‘He was understandably frustrated and distraught by the present and on-going erosions to our constitutionally protected freedoms and the rights of free citizens’
There are a lot of people who would like you to think that disinformation is harmless; that if you buy into bullshit that it's your own fault; and that the 'people that matter' know the truth.
This man bought into the fire hose of shit that is continuously, endlessly spewing a mixture of exaggerations, half truths and outright lies. He took it all very seriously, and he paid with his life.
Ask yourself, do you think this man was one of the 'people who matter' to his family? It sounds like some of them agree with, and listened to him and the fire hose.
This is a fucking tragedy. This man is a casualty of the fight for democracy, and it is a damn fight when people are getting shot for it. Not because he bought into some bullshit; but because he was fed a line of shit by people he trusted. His political party.
This has got to stop, and I think that it surely will.
Let's hope it doesn't have to be at the expense of another man's life.
Another husband, father, grandfather, uncle or brother. Or worse, whole families.
@sparseMatrix
I was @ Wendy’s abt 12y ago. Mostly empty. Dude 10’ away blustering to his daughter about those “Slow… Children At Play” signs/markers people put at the end of their driveway. “They’re illegal! They can’t put up signs the city didn’t put up. I’m gonna run ‘em over!”
His back was to me, so his daughter could see me flip him off. She briefly smirked, but he didn’t see it. I did her a great service that day.
One thing I think is going on is that a lot of people in the western world have been raised to expect Armageddon sometime during their lifetime, and because they feel like they are on the right side they are attempting to accelerate that Armageddon because they think that happiness and Paradise are just on the other side of it.
It's like being told as soon as you finish this chore you're going to get a tasty treat. If you really want the treat you're going to work harder and faster to get the chore done sooner, right?
There's only one line in the Bible and I don't remember where it is that cautions people against attempting to accelerate the end of times because they don't really know what it's actually going to be like and they're only leading themselves to their own destruction but just like everything else in the Bible, because every single word is supposed to be important, that warning has just slipped through the cultural cracks.
You are saying something I've been saying for years. In fact, it was my parent's generation who I saw anticipating armaggeddon, and they expected it in the year 2000. It's what the lyrics of 'Party Like It's 1999' are all about.
I get the idea that when it didn't happen that way, it surprised a lot of them, and eventually pissed off a bunch of them. They felt like they'd been cheated out of the second coming, or something.
While my parents are passed now, and didn't really share the perspective anyway, I think there are still a bunch of these grizzled old assholes around, ready to see it all burn before they croak, just so they can be around when it happened.
In fact, it was my parent's generation who I saw anticipating armaggeddon, and they expected it in the year 2000. It's what the lyrics of 'Party Like It's 1999' are all about.
It's in the realm of "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy" at this point. If God won't do it, we'll just make our own Armageddon with internet greed and hypocrisy.
I do not question any of that. My point is, the republican party has been stirring this pot a long time, and as long as the money keeps pouring, they cant be arsed, as the brits say.
It's got to be stopped at the source. We're already at the point that guys are like this everywhere. One stands in the foyer of the Kroger just about every afternoon 3 blocks from my house.
Wearing a ball cap with a thin blue line flag, armed to the teeth, in a flag-wrapped t-shirt, glaring at anyone who walks by with a smile their face.
His body language, the sidearm he's wearing, his clothes - it all screams that if you're aren't mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, you must be a fuckin' democrat.
That is a feature of the republican party. If it isn't addressed soon, some sort of war will be the only way it gets addressed.
@sparseMatrix
Bingo. That guy is a perfect example of the one big favor that #McTurtle & #IQ45 have done this nation. They made many of these amoral shits bold enough to stand up & be recognized.
Now we know who many of them are. Never trust them. Oppose them @ every opportunity. Tax their churches & their billionaire leaders.
There’s a great Jon Stewart quote that won’t fit here, because 500bytes, so it will be in my next reply…
Now we know who many of them are. Never trust them.
This is how I feel about people wearing swastikas and such. It’s a handy “warning label”. It’s like a blinking sign over their head that says DO NOT ENGAGE, BUT KEEP AN EYE ON ME.
@sparseMatrix
“You’ve heard it said ‘The arc of the moral universe is long and bends toward justice.’ But it doesn’t bend towards justice by gravity, you have to bend it. And there’s a bunch of people trying to bend it back.”
@sparseMatrix
This dude in the news who was righteously, justifiably dropped by FBI agents spent a lifetime trying to convince his family, friends, et al, that his hatred & racism was correct. The GOP is made from the ground up by people who are this vile, or are totally OK with their associates being this vile.
I shed not one goddamned tear. I have zero fucks to give.
#GOPisNAZI #WWJD? Well he wouldn’t be a Nazi, I’d bet my life on that.
Lets be clear - I am not making any kind of defense of this guy; I am eviscerating the GOP for creating and sustaining an environment that keeps that guy squarely where they want him, and operate that firehose of falsehood that suck new people into the rotten fold on an ongoing basis.
I just don’t consider his death a tragedy in quite the same way I’m inferring you do. I feel bad for the FBI agents if they suffer any emotional discomfort for doing the right, necessary thing.
I don’t suggest we euthanize all GOPers. But if they volunteer like this ass did, then fine. Natural Selection do your thing.
I support the action taken by the FBI here, and I certainly support their use of deadly force on someone who pointed a gun at them. But having lived through the past several years, I'd really like to see a bodycam video which shows this.
Not interested in seeing the man get shot, just want to see a video of him pointing a gun at them. I also acknowledge that I think the FBI seems to have a better record of not lying about their use of force than random police do.
But, I'm still going with (believably) alleged to have pointed a gun at them for now.
Indeed, it's quite possible that both the guy and the police that shot him were in the wrong. We should never assume that because one group is bad the other group opposing them is good.
I skimmed thru the linked article, and viewed the 2 photos of the decedent.
Given no further evidence, do I think it is most likely true that he pointed a gun at FBI agents who loudly and repeatedly identified themselves? Yes, I do.
Good enough to hold up in criminal court? No.
Good enough for me, an internet rando-crank to say “Tough shit.”? Yup.
I’ve been proven incorrect before. I’m OK with that.
Given no further evidence, do I think it is most likely true that he pointed a gun at FBI agents who loudly and repeatedly identified themselves? Yes, I do.
Good enough to hold up in criminal court? No.
Good enough for me, an internet rando-crank to say “Tough shit.”? Yup.
I’ve been proven incorrect before. I’m OK with that.
Yep also fair enough. Only being pedantic so as to give the same benefit of doubt I would for someone else, but I generally agree with your assessment.
I can’t imagine being 75 and deciding that the best use of my final years is to try to assassinate a moderate president. Even if you do feel the country is going to hell, you’ve got a decade left tops.
He let himself give into selfishness and anger instead of spending time with all that family, sitting on a patio chair with his dog and an icy Arnold Palmer waving to neighbors, and enjoying old man hobbies. What a frickin tragedy…
I want to know about serious issues with this country, but screw extremist media big time. News isn’t entertainment. It needs to be real or this crap happens.
Me neither guy, and I find it tragic that somehow these fucks that cultivate these attitudes are even allowed in government when really they should be in the jail.
To play devil's advocate, I could imagine being 75 and deciding that "I'm going to be gone soon anyway, might as well use my final years to do something big."
The rest of your comment I completely agree with, though.
”Craig loved this country with all his heart. He saw it as a God-inspired and God-blessed land of liberty. He was understandably frustrated and distraught by the present and on-going erosions to our constitutionally protected freedoms and the rights of free citizens wrought by what he, and many others in this nation, observed to be a corrupt and overreaching government.”
This quote isn’t attributed in the article, and it comes after a statement by the FBI and before a paragraph introducing the family’s quote, so I think it’s fair to say that this paragraph should be after that family paragraph.
So…does anyone remember who said that if you find someone in therapy that you know the rest of the family needs it as well? Or something about how individual issues are much better understood within the context of a family.
I am under no delusions the guy was anything but a vicious piece of crap; I'm just pointing out that there are a lot of people like this, and this guy will be a martyr to them, and the tragedy of dead fucking Americans will grow with every body that hits the floor.
I'm not suggesting the GOP or their views are to be somehow socially redeemed, but if you're fine with everything being escalated to a shootout, I think its probably already too late anyway.
This guy is just a dumbass to everybody. He was killed by a gun fetish, he couldn't resist a shootout when the FBI came.
His only legacy is spending his life collecting a bunch of guns to give to the FBI.
Man, it sure doesn't look like it, does it. My bad, I must have mis-clicked.
It does, however, accurately state my perspective. Concerning your assertions about therapy and families, therapy isn't necessarily going to fix these folks. By and large we have to remove the oxygen from the room where these ideas breed, and force out the occupants. Maybe the FBI should do something to take these guys alive instead of engaging them on their level. Not because its the moral thing to do, that is an adjacent and separate reason; but for tactical and strategic reasons.
The dumb bastard knew what he was doing, and it worked. He has done the noble deal, and died for his cause. Those that share his cause will see him as a literal inspiration. It's playing right into their hands.
It’s okay; it’s a bit of a puzzle, putting some of these threads together. That, and while I can see the number of comments, it rarely matches up, so I think some comments aren’t popping up or are disappearing when deleted.
Oh yeah, I see therapy as a reactive effort, with the biggest issue being the profit made from polarization and conspiracy laced media. But it’s a good barometer for who is more prone to develop these issues. It’s a numbers game whenever you’re dealing with big populations with respect to limited resources, so focusing on those people who are most susceptible or most surrounded by this rot and get it within their closest social spheres is useful.
The problem is that once the fire takes hold you have to shift a lot of the effort to firefighting and not fire prevention. That, and for all their monitoring, agencies like the FBI aren’t as good at suppressing extremism as, say, increasing social services and a focus on healthy communities. They’re hammers, and we’ve all got a bunch of loose screws…
How can the desire to make the world justify lead to wanting to shoot people with a gun? I think there is something wrong with some system that connects between that thought and action.
Actual truth: He was frustrated, because people around him didn’t want to be around him, because his personality was terrible and he smelled like boiled onions.
What freedom and rights have been affected, exactly? Is this just "immigrants and LGBT people exist" nonsense, where it's claimed that not doing negative things to such groups is somehow an attack on white straight men?
Covid is effectively over for these people though and the US never even went proper lockdown at all, unlike most of the rest of the world. How do they politicize Covid at this point?
Yeah, can't argue about guns. Despite conservatives being the ones with the greater amount of gun restriction legislation and such, especially under Trump, they will still claim the opposite every time.
After hearing stuff like this it always makes me reaffirm that Rush Limbaugh was one of the most dangerous, deplorable people to have the unfortunate opportunity to have a platform. Truly one of the most pernicious people to ever speak into a microphone. I don't know if this is a bit of a non-sequitur, but I feel like this guy would've been a staunch listener.
Limbaugh was a symptom of the disease. If it wasn’t him it would have been someone else. And now with the internet era we’ve seen it. There are 5 conservative assholes to replace each one that loses their job or stops podcasting. I for one am hoping that car makers follow through on their plans to stop including AM radios. That only solves the class of people who are going to die within the next 20 years anyway. We need a solution for all the gen Z-ers that are getting dragged into the alt-right pipeline.
It is ethically irresponsible to report shit like this. His family says he was frustrated? Fuck off, he was a crazy person who threatened to kill the president.
How the hell did this headline get past the editor??
This sounds like the FBI shot the man's family after he threatened Biden, saying he's frustrated.
It's hard to put much stock in their interpretation of the facts when their attention to detail never graced the headline even for a minute...
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