15.4.09

The rest is silence? Hah, this is only the beginning.

Alright. I'm going to be honest.

I've tried really hard to keep politics out of this blog.

It's true. I do it so that you don't have to hear me ranting all the time about things that are terrible, or wrong.

For example, Coleman. He's an idiot and a douchebag. That should be perfectly clear after the three judges assigned to the election trial unanimously declared Franken the winner. I'm not a big fan of Al Franken, and he may not be true to the Democratic Farmer-Labor label, but he is DFL-endorsed. And, being not the greatest fan of Franken, I can say in complete honesty, that this needs to stop. The only reason this is still happening is because Norm knows that if he leaves, he won't ever come back.

Also, SPPD/MPD. The SPPD and MPD are full of EPIC FAIL. There are several things that St. Paul and Minneapolis have to learn, and learn quickly:

1) shoot to wound. Whenever there's an altercation involving firearms, or supposed firearms in the case of the Fong Lee shooting, these guys bring down the hearse...er, house. You see, apparently "he does not have to be pointing that gun for [the shooting] to be justified". The evidence in this case is all over the place, but this article illustrates, along with the recent "suicide by a cop" of Robert Jeske, that these guys need training in how to shoot to disable.

2) people are innocent until proven guilty. Let's look at any of the above examples, and the RNC 8. Or how about the actions of SPPD officers during the RNC itself. Hell, I'll cite the experiences of Daniel Balogh.

3) your pretty words may trick those who aren't really paying attention, but they are false idols in the eyes of those who look and listen. "National Defense" may save you from laws, but it will not save you from us.

4 comments:

  1. ""National Defense" may save you from laws, but it will not save you from us" - so much signal here.

    Honestly, I wish you'd write about politics more. In case you hadn't noticed, I write a lot about politics, and up until now I've been wondering if it's something I should stop doing, because it's alienating a reader base, but my traffic numbers stay pretty constant, so I keep doing it.

    Francis and I were talking recently about "Homeland Security" and "Terrorism" and how these phrases seem to have lost all meaning in today's society. Yes, the concept of homeland security (that is, securing the homeland) isn't bad. Nor is the concept of minimizing terrorism on the world stage.

    However, when you start using these phrases as justification for everything you do, or as the current "evil" in the world, you're not only modifying the meaning of the word/phrase, you're de-valuing the initial meaning.

    Can we, as a nation, stop putting up a facade of "big bad USA", and start working with the rest of the world in a reasonable way to deal with the issues at hand? Other countries are worried about terrorism too, the bombings in the british subways or spanish trains should show us that. So let's do it, and get off our high horse.

    I apologize for the ranting, you used the compile time -rant-about-politics flag inadvertantly, and it did what you told it to

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  2. I think there may be more to it in the Coleman trial. Coleman's a savvy guy, so he must be aware what this is doing to his image. But the higher ups in the party have a lot at stake in keeping this fight going and keeping the Democrats from gaining a filibuster-proof majority. I'm not so sure he's the one pulling the strings anymore.

    Re: Cops: I basically agree, especially in the MPD case, but shooting to disable, I mean, it's not magic. Bullets do a lot of damage to people; it's remarkably difficult to shoot someone and NOT kill them. So I don't necessarily expect that to work every time. The key here is probably not to shoot unless you really need to, which is what I think they haven't gotten down.

    Politics is good for your blog, dude. Provokes comments, and what better place for rage is there than the Internets?

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  3. Re: shooting. Yes, bullets do do a lot of damage. I would propose not shooting people 3+ times, and then saying there was nothing they could have done differently. You have a high chance of dying from a single bullet wound.

    You have a much higher chance of dying when shot over and over again.

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  4. This is absolutely true.

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