We think people sexualize guns because people sexualize guns.

Crap like this is why we think gun people have a weird sexual thing about guns.

The never-ending deadly clown tragedy.

First Note:This post started with a much lighter tone when the situation had not yet turned as tragic as it has become.

Second Note: Been with the wife and my new child these last few weeks. Proud father of a wonderful baby boy! Blogging has been light, focus has been elsewhere, SO MUCH STUFF has came and went since then. The security vulnerabilities in IE, The recently released hacker "Weev" trying to make a hacker-sploit Startup or Hedge Fund (or this might be a BEAUTIFUL example of trolling, we will see). Huge decisions by the Supreme Court have come down regarding race, admissions, campaign finance, and searching your cell phone. The FCC may have just ended Net Neutrality as we have known it. And so much more.

This man is the gift that keeps on giving
But I am not saying anything on any of that right now. I am mesmerized by the gift that keeps on giving that is the Bundy Ranch standoff. This started as Cliven Bundy's long term status of not paying his bills or respecting the law regarding his cattle using land that is not his own without any kind of payment received for twenty years and continuing to have them trespass on Federal land on a daily basis. That is a VERY clear moral no-no. The agents informed Cliven Bundy that the next time his cattle trespassed they would be seized. Cliven responded with threats of lethal force and as such tactical units were dispatched.

The combination of guns, cowboy hats, and faux patriotism proved intoxicating to the least admirable members of America and his home became a camp for armed Anti-American drifters. After the BLM thoughtfully backed off, the inevitable happened.

#1) Two state chapters of Americans for Prosperity (the Koch Brother's political group that orchestrated "Tea Party" events which advocates for right wing cultural issues and the Koch's corporate agenda) decided to promote this cause as "Lone armed white person against the big government blah blah blah jack booted thugs etc...". Remember, there was NO merit to his case at any time in the last 20 years.

#2) Every right-wing grifter and his brother gets of the Cliven Bundy bandwagon. Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, those and many more jump in with support...

Truly a hero of our times, taking cover while civilians without flak jackets just stand around next to him and film.
#3) This situation escalates. More armed-and-weird people show up from across the nation to point their rifles at law enforcement agents and use their women as human shields. Supporters get down right Messianic about Cliven. The BLM decides to avoid slaughtering any American to seize Bundy's trespassing cattle. Bundy likely feels invincible. Rumors (with literally nothing behind them) state that Bundy not paying his bills for 20 years isn't the real issue it's a conspiracy involving Senator Reid, Solar Power, Chinese Communism, and the United Nations. (Illuminati and Reptilians to follow)

#3)The "Pro-States Rights, Anti-Obama, Conspiracy Theorist, Pro-Gun, and so on" guy was given too much time to ponder things on the microphone and said things that are pretty much unforgivably racist in any context:

“They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”


#4) The great back-away began. Politicians who supported him claimed to never do so, supporters began to split hairs about supporting his noble cause of trespassing against his personal racism. Cliven himself does the standard "I blame the Media for twisting my words" and then posts a photo of him with a black person. Americans for Prosperity scrubs the posts that promoted his cause. The bigger, more corporate supporters back away and Cliven is left with only his menagerie of armed paranoid malcontents. Cliven's supporters eventually do what the most ignorant of racists would do in this situation, prove that he cannot possibly be racist because he has been photographed by a genuine black person (he didn't burst into flames or anything)

Clearly a racist can't possibly pose with a person of a different race!

#5) Oh, the gift keeps on giving! While the savvy grifters move on to their next cause (Sarah Palin had an NRA convention to speak at), the less savvy continue to defend the indefensible. The contortions they have to twist into to make the guy that said "they put their young men in jail because they never learned to pick cotton" into a non-racist are AMAZING. 2nd and 3rd tier paid mouthpieces (like Dana Loesch, but some rather prominent names stick with him for a few more days.

#6) The armed paranoid folks with nowhere particular to be? They're still hanging around. They make the community exactly as comfortable as you would think. Reports of them acting as de-facto law enforcement, setting up checkpoints, intimidating residents and visitors, carrying weapons of war all over the place and such happens. Without a BLM presence to point weapons at, Oath Keepers and Militia Members and such begin to "diversify" their efforts. The gunned up folks keep talking up conspiracies about the constitution being suspended and an imminent drone strike.

#7) The Armed Factions split. The "Oath Keepers" promote a rumor from their "inside source" that Eric Holder (The Attorney General) had authorized a Military Drone Strike against the Bundy compound, which, aside from the fact that isn't how the chain-of-command works... is somehow believed by the Oath Keepers. The other Militias working at the compound reject the crazy bullshit (which is claimed to come from someone inside the DoD - which I guess answers to the Attorney General in his world) as crazy bullshit. The Oath Keepers are kicked off of the compound, too crazy and paranoid for a convention of armed paranoid people. A guy going by "Booda Bear" who is the "Head of Security" for the ranch releases a statement kicking out the Oath Keepers and manages to work in "I swear by the white skin..." which can never not sound creepy no matter what is before or after:

"... now we all have that thought of the fight of freedom and fighting against tyranny and this government that's trying to repress us but ta pull out of town and to go to hotels and say you did it for security -- that's coward, that's coward. My guys sleep in the dirt out here, we're on shifts for 14hours a day and trying to make sure that this family [welfare-king Bundy] stays safe and secure ... and just so everybody knows, as Booda, head of security for the Bundy Family I can swear on the white skin that covers my ass there will not be an Oath Keeper -- there WILL NOT BE AN OATH KEEPER allowed to set foot on the internal ranch property."

He also was rather sane in his evaluation that if a drone strike was being prepared against someone like the Bundy menagerie of armed idiots, only about five people on the planet would be aware of this in advance, and NONE of them would anonymously call up an OathKeeper hotline (it exists!) to give them details. Rather logical thought from a guy camping in the desert to promote Bundy's right to trespass.

There is a vote taken an unanimously the Oath Keepers are kicked out. Like any good meeting of guys pretending to be soldiers pretending to fight a war.. they have to threaten murder: "...you’re lucky that you’re not getting shot in the back. Because that’s what happens to deserters on the battlefield.".

Good stuff.

This is taken from a video where you get to find out that local Republican organizers cancelled meetings to come out in support of Bundy... because OF COURSE.

#8) All their failures are blamed on the government. The Oath Keepers release a statement blaming their promotion of a drone strike as government "Psy-Ops" as opposed "We listened to some GIJOE-wannabe who just makes shit up" for believing the crazy bit about the drone strike. They blame "plants" in the militia movement for them getting voted out after their crazy bullshit. They put out a press release that reads like a journey through the mind of the modern paranoid.

"The info we received stated that Eric Holder of the Department of Justice had okayed a drone strike on the Bundy ranch near Bunkerville, Nevada, within a 48 hour period over the weekend of April 26/27, 2014....That, fortunately, turned out to be “dis-info” – a false rumor...Oath Keepers is tremendously happy that nothing happened and that this was a bad tip, a piece of “dis-info”, a “psy-op”."

E. Stewart Rhodes (The Head of the Oath Keepers who made the above statement and formed Ron Paul staffer for what that is worth) goes on to attack the Militia folks in the harshest terms possible for Militia type people:

"...steroidal psycho-pathic dreamwish of little boys playing “Army” in the fields near the house forty and fifty years ago, who somehow retained that aloofness and swapped it for a job with a badge or uniform and a gun and a retirement plan that could be counted on, or worse, in some cases, self-proclaimed “officers” who never bothered to go into the military when they grew old enough to enlist, or never made the police force.".

He calls out Militia types for what they are, which means a phony soldier called out other phony soldiers for being phony. This is like a hipster calling another hipster a hipster... this is a pretty grievous attack in the pretend-army community. You can read more about the leader of the Oath Keepers here, and HEY they accept BitCoin for donations so you know they are a (self-link) collection of brilliant intellectuals. Some of the guys are straight up begging for cash.

Many of these guys are STILL out there, and hopefully they'll go home to whatever they do at home before they up and shoot someone. We can only hope that after a few weeks of wearing fatigues and camping and pointing their rifle at people they got whatever it was out of their system and can go home and do something productive with their lives for a while.

Relaxing at home and Rand Paul rallies when not defending trespassers
This whole thing quickly seemed to confirm more than a handful of stereotypes about the Militia Movement/State's Rights/WAYYY into guns crowd.

Easy to manipulate by shady billionaire funded groups. Always at least adjacent to racists. Paranoid to a fault. Believe WAY too many things they hear from anonymous sources. Blame their own failures on the government.

The only way any of this makes sense to me is if a group of right-wing political activists wanted to test if they could summon an armed mob from all across the U.S. for a cause with literally no merit just based on hyperbole, lies, paranoia and the right wing media. It looks like they can. If the Koch Brothers are ever convicted of anything, expect this mob to believe whatever conspiracy is put out there and to come protect them.

Truly, defenders of the common man
It did not, of course, end there. Bullies - those who use force legitimized by only their own ego to make others give in to their demands - they tend to respond to any and all capitulation by engaging in more aggressive tactics. Sadly, this happened with two individuals who made their way to the Bundy compound:

They murdered two police offficers and another individual, adorning their victims with a Gadsen flag and announcing a revolution. Video came out showing their time at the ranch. Those who they rallied with have since then (of course) claimed minimal to no support of these people.

Nevada City and Georgia have since also had armed conflicts with "Sovereign Citizens" and Cliven Bundy fans that were horrible.

My final thought: When we legitimize and enable this horrible conspiratorial world view, we lay the foundations of the next crazy shooter. As paranoid delusion becomes more common as a belief system, expect to see more of this.

Post Note, researching this has given me many, many links to peek into the mind of paranoid people. There are MILLIONS of people who believe we are days away from FEMA Camps, Sharia Law, U.N. Occupation, Socialism, and that every crazy shooting tragedy is a "false flag" operation by the illumineworldorder. It's pretty terrible in there.

*This is flowing into my next post, why the gun culture is noise and what that means.