You’re never “just joking.” ~ Jason Steed
Posted by Michelle Moquin on August 16th, 2016
Good morning!
A clear and brilliant analysis on how we as a society, relate or not, to others through our humor. And what it tells us about people through their humor. Very illuminating.
It is simply an outstanding write. Read it, put it down and go back and read it again. What you get out of it will be invaluable.
From Think Progress:
Jason Steed Doesn’t Think Trump Was ‘Just Joking’
Don’t worry: Donald Trump didn’t really tell a bunch of people at a campaign rally to assassinate Hillary Clinton. Everything is fine!
Recall on Tuesday, at a campaign event in Wilmington, N.C., Trump said:
Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.
But — but I’ll tell you what. That will be a horrible day. If — if Hillary gets to put her judges — right now, we’re tied. You see what’s going on.
Trump later assured America that, though he gave a shout-out to the “Second Amendment” folks, he was really speaking to the power that his followers have at the polls. (“Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendment folks” = apparently not catchy enough for this purpose?) House Speaker Paul Ryan tried to explain away the comments as “just a joke gone bad.”
Over in the “not a joke” camp, we have the Secret Service, which announced in a cryptic, not-super-helpful tweet that they were “aware of the comments,” and prominent democrats, who expressed their horror at what scanned as an invitation to assassinate.
Meanwhile, Jason Steed, an appellate attorney based in Texas, expected Trump would explain away his comments by insisting he was “just joking.” But Steed — who years ago was an English professor who wrote a dissertation on humor theory — believes there is no such thing as “just joking.” So he told his 2100 followers as much:
Steed elaborated on the concept in a series of about two dozen tweets. When we choose to tell a joke, or to laugh at one, we are choosing whether or not we agree with its central idea, values, or perspective. Everyone who laughs at one kind of joke gets to be in on it; everyone who doesn’t is on the outs. Acknowledging or announcing that a joke isn’t funny distances you from its teller. So we clarify and declare, joke by joke, what kind of person we are. Humor is, basically, a sorting hat, and we use it to suss out where we belong, and with whom.
Within 24 hours, Steed’s Twitter essay had gone viral; his follower count more than tripled. I spoke with Steed by phone to talk about how humor works and why jokes are so powerful — even/especially when they aren’t jokes at all.
Your tweets were based on your prediction that Trump would justify his remarks by saying he was “just joking.” And your thesis is, essentially, that there is no such thing as “just joking,” right?
We all joke. We all use humor all the time. It’s part of our lives on a pretty much daily basis. But it’s never meaningless. It’s never “just joking.” There’s always more going on in the humor than we consciously realize or think about. It’s part of how define ourselves, or how we construct our identity as individuals or as groups.
When we laugh and joke together, we’re coming together as a group about something. There’s a kind of agreement about something. If we agree something is funny, we’re not just agreeing it’s funny; we’re agreeing about something underlying the funniness. There are either certain values, ideas, or attitudes that are being conveyed by the humor. So when we join in the humor, we’re joining in with a group that agrees about those things, or is at least open to agreeing about those things. And when we don’t find it funny, we’re in the out-group. We aren’t part of the group that shares that view.
My point is not that humor is good or bad; just that it does this thing, and we should be mindful of what it does. Some people, I think, mistook my tweets as saying there’s something bad about humor. That’s not what I’m saying at all. But it’s always doing this kind of work: It’s simultaneously bringing some people together while excluding other people, or certain ideas or values. It’s always assimilating and alienating, or accepting and rejecting, at the same time.
What we choose to laugh about together says something about who we are, either because we’re laughing at a particular group of people in a way that excludes them from our in-group, or because we’re laughing about a particular idea or value that is part of how we define ourselves, or something along those lines. Which is why I think, ethically, we should be mindful about what we choose to accept as funny and what we choose to join in on.
Part of what seems to be happening here, too, is the fact that Hillary has these identities — liberal, feminist, woman — that are often dismissed as “humorless.” And it seems to give Trump, and people who support him, more authority to accuse her, and her supporters, of not getting the joke. It falls in line with the narrative people already have about her.
Right: “You’re too defensive,” or “you just don’t get it.” “There’s something wrong with you that you can’t just go along with the joke.” And that’s part of the work it’s doing.
We like humor, and it does bring us together with people. So when a joke is told that might be offensive, we have a human desire to be part of the in-group. If you can’t take the joke, if you can’t join in on the humor, then you’re not part of the in-group; there’s something wrong with you. And because we want to be in the in-group, I don’t want to say there’s a coercive thing — that’s too strong. But there’s a kind of force that is involved. There’s social work going on with that.
For the Trump crowd, one of their biggest complaints is about political correctness. And some of what I’m saying smacks of that, right? I’m saying, “We should be careful about certain jokes that might alienate or marginalize certain people or individuals.” So to say, “let’s be careful about joking about assassinating someone,” you’re one of the P.C. police. That’s what I’ve been getting on Twitter!
Is that what most of the response has been like? People accusing you of being the P.C. police?
This has been kind of a crazy 24 hours. I can’t even begin to go through all the mentions and the RTs and responses. So only from what I’ve been able to skim through, I feel like the response has been, two-thirds positive. I spent a couple years thinking hard about this stuff because I was writing a dissertation about how humor works in literature and film and how it constructs identities. I’ve thought through this stuff, and I think most people, obviously, haven’t. But I think the most common reaction seems to be people saying, “You just said what I’ve always thought but didn’t ever articulate.” That’s the most common response. On a gut level, everyone experiences humor where you realize groups are being formed through joking and mockery and those kinds of things. That’s been the bulk of it.
There has been this one-third of respondents that have taken it to mean I want to ban jokes, I’m another member of the P.C. police, or that I can’t take a joke, clearly I have no sense of humor.
Something I come across a lot in my work is, most people consume pop culture for fun. It’s recreation. And if I have something critical to say about a movie, like a big, summer blockbuster-type film — like, “All the female characters are badly written and have nothing of substance to do, and there are virtually zero people of color on screen,” to use a totally rare example — I always hear back from a contingent of people that I’m “ruining it” by thinking about it too hard. And I imagine you are getting that as well: That thinking about humor in this way sucks all the fun out of it.
What’s interesting about that, and what people don’t get, is that I assume that some of what you’re trying to think about and really look hard at is the work that’s being done. You go to watch this movie, and let’s say the representation of gender roles, what you’re really critiquing is how this movie is portraying women. The work that’s being accomplished by the movie is being accomplished more effectively if people don’t think about it. You reinforce the gender roles more effectively if no one stops to ask what you’re doing. Everyone who says, “Don’t think about it so hard,” is basically saying, “We should give up and let it do the thing that it’s doing rather than resist the work that it’s accomplishing.” That you should want to be subconsciously manipulated by everything around you.
In this case with Trump, one of the things that’s odd to me about the “just joking” defense is that, in the room, in the moment, that line didn’t play like a joke at all. No one really laughed.
Humor doesn’t always have to involve laugh-out-loud kinds of responses. Sometimes things are funny but we have this sort of internal pleasure and enjoyment from this funny juxtaposition of two things that don’t go together, but we don’t laugh out loud, necessarily.
When I saw the clip, I mean, the Twitter thing yesterday was really prompted by — I was just anticipating, and assuming, that their explanation for it would be that it was a joke. I think you’re right: It didn’t play like a joke, like a big punchline that everybody laughed at. But it was still kind of an off-the-cuff riff about something that I think, it’s plausible that he could have said, “I was just joking,” even though it’s not a punchline joke. I thought that would be a plausible explanation in an attempt to downplay the seriousness of what he just said. Which is why I wrote this little tweetstorm: because I was anticipating that that would be the explanation.
It turns out, they didn’t explain it that way, which I think is even more troubling. Because one of the ways we use humor is to slow-roll an idea that might be offensive or shocking or troubling: We use humor to introduce those kinds of ideas because we know it might be shocking or inappropriate. We kind of use humor that way.
Or in a more benign way, like if you have a crush on someone, and you put out there as a joke, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we dated…?” just to see if it takes.
That’s what I mean. You’re trying to float the idea in a more safe way, using humor where maybe — you have an out. And that’s what I mean by assimilation and alienation. If they don’t join in and accept it, you can try to say, “I was just joking.” And that’s your defense. “I didn’t really mean it.”
But that’s my point about just joking: There is something that you’re sort of floating. And if they welcome it, if they embrace it, you’re not going to defend yourself by saying you were just joking. You’re opening the door to assimilate that idea and take it further than how you floated it. If he comes back and says he’s just joking, that’s not all that’s happening. He’s floating an idea that, if enough people embrace it, the doors open to actually assimilate the idea: Armed revolt or assassination, whatever idea he’s floating, you’re trying to open the door for people in the in-group to assimilate that idea.
When he says things off-the-cuff, that’s the work that that’s doing: Opening the door for transgressing norms and saying things that we would like to think are unthinkable, but trying to open the door to making them thinkable, which is what a lot of us find troubling about it. And he gets away with it because he does it a lot of times.
I can’t really imagine what the reaction would be if Obama said the same thing.
If Clinton tried to make jokes like that, people would freak out about it. So I think he’s gotten a pass, in a lot of ways. A lot of it is through the primaries, he got away with a lot through the debates with other Republicans who didn’t really stand up to him or take him to task for the crazy stuff he was saying. So this shield developed around him.
To flip the political leanings for a second, it’s like what Jon Stewart was doing on The Daily Show during the Bush years, after 9/11, when it was really taboo to say anything negative about the war in Iraq, to not be supportive of the administration, to be anything but outwardly, wholeheartedly patriotic. And the jokes on that show created this space to say what at the time was fairly transgressive stuff, to be critical of something that was widely accepted.
I think that’s right. I think that’s what humor basically does: It opens up a space for things that you might not normally feel safe saying in a serious way. And if we join in and laugh with it, we’re allowing for the possibility of it being okay. And if we don’t, we’re saying it’s not okay.
And that says something about who we are: If we are a people who think it’s okay to criticize our leaders and what our country is doing, we will join in with that humor and assimilate with those ideas. And if we don’t think that’s okay, we’re going to reject that as not funny and not okay. And it works for criticizing your leaders or criticizing a race. If we want to be a people who think that’s okay to do, we’ll join in with that kind of humor it opens that door. And it works with assassinating people.
Why do you think people tend to get so defensive when called on jokes that don’t go over well with everyone? Or non-jokes, as the case may be here. Why is “it’s just a joke” such a popular reaction when someone questions whether or not a joke was okay to tell?
I think that for some, it’s probably the same people you run into who don’t want to think hard about movies. They don’t want to have to think hard about their jokes. “I’m just trying to go through life and make jokes and not worry about it.” I think that’s a lot of it. And I think there’s probably people who perceive this injustice about who gets to joke and who doesn’t.
The point I would be trying to make is, nobody is saying you can’t tell these kind of jokes or have this kind of humor. It’s really more about being aware of what it is and what it does. It’s more of a nuanced understanding of it. Go ahead and tell a racist joke if you want. You just have to understand that some groups will reject that. You’re choosing to embrace a certain identity, and that might be as a racist. And if that’s fine, go ahead and do that. But you have to be aware that this is what your humor is doing.
*****
Readers: Yes, you may be fooled by some when they laugh as if they are “in” when they are really “out” and vice versa but you will always be aware of the position or mindset of the one who offers up a particular joke as amusement.
Thoughts? The forum is open.
Blog me.
Peace out.
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August 16th, 2016 at 1:11 pm
Hmmm Interesting and true to a large degree…back east we called it ‘kidding on the square’ meaning exactly that, you’re floating an idea you have about something, someone (me?!) and seeing if I’ll (or a group) will let it fly and then run with it.
Great points.
And so many comments yesterday I couldn’t keep up but #54 Denise, T-rump is a classic and full blown gaslighting narcissist in fact he is a caricature of one, which is why he is at once why he is embraced by some (he’s BIG in his ideas which he cannot deliver on and supposed decisiveness) and repugnant to others bc he’s so obviously a Narc and N’s don’t think like others they play by their own self aggrandizement rules and are delusionally grandiose and resort to manipulative charm when they want/need to. They do not play well with others they merely pretend to which is why I believe him to be very dangerous for this country.
And, He’s in bed with Putin and they’re both perfect versions of public Narcs, again dangerous bc if one crosses the other, there’ll be hell to pay and that hell will be passed onto the citizens bc they’ll wash their hands of all of it and not think twice about it.
Luv, Zen Lill
August 16th, 2016 at 3:01 pm
Exactly Zen Lill. He was floating a lie to see if it had legs.
August 16th, 2016 at 3:02 pm
Wake up Trump supporters! Do you really want to back a candidate who is surrounding himself with the stench of corruption related to Russian mafia influence and world domination?
If that’s okay with you, you are taking this country on a path toward self-destruction. Please rethink who you are supporting. A vote for no one is still better than a vote for Trump.
August 16th, 2016 at 3:09 pm
At the heart of the Trump campaign there is an an unasked question. What do Trump’s pro-Putin stance, his willingness to support Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, his employment of Manafort as his campaign manager and his tax returns have in common.
The answer could lie in his overseas – not his US – business activities.
It is possible that Trump, before he started out on his presidential campaign, borrowed heavily to invest – in developments in Russia and the Ukraine. Having seen what Sheldon Adelson has done in Macau, Trump wanted to do the same in the former USSR. To do that you need to work with oligarchs (hello, Manafort), and to work with them you need to have the Kremlin onside and part of the picture (hullo, Putin).
Trump and Putin might have had only contact in a Green Room but their connections are surely connected. The oligarchs might also be investors in his developments.
All goes swimmingly until Putin invades the Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. The west imposes sanctions and freezes assists. The Russian economy tanks and Trump’s projects are no longer viable. He is leveraged up to his eyeballs in projects that are going nowhere. He could be in deep financial trouble.
If he has shifted the money he took out of Atlantic City to Russia, if he is in hock to Russian oligarchs, it would explain much about his troubled campaign. That is why his tax returns are so important.
August 16th, 2016 at 3:10 pm
This is even more reason to demand that Trump release his tax retutns. I’m betting that Trump is in hock, biggly, to Putin’s cronies. We can’t let a Putin puppet into the White House and the nuclear codes.
August 16th, 2016 at 3:11 pm
It makes sense now why the Trump campaign made the Republican party to change their platform to be more pro-Russia. Trump’s people were hands off on every other issue, except the one on Russia. And even his plan on Isis, seems to be pro-Russia friendly.
Russia’s interests are counter to ours. They want to prop up a different regime, there and have more influence in the world. Trump acts like they could be buddy buddy and that Putin will have the U.S.’s best interests at heart.
August 16th, 2016 at 3:13 pm
I must say, this is intriguing, Putin a former KGB agent, in love with an American presidential nominee. Ukraine in flames and lawsuits been filed in questionable offshore tax Havens against Manafort, Trump’s second in command, tell me about agent handling by the KGB. This is surreal.
Trump does not know it but he is an agent for Putin. Manafort needs to deliver Trump as an agent or else he will be exposed. No wonder the sudden coziness to Putin, He sure is moving the pawns here. Wow.
August 16th, 2016 at 3:14 pm
The struggling pro-US Ukrainian government’s “corruption investigation” targeting the previous president it toppled can be safely expected to deliver what will win favor from the next American president. Mr Manafort’s credibility might not be much higher than the anti-corruption investigators’, but media should beware giving high profile exposure to this case unless they see evidence, which at the moment investigators themselves say they do not have.
August 16th, 2016 at 3:17 pm
I have never before seen in my lifetime this level of possible and absolute treason. Long past time for the CIA to oust this possible mole for a foreign entity, and grill Trump on what HE knows about him.
We have a possible situation in which a Potential President is being manipulated by one of our enemies. And YES, Russia is a Frienemy! One to be held close with a knife at the ready. Make no mistake, this is an all out effort on their part to create mayhem and subterfuge. Do you not recall the fact that the DNC was hacked by Russians? Need we spell it out for you?????
August 16th, 2016 at 3:18 pm
No doubt NSA or one of the other agencies of the US Federal government are now searching banking records in offshore accounts to determine if Mr. Manaford took un-declared income from the Ukrainian government.
But, regardless..he worked for one of Putin’s best friends and now the primary consultant/manager to Trump.
On the surface, there is doubt..and as such must terminate his term with the Trump people.
I mean how the American public stands for this..yet there are those who remains loyal..even a few notables. Time will tell…
August 16th, 2016 at 3:19 pm
And we’re worried about some emails?
August 16th, 2016 at 3:20 pm
Manafort has denied he got any such money, at least impliedly charging that the ledger is a fake.
That does seem extremely unlikely.
Manafort appears in 22 ledger entries (totaling $12.7 million) scattered over 400 ledger pages and 5 years. Someone wanting to forge evidence that Manafort was in the pay of this dubious outfit could surely do so with a very small fraction of the effort needed to create this huge damning ledger, which is surely genuine.
So Trump’s chief campaign operative used to work for the thug Yanukovych as well (and also Marcos, Savimbi, various arms dealers, etc.) Hardly seems implausible. Consistent, actually.
And Manafort now works for Trump without pay? Just like he supposedly was never paid by Yanukovych. Right.
Manafort’s lawyer’s denial was that Manafort did not receive “any such cash payments” — which is slippery, a non-denial denial: although it rules out bundles of $100 bills, it doesn’t deny payments by check or wire transfer, or payments to intermediaries or to Manafort-affiliated entities.
And Trump sticks by him. For now.
Wait a couple of days.
August 16th, 2016 at 3:21 pm
Like many of the letter-writers here, I suspect it’s no mere coincidence that Trump’s campaign manager may have received payments from a pro-Russia political party in the Ukraine, that Russians have been hacking into Democratic Party computer files, and that Trump has been endorsing Putin.
There may be much more to all of this, and I write this not from a sense of conspiracy or paranoia but from legitimate concern based on the facts revealed so far. This is potentially very, very serious. Thanks to Mr. Kramer, Mr. McIntire, and Mr. Meier and their senior editors and any staff who may have helped research this piece. Please keep up the good work.
August 16th, 2016 at 3:22 pm
Much of Manafort’s pro-Kremlin business has been known for some time. He started consulting with Ukrainian deposed President Yanukovich in 2004. But as early as the’90’s Manafort’s lobby firm represented some choice characters.
He’s known as the leader of the “Torturers’ Lobby” for representation of corrupt and brutal dictators and strong men, like Ferdinand Marcos, Mobutu Sese Seko and Jonas Savimbi, as was reported by The Daily Beast in April.
He has had close ties with Russian and pro-Kremlin oligarchs Oleg Deripaska and Rinat Akhmetov as reported in Polifact in May. This NYT story has the benefit of providing a ledger. But even without the ledger, Manafort had to know he was aiding corrupt and brutal leaders. Trump and the leaders of the GOP had the duty to vet him. Either they vetted him and knew, or they didn’t vet him, or they didn’t care.
Some on the left, see the Manafort disclosures and suspicions about the leaks as this century’s “McCarthy era.” But nothing could be further from the truth. Look up these Manafort associates, most of whom got their start as pure criminals and proceeded to graduate to grand scale corruption and brutality.
August 16th, 2016 at 3:24 pm
So you know how in late July the Trump campaign suddenly raised $80 million in late July (out of no where), claiming most of it came from online contributions from “broad based support”? How certain are we that this sudden supply of cash did not come from Russia? For months, it was notable how little the Trump campaign was lagging in raising funds. And then suddenly Manafort is the new chief campaign manager, followed by this sudden surplus of funds? Kind of suspicious…
I’d like to believe that the CIA is on top of this right? If not, then CIA are you relying on reporters to do your job?!
NY Times can you investigate the source of these funds and how “broad” is this “Trump base support”? Does this include Russia?
August 17th, 2016 at 6:47 am
We get the “joke,” Donald. And the one about what’s-her-name’s bloody whatever. Own them, you coward.
Meanwhile, we need him to not be in line for president of these USs.
August 17th, 2016 at 6:48 am
If Hillary had said this, GOP heads would explode. But since Trump said it, their response is “Nah, that’s not what he meant.
August 17th, 2016 at 6:50 am
The second amendment is part of the right to overthrow a tyrannical government.
That doesn’t mean that people can’t be forced to undergo a background check and a waiting period and restrictions on what type of guns and amount of bullets and safeties and gun safes. None of those regulations take away the right of gun ownership, but small minded people fall easily for the slippery slope fallacy.
Also, i find it very amusing that the left is loosing its collective sh!!t over trump being a tyrant, yet they fail to see the safeguards against tyranny including armed rebellion as a good thing. Who knows, under dictator trump you might be wishing you had a gun…
August 17th, 2016 at 6:51 am
@Monty#16, And his “joke” about speaking directly to “Russia” and asking them to hack Clinton’s emails.
August 17th, 2016 at 6:52 am
Asher#18, A gun is going to help me from Trump’s SS shipping me of to Arizona to build his wall. They will be sooooo scared.
August 17th, 2016 at 6:54 am
Asher#18, Clearly you didn’t read the post, or else you wouldn’t have parroted the utter bulls*t claim the author debunked.
As to your absurd claim about trump: If the GOP presents both the problem (a tyrant) and the solution (guns to overthrow tyrants), it’s not doing anyone any good, is it?
August 17th, 2016 at 6:56 am
Asher#18, The Second Amendment has nothing to do with the “power to overthrow a tyrannical government.”
It empowers the arming of citizens to form a militia. These are the same militias that can be called out by Congress to put down armed insurrections against the Government, in Article 2 of the Constitution.
Those are the militias that George Washington himself used to put down an armed rebellion against “governmental tyranny” in 1791 called the Whiskey Rebellion.
Look it up because you obviously have forgotten your high school American History class.
August 17th, 2016 at 6:57 am
Why are you lefties getting so alarmed? Some bozo made a movie about assassinating George W. Bush while he was still in office.
Who cares?
August 17th, 2016 at 6:58 am
Wait, I thought the 2nd Amendment guaranteed a right to collective duck hunting – it means something else?
August 17th, 2016 at 7:00 am
Sal#23, Hill & helpers have raised the issue of H1B & outsourcing. A smart pol could turn that around on her and use it to show her wrong.
Is Trump doing that, or is he forcing people like you to present weak defenses of the stupid things he says?
August 17th, 2016 at 7:01 am
Sal@18, If John Kerry or Al Gore had made a movie about assassinating George W Bush, and DNC spokesmen and Democratic politicians had sprinted to the nearest camera to insist that the movie was just a metaphor so no big deal, this remark might have some relevance.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:02 am
Sal#23, false equivalence. it wasn’t even an American movie and no Democrat remotely endorsed it. you say stupid things all the time, should I attribute it to all Republicans?
August 17th, 2016 at 7:05 am
Owen#26, You meant Sal#23,
I know. And he acts like he doesn’t know the difference between some person suggesting the assignation of a candidate for POTUS and the opposing candidate suggesting it.
Fucking republican liars and hypocrites.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:06 am
Leslie#27, No, that would be a logical fallacy. Republicans are stupid for all sorts of reasons.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:07 am
Sal#23, Unless that bozo was John Kerry, you don’t have a point.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:08 am
@ken, touche.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:09 am
JD#24, It apparently gives us all a collective right to duck while they hunt us.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:10 am
If anyone thinks for a moment that people in attendance didn’t notice that the remark about the 2nd Amendment people might be, or be taken as, oh, a tad bit extreme, take a look at the video sequence and watch the faces of the white-haired couple in the third row to the right of Trump’s shoulder.
The woman laughs, kind of; but the man’s jaw drops as they exchange a glance.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:11 am
Lock the creepy bastard up for that obvious thinly veiled sedition remark.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:12 am
Trump is a failure who would only impose fascism and repression.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:13 am
Build a wall around Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma & Arkansas & Louisiana and give it to the right wingnuts. Call it Winglandia!
August 17th, 2016 at 7:14 am
“Let’s be clear about this doctrine: It lets the gun-wielders decide for themselves whether high taxes or government surveillance or Obamacare is a sufficient threat to liberty to justify getting out the shooting irons and killing the police officers and armed-services members assigned the responsibility of enforcing the ‘tyrannical’ laws in question.”
News flash: when a duly elected government that carries out polices supported by a majority of the people, it is not tyranny. It is called democracy.
Yes, being in the minority on policy issues sucks. But it’s not a ground for armed rebellion.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:16 am
“Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted.” –Che Guevara, from “Guerrilla Warfare.”
August 17th, 2016 at 7:17 am
Here’s the catch the gun-lovers never seem to grasp: if “liberal” boogeymen like Obama and Clinton are seriously trying to grab their guns, they really, really suck at it, as guns are as plentiful as ever.
So what’s the problem? What they should be thinking is, “hey, this liberal politician really sucks at gun control, after eight years of Obama I have more guns than ever!”.
But alas, they’re just too stupid to see it.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:17 am
Ladies and gentleman, Donald Trump. The Great Negotiator.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:18 am
“Tony Schwartz, the guy who wrote [Trump’s book] The Art of the Deal, says Trump never jokes.”
Trump voters like Trump because he says what he means, and he’s not “politically correct.” Of course when he talks sedition or treason, all of a sudden they claim “it’s a joke” or “he didn’t mean it.”
Let’s take him at face value and let the Secret Service investigate him instead of protecting him. He’s rich, he can hire his own thugs, or his bloodthirsty sons, for security. I don’t think we taxpayers should have to pay for his protection.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/09/trump-gun-owners-clinton-judges-second-amendment?CMP=edit_2221
August 17th, 2016 at 7:19 am
Angie#39, The gun manufacturers and their lobbyists get it.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:21 am
Michelle, you and your left wing blog have gone off again about nothing.
“The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”
Can’t help wondering if the PC police would have a problem with this quote if Trump had made it instead of Thomas Jefferson.
This political correctness has become ridiculous.
Trump wasn’t advocating violence, he was simply stating an opinion that if Hillary appointed judges that abolished the second amendment, there would be resistence.
That’s an opinion millions of gun owners share.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:24 am
Yeah, I still can’t believe the media in Iowa and elsewhere let Joni Ernst skate on her “little Smith & Wesson” comment.
She should be asked about that every time she speaks to a member of the press or one of her constituents. But hey, this is Iowa – a state where Steve King’s constituents don’t believe he is a crazy racist because they can’t bring themselves to believe that the stuff he is quoted as saying in the papers is what he really said.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:25 am
Bob#43, As the NRA and events of the last few years have amply demonstrated, the blood of tyrants is barely enough to water the tree of liberty, the blood of club goers, college students, movie patrons and kindergarteners is required, on a weekly basis.
Besides, Jefferson said “blood of Tyrants,” and not, say, the blood of Alexander Hamilton.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:26 am
Bob#43, What a load. I’m gun owner, and Clinton is not after our goddamned guns, and it’s beyond tiresome that you lily-livered ammosexuals fall for that tired old lie. Grow a pair. Or just grow up.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:27 am
Bob#43, And actually if Jefferson said that today, you’d be liable to get a lot of people pointing out that neither the “tyrant” of the American Revolution suffered in the slightest, nor did “patriots” like Jefferson, who spent the war bedding French mistresses and hobnobbing with the crowned kings of Europe.
The phrase would better be put “the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of the 99% and whatever innocent bystander happens upon the scene.”
Jefferson’s prose was only half as good as his privilege blindness and casuistry.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:27 am
Bob#43, What kind of resistence [sic]? Like, people will vote against her? Is that the kind of resistance he meant?
August 17th, 2016 at 7:29 am
Bob#43, Judges cannot abolish any constitutional amendment. They can interpret. Before Heller, judges had interpreted it one way.
With Heller, they interpreted it another. That’s not abolition. Seriously, pick up a book sometime and read up on how this country works.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:29 am
Jefferson also thought there should be a Constitution every 20 years to keep up with changing conditions. So much for ‘originalism’
August 17th, 2016 at 7:30 am
Bob#43, insane, there is no chance that any 5 judges can “abolish” the second amendment. No right is an absolute, you can’t own a nuclear arm or even a bazooka, or are you going to say that it was tyranny to not allow people to own those guns? People will still be able to own guns if there were 9 Liberal jurists, the only restrictions would be to prevent felons or insane people or limit the firepower of the weaponry, not the right to own a gun itself.
And no one would have a problem with what Jefferson said, and if you think Trump can match his eloquence (he has a good brain and says a lot of things) you are even more out of it than I imagine.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:35 am
Bob#43, You are taking that quote out of context to change its meaning. Jefferson was writing about Shays Rebellion, which took place in 1786 under the Articles of Confederation.
He held that the insurrectionists were ignorant and misinformed, and that was why they took up arms. He was discussing how the new Federal government being set up by the Constitutional Convention should respond:
“The people cannot be all and always well-informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive….. Let them take arms.
The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon, and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure”
What did he mean by “pacify them”? If they wouldn’t listen to reason, the government has the right to kill them, even if they wrongly perceived themselves as patriots.
Your “millions of gun owners” are the same as the Shays Rebellion participants: not well-informed, laboring under misconceptions, ignorant, and discontented in proportion to their ignorance.
If those “millions of gun owners” took up arms against the duly elected government, they would be committing an illegal armed insurrection. Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 15, the Congress is able to call out militias to put down such rebellions.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:36 am
Anyone hear Rudy trying to spin this one as “he meant vote, imbecile” when Trump clearly intimated that the “second amendment remedy” would occur after she was elected ?
August 17th, 2016 at 7:39 am
These “Second Amendment Remedy” guys must have been sleeping through that part of high school American History class that covered the Whiskey Rebellion.
In 1791, soon after the Second Amendment was ratified, proud “patriots” rose up against a local government that they felt were “trampling on their rights,” imposing taxes and enforcing laws that they did not like.
That Founding Father icon George Washington led 13,000 Federal troops – militiamen, bearing arms as per the Second Amendment. out to quell the 500 or so rebels.
There was no confrontation; the rebels all went home though about 20 were arrested. That action established the principle that there is NO right to armed rebellion or political assassination in the Constitution. There is just the Constitution, a document designed to provide a system to settle political differences without violence.
Even if you are furious that your side lost at the ballot box or before the bar, you don’t have the right to get your gun and attack the government or its officials.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:40 am
Francis#53, I would actually savor erstwhile gun-grabber Rudy Giuliani going on cable news to defend Donald Trump against charges of Second Amendment Supremacism.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:42 am
Francis#53,If Trump had meant something different, he could have said so. After all, he keeps telling us that he’s really, really smart. And he uses the best words. Did you know he went to Wharton? It’s one of the best schools in the country.
For someone who uses the best words, he sure does seem to have to clarify what he meant over and over and over again. If he were elected, it would make his extemporaneous foreign policy comments very interesting. I wonder what DEFCON level we’d wind up at.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:42 am
Lopita#54, The problem is Government~ Ronnie Raygun
That is what they want to go back to, a Reaganesk form of federal decomposition.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:44 am
Lopita#53, Exactly!!!!!!!
The Second Amendment is not the right to bare arms against a tyrant Federal Government – THE SECOND AMENDMENT HAS EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE MEANING.
If right wing gun wackos in the US start armed rebellion then the federal government can call up citizen militias (whose right to bare arms is protect by the Second Amendment ) to PUT DOWN THE REBELLION.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:45 am
Death threats ? Sounds like someone we know …
August 17th, 2016 at 7:46 am
I don’t know know how 4 justices can look at the Bill Of Rights and not see it as a bill of rights specifically for We The People. But then this is a court that thinks corporations are people, so I guess anything could be a people to them.
They think it was about a bill of rights for states? Militias? Elites? For just the second line item? Why would it be written like that?
Anyway Trump is spiraling, he has to go. And not to the White House. *shiver*
August 17th, 2016 at 7:46 am
So basically we’re living in a fascist regime with the GOP – anyone that dares to voice an opinion or thought other than what the NRA tells you, should be shot on sight. Got it.
What I want to know is why (and I cop to getting this from the West Wing) we don’t all join the NRA and then the millions of us that want tighter gun control and proper laws and protections put in place, don’t vote the hardcores out of office and stop the $$$$$$$$$$ for the lobbying?
August 17th, 2016 at 7:47 am
Irma#61, I don’t get your plan.. if we all joined the NRA, it would mean giving a ton of money and clout to an anti-gun control lobbying organization.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:48 am
Irma#61, For the same reason we don’t all join the GOP and vote the hardcores out of office and stop the $$$$$ for the lobbying.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:48 am
Irma#61, (One really should take Aaron Sorkin with a huge grain of salt.)
Besides, we already have a lobbyist-beholden, corporate-friendly political entity to join and stop the cronyism/revolving door/lobbyist feeding trough — the Democrats! : )
August 17th, 2016 at 7:49 am
There are two kinds of NRA members: there’s the Card Carrying Gun Fanboy level, where you give them money and they lobby for your abstract rights.
Then there’s the Pro level, where you’re a firearms manufacturer and you give them money to constantly propagandize The Coming Gun Grab, which makes people at Fanboy level buy stacks of pieces they’ll never use.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:50 am
Donald J. Trump is a clear and present danger to our nation..and to Hillary Clinton.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:51 am
Sonja#65, And that’s why the number of gun-owning households has declined since the mid-70s, but the average number of guns owned has doubled. It’s up to an average of 8 per gun-owning household. Still, the NRA only has about 3.7 million dues-paying members out of maybe 64 million gun owners.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:52 am
Sonja#65, You have it all wrong, There are the Mormons and thos who are not the mormons in the NRA.
The Mormons tried to call out the NRA to help them take Federal land this year. One week or so after the seizure of a federal facility, brandishing firearms and threatening blood on the ground, they call out for the whole NRA to back them as their proxy Militia. And Ted Cruz runs a duck hunting ad from a blind with some freak who shoots at birds out of season.
The NRA is obstructing justice and the Constitution and is a fascist front for a theorcratic takeover of America. Nobody has a file on you like the NRA and its privatized version of the NSA, made from all the meta data you fear our Government to have on you, and do not.
August 17th, 2016 at 7:54 am
Please don’t use the word joke in any context, even with quotation marks, with this story. He wasn’t joking. It was a threat, not a joke.