[FRIAM] Tangled up in our own 2nd Amendment? Bleak Lives Manner?

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

Well, below is way too many words. But you asked. >8^D According to 

https://www.bestplaces.net/voting/metro/washington/olympia-tumwater

we're fairly liberal. (Compare SFe: https://www.bestplaces.net/voting/metro/new_mexico/santa_fe) But it *feels* more conservative than where we used to live in Clackamas county Oregon, which is conservative. I chalk it up to us being the capitol. I regularly get in discussions with people who are way more conservative than me... even people who sport beer steins with "Trump" on them. And being beer fans, I enjoy talking to them about beer. ... bikers also tend to be a bit more conservative than the gen pop and I enjoy talking to them about motorcycles.

All of these people I've talked to are *actually* "law and order" types ... not fake ones like Trump, but authentically seem to believe that laws passed by normal means (both regular and initiative legislation) should be followed and enforced, including supporting the impeachment process (with *no* conviction for Trump) for that Ukraine call. But it's important that I have not talked to anyone who goes to the stupid anti-mask rallies or whatever. (I do talk to the lefties who go to their rallies.)

For this reason, I was *happy* to see the Trump mob storm the DC capitol. It gives me common ground with my conservative peers. The guys we talked to last night *roundly* condemned both the DC mob and the local mob (that breached the gate around our gov's house). We all agree those guys should be prosecuted and tossed in jail. But the people waving Confederate flags outside the capitol are just fine. And they agree it's fine for me to flip them off and call them stupid as I drive by their "protest".

If I have insight at all, it is that the DC capitol mob was a *good* thing because it separates the criminals from the regular people (like I support the idiots who get swastika tattoos -- it's easier to see who's an idiot that way) ... just like separating "antifa" from (alleged criminal) Reinoehl. It's sad that the cops gave those white people in DC the benefit of the doubt (unlike the BLM people). If they'd been prepared, those 4 people might not have died. But otherwise, I refer back to people like Frantz Fannon and the *need* for catharsis, perhaps not so extreme of course.

I also support, to some extent, objections to the electoral votes *because* more light has to be shed on the undemocratic EC. If they could have simply objected once, with just the date changes made by the courts (instead of the legislature), just to make a point, then I would have thought it reasonable. I'm hoping the next time a R wins the EC but loses the pop vote, some Ds will symbolically object. Similarly, I'm glad for the Kavanaugh and ACB politicization of their nominations. SCOTUS is a partisan institution and we should doff the illusion that it's "neutral". It's a shame it has to be so painful. But we learn from pain.


On 1/7/21 9:24 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> You seem to be closer to a hotbed of the divide in Olympia than most of
> us...  what with the shootings during a left/right clash there and then
> the "me too's" breaching the Governor's Mansion perimeter last night.
> (and I know there is plenty more)
> 
> Do you have any insight into this coming from that proximity? 

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