Because instead of relying on left-wing caricatures of Oath Keepers, I actually talked to Stewart Rhodes, and asked him what he believed.

Crazy concept, eh?

Radley, you’re not stupid – why do you look at groups which seem to be both right-wing, and not exactly prominent against Bush, and conclude that they’re anything but a bunch of right-wingers whose only complaint is who is in charge?

Again, the spokesman cares about the laws because they save lives. Hence, the spokesman cares about lives, not death. The rest of what you said I have no issue with – I think seat belts ought to be a choice, as well. More than that I value people being honest about other’s positions and devalue people who twist other’s statements to support their own prejudices.

Smith should just call the person he’s quoted a liar if he wants to make the point he is making, because it is otherwise unsupported.

And why no love for Michael Williams’ role in Wonderful World? The movie was fairly forgettable, but he was good, though in coma for much of the movie, and he got to do a Senegalese accent. Maybe no one recognized him because he wasn’t playing a criminal. (Or a cop as he was in Gone Baby Gone also not mentioned)

One merely needs to look at the specifics of their oath to see that each item is actually a politically crafted message rather than a useful “oath” to protect americans.

Want proof: Oath keepers claims to have many police officers as members – have you ever heard a police officer refusing to conduct a search because of the lack of a warrant? QED.

Judith Stone, president of Washington, D.C.-based Advocates for Auto and Highway Safety, says the group does not consider fatalities when issuing its annual report card on states. “We look at laws and whether they’ve been passed,” Stone says.

Says right there: We don’t look at fatalities. And if a seat belt or helmet law automatically makes a state safer, then why does a state like New Hampshire have better statistics *without* those laws? That’s what Smith is saying: The Governor’s Highway Safety Association cares more about the laws.

If the group was more interested in saving lives, maybe they should look at what states that are supposedly ‘unsafe’ but have good statistics have for characteristics. Then instead of just ramming more laws down people’s throats, they could actually say why states with safer track records are safer.

In other words, that deaths do matter above all, which is opposite to the statement Smith makes about the person quoted.

For one thing the police, as part of the executive branch, aren’t really the ones with authority to interpret the Constitution. I suppose they could promise not to constantly push the envelope but ultimately drawing those lines is the role of the judiciary. I’d be more impressed with a pledge to be respectful of civil liberties, honest about bad law enforcement policies and abuse, and to refrain from using every possible pretext to resort to violence. One of the reasons I respect groups like LEAP so much is that they attack these issues from a calm, rational, policy perspective, not hysterical stuff that sounds at least in part like it’s meant to appeal to the Glenn Beck crowd.

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/columnists/michael_platt/2011/01/31/17104521.html

He said it is now company policy that animals needing to be euthanized are treated at a veterinarian’s office.

Treated? Need to be euthanized? What when there’s a downtick in business again? Shut the whole fucking thing down.

After reading through their site for a while, I don’t see anything worrying about them. I disagree with them on a few points, but they’re not calling for violence or support of a party.

Trust me, lots of cops are reading that article and mentally figuring out how easy it’d be to get out of there clean.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110201/ap_on_re_ca/cn_canada_dog_slaughter

Story’s all kinds of messed up. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/boynton-beach/fl-boynton-woman-shot-20110201,0,6688091.story

They were? Everything I can find about their founding, which admittedly isn’t much, says spring 2009.

Where were they when Bush was launching the greatest “peacetime” expansion of government, and the massive terror attack on liberties misnamed the USA-PATRIOT Acts?