I think the two of us may be looking at that tired old document from completely different perspectives.

Firstly, let me assure you that I have no illusions regarding that document. The lion's share of it is nothing more than procedural rules for conducting the governance of the bag of snarling cats that was the several sovereign states. Those bits of it that so clutch at the hearts of libertarians and conservatives (for sufficient values of conservative) lie largely in the Bill of Rights -- an addendum tacked on at the insistence of the anti-federalists who saw what we're dealing with coming.

THAT being said, the Constitution of the United States was one of those rare documents that approached the miraculous. Even the French, who tried to ape it, fucked their version up. If you look, the US Constitution is all about the person, while the French version is all about 'the people'. Far too many readers don't see the difference, but it's vital, and it's there.

Those of us who revere and strive to protect the Constitution (for the most part) already realize it's been perverted and misapplied. We understand that the relatively modern trend of redefining words until they grant license to do whatever the reader wills has savaged the principle of the document and twisted its intent. Really, we do.

Guys on your side of the aisle look at the travesty it's become and shake their heads, declaring it's demise and wondering what comes next.

Guys on my side of the aisle look at it and we see it like Grandpa's grand old mansion after a couple of decades of subsidized housing tenants. It's a fucking mess and it seems like EVERYthing is broken! But it's still standing on a solid foundation, and the basic structure remains intact.

It doesn't need to be torn down. It needs to be restored.

Yeah, might makes right, power comes from the barrel of a gun, things change, blahdy blahdy blah.  We're not clinging to a dead woman, we're trying to rescue a severely injured one.


Just got off the phone with a guy who spent several years in Chile. His Chilean wife's family remember Allende's time in office, and not fondly.

The Chilean view of Pinochet (they pronounce it Peen-oh-chet) is that the CIA assassinated Allende and then informed Pinochet that he was in charge and that he'd run the country the way they told him to or else. They view him as an American puppet, and somewhat akin to Stalin in the way he treated people he didn't like.

He, for instance, shipped lots of "native Americans" up to the northern mines as pretty much slave labor. Of course, most of the 'native Americans' in Chile were socialists, and supported Allende. They were also pretty militant about it.

At the same time, he took the economy that was on the brink of Venezuelan style collapse (his wife remembers the tail end of the Allende regime and not having food to eat) and turned it into one of the most prosperous in South America.

End result, the current Chilean citizenry is split in half. They either respect him or hate him, with the socialists hating him, and the non-socialists recognizing that, however brutal he was, he saved their country.


Now, look at the left and right in America today, and you can see pretty clearly the militant 'Allende supporters' v the 'Pinochet supporters'. We're seeing the end result of sixty years of trying to play nice with socialists, and those helicopter rides are looking much more like a viable path to victory.

I suppose we could play relativism games and yammer on about how we're 'all Americans' and all have the same rights. While that's true on its face, what we've actually got are two warring factions, each of them determined to displace the other. The difference between 'us' and 'them' is that we want the nation to return to the rule of law and its Constitutional basis, and they want to demolish the whole thing and replace it with a socialist puppet of some supranational cabal of communists.

At what point are we allowed to recognize it's a war and defend the country?

I'm a recovering traditional "Republican" before moving on to Libertarianism and Minarchism, but discarding all three.

Broadly you could call me a Traditionalist/Neo-Reactionary.

Voted Trump, pretty happy thus far.

Or you could say I follow a Nazi Frog called Pepe /sarcasm

Not, I'll argue like the disabled vet that I am defending the Constitution I swore to defend. Your uniteligible argument's are beyond retarded.

Have you ever studied the Weimar Republic? Their constitution was no where near ours. Their government was changing with constant elections. They were not constrained with 3 equal branches. Yes the Nazis passed laws that were legal. That's because they had a week ass Constitution.

This exposes the error in your argument, the core of our disagreement. You think the US is special, I can assure you, it is not.

I don't blame you, you are more invested than most in the (wrong) concept of American exceptionalism.

See, unlike you I can manage a civil response to someone I disagree with.

If you don't think my last response was civil than you are truly disconnected from the real world

And at least I won't hide behind passive aggressiveness BS

And of course you get all emotional when I bring up the facts of the Weimar Republics Constitution and government.

You outlined my position well, and respectfully, aside from the fact that I think there were fundamental errors in the buildings construction that were exacerbated by the tenants if you will.

one of the most obvious ones is the judicial branch.

Brilliantly said.

If you don't think the US is special in the context of history or government, then you know nothing of history or governments.

How old are you, by the way?

Go read some volumes of books for about a decade.

Come back and post then.

31.

and I've read several volumes, including some by guys named Spengler and Gibbon.

Rome thought they were special too. So did the Persians, and everyone else since then.

Days of Rage

Good refresher for those that forgot.

The lawyers and students of that era became entrenched in government over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, eventually occupying the Presidency.

Eric Holder participated in the occupation of the ROTC building at Columbia University in 1970, demanding that it be re-named Malcolm X Lounge.

Hillary worked for the leftist legal firms that defended murderous Black Panthers, SDS, Weatherman, and other violent Marxist revolutionary useful idiot retards who did the Russian's bidding trying to foment revolution in the US.

Barrack Obama was raised by these types of people, and started his political campaign from Bill Ayers' living room, a famous SDS violent bomber whose girlfriend died in an unintended detonation of one of their devices.

He bombed the Pentagon and police stations.

Is anyone else seeing what this dude on FB claims is a fake or airsoft rifle??





I'm not sure I can see any of these things with any certainty.

What other country is comparable?

I mean, for us not to be special there has to be a bunch with similar land mass population and freedoms.

Rome and the Persians were exceptional in history.

Rome, for example, was one of the only known metropolises in the ancient world that had a population of over 1 million people, with fresh running water and sewage management.

They did not control all the sea lanes, or have 10 nuclear powered aircraft carriers, nor did they reach the moon with space flight.

They did not successfully finance the development of impoverished nations on all continents.

Like I said, go study more, post less if you don't think the US is special.

Nothing like the US has ever been achieved in human history, not even close.

If your college professors successfully indoctrinated you into equating the US with Rome, prepare for some facts you can't deny to dash that house of cards into the garbage heap of intellectual corruption and laziness that is modern academia.

Her flash hider looks kinda goofy from as far as i can see on a phone. Maybe some weird one I haven't seen yet.


One thing i know for certain, the guy on the left looks freaky as fuck. He gets shot first just so he can stop staring at me.

Yet you spout off about the Weimar Republic likes it's something comparable to ours. Go read some more

No other group of free intellectuals worked, slaved, debated and shed blood like the men who formed this country who believed their cause was divinely inspired and directed.

Yes, this little experiment in freedom is exceptional.

I'm tentatively going with "funny camera angle & lighting".

I tend to agree, although I admittedly couldn't see a charging handle, but the angle is kinda tough.

It is comparable to us, It was a Liberal (in the classical sense of the word) Western Democracy, that was successfully subverted, through violent street clashes between the Freikorps and the Communists, don't you think there isn't something there to bear in mind with this this threads subject matter?

The British Empire? Roman Republic? Roman Empire?

Ah but Rome is like the US, at least in certain terms. They did dominate the sealanes of their area of operations, your technological caveats are nothing but hyperbole, Of course there was no Roman Moonshot, it was 2000 years ago.

Then again, their competition thought painting themselves blue was good armor, so maybe that was their Moonshot, or maybe it was the development of the Maniple, or working plumbing. You'll note we haven't been the Moon lately either, and according to some do not have the capacity to even attempt it anymore.

As for development of poor nations, no, they took far more sensible action and conquered them.

The US IS the current Hyperpower/Superpower, and I'm certain after the fall of Rome (and the resulting Dark/Not Dark Age) similar statements as this were made.

If I bought what my college professors said, I'd not own guns and have purple hair and be one of 37 genders so I'd rather not go there.

I apologize for contributing to drift this thing further and further away from the original subject:

Leftists (who we all hate, I think I can say) decided to counter-protest armed. The same Leftists have always displayed a willingness to use force preemptively and without provocation.

@bland85

No, I don't. Their rule of law was extremely week. Their excessive elections led to a very week government. The Weimar republic was nothing like ours. They did not have 3 equal branches, nor was their constitution stable. It was a "constitution" in name only.

Of course our republic is special. Explain how we are not compared to past republics or the rest of the modern world. What other countries have their natural rights laid out, protected by law?

Not so sure about that here in the Land of the Free................

no too busy watching NASCAR and basketball

Yep.  

At first glance, the scope does look like it's angled off a bit, but looking closer it seems to be straight (angles playing tricks).  

The charging handle is just not a big enough detail to pick out with that angle and light.

Wouldn't really be surprising if there were some higher quality (appearance wise, at least) airsoft mixed into the group.  In at least some cases, it would be a cheaper option.  It would also be easier for any gun-phobic members/actors to deal with.  If I had to guess, my money would be on the AR dissy, since the guy on the left has one, and another person has an identical one (except no sling).  With all the possible configurations, what are the odds that two people would show up with identical ARs (but not something more standard like an A2 or M4gery)?  Airsoft replicas aren't going to have as many possible combinations of parts.

It applies to law-abiding citizens.  People who advocate an overthrow of our current system of government are guilty of treason, not "law-abiding"....even if nobody has the balls to charge them yet.

We have plenty of fit people here, too.  And way more veterans than the other side, as well as competitive shooters.  Killing people in real life is a lot different than in their video games.

Someone brought a crate full of guns and the commies each grabbed one. I'm certain none of those females personally own any.

Wrote this back in September of 2016.


If they don't follow the law why should we? 

With the massive corruption taking place. Why are we; the Middle Class sti actually following the law? Between Hillary Clinton, Obama, Eric Holder, Louis Lerner, etc.... you have those on to that are too big to jail. On the bottom, same thing. Illegals, criminals, scumbags, etc.... can't jail them since they're poor impoverished oppressed minorities.

They push more and more laws and edicts on us. MA's AG redefining what AWs are. CA going after more guns. DOS pushing ITAR on gun smiths. That's just the tip. Not even everything else.

Laws, government edicts, constitutions, etc.... are all just words printed on paper. Nothing more and nothing less. What gives them strength and authority is the people consenting to them and the violence and threat of to enforce it.

A prime example of folks not giving a fuck is drugs. Entire States have told the Fed that smoking dope is fine. All the while a Federal law is still on the books. Harder drugs like Coke, Crack, Meth, etc. .. still in common use by the people. 

We are at a point where the rule of law has no force. If top government officials can live their lives in a manner where laws don't affect them and the same for the under class of society. Then the middle class too can do the same. 

Government ony has authority when the people governed give it consent and follow the law. But if the people don't, then the laws mean nothing.

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Live you life as you see fit. 

That would make it more likely that the ARs would be in some configuration that you could buy off-the-shelf at some store, or (if a loaned out personal collection) no two in the same configuration.

Something is off.

Excellent post.

In this thread we learn that landing on the moon is no big deal, and Rome conquered the Mediterranean because its opponents painted themselves blue

We got us another well spoken intellectual who passive aggressively calls for our  destruction.

Barry, is this you ?

Those are aggressive poses with - what looks like - loaded lethal weapons.

They should be fighting the courts.  Yesterday.

"Patrol ready" is not an aggressive pose.  "Lethal weapon" is a stupid, meaningless redundant term.  Let's actually call them out on real threats and violence perpetrated by them, not play little chicken-shit word games that mis-characterize things- that's the leftist playbook.

Aggressive poses? Oh teh noes.

It scared me so much I dropped my weapons and ran away.

I have 105hrs of vacation time right now (we just got back from 6 days at Disney World).  The hard part will be getting the time approved.

I swear to God, if I'm ever in a theatre and there is an honest to God fire, I'm not saying shit. I'm just getting up and walking out. The rest of 'em can burn.

I guarantee you this...

If I walked the streets with a MAGA hat / shirt on while holding my patrol rifle that way, I would be fighting the courts because the left would position it that way.

Bullshit

Where did I say I was scared ?

Calling it the way I see it.

What was the point of their "action"'? Should I be scared or impressed?

Also why have an "action" in a public place and then complain about being followed and recorded?

You know ?

You're right .

We would be given 'room to destroy' and allowed to impede passage of a lefty filming us while we carry patrol rifles at the low ready.

I'm also sure we would be allowed to smack them around a bit too.

LOL

Very slippery slope we're dealing with here.  
What happens when YOU don't pass the "ideological test" being administered?

Fucking air softers, they always think they can play with the other kids.

What did this march destroy?  

And who is Stick man?

Meh, I have 3 identical clones, and they are real. I wouldn't discount it. As mentioned earlier, maybe blue shirt and the girl are dating and they have matching guns. It can happen.

Semi-Valid point.

But we've been victims of double standards before, so....

That video certainly shows them initiating violence and impeding passage while carrying guns.

That's a big NO NO while CCWing here and to do it while open carrying ?!?!

Come on.  The Libs would be on me and my MAGA hat like stink on shit.

Technically they used loaded rifles to intimidate people who have different political opinions. It might be legal for them to do that but it's aggressive behavior.

https://twitter.com/kekhighpriest/status/838347796000419840?lang=en
http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/01/27/fedex-driver-saves-flag-burning-protest-iowa
https://www.rt.com/usa/382377-trump-rally-violence-california/