I’ll just bet you haven’t heard the term, “fatal funnel.” Can you imagine what it might be? I mean, try to form an image in your mind of a funnel, any kind of funnel, like the one you might have used to pour oil into your car’s engine, or even a waffle ice cream cone with the small end removed. Now try to figure out how you would make a thing called a “funnel” deadly.
“Sensible” gun control has to start somewhere. So let it start with a ban on civilian ownership of AR-15s and similar semi-automatic weapons, as well as ghost guns and large capacity magazines. And impose stricter mandatory waiting periods and background checks. That is the low hanging fruit we could enact to begin to make a dent in gun violence. There is lots more that can be done immediately.
How would you recommend going about achieving your stated goals considering the Roberts's Court would not?
And for the sake of argument, if SCOTUS said fine, what are the next steps in order to achieve what you want?
Considering there is no Federal gun registry and only exists in 4 states how would you figure out where and who has any of the items on your banned list? And if you did describe the infrastructure and logistics required to deal with the banned items. Are the banned items exchanged for $$$ or simply an oral thank you?
Am a lefty (at least that's what people who view the world thru a political lens claim). Am a responsible gun owner but not a gunkweer. Own many guns including some for hunting. All except one are in a safe, separate and apart from ammo and from accessories. I go to the range at least 3 times a month and requalify myself on each gun I own. If I no longer feel comfortable with one, it is retired. My ancestors abided by the USG edit to turn over their guns. was a mistake to do so. Made my kind into prey and unable to defend ancestral lands, wimmin, children, elders, and the disabled aka the Castle Doctrine.
FTR: there are more restrictions on knives than guns although that too is loosening up. The Roberts Court will continue to loosen not tighten gun restrictions. Don't see any pending case as having any bearing on their previous decisions. Doubt if there was a slaughter on 6Jan (2021 or 2025) SCOTUS would view the Constitution any differently than they do now.
The only path to never again begins with ~never forget~.
Hmm, I started thinking of taking up archery today, because it's silent. I was a gun person for about six months, many years ago, and it didn't last long. I've also been thinking about things to leave in the street that flatten tires. And then I asked my husband if he had ammunition for his gun in the house. And before I did all this I mentioned to my husband that it was funny that we used to be afraid that GWB would put people in camps. We laughed because, looking back, he was a real amateur, dictator-wise. But these people actually talk about putting people in camps. I know none of this makes sense, but I keep feeling like I'm losing my mind. I apologize for sounding like an idiot.
No apology is necessary. I can relate to your feelings. My friends don't like to hear me say that as a widow with a cat and no children, I will be in a certain line at the camp.
Ellen, I’m reminded of an old bumper sticker: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention”. You’re not losing your mind, you are being bombarded with information that is bonkers.
And let me apologize for the horrendous treatment your people have received from white people though out history. I don’t trust these white guys at all…
Am grateful although there's no need for you to apologize.
Am careful to distinguish whites from yts (pronounced same as whites however it flags those who have harmed, not only to my kind, but to all POC and all wimmin regardless of color.
Yts are a dark stain on the soul of America and on her good people. They're the reason am armed including w/4GSDs and prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. Yet know well hope is not a valid strategy or tactic. Long thought-out preparation is whether for natural causations or man-made.
Oh, Lucian Truscott IV, what elegant, stirring writing. I love your description of politics; I don't understand how people don't see the connection between politics and their daily lives. Do they think highways and mail service and stoplights and city parks are acts of God, or something that just happens, like weather?
Major mainstream media should be lined up to get you to write for them. That they are not reveals how inadequate they've been in documenting American life over the last 10-20 years.
“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”
It's such a great quote that I tried to find out where Brecht wrote it, ultimately coming to a section called "Disputed" in the Wikiquotes entry on things Brecht wrote. It noted that the first known use of it was in a 1988 publication which provided no citation to a book by Brecht. A related quote preserved on video and in my memory bank (not insured by the FDIC): "I love the undereducated." That was T***p speaking at an political rally in Nevada, early months of the primry campaign, 2016.
Too ironic that this guy’s last name was Blessed. The little missus must’ve just put her head down when she saw what her husband was up to while booby-trapping their home. Sounds very Davidian to me. Great storytelling, Lucian, as usual. Justice prevailed.
The new Attorney General appointed by President Harris must make rooting out domestic terrorists her top priority. And no pardon/no mercy for Mango Mussolini.
The JTTF (under DoJ) and the 79 Fusion Centers (under DHS) are charged with doing so. Not a fan of prioritizing for the sake of it. State and Federal LE has an excellent record of infiltrating organized groups including outlaw militias.
There still exist many obstacles to getting ahead of these mofos including the 1st Amendment. Another is the mofos tend to be friends or kin folk of local po-pos, and some are local po-pos. Outside of urban/burd America, the prevailing mindset is live and let live. They're not a fan of the Feds or of DC in general. Been that way for many generations.
Yeah, since the Civil War. The US should have dealt severely with the rebels. Instead, they were allowed to sulk and carry their grudges for 150 years.
Can only shake me-noggin' when CSA southerners (descendants) and their apologists "argue" but, but, but my ancestors didn't own slaves while omitting they took up arms against the USA. Half-truths are whole lies.
Agree. The failure to deal with traitors in a nation that constantly invokes "the rule of law" and cites different versions of a government of laws, not men, affirms that words don't matter when they are not abided.
In my culture, all one has is her/his word. So, when hearing all the lying by omission, half-truths, or bald-faced lies spoken in the past and present can only weep for this nation and her good people.
These people need to be guided into a “fatal funnel.” Active strategic arrest and disarming of these heavily armed insurrectionists. The problem is that there are so many of them, so fortified by pitiless weaponry without the brains or discernment to use them for any but nefarious purpose. I’ve been studying fringe groups since Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” in the 1960s. Then they were groups that could be tracked. Now they are disturbed individuals who keep multiplying, willing to deploy their arsenals for no sane reason.
But, why? I don't believe I will ever make sense of how so many folks are unable to recognize the con and the criminal for who and what he is. The evidence is overwhelming! I doubt that I ever will.
"We are here. One day, we won’t be, and there will be others who come after us." / Between climate change and crazy people, I'm not too sure about *anybody* coming after us.
Brilliant. Unfortunate that the fundamental topic is so near to bat-shit crazy. We are living in interesting times. Hopefully our democracy and nation will survive.
Oct 18·edited Oct 18Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Lucian, you are an eloquent prophet, as always. Thank you for this insightful and frightening account of the lengths to which people driven insane by Donald Trump will go in pursuit of their delusions.
I just learned about a more recent book by Dr. Bandy Lee. It was she who organized a conference of mental health professionals in 2017 to perform a forensic dangerousness assessment of Donald Trump, and collected their essays into the book "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump", which many of us have read.
Her more recent book is "The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Danger to American Democracy and All Humankind" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214129703-the-psychology-of-trump-contagion). I haven't read it yet, but will shortly. Dr. Lee explains that it's well known in the psychiatric profession that severe mental health symptoms are contagious, and that the best way to stop the contagion is to remove the primary mentally ill person from contact with others.
If you're looking for a shorter version, check out this article in Scientific American, on January 11, 2021:
"The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists"
Forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee explains the outgoing president’s pathological appeal and how to wean people from it.
You can help Kamala win this perilously close election from the comfort of your easy chair! Give the precious gift of an hour or two of your time to turn out voters in battleground states. Find Harris/Walz/Dems phonebanks here:
LTK raises a great point, we're in a battle between belief and doubt. Doubt admits to not having all the answers and that change is inevitable. Belief can't be reasoned with, facts aren't important, you believe the election was rigged so it must be true. We're outgunned here, Dems have doubts and have to be convinced by facts against 45% of the country guided only by belief. Mussolini, Hitler and cult leaders everywhere would recognize the believers.
Another extraordinary, powerful exegesis of what lies before us if sanity does not prevail in November.
Grateful for your voice.
If we win civil war looms...
Scary. Violent nuts with weapons. who are eager to engage in violence. Too bad he only got 20 years.
The idea that we are a nation of laws is just another long held tradition that trump has trampled.
He must be defeated soundly at the ballot box as well as his enablers in their elected positions.
Those out there planning insurrection will not accept a Trump loss...guaranteed.
Sadly, true. It may get ugly
“Sensible” gun control has to start somewhere. So let it start with a ban on civilian ownership of AR-15s and similar semi-automatic weapons, as well as ghost guns and large capacity magazines. And impose stricter mandatory waiting periods and background checks. That is the low hanging fruit we could enact to begin to make a dent in gun violence. There is lots more that can be done immediately.
How would you recommend going about achieving your stated goals considering the Roberts's Court would not?
And for the sake of argument, if SCOTUS said fine, what are the next steps in order to achieve what you want?
Considering there is no Federal gun registry and only exists in 4 states how would you figure out where and who has any of the items on your banned list? And if you did describe the infrastructure and logistics required to deal with the banned items. Are the banned items exchanged for $$$ or simply an oral thank you?
Am a lefty (at least that's what people who view the world thru a political lens claim). Am a responsible gun owner but not a gunkweer. Own many guns including some for hunting. All except one are in a safe, separate and apart from ammo and from accessories. I go to the range at least 3 times a month and requalify myself on each gun I own. If I no longer feel comfortable with one, it is retired. My ancestors abided by the USG edit to turn over their guns. was a mistake to do so. Made my kind into prey and unable to defend ancestral lands, wimmin, children, elders, and the disabled aka the Castle Doctrine.
FTR: there are more restrictions on knives than guns although that too is loosening up. The Roberts Court will continue to loosen not tighten gun restrictions. Don't see any pending case as having any bearing on their previous decisions. Doubt if there was a slaughter on 6Jan (2021 or 2025) SCOTUS would view the Constitution any differently than they do now.
The only path to never again begins with ~never forget~.
Hmm, I started thinking of taking up archery today, because it's silent. I was a gun person for about six months, many years ago, and it didn't last long. I've also been thinking about things to leave in the street that flatten tires. And then I asked my husband if he had ammunition for his gun in the house. And before I did all this I mentioned to my husband that it was funny that we used to be afraid that GWB would put people in camps. We laughed because, looking back, he was a real amateur, dictator-wise. But these people actually talk about putting people in camps. I know none of this makes sense, but I keep feeling like I'm losing my mind. I apologize for sounding like an idiot.
You don't sound like an idiot, but rather a human being.
Thank you. I still feel like I'm in the wrong place.
No apologies evah for speaking your truth.
If you have an inkling for archery shoot the right way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk
Thank you!
YW
Holy shit!
No apology is necessary. I can relate to your feelings. My friends don't like to hear me say that as a widow with a cat and no children, I will be in a certain line at the camp.
Ellen, I’m reminded of an old bumper sticker: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention”. You’re not losing your mind, you are being bombarded with information that is bonkers.
Archery is good.
I'm not sure I remember it, but I certainly remember the sentiment. Tonight, watching the news, I am OUTRAGED.
Thank you so much for your concluding sentence. Amen
A journey of a thousand mile starts with a single step. As we have seen, $CROTUS can be ignored. That's a start.
I’m not a gun owner and don’t want one but with seditionists on the Supreme Court, and in the house and senate if I had a gun I would keep it…
Much ~respect~ for both your positions. Some don't seem to understand both can/are true.
Personally cannot ignore the threat as you succinctly laid out.
And let me apologize for the horrendous treatment your people have received from white people though out history. I don’t trust these white guys at all…
Am grateful although there's no need for you to apologize.
Am careful to distinguish whites from yts (pronounced same as whites however it flags those who have harmed, not only to my kind, but to all POC and all wimmin regardless of color.
Yts are a dark stain on the soul of America and on her good people. They're the reason am armed including w/4GSDs and prepare for the worst while hoping for the best. Yet know well hope is not a valid strategy or tactic. Long thought-out preparation is whether for natural causations or man-made.
I will take the liberty of repeating a quotation - “Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.
Sort of begs the questions I guess: what is a war; what is a garden; and most importantly, what is a warrior?
Ans: Lion pride v. hyena clan (the oldest and longest-running war)
Ans: Anywhere life originates below the surface (land or water)
Ans: Not who and what most say it is because 99 and 44/100 restrict it to the 2legged.
Oh, Lucian Truscott IV, what elegant, stirring writing. I love your description of politics; I don't understand how people don't see the connection between politics and their daily lives. Do they think highways and mail service and stoplights and city parks are acts of God, or something that just happens, like weather?
Major mainstream media should be lined up to get you to write for them. That they are not reveals how inadequate they've been in documenting American life over the last 10-20 years.
“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”
― Bertolt Brecht
It's such a great quote that I tried to find out where Brecht wrote it, ultimately coming to a section called "Disputed" in the Wikiquotes entry on things Brecht wrote. It noted that the first known use of it was in a 1988 publication which provided no citation to a book by Brecht. A related quote preserved on video and in my memory bank (not insured by the FDIC): "I love the undereducated." That was T***p speaking at an political rally in Nevada, early months of the primry campaign, 2016.
Too ironic that this guy’s last name was Blessed. The little missus must’ve just put her head down when she saw what her husband was up to while booby-trapping their home. Sounds very Davidian to me. Great storytelling, Lucian, as usual. Justice prevailed.
Women are not always angels! For all we know, she encouraged him.
The new Attorney General appointed by President Harris must make rooting out domestic terrorists her top priority. And no pardon/no mercy for Mango Mussolini.
The JTTF (under DoJ) and the 79 Fusion Centers (under DHS) are charged with doing so. Not a fan of prioritizing for the sake of it. State and Federal LE has an excellent record of infiltrating organized groups including outlaw militias.
There still exist many obstacles to getting ahead of these mofos including the 1st Amendment. Another is the mofos tend to be friends or kin folk of local po-pos, and some are local po-pos. Outside of urban/burd America, the prevailing mindset is live and let live. They're not a fan of the Feds or of DC in general. Been that way for many generations.
Yeah, since the Civil War. The US should have dealt severely with the rebels. Instead, they were allowed to sulk and carry their grudges for 150 years.
Can only shake me-noggin' when CSA southerners (descendants) and their apologists "argue" but, but, but my ancestors didn't own slaves while omitting they took up arms against the USA. Half-truths are whole lies.
Agree. The failure to deal with traitors in a nation that constantly invokes "the rule of law" and cites different versions of a government of laws, not men, affirms that words don't matter when they are not abided.
In my culture, all one has is her/his word. So, when hearing all the lying by omission, half-truths, or bald-faced lies spoken in the past and present can only weep for this nation and her good people.
86 45 STAT
Absolutely!
These people need to be guided into a “fatal funnel.” Active strategic arrest and disarming of these heavily armed insurrectionists. The problem is that there are so many of them, so fortified by pitiless weaponry without the brains or discernment to use them for any but nefarious purpose. I’ve been studying fringe groups since Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” in the 1960s. Then they were groups that could be tracked. Now they are disturbed individuals who keep multiplying, willing to deploy their arsenals for no sane reason.
"The opposite of faith isn't doubt; it's certainty." - Anne Lamott
It confounds me how this election is even within 30 points at this point. WTAF is going on?
That's what I keep asking (among other things.) Who are these people?
Many of your neighbors, unfortunately.
But, why? I don't believe I will ever make sense of how so many folks are unable to recognize the con and the criminal for who and what he is. The evidence is overwhelming! I doubt that I ever will.
I don't think so. I live in Berkeley California.
Trumpers might say the same thing...
Wonderfully written Lucian.
Thank you.
"We are here. One day, we won’t be, and there will be others who come after us." / Between climate change and crazy people, I'm not too sure about *anybody* coming after us.
Brilliant. Unfortunate that the fundamental topic is so near to bat-shit crazy. We are living in interesting times. Hopefully our democracy and nation will survive.
Lucian, you are an eloquent prophet, as always. Thank you for this insightful and frightening account of the lengths to which people driven insane by Donald Trump will go in pursuit of their delusions.
I just learned about a more recent book by Dr. Bandy Lee. It was she who organized a conference of mental health professionals in 2017 to perform a forensic dangerousness assessment of Donald Trump, and collected their essays into the book "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump", which many of us have read.
Her more recent book is "The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Danger to American Democracy and All Humankind" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214129703-the-psychology-of-trump-contagion). I haven't read it yet, but will shortly. Dr. Lee explains that it's well known in the psychiatric profession that severe mental health symptoms are contagious, and that the best way to stop the contagion is to remove the primary mentally ill person from contact with others.
If you're looking for a shorter version, check out this article in Scientific American, on January 11, 2021:
"The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists"
Forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee explains the outgoing president’s pathological appeal and how to wean people from it.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-shared-psychosis-of-donald-trump-and-his-loyalists/
A must read...very helpful and concise explanation of why Trump is such a threat.
You can help Kamala win this perilously close election from the comfort of your easy chair! Give the precious gift of an hour or two of your time to turn out voters in battleground states. Find Harris/Walz/Dems phonebanks here:
https://go.kamalaharris.com/calls/
LTK raises a great point, we're in a battle between belief and doubt. Doubt admits to not having all the answers and that change is inevitable. Belief can't be reasoned with, facts aren't important, you believe the election was rigged so it must be true. We're outgunned here, Dems have doubts and have to be convinced by facts against 45% of the country guided only by belief. Mussolini, Hitler and cult leaders everywhere would recognize the believers.
Well done as always, thank you🙏🏻
The best book on the mindset is “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer…in 1951.
Also much of Nietzsche's writings, when he is examining skepticism and the issues of blind religious faith.