Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, June 24, 2019

The Coming Fire

I was driving through suburban Connecticut when I passed a truck with a "Concealed Carry Defense League" sticker.  I see a lot of them in my part of the state, one of the few red areas in an overwhelmingly Democratic polity.  But it got me thinking about what is going on in Oregon.  Basically, the Oregon legislature is considering far reaching climate change legislation. Republicans are incensed because reasons.

So they boycotted to deprive the Oregon Senate of a quorum.  OK.  Not great, but as a protest for a few days, fine. 

It's where some of these "lawmakers" have aligned themselves with the militia movement and literally threatened the life of law enforcement officers. Sen. Brian Boquist said that police should send only bachelors and come "heavily armed." Now, you just know that these same self-styled patriots have "Back the Blue" sticked on their pickup trucks, but whatever.  Oregon, you may remember, was where those militia yahoos holed up in a wildlife sanctuary for weeks, before one them committed suicide by cop as they were being arrested.

Let's flash forward to November 2020, and Donald Trump has just lost the election by 10%.  Nevertheless, his aggrieved caterwauling awakens these self-same yahoos who are threatening police with violence (something BLM has not done to the best of my knowledge).  Now, I don't imagine many of them will do more than post angry social media memes and fulminate online.

But how many Oklahoma City bombings are too many?

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