump and his supporters, I was nonplussed, but that is what they always do. They are not on our side.
Tom,
You always seem to accuse me of ridiculing you when you don’t want to give a straight answer. Now if you really want to see ridicule, then Google Lindsey Graham’s airport gauntlet, and no, those are not secret Antifa operatives harassing him as he tries to get to his plane – those are justifiably disappointed MAGA Hat Heads. If after spewing all of Trump’s lies, that is what you get from the Trump cult crowd when you finally tell just a wee bit of the truth, then there is a lesson in cowardice in that. Is that what you’re afraid of?
I assume that you have this here blog because you want to be a thought leader at the intersection of faith and politics. Well, you’ve heard the old saying, “lead, follow or get the Hell out of the way. Explain why average folks, most of which are not as well educated and sophisticated as yourself, shouldn’t rebel against the state if they truly believe that the election and their democracy is stolen. I hate that they are being deceived by a charismatic con man, but in their own naive way, they at least are courageously standing up for what they believe. And they are trying to follow leaders like Trump and his promoters who now are saying with their words or their quiet revulsion, “No you dumb redneck hicks, that’s not what I meant when I kept telling you that the election was stolen by evil Democrats who are coming to take you God and your guns and make you have abortions and be gay.”
Have you ever seen that classic Humphrey Bogart film “The Cain Mutiny”? I’m reminded here of the character that Fred MacMurray played. The “real author of the Cain mutiny” who then acted like he had nothing to do with it. Look it up. Great movie. We used to use it in the Navy Leadership Class that I once taught. Worth watching again if you have not seen it lately, as is the movie “12 O’clock High” for similar reasons.
This isn’t over. No, I don’t mean our discussion. That can certainly be over if you want. I mean the rebellion that Trump fanned. It’s been brewing a long time and Trump just accelerated it by being a match in a pool of gasoline and gun powder. I don’t claim to know how to quench the flames now that they started into violence, but I know that it will begin with real leadership. I never thought that I would say this, but I think that Mitt Romney is perhaps the most courageous politician in the country right now. I think, if he were alive, John McCain would be right there with him. We could use more of that kind of decency on the Republican side right now. And I think Joe Biden is the right guy at the right time, but we need more like him and less like Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side. I think it will get worse before it gets better though.
Maybe democracy needs a struggle like this now and then to make us appreciate that this worst of all types of government is so much better than all the other alternatives. After what happened on Wednesday, I hope we each live up to this test. I hope the whole country does. I hope you do to Tom, but I will love you regardless.
@tsalmon
We had a whole summer full of riots, but the people you are against have rioter among their ranks, and Democrats suddenly find sin in rioting. And you wonder why I don’t have much interest in your hypocrisy.
I wish Trump had just sent people home after he gave his speech and told them to steer clear of the Capitol. He didn, but also said nothing about storming it.
It is kind of funny how absurd Liberal Democrats can be. You all run around selfrighteously saying and writing the nastiest things about your enemies. Then, when someone attacks them you applaud. Yet if someone even in the most remote way says something you don’t like about you and there is some sort of attack, you howl bloody murder. And you refuse to acknowledge the hypocrisy.
Sad. Given what this post is about, very sad. I guess we cannot expect you to help save the nation.
“We had a whole summer full of riots, but the people you are against have rioter among their ranks, and Democrats suddenly find sin in rioting. And you wonder why I don’t have much interest in your hypocrisy.”
Come on Tom! You must see the false equivalency here. Imagine if black rioters took over the capital building while literally the equivalent of a State of the Union was ongoing minus the POTUS and the nine SCOTUS justices. Numbers two and three in the succession of power and the entire legislative government was there. It would be a blood bath if black protesters had done that, much less black rioters, and you would applaud it. The fact that you feel the need to even draw this dumb comparison with the universally condemned rioting during this Summer’s vastly peaceful BLM protests means that you are reaching. It’s not even apples and oranges, it’s thermonuclear war versus a hockey game fight. It’s like calling the attack on Fort Sumter just a friendly disagreement.
Marginalizing what even Moscow Mitch called an insurrection does not actually turn rebellion into the same as walking on an off limits Capital lawn. Be serious. This isn’t over and pretending it was “no big deal”doesn’t magically make it go away.
Again, if you believe what the insurrectionists on Wednesday believe, what most of MAGA Nation believes, what Trump and his minions kept telling them before he incited them and launched them at the seat of our democracy, that Democrats fraudulently stole the democracy, why would you and they not commit revolt?
@tsalmon
You know hypocrisy involves? It requires us to apply different standards for others than we want to be applied to ourselves.
I have pointed to outright lies told by the news media, and you pretend you did not read what I wrote. The proof is there and you don’t seem to care. Instead, you just continue to demonize Trump. If you insist upon continuing in such hypocrisy, what is the point of discussion?
Trump is just a man like us. I wish he had not sent that crowd to the Capitol Building, but I have the advantage of hindsight. As I have said before, we marched to the Supreme Court Building twice without trouble.
Consider the irony in this CNN stupidity => https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/opinions/unprepared-or-unwilling-police-failed-at-the-us-capitol-alexander/index.html. Consider this quote.
Even CNN acknowledges that the police felt comfortable with Trump’s supporters. Remember. Both the police and Trump’s supporters are racists.
You guys really are so sick with hate you have made yourselves idiots.
I brought it up in reference to the Trump Party. But you are still cowering from argument because you’re afraid to answer a simple question. If you can’t be honest, even with yourself, how can we have a discussion?
“You may wish to look up what Nazi stands for. Communism is a lie. Socialism is a lie. So is Nazism. Different versions of the same lie.”
Agreed. Hitler, however, of your alphabet soup of determinist ideologies, all of which are BS in my opinion, was essentially a Fascist. He believed in the cultural superiority of the Germanic people, the German culture, of which white supremacy was simply an element. Isn’t that what you and Trump are promoting, the superiority of an idealized notion of American cultural hegemony and you are sugarcoating it with a faux version of WASP Christian exclusivity? If it goose steps like fascism, praises the dear cult leader like fascism, and acts just like fascism, well, you know the rest. By using “The Big Lie” as an excuse to break with a century of peaceful transition and the Rule of Law of our constitutional democratic republic, Trump has dropped the facade and laid the Trump Party bare for what it is. He has done his version of burning down the Reichstag. Trumpism is fascism. Let’s just be honest, quit hiding and just call it what it is.
Tom,
Hypocrisy? The police officer who had his head smashed in with a fire extinguisher must have felt real comfortable with Trump’s insurrectionists. You are projecting so as to dissemble from the real issue.
You still afraid to answer the question. It is a simple question.
Instead of being on your way home, what if you had been nearer the front of Trump’s insurrectionists as they rampaged in to the Capital Building? You believe the government was stolen. The Trump and Rudy Show just told you and all the insurrectionists around you that your government was stolen by your diabolical Democrat, those evil Democrats who will conspire to do all the evil things that you and Trump have constantly said they want to do in the Manichean fantasy of heroes and villains of Trump’s (and your) conspiracy land. Trump tells you that Joe Biden is a criminal and Washington is a swamp that only he can save you from.
You believe all this nonsense. You foment it yourself here. I’m not saying that you would have smashed things or hurt people, but why wouldn’t you have followed the mob inside and took back your government from those conniving, criminal Democrats just as your Dear Leader literally just told you to do? He told you not to be weak, but to be strong. Are you not strong? Rudy told you it was “trial by combat”. Are you not ready to fight Democrats for stealing the country from you?
They had what looked like an average Trump supporter and her husband on film during the insurrection. A reporter asked her what happened to her. She told the reporter that she was trying to follow Trump’s insurrectionist mob through the Capital doors, and she had been maced. She seemed affronted and bewildered that they had done that to her. After all, her President had just given her permission to do what his insurrectionist mob was doing.
@tsalmon
Remember? You called me a fascist. You don’t need an answer. You need a villain. It is not your fault when anything goes wrong. It is the villain’s fault.
The difference between us is that I don’t expect government to do the right thing. I just want it as small and as local as possible. The last thing I want politicians doing is teaching me what to think, and in your world that makes me a Trump cultist.
Want to know what evil Liberal Democrats are up to? Check out what they are accusing their opponents of doing. Have fun hating.
Tom,
And you’ve called me a Socialist. Quit whining about all your endless victimization and grievances. Quit trying to change the subject. We are way past all that now. Based upon his incitement, Trump supporters who sincerely believed that they were justifiably incensed tried to overthrow our constitutional democracy. You brought it up, so quit hiding from the meat of it and just deal with the rampaging elephant in the room of democracy one way or the other. This ain’t going away until account for it.
Why are you terrified to answer a simple question? Donald Trump told you that he won, by a landslide. Do you believe him? Those folks, many if not most just average Trump supporters, believed Trump enough to commit insurrection while openly carrying Trump flags and sporting other Trump cult paraphernalia, and so literally did so in Trump’s name. ur convictions? If you believe Trump’s fabulous lies, the baseless lies that you have further promulgated here, why not storm the legislature? You helped set our constitutional house on fire, now you have a choice to either regret Trump, continue to cravenly pretend that Trump had nothing to do with it, or bravely get in there and stoke the fire. I’m just looking for a clear answer rather than all this unbecoming weathervaning.
Constitutional process is so much less important to you than than your ideological dogmas that you have cast them into your sacred cow, right? You’re even doing it here now while you are avoiding the main issue. If your convictions are so much superior to mine, where is the courage of your convictions?
@tsalmon
I answered your question. All you ever do is attack. You don’t stand for anything.
Why did I call you a Socialist? You are one.
You believe government, not God, gives us our rights.
You believe in redistributing the wealth. With that power, the government owns everything.
You use legalistic tomfoolery for your argument. It is all about the almighty system and properly tuning (my words, not yours).
You won’t define any limitations on the power of government.
You say the Constitution is a living document, that it means whatever the Court wants it to mean.
You vote for candidates who are Socialists.
If it walks like duck, quacks a duck, and looks like duck, it is a duck.
In this last election we had blatant displays of Crony Capitalism. Adolph Hitler, a Socialist, was satisfied with this because it gave him the control he wanted. The Internet social networking companies have shut down President Trump even though he is still in the White House. Amazon who owns AWS has suddenly decided to kick Parler, associated with Conservatives, off its cloud servers. This is just starting.
The majority of the mass media is owned by huge corporate interests, and they allied with Democrats. Contrary to all the babble, the Democratic Party is the party of big money, and that has been true for as long as you and I have been alive. Now, however, they have a massive amount of control over our election system. Pray they start fighting with each other, or we are screwed.
Tom,
This is craven nonsense. You have not answered the question at all. Again, what are you afraid of facing the truth.
Hitler wasn’t a socialist anymore than you are a capitalist. What kind of capitalist complains about private ownership of media companies? Do you want government to force the NYT to put every incendiary asinine lie that Trump writes on their front page? Why should private companies like Twitter or FB have to? Like most fascist sympathizers, you are about as ideologically consistent as every other crazed ideologue of any variety throughout history. Such ideologues at every extreme on the spectrum ultimately hold this in common, from Communists to Libertarian Capitalists – taken to their logical conclusion, they revert to tyranny or chaos because they invariably find exceptions to his rules until there are no actual rules and the tyranny of the mob, as long as it is YOUR MOB, YOUR TRIBE, in this case, YOUR WASP MALE IDENTITY GROUP, is the only rule that matters.
Like Hitler’s Big Lie, inspired by Trump’s Big Conspiracy Lie about winning the election, the Big Conspiracy Lie you too have been fomenting, the Trump insurrectionists took Trump at his worthless word, that he/they had actually won the election by a landslide and their democracy had been stolen from them, so they of course overran our seat of government on Wednesday.
MW knows his history better than I so you can ask him about it, but I don’t think that most ordinary, decent German people became Fascists overnight. It was the slow drip of just believing one convenient sweet little lie after another until believing the Big Lie that they, their so-called master race and their culture were somehow superior to all the others, become a plausible cultural mythology, the mythology that is Fascism. And opposing Bolshevik Communism and Utilitarian Socialism just became the rationalization that purported capitalists and the rising middle class bourgeoisie told themselves to excuse to protect their class privileges by aligning themselves with the fascist monster that they ultimately could not control.
Did you know that that in the early 1930’s, German fascists met to come up with a legal framework for their racial purity anti-misogyny agenda? Did you know where they looked for their legal models? It was the American South, only many among them thought our laws went too far and that the German people would never go for such extremism as our “one drop of blood” laws. That irony about what we like to mythologize in our shining city of liberty on the hill dogma just drips from history’s pages (unless we of course delude ourselves into ignoring our uglier history).
When a mob of white people overrun the seat of government based on a Big Lie that their government is stolen from them and therefore the WASP culture is being destroyed by black and brown folks from which only Trump can save them, it’s not saving capitalist democracy and fighting socialism, no matter how much you want to pretend that is your excuse for it – it’s FASCISM at its suck core.
Now again, is this what you want? And if you really believe the lie that the election was stolen from your rascist, fascist, megalomaniac, why not, like the fools you have helped Trump inspire to this point, commit insurrection? Don’t play the victim. This isn’t an accusation. It’s just the honest assessment of where this is heading if we don’t look in the mirror. Answer the question if you are not afraid to face it.
@tsalmon
You may wish to look up what Nazi stands for. Communism is a lie. Socialism is a lie. So is Nazism. Different versions of the same lie.
We have ceased having a real conversation. You have found what you think is a good excuse to assume the role of the Grand Inquisitor, and you are not going let anything deflect you. Sad!
Did I know that Nazis found a model in the American South? And you brought that up without mentioning the Democratic Party?
It does not matter what I say to you, I guess. Doesn’t matter what Trump said. Sigh!
I say we start calling ourselves Liberal Patriots and confuse the heck out of them. LOL
@Lisa V
That would confuse them all right.
“The demagoguery started as soon as the news came out, but before anyone knew who did what.”
It’s almost as if the script was already written…
@Angel
Well, I doubt Congress knew in advance the attack would happen. However, Democrats do have a script.
When we don’t have a logical argument, but we are determined to win the argument no matter what, we have to resort to a logical fallacy. What politicians typically do is attack their opponent. So, when people attacked the Capitol during the Rally for Trump, they asserted Trump was responsible for the attack. That way they did not have to deal with the issue of election fraud, which they don’t want to do.
Mo Brooks is a congressman. He knew something was up.
Watch the clips on Twitter. Police opening gates, doors.
This was a false flag.
@Angel
Maybe. My guess is that someone had to organize an attack on the Capitol Police, or the police would have stopped them. The crowd was huge, but it was not hostile.
One thing Liberal Democrats don’t seem to realize is that people are happy at a Conservative rally. We get to see and hear from people who share our views. The so-called mainstream news media paints us as a bunch of freaks.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2102
I knew that there would be a riot as a result of Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen long before it happened. If you did not know, then you are naive or, as you called MW, “an idiot”.
A court of law will decide this, but having witnessed all this as it happened on TV and having listened to Trump’s speech and the speeches of his son and his lawyer, I believe that Trump unlawfully incited his supporters to riot. However, even if you are incredulous to this, you must know that Trump and his enablers in Congress fully inspired and then allowed the unlawful violent attack and occupation of the seat of our constitutional government that he and they took an oath to defend. And at the very least, Trump failed in his constitutional duty to protect and defend our government from an assault that was easily predictable from the moment Trump began promoting it and Right Wing While Nationalists and Conspiracy Theorists began openly bragging about it on social media. If Trump and his administration could not see this coming and stop it the are so incompetent that their leadership is a clear and present danger to the nation.
You can give all the whataboutisms and false equivalencies that you want but they do not work. As a result of their active and passive participation in this insurrection against our laws and the Constitution by Trump and his allies and their continuing incompetence in fomenting it rather than stopping it, Democrats and Republicans alike should by all legal and political means drive Trump and Trump’s enablers from office in disgrace. Period. Full stop.
@tsalmon
I have been going to Conservative/Republican rallies and demonstrations for over a decade. I have never seen a riot. Since the crowd was so big, I did not see one this time. Could not get close enough, and I had to get back to my bus. There was apparently a small number of people who rioted, and they were apparently well organized. Otherwise, they would not have been at the Capitol at the same time, and they would not have gotten pass the Capitol Police.
Instead of bragging about your makebelieve omniscience, you may wish to reconsider the character of the party you support. The police killings started under the Obama administration, and it is patently obvious Democrats stoke racial division, including antipolice rhetoric, for votes. They have even managed to turn the violence at the Capitol into a race thing and blame it on the police. That is how warped with hate these people are.
Are the claims of a stolen election fraudulent? Why don’t you start with the Democratic Party’s lack of concern about upholding constitutional law and its ability to use COVID-19 as an excuse to ignore any concern for election integrity?
All you have is more ridiculous false equivalencies. There is simply no objective equivalent to this kind of sedition in this country since the Civil War. But perhaps that is what you wanted, right?
You sound like a child playing with matches who helped light a fire that got out of control and now you want to pretend you were just trying to have a nice bond fire. Trump lies to people and, without evidence, tells them the election and the country has been stolen by your cartoonishly evil Democrats, Now you are surprised that they want to burn the place down? If you believe even half of Trump’s endless lies and stupid conspiracy theories, why don’t you want to burn the place down? If I thought the country were stolen by evil people. Pathetic! You claim to be a Christian and steeped in scriptural wisdom, then unlike the giant orange toddler you worship,, think past your own immature, selfish sense of grievance and privilege.
Tom, in the time of 24/7 news on numerous channels, one does not have to be omniscient to be there. You probably had the worst perspective of what happened than most of the country, especially given that you had left the scene before most of the riotous actions began. It was not a small number of Trump supporters who did this. An overwhelming number of Trump supporters surrounding the capital overran police barriers, physically forced back outnumbered police, and then broke doors and windows to en mass enter Congress from several entrances.
You were apparently not “there” (idiot?). Good for you. Now quit acting so smug about your not actually witnessing the events as well as someone who simply watched it live on television or on the internet from various angles in real time and who often viewed the action from the angle of the perpetrators who invaded the place as they live streamed their attempted insurrection unperturbed about the prospect of getting caught and even joyful because they felt that they had the permission of the POTUS to commit their seditious acts.
Your guy lost. This is the worst case of a sore loser by the worst President in our history. You had your recounts and audits where nothing changed. You had your day in court over 60 times. Then when it looked like a dumb extra-constitutional political stunt would not work to let your megalomaniac win at all costs, with his open encouragement and lacking any discouragement, his supporters sacked Congress. It’s sick, it’s unconstitutional, it’s lawless and it’s craven. And it’s the worst of your party that caused it and allowed it to happen.
@tsalmon
It is sedition to claim election fraud? That from a Liberal Democrat? When your party thinks requiring a photo ID is racist, you are in no position to talk.
If you think people cannot lie with a camera, you are naïve. The death of George Floyd provides a beautiful example. The authorities released eight minutes of video, but they skipped over the part that did not suit the narrative, Moreover, at first they did not mention all the fentanyl Floyd had injected into himself.
What will an investigation of the storming of the Capitol eventually turn up? I don’t know. After what Obama did to our government, I don’t even know if we can trust our investigative agencies.
Our government, just like any other, has always been something people fight over. Because we have made our government so powerful and secularized our education system, our battles over the government have become increasingly brutal and ruthless.
Remember the question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “what is truth?” Lots of our leaders would ask the same question the same way. To some the truth is whatever they need it to be.
Of course, you would say that I am describing President Donald Trump. To a small extent, I am. We all are too much like Pontius Pilate. However, I suggest you take a close look at your own party. Consider what they have done to sex, the Constitution, history, our money, and so forth.
Read this => https://witte2020.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/koukl-greg-the-myth-of-tolerance.pdf. Then stop and think how many people refuse to examine the idiotic assumptions upon which they base so many of their choices.
To,
Quit talking like you are more foolish than you are. You are way too well educated and well read to pretend to be so childishly naive. It is the definition of sedition to incite people to unlawful rebellion.
It really does not matter if you and Trump stupidly believe, despite a failure to present any evidence that passes a court’s minimum threshold for proof, that the election was stolen. It does not even matter if your fantasy were somehow true.
Being part of a democracy does not mean that everything is perfectly just, just that you get minimal due process to make your case in a court of laws, not men. It doesn’t mean that the press is perfectly fair, it just means that the press is free from unlawful GOVERNMENT censure. And it doesn’t mean that you like the results, or even the legal rules governing an election, just that you accept those results in allowing and even actually encouraging the peaceful and orderly transfer of power.
Trump has not done this and neither has his cult worshipers. Instead of following the Rule of Law and the Constitution, long after the game is over and decided and all legitimate appeals have been exhausted under the rules, you all have prowled about the field of play beating up the referees and denying your opponent’s victory like spoiled babies who should know better, until it inevitably reached the point where some of your greater fools were incited by demagoguery to lawlessness and sedition against the foundations of our constitutional democratic republic. Shame! Shame! Shame!
That is all I have to say. Shame! Beyond that, being as smart as you are, I think, like so many things from your love of W to your encouragement of the Iraq War, as Trump goes down even in Republican circles as a disgrace to the country and the party he lead, you will eventually figure this out for yourself. For now, it’s like talking to a rock. When Trump said that he could shoot someone in public view on the street and his cult-like followers would figure out ways to excuse it, he was right. The Koolaid will wear off.
@tsalmon
Well, I am glad that is all you have to say.
There is only one small problem with all you had to say. Democrats are guilty of stealing the election. So, charge me with sedition too. You have the posts to prove it.
I have studied the issue, and you did not bother to examine my concerns. You just charged my candidate with a crime for daring to follow the Constitution and challenge the validity of the Electors from certain states. You do realize Democrats have done that too. There is a statute that provides a procedure. There in the First Amendment is a procedure for peacefully assembling and petitioning the government. Democrats think it gives them license to riot and burn down cities, and their politicians encourage them unambiguously.
If Trump is guilty of a crime, I don’t know what Democrats are guilty of, but the nasty carp coming out their mouths is a hell of a lot worse.
I let myself get distracted by the goofballs like that QAnon Shaman. I think your country had a lucky escape. Amongst all those rioters were a few running around with guns, molotov cocktails and flex cuffs. Considering the failed Grechen plot, I do not want to imagine, what would have happened, had any of them got hold of a member of Congress or the Senate.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/was-there-a-plan-for-hostages-or-killings-at-the-capitol.html
@marmoewp
I was in the crowd. Out for blood? The crowd was actually in a good mood.
Were there bad actors in a crowd that large? Some, but I suppose the patience required to wait for the complete story is beyond you. Why? Out for blood, I suppose.
Consider the last four years of calls for impeachment, comparisons with Hitler, accusations of racism, ….. Well, see this post => https://citizentom.com/2021/01/08/when-tolerance-becomes-hypocrisy/.
If I admire President Donald Trump for anything, it is for his willingness to stand up under such pressure. Few people would or could.
You’ll be able to follow the news on Eric Munchel of Nashville and Air Force officer Larry Rendall Brock, Jr. Both have been identified via social media and reported o the FBI. Munchel was identified as the person in tactical gear jumping a barrier on the gallery, carrying flex cuffs and what looks like to be gun in his hip holster. Brock can be seen carrying flex cuffs on the Senate floor and seems to be one of the early persons to get into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. And yes, by the reporting both were Trumpsters.
@marmoewp
I could call myself a brain surgeon. You ready for me to operate on you?