tzikeh

Yeah, it really, really is. A big heap lot.

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twistedchick

The only problem with that is that the restrictions afterward on the country -- if even one person of that group survived -- would be worse than they are now. I've no taste for martial law, myself, and as a country we don't do it well -- see the Reconstruction Era.

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Well, yeah, but we could get a *really good marksman*. ;)

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I wish your title line had been true.

Please re-read what you have written hear and let me know if this is the sort of thing sane, rational, responsible people write in public spaces.

I don't care if it is what you think or what you feel, how emotional you oare, how much you care. Is this what responsible, intelligent people advocate for in public?

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jacquez.livejournal.com

If you think that's serious advocation of Uzi-enforced regime change, you probably need your head examined.

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cereta.livejournal.com

You fairly seriously need to look up the definition of "hyperbole."

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Erm...

Jackie - do you seriously believe I want to riddle the White House and Senate with bullets? Seriously? I mean, I can start with how us liberals don't believe in gun ownership and go from there.

And I don't believe venting my anger and frustration in my own lj is anywhere near to agitating for the violent removal of our current Administration. If I really wanted to kill these people, do you think I'd make it public?

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It's a public space. It is in print. If I actually thought you intended to do it, I would have called the secret service. This isn't a movie. It is real life. There is always a possibility that some idiot will actually do something exacty like that.

I can understand people being frustrated. I can understand needing to vent. I can understand having crazy comic book thought bubbles.

Saying something like that in any kind of a public space is irresponsible and unfunny.

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Saying something like that in any kind of a public space is irresponsible and unfunny.

I completely disagree, especially in the case of me saying what I like in my own journal. I find nothing irresponsible about public sarcasm, and if I'd thought it was unfunny, I wouldn't have posted it as such. Personally, I find anything broadcast on Fox News at any hour of the day or night much more irresponsible and much more unfunny, and they have a *much* larger audience than I do.

I guess we'll have to stay firmly on either side of this, since neither of us is going to see the other's position.

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Carol and I know a very nice, very large, very respectable family. Their father, a prominent Republican, invented something incredibly useful, and was very active in the local chamber of commerce and various community organizations.

Years ago, back in the late sixties/early seventies, somebody planted an explosive device or something in a federal building. I think it was the one in St. Paul. I don’t remember clearly. Earlier that day, the 18 year old son of this respectable inventor/businessman had parked his technicolor paisley van outside the federal building while he went in to get his passport squared away.

The van was distinctive. Several witnesses recalled seeing the van at the scene.

A few days later, two FBI agents visited the family home. Mom and some of the younger children were home. Mom made tea for the nice FBI agents and they asked her a few questions about her son. The FBI agents asked if she was aware of the explosion at the federal building. She said she was. They asked if she was aware that her son’s van had been parked in front of the building earlier that day.

She set down her tea cup and asked, “You don’t think Peter had anything to do with that, do you?”

The FBI agent responded, “Well, do you?”

Sidebar – This mother was very proud of how smart her children were. All 10 were geniuses. The eldest was completing his math degree at Harvard (I think he was there at the same time as Ted Kozinski) and dating an up-and-coming folk singer. Another child was a national Scrabble champion. All of the rest were straight-A students.

The mother was somewhat insulted by the agent’s question. “I can assure you that no child of mine would be dumb enough to park his own car in front of a building he was plotting to blow up. If one of my children wanted to blow something up, you would have no idea who had done it.”

The agents eyed each other nervously, thanked her for her cooperation, and left.

I believe this case went unsolved but am not entirely sure.

The family still laughs about the time Mom told off the FBI.

Several years later, one of the younger sons – now sixteen – had a part time job working in the mailroom of a large local company. It was around Christmas. He had made personalized Christmas cards for all of his friends and used the mail meter at work to get out of paying for the postage. He was particularly proud of the one for his girlfriend. If I remember correctly, it featured Santa flying through the night on his sleigh with ICBMs in hot pursuit over a barren wasteland.

He forgot to sign her card.

He and his friends were in the habit of calling each other by their initials. He had addressed all of his cards with the person’s first initial and last name.

His girlfriend - the daughter of an important labor leader - happened to have the same first initial as her father.

Dad was the one who got the mail that day and thought the card was for him. He had no idea what the it meant and since he did occasionally get strange death threats, thought it would be a good idea to report it to the FBI.

Thanks to our hero’s small bit of employee graft, it was very easy to narrow down the suspects. One imagines the FBI investigator’s eyebrow rising slightly as he went through the old files and found that name and the quote from Mom.

The next day, when he went to work, my friend was asked to report to one of the conference rooms. On the left side of the long table sat his boss, a representative of the HR department, and two guys from legal. On the right were four FBI agents. The folks on the left stayed just long enough to tell him he was fired.

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What followed was a rather uncomfortable interview. I am not certain of the length of this interview or what was said. I’m sure it felt longer than it was. Thankfully, they did not arrest him.

Now this was back in 1975. People could still see the funny side of terroristic threats back then. We are a much more paranoid society than we used to be.

I think the moral of this particular story (other than never smart off to the feds) is that you should be very careful about making certain kinds of jokes – especially in writing. You never know who will eventually see them or how they will be interpreted.

Betcha didn’t know we were known associates of suspected terrorists.

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I'm really sorry that happened to people you know, but it's also exactly the sort of fear agenda the current administration is pushing: Let's scare everyone shitless so they don't question anything we're doing to "keep them safe." And, I'm sorry, I don't agree.

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nestra.livejournal.com

I think it just proves that humor is subjective. Especially black humor.

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Personally, I find it disconcerting that friends are advocating censorship in the guise of "social responsibility." So very like the current administration.

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Yeah - I'm not really sure what to feel about the fact that this ultimately sounds like "watch your mouth". I mean, "Don't joke about *x* because it's rude / it's irresponsible / someone might take it seriously..." Buh?

Hey, I hear you're gonna make it to VividCon after all??

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Yeah - I'm not really sure what to feel about the fact that this ultimately sounds like "watch your mouth". I mean, "Don't joke about *x* because it's rude / it's irresponsible / someone might take it seriously..." Buh?

I know. The level of admin- and media-induced paranoia that's flourishing these days is truly frightening to me. Chillingly Orwellian.

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D'oh! Forgot this bit...

Hey, I hear you're gonna make it to VividCon after all??

Fingers crossed, yeah, though god knows I can't afford it!

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