January 6, 2021: Insurrection or “normal tourist” visitation?

[Typical Lax Dad]

What are you two talking about? In what world do American nationalists believe in the American Federal Government as superior?

Ask a TrumpFan what they think of the Federal Government. They think it's THE problem in their lives. The literal and direct opposite of what you two are claiming. If anything, they want to rip our form of Federal Government apart. How many times have you heard about Secession, FFS?

You guys are crispy-crackers.

First, I never said nationalists love the Government, I said they love their country. I also said they don't love a strong man - again, they love their country.

You can love your country and be critical of how the people in government do their jobs. It's actually a sign of a healthy country if that criticism is allowed....

You mean “vision” of their country. That would be accurate. Like the confederates loved their vision of America or their vision of the South….You disagree?

Yes, I disagree. The confederates were the opposite of nationalists - they seceded from their country - or at least attempted to. According to modern senses of our country they were clearly traitors. Under the understanding of the political landscape of the time, the primacy of state vs federal loyalty was more complicated - but it doesn't change the fact that they were traitors, because they were. TLD - you seem to have a fixation with the old south. Is it a keen historical interest or a way to subtly try to accuse people you disagree with of racism?

What is interesting to observe - in the continuing saga of how the political elite are driving wedges everywhere they can - is how both sides claim the other is about to tear our country apart. The right wants civil war, the left wants to do away with the electoral college, the right wants to undermine democracy by manipulating the SCOTUS nominations process, the left want to circumvent democracy by stacking the SCOTUS, the right are racist xenophobes, the left are socialist commies ------ those guys over there are why your life sucks, it has nothing to do with the unprecedented power combined with complete lack of accountability of "our" governments and large corporations....

Actually, they definitely thought of themselves as "nationalists"...they just want their nation to be ruled by them, with slavery preserved.

I will agree that they seemed to like the USA just fine when they were the ones running it I am sure that southerners securing 9 out of 15 presidencies from the founding up to Lincoln made them relatively happy with "their" nation. But when you go 0 for 2 on the last two elections I guess you get petulant....

Nonetheless, it doesn't really matter what they thought of themselves, if it was "nationalist" then they were wrong. Unless of course you are applying it to the CSA, but in that case I would still attempt to argue that by logical definition the confederates had to put state ahead of nation even in their new, short-lived, CSA.

It’s a thought.

[old salt]

I must be insane. Evidently so were the Joint Chiefs, so I'm in good company.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/202 ... -riot.html

I didn't see where the Joint Chiefs thought Trump was actually going to over-turn the results. I also didn't see them on tv the day of (or even day after) calling out the attempted coup. IF they really thought the transition of power was in danger, don't you think they would do more than write a strongly worded letter.... give me a break. I am not excusing the behavior - the event should be fully investigated and all parties responsible should go to jail. Instead we will get theater like the Joint Chiefs' strongly worded letter.

Nationalist means: you buy the BS of the your party leader, and NEVER bother to see if he's lying to you, and assume everyone but your party leader is lying to you. THAT is what Nationalism is in a nutshell.

afan - that may be what you think of when you hear the word nationalist, but it is not what the word means. I posted the exact definition in my post. And this is where the problem comes. You essentially think nationalist means idiot.

But again, here is the definition: "a person who advocates political independence for a country. a person with strong patriotic feelings, especially one who believes in the superiority of their country over others.

Nowhere does it say blind follower of a cult of personality. When you fall into these linguistic traps you step into traps laid by folks with an interest in dividing. One side hears nationalist and they think deplorable or natzi; the other hears patriot and pride in their country.

...& misconstrue this -- one who believes in the superiority of their country over others. -- as racial superiority,
rather than the form of govt & the society it produced. The results.

exactly - one side is saying it is by definition the former, while lumping reasonable who people believe in the latter with the actual racists for political gains.

What are you two talking about? In what world do American nationalists believe in the American Federal Government as superior?

Ask a TrumpFan what they think of the Federal Government. They think it's THE problem in their lives. The literal and direct opposite of what you two are claiming. If anything, they want to rip our form of Federal Government apart. How many times have you heard about Secession, FFS?

You guys are crispy-crackers.

We think the American form of govt is superior, ...& the results bear that out.
That includes limits on the powers of the Federal govt & delegation of powers to state & local govts.
Last time I heard about secession it was about CA, in the mean time, the residents are leaving the state.

[Typical Lax Dad]

I must be insane. Evidently so were the Joint Chiefs, so I'm in good company.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/202 ... -riot.html

I didn't see where the Joint Chiefs thought Trump was actually going to over-turn the results. I also didn't see them on tv the day of (or even day after) calling out the attempted coup. IF they really thought the transition of power was in danger, don't you think they would do more than write a strongly worded letter.... give me a break. I am not excusing the behavior - the event should be fully investigated and all parties responsible should go to jail. Instead we will get theater like the Joint Chiefs' strongly worded letter.

Nationalist means: you buy the BS of the your party leader, and NEVER bother to see if he's lying to you, and assume everyone but your party leader is lying to you. THAT is what Nationalism is in a nutshell.

afan - that may be what you think of when you hear the word nationalist, but it is not what the word means. I posted the exact definition in my post. And this is where the problem comes. You essentially think nationalist means idiot.

But again, here is the definition: "a person who advocates political independence for a country. a person with strong patriotic feelings, especially one who believes in the superiority of their country over others.

Nowhere does it say blind follower of a cult of personality. When you fall into these linguistic traps you step into traps laid by folks with an interest in dividing. One side hears nationalist and they think deplorable or natzi; the other hears patriot and pride in their country.

...& misconstrue this -- one who believes in the superiority of their country over others. -- as racial superiority,
rather than the form of govt & the society it produced. The results.

exactly - one side is saying it is by definition the former, while lumping reasonable who people believe in the latter with the actual racists for political gains.

What are you two talking about? In what world do American nationalists believe in the American Federal Government as superior?

Ask a TrumpFan what they think of the Federal Government. They think it's THE problem in their lives. The literal and direct opposite of what you two are claiming. If anything, they want to rip our form of Federal Government apart. How many times have you heard about Secession, FFS?

You guys are crispy-crackers.

We think the American form of govt is superior, ...& the results bear that out.
That includes limits on the powers of the Federal govt & delegation of powers to state & local govts.
Last time I heard about secession it was about CA, in the mean time, the residents are leaving the state.

Pride is the same as nationalism? Those are the same words or always share the same meaning?

[HooDat]

NATIONALISM
"Nationalism refers to a people's sense of common belonging and loyalty to a nation. Nationalism may arise among people who share such common traits as culture, language, origin, and tradition. It may develop as people join to form a unified government. Nationalism may also originate as people fight to establish a unique racial, cultural, or religious identity. A peoples' struggle to prevent their identity from being changed or erased by a more powerful group might also spur a feeling of nationalism. In each situation, nationalism creates a sense of connection and commitment to a group with a distinct set of beliefs, ideals, and traditions."

(Cerulo, K. A. (2016). Nationalism. In World Book student. Retrieved from http://www.worldbookonline.com/student/ ... d=ar383740)

BTW, I purposely picked the South…..I added it because I knew that you would mention my picking the south. You have tendencies that you may not be aware of. We all lean one way or the other even when we feign neutrality. Those confederates were loyal to their vision of a Nation. You want to thread a needle with your innocent definition of Nationalism when everyone on the planet knows otherwise. That definition I posted was from Australia. I picked a foreign source to avoid the Woke, Liberal, post modern, PC claim.

EDIT:

Liberals have been stacking the SCOTUS?

TLD - My definition came from a dictionary - no political science lens involved. Not sure Australia avoids accusation of wokeness etc... but I'll roll with it. The definition you provided includes BOTH definitions I was laying out in my further arguments - namely that some see nationalism as innocent love of country and some see it as the root of genocide and warfare. That slippery definition makes it useful as a WEDGE.

My point is that everyone on the planet does not agree with your claim that there is no innocent definition of nationalism - in fact the very definition you provided includes a lot of "may"s - as it should.

[Farfromgeneva]

Would be interested in your view of the alleged "patriots" who were convicted in DC court today for seditious conspiracy and obstruction of a federal proceeding? Nothing major, just the certification of a presidential election and a peaceful transfer of power. Lenin (the ultimate marxist) would be spinning in his grave if he wasn't uber-embalmed and on display in glass to this very day at the Kremlin.

They broke the law - the answer is easy, put them in jail where they belong.

Did you think I would give a different answer?

what makes me quite happy is that in the end we had a (relatively*) peaceful transition of power and those morons got what was coming - providing proof of the vibrancy of our electoral process.

* while the "protest" was not particularly peaceful, the success of the peaceful transition of power within our multi-branch style of government was never in doubt to anyone immune to the hysteria of either ProudBoy Bravado or left-wing fainting spells....

There was no executive branch attempt to not transfer power? No effort? January 6th was just unhappy peasants?

You make my point. Even if we end up finding out that Trump tried to send an armed private army into the Capital Building to kill off Pelosi and Pence, the bottom line is - he failed. The system worked as intended. Power was transferred to the winner of the election. I am not saying no harm no foul. I am saying that the SYSTEM worked.

Any sane person understands that at no point were we in danger of Trump succeeding in over-turning the election results.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/en ... ion-system

Abstract:
Based on a dependent and competing failure modes model for the system degradation, we develop a maintenance cost model to assess and optimize a preventive maintenance policy involving inspection of the system, minimal repair (for non-maintainable failure mode), imperfect maintenance (for maintainable failure mode) and perfect replacement (for the whole system). In particular, we measure the time-dependent efficiency of the preventive imperfect maintenance actions through “improvement factors” which model explicitly the effect of preventive maintenance as the reduction of the failure rate of the maintainable failure mode. An optimization procedure to find the optimal tuning of the maintenance policy whose behavior is illustrated through numerical experiments.

[Kismet]

NATIONALISM
"Nationalism refers to a people's sense of common belonging and loyalty to a nation. Nationalism may arise among people who share such common traits as culture, language, origin, and tradition. It may develop as people join to form a unified government. Nationalism may also originate as people fight to establish a unique racial, cultural, or religious identity. A peoples' struggle to prevent their identity from being changed or erased by a more powerful group might also spur a feeling of nationalism. In each situation, nationalism creates a sense of connection and commitment to a group with a distinct set of beliefs, ideals, and traditions."

(Cerulo, K. A. (2016). Nationalism. In World Book student. Retrieved from http://www.worldbookonline.com/student/ ... d=ar383740)

BTW, I purposely picked the South…..I added it because I knew that you would mention my picking the south. You have tendencies that you may not be aware of. We all lean one way or the other even when we feign neutrality. Those confederates were loyal to their vision of a Nation. You want to thread a needle with your innocent definition of Nationalism when everyone on the planet knows otherwise. That definition I posted was from Australia. I picked a foreign source to avoid the Woke, Liberal, post modern, PC claim.

EDIT:

Liberals have been stacking the SCOTUS?

TLD - My definition came from a dictionary - no political science lens involved. Not sure Australia avoids accusation of wokeness etc... but I'll roll with it. The definition you provided includes BOTH definitions I was laying out in my further arguments - namely that some see nationalism as innocent love of country and some see it as the root of genocide and warfare. That slippery definition makes it useful as a WEDGE.

My point is that everyone on the planet does not agree with your claim that there is no innocent definition of nationalism - in fact the very definition you provided includes a lot of "may"s - as it should.

In today's politics, each side is always looking for a WEDGE. IMHO you shouldn't limit your assertion to certain sides. They ALL do it. In SPADES. It's what substitutes for ideas and solutions for politicos who don't have either.

It's why you don't see any action on immigration, guns/public safety or much of anything else.

[Farfromgeneva]

What OS is missing is that the plan for January 6 was never a full bore attempt at overthrowing the government (that at the time in fact was controlled by Trump and his allies). It was to keep the final certification from happening, to delay and allow the Trumpian forces to find some state(s) that would overturn its electoral college vote to throw the vote to the House of Representatives, where the R dominance in state delegations would ensure a Trump victory.

And it came perilously close to actually making that delay happen. Also close enough to killing members of Congress and the VP.

Trump and his allies put enough pressure on government agencies to minimize any heavy law enforcement presence at the Capitol, and it was clear to me his intention was to incite the crowd earlier that day to march on the Capitol and force that delay.

It was very very close to succeeding and has provided a template…. If a super bowl was rigged but didn’t work, the clowns here wouldn’t be shrugging their shoulders.

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[a fan]

We think the American form of govt is superior, ...& the results bear that out.
That includes limits on the powers of the Federal govt & delegation of powers to state & local govts.

Here's an easy way to get to the point.

Ask TrumpFans "if you could dissolve the Federal Government, and have each of the 50 States govern themselves....would you be for that?"

Take a wild guess as to how many would say "you're damn right I would!"

Last time I heard about secession it was about CA, in the mean time, the residents are leaving the state.

10 million more people live in California than any other State. Seems like folks like living there just fine.

[Typical Lax Dad]

NATIONALISM
"Nationalism refers to a people's sense of common belonging and loyalty to a nation. Nationalism may arise among people who share such common traits as culture, language, origin, and tradition. It may develop as people join to form a unified government. Nationalism may also originate as people fight to establish a unique racial, cultural, or religious identity. A peoples' struggle to prevent their identity from being changed or erased by a more powerful group might also spur a feeling of nationalism. In each situation, nationalism creates a sense of connection and commitment to a group with a distinct set of beliefs, ideals, and traditions."

(Cerulo, K. A. (2016). Nationalism. In World Book student. Retrieved from http://www.worldbookonline.com/student/ ... d=ar383740)

BTW, I purposely picked the South…..I added it because I knew that you would mention my picking the south. You have tendencies that you may not be aware of. We all lean one way or the other even when we feign neutrality. Those confederates were loyal to their vision of a Nation. You want to thread a needle with your innocent definition of Nationalism when everyone on the planet knows otherwise. That definition I posted was from Australia. I picked a foreign source to avoid the Woke, Liberal, post modern, PC claim.

EDIT:

Liberals have been stacking the SCOTUS?

TLD - My definition came from a dictionary - no political science lens involved. Not sure Australia avoids accusation of wokeness etc... but I'll roll with it. The definition you provided includes BOTH definitions I was laying out in my further arguments - namely that some see nationalism as innocent love of country and some see it as the root of genocide and warfare. That slippery definition makes it useful as a WEDGE.

My point is that everyone on the planet does not agree with your claim that there is no innocent definition of nationalism - in fact the very definition you provided includes a lot of "may"s - as it should.

I can’t disprove your “beliefs”. Won’t try…..PS, when everything is a wedge, nothing is….that’s what I believe.

My claim was that your definition is innocent….don’t believe I said there is no such thing as an innocent definition. Another tell.

[HooDat]

I can't think of a time we have talked past eachother to this level

we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one my friend. You are telling me that someone who believes in borders and immigration control is a xenophobe and one step away from a fascist?

No, I'm not. Because guess what? EVERYONE believes in borders an immigration control. It ain't just Trumpfans. If you don't see that? YOU are being manipulated.

Well everyone other than our government and the business interests that they serve. Right? Because if either party cared about borders and immigration control we would have it.

I am going to tell you that you are being manipulated. A Nationalist loves his or her country not a strong man.

Nope. Sorry. The Federal Government IS "our country". Literally.

Go ahead and define America WITHOUT the Federal Government. You can't. But you're welcome to try.

I thought I did just that at least a little when I talked about loving your country but not liking the way the government is being run. But perhaps a better response is that I believe that our country is its people and culture(s). It is held together with a great political framework, but that framework's job is to serve the people and it can get lost in the implementation. So the government is the manifestation of how our people come together to implement the management of our country. That implementation is pretty messed up right now.

There is a growing force that is quite lukewarm on the idea of nations, because they have a long term agenda toward globalism.

Have you been asleep the last 40 years? Who has been touting free trade vs. protectionism all this time, my man?

We've been globalists....selling our working class down the river....for 40+ years. Started by Republicans. Continued with the Dem starting with Clinton. The idea that it's the other way around, and we're "becoming" globalists in 2022....is silly.

And Trump made things WORSE by passing his single big bill: the Corporate Tax cuts for multinational corporations.....so like I said: fake nationalists.

No, I have been wide awake and agree with you here 100%. The GOP's fingerprints are all over globalism way more than the Dems. We also agree that it was Clinton who got the Dems into the globalism game - Bernie tried to get them out of it, and we all saw how that went....

And Trump is indeed a fake nationalist, but he is a very real narcissist and more importantly he sucks.

[HooDat]

PS, when everything is a wedge, nothing is….that’s what I believe.

maybe I could use a better word than wedge. Do you not find it strange that when taken in their sum, all the "issues" that divide us into Dem or GOP always seem to pan out at 49.9% to 50.1% - even if it means the parties have to flat out switch sides on a particular issue to get us there?

[HooDat]

In today's politics, each side is always looking for a WEDGE. IMHO you shouldn't limit your assertion to certain sides. They ALL do it. In SPADES. It's what substitutes for ideas and solutions for politicos who don't have either.

It's why you don't see any action on immigration, guns/public safety or much of anything else.

I 100% agree, and didn't necessarily meant to limit my assertion to certain sides. I just tend to play devil's advocate and this board leans a certain direction. I am an equal opty hater of both parties

[HooDat]

Last time I heard about secession it was about CA, in the mean time, the residents are leaving the state.

10 million more people live in California than any other State. Seems like folks like living there just fine.

this was OS not me.

[Typical Lax Dad]

PS, when everything is a wedge, nothing is….that’s what I believe.

maybe I could use a better word than wedge. Do you not find it strange that when taken in their sum, all the "issues" that divide us into Dem or GOP always seem to pan out at 49.9% to 50.1% - even if it means the parties have to flat out switch sides on a particular issue to get us there?

I use my own intellect and experiences. I know deplorable behavior when I see it. Don’t need to be told what it means. Neither do you. A Politician’s main objective is to stay in office. A politician doesn’t care about you or me. All I want is for the government to make sure my rights are equal and protected…..I can get the rest myself. But being twice as good and having to work twice as hard because of something arbitrary gets old.

I don’t belong to a political party. Never have, never will. Don’t believe in group think. That’s why I don’t join clubs or belong to groups. I rely on my brain to interpret what my eyes and ears see. You can believe what you want. Belief is something very hard to overcome with facts.

[HooDat]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/en ... ion-system

Abstract:
Based on a dependent and competing failure modes model for the system degradation, we develop a maintenance cost model to assess and optimize a preventive maintenance policy involving inspection of the system, minimal repair (for non-maintainable failure mode), imperfect maintenance (for maintainable failure mode) and perfect replacement (for the whole system). In particular, we measure the time-dependent efficiency of the preventive imperfect maintenance actions through “improvement factors” which model explicitly the effect of preventive maintenance as the reduction of the failure rate of the maintainable failure mode. An optimization procedure to find the optimal tuning of the maintenance policy whose behavior is illustrated through numerical experiments.

Boy do I love me some academia speak!

Let's see if I have retained any of my "foreign language skills"...

So are they measuring for the best maintenance model: one that will minimizes the cost of maintenance, but will eventually lead to catastrophic failure; one that will allow for some failures but ones that are not catastrophic; and one just runs the thing and then replaces it wholesale before it stops working?

See, I am a fan of the second choice, given my view that perfection is unattainable. My problem is I feel like we are listening to our leaders argue over 1 or 3. Even worse, depending on the specific topic, I am not sure which side is arguing for which model...

[a fan]

Well everyone other than our government and the business interests that they serve. Right? Because if either party cared about borders and immigration control we would have it.

Yes! 100%

I thought I did just that at least a little when I talked about loving your country but not liking the way the government is being run.

Again: ask a TrumpFan if they could just have their State government, and dissolve the UNITED States. I don't think you grasp how many will say "Yes". It's not a small number. I'd wager well over half. I've been listening to them.

But perhaps a better response is that I believe that our country is its people and culture(s). It is held together with a great political framework, but that framework's job is to serve the people and it can get lost in the implementation. So the government is the manifestation of how our people come together to implement the management of our country. That implementation is pretty messed up right now.

The culture came before the laws were set. Now the two are inextricable is my point here, I guess.

No, I have been wide awake and agree with you here 100%. The GOP's fingerprints are all over globalism way more than the Dems. We also agree that it was Clinton who got the Dems into the globalism game - Bernie tried to get them out of it, and we all saw how that went....

Poorly. I've been trying to tell OS that he's a Bernie Bro to no avail...his desires mirror most of Bernie's policies.

And Trump is indeed a fake nationalist, but he is a very real narcissist and more importantly he sucks.

Yes. And his followers don't understand that. Which is why I call them fake nationalists....falling for the rhetoric of a Demagogue, who did nothing but make his fan's lives harder with his policies.

But they sure lined mine! And they don't need lining. I want that money to go to TrumpNation. Desperately so....

Apologies for talking past you.....

[old salt]

Last time I heard about secession it was about CA, in the mean time, the residents are leaving the state.

10 million more people live in California than any other State. Seems like folks like living there just fine.

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2022/ ... n-decline/

...the primary driver of the state’s population loss over the past couple years has been the result of California residents moving to other states.

[a fan]

Last time I heard about secession it was about CA, in the mean time, the residents are leaving the state.

10 million more people live in California than any other State. Seems like folks like living there just fine.

this was OS not me.

Ah, cr*p, sorry about that.....apologies to both of you. I fixed it.

[HooDat]

I thought I did just that at least a little when I talked about loving your country but not liking the way the government is being run.

Again: ask a TrumpFan if they could just have their State government, and dissolve the UNITED States. I don't think you grasp how many will say "Yes". It's not a small number. I'd wager well over half. I've been listening to them.

Yes, there are a lot that say that, and would even pull a lever for getting rid of the Fed Gov in a referendum if given the chance. Unfortunately they don't know what they are saying. I talk to some of these people - they are easy to find in Texas. Once you prod - they want a national army. Oh, and they want national highways. They also want equal weights and measures as well as free trade treaties. In other words they want a country. In their defense, what they really want is a smaller federal bureaucracy, a simpler government that they can understand.

The culture came before the laws were set. Now the two are inextricable is my point here, I guess.

My only added point is that because politicians like writing laws, and regulators like writing regulations, and big corporations like manipulating both to suit their needs; perhaps there are some places where our laws and government don't serve the "people"....

Apologies for talking past you.....

I feel so much better now

[a fan]

Last time I heard about secession it was about CA, in the mean time, the residents are leaving the state.

10 million more people live in California than any other State. Seems like folks like living there just fine.

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2022/ ... n-decline/

...the primary driver of the state’s population loss over the past couple years has been the result of California residents moving to other states.

Yep! You're not wrong. Cost of living from all the decades of folks moving there coupled with the explosion of Silicon Valley. They're facing some serious problems, as are so many States that have had their cost of living explode.

Colorado is one of them.

Point is......obviously the desire to live there outweighs living in any other State. That's why they have the highest population...