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pecuniumFirst, he wasn't paying attention when I said, "don't try to tell me he must have, "provoked them," in my post about Peter Watt's arrest
Nope, willysnout (possessed of a blank Lj, and a link to non-existent "political blog" had the temerity to say, “ Watts is an asshole. He had it coming. He's lucky they didn't break his arm. I would have. He was stopped at the border for a screening. He decided to be a pissant about it. Tough shit, Peter."
Which is so wrong, on so many levels. 1: Unsupported we are treated to willy's idea that Peter Watts is an asshole. Me, I don't know them man, but a lot of people I do know have said he's not. That's he's a decent guy. willy has no standing with me, and offers no support for his position.
2: No one, "had it coming" in that way. Cops are supposed to be better than that. We spend a lot of money, putatively, training them to deal with just the sort of thing willy is saying causes one to deserve to be beaten, arrested, deprived of property (what relevance as evidence in a charge of "resisting arrest/assaulting an officer" does the entire contents of the car have?) and kicked out into a winter storm in the dark of night; in one's shirtsleeves.
In willy's world, a "pissant" deserves a royal beatdown. Why? I don't know; I suppose to keep other people from questioning authority.
Ok, so we have seen willy to be an asshole. Why do I say he's an idiot as well?
8Because I looked at his profile.
Someone made the observation that I'm a liberal. Here's my answer.
"Liberal" and "conservative" are relative terms. I really don't think my own political views have changed very much. I considered myself "moderate" after college and up through the 1990s, but then Bush and the Republicans took a hard right turn so now I'd have to say I put myself in the "liberal" category. When I was younger, even the Republicans were pro-choice and in favor of equality for women, and you didn't have this religious wacko wing that went after homos and abortion the way they do now.
So he's a liberal, because the folks who elected Bush, and the things Bush did, mean he's not a moderate anymore.
The next paragraph shows he doesn't really understand the history of the party he's saying, "took a hard right turn."
The Republicans of my youth wouldn't have dared to try and steal Social Security or bust labor unions the way they do now, and the level of outright corporate theft these days is amazing.
I don't know what he's smoking, but I'm torn between wanting him to share, and thinking it needs to be banned. The Republicans of his youth wouldn't have busted labor unions? They wouldn't have gone after labor unions? They wouldn't have connived (even with a bit of willful blindness) at the levels of corporate theft?
How old is he? Because I remember when air-traffic controllers had a union. I remember when the Savings and Loan industry went belly-up (and how McCain managed to avoid being put to pasture by leaving the House for the Senate).
Then we have this little gem: What bothers me more than any of that, are the following two things:...
Second, the officially-sanctioned use of torture. I am aware that bad things happen in war, but I think the U.S. lost the Iraq War the day the leaders ordered torture. When they did that, they broke faith not only with everything we stand for, but with the military past, present and future.
Which is it willy? Torture is bad, or pissants deserve to have their arms broken? Is it only military abuses of people you dislike, and border guards doing such things is fine? Enquiring minds want to know the difference between the tortures you hate, and the ones you think are ok.
I admit, I think people who self-identify as, "libertarian" are confused, but the last line in his profile seems to sum him up pretty well, "If you add up my politics, I think I'd be better classified as one-third populist, one-third progressive, one-third traditional "mind-your-own-fucking-business" libertarian and entirely one vindictive son of a bitch. There are a lot of people who need to be slapped down hard,...
And we can see just who it is he thinks really needs that sort of person deserves his vindictiveness; the sort who asks cops why they are intruding into our business.
Idiot, and asshole.
Nope, willysnout (possessed of a blank Lj, and a link to non-existent "political blog" had the temerity to say, “ Watts is an asshole. He had it coming. He's lucky they didn't break his arm. I would have. He was stopped at the border for a screening. He decided to be a pissant about it. Tough shit, Peter."
Which is so wrong, on so many levels. 1: Unsupported we are treated to willy's idea that Peter Watts is an asshole. Me, I don't know them man, but a lot of people I do know have said he's not. That's he's a decent guy. willy has no standing with me, and offers no support for his position.
2: No one, "had it coming" in that way. Cops are supposed to be better than that. We spend a lot of money, putatively, training them to deal with just the sort of thing willy is saying causes one to deserve to be beaten, arrested, deprived of property (what relevance as evidence in a charge of "resisting arrest/assaulting an officer" does the entire contents of the car have?) and kicked out into a winter storm in the dark of night; in one's shirtsleeves.
In willy's world, a "pissant" deserves a royal beatdown. Why? I don't know; I suppose to keep other people from questioning authority.
Ok, so we have seen willy to be an asshole. Why do I say he's an idiot as well?
8Because I looked at his profile.
Someone made the observation that I'm a liberal. Here's my answer.
"Liberal" and "conservative" are relative terms. I really don't think my own political views have changed very much. I considered myself "moderate" after college and up through the 1990s, but then Bush and the Republicans took a hard right turn so now I'd have to say I put myself in the "liberal" category. When I was younger, even the Republicans were pro-choice and in favor of equality for women, and you didn't have this religious wacko wing that went after homos and abortion the way they do now.
So he's a liberal, because the folks who elected Bush, and the things Bush did, mean he's not a moderate anymore.
The next paragraph shows he doesn't really understand the history of the party he's saying, "took a hard right turn."
The Republicans of my youth wouldn't have dared to try and steal Social Security or bust labor unions the way they do now, and the level of outright corporate theft these days is amazing.
I don't know what he's smoking, but I'm torn between wanting him to share, and thinking it needs to be banned. The Republicans of his youth wouldn't have busted labor unions? They wouldn't have gone after labor unions? They wouldn't have connived (even with a bit of willful blindness) at the levels of corporate theft?
How old is he? Because I remember when air-traffic controllers had a union. I remember when the Savings and Loan industry went belly-up (and how McCain managed to avoid being put to pasture by leaving the House for the Senate).
Then we have this little gem: What bothers me more than any of that, are the following two things:...
Second, the officially-sanctioned use of torture. I am aware that bad things happen in war, but I think the U.S. lost the Iraq War the day the leaders ordered torture. When they did that, they broke faith not only with everything we stand for, but with the military past, present and future.
Which is it willy? Torture is bad, or pissants deserve to have their arms broken? Is it only military abuses of people you dislike, and border guards doing such things is fine? Enquiring minds want to know the difference between the tortures you hate, and the ones you think are ok.
I admit, I think people who self-identify as, "libertarian" are confused, but the last line in his profile seems to sum him up pretty well, "If you add up my politics, I think I'd be better classified as one-third populist, one-third progressive, one-third traditional "mind-your-own-fucking-business" libertarian and entirely one vindictive son of a bitch. There are a lot of people who need to be slapped down hard,...
And we can see just who it is he thinks really needs that sort of person deserves his vindictiveness; the sort who asks cops why they are intruding into our business.
Idiot, and asshole.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 12:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 03:59 pm (UTC)So I'll amend your last line:
Idiot, and asshole, and coward.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 08:28 pm (UTC)(edit) The sort who causes people to say, "oh, that's willysnout", when someone makes the mistake of 1: being a raging asshat, and 2: uses a nom-de-asshat which is similat to those Herr Snout has been known to use.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 10:23 pm (UTC)a bit tarbaby of a reaction?
Date: 2009-12-16 04:17 pm (UTC)but i think this is a definitely futile conversation. this willy dude isn't really an existent player on this blog. he DOES exist, somewhere. but it's the internets. every fat fucking coward with an internet connection is allowed to voice an opinion. no exceptions.
i don't think willy is going to be shamed into not doing this sort of thing again. especially not by this post. i think the whole thing is first, reinvestigating a case where pretty much 99% of the people who read your blog got damn near the same jist as you, and demonizing a nonexistent semen stain of a human being...well, sorta futile?
Re: a bit tarbaby of a reaction?
Date: 2009-12-16 04:57 pm (UTC)In the first place, it's not a conversation. I am pointing at him, and laughing.
in the second place, people like willy get something out of this sort of fire and forget thing. They are secure in the belief that they will be ignored, or have rude things said about them. That allows them to (pace Will) revel in the moral high-ground (no matter how falsely claimed) of being abused for, "having an opinion."
Well I won't stand for it. I'm a pretty tolerant sort, and I value people feeling free to share opinions, but not all opinions are created equal: If he wanted to make a post about how Peter Watts had it coming (and detailing whatever it is which has him stalking people writing about this on Lj) I'd probably have ignored him.
But he didn't. He came here. He stank up my place. He ignored the warning (and the context for it).
Which means I get to point and laugh. Since he has so inchohate a mess of things in his profile, I admit it was easy. But even so, anyone who came in here and tried to tell me, "he had it coming," was going to be made an object of ridicule. Someone who says "he got less than he had coming," well there's no power on earth which is going ot keep me from sharing my, general, opinions on that.
Because it's not about Peter Watts (though I don't forget him in the mix), it's about how we hold cops accountable, and the willysnbouts of the world aren't getting a free pass here to spread the idea that people are cattle, and the cops the cowboys to keep them on the trail; not here, not from me.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 08:10 pm (UTC)It always stuns me when anyone remembers. So thanks for that.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-17 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-17 02:59 am (UTC)Reegan wanted to break unions, he used the ATC as an object lesson, and unions have been being dismantled ever since. Savings and Loans were allowed to act like banks (and investment banks at that), Lincoln Savings and Loan, et al, were the end result (and the taxpayer footed the bill, while the people they had made loans to were in the hole, and the industry disappeared).
The things which have changed are the social issues. Somewhere in that same mix they got the rural sorts (who had been more Dem than not, the Republicans were the party of the business classes, and the wealthy) to join them, on the basis of the Dems being, "city folk", who didn't understand, "real America".
The whole nation has, as a result, moved more right, which is what led to the events of the post he was responding to.
McCain and the Keating Five
Date: 2009-12-17 03:23 am (UTC)I remember when the Savings and Loan industry went belly-up (and how McCain managed to avoid being put to pasture by leaving the House for the Senate).
McCain was already a Senator during the Keating Five scandal. He avoided "being put to pasture" by convincing the Senate Ethics Committee that he did not act improperly but only exercised poor judgment. None of the Senators involved in the Keating Five was removed from office before his term ran out. McCain and Sen. John Glenn were the only ones to run for re-election, both successfully. Sen. Alan Cranston of California received a formal reprimand; Senators Riegle and DeConcini were "criticized" for acting improperly.
In his first bid for re-election after the scandal, McCain ran against Democrat Claire Sargent and then-independent former Governor Evan Mecham (whose tenure as governor remains one of the biggest embarrassments in the history or Arizona politics, and that's saying something). So, basically, McCain won re-election because Arizona's conservatives (more than half the state's population even then) had nowhere else to go.
I should point out, I voted for McCain once, and I regret that vote with every fiber of my being. Every other time he's run for Senator, I've voted for his Democratic opponent. I disagree with his political positions (okay, I probably agree with something he's said at some time or other), I don't buy into his "maverick" image, and it's my understanding that he's not a very kind man (but that's from a friend whose brother interned for another Arizona Senator, so, essentially, gossip to be taken as such). It is not my intention to portray myself as a supporter of Senator McCain just because my memory of the Keating Five scandal and McCain's role in it differs from yours.
Re: McCain and the Keating Five
Date: 2009-12-17 04:31 am (UTC)The House said he was no longer a Representative, so it had no jurisdiction to sanction him, and he had about five years to play his mea culpas and trust the electorate to forget about it.
Re: McCain and the Keating Five
Date: 2009-12-17 05:31 am (UTC)The Senate Ethics Committee did not claim it didn't have juridiction:
Based on the evidence available to it, the committee has given consideration to Senator McCain's actions on behalf of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The committee concludes that Senator McCain's actions were not improper nor attended with gross negligence and did not reach the level of requiring institutional action against him. The committee finds that Senator McCain took no further action after the April 9, 1987, meeting when he learned of the criminal referral. . . .
Senator McCain has violated no law of the United States or specific Rule of the United States Senate; therefore, the committee concludes that no further action is warranted with respect to Senator McCain on the matters investigated during the preliminary inquiry.
Quoted in the New York Times here. (http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/28/us/excerpts-of-statement-by-senate-ethics-panel.html?pagewanted=3)
I remember what the Arizona newspapers (and the letters to their editors) were saying about McCain and his opponents at the time. He was re-elected largely because the majority (about 55% at the time) of the state's population wanted to make sure that the Democrat didn't get the seat. He did benefit from five years' separation from the event, but not quite as much as you think. He wasn't well-liked here for more than a dozen years after he moved here, and there is still a significant portion of the conservative community in Maricopa County that thinks he's too liberal.