Kenosha Wisconsin Shooter discussion

[Rafe]

She probably won't speak to me for a couple of weeks anyway. Oh well.

I imagine that you are desolate. PM me if you need prayer support.

I might. Sniff. Snowflake withdrawal is hard.

She's an old friend; we go back to right after college. We've drifted more apart in our views--of course I don't feel mine have changed much; but she probably doesn't feel hers have, either--but as long we don't talk politics, we're fine. We talk a few times a month, sometimes for up to an hour.

For the life of me, I can't in recent memory recall an actual debate with someone who leans more than about -10% left. There seems to seldom be any rationality, any applied logic or critical thinking. All emotions and perceptions. It must have been how Eratosthenes felt trying to convince people that the world wasn't flat. "Poppycock! Your evidence means nothing! It's one of your radical science-conservative tricks! It's all Trump's doing!"

[philip964]

Today's fun fact:
Greta Thunberg and Kyle Rittenhouse were born on the same day

Hm. Let's see. If I had the opportunity to sit down and have a coffee and chat, but could choose only one of them...

Interestingly, Kyle just came up in a phone call with a Very Democrat friend. She called to point to the sentence handed down to truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos for the April 2019 wreck that killed four people in Colorado. Her hypothesis was that the courts are rigged by conservatives and that white Rittenhouse got off scot free after murdering two men and wounding another with an Evil Black Rifle, while Latino Aguilera-Mederos had the book thrown at him with 110-year sentence just because his brakes failed. I didn't follow the Colorado case closely, but unwisely contradicted my friend by telling her that if was simple, accidental mechanical failure, Aguilera-Mederos would have been neither culpable nor negligent and it would never have gone to trial.

She said I was completely mistaken. It was nothing but an accident; the brakes failed. And as proof she said that's why an online petition to release Aguilera-Mederos has over 3 million signatures. But that there had been videos of Rittenhouse shooting those men. That the entire justice system is rigged and our country is in rapid decline all thanks to conservatives.

I made my second mistake and asked her if she actually had any details about the two cases, had followed the trials or knew the specific charges and verdicts.

To her credit, she came clean and said that (in not so many words; I'm paraphrasing) to her, facts don't matter. That (like seemingly all ardent leftists) it's what she knows that counts. And she knows a 26 man in Colorado who has skin that's brown was sentenced to 110 years just because the brakes on his truck failed.

My third mistake was a quick Google. "Actually," I said, "at trial the jury found Aguilera-Mederos guilty of 4 counts of vehicular homicide, 6 counts of first-degree assault, 10 counts of attempted first-degree assault, 4 counts of careless driving causing death, 2 counts of vehicular assault and 1 count of reckless driving. The DA's office says that they proposed plea deals to him, but that he declined to consider any alternative other than what would amount to a Class C Misdemeanor in Texas, basically a traffic citation. There's no way the charges could even have been brought, much less the jury find him guilty on all counts, if the crash was a result of accidental, mechanical failure.

"It seems," I said, "that the big furor over the sentence has to do with Colorado legislation that's been on the books for almost 30 years, a minimum-mandatory sentence provision for certain violent crimes. So the penalty ruling looks like it was largely out of the judge's hands, and Colorado law says the affected convictions have to be subsequent, the time can't be served consecutively. That's why the very long sentence."

"So tell me why Rittenhouse got away with murder without so much as a wrist-slap, and he used an assault rifle?!"

"Well, first, it wasn't an assault rifle. And second, the jury found him not guilty on all charges. He didn't 'get away' with anything. He was found not guilty, and rightly so. I followed that trial closely."

The call ended, but before she hung up she said something about my close-mindedness being tragic and that I'm incapable of applying logic to the humanity of situations. I found the "applying logic" part pretty humorous, but I didn't call her back to tell her that. She probably won't speak to me for a couple of weeks anyway. Oh well.

Did you point out that Colorado is far from conservative? I heard on the news this morning that the truck driver could have taken a breakdown lane, but didn't.

Yes, I have passed the emergency gravel pull off to slow your truck down very quickly if your brakes fail lane, many a time. Really hard to miss, if you have good brakes, I suspect immediately findable, if you have no brakes. I though there was something also about hitting other cars purposefully long before the deadly pile up. And we also have the depress the clutch, gun it and go into a lower gear, I think its called jack braking or something, little towns always have those signs prohibiting it because it makes a lot of noise. There are also all the signs at the top of the hill saying to use a lower gear down the hill, do not rely on your brakes.

Its kind of like, I didn't know the gun was loaded when I pointed it at the assistant directors head and pulled the trigger and then pulled back the hammer and released it.

[03Lightningrocks]

She probably won't speak to me for a couple of weeks anyway. Oh well.

I imagine that you are desolate. PM me if you need prayer support.

I might. Sniff. Snowflake withdrawal is hard.

She's an old friend; we go back to right after college. We've drifted more apart in our views--of course I don't feel mine have changed much; but she probably doesn't feel hers have, either--but as long we don't talk politics, we're fine. We talk a few times a month, sometimes for up to an hour.

For the life of me, I can't in recent memory recall an actual debate with someone who leans more than about -10% left. There seems to seldom be any rationality, any applied logic or critical thinking. All emotions and perceptions. It must have been how Eratosthenes felt trying to convince people that the world wasn't flat. "Poppycock! Your evidence means nothing! It's one of your radical science-conservative tricks! It's all Trump's doing!"

You hit a nerve of mine on that one. This has somehow become the new "go to" for leftist loons! It is as if they think my conservative leanings have anything at all to do with Donald Trump! I have been conservative since I voted Ronald in my first illegible to vote election. Jimmy Carter was all the leftist loon I needed to live through to know I was not a democrat.

[flechero]

"So tell me why Rittenhouse got away with murder without so much as a wrist-slap, and he used an assault rifle?!"

"Well, first, it wasn't an assault rifle. And second, the jury found him not guilty on all charges. He didn't 'get away' with anything. He was found not guilty.....

How dare you introduce facts into a discussion. I get friendships (have some relatives who are leftists) but I also like to lead them gently to the edge of the cliff before leaving them little choice but to keep on their trail.

[srothstein]

For the life of me, I can't in recent memory recall an actual debate with someone who leans more than about -10% left. There seems to seldom be any rationality, any applied logic or critical thinking. All emotions and perceptions. It must have been how Eratosthenes felt trying to convince people that the world wasn't flat. "Poppycock! Your evidence means nothing! It's one of your radical science-conservative tricks! It's all Trump's doing!"

I have had some debates with a liberal acquaintance (co-worker) who is at least somewhat honest about it. He will half-way agree to the facts and logic they imply, but his fallback argument is that he just can't get past the feelings involved. I find it humorous that he basically admits that he knows the facts and ignores them to react on an emotional basis.

Of course, he is a UT grad, so that might help explain it.

[Rafe]

Of course, he is a UT grad, so that might help explain it.

[srothstein]

I heard on the news this morning that the truck driver could have taken a breakdown lane, but didn't.

I heard this also and was told it was the basis for the charges and convictions. The driver supposedly had the brakes fail and still went past the runaway truck lane that would have stopped him. This made his behavior reckless enough to support the charges.

I am lucky and never had a truck runaway on me like that, though I have had a few scares at times. Having said that, I still have trouble believing that this was provable and reckless enough to support that many charges. My other problem with it is the DA put that many counts of each on to try to force a plea bargain. If the DA knew the law required consecutive instead of concurrent sentencing, he should have known this result would come about. I believe the DA was not looking for justice or fairness, but wanted a conviction at any cost. Now most of Colorado is asking the governor for clemency and the legislature to change this law.

[03Lightningrocks]

Of course, he is a UT grad, so that might help explain it.

My son graduated from UTA. When he would come home on breaks, it would take everything I had not to completely loose my crap on some of the leftist loon garbage that came out of his mouth. This was when Odumbell ran for his first term. Those kids had convinced each other that voting for Odumbell was the only way to prove you were not a racist. He could not tell me anything that Odumbell would do to improve our country. Just having a black president in itself was the ticket to freedom. It would usually shut him up when I reminded him that it was republican money paying his tuition and housing(ME). He then graduated from University of Houston school of law. He still will say things that make me want to hang myself but he claims to be libertarian now. I think the problem is that the entire higher education system has been taken over by communists. They are using the money conservative parents pay them to indoctrinate our youth in the ways of Karl Marx and social "equity".

I had him sitting in a deer stand with me at 3 years old and he killed his first buck at 8. He loves shooting sports and many of my conservative ways are deeply ingrained in him. I think his upbringing is all that stands between him and total leftist loon thinking.

[tomneal]

How many young folks have you seen that left for college a conservative and returned a liberal?

It seems to be a reoccurring pattern.

[BigGuy]

Of course, he is a UT grad, so that might help explain it.

My son graduated from UTA. When he would come home on breaks, it would take everything I had not to completely loose my crap on some of the leftist loon garbage that came out of his mouth. This was when Odumbell ran for his first term. Those kids had convinced each other that voting for Odumbell was the only way to prove you were not a racist. He could not tell me anything that Odumbell would do to improve our country. Just having a black president in itself was the ticket to freedom. It would usually shut him up when I reminded him that it was republican money paying his tuition and housing(ME). He then graduated from University of Houston school of law. He still will say things that make me want to hang myself but he claims to be libertarian now. I think the problem is that the entire higher education system has been taken over by communists. They are using the money conservative parents pay them to indoctrinate our youth in the ways of Karl Marx and social "equity".

I had him sitting in a deer stand with me at 3 years old and he killed his first buck at 8. He loves shooting sports and many of my conservative ways are deeply ingrained in him. I think his upbringing is all that stands between him and total leftist loon thinking.

If I'm not mistaken, it was Karl Marx who said, "The capitalists will sell us the rope that we use to hang them." When you think about the money the Clintons and Bidens have made from Russia and China, sounds like he was on to something.

[Ruark]

How many young folks have you seen that left for college a conservative and returned a liberal?

It seems to be a reoccurring pattern.

Oh, yeah, seen that many times. I still remember a good family friend many years ago. Their son was a great kid; he was an Eagle Scout (old style, not "modern"), FFA chapter president, loved hunting and fishing, a Baptist Christian, very neat, friendly and polite, on his high school's Honor Roll. A real model American young man.

He graduated from high school and went to A&M, which is notable because A&M is a relatively conservative culture. By the end of his first year, he had turned into a smelly, long-haired, atheistic, America-hating freak, and had already been busted for drug possession. He dropped out of college during his second year and got some crap job and never amounted to anything. Sad, but yeah, seen it happen.

[Rafe]

Relevant only regarding the logic versus emotion worldviews, but an interesting piece from the NRA-ILA yesterday, "Tracing Spurious Claims." In part:

Since leading anti-gun researchers acknowledged no connection between the 2020 surge in firearms sales and violence, unscrupulous anti-gun advocates must cite underwhelming statistics as meaningful evidence.

That’s what The Trace did, in an article written in collaboration with FiveThirtyEight.... Bloomberg’s activist-journalists looked at ATF reports showing the number of firearms traced broken out by the time between retail sale and tracing. They report that the number of firearms traced within a year of retail sale increased significantly from 2019 to 2020.... So, the number of firearms traced within a year increased in a year in which the number of all guns sold increased. That seems proportional. The Trace covers this point, too: the ratio of guns traced within seven months of retail sale to all gun sales has increased annually since 2013. That sounds much more dramatic than the proportion increased from about 0.11% to 0.3% from 2013 through 2020. That is eleven-one-hundredths of a percent to three-tenths of a percent. Naturally, that means that 99.7% of firearms are not traced within seven months of their acquisition.

That pretty much sums up the screams about a gun violence epidemic in the United States. By the National Vital Statistics System Mortality Data--and using 2018 data to take COVID out of the equation--firearm homicides accounted for 10,484 deaths, or 3.1 per 100,000 population. The total number of deaths was 2,839,205; firearm homicides accounted for 0.37%. The odds of your dying by an accidental cause that was not a firearm--falling off a ladder or being in a car crash for instance--were 1,594.1% greater than dying by firearm homicide.

For 2020 COVID (provisionally) comes in at 3rd place as a leading cause of death, and we had 3,358,814 total deaths last year. You know all the shouts and moans and hair-pulling from Giffords and other anti-gun organizations about the massive increase in gun deaths in 2020? Thing is, the numbers they use are still provisionary and unreliable, per the CDC, and they include everything from homicides to suicides to accidental shootings to Alec Baldwin (I couldn't resist).

Here are the data from Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/249 ... ed-states/. The raw numbers are definitely up: 13,620 homicides by firearm. But the number of total deaths was also up. Compared to 2018's 0.37% deaths by firearm homicide, where were we in the "gun violence epidemic" in 2020 when records were being regularly shattered for NICS checks? A whopping 0.41%. A staggering increase of 0.04%. That's four one-hundredths of a percent, or a decimal value of 0.0004. Based on a current population estimate of 333.85 million, that means the firearm homicide rate has actually decreased; it would now be 2.5 per 100,000 rather than 2018's 3.1.

I know. Completely wrong topic. But I got on a roll...

[TxRVer]

How many young folks have you seen that left for college a conservative and returned a liberal?

It seems to be a reoccurring pattern.

Oh, yeah, seen that many times. I still remember a good family friend many years ago. Their son was a great kid; he was an Eagle Scout (old style, not "modern"), FFA chapter president, loved hunting and fishing, a Baptist Christian, very neat, friendly and polite, on his high school's Honor Roll. A real model American young man.

He graduated from high school and went to A&M, which is notable because A&M is a relative conservative culture. By the end of his first year, he had turned into a smelly, long-haired, atheistic, American-hating freak, and had already been busted for drug possession. He dropped out of college during his second year and got some crap job and never amounted to anything. Sad, but yeah, seen it happen.

In this case I think it has more to do with getting involved in drugs than going to A&M. All the Aggies I know are productive conservatives.

[philip964]

Cleaning up loose ends. Trust the Independent as a news source.

[philip964]

https://www.westernjournal.com/bad-news ... ot-pretty/

Things not looking good for LeBron James and others.

Will not be pretty.