This is what’s known in logic as a “false dilemma” or “false dichotomy.”
No one is calling for the Second Amendment to be abolished. Does anyone think that the Founding Fathers would have protected the rights of deranged teenagers to access assault rifles that can kill a roomful of people in just a few seconds?
This is simple stupidity.
I would love to know how many times the conversation here has played itself out across this great nation of ours.
It would also be interesting to know how many children of parents who watch Fox “News” have worried that part of their inheritance is now in Trump’s wallet.
From the Sierra Club:
Many of us live in fear that American society will never regain its capacity to discern truth from lies, and that the impact Trump has made on his base has permanently transformed our nation into a citizenry that can no longer think rationally.
I’m not convinced.
I expect that this guy’s brother exemplifies a trend that’s already begun and is gaining momentum: people’s realizing that Trump actually is a criminal, and quietly going back to life as it existed before the conman arrived on the scene.
I don’t see the need to do anything further than bringing criminal charges against those who provided material aid to the insurrection.
Some of these people are in very deep Bandini. It appears, for instance, that on January 5th, some of our lawmakers gave tours of the Capitol, showing the precise location of places like Nancy Pelosi’s office so that it could be raided the following day. Evidently, someone told his tour group, “Here’s where Mike Pence will be at 1 PM tomorrow afternoon.”
That’s some combination of treason, sedition, and possibly even attempted murder. That guy is not going to be serving in Congress; he’s going to be serving 20 – life in federal prison.
Rational and kind folks look at this and wonder what could possibly motivate someone to take a tack in life that makes them detested by the vast majority of their countrymen (and 100% of well-educated people).
The answer is that they live in a cult, where all their friends are like-minded members. What the rest of the world thinks about them is irrelevant.
I agree that this is a brilliant tactic.
Yet the Trump base is desperate to maintain the fiction that the charges against their hero are politically motivated, regardless of how indefensible that claim may be.
There isn’t a whole hell of a lot of reasoning going on there.
Here’s a popular narrative: a civil war is brewing in the United States.
It’s possible to imagine that a large and heavily armed collection of Trump supporters who believe the Big Lie gets news that their hero has been charged with treason and go immediately on the attack.
Here’s what’s not credible, however: the majority of affluent Americans, people of sanity and intelligence, allow it to happen.
For a moment, try to forget about the hateful morons, and think about the real prosperity in this land of ours, the reasonably well educated businesspeople, shoppers, Little League coaches, soccer moms, country clubbers, and the like.
Their fathers fought and won WW2, and know they’re going to lose their liberty to people who can’t spell the word “liberty?” It’s simply not going to happen.
Of course, it’s not quite all.
This is going to make tens of millions of hateful morons very angry, but that’s a price that we, as a nation, must be willing to pay.
A country that supposedly loves liberty but doesn’t serve up justice to a leader who attempts to become an authoritarian ruler is not a free nation; it’s not a place where decent people want to live.
Kudos to the artist, Steve Funk.
I’m amazed he’s still in the country. It looks certain he’ll be charged at this point, after which he’ll be unable to leave.
Sure, there will be those who claim indicting him is political vengeance, and that it sets a precedent whereby all future presidents can be similarly attacked, but attempting to overthrow the U.S. government, i.e., committing treason, is not something that can be dismissed.
