I have a good deal of sympathy with the plight of 73 year old Dwight Hammond and his middle aged son Steven going back to prison. My understanding is that they wanted to lie low and were not all that thrilled with the demonstrations for them, and are completely not on board with the "occupation". I doubt hardly anyone other than the Bundys support the "occupation".
The middle east is burning down, N Korea is testing H-bombs, and his BOness is making law by fiat in direct opposition to the Constitution. Do we really care if some nuts took over some remote outhouse in the middle of the winter?
Oh, yeah, they are "right wing", so therefore "terrorists" -- this is a MUCH bigger problem than non-Islamic acts of direct violence carried out by people who happen to follow the Muslim religion which has NOTHING to do with the acts of violence ... did I mention it would be HORRIBLE to call acts by such people "Islamic", it might lead to a BACKLASH!
Did you hear that there are **ARMED** RIGHT WING TERRORISTS OCCUPYING A FEDERAL BUILDING!!! OMG! ... There was a MILITIA involved (in the march, not the occupation)! Can we call in the Army, Navy, Marines, NSA, CIA ... hell, call in the entire ALPHABET!
The linked article makes the obvious point that why the hell is the left not realizing that the Hammonds are victims of MANDATORY SENTENCING ... which the left is supposed to HATE!
But sadly, the Atlantic left wing itself, so doesn't understand that consistency is not an issue! Mandatory sentencing is bad for BLACKS, but the Bundy folks are WHITE, and did you know they are RIGHT WING! No sentences for Blacks, shoot the damned right wing whites! Why not?
“While federal management of public lands is legitimate and occupying a federal facility is unjustified,” a left-leaning publication might have editorialized, “it’s easy to see why the Hammond case struck some observers as unjust. The notion that judges are there to exercise discretion based on context––that it’s odious to force them to give severe sentences even when they judge them to be ‘grossly disproportionate’––is exactly what criminal-justice reformers have long argued. There have been bipartisan reforms on this issue before. Let’s abolish all mandatory minimums for good through the civic process, not counterproductive armed protests.”The linked column also introduces something that makes sense -- "Red Tribe" and "Blue Tribe". After electing a man who claims his main identity is as a "Luo Tribesman", is it any wonder that our nation has descended from a being a Republic of Laws rater than men to a couple of warring tribes?
The blogger Scott Alexander once argued with more detail than I can quote here that “if you’re part of the Blue Tribe, then your outgroup isn’t al-Qaeda, or Muslims, or blacks, or gays, or transpeople, or Jews, or atheists—it’s the Red Tribe.”We live in a nation where the federal government charges a 73 year old guy with TERRORISM for burning a few acres of land that nobody cares about for reasons that are at least sane. Not only that, he goes to trial, gets convicted, but the judge makes his sentence short in view of the "crime" .... BUT, the government has to have it's full pound of flesh, so they send him back to prison for 5 years, and that brings in some nutcases that are ticked off.
The fact they are ticked off is pretty understandable -- the fact that they decided to occupy a remote building is what makes them nutcases -- but nutcases that are causing WAY less of an issue than Black Lives Matter folks shooting, blocking interstates, occupying precinct houses, rioting, looting, etc.
Like WAY LESS problem!
I don't agree with the occupation, but the majority of this nation seems to be every bit as insane as the guys out in the boonies in the outhouse!
'via Blog this'
nailed it
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