Gun rights absolutists in Oregon are physically intimidating legislators who support gun regulation. Joe Nocera writes that pro-gun control legislators are being stalked and harassed, and some are calling off town hall meetings because they are literally afraid of being shot.
Burdick began receiving, as she puts it, “the usual threatening e-mails†— as did a fellow gun control advocate in the Legislature, Mitch Greenlick. He told The Oregonian that the e-mail he received from gun extremists was often abusive, obscene and anti-Semitic. He predicted that gun legislation would go nowhere because legislators were too frightened to act. “Politics by intimidation,†he called it.
And then there was Burdick. She was scheduled to hold a town-hall meeting on March 4. But at an earlier town hall held by several other legislators, gun advocates badgered them with angry questions. One of the questioners admitted he was carrying a concealed weapon. Fearing that someone might show up with a gun at her town hall, Burdick decided to postpone it. Not wanting to inflame the situation, she said she had a scheduling conflict.
On the evening of March 4, two men sat in a car across from her home and videotaped her. They showed her driving into her garage and taking out her garbage. Having “proved†that Burdick did not have a scheduling conflict, they then put together a short video of Burdick at home. Jeff Reynolds, the chairman of the Multnomah County Republican Party, who also claims to be a citizen journalist, posted the video on a Web site he runs.
See also the most recent gun report.
Would that those people (the legislators) had the courage to do the right thing, but I doubt if I would, under those circumstances.
And another reason to have (or claim to have) a gun raises its ugly head, like that pimple on prom night…
Still more evidence for my theory that a lot of gun owners in this country are cowardly paranoids, who also have still more psychiatric problems than you can shake a Glock at.
Gun owners may bring on a gun ban, not because the government even wants to, but because the people who govern, like this woman, become terrified of the cowardly paranoids,
If someone brings a weapon to a meeting or videotapes you surreptitiously, serve them a warrant and see how they like prison time. Both of these activities is probably illegal, under the category of intimidating public officials.
One thing I’ve started wondering about is why the gun nuts even care if their guns are legal. They don’t trust the government anyway, so what difference does it make?
This kind of thing exposes the authoritarianism that seethes underneath the superficial “libertarianism” of the right. Their so-called “insurrectionary theory” of the Second Amendmentoffers them a rationale for rejecting democratic governance and arrogating unto themselves the unilateral right to start shooting their fellow citizens whenever they feel particularly aggrieved by the results of majority rule, with the goal of forcing everyone else to live under their interpretation of the Constitution. Violent resistance may sometimes prove necessary in the face of genuine oppression, but in a democratic society it is a very grave decision indeed to subject one’s country to the horrors of civil war.
Sorry to go OT here, but I figure someone will know. So, this new Argentinian pope, was he always from Argentina? I ask because, 30 years ago when Argentina was awash in blood– mass “disappearances,” imprisonment, torture, murder and rape– the Catholic Church in that country turned a blind eye and sometimes even supported the atrocities as a way to combat “communism.”
So is it possible there’s something even worse than being in the Hitler Youth, that still gets to wear the big hat? Yikes.
Joan,
Since Pope Paul VI, the ability to turn a blind eye, both for the need to further modernize the church (after the DFH’s in the Church made changes in the 1960’s), and to the child-schtuppers, and their bosses, the child-schtupper-shufflers in the last 3+ decades, is one of the main prerequisites for the damn job.
This ancient Jesus-grifter is 76, so, though I’m sure he’s not an advocate for modernization, at least he’s probably too old to schtupp any children – though ready and willing, and hoping he’s able, to keep moving the child-schtuppers, and to keep the church as free from lawsuits from the children schtuppees and their parents, as possible.
I, for one, am glad it’s finally over.
I got tired of “Papal View” on TV, 24 X 7.
And I’m still laughing that he chose the name Pope Francis, since I remember another talking jackass with the name Francis.
I remember another talking jackass with the name Francis.
That was the first thing I thought of too! We are bad.
Joan,
Yes, we are BAD – and we are OLD… :’-(
Time for a papal thread? But first; armed intimidation of legislators puts us way past the bounds of Godwin’s Law.
As for Pope Francis: is he the first Francis? I admit I like the name-choice; I’m from San Francisco, also named after the hippy saint. This pope said some nice things about the poor; he’s not a Prada wearer; and he washed some AIDS patient’s feet. On the other hand, to him gay marriage is Satan’s work.
He’s proof that the Roman Catholic Church has given up on Europe and will move operations to South America and Africa.
Joan,
You called it!
This new Pope is just another sc*mbag and coward:
http://americasouthandnorth.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/on-the-selection-of-jorge-mario-bergoglio-as-pope-francisco/
“The first pope from Latin America, Pope Francis prizes compassion & humility — so much that he gave up his chauffeur in Argentina & took the bus to work”.
Mother Teresa move over!
Money quote from cund’s link:
… in Argentina, the Catholic Church was openly complicit in the military regime’s repression. Bergoglio was not exempt from this involvement: military officers have testified that Bergoglio helped the Argentine military regime hide political prisoners when human rights activists visited the country. And Bergoglio himself had to testify regarding the kidnapping of two priests who he stripped of their religious licenses shortly before they were kidnapped and tortured. This isn’t just a case of Bergoglio being a member of an institution that supported a brutal regime; it’s a case of Bergoglio himself having ties, direct and indirect, to that very regime.
paradoctor– yeah, when I heard the new pontiff was from Argentina, my heart sank. A couple of generations need to pass away before the clerics in that country would be fit for the papacy. Well, that’s my opinion, anyway. To my thinking, the giant log in the Church’s eye, the sex abuse scandal, has just grown another branch.
OT – Some great news, mixed with a little not as great news.
Chris Hayes will be getting Ed Schultz’s slot on MSNBC in the evenings!
YAY!!!
But sadly, Ed Schultz, who’ll still be with MSNBC, will have 2-hour shows on Saturdays and Sundays, from 5-7pm.
And while I love me some Hayes, I’d also come to love “Big Ed,” who is the ONLY person on TV who seems to care about workers and the middle class – beyond the point of just giving lip-service to them. I’d been a loyal listener since he first appeared on Air America, and his voice really resonated with me.
I hope this is a good format for him. He can spend more time crafting stories for 2 2-hour shows, that a nightly grind wouldn’t let him do.
And I’m glad it’s Hayes, and not Ezra Klein, who seems more and more to have UpChuck Todd disease – he drinks the DC Villager Kool Aid too often, unfiltered. Klein’s still good most times, but Hayes is on the right side of almost every issue I’ve ever seen him talk about.
Still MORE OT – I rewrote a song for the CPAC meeting this week:
“The CPAC Liberal Smash:”
WE Conservatives were working in the political labs late one night
When our eyes beheld an eerie sight
For our TeaBircher monster from his slab began to rise
And suddenly to our surprise
He did the mash
He did the Liberal smash
The Liberal smash
It was a graveyard mash
He did the Liberal smash
It caught on in a flash
He did the Liberal smash
He did the monster mash
From our political laboratories in the castle east
To the master bedroom where the vampire capitalists feast
The Fascist Corporate ghouls all came from their stately abodes
To get a jolt from our electrodes
They did the mash
They did the Liberal smash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
They did the mash
It caught on in a flash
They did the mash
They did the Liberal smash
The granny-starving zombies were having fun
The party had just begun
The guests included Cruz-Man
Ron and his son
The scene was rockin’, all were digging the sounds
Paul Ryan in foreskin chains, backed by his baying Politico hounds
The Christian Bible-bangers were about to arrive
With their vocal group, “The Liberal-Kicker Five”
They played the mash
They played the Liberal smash
The Liberal smash
It was a graveyard mash
They played the mash
It caught on in a flash
They played the mash
Theyplayed the Liberal smash
Out from her coffin, Palin’s voice did ring
Seems she was troubled by just one thing
She opened the lid and shook her fist
And said, “Whatever happened to my Death Panel Twist?”
It’s now the mash
It’s now the Liberal smash
The Liberal smash
And it’s a graveyard smash
It’s now the mash
It’s caught on in aflash
It’s now the mash
It’s now the Liberal smash
Now everything’s cool, Rove’s a part of the band
And this monster mash is the bane of the land
For you, the reality-based, this mash wasn’t meant for you
When you get to our CPAC door, we’ll tell you a loud “F*CK YOU!”
Then you can get mashed
Then you can get Liberal smashed
The Liberals we’ll mash
And do our graveyard smash
Then you can get mashed
You’ll get caught in a Liberal catch
Then you can get mashed
Then you can get FINALLY Liberal mashed!!!
source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/
Hee hee, CPAC. What a load.
When the GOP meets on The Simpsons, it’s in a creepy castle, and the quorum includes Krusty the Clown, the six-shootin yee-hawin Texan, Schwarzenegger double Rainier Wolfcastle, Mister Burns, Count Dracula, and “Frankenreagan.”
Or maybe that’s a Frontline I saw recently.
Happy Anniversary Iraq War!! Shock and Awe Decapitation strike occurred this evening 10 years ago. Woe is us.
Or USA.