Patterico's Pontifications

3/29/2010

Anyone Recognize These Guys?

Filed under: Politics — DRJ @ 8:54 pm

[Guest post by DRJ]

Help Greyhawk at the Mudville Gazette find these guys.

— DRJ

Comments (32)

32 Responses to “Anyone Recognize These Guys?”

Greyhawk is right, it doesn’t matter if these people are TEA partiers or not. They are criminals and need to be brought to justice.

They all look a lot like SEIU or AFL CIO goons. They just have that look to them. They honestly look like violent goons. But for all I know, they really are right wingers. I wouldn’t want to tangle with those huge boys.

Some of the shots are really good and I bet they are identified. It’s suspicious that they are outside the protest area facing the camera. If this is a dirty trick, it’s still a crime.
dustin (b54cdc) — 3/29/2010 @ 9:24 pm
They just have that look to them. They honestly look like violent goons.

Funny.Look to me like they’re looking for the beer cooler or the line for the hot dogs and burgers.And I certainly don’t see anything in their sign more threatening than the rhetoric the Founding Fathers used to express their displeasure with King George.
Somebody needs to get a life and stop taking Andrew seriously.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 3/29/2010 @ 10:52 pm
EW1, these people look like teamsters. Perhaps you are fortunate not to have seen them, but that’s just what they look like. From their facial expression to their build, they look like goon thugs because of the build you correctly mock for being fat.

As far as the language on the sign, that’s not protected speech, and the founding fathers weren’t cool with it. It’s unfortunate that people attribute stupid things to the founding fathers. We have a free system of elections. It’s not OK to threaten violence if the elected senators don’t vote the way you like.

While you’re right, the founders were threatening and violent to the oppressors of England, the entire point was that they did not have the power to oust them peacefully.

I guess I don’t understand what you’re saying. You seem to be saying this isn’t threatening at all, but also note that it’s just as threatening as a violent revolution (albeit, a justified revolution).

No, we don’t need to get a life. We really ought to know who the hell these people are. I don’t think they are TEA partiers at all, but if they are, they should be condemned.

“If Brown can’t stop it, Browning can” is not an argument. It’s not intelligent. It’s just viciousness that is contrary to domestic peace.
dustin (b54cdc) — 3/29/2010 @ 11:05 pm
Find out who that guy was who held up the sign threatening Obama and his family last summer. They arrested him and then we never heard from him again.

Funny how the entire leftist media referenced the incident for months but were never curious enough to find out who the sign holder was. Are we to believe that it’s a civil rights issue to protect the anonymity of people who threaten the president?

Any lawyers around here who can find out what happened with that? I guess it’s possible that they threw the guy in a dungeon and torture him daily. Isn’t there a legal process to confirm something like that didn’t happen?
j curtis (5126e4) — 3/30/2010 @ 4:37 am
“EW1, these people look like teamsters.”

So they look like reagan democrats? Or maybe you’re reading way too much into their looks when you could just read their signs.
imdw (5f60be) — 3/30/2010 @ 5:00 am
“EW1, these people look like teamsters.”

So they look like reagan democrats?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Spoken like a man who’s never met a Teamster…
Scott Jacobs (46e187) — 3/30/2010 @ 6:08 am
They weren’t Teamsters. They weren’t breaking legs.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 3/30/2010 @ 7:09 am
In other news, what kind of an idiot, puts their militia on Facebook,facepalm people
ian cormac (349188) — 3/30/2010 @ 7:35 am
I don’t know if they are criminals or not, at least not based on what the posters say according to recent standards in the US (from what I saw); but if they were at a Tea Party or other organized Repub/Conserv gathering I would hope and expect the speakers to address them. Of course, I would not expect the media covering any thing good that the speakers said.

I’m sure many of us have seen cars (or pick-ups) with bumper-stickers that say “protected by Smith and Wesson”. I don’t think that means you will get shot if you bump the side of their car with your door in a parking lot.

I don’t condone it and would agree that they should be “told to stop” by respected conservative leaders and they are responsible for their actions. But it is also true that human beings get frustrated when they feel they don’t have a say in what’s happening to them, like your elected officials not listening to their constituents (like literally not listening to them).

In a culture where trash talk and vulgarities are the norm, it can be hard to communicate just how angry you are. I know I’ve had situations where people haven’t taken me seriously because I’ve been talking in a calm voice rather than shouting and slamming things, but it is true I don’t then threaten to shoot them.

I think speech which threatens violence should be done away with. I also think to do it selectively after the “Kill Bush” and burning Palin in effigy were accepted by “them” as simply a reasonable expression of their disgust is unreasonable. If there is anything humans hate more than reasonable and rational limit-setting, it’s arbitrary, hypocritical, unreasonable, and irrational limit-setting.
MD in Philly (59a3ad) — 3/30/2010 @ 7:44 am
#3 dustin:

these people look like teamsters. Perhaps you are fortunate not to have seen them, but that’s just what they look like.

Look more like pastry cooks to me. And it would be tough for me to spend a couple decades knocking around the docks and not run into a few Teamsters by now.

It’s not OK to threaten violence if the elected senators don’t vote the way you like.

Were this a specific threat of violence, I might agree. What it is, is an alliterative expression of the displeasure a great deal of the electorate feels.Quite a few of whom are feeling as if the peaceful means to express their political will has been subverted, so there is some pointed expression occurring.

We really ought to know who the hell these people are.

Why? Are they guilty of something? Other than looking like teamsters?If they had participated in actual violence, rather than lounging around with a sign looking like they were thirsty, I might agree.Otherwise, I think that persecuting them because they chose to express themselves in a way that not everyone agrees or approves of is a little too much like what the Left side of the aisle is aiming for, for all of us.Free speech isn’t just for when you are happy with it: it’s for everyone. Even if you think the message is poorly phrased.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 3/30/2010 @ 8:55 am
If these guys are actually sock puppets for the Left, then fine. Find ’em. But if they’re just a somewhat more radically defined element of the Right, then I have no problems with that as long as they aren’t actually acting on such commentary. As I noted over on Mudville — reminding the government who holds the power is hardly a bad idea — especially when they’re in the midst of one of the biggest power grabs in US history.

“A Monarch’s neck should always have a noose about it… It keeps him upright.”
– Robert Heinlein, ‘The Cat Who Walks Through Walls’ –

Sorry, but the Powers That Be have forgotten that noose is even there. It’s giving them delusions of grandeur, and reminding them who it is holds that noose, as well as the presence of it, is certainly called for in these times.
IgotBupkis (79d71d) — 3/30/2010 @ 9:13 am
As EW1 says, their message is harsh, but it’s hardly an open threat of violence to a specific individual.

“A function of free speech under our system of government is to INVITE
DISPUTE. It may indeed best serve its high purposes when it induces a
condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are,
or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and
challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have
profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea.”
– Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas –

Their purpose is clearly to make others aware that this option is possible.

The senators in question weren’t just not voting “their” way, they were in the process of totally and completely ignoring their constituents’ will.

When 70% of the people oppose a bill, there’s probably good reason enough right there for the politicians to NOT vote it into law. That says that either they are wrong, or the public doesn’t agree with them, in which former case they should not be passing the bill, and in the latter case that they have not made sufficient case that people agree with them. While I’d accept that there might be possible circumstances where such passage is desirable, there is nothing of the imperative in the passage of this bill beyond the realization by The Left that if they didn’t pass it then it would never, ever be passed.
IgotBupkis (79d71d) — 3/30/2010 @ 9:20 am
I think speech which threatens violence should be done away with.

If speech incites violence that’s one thing. But I don’t want the police to be the ones deciding what is speech that threatens violence because that gets into people arguing Palin’s Facebook page targeting congressmen is threatening. Or certains cartoons get banned because someone feels threatened.

These guys at the rally are perfectly within their rights to carry their signs. They didn’t cause an outbreak of violence. But it would be interesting to know if they were agent provocateurs hired to make the tea parties look bad. It does seem strange that their signs do look more professional than what is usually seen at a TP rally.
MU789 (bfc2e9) — 3/30/2010 @ 9:21 am
EW1, no disrespect intended, but we’re just going to have to disagree here. I don’t mind people pointing out that the 2nd amendment is meant as an absolute protection against true tyranny. That’s truth and it’s a good thing.

Regardless of that discussion, these people are very suspicious and we’re going to find out who they are. And when we do, I bet you’re glad, because they strike me as posers. If they aren’t posers, I want the TEA party (generally… there is no true leadership of that movement) to point out that this is not tyranny so long as we have free elections.

Soap box, ballot box, bullet box. In that order.
dustin (b54cdc) — 3/30/2010 @ 9:23 am
Also, it’s worth pointing out that a violent revolution doesn’t have to abide by the US Constitution. The fact that the people can strike out and overcome tyrants is a basic human right… the 1st and 2nd amendments help keep that viable, but if we start killing representatives who don’t vote the way we want, or decide our elections are not truly free elections, the violent struggle to overthrow the government is contrary to the US legal system in thousands of ways.

It’s not OK, in my opinion no legal, to go to your neighbor and tell them that if they don’t do as you like, your AR-15 will fix the problem. The 1st Amendment doesn’t extend to that kind of thing.
dustin (b54cdc) — 3/30/2010 @ 9:28 am
#15 dustin:

It’s not OK, in my opinion no[t] legal, to go to your neighbor and tell them that if they don’t do as you like, your AR-15 will fix the problem.

Of course it isn’t: but that isn’t what they did, either.They attended a peaceful assembly whose intent was to convey a political message. With a sign (that some seem to think was more carefully made than usual for the venue) that seems to me, as it also apparently does to IgotBupkis above, to remind our politicians that they serve at the pleasure of the people, a people made up of an armed populace, who are that way because we overthrew a tyrant some while back in order to remain that way.And while Douglas isn’t one of my favorite SC Justices, the portion of IgotBupkis’ quote “Speech is often provocative and
challenging.” is spot on, in this case. The signs certainly look to be provocative and challenging…and if that gets elected politicians to remember their duties as both representatives of their constituents and as protectors of the Republic, then more power to them.And disagreeing with me doesn’t have anything to do with respect~but it does have everything thing to do with being in a country where that’s not only possible, but encouraged. Sure, if I was in charge, I’d probably insist we do things my way…but I’m not, and I’m not interested in the job, but I’m not gonna stop kibitzing either. And I sure don’t expect you to, either.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 3/30/2010 @ 9:57 am
” kib·itzed, kib·itz·ing, kib·itz·es Informal
1. To look on and offer unwanted, usually meddlesome advice to others.”

You learn something every day.

Speech is often provocative and challenging. But that’s a wide category. It’s possible to cross the line within that category.

I don’t understand how you draw the distinction. You say that telling your neighbor that your AR-15 will solve the problem of your disagreement is “of course” illegal. But telling the house that your Browning will solve the problem is somehow different because it was a political message.

Our republic is set up to protect us from a powerful minority bloc imposing their will by force. This sign explicitly rejects that, saying that if the properly elected members don’t do what they want, their solution is to kill people. Comparing this to the founding fathers is simply absurd.

I’m not kibitzing. I’m not trying to meddle. I don’t think it’s OK to provoke and challenge our representatives to do what the people waving guns want, instead of simply fearing the ballot box like they presently do.

The TEA party is doing really well provoking and challenging the government by targeting the ballot box. These fakes are trying to pretend that’s just like promising to shoot them.

Anyway, you want to change the law, go and try. Until then, these men are still criminals.
dustin (b54cdc) — 3/30/2010 @ 10:18 am
“Spoken like a man who’s never met a Teamster…”

You know the Teamsters endorsed Reagan right? I mean, that’s kind of a big part of the story of blue-collar support for the guy.
imdw (842182) — 3/30/2010 @ 10:57 am
imdw, EVERYONE liked Reagen, except the truly insane. He won 49 out of 50 states in his last election.

It doesn’t mean anything that democrats abandoned the democrat party for such an amazing leader.
dustin (b54cdc) — 3/30/2010 @ 10:59 am
imdw, EVERYONE liked Reagen, except the truly insane

Well, that short statement certainly encapsulates why imadickwad detests RR.
AD - RtR/OS! (a2cec7) — 3/30/2010 @ 11:11 am
#17 dustin:

I don’t understand how you draw the distinction. You say that telling your neighbor that your AR-15 will solve the problem of your disagreement is “of course” illegal. But telling the house that your Browning will solve the problem is somehow different because it was a political message.

The distinction is that threatening your neighbor is a very specific threat, and even so might be mitigated by whether your neighbor knows that you don’t own an AR-15.

Our republic is set up to protect us from a powerful minority bloc imposing their will by force. This sign explicitly rejects that, saying that if the properly elected members don’t do what they want, their solution is to kill people. Comparing this to the founding fathers is simply absurd.

On the contrary, this isn’t anything except a reminder that the people of this country are free to arm themselves, to prevent having a minority impose their will by force. There is no threat against a particular person, there is no threat against a branch of the government, there is no threat that can be connected to any actual action presently or in future.Engaging in free speech, even if you find it hateful, isn’t against the law.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 3/30/2010 @ 11:50 am
Some people forget the principle that in a Federal Republic, the People are Sovereign,
and the Government is supposed to work for us, not the reverse.
AD - RtR/OS! (a2cec7) — 3/30/2010 @ 12:24 pm
“You know the Teamsters endorsed Reagan right?”

imdw – How did the air traffic controllers feel about him?
daleyrocks (718861) — 3/30/2010 @ 12:29 pm
“imdw, EVERYONE liked Reagen, except the truly insane. He won 49 out of 50 states in his last election.”

I don’t think he got that many other union endorsements.

[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
imdw (ab8f2d) — 3/30/2010 @ 12:46 pm
ew1, how is ‘my browning will solve it’ meant to oppose a minority imposing their will by force?

He was speaking to a freely elected congressional majority. They aren’t a minority imposing their will by force, they are small ‘r’ republican leadership, completely free.

It’s just strange that someone would think a minority of psychos threatening to shoot people if congress lawfully acts contrary to their wishes is a protection against a minority imposing their will contrary to the obvious mechanisms of the constitution (voting them out).

You want to lump all ‘free’ speech together, so as to point out that it is not outlawed generally, and I don’t. So we’re really talking past eachother.

You think this wasn’t a threat, but the sign was bordered in crime scene tape for a shooting incident. Strange interpretation. I guess a sign condemning W with a bucket of blood and a coffin wouldn’t be a threat either.

AD’s right, the Government is supposed to work for us (the voters), not the idiots who think they should start waving their guns around. This isn’t a democracy, it’s a *Republic*. that means that you are not respecting the Constitution if you think the congress can’t stray as far as it wants from the will of the voters in between elections. We get our elections to kick the democrats to the curb (where they belong), but our Constitution is explicitly set up so that we do not have direct democracy on every action.

The only thing that would justify the attitude that ‘the people can arm, we’re just reminding you as you consider this legislation’ is if we don’t have free elections. The idea that these congressmen deserve to fear violent reprisals if they pass a law some group doesn’t like is basic ignorance about what a Republic is. Vote them out.

“this isn’t anything except a reminder”

You are not entitled to your own facts. This is not a mere statement about the right to bear arms. It is an obvious statement that if a particular House Bill is not stopped by Scott Brown, it’s time to start shooting people. It’s a violent message, and it’s an assault under any criminal code I’ve ever seen. It’s pretty particular, too. And let’s not pretend that Obama isn’t part of the signage. A donkey giving birth to Obama AND a threat to shoot people, with crime scene tape about a homocide and a specified weapon? It wasn’t even a quickly drawn sign. It was carefully thought out and professionally made, so the deadly message wasn’t hasty, it was coherent and intended.

“this isn’t anything except a reminder”.

These statements are similar in many ways to the revolutionary founding fathers, who, of course, were committing crimes if you apply the law of the crown or the current federal government. That’s the point of an armed revolution, though.

I respect what you’re trying to say. The people have every right to have guns and contemplate using them if our freedom to vote is taken away. The right to bear arms is mainly about preserving liberty from government. The freedom to speak out against anything or for anything is an important freedom, but it is not an absolute freedom. That’s one of the fundamental problems that we just have to deal with in our society.

Respectfully, we just don’t see this the same way. I’ve been to over a dozen tea parties, and I also am pretty pissed that these fakes think their caricature is similar to the TEA message of ‘vote them out’. But I’m also sworn to uphold the constitution, which obligates me to protect the republic from domestic enemies who would threaten violence against the people’s elected representation.
dustin (b54cdc) — 3/30/2010 @ 1:00 pm
Misc comments:
I think speech which threatens violence should be done away with.

MU789- I didn’t mean that the govt and police should enforce a stop, but rather that those in public view would refrain.

Any parent quickly learns that threats get you very little unless they are backed by action, so don’t threaten something unless you are willing to carry it out. I would wish that those who I back would do this.

He was speaking to a freely elected congressional majority. They aren’t a minority imposing their will by force, they are small ‘r’ republican leadership, completely free

I think we recognize that when we elect representatives, we do want them to at least hear and understand our grievances, if not accept them and represent them in the halls of government. The problem is when people in office no longer act like what they promised before the election, and will not even leave their phone on the hook so they can hear the opinion of their constituents. It is at that point that the public feels they are not being governed by the majority will of the people, but by the organized effort of a small number who are pursuing their own interests in Congress rather than the interests of the public. That is when the government risks being seen as illegitimate.
MD in Philly (59a3ad) — 3/30/2010 @ 2:25 pm
I gotta go with the visuals on this one. The beefy guys sure do have a certain sort of look that’s strikingly similar to the IBEW thugs who egged the TEA Party bus and harassed Breitbart in Nevada.
ropelight (2c107c) — 3/30/2010 @ 2:37 pm
MD, I know you and EW1 have a good case that the congress is really ignoring the will of the people.

It’s frustrating to have to argue against someone who is superficially just pointing out the truth about resisting potential tyranny.

I think this goes a lot farther than that. Regardless, if they are really tea partiers, then I think they deserve to be rebuked and shamed. What they did was very public, so I don’t think this is any kind of privacy intrusion or thought police sort of thing. If they are infiltrators, I think they make a really good case for what the left is up to in fomenting and hoping for hysteria.

I think these crimes aren’t the end of the world, but it’s not legal to make this kind of statement, in my opinion.

And I’ve never seen a group of smirking fatass teamsters at a TEA party before, all holding up signs that match perfectly with the SEIU talking points of the day.
dustin (b54cdc) — 3/30/2010 @ 2:50 pm
Dustin- what is or is not legal is not an area of my expertise. I think we agree that this should not be encouraged, actually not even tolerated if a spokesman can influence it. That if they are leftist props they should be exposed. We likely agree that this is hypocritical compared to what was tolerated with Bush.

I don’t support what they did, I’m just putting out some context.

Hop[efully I will have time later to post on an interesting situation where armed civil disobedience brought about justice.
MD in Philly (59a3ad) — 3/30/2010 @ 3:12 pm
I just wanted to add that when I say it’s EW1’s case that “the congress is really ignoring the will of the people.” this is not correct. That’s what the protesters are saying.
dustin (b54cdc) — 3/30/2010 @ 3:51 pm
One of ’em looks like Michael Moore after 10 weeks on Jenny Craig…. if that is helpful.
That and comb through the credit card transactions at the closest buffet… other than those bits of meaness, I got nothing
Steve G (7d4c78) — 3/30/2010 @ 5:17 pm
This is tangential to the discussion, but something that struck me when I saw it.

In the early 1970’s a number of farmers in Michigan started having trouble with animals that were becoming sick and died or having offspring with bizarre deformities. After a period of time, the farmers were getting impatient and desperate as the agriculture agencies weren’t helping or giving any answers.

So, one day a local vet who had been working with many of the farmers sent a sample of tissue out of state to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (“WARF”) for additional testing. When this was found out, the state (Mich) authorities sent police to arrest the vet on charges of “sending biohazards across state lines” or some such. The vet and local farmers got word of it. When the state police/sheriff arrived at the vet’s office, they found about a dozen farmers lined up with their rifles and shotguns (in a neutral position) in front of the vets office who told them they would have to arrest the vet over their dead bodies. The senior officer had the good sense to call whoever sent out the order and ask them if they really wanted a blood-bath to bring the guy in. Common sense prevailed and the vet was not arrested and everyone went home alive.

WARF discovered high levels of polybrominated-biphenyls (BPP’s) in the tissues of sick cows. By accident an industrial chemical contaminated the feed supply, poisoning the livestock in a significant area around one feed mill. Either by incompetence or design the Michigan authorities had not been able to discover the problem and deal with it.

It is scary to think what would have happened had everyone sat quietly and let the authorities get in the way of finding the problem.

The point? I just think of this as an example where armed citizens necessarily and successfully stood up to inappropriate law enforcement, which I mwould have never thought necessary in our country prior to seeing this.
MD in Philly (59a3ad) — 3/30/2010 @ 8:30 pm

3/29/2010

Anyone Recognize These Guys?

32 Responses to “Anyone Recognize These Guys?”

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