When the conservative Chicago Tribune says the justice department is being turned into an arm of the Republican National Committee (link ) you kinda have to start using strong language to talk about it, even if you are a Republican.

Hmmm. It hasn't reached the Court of law stage, so I guess you could say unproven if you only mean not accepted in a Court of Law yet.

To suggest that Comey's testimony has no basis of fact contradicts that it is the very same thing we've ALL heard from many of the "fired" US Attorneys. So, I feel confident that in this case, with multiple persons of high management office making claims that this Administration was indeed trying to restrict voting of those citizens who MIGHT vote against them did occur and can be claimed to be more than just an allegation at this point.

Of course, if you'd prefer to call all those US Attorneys, Comey, Deputy Attorney General Paul Mcnulty liars, well then, you may have a leg to stand on. Mumblypeg anyone?

Is predicting and promoting the same thing? Are you serious?

As I have pointed out many times I am not religious, but rather more of an agnostic.

So in your war fantasy am I the enemy?

It is not a fantasy as a recognition of a reality. Are you the enemy? That is up to you, but most likely you would not be on my side of the fight.

Should I feel threatened?

Not at all, for it is not I who would be coming for YOU, but rather the other way around.

after all, this is Swords Crossed.

But I was thinking more that there are some valid points to explore, you know, together. . .

if you don't really feel like discussing much of it.

Maybe I would eventually write up my thoughts on it as well.

Now you seem to be showing your bigotry, because I never meant what you seem to think I meant. Although I can understand the historical perspective that may have lead you down that path ... I apologize for a poor choice of words but in my defense I wasn't even remotely thinking of the context of racial bigotry. None of my post is meant to defend or even address the issue of racial bigotry.

The "noose" in this case is referring to the strangle hold that the left is attempting to put on the personal freedoms of those on the right. So "as the noose continues to tighten" means "as the left continues to push their belief system onto everyone else (and thereby oppress ever larger numbers of people on the right)".

And exactly relevant.

Conservatives are not free from criticism. Yet when it comes from the "dreaded
left" it is manufactured to represent some sort liberal tyranical plot.

The whole premise of this liberal tyranny is so ridiculous on its face, and on its rear end.

But the two party system forces people to choose sides to simply get their issues through, and in so doing they enable the oppression on topics that they may not even care about. In other words, as a group the Democrats are able to pass things (because of the give and take within their coalition) that the individual groups could never get through.

In the end, however, the oppression still gets institutionalized and the country effectively operates as if there were only two sides.

I cannot resist.

{{{{{{{{{{{"hug"}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Especially on this point:

You don't trust a bunch of academics to portray your side in the future?

Yes, this is a true concern of mine.

But that only makes sense ...

Maybe that's why I said it in the first place! ;-)

Gosh, pico, the other day I was "right" and today I "make sense". You better be careful or your liberal buddies might think that I am winning you over or something! He he.

You may have noticed that the Clinton presidency is about as popular among progressives as the Bush presidency is among conservatives, which is not very much. So you're outlining a battle between two sides that have little more than a halfhearted interest in their own leaders?

Yes, I have noticed that. I am glad to see that you have as well. With regards to your question, do you believe that a half-hearted interest in politics equates to a half-hearted conviction to your personal beliefs? I do not.

Clinton and Bush are figure heads. Most people don't really care who the figure head is. That does not mean that they don't have deeply held beliefs and convictions which they are willing to fight and die for.

like the Oklahoma City gang (do you really want to be associated with them?)

You are relying on guilt by association now? Do I advocate what happened in Oklahoma City? No. Do I understand the outrage that (supposedly) caused it? Yes. Does that make me the same as them in your eyes?

Either way, they serve as an example for my point. They serve as the canary on the right concerning the willingness to fight and that they are doing so because they believe that the left is infinging on their rights.

I don't know anyone on the left who wants to wage war against half the country* - complaints have been pretty specifically targeted against neocons who they want to throw out of office.

And I don't know anyone on the right who "wants" to wage war on half the country.* [ Your implication is offensive, BTW. ] I do know that there are people on the right that will defend themselves against tryanny ... at least tyranny as they see it.

For example, Waco. Those people were living their lives and the left, in the form of the government, came for THEM. Not the other way around. And not in a nice civil way but with heavily armed and armored personnel. They did not knock on the door and simply ask Koresh to give himself up (in spite of the fact that he had always cooperated in the past). No, they wanted to make a big show of it, so in the end force was met with force. Who was the agressor in this case?

Let's consider Ruby Ridge. The government seeks to entrap Randy Weaver on manufactured gun charges (the courts bore this out) to get him to infiltrate and inform on some Aryan group. When he failed to appear in court because the government had given him the wrong date, they came after him with force. They shot his son's dog, then his son, then his wife while she was holding a 10 month old baby in her arms. Again, force was met with force. Who was the agressor in this case?

These are only the two most famous examples. The are countless other examples with less tragic outcomes where the liberals, in the form of the government, have killed people, stolen private property, and countless other atrocities against people who were just living their lives, minding their own business, and/or defending their homes from the governmental oppression of the left.

* And the nutcases at dkos that write about these things are your canaries on the left. I forget who it was and am not going to try and find it, but there was a liberal blogger of some reputation who was convinced that the right are the only ones who threaten violence. He issued a challenge for people to email him examples where someone on the left was advocating violence, fully expecting to get maybe a small trickle of responses. The response was so great that he eventually had to ask people to stop sending him stuff and he conceded the point. He still maintained that the left was "not as bad", but had to admit that the left was threatening violence as well.

No what you did was to suggest a causality:

a decline in (online) civil discourse -> civil war

That causality is wrong.

This is incorrect. I never made any such claim. My original quote:

The ever decreasing level of civility in public debate is also a symptom. Look at the conversations between myself and Tlaloc if you doubt me on this point.

and my follow-up quote:

Do you disagree that our interactions are indicative of a decline in the civility of political debate in this country, which is the only point I made?

So, we have:

1) I specifically referred to the decline in civility of political debate as being a symptom [of the problem] and not a cause [of the civil war].

2) You fabricating an assertion of causality to argue against. [i.e. a strawman]

3) You intentionally misrepresenting the scope of debate that I actually stated. [i.e. lying by your standards of verifiable truth - you are hereby fined $10 ]

P.S. Notice how I adopted that MediaMatters style that you prefer so much, so no complaints about my style, OK? :-)