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Privately Owned Armored Trucks Raise Eyebrows After Dallas Attack
HughPickens.com writes: Manny Fernandez writes in the NY Times that the scores of military and police-style vans, trucks and cars offered for sale on Craigslist and eBay have raised concerns for some law enforcement officials, particularly after the Dallas attack on a police headquarters. Officials say the vehicles appear to be legal for the most part, so there is little they can do. Jeff Funicello, for example, is selling his black 1975 GMC armored truck on Craigslist. The body is armored, and the windows are bulletproof. It has sliding portholes to point rifles from and a sprinkler system inside. Long ago, it transported money, and it was once the target of a shootout in the 1980s. Of course, people have been driving reinforced cars long before the Dallas attack on a police headquarters. But the celebrities and executives who install bulletproof windows and other types of armor on their vehicles often do not want it noticed. Celebrity clients generally demand that the exteriors of their luxury armored vehicles look normal so they blend in. However those who buy and sell armored vans want people to look. And the popularity of apocalyptic movies and television shows has put a new twist and added a macabre cachet to such vehicles "This is America," says Funicello. "I should be able to have a howitzer or a bazooka if I want one. If I wanted to buy a fire truck, I could."
Or cutting and welding equipment because you could armor a vehicle.
Who'd do such a crazy thing? I'd pity that fool.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It's the same logic one could apply to any First Amendment issue, or coding for that matter: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
We have many things wrong in this country. Corruption, excessive government spending, a military machine that gets involved in things we should not, and many relationships with countries we should not support. Most of our crime is gang related violence. They don't follow laws and have guns. Law abiding gun owners have never been a problem.
true freedom is "i can do whatever i want, as long as i don't impinge on the freedom of others"
an immature douchebag thinks "i can do whatever i want, who cares who i hurt or what i damage"
you responded to a comment which said 'the shame is that most Americans don't care about a little thing called "social consequences"'
which is absolutely correct and is the only way you arrive at a true mature understanding of what freedom is
the problem, the abuse that hurts actual freedom, is shitbags who go around constantly ranting about freedom, when their conception of freedom has absolutely nothing to do with actual freedom, and are really the rationalizations of immature children who either are
1. maliciously trying to avoid the consequences of their actions, or
2. are so fucking ignorant they don't understand their actions even have consequences
morons and malicious people are the ones who truly damage the respect for freedom, and they are always the ones whining about "freedom" when they are caught or asked to account for or pay for the consequences of their irresponsibility
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And the only people with raised eyebrows are the ones that contract private transportation, much of it with "enhanced safety" and specially trained drivers.
It's like some dickwad whining about people having guns yet has armed guards on the payroll.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Or East LA. Or the wrong side of Boston, Houston, Miami, or most other big cities. You don't have to leave the USA to find third world countries.
A republican congress.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
About those "wealthy and successful business men" (clue: many of them were decidedly not wealthy Virginia plantation owners - most owned/ran small businesses at most, and many were little more than yeomen)... They staked their families, fortunes and lives on the whole revolution. Most of the ~50 signatories of the Declaration of Independence sacrificed a *lot* to the cause - family members, fortunes, lives, etc. Few of them came out of it as prosperous as they went into it.
Also note that they could have *very* easily set up a new monarchy, and would have probably gotten support to do so from the population at large had they tried. In fact, much of the public were clamoring to make Washington a new king (to his immense credit, Washington hotly refused it, and intentionally limited his terms in office.) Instead, these men decided that maybe, just maybe, an improved version of the classical Greco-Roman Republic would be a better direction to go for governance. This means putting primacy on the individual, and to stop the monarch's habit of curating society (usually to the monarch's benefit, but still...)
That emphasis on individual initiative and growth (and the activities of those who took it to heart) is basically what built the US. Without it, I suspect that we'd decline and collapse in less than a century. Mind you, this does not supersede law and order, but it does mean that the US government should, wherever possible and/or practical, get the hell out of the individual citizen's way. It's a pity that most folks either don't or won't realize this...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
the amazing lie in national politics nowadays is "religious liberty"
i thought "religious liberty" means you can practice your religion how you want and government can't regulate that
that makes sense. i support that
but mindblowingly we have people telling us they are offended at, for example, gay marriage, so their "religious liberty" has to be preserved by allowing them to oppress others and respect other people's basic rights
how dumbfoundingly ignorant about what liberty and freedom really is!
orwellian even: "my liberty means i have the right to deny you your liberty"
how does someone get their head shoved so far up their ass that this repugnant freedom denying bullshit makes sense to them?
the way "religious liberty" is talked about in politics nowadays completely inverts the concept of liberty
hey, intolerant social conservative assholes: the concept of liberty never, ever meant that you have the right to deny liberty to others. a genuine insult to your liberty is someone denying your rights. it NEVER means that you have the right to deny the rights of others
your freedom ends when your actions hurt the freedoms of others
naturally, logically
ALL freedoms have this logical natural limit: the freedom of others
any government law that codifies that is PRESERVING freedom, and protecting freedom from social conservative assholes who want to hurt the natural freedom and liberty of others. it isn't government denying you your "religious liberty". it is protecting the rest of us from your gross violation of basic liberty
"religious liberty" as currently being referred to by conservative politicians is a crock of (perhaps willfully) ignorant shit, logically incoherent
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Define "trouble"? Recent history is littered with examples of the US military immediately and utterly crushing the armies and rebel groups in any country they invade. The rabble that remain and try to resist occupation cannot inflict any conventional military damage, which is why they resort of extreme tactics like suicide bombings. Tactics that don't work, but between soldiers, drones, warplanes, and NSA surveillance they have no better ideas that might work.
Likewise, the chances of any US citizens successfully engaging in armed resistance against the US government is zero. Here's what would happen:
1) If you decide to take your gun and resist oppression alone you will be gunned down within minutes or seconds, reported in the press as having mental health problems and everyone will have forgotten your name within a couple of days
2) If you try to find other like minding people and raise a resistance group the FBI and/or NSA will learn of your plot before it happens, and you will be arrested before you have any chance to make real progress with your plan. You will be charged with domestic extremism, terrorism, or some variant thereof, and disappear for the rest of your adult life into a Supermax.
In no situation does having a gun allow you to resist even very petty government corruption or abuse. You simply stand no chance at all, you will always lose. The only way to seriously change a government is through the ballot box, which is why every country except the USA doesn't pretend an armed populace has anything to do with freedom.