Sunday, January 03, 2016
The Federal Government Shows Admirable Restraint Against Armed Anti-Government Renegades
An anti-government militia has seized federal property in Oregon.
The federal government has show admirable restraint in containing them thus far.
Ironically, these white guys, who have taken up arms against the United States, claim they are not traitors, but are defending the Constitution.
I have no doubt that if this group of armed rebels had been Arabs or black people claiming to defend their rights, Fox News would be calling for their heads.
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7 comments:
Except for your pejorative gratuitous cheap shot at Fox, sadly de rigeur amongst liberals, I completely agree with you. In fact, I'm not sure restraint is any more admirable in this case than it would have been for the President to ignore John Brown's seizure of the US Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. These people just didn't like the outcome of a trial. While I do believe that the citizens have a guaranteed right to armed revolt against a despotic government, that right requires that they have resorted to all available lesser remedies. The Mundy's were not summarily jailed, nor were they tried by a "Star Chamber" court. Instead, they were afforded all of their rights under the Constitution; they were tried in open court, given adequate defense counsel, and afforded due process. Send in a few Marines as Buchanan did, and then try and hang the survivors if they are convicted of treason. They are as bad as Brown was and do a terrible disservice to all who do believe in Constitutional government.
Do you think I am wrong about what Fox News would do?
I think Fox News has its own editorial perspective and expresses it, but so does Rachel Maddow and MSNBC and they are never spoken of in the same pejorative tones and phrases. Using your example, Maddow would be bending over backwards to excuse the same sort of criminal conduct if committed by a group of black men or Latinos. I think whoever takes up arms against the common weal, unless there is true tyranny and despotism and no other lesser avenues for relief exist, something that has not happened since 1861, deserves to be charged with treason.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oregon-government-gone-wild_568ad2e6e4b06fa688831eed?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000018
The title of the link above is
Oregon Occupation Is Case Of 'Government Gone Wild,' Fox Pundit Says
Deneen Borelli said the armed militants are "peaceful" and responding to government "creeping into our everyday lives."
I'll see your Borelli and raise you a Maddow.
Rachel Maddow, 15 August 2014: "The initial crisis in Ferguson was the police shooting this past weekend of that unarmed 18-year-old, Mike Brown. That crisis was created by that police shooting. Police behavior then also created the following crisis, which was the war-zone-style, incompetent, extreme use of force police rioting, right? That secondary crisis took a major turn for the better in the last 24 hours because somebody else was put in charge and the county was taken out of charge because of their failure."
According to Maddow, the police reaction to rioting and looting by protesters in Ferguson was the fault of the police. Never mind that they had set a neighborhood on fire.
If you read the transcript of Ms. Borelli’s comment, it was that, compared to the violence and destruction in places such as Ferguson, these guys are peaceful. It was not so much a blanket endorsement of armed seizure of government property as a challenge to people such as Ms. Maddow and others of her ilk. As Ms. Borelli pointed out, no property has been destroyed and no one has been injured in Oregon.
Finally, at least Fox allows competing views to be heard. Along with Ms. Borelli, Jessica Ehrlich, Esquire, a failed Democrat candidate for Congress from Florida, appeared in the same segment. She said “We can disagree all day long as to whether you think they’re overreaching or not. But you don’t go and take over — in a non-peaceful way — I mean, these people are armed… They’re planning on staying, they’ve put a call out to other people to join them. And that’s not a peaceful demonstration. … These people are taking over an area that’s a federal office building and that’s not the way we make change in the United States.”
I tend to be closer to Ms. Ehrlich and to disagree with Ms. Borelli to the extent that armed seizure of government property is no different today than it was in 1859. That being said, Fox’s presentation was a lot closer to the truth about Oregon than Ms. Maddow’s one-sided report about Ferguson. I suggest that the divisions in this country are chargeable to the media in both camps and their relentless pursuit of ratings and related advertising dollars.
However, Fox is the only major voice for people whose views are different from northeastern elites and isolated academics that tend to make up television and print media. And, as the most watched news network in the United States, one might suggest that Fox is closer to the pulse of mainstream, Main Street America.
As one who reads and watches lots of "news" and commentary, I will add my observations to the media discussion: All writing and commentary has a "slant" and a bias which is impossible to eliminate because of humans involved. Having perfaced my comments with this, I find that much of MSNBC has a personnel bias based on the individual commentators which is allowed on the network. I find much of CNN to be more centric and factual. There is no question that FOX has a corporate agenda which comes from Roger Ailes. I personally know several extended family members who have FOX news on for over 12 hours a day, and it has warped their view of life. For an interesting commentary, I would recommend the book "Atheist in the FOXHOLE by Joe Muto, which is based on his experience working for the Bill O'Reilly show
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