What is the right response to a threat? When is a response disproportionate?
by Shaun Kenney
COLUMNIST
Quick quiz!
Someone punches you in the face but then holds a baby up to protect themselves. Do you punch through the baby? Or do you go for a liver shot? Or do you calmly call the police? Or… do nothing at all and get ready for the next punch?
How people respond to conflict is a sticky question which plagues policy makers and philosophers alike. Ever since Elizabeth Anscombe famously challenged Oxford University’s bequest of an honorary degree to the man who vaporized 250,000 Japanese civilians, the question of proportionality in conflict has remained a fixture among Western thinkers for the last 70 years. As the Latin suggests, proportio is not a mere reaction, but rather a measurement — a discernment towards right action and a restoration of right.
Proportionalism is not merely just one-eye-for-one-eye. In fact, the English language translation for a proportional response is quite far from what is intended in international relations or moral philosophy.
Instead, a proportional response in the Western tradition means assessing both the immediacy and gravity of the threat in proportion to the potential loss of innocent civilian life. On this, the International Red Cross is explicitly clear:
The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks against military objectives which are “expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”.
In the Western tradition, this framework is typically defined by what we call just war theory — which requires five distinct considerations:
Having a just cause.
Where the action is a last resort.
Where a proper authority has authorized the action.
Possessing right intention.
Where the end is proportional to the means used.
Three terms come into play: the ius ad bellum (justice of war), the ius in bello (justice during war), and finally the ius post bellum (justice after the war).
In short, the ends of the conflict must be just, the means employed to end the conflict should be consistent with the ends, and finally responsibility and accountability towards those responsible should be just after the conflict.
Different Ideas of Proportionality
In this sense, one may have the best of ends in sight. Yet if one pursues those ends unjustly — no matter how decent your ends might be and by any means necessary — then one in fact becomes committed to the very evil one seeks to destroy.
In short, the means must be consistent with the end in order for the act to be moral, ethical, and just.
In the Levant, things are seen a bit differently.
Unlike the Western tradition, in the Eastern tradition — notably a Byzantine one — the concept of a just war involves a concept of total reaction. Imagine a hammer is dropped on your toe. Your body does not react to the pain in a proportional sense, but rather in a disproportional one where the entire body reacts. So too, argues justifiable war theory, does the body politic react to an outside threat.
Much of the Arab world and those influenced by the old Eastern Roman Empire — revanchists in the Russian Federation included — share this view of justifiable war where the entire body politic (in this case the Arab world) is willing to spring to action in defense of fellow Palestinian Arabs in Gaza.
The same is true within Israel itself, as the entire body politic springs to action — some 350,000 reservists so far — in order to punish Hamas for the single largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
The pages of the London Review of Books — no stranger to the political left or the Palestinian cause — openly wring their hands on this point about the question of proportionality with regard to civilian casualties, and how previous exchange rates on prisoners are now creating some curious moral dilemmas:
In July 1968 the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked an El-Al flight and landed it in Algeria, inaugurating a series of hijackings whose explicit aim was the release of Palestinian prisoners. The Algeria incident led to 22 Israeli hostages being exchanged for sixteen Palestinian prisoners, though the Israeli government denied that there had been a deal at all. Sixteen for 22: such an exchange rate would not hold for long. In September 1982, after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Ahmed Jibril’s PFLP-General Command captured three IDF soldiers; three years later, in what was known as the Jibril agreement, Israel and the PFLP-GC finally reached a prisoner-swap deal: three soldiers for 1150 Palestinian prisoners. In the 2011 deal to release Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas in 2006, the exchange rate was even more favourable to the Palestinians: 1027 prisoners for a single Israeli soldier. In anticipation of being forced to make many more such deals, Israel began arbitrarily to arrest more Palestinians, including minors, to increase its assets for future exchange. It also kept the bodies of Palestinian fighters, to be returned as part of any exchange. All of this reinforces the perception that the life of one of the colonisers is worth a thousand times more than the lives of the colonised.
Yet one wonders at what cost in innocent civilian life will Israel be willing to sacrifice to break Hamas? Is it at the exchange rate of 1027:1 as previously established? 22 to 1? The Israelis have much more than just explosives on their side. Time is perhaps their most valuable tool.
Yet our ideas of just war barely dent or scratch Levantine understandings of justifiable war — just war theory works great in instances of immediate self-defense, but not so well against low-to-mid grade fevers. Hamas is more than happy to sacrifice civilian lives whether the handbasket is fast or slow to its destination. Americans can stomach a great many things, but not the slaughter of defenseless innocent civilians. As Netanyahu himself remarked in his book A Place Among the Nations:
[A] weak Israel would elicit a great deal of American sympathy but not much else.
To many in Israel and beyond, the last three weeks may have been measured — but are perceptively weak in the face of a multi-pronged threat from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Fatah.
Three weeks after the massacre of Israeli Jews in the Negev is all it took for Netanyahu to be proven correct.
Meanwhile, Jewish Israelis and Jewish Americans are forced to watch in horror as protesters march in defense of Hamas — not Palestine — before the bodies of Jewish babies had even cooled or the Israeli Defense Forces had fired a single shot in anger.
Three. Short. Weeks.
Proportionality and Public Education: A Thoughtful Response
I have to personally thank Ben Litchfield for a remarkably well-thought response to my two latest missives taking Spotsylvania Democrats and the local teachers’ union to task for their irresponsible rhetoric and anti-democratic behavior against our errant savant Spotsylvania School Board. One finds it interesting how the public reacts to such pieces. Most Republicans breathed a massive sigh of relief, even if a few hardliners still choose to defend the practice of book burning. Most Democrats chose to take it up with my editor.
Most of the critical responses tend — and continue to tend — toward defending the behavior and reaction both in the pews as the Spotsylvania County School Board fumbles in the dark against a hostile bureaucracy and a hostile teachers union — this despite the expressed democratic will of their neighbors.
More to the point, the position of too many critiques was to label them — and sadly myself — as actual Nazis, segregationists, and fascists. The employment of such “magic words” failing to work, they try other magic words — or even more predictable, lumping everyone together as Nazis, segregationists, fascists, and a whole other list of deplorables.
Meh.
Refusing the descent to Averno, Mr. Litchfield points towards the many forced errors of the Spotsylvania County School Board, most notably the bad behavior of their camp followers. Good government requiring active participation, Litchfield objects strenuously to the idea that elected officials have the right to fail or succeed on their own merits, where the people themselves have the unmitigated right to “make the machine stop” and reconsider their oaths of office. Stafford Supervisor Crystal Vanuch is in turn both “inflammatory” and “bigoted” and therefore deserving of comparison to both Citronella Nazis and Ralph Northam the Ku Klux Klan.
Litchfield concludes that Republicans writ large “would do well to rid [our] own house of the corruption within it” and only then, “maybe then, reasonable minds can come together to debate … true merit”.
Naturally, I welcome and am even flattered by his praise of a broader effort to point out that the conflict is not between left and right, but rather the extremes against the center. We agree on the need for the common good to triumph over the highest good, even if that means striving for second-best options. Who knew that standing athwart history yelling “STOP!” would have so many fans?
This is precisely the sort of conversation those of us who believe in the Fredericksburg Advance hoped to inspire when we began this publication. Mr. Litchfield should be singled out for praise, not only for his convictions but for his willingness to expose them to critique.
…and there is much to critique.
Pursuing Our Ends By Any Means Necessary Doesn’t Serve the Common Good
So here is the wider problem concerning the behavior of the bureaucrats and teachers attached to the Spotsylvania Public Schools, namely that their own bad behavior is justified via equivocation. If Mark Taylor doesn’t want to be called a Nazi, then he shouldn’t act like a genocidal maniac — right?
Let’s set aside just for a moment the fact that Mark Taylor most likely isn’t a Nazi. In fact, to call someone a Nazi is a pretty low thing which implies a great deal. Such cavalier use of these terms in fact diminishes their potency. If everything we don’t like is fascism, how will future generations recognize the real thing should it ever reappear pace Hannah Arendt?
Yet there is another problem here which the political left is blind towards, namely that public education as an institution is held and championed by the political left — and the institution will brook no criticism even from reasonable sources. Which means there is almost never a condition where equivocation — their actions justify our actions — is ever admissible. By pure power relation, public education as an institution holds the upper hand against those outside of it.
Now let me tell you what the political right sees — your neighbors, friends, and relatives too decent to tell you what they are really thinking for fear of being branded as Nazis or fascists themselves.
What they see is a group of individuals willing to use “any means necessary” in order to prosecute their ends.
What they see is a group of educators behaving badly, who then demand in turn that they — and they alone — should be trusted to educate their own children with minimal input from others (parents included). These same educators who object to banning sexually depraved images in public education have absolutely no problem imposing a failed DEI regime much less exposing students to Critical Race Theory and government-enforced gender pronouns. All of this is overblown myth, they are told, until they read how public school administrators and their school boards have treated concerned parents in both Fairfax and Loudoun.
One cannot be deaf to this. What these parents see isn’t a concern for public education, but a school board given legitimacy by those willing to break their own democratic norms in pursuit of raw power. What is more, the political left are willing to employ tactics forbidden to the political right in order to regain power.
I’m sorry, folks — that’s not just unfair. That’s un-democratic.
Now Fredericksburg is no stranger to political argument. Heck — the city was literally founded as a poke in the eyes to then-Governor Spotswood so local farmers didn’t have to pay a tax to use his wharves. Yet let me offer some friendly Republican advice on how to better cage the disagreement which Litchfield asks others to consider in due course:
Vanuch’s concerns about what the Muslims do to the soil do not require metaphor. They can stand on their own two feet.
The Spotsylvania School Board’s actions do not require the SOS Playbook to throw as much sand into the gears of local education from bureaucrats and teachers alike until it fails — which means the blame for failure is now shared. Democracy either honors the public will or it does not.
Imagine for a moment dozens of conservative activists employed within the SCPS deliberately sabotaging the school board for imposing DEI, CRT, and transgender ideology in public schools. Would they too have the right to “make the machine stop” using all means at their disposal because the ends are justified?
Back to proportionality, folks.
Our means must be consistent with our ends. If your means toward an end are not consistent with the end? If you have to call people Nazis and fascists? Then maybe — just maybe — your ends aren’t all that good.
In this, Democrats have to recognize a certain Republican truth. Defining half of the community as Nazis and then locking them out isn’t democracy, but a pernicious sort of fascism all of its own.
Liberal observers — Mounk and Lukianoff respectively — are starting to understand this critique for what it is, and local school administrators — and we have some good ones in the Fredericksburg region, I assure you — understand the problem for what it is and should fling the doors open to solutions up to and including charter schools and school choice options.
Such are the considered opinions of your friends and neighbors, dear reader. They may not have the guts to tell you openly, but we all believe it.
Now we can ignore this, consider this, argue the finer points… but do not settle for calling the opposition names in the hopes it improves what you believe and why.
Closing Thoughts Redux: Steel Sharpening Steel
In this, it is probably best to reflect on what ought to be a minor milestone showing how two political figures can engage respectfully on a question of serious import.
Mr. Litchfield represents that rather refreshing and perhaps more common than most people realize positioning among Generation X and Millennials who give a damn. Disagreement, in fact, is good. Much like our whiskey, the stronger the better. Doesn’t have to be disagreeable, either.
Yet the bile that seems to be the shortcut to thought — “magic words” — is already old. Adults on both sides are starting to recognize the cancer for what it is and are applying the chemotherapy as best we can. Kudos to Mr. Litchfield for having the courage to say as such to his own lunatic fringe. God knows, it gets old having to do it on my end.
Perhaps more encouraging, Litchfield and myself locate a great deal of common ground on questions of import, disagreeing perhaps on the means rather than the common end for what is best about Virginia and America. For anyone worried about the state of democracy, that two very disparate viewpoints can arrive at common ground should be a remarkably positive thing indeed.
There is something refreshing about being able to express a conservative idea in the public square without it being spiked by an editor, and moreover to discover that some of us really do want to have adult conversations and especially on the things on which we disagree, and even better than this wants to understand why our opposition believes as they do. Even better still, that conservatives as well as liberals are tired of being dragged by the nose by our respective extremes, ignoring what is most vital about the core functions of government. This strikes me as both a common and a highest good, one focused on people rather than abstractions, tribes, or ideology.
Of course, there are disagreements. I take further heart that they are loud and few. Rudeness, reminds Eric Hoffer, is a weak person’s imitation of strength. On this point, Hoffer was more than prescient:
It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of inadequacy and impotence. They hate not wickedness but weakness. When it is in their power to do so, they weak destroy weakness wherever they see it. Woe to the weak when they are preyed upon by the weak. The self-hatred of the weak is likewise an instance of their hatred of weakness.
Too many of our friends and neighbors perhaps feel this weakness. Perhaps it is one of the reasons why our politics is so messed up today? Probably why I don’t take the criticism terribly seriously.
Nevertheless, I remain firm in my convictions and my critique of how Spotsylvania Democrats have chosen to combat the Spotsylvania School Board majority, and more widely, how Democrats — even Mr. Litchfield — excuse their own bad behavior by vilifying others and the using un-democratic efforts to undermine the elected will of the public. Such actions only set the bar even lower for what is acceptable political activity in local and state politics. That is the politics of weakness grasping for power, not moral outrage commanding the high ground.
To take the dual position that (1) bad behavior should never justify another person’s bad behavior, nor (2) should the democratic will of the public be trumped by a handful of political activists — see January 6th — seems to me to be the most common sense of all positions. Nor should it be terribly extreme to (3) heap nothing but contempt and disdain for the use of “magic words” as a shortcut to thought, as if triggering one’s amygdala was any substitute for engaging one’s cerebral cortex.
My thanks again to Mr. Litchfield for rising to the occasion in a sober and reflective way. Whether I have matched that spirit is up to the reader — caveat lector. Litchfield offered thoughtful responses, and thoughtfully and with tremendous respect we are discussing the matter at hand as adults. I certainly look forward to such exchanges in the future.
If you are like me, that’s not just valuable. That’s democracy worth defending.
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Well, you made it through a whole column, and somehow avoided Greece, though I can’t help but suspect you had my bingo game in mind. Still, progress. So there is that. I mean, it meant a trip to D&D and ancient Rome, but still – at least the scenery was different.
Someone complained to me a while back about taking too many words to get to the point. Can’t recall his name, but your column(s) today put me in mind of it. I like to peregrine myself, but all that to get from the shores of the Mediterranean to you once again telling yourself and everyone else how great thou art? There’s 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon I never want to play again.
But sure, I’ll play for a bit. I mean, we’re here, right?
What I fear in Israel is not a weak Israel, but an Israel not committed to democratic ideals. That only values its own lives and not those of others. The Israel that elected Bibi is not without blame, on many fronts. Refer to Tom Nichols and Thomas Friedman for details. In cynically empowering Hamas at the expense of negotiating with Abbas because they do not truly want a two state solution? Blaming the generals and ignoring how he had divided the nation? Arrogance, indifference and violence to his own people? Putting his own needs ahead of the nations?
I can see why Republicans like Trump like him.
I have many of the same fears for America.
Then the presumption that those defending life are the same as those defending Hamas? I do sympathize with Israel fighting restraint. Lot easier to preach it than it is to do it.
Yet I fear those who offer simplistic solutions to complex problems. Especially when it seems as much to get back to talking about themselves, as any dead children in a far, dry desert.
You can rationalize war all you want. Tell yourself what the rules are. Wax poetic.
But war is killing. Dead is dead. The same Iraq War that killed 5000 Americans (on a credit card, because America loves making war, just not paying for it) killed about a million Iraqis. Based on a lie, greed, frustration, and pride. Their lives had value too.
Tread lightly when advocating it. Lest someone be as indifferent to your child.
(And yes, I know this is the point in the discussion where you invoke your self-righteous interpretation of your own birth control methods as being superior to everyone else’s, and therefore negates any presumption that you should have to justify any of the lives taken in your name – let’s just skip that part – and pretend it’s Mitt Romney making the point instead of me. The point would still stand.)
I too welcomed Mr Litchfield’s column last week. His concise, clear, and most importantly – correct assessment of the situation in Spotsy, as well as the failures of your piece – was a true pleasure to read.
Though I take issue with his conclusions regarding Ms Vanuch. As much as those by Mr Clay’s cartoon. In that, we are in rare agreement. I find many of her reported actions wrong, but that in and of itself does not make her a member of the Klan. Unfit to lead, yes. Certainly. If you can’t respect the rights of those you despise as well as those of those you love, you have no business in public service.
But while I can deplore someone whose husband was injured in war acting viscerally as a result, it seems to be something coming from anger and hurt.
For him to then use that as a basis of concluding that her opposition to projects which will affect the local Republican party politically QED means that it is perfectly justifiable to consider her a member of the klan and label her as such seems to be a bridge too far.
Her actions and positions are little different in my mind than the gerrymandering, pork projects, etc. that both parties regularly engage in, at every level.
I don’t much like it, but in this we are in agreement, in that little good is done by dismissing it and her with such a horrendous label. It shuts down debate of something which seems very debatable.
Still, despite your article, and Clay’s cartoon – I did learn more about the issue from the few minutes spent reading his column than I did from the whole to-do up to that point. Again, clear, concise, informative. It was a pleasant change. Looking forward to his next one.
I agree with his comments regarding folks like Ms Durant and yourself regarding yourselves as the “center” when nothing could be further from the truth. That is truly a matter of perspective, yet you present it as a given. You seem to be very willing and able to note that trait in others, but I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be worthwhile to look at yourself in the same light.
His review of the structural deficits in our nation is spot on. If everyone can look at problems as objectively regardless of political persuasion and work on solutions based upon facts, I’d say we’re all in agreement – we would be better off. As do the two of you. (And Mr Davis as well, it would appear.
Still, there’s a reason why I voted for Joel Griffin instead of Mr Litchfield in the primary. To a degree, it’s the same reason I’m willing to give Ms Vanuch a little more leeway than it seems anyone else does.
It’s got to do with the cloth. I sympathize because I empathize. When I was a deputy, in a jail – where you were always outnumbered, there was one rule. Never touch the cloth. You do that, there was a price to pay.
Now many can, and do, and will, debate who, what, when, where – but whether it’s Kipling’s Tommy, Orwell’s Pacifist, or Grenier’s saying – or merely Barney Fife standing up to a town bully on the Andy Griffith Show; that rule is there.
So just as I can sympathize with Ms Vanuch’s (misplaced) anger while still condemning it; I do not consider my anger displaced regarding the Republican coup attempt that led to over 100 cops just like me getting beaten within an inch of their lives, their attempt to deliberately and cynically overthrow the Constitution based upon lies which have led to multiple findings of guilt – as I see the majority of them lining up behind the man who caused all of that shame and damage to our nation.
It is not wrong to question whether someone will uphold democratic ideals, the Constitution, rule of law – when you see their party led and leading a political organization which attempted to overthrow a Presidential election based upon their predetermined belief that they didn’t lose, despite evidence to the contrary. Whose leading candidate has over 90 felony charges pending. Yet just determined who became the Speaker of the House. Whose Governor just kept over 3000 Virginians illegally off the ballot. Whose School Board won’t even let others speak.
And they’re okay with that. That’s a problem.
Back in the day, you couldn’t become a deputy sheriff without attesting that you neither were, nor had been a member of the Communist Party. The reasoning being that the Communist Party advocated the violent overthrow of the government. The 14th Amendment was written, in part – to protect us from insurrectionists. They exist. We see them.
In the Republican Party of today that grows ever more extreme to the point that violence is overlooked or forgiven, and a Republican who benefits from it while saying he feels bad about it – but not so much as to not enjoy the power provided – is somehow “the center”.
C’mon, man. Seriously?
And yet, Mr Litchfield – in his effusive determination to find common ground and join in debate with those such as you, ignores something that Mr Griffin, who also swore to defend the Constitution sees quite clearly.
That talk, debate, and engagement are fine. Hope they work.
But when we are having discussions with those who are actively working against the core tenets of our society; let’s not get so desiring of “talking”; that we forget those tenets are non-negotiable.
Mr Griffin made real clear that he got that. Mr Litchfield, not so much. That’s why one got my vote, and the other one didn’t.
A response longer than my column? Wonders never cease!
Just to clarify on what Litchfield and others mean regarding “the center” — it is not conservatism or liberalism in drag, but rather the sphere of rational political thought.
The extremes tend to self identify with shortcuts to hyperbole, violence, or opposition to due process and fair play — and I think most adults recognize this for what it is.
But is that where you are, if you continually look the other way when you are being empowered by extremists, who would not have the power to cause harm without your support?
Again, invoking the ideals of Tutu when he talks about oppressors; or Niemollar when they came for the socialists.
Accountability used to be considered a conservative trait. Would that it were again.
Mr Griffith understands that.
And has my support because of it.
I wouldn’t expect neither Israel nor Palestinians to meekly capitulate to terrorists. From within or without.
Why should we?
How am I looking away? And where are you setting the example of tending to the extremists on the left?
I believe Mr. Griffin — not Griffith — is the candidate you are looking for.
As for comparing your neighbors to terrorists, that is pure hyperbole — and numbs people to the real thing. We should be better than that, right?
Let’s take a LIFO approach. Last in, first out.
Neighbors/terrorists = hyperbole = numbs “people” to the real thing.
Thought experiment. Without Googling.
Tell me a lie that Obama said.
If it were a survey, I suspect that 90+% of responses would mention doctors and healthcare.
Now do the same experiment with Trump.
I doubt you’ll find any of them beating the 20% mark. I wouldn’t be shocked if none went over 5%.
Not because they were so rare, but because they were so prolific.
Over 30,000 PUBLIC lies in a 4 year period. They had to start a database. With it’s own dedicated staff. He averaged over 15 PUBLIC lies a day. From a man who made it a deliberate, Mafia-like point to avoid having permanent recordings or documentation of his worst actions, when possible.
30,000.
Which one do you recall the most?
That is numbing. It happened and happens so often, no one notices anymore. It’s not newsworthy. We know he’s a liar.
I’m white. Male. Virginian. Descendent of slave owners. Never lived out of the state. Spent 60 years within 5 miles of the same mountain. Went to schools both segregated and desegregated. Worked in law enforcement for the better part of 3 decades.
And yet, in all of that, I never truly understood white privilege until January 6th, 2021. And then again on February 13th, that same year. Or should I say “power” privilege.
I mean, they weren’t ALL white, right?
But they did feel entitled to be there, beating the doors down. Just as those, such as yourself, who minimize their threat, feel entitled to mock the threat, the damage done; as merely someone forgetting to lock the doors.
Makes it easier to stomach.
After the 6th, as a deputy sheriff, I tried to imagine a scenario where anyone other than you (entitled members of the conservative party) could have done anything close, and not been shot.
Repeatedly. Justifiably. Probably with you cheering them on.
Who else, besides you could have done it, and still been breathing?
Trayvon Martin? He got shot within 10 seconds for playing with a toy in a park. Him they saw as a deadly threat. Mexicans? Republicans want to invade them because of our laws. Who?
Yet to this day, the ring leader of that little episode has not been held accountable.
Due to you.
Republicans.
Then on February 13th, Republicans said they wouldn’t hold him accountable during an impeachment – not because he wasn’t guilty, but because he was no longer President, so it was moot.
In other words, it would have cost you deniability and harmed you politically.
You actively impeded the House investigation of the matter, and now you still, as a party – support the man – as he openly says next time will be worse. He will be your nominee.
No, Mr Kenney. I’m not saying that you got a set of buffalo horns in your closet and you’re waiting for the next Klanbake to go howling at the moon.
But the Matt Gaetzes, Gosars, Stones, Bannons, Trumps, etc. aren’t staying in power because they are getting my support. They’re getting yours. Tara’s. Glenn’s. Why should we pretend otherwise to suit you? We shouldn’t worry about you because you live next door?
To paraphrase Mel Gibson, is it better to have 1 terrorist 5000 miles away, or 5000 terrorists 1 mile away? Your logic is hardly comforting.
Once again, as a party – you decided that the tail wagged the dog as you settled your Speaker fiasco.
Rather than look to compromise with any Democrats – not even Abigail Spanberger or Jennifer Wexton – you decided that loyalty to Trump was what mattered.
Embracement of a lie. When asked about it, rather than answer – you just screamed and ignored it.
As you’ve done for years. To the point it’s no longer newsworthy.
You hope.
That’s what numbs people. Not that it’s hyperbole, but that it’s not only true; but so expected of you, and by you – that you get outraged that anyone notices.
So if my folk (cops) and my country (constitutional United States) came within an inch of dying at your hands, and you’re looking to do it again – noting it seems more like due diligence than hyperbole to me.
Regarding Mr Griffin’s name, well done for finding one of many of my typos. I deliberately insert them for your grading pleasure. You’re welcome.
Regarding your questions of holding “the left” accountable – again – for me that is a vague question. In that I truly do see myself as an independent conservative more than of the “left”. Would seem a bit weird to expect me to be able to control someone else based upon that.
But whether they be of the right or the left, if they break the law, I’m against them. And if they are advocating overthrowing the government via violent means, or have been credibly accused of doing the same – they will neither have my support nor my money.
Would that the Republican Party could say the same.
Until you do, I ain’t got much use for you. Again, you may not be the ones wearing the buffalo horns, but they wouldn’t feel entitled without out your support. No matter how bad you feel about giving it.
Until you do, yes – you are looking away.
Again, responsibility and accountability used to be admired traits to conservatives. To me, they still are.
“But whether they be of the right or the left, if they break the law, I’m against them. And if they are advocating overthrowing the government via violent means, or have been credibly accused of doing the same – they will neither have my support nor my money.”
Now do the BLM/Antifa riots of 2020.
Now do the BLM/Antifa riots of 2020? What!?!?
I dunno. That’s pretty complicated. Let me think about it.
Oh, wait a minute. How about this?
“Whether they be of the right or the left, if they break the law, I’m against them.”
I read that somewhere recently…….
Turns out it wasn’t as hard as I thought.
But what I’m really interested in, have been for a while, cause I’ve truly never understood it – is how someone sees an equivalency between spontaneous acts of violence and illegality caused by citizens angered by seeing repeated videos of injustices and violence, amid the deliberate and systemic indifference of their government to those injustices – as compared to the very President of the United States, along with his political party, abetted by violent groups and men who state they are at his beck and call – deliberately fomenting an attempt to overthrow an election?
I’ve never figured that one out. Never.
Again, I never truly understood the sense of entitlement that those represented by the Republican Party possess, until I saw them tearing down those doors and yet still being able to live through it.
Nobody else could have done it.
Nobody.
Nobody else would have believed they were entitled to do it.
The fact you still see an equivalency, a reason, a justification, that somehow – you can explain it – I’d say is the true root of the problem.
The same denial that allows that up and until Trump is convicted of a felony, much less 90 felonies, as long as he never admits he’s wrong – you’ll, as a party, follow him.
You have, and you will.
They say Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.
Just like you did for House Speaker. You always do.
You may squawk about it, you may pretend that you don’t, cover your ears, claim everybody does it, or refuse to answer – but it doesn’t change it. He’s still your guy.
Your party will put him forward as your candidate. That doesn’t happen without you. And Tara, and Glenn.
You.
That is your vision of America, such as it is.
I wish it weren’t. Truly.
I’ll not pretend something isn’t true, because I wish it weren’t true. So there we are.
BLM.
Man, y’all really fear some black folk; don’t ya?
Only in America would someone take offense at someone else taking a name that really means “Please don’t kill us anymore.”
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
May not be the American way, but it sure is the Republican way.
So there it is, Leo.
Quick to condemn January 6th, but turn a blind eye towards three dozen riots over seven weeks. You can use the words… but when tested? You excuse violence on the left while condemning far less on the right.
Pity.
LOL.
Bless your heart.
Let’s go LIFO again.
That’s what you got out of my statements? If so, it’s because that’s what you wanted to get out of them.
I sure hope, if you teach English, that is tedious tomes like Milton’s Paradise, Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, or the 8,762,344 verses of Beowulf (and counting) being spun by the Norns of old; and NOT English comprehension.
‘Cause if that’s the case, I think I may have found part of the problem with the SOLs.
My word.
You put Donald Trump in front of me in a trial, if the facts presented at trial do not show him to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, I won’t find him guilty.
You put any Democrat, from AOC to Hillary Clinton to a working man on the street tired of seeing his children shot for no reason on trial for committing a crime, as much as I may empathize – if they broke the law, I’ll find them guilty.
Have, would, and will.
For me, it’s not hyperbole.
I spent years doing similar activities.
Not anonymously, among strangers – whom I would never see again.
But in a jail, between violent, dangerous, unstable men and women – who by law lived together until either the law released them, or their shift ended.
Where you would come back the next day, and look that inmate or that deputy in the eye and have to explain why you made the decision you made. And how ever they dealt with that, you’d deal with them. Same as the day before. Same as the next day. And the one after that….
Doing investigations, charging people criminally, civilly, administratively. Committing them to mental hospitals. Testifying against them.
Sitting in on disciplinary hearings where punishments, housing, etc. could add or subtract months from their sentence. Advising judges, sheriff’s, doctors.
Had a man once who got 30 years of his sentence reinstated based upon a trial that basically came down to my word versus his.
After I took my pension, I was in a poorer part of town, having just finished working on a Habitat for Humanity home – alone, as I prefer – when I had a former inmate come walking by and recognize me.
Like most folks, he was both younger and bigger than me – and, after 3 heart attacks at the time, let’s just say – as with Tennyson’s Ulysses, I am not the strength I once was.
Still, I don’t carry a gun.
My philosophy towards them is about the same as Andy Griffith’s. It’s a tool.
Use it if I need it, but the cost in fear and quality of life expressed in constantly wearing one is not worth the benefit in my book. pretty much for the same reason I don’t constantly carry a chainsaw on my hip.
But anyway, he recognized me after a moment and approached, with a scowl on his face.
“Sgt. Watkins, you remember me?”
“No, sorry. Not really. I’m good with faces, not so much with names.”
“It’s __________ (still don’t recall). You found me guilty one time, and I didn’t do it.”
Looked him dead in the eye and replied, “If I found you guilty, it’s because I believed you were guilty, based on the evidence.”
He thought about it for a minute, turned, and walked away.
Likewise, I’ve had fellow deputies cuss me to my face, and more, I’m sure – behind it – when I didn’t find an inmate guilty because they didn’t provide the requisite details in their report.
So yeah brother, I’ve been tested. Time and time again.
I hold up my verities for such a question against anybody. Including you. I think I’ve earned it. Even if I haven’t, I think it.
Regarding riots. Been in 3. Caused one, though they wouldn’t let me participate. Conflict of interest.
Ordered a popular drug dealer moved out of a housing pod because he was controlling it, and no one controls our house but us. Not an inch of it.
If there were 3 dozen riots over 7 weeks, then you can bet someone like me was there fighting it. Next time you see them, how about telling them thank you.
Still, while fighting crime, I am capable of recognizing the realities that would cause people to come out and protest. At least as much as those who watch it on TV on the Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson Nightly Fear Hours.
Much as Mr Litchfield notes as an important point regarding the ongoing Spotsylvania protests.
You insult people when you denigrate the passion that makes them come protest instead of asking why. Even when, on rare occasions it does descend into violence.
If you cannot tell the difference between that tragedy of the American experience, and the cold, calculated actions of Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and all of his codefendants – indicted, unindicted, convicted, and pending – I wouldn’t say that I’m the one with a blind eye.
Again, bless your heart.
I have no idea what any of this means.
I believe you.
Oh look! A succint and rational response…
Give Leo his account back, pls.
If only I could get one in return……
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a deliberately obtuse correspondent.
BTW – how many other people do you see on this thread, besides the mythical account deities?
Do they have names, and can others see them as well?
I’m not doubting you of course. If you see them, I won’t tell you otherwise.
Not my job.
And I’ve now come to know how sensitive you seem to be to such questions.
Just making conversation.
Anyway.
I’d say this has about gone as far as it can go.
And I suspect you understand more than you admit.
That your choice to proclaim otherwise has more to do with your inability to defend the indefensible, than any confusion.
You know, sorta like a certain realtor “genius” not being able to tell the difference between a 10000 sf home and a 30000 sf home when it suits him.
It’s an awful convenient ignorance. But seems pretty common amongst “conservatives” now days.
Go figure.
Moving on.
Looking forward to Mr Litchfield tomorrow.
He is informative.
PS – Sorry about the crack regarding the length of Beowulf if you took offense.
I’m sure it was only 8,762,343 verses long when we had to read it in high school.
It only seemed longer in memory..
My mistake.
Again, monologue isn’t dialogue. Very hard to have a conversation when the other side is already predetermined to make you evil.
Pity.
If you cannot bring yourself to openly disavow giving aid and comfort to those who have attempted to overthrow our government before, and are promising more of the same if you return them to power – I ain’t saying you’re evil. I am saying you are as much as fault for doing so covertly as they are overtly.
Pretending you’re justified in doing so because you see an equivalency between someone who had a duty to act in defense of the Constitution instead urging others to overthrow it, and who then stood by as they attacked and did nothing to defend it – after months of continual efforts denying the legitimacy of an election that it was his responsibility to oversee – to everyday citizens rising in protest over other citizens being killed – is wrong.
To be willing to do the same again, now – 3 years in the aftermath – is even more wrong. To me, no one in their right mind could have believed the bull y’all were selling back then.
Even Fox News, when put in front of a judge – claimed the same.
And yet, here we are. Glenn Youngkin is “coy” about whether he would be willing to be Trump’s running mate. Tara Durant is doing her Tammy Wynette imitation and standing by Glenn, everywhere you look.. And here you are, telling us they and you are fine fellows for doing so. Nothing to worry about here. Let’s talk.
As Trump promises an Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, Chief of Staff Flynn, pardons for the attackers, and executions for those who stood against him.
What could go wrong?
He just exercised a veto power that he holds due to your party’s refusal to reject him, over who currently sits as Speaker of the House.
He already has majority support of your stated party, the one you regularly defend – to be our next President.
You state you fear those who would use any means necessary to get their way.
And yet, you act surprised that people see your actions – whether it be nationally – with children in cages, states having to compete in a Hunger Games way for federal aid in a pandemic – based upon who loves you the most, refusing to do your duty and nominate a Supreme Court judge under one President, so you can do it on another.
statewide – with illegal removal of voters, pardons for those who break the laws, attempts to illegally create laws to attack opponents, and making policy based more upon national polling positions than what matters in Virginia
locally – with book bans, silencing of critics, ignoring grievances, etc.
as anything other than the same.
You can’t, as a party, even promise not to bring back the same horror you’ve already imposed on us for 4 long years. Not if it means you would have to forego power.
You can’t win without his cult and you know it. So you’ll do just as you did last time. Pretend there’s a plan when there isn’t. A method to the madness. And as long as you get yours, who cares? Might makes right.
Which is why you twist yourself into Gordian knots trying to rationalize things like the Spotsy school board’s actions.
Again, the rationalizations of an entitled people. No one else could have done it that day. No one else would still be trying to insist that we not notice, pretend it was justified, wasn’t that bad, or won’t happen again if we allow you.
Yet here we are.
Demanding someone accept responsibility for their actions and asking what steps they are willing to take to prevent something from happening again is not calling them evil.
It is called accountability. And is considered an integral part of the American justice system.
Your party is led by a man who has been proven to be a fraud, liar, and untrustworthy. Who is currently charged with over 90….90 felonies. In 4 different venues. For charges ranging from threatening national security, obstruction, fraud, to conspiracy. Charges which many others have already admitted responsibility.
He has been found liable for sexual assault, and is currently on trial for fraud. Trials are ongoing to determine if his eligibility for office should be revoked based upon the 14th Amendment.
Your own leaders, who know him best – have called him unfit.
And yet, Glenn Youngkin is “coy” when asked if he would serve under him as Vice President.
Hardly a profile in courage, hey? Politic, maybe. But not principled. How’d that work out for Mike Pence?
And yet, Tara has promised to do Glenn’s bidding.
And yet, you’re here telling us that’s all fine.
You’re just misunderstood.
You tell me which part of that is untrue.
I’ll be happy to provide reference and footnotes if desired. i wish there were fewer reasons to be concerned. That he only had 2-3-4 felonies pending. Most folks make it through life without any. Especially rich folks.
You think me mentioning all of them is piling on. But it comes down to the question we had earlier regarding Obama’s one “lie”, such as it was – and the 30,000+ of Trumps. You remember the one because it was such a rarity. You ignore the other because it has happened so often.
Your moral justification for doing so is your business. I’m just not going to pretend it normal, acceptable, nor right – as you do, for your convenience.
Accountability and responsibility.
Feel free to try them. You might like it.
I know I would if you did.
What?
Are you asking me a question, or your imaginary voices?