Feds say they thwarted militia plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer. Other state governments targeted too

[FrankFletcher]

Why is it acceptable by citizens in other countries?

 

[RhodesianSon]

Because they have a parliamentary system where the representatives form a government and elect a prime minister. It’s effectively the same thing because all the disparate parties form coalitions. We just form coalitions in the parties beforehand.

ETA: when I said better, I meant better within the system we have. Not objectively.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Considering that almost half of the US population don’t vote I think a lot of people probably aren’t ever happy with either candidate.

 

[RhodesianSon]

They have no one to blame but themselves for not participating then.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

They have no one to blame but themselves for not participating then.

Surprised that someone nominally opposed to democracy would feel this way. Personally I don’t blame them, and I don’t feel like a vote is all that worthwhile in my own country. I probably won’t vote in my country’s next general election, and I don’t think I would bother voting between Trump and Biden.

It’s not like everyone turns out in most general elections in the UK either, I think many people feel fundamentally disenchanted with the whole system.

@(name removed by moderator) Definitely. I think numbers of non-voters are quite high in most democracies.

 

[RhodesianSon]

Surprised that someone nominally opposed to democracy would feel this way

I do think it’s a pretty bad way to choose leaders. But these are the rules and the alternative is being subject to the whims of the mob without any (name removed by moderator)ut at all. I don’t think voting makes a difference at the national level but state and local elections can be swayed by a few extra votes.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

The two party system is better than the alternative. Imagine a scenario where there’s a third party that actually gets say 25% of the vote. Then the other two get say, 35% and 45% each. The guy with the 45% wins, and then the other 55% of the country is completely unhappy.

Use ranked choice voting, aka instant runoff voting. Set the winning threshold to 50%. Problem solved.

 

[RhodesianSon]

Nah that ranked stuff is garbage. Let’s a city like Portland Maine overrun the whole rest of the state

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Let’s a city like Portland Maine overrun the whole rest of the state

That sounds like more of a rebuttal to the winning candidate being the popular choice than specifically to rank choice voting.

It resolves the vote splitting problem earlier identified when there are candidates from more than 2 candidates.

 

[RhodesianSon]

No it just lets urban voters run rough shod over rural communities.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

No it just lets urban voters run rough shod over rural communities.

That is saying the same thing since roughly 80% of the population in the USA live in and around urban areas. But that’s not really an argument against rank choice voting.

 

[Julie4]

People are cage-crazy from the Covid lockdown… Unstable people who are cage-crazy do unstable things. The whole affair is a sad one. I don’t like Gretchen Whitmer at all, but the plot to kidnap her was insane. I pray for her safety and the safety of all our elected officials.

 

[Cathoholic]

Gov. Whitmer Doubles Down Blaming Trump for Kidnapping Plot​

Posted at 6:30 pm on October 11, 2020 by Jeff Charles

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

AP Photo/Paul Sancya

One of the most annoying symptoms of those suffering from Trump derangement syndrome is a tendency to blame any and every negative occurrence on the president, even if you have to perform the most astonishing feats of mental gymnastics to do so. Despite evidence to the contrary, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is doubling down on her fallacious allegations that the plot to kidnap her is somehow related to that mean guy in the Oval Office.

During a Sunday appearance on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Whitmer insisted, without proof, that Trump’s rhetoric was somehow providing “comfort and support” to “domestic terrorists” like the ones who were planning to kidnap her. When host Margaret Brennan asked if Whitmer felt safe, she indicated that she has “always felt safe” because she is protected by the Michigan State Police. Then, her symptoms began flaring up again.

She said:

“But, I do believe that there are still serious threats that groups like this group, these domestic terrorists, are finding comfort and support in the rhetoric coming out of Republican leadership from the White House to our state House. And so I remain concerned about safety and integrity going up to this election.”

Let’s be frank. At this point, Whitmer likely knows that the true motivations of each individual involved in the conspiracy are not yet known. In fact, there seems to be more evidence at this point that the would-be kidnappers aren’t fans of Trump than there is to the contrary. . . .

. . . They are taking advantage of the lack of known facts to concoct their own narrative because the reality is that they don’t care about domestic terrorism. They care about political expediency.

It seems incredible that someone who was the target of a potential kidnapping plot would immediately react by figuring out how it could benefit her politically. But here we are. Unfortunately, this is the world we’re living in when it comes to American politics . . .

 

[The_Old_Maid]

Argument made here that the plot also was motivated by misogyny: some disobedient Wimmin-folk having the nerve to do exactly the same thing that some of the male governors did.

What I keep coming back to is Whitmer, speaking to the press on Thursday, somber and composed, calmly explaining how a group of men hoped to hurt her, thanking the law enforcement officers who stopped them. I wonder what it felt like to learn this plot existed. I wonder how close they came, circling Whitmer’s vacation home in the dark of an up-north summer.

I wonder when it will stop.

By the way, her Lieutenant Governor is Black, and they were elected by a healthy margin. Guess it shows what these, um, accused think of their own towns. (What the actual people of MI think of themselves.)

Also by the way, according to your laws, kidnapping a person and transporting across state lines is a 20-year felony, minimum. That’s binding even if it were all they did.

(Edit: the liberal blogger weighs in: “John Wilkes Booth never thought about trying to kidnap Abraham Lincoln.”)

 

[WingedHussar]

So main plotter was anti-Trump anarchist nutjob. Worth noting is that anarchy supposedly happens after the state withers away and perfect communism takes its place. Also worth noting is that “right-wing” libertarians are useful idiots for the American left at best.

Now onto the plot itself and the FBI busting it. I am amazed that the FBI can wiretap a presidential candidate, and can identify these groups and plant informants in them, but cannot find out who is in the local Antifa cells. These plots never seem to be found without an informant which suggests that if a serious group with decent opsec carried out a plot, the FBI would never see it coming. I would say that given the stupidity of the plan, it is even money as to whether the informant or these doofuses actually suggested the plan.

So that raises the interesting question. What was the FBI’s political motive for planting the informant and making this public? Some kind of warning/threat to the Governor? Just trust their friends in the press would attempt to tie this to President Trump?

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Worth noting is that anarchy supposedly happens after the state withers away and perfect communism takes its place.

These guys weren’t communist, and their understanding of what anarchy is shares little with either communism or social-anarchism/anarcho-communism. They supported private property and the constitution, and hated the American government for supposedly violating these two things.

Also the whole “anarchism is the end goal that Marxists want” is just a meme perpetuated by the ignorant modern left, and mostly on the internet. Marxist communism and both social-anarchism and anarcho-communism do not share the same end goal. The Bolsheviks were aware of this.

 

[WingedHussar]

So they were the right-wing useful idiot types for the American left. At the end of the day, their plan was bad, their opsec was bad, and they should feel bad.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

They were definitely idiots, but there’s no evidence they were set up by the police or the Democratic Party.

I don’t really see why all of these actions have to be part of a grand conspiracy by either party. College lefties and libertarian militias are not new elements of American society, and do behave with quite a lot of autonomy. I doubt either of those groups have a direct line to Trump or Biden.

 

[WingedHussar]

It still does not change the fact that the FBI made it public and the press reported on it in a specific way. Both actions were deliberate.

 

[Cathoholic]

Regular_Atheist . . .

Also the whole “anarchism is the end goal that Marxists want” is just a meme perpetuated by the ignorant modern left, and mostly on the internet.

No it’s not. That is exactly what the Marxists want.
And that is exactly what the Marxists bring to the proverbial table. Destroy society and remake it in their image and likeness.

The “internet” argument is wrong too.

I knew about this Marxism paradigm before there was an internet.