View Full Version : Which is worse: Assassination or Stealing an Election
Years ago I heard someone (Dennis Prager, I think) explain that assassinating a democratically elected head of state is evil because it is, ultimately, an indirect attack on the whole of the people.
At the time, I agreed with that view but now I’m not so sure. When JFK was killed, besides the shock that rocked the nation, not much else changed, at least not immediately. His administration remained intact and the nation proceeded much as it would have if he were still alive.
On the other hand, when the Daley Machine stole the election from Nixon three years earlier, a lot changed. Under Nixon the whole cabinet would have had a different make up. His domestic and foreign polices would have been totally different. Our involvement in Viet Nam would have been much different. Special Forces Soldiers would not have gotten green hats. :D But, ultimately, it deprived the citizens of the President that had chosen. It was, in fact, a direct attack on the whole of the people. That strikes me as a coups d'état.
Just a thought given the recent videos released by James O’Keefe.
Pat
It really makes you wonder where it's all headed. Our doormat in chief says stop the whining, what a horrible example of a leader he has been. This is his kind of election. Meanwhile this gets uglier and uglier, it's win at all costs. Me thinks we're fooked. I'm glad I am as old as I am but I worry about what kind of country my grand kids will be growing up in.
It really makes you wonder where it's all headed. Our doormat in chief says stop the whining, what a horrible example of a leader he has been. This is his kind of election. Meanwhile this gets uglier and uglier, it's win at all costs. Me thinks we're fooked. I'm glad I am as old as I am but I worry about what kind of country my grand kids will be growing up in.
If Hillary get elected, the persecutions will begin and they will make the Tea Party/IRS scandal look like a birthday party. If Trump gets elected look for riots that will make the Rodney King riots look like kids play.
Good times either was you look at it.
Too answer Pats question, I find election theft worse than assassination.
bblhead672
10-19-2016, 08:26
A: Election theft - because an assassination may the work of one person acting alone or several people acting together, while an election theft requires a massive amount of people, financial backing and collusion between different organizations, including a negligent "free" press.
A: Election theft - because an assassination may the work of one person acting alone or several people acting together, while an election theft requires a massive amount of people, financial backing and collusion between different organizations, including a negligent "free" press.
Then I suggest that the punishment should be the same for both.
Pat
WarriorDiplomat
10-19-2016, 22:08
Years ago I heard someone (Dennis Prager, I think) explain that assassinating a democratically elected head of state is evil because it is, ultimately, an indirect attack on the whole of the people.
At the time, I agreed with that view but now I’m not so sure. When JFK was killed, besides the shock that rocked the nation, not much else changed, at least not immediately. His administration remained intact and the nation proceeded much as it would have if he were still alive.
On the other hand, when the Daley Machine stole the election from Nixon three years earlier, a lot changed. Under Nixon the whole cabinet would have had a different make up. His domestic and foreign polices would have been totally different. Our involvement in Viet Nam would have been much different. Special Forces Soldiers would not have gotten green hats. :D But, ultimately, it deprived the citizens of the President that had chosen. It was, in fact, a direct attack on the whole of the people. That strikes me as a coups d'état.
Just a thought given the recent videos released by James O’Keefe.
Pat
I think an assassination accomplishes little except terrorizing and demoralizing the population if the administration is left intact as an SF guy trained in UW methodology (Insurgency). I agree that it is an indirect attack on the populace since their will was presumably expressed through democratic processes........however if the POTUS admin has lost the support of the people and no longer represents its will then we are pledged to protect the constitution by removing said leader. The 4 year election cycle mitigates the pressure building enough steam without resolution. When the American Legion sponsored the 500,000 WW1 vets in the 30's the coup was ready to go and the plan was to take the entire administration out in one military type coup lock down DC replace the existing with the shadow government with Smedley Butler in as POTUS and eventually rebuild the 3 branches. This plan is UW 101 in many respects where the shadow government becomes the government in exile until the conditions are right to replace the existing in one fail swoop. The only thing that stopped this was Smedley Butler turned in the conspirators and he was one of those after he wrote his book (war is a racket) they gambled on his being a sure bet with the respect of the public but they miscalculated his loyalty to the constitution. Could you imagine Joe Biden as POTUS and then Clinton or Kerry if he is shwacked since the SEC of STATE is 3 on the totem pole?. In our type of system the administration is stacked deep and therefore needs the entire administration taken together or risk the reprisals of someone down the line.
I think an assassination accomplishes little except terrorizing and demoralizing the population if the administration is left intact as an SF guy trained in UW methodology (Insurgency). I agree that it is an indirect attack on the populace since their will was presumably expressed through democratic processes...
I agree with this part of your reply but your second part was about a post-election coup where I suggested a pre-election coup by voter fraud.
Pat
The Reaper
10-20-2016, 06:21
Legitimacy?
TR
Legitimacy?
TR
Could you clarify, please?
Pat
The Reaper
10-20-2016, 19:11
Could you clarify, please?
Pat
SOF Imperatives:
Understand the operational environment
Recognize political implications
Facilitate interagency activities
Engage the threat discriminately
Consider long-term effects
Ensure legitimacy and credibility of Special Operations
Anticipate and control psychological effects
Apply capabilities indirectly
Develop multiple options
Ensure long-term sustainment
Provide sufficient intelligence
Balance security and synchronization
If you do not ensure the integrity of the electoral system, people will view the elected leaders or even the entire system as illegitimate.
That may lead those who no longer respect the legitimacy of the process to seek alternatives.
Hope that helps.
TR
If you do not ensure the integrity of the electoral system, people will view the elected leaders or even the entire system as illegitimate.
That may lead those who no longer respect the legitimacy of the process to seek alternatives.
Hope that helps.
TR
Understood, thanks.
I thought that you might be questioning the legitimacy of applying capital punishment to a crime where no one is actually killed. In which case, I would have cited treason.
I believe that the legitimacy of our electoral system has been in question for decades. It just didn’t threaten the existence of the nation as it may now. It’s been shrugged off like, “Heck, that mole has always been there.” Then, one day, you find out that it’s malignant melanoma.
Pat
mojaveman
10-20-2016, 22:20
If Trump gets elected look for riots that will make the Rodney King riots look like kids play.
Yep. Voted for him but I think you are absolutely correct.
If you do not ensure the integrity of the electoral system, people will view the elected leaders or even the entire system as illegitimate.
That may lead those who no longer respect the legitimacy of the process to seek alternatives.
Undermining the electoral system is precisely the intent of the Cloward-Piven Strategy.
They believe that by fomenting distrust in the electoral system the 'underclass' and 'disenfranchised' voters will rise up, transform the system (Democratic Party) and become partisans dedicated to class struggle.
Fundamental transformation of the United States of America.
They believe that by fomenting distrust in the electoral system the 'underclass' and 'disenfranchised' voters will rise up, transform the system (Democratic Party) and become partisans dedicated to class struggle.
Fundamental transformation of the United States of America.
Depending on how this mess plays out...it is perhaps unclear who may actually rise up and become dedicated partisans...Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke's recent comments come to mind.
The country is hugely divided under the Obama administration - Hillary is cut from the same cloth.
Depending on how this mess plays out...it is perhaps unclear who may actually rise up and become dedicated partisans...Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke's recent comments come to mind.
The country is hugely divided under the Obama administration - Hillary is cut from the same cloth.
Pat Buchanan discusses this in a recent editorial posted on Drudge today.
An Establishment in Panic
...The establishment is horrified at the Donald’s defiance because, deep within its soul, it fears that the people for whom Trump speaks no longer accept its political legitimacy or moral authority.
It may rule and run the country, and may rig the system through mass immigration and a mammoth welfare state so that Middle America is never again able to elect one of its own. But that establishment, disconnected from the people it rules, senses, rightly, that it is unloved and even detested.
Having fixed the future, the establishment finds half of the country looking upon it with the same sullen contempt that our Founding Fathers came to look upon the overlords Parliament sent to rule them.
Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: Its ideology, its political religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed...
...The establishment also recoiled in horror from Milwaukee Sheriff Dave Clarke’s declaration that it is now “torches and pitchforks time.”
Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in “Points of Rebellion”:
“We must realize that today’s Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution.”
Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy to save the America they love, elitist enthusiasm for “revolution” seems more constrained.
What goes around comes around.
Link (http://www.wnd.com/2016/10/an-establishment-in-panic-2/)
Undermining the electoral system is precisely the intent of the Cloward-Piven Strategy.
They believe that by fomenting distrust in the electoral system the 'underclass' and 'disenfranchised' voters will rise up, transform the system (Democratic Party) and become partisans dedicated to class struggle.
Fundamental transformation of the United States of America.
Interestingly enough, it appears to me that "U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials"... or just the media, are launching some pre-emptive strikes.
(Reuters) - U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are warning that hackers with ties to Russia's intelligence services could try to undermine the credibility of the presidential election by posting documents online purporting to show evidence of voter fraud.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said however, that the U.S. election system is so large, diffuse and antiquated that hackers would not be able to change the outcome of the Nov. 8 election.
But hackers could post documents, some of which might be falsified, that are designed to create public perceptions of widespread voter fraud, the officials said.
They said that they did not have specific evidence of such a plan, but state and local election authorities had been warned to be vigilant for hacking attempts.
Continued... (http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN12L015?sp=true)
Pat Buchanan discusses this in a recent editorial posted on Drudge today.
Thanks for that.
FWIW The Communist Party USA supports Hillary and opposes Trump - f$&King commies for Hillary...
"Unity can defeat Trump: new dangers and new opportunities"
http://www.cpusa.org
ddoering
10-21-2016, 11:57
Interestingly enough, it appears to me that "U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials"... or just the media, are launching some pre-emptive strikes.
Continued... (http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN12L015?sp=true)
Yep, the good ole Russian boogieman. Used by mothers in Germany to scare their kids into being good.
ddoering
10-21-2016, 11:58
Stealing an election hurts everyone, assassination only hurts the target and his/her supporters.