Hi, all. Have the carpet guy coming on Wednesday to replace all the carpet, which means I’ve been disassembling and moving heavy furniture all week and all weekend, the upshot of which has left me quite sore and — at nights — quite tired, to the point that a couple beers knock me out cold on one the couches I still have to move, which sits atop the old carpet I still have to tear out.
We also had our new house walk-through on Friday, which involved my wife and me putting blue dot stickers on about a thousand spots around the inside and outside of the dwelling. We close a week from tomorrow, after which I have to rip up carpet, vinyl, and wood flooring that afternoon and evening to ready the new place for a crew to come in on the 27th to lay the new hardwood, the heated flooring, andenc
Still, none of this has kept me from following the various odious actions of the leftists who are going to bring about their own demise unless they re-think their strategies.
To wit: as I noted on Twitter over the weekend, those conservatives who weren’t really sold on Perry and had already ruled out Bush, Christie, Romney, et al., as viable candidates — and so maybe were inclined to stay home in 2016 — will now likely rally around him as a victim of abuse of power and what should be criminalized lawfare. Too, his presence in the national media over this shows up not only the willingness of the left to use show trials as a political tool with real liberty and sovereignty-troubling consequences– which should frighten every last one of us, particularly those of us with a knowledge of how the Soviets operated — but it also lends itself to speculation that the tactic may reach higher than the unethical blunderings of some routinely drunk DA in Travis County: Perry has been defying Obama with respect to the border and has made it clear he has Texas’ interests at heart; and we know Obama can’t stand to be shown up and has thinner skin than a translucent premie.
My own take is that Perry will benefit politically from this — though I tend not to care much about those sorts of things so much as using his “indictment” to point out the absolute lawlessness (and willingness to engage in it), given cover by the veneer of law enforcement in Travis County and its DA’s office, that lies at the heart of the liberal fascist playbook.
This was, in my estimation, a grave miscalculation. And the fact that many on the left are distancing themselves from it — if only because they, too, reckon it to be a poor play (not out of any ethical considerations; these are leftists, after all) — tends to support my belief.
Secondly: I haven’t been around to comment much on Ferguson, but yet again we’re finding that the story of an aggrieved innocent shot by a racist cop — in the back, no less — for the crime of walking while black, is crumbling. The race hustlers and liberal cheerleaders for the “social action” of looting — because hey, speed bumps, you know — have crawled all over themselves to make arguments that are, to the vast majority of those keeping up with the story, I suspect, quite unpersuasive. Additionally, the news media’s “coverage” — which has been a performative in how to keep ratings high by injecting oneself into the story and actually driving much of the conflagration (or at least, prolonging it and increasing the severity) — is turning off a lot of people.
I think the ethnic grievance industry, between what’s happening with “comprehensive immigration reform” and now this shooting in MO that seems to be trending toward the police’s own narrative of events (and let’s face it: I’ve been very tough on the police at times; but that doesn’t mean an innocent cop doing his job, if that turns out to be the case, must become a symbolic scapegoat, thrown to the mob for the “greater good”), is going to be weakened by these hamfisted oversteps. Risk-averse businesses will of course continue to grant them special dispensation; but the American people are growing weary of being told they are part of a racist and segregated country, as if we were all living in Bull Connor’s America in the 60s.
We had a (disastrous) change of government over war-weariness and an attempt to be seen as racially inclusive; I think the pendulum swing that’s coming is going to shock progressives, whose influence has always been outsized and aided by a media that the American people no longer trust.
I hope I’m right.
In the meantime, I support Perry, denounce the calls for the “death” of the policeman in MO, and will look at pols of both parties to see how they react to each of these stories. The GOP establishment had better begin speaking up for Perry; because the more politically savvy leftists are already taking the lead there.
I’ll try to put up a few more posts today, but my wife is away on business, Satch is at school, so it’s just me and Tanner right now. And I have to move a gun safe and a number of firearms down to the basement alone today.
— or at least, I would, if I hadn’t lost all of my firearms and accessories in that tragic boating accident a year or so back.
Ahem.
Lot of that going around, I here. Boating accidents, I mean. Bloody statistical anomaly, it is…
Um, yeah, still dredging the lake for the SCAR…
Ridicule. That’s the way to go. Rosemary Lehmberg, Cîroc, animated gif.
And attack. Somebody else must do the attack. Wreck careers, damage lives. I am not up to that, nor positioned to do any real damage. That’s the thing about conservative types. They tend to be so… what’s the word… it’s on the tip of my tongue… conservative! That’s it, conservatives tend to be overly conservative.
How did that happen? Jeeze, Louise. I was quite clear about copy and paste.
http://bour3pages.blogspot.com/2014/08/rosemary-lehmberg-ciroc.html
The empty promises, the flip-flops, the laughable alibis, the despotic overreach, the self-righteous and rancorously partisan manner, the lavish perquisites in an anemic economy — these characteristic features of the current regime are beginning to grate on all but the most mindless followers. Or am I the blind one?
Jeff:
“[…] the news media’s “coverage” — which has been a performative in how to keep ratings high by injecting oneself into the story and actually driving much of the conflagration (or at least, prolonging it and increasing the severity)[…]”
Boy! The similarities between Ferguson, MO and Gaza keep coming. All we need is UN and Federal involvement, a call for a Ferguson “Peace Process,” and out-of-town agitators running around in fatigues, and it’ll be an exact mimic.
BTW: Big demotion looming for Rand Paul in my mind. He was too quick to ape key aspects of the Sharpton-mob’s script, and he may not be able to pull back from this association as law-and-order voters head to the polls in the South, Midwest and Southwest.
I guess my favorite part of the Ferguson narrative is the notion that the guy was a teenager. He was, in age only. Otherwise that was a more than full-grown man.
no he had his whole life ahead of him same as other teens his age
but no savory fried porkchop sandwich dinner that night or any night to come on account of he had way less prudence than other teens his age who look forward to having savory fried porkchop sandwiches for dinner
true enough but seems to me the imprudence of the inept cop has been of far more consequence
AP Stylebook Says that Men Aged 18 or Older Should be Called “Men,” Not “Teen” or “Teenager,” So Why Does AP Keep Calling 18 Year Old Giant Michael Brown a “Teenager”?
no he had his whole life ahead of him same as other teens his age
He made at least two very bad choices we know of that day … he was certainly the author of his own fate.
18 and 19 y/o soldiers are killed in combat. Does the media use “teenaged” to describe them?
I’m not seeing the imprudence of the cop yet. May turn up somewhere sooner or later, but got nothing on it thus far. And neither, really, is there anything on which to hand inept, since in general terms Officer Wilson can have a savory fried porkchop sandwich tonight if that suits his dinner fancy.
hang for “hand” — means can’t put it there
i have a salad for later
that and some leftover sweet potato fries
plus ginger lemonade (made with splenda)
that’s all i can have the whole rest of the day
but seems to me officer pop-a-cap knew this guy was a suspect in a robbery where no weapons were employed
and also it seems to me we should all be able to expect these popo losers to be able to take down your Average Unarmed Big Black Guy without treating us all to the tedium of body bags and racial strife and two-hour anderson cooper specials
some fine teenagers
Columbine High School massacre
>these popo losers <
you be watching too much chuck norris
a robbery where no weapons were employed
Tells him nothing relevant, if in fact bigBrown had only moments earlier attempted to seize Wilson’s pistol. And if Wilson had only barely maintained possession of that pistol and thinking the second attempt might not come out so well (this is all hypothetical, of course) acted with dispatch in self-defense. Successfully, if Wilson’s capacity to have a savory fried porkchop sandwich for dinner this evening should he choose is taken into account.
i don’t believe about the attempt to seize the pistol yet
I don’t happen to know whether it is true, but I do know the account is already out there in the incorrigible gaseous diarrhea squirting across the airwaves. It does make a plausible story though.
>i don’t believe about the attempt to seize the pistol yet<
well the photo of ofiicer wilson post "gentle mike" encounter will be released at some point.
i saw this:
Anderson Cooper Accidentally Tweets Mindset Of Ferguson Community Protestors – Why Won’t Police Offer Just One Cop For A Sacrifice…
but the black “commune” already took out 2 “white” leos this summer
Cop killer’s widow rages: He should’ve killed more cops
Family Of Cop-Killer: If Officer Had Stayed In His Car, He Wouldn’t Have Been Shot
They’re trying to Trayvon the narrative about Big’mike, and Trayvon tried to take Zimmerman’s gun…
Too, as Ernst points out in another thread, the gun may have discharged while inside the cruiser, in which event there should be physical evidence of the claim, like either a slug through something or gunshot residue present, or both. So that part of the story may prove to have particular material backing apart from anyone’s speech.
It seems to me that AUBBG knew he had just robbed a convenience store when the popo loser rolled up on him. And also seems to me we should expect AUBBG who choose to get into physical altercations with the popo to wind up in bodybags. racial strife and anderson cooper specials don’t enter into it.
Also, fuck you.
Doesn’t that depend on which political party occupies the White House?
Not unlike this case, come to think of it.
heck, I thought the usual terms were babykillers and killbots and such, age havin’ nuttin’ to do with it where the press is concerned.
No idea is this was a righteous kill or not but I wouldn’t call a dude my height with another 40 to 50 pounds of muscle something like your average big dude.
No, that’s getting into super heavyweight territory.
I know that I didn’t want to fight guys like that even after years of training. They had this unfortunate ability to rag-doll me.
I mean, seriously, this is not an average big guy. That’s just nonsense.
They’re only babykillers and killbots after they’ve been “our kids,” “just boys” (and “girls” too, now, I suppose), “children barely out of high school,” etc.
It takes subtlety to poison a well that deep, don’chya know?
Doc Baden after looking over the guy’s body said he thought bigMike had the kind of body that coulda made a lot of money as an interior lineman in the NFL, though he wasn’t judging skills and all
bh displayin’ his prejudice towards the “thug challenged” and that’s not right.
You’re on trial buddy, just like America.
Can’t we all just get along? What’s some sizzup and a few blunts compared to the long history of untold suffering due to all the wrongs yet to be righted?
Like Anderson Cooper says, can’t we sacrifice the occasional cop along with the white hispanics? For the greater good?
i ‘m with limbaugh: who ever is on the “offensive” rules. start talking about blacks killing leos.
What’s wrong with starting with blacks killing other blacks?
hey let’s free mumia to a armed leo firing squad?
>What’s wrong with starting with blacks killing other blacks?<
collateral damage for the bra/demonrats. besides: GUN CONTROL!
the blacks are abused by “black run america”.
the blacks are abused by “black run Zimbabwe”.
they know the great “baracky” has effed them.
From your linked comment, Ernst. That’s about right, as far as I can tell.
Take it from your average (occasionally) unarmed big guy. Fighting a giant is a bitch and a half.
The double blockquote just reinforces my impertinence in piping up in the face of my betters.
Not disagreeing here. Just not agreeing either. I’m an agnostic sort. Don’t know what the truth of the matter is.
Note: my use of “righteous kill” might have been a mistake. If it’s a term of art, I’m probably not using it correctly as I pulled it out of my internal dictionary (you can read that as pulled it out of my ass) at random when I was typing the comment.
I wouldn’t fight a giant. BUT if a giant who wanted to fight me did me the courtesy of letting me know well in advance (boats and drag anchors might be involved ifykwim, and perhaps also certain types of paperwork), I might believe myself threatened enough to use deadly force until I know longer believed myself or others to be endangered.
it isn’t hard to read righteous in an ordinary language sense as filled with justice, hence as a justifiable act in fine.
What we’re touching on here is the fact that the police are private citizens without imperium. We complain when they talk nonsense and pretend they’re outside the law when it comes to being shit talked or photographed.
At the same time, we do also have to recognize that they are private citizens. They have the same rights to self defense as the rest of us. You can’t just chuck a brick at a cop and pretend you’re throwing it at “the man”. No, they’re citizens of the United States of America. They get to shoot you dead on the spot when you threaten them with bodily harm.
I knew you were using that as a term of art. I just saw an opportunity to reframe the discussion. The baiters and hustlers want this to be about Brown’s death, when what it should be about is Warren’s response to Brown’s actions.
There are bastards who need killing, and then there are threats to persons and property that need stopping. Not all threats need to be killed in order to be stopped (but death is sometimes a secondary consequence of ending the threat).
> No, they’re citizens of the United States of America.<
no they're citizens of a local government in missouri : 9th and 10th amendment speaking. being shot dead for being for being a thug is not a fed thing.
My parents were visting from out of state last week and my father said something interesting. “When I was a kid, people respected the police, you knew they were there to help.” That was in the 50s, i.e. before Earl Warren and the rest of the do-good liberals started hamstringing law enforcement because fairness or some other society is to blame bullshit. And it occurred to me that two things have happened in subsequent years, the police have lost respect, and the police have resorted to paramilitary intimidation to compensate for the loss of prestige.
That’s a general observation, Obviously there were, and continue to be bad apples who abused the authority accrued to them by better men, not to mention the misuse of legitimate authority in support of laws that ideally, never should have been legitimate.
True (sorta) but irrelevant.
when the “black commune” stops telling their kids to stop “acting white” i might imagine that they aren’t effin shills for the “black commune”. meanwhile the asians of all colors fry their bacon. fu muslimes.
WTF?
I’m not even allowing a “sorta” true.
>True (sorta) but irrelevant.<
make a federal case (out) of something (American)
to make something seem more important or serious than it really is (usually negative)
I think getting somebody from the black community to say rioting and pillaging and so forth was unacceptable because it was not, in fact, a “black thing” would be a good first start.
But what do uncle toms like Bill Cosby, Clarence Thomas, Walter E. Williams, Thomas Sowell, and Shelby Steele (sp?) know about “keepin’ it real, yo”?
Hell, this is why we can’t have nice things.
I’m gonna spend a few comments in a row talking about how cops are citizens with natural rights? No thank you.
Damn it, can’t we have adult discussions around here anymore?
>WTF?<
i'm noticing certain patterns between "the leaders of the 'black commune' and the media" . let us kill leos is one of them. i'm sure it is in "jest"./sarc
oh yea mumia. always mumia!!11!!
I’m allowing that nr is riffing off of your comment, in which “citizens of the United States of America” is transposed from the “police” of your comment, to “thug” in his comment.
A dead thug’s estate may not have a federal case for being a dead thug, per se, but a dead black thug’s estate may have a federal case if that thug is dead because he’s black and not because he’s a thug. Hence the “sorta.”
Now, “i’m noticing certain patterns between “the leaders of the ‘black commune’ and the media” . let us kill leos is one of them. i’m sure it is in “jest”./sarc
oh yea mumia. always mumia!!11!!” I can’t help you with.
Nobody knows that much newrouterspeak
Well, what I meant and stated in clear language was that cops are citizens with the same rights to self-defense as the rest of us.
That hasn’t been abrogated by the 9th or 10th amendment.
So, the nonsense that followed was just that, nonsense.
>Hell, this is why we can’t have nice things.<
because no one wants to talk about low/thug culture blacks. they steal our money by being stupid peeps. ax the former mike brown and trayvon.
Only if we can all agree on when we’re using make a Federal case out of X literally, and when we’re using it figuratively.
Of course, that’s now damn near impossible, given that even the OED has conceded that literally can mean figuratively.
As in
“he literally has his head all the way up his ass!”
and
“it is literally impossible to put your head up your ass”
are both acceptable usages for literally
I’ll leave it to others to decide whether the following useage is meant literally or figuratively
“he literally cannot take his head out of his ass”
and about whom I speak
READERPOLL!!!!!
In your example I’d say it’s literally true in a figurative sense.
No, because nobody can keep up with your Tourrette’s-like transitions.
I’m choosing to blame the medium as much as the messenger.
bh is trying to have a conversation and you’re doing Gary Busey rides the special bus impressions.
is what I’m saying
>So, the nonsense that followed was just that, nonsense.<
no as "portrayed in the newspaper" leo cause their own demise in the "black commune". see when your central unifying objective is "snitches get stitches" there is nothing outside of the "tribe". see the qt that wasn't where mikey was.
>bh is trying to have a conversation<
about what exactly? in july 2014 2 leos are killed by blacks. 1 suspects relative says she wants more leos killed the other said "hey don't get out of the car". eff the "black commune" they are as narcissistic as the baracky.
If some Soros-like entity was to pay agents to disrupt real discussion on this site I’d like to know how it would look different than this.
Anyways, fun talking with you as always, Ernst.
Later, man.
Here’s an adult conversation I listened to this morning, with Amy and Leon Kass. Found it pretty moving when the reveal came around.
>If some Soros-like entity was to pay agents to disrupt real discussion on this site I’d like to know how it would look different than this.<
could be koch bros no? your problem is that you don't want to discuss feral low iq blacks. i've dealt with them up close and personal via section 8 housing. some are ok but dude face it stupid peeps aren't good neighbors that is why:
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
The armadillo would be neon-yellow?
Calling it a day myself pretty soon. We’re on school time again. And this morning was ugly.
>to discuss feral low iq blacks.<
@18 robbing peeps and "living with grandma". what college exactly was this scholar accepted to?
>If some Soros-like entity was to pay agents to disrupt real discussion on this site I’d like to know how it would look different than this.<
soros/demonrats/black"activist" use the "black commune" against america.
the above are statists who love power like "black power" see zimbabwae . no they like control and eff the peasents.
Maybe the problem is that “feral low iq blacks” is at present the only thing you want to discuss?
Hard to dialogue with a monologue.
>Later, man.<
go live with the poor american blacks and report your anthropology findings. for the science.
Of course, that’s now damn near impossible, given that even the OED has conceded that literally can mean figuratively.
Buckley (no not the dead one, some Canadian guy) on the OEDs kowtowing to idiots. He’s not a fan.
>Maybe the problem is that “feral low iq blacks” is at present the only thing you want to discuss? <
well middle class blacks aren't a problem. but come a financial collapse. yea big problem. my ? why isn't "acting white" a racist term in the black commune? why is black racism tolerated? why are stupid peeps tolerated in the ruining class? is the ruining class composed of stupid evil peeps?
It took something like one to two centuries for most countries to standardize language, and now thanks to things like texting and twitter, we’re well into the process of undoing that.
And don’t get me started on the slackness that’s come with depending on computers. I’ve seen more errors in published books since Microsoft introduced spellcheck than I ever saw before.
Some of it has to do with the fact that the baiters and hustlers want to talk about black peeps, and you do too, so even though you disagree, you’re playing on their turf because for them, it’s about the disagreement.
You mentioned above that you agreed with Limbaugh about the aggressor controlling the conversation. Maybe the thing to do is to make it about the white guy instead of the black guy? It’s not Officer Wilson’s fault that he was born white. Can’t a white guy be a cop without being thought of as a racist?
After all, white cop kills black boy is the new black boy rapes white woman.
As for the ruining class, they don’t know what they don’t know But since they, unlike you, went to all of the right schools from the age of 3, it must not be worth knowing. So, stupid, with stupidity as the breeding ground for evil.
>It took something like one to two centuries for most countries to standardize language, and now thanks to things like <
the communist/assholes lost
His base was the Tuskegee Institute, a historically black college in Alabama. As lynchings in the South reached a peak in 1895, Washington gave a speech in Atlanta that made him nationally famous. The speech called for black progress through education and entrepreneurship. His message was that it was not the time to challenge Jim Crow segregation and the disfranchisement of black voters in the South. Washington mobilized a nationwide coalition of middle-class blacks, church leaders, and white philanthropists and politicians, with a long-term goal of building the community’s economic strength and pride by a focus on self-help and schooling. Secretly, he supported court challenges to segregation.[1] Black militants in the North, led by W.E.B. Du Bois, at first supported the Atlanta Compromise but after 1909 they set up the NAACP and tried with little success to challenge Washington’s political machine for leadership in the black community.[2] Decades after Washington’s death in 1915, the Civil Rights movement generally moved away from his policies to take the more militant NAACP approach.
link
>Maybe the thing to do is to make it about the white guy instead of the black guy? It’s not Officer Wilson’s fault that he was born white.<
hey point out that alsharpton americans got 2 last month? in the spirit of "free mummia"?
>After all, white cop kills black boy is the new black boy rapes white woman.<
good allan stupid. why you say "boy" racist?
my dog’s name is “boy”
That would an example of the Tourette’s thing I was talking about.
The rise and impending fall of standardized language not having any obvious connection to Washington, Du Bois, the Tuskeegee Institute or the NAACP.
No, that’s still making it about the black guy.
so how do you cope with the feral black dysfunction? if they’re not “acting white/asian/arab what then?
I did it for the alliteration.
I don’t accept the premise that polite, civilized, social behavior is based in race anymore than I accept the premise that impolite, barbaric, antisocial behavior is based in race. One’s acceptable because it allows people to live together peaceably, and the other is unacceptable because it prevents that.
>The rise and impending fall of standardized language not having any obvious connection to Washington, Du Bois, the Tuskeegee Institute or the NAACP.<
you're joking. the proggtards in conjunction with naacp and the language crowd of academia led us to this junction.
> One’s acceptable because it allows people to live together peaceably, and the other is unacceptable because it prevents that.<
"snitches get stitches" burns your whitopia
can you think like m. brown? @300lbs, 18 and stupid.
No. What led us to where we are, vis-a-vis language (I probably should have said something like “standardized usage”) is people being acclamated to lazy habits of writing in abbreviated shorthand because the comms tech (see what I did there?) and price structures of service providers (and there?) Encourage us to. Same with other mediums, like IMing, blogging, tweeting, etc. (and again!). This is written medium, yet people tend to treat it more like a spoken medium. Speed of expression is preferred to clarity of expression. The problem starts in the 80s with word processing. As the programs get better, habits of proof-reading get worse.
It used to be a damn lot of work to get words onto paper, so one would take the time to do it right. Today? Who gives a shit about the man who buys his ink by the barrel? Pixels are practically free!
I understand your point about controlling language in order to control thought. But really, what we’re doing is preventing language in order to prevent thought. And we’re doing it voluntarily, no newspeak dictionaries, minitrus or memory holes necessary!
Orwell wept.
Everybody’s stupid at 18. Hopefully more of us have people who care about us enough to correct our stupidity, instead of condoning and/or encouraging it, than don’t. Sadly that seems to be less and less the case these days.
“snitches get stitches” by the way derives from an immature and defective moral understanding of acceptable and unacceptable ways of living in community with one another. It’s as wrong in black commune as it is in whitopia.
We need to start rejecting subjectivity and embrace objective moral standards.
*** Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Udall (Colo.) billed taxpayers $4,500 since 2011 for services from an independent wealth advisory firm that specializes in extremely rich clients and wealth created over multiple generations.
According to reports released by the Secretary of the Senate, Udall used official funds to pay BSW Wealth Partners, a Boulder, Colorado-based independent wealth adviser that was founded by a campaign donor, each year between 2011 and 2013. ***
Colorado ought to be justly proud to be represented by a man who proves he has l’arned the lessons of the generations of his family who have served in government, and built a fortune thereby.
Problem is we’ve been inundated by Californian locusts.
The Californians maybe think to acquire a piece of Udall’s action.
Harvey Mansfield to Bill Kristol, concerning Machiavelli’s teaching in Prince 15: *** And as it comes out, people who profess to be good often aren’t good or maybe not often. Maybe they’re usually good or even always good, but when the crucial situation comes on which everything depends – say, they will tell a lie or betray a friend or commit a crime or do something dishonest – and Machiavelli says, “You would, too.” So, that’s what I mean by fascinating. ***
This, I would claim, is what both Udall and the Californians assert by their actions: “You would, too.” And I couldn’t possibly stop with them.
Machiavelli can easily point to the perfidy dominating America today, and say “See? I was right. This is what men are, this is what men do.” And he might add: Arm yourselves.