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[scriver]

What if a bunch of Muslims, or a bunch of Mexicans armed themselves up and staked out a chunk of the USA, and claimed secession due to mistreatment? How would y'all be then? Legitimate protest?

I think there is an issue of historical claim-to-the-land that is being ignored here. Only a comparison to a native American nation nationalist group demanding soveirenity can be compared to the PKK situation. Which reminds me, wasn't there one in the 70's?

[Loud Whispers]

What if a bunch of Muslims, or a bunch of Mexicans armed themselves up and staked out a chunk of the USA, and claimed secession due to mistreatment? How would y'all be then? Legitimate protest?

I think there is an issue of historical claim-to-the-land that is being ignored here. Only a comparison to a native American nation nationalist group demanding soveirenity can be compared to the PKK situation. Which reminds me, wasn't there one in the 70's?

Well the Mexican movement to reclaim 'Greater Mexico' would be comparable here, as they have a historical claim to much land that is now the USA and they have the numbers to make it a worthwhile effort. They tick all boxes on the history, on the oppression narrative and on the feasibility.

[Rolepgeek]

Mmmm...Really?

They're an oppressed group trying to escape oppression? Cuz' that's what the oppression narrative was about. I mean, I still think that the Americans who settled Texas were assholes, but I don't think it's quite the same, actually.

[SalmonGod]

I admit I don't pay much attention to them, but I've never heard of MSNBC and CNN suggested to be in the same political realm as the others on your list.  Just because they're not as reactionary as Fox News doesn't make them especially progressive.

I'm surprised you didn't know MSNBC isn't progressive, it's the most progressive of them all o.O

I just don't watch TV.

Also Fox isn't reactionary, it's conservative.

I thought reactionary was basically a term for extreme conservatism?

Does it matter? Political groups are so divided neatly by geography in the USA that the people who would support them would support them and nothing is lost in the people who would always oppose them opposing them.

But you were the one who said media and politicians would mobilize to support an armed action by the left, implying that it would matter...

Why? Whistleblowing war crimes is not a left-wing action, any less than defectors from the USSR or whistleblowers of the left-wing labour regime's involvement in the invasion of Iraq.

The action of whistleblowing itself may not be left-wing.  But opposition to war most often is, and what opposition there was to the Iraq war was especially left-wing.  Thus I would find it natural to assume that the left would support a whistleblower on war crimes in Iraq.

Also progressives were not appreciative of Snowden leaking PRISM under a democrat administration.
Don't see anything left-wing about that action either. Heck, Obama says he's a spy not a patriot whilst Clinton says he's a traitor.

Except in my experience, support for Snowden at the grassroots level was overwhelmingly left-wing.  It's also the side of politics that's typically more concerned with civil rights (just look at conservative hatred for the ACLU), and Snowden was definitely whistleblowing an encroachment on civil rights.  All your pointing out is the same disconnect I see between Democrat party politics and any other tangible leftist action.  There's no support.

Note:  Still using left and progressive interchangeably... I'll give some more thought to using these terms more selectively in the future.  Still not sure how I feel about it.  I think this is a product of living in an extremely conservative state, where left and progressive are seen as one and the same.

Only a comparison to a native American nation nationalist group demanding soveirenity can be compared to the PKK situation. Which reminds me, wasn't there one in the 70's?

I thought about bringing that up, but didn't because I thought it would be cast out as too old to be relevant.  But yeah, support for Native American rights - also typically a leftist stance.  There was a major stand-off in '73 at Wounded Knee between Native Americans/activists and federal authorities.  They definitely were not handled with kid gloves (people were shot).  And there were more.  I can't find reference to it right now, but I had a long conversation with a friend's step-dad who did some activist work at a Native American protest that turned into a siege, but I'm almost certain he said it was in Wisconsin, not Wounded Knee, and didn't last nearly as long.  Several activists disappeared from that event, and he's convinced he was almost one of them.

[Willfor]

Reactionary:
adjective, (of a person or a set of views) opposing political or social liberalization or reform.

I usually dislike dictionary definitions, but this one was defined during the French Revolution as ones who wish to return to a previous status quo.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler: Reply to shit about secessionism and greater mexico rising again (click to show/hide)

And yes, Loud Whisper. I'm sorry, are you trying to say Turkey should be allowed full stop to keep the Kurds from trying to form their own country by any means necessary? Or that this is just as legitimate of a cause? You wanna call it mob rule? Fine. Call it mob rule. But don't just make The Worst Argument In The World and leave it at that. This is how democracy works. Yeah, we try to represent minorities too so it ain't tyranny of the majority. But a couple dozen guys trying to make a point via threats of violence is not acceptable. This isn't people trying to escape from an oppressive government. Or, fine, let's say it is. Taxes are a form of oppression, after all, so is arresting people for burning down forest so they can poach. But there's a reason that's considered acceptable while, say, genocide, isn't. Armenian genocide, for example, since we were talking about Turkey.

Erdogan did nothing wrong m8, this is a very arbitrary line to draw. Actual terrorist attacks on civvies is "how democracy works" whilst citizens occupying an abandoned outpost is terrorism lol
Also Kurds are not Christians, they were not Ottoman'd

Another question. You seem to be implying that having to abide by rules put in place by elected officials is authoritarian mob rule. Do you actually believe this?

Shit question, the people of Hong Kong have to abide by rules put in place by elected officials from a list of people they do not get to choose on the pretext that their interests do not matter in the face of the greater whole. Do you approve of obedience to rules put in place by elected officials even when the rules are unjust? What do you do when elected officials have the interest of others in mind then, and are bought by others? Still elected, will you still abide?

Because as far as I know, mob rule is associated with, say, whimsical decisions and disproportionate response, someone's popularity being the sole factor of their innocence or guilt.

USA in a nutshell

That has...basically nothing to do with what I was saying. I was actually talking about causes, rather than individuals put on trial, for example. Ongoing discontent due to oppression and wanting to escape it by creating a separate state is sorta similar between Turkey and this situation. It's just that the reasons for the oppression, the extent of the oppression, the number of people being oppressed, the methods used whilst attempting to create said state, and the relative character of the governments that are different.

Ongoing discontent due to oppression and wanting to escape it by creating a separate state versus ongoing discontent due to oppression and wanting to escape it by creating a separate state. One is accused of treason and is bombed whilst fighting continues, another is accused of treason and calls are being made even itt to bomb them and I hope for happenings it does.

When you say 'that's might makes right' about political movements and legitimacy, you have a point. A small one, but a point. Which is why I was, you know, also bringing up how relevant the particular situation was to the people supporting or opposing, and how reasonable the cause was beforehand.
In other words, Loud Whisper, if you're going to address my points, please actually do so. Don't just put out single lines mocking it and expect that to suffice as a legitimate argument. Please don't just say 'lol you support mob rule' with the implication that I'm an idiot. Because right now that is almost exactly what you're doing. Maybe that's not what you intended to do. But it's the way that it's coming across, and I really do not appreciate it.

M8
It's just discussion, amplify your relaxed states, I have no interest in proving anyone smarts or idiots. That is a futile endeavour and wins no one anything, I also do not really even distinguish between you and other people itt

Intereting sidenote: Political leaning is in large part dependent on whether you live in a city or the country. Don't know if that's what you meant by geography but I find it interesting.

Yep, though it also gets more detailed even within cities and the countryside. Murrica is also quite unique in that its countrysides are so varied, and its cities likewise for that matter (well, different enough)

Mmmm...Really?
They're an oppressed group trying to escape oppression? Cuz' that's what the oppression narrative was about. I mean, I still think that the Americans who settled Texas were assholes, but I don't think it's quite the same, actually.

Doesn't matter, it's an answer to the rhetorical question; if a bunch of Mexicans armed themselves up and staked out a chunk of the USA in Cali and claimed secession due to mistreatment, how would you all be then? Legitimate protest, or terrorists?
I'd say it'd be legit but advise for heavy policing

Spoiler: Semantical stuff (click to show/hide)

I just don't watch TV.

Nor do I m8 it's all on the series of interconnected tubes

I thought reactionary was basically a term for extreme conservatism?

Nah, conservatives are your basic bitch right-wingers who want to keep things as they are, reactionaries can be left wing (mostly just in ex-commie nations) but in terms of the West they're your far right-wingers who want to go back to some previous system. I'm not sure if the US has reactionaries, but the biggest reactionary movements I can think of right now are Front National in France (French nationalism), Justice and Development Party in Turkey (neo-Ottomanism / Islamism) and the Law and Justice party in Poland (although they are conservatives, their move to give Clergy more say in Poland I feel classes as reactionary).
Also not to be confused with just regular far-right groups that want to go do something new. Biggest ones I can think off the top of my head are the National Socialism Association in Taiwan who want to make a fascist Taiwan, they've got 1,500 people, and the Mongolian Eco-Nazis who want to kill the Chinese and Russians for spoiling the Mongolian landscape. A good historical example would be old Yurop, the people who wanted to reinstate the power of the monarchy would be far right reactionaries whilst the people who wanted to install military dictatorships would be far right, but not reactionary
It is a good term for separating out who hates gay marriage from who wants to topple democracy

Does it matter? Political groups are so divided neatly by geography in the USA that the people who would support them would support them and nothing is lost in the people who would always oppose them opposing them.

But you were the one who said media and politicians would mobilize to support an armed action by the left, implying that it would matter...

Yeah it would, but not outside areas of strength. I would not for example expect any right wing support within a city nor left wing support in the countryside, that right wingers don't read left wing news is not going to matter in so far as right wingers are unlikely to support left wing violence at all, so nothing is lost by not convincing them

Why? Whistleblowing war crimes is not a left-wing action, any less than defectors from the USSR or whistleblowers of the left-wing labour regime's involvement in the invasion of Iraq.

The action of whistleblowing itself may not be left-wing.  But opposition to war most often is, and what opposition there was to the Iraq war was especially left-wing.  Thus I would find it natural to assume that the left would support a whistleblower on war crimes in Iraq.

Left-wing governments brought the UK into the Iraq war whilst right-wing parties opposed it, there is nothing natural about this assumption

Also progressives were not appreciative of Snowden leaking PRISM under a democrat administration.
Don't see anything left-wing about that action either. Heck, Obama says he's a spy not a patriot whilst Clinton says he's a traitor.

Except in my experience, support for Snowden at the grassroots level was overwhelmingly left-wing.

Or libertarians, who are right-wing and have boners for grassroot movements, the former RONPAUL crowd loved him. RussiaToday and Fox throwing their weight in to slag off America and democrats respectively also added in american conservatives to the mix alongside liberal democrat Guardian readers in the UK

and Snowden was definitely whistleblowing an encroachment on civil rights.  All your pointing out is the same disconnect I see between Democrat party politics and any other tangible leftist action.  There's no support.

So Clinton and Obama are no true progressives?

[Loud Whispers]

Also seriously I find this question entertaining. Secessionists are terrorists that must be killed for betraying the state and taking a chunk out of its sovereignty, disuniting it. So what of the reconquistida?

DENVER — La reconquista, a radical movement calling for Mexico to “reconquer” America’s Southwest, has stepped out of the shadows at recent immigration-reform protests nationwide as marchers held signs saying, “Uncle Sam Stole Our Land!” and waved Mexico’s flag.

Even as organizers urged marchers to display U.S. flags, the theme of reclaiming “stolen” land remained strong. One popular banner read: “If you think I’m illegal because I’m a Mexican, learn the true history because I’m in my homeland.”

“We need to change direction,” said Jose Lugo, an instructor in Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder at a campus march last week. “And by allowing these 50,000, 50 million [immigrants] to come in here, we can do that.”

The revolutionary tone has surprised even longtime immigration watchers such as Ira Mehlman, the Los Angeles-based spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

“I’ve always been skeptical myself about this [reconquista], but what I’ve seen over the last few weeks leads me to believe that there’s more there than I thought,” Mr. Mehlman said.

“You’re seeing people marching with Mexican flags chanting, ‘This is our country.’ I don’t think that we can dismiss this as youthful exuberance or a bunch of hotheads,” he said.

“No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans can and do make that claim,” he said.

 Then there’s the Mexica Movement, which wants to “reconstruct” the United States as an “indigenous” nation called Anahuac. Professor Charles Truxillo of the University of New Mexico envisions a sovereign Hispanic nation called the Republica del Norte that would encompass Northern Mexico, Baja California, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

What’s notable about MEChA is its otherwise mainstream image. Most Hispanic leaders, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, belonged to MEChA in high school or college. Former Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante came under fire from conservatives for refusing to renounce his membership during the 2003 gubernatorial race.

Like I said, they tick all the boxes. They've got the history, the numbers and the strength, they could do it.
Also lol, of course it's headed by academics and officials, every time.

“There are more than 50 million Latinos in the United States – it has the second highest number of Spanish-speaking people in the world, after Mexico. Imagine that. That means that Latinos have garnered a lot of power and it’s time to demand respect. So we’re asking people to register to vote and vote for candidates who are offering the best for every hard-working Latino in this country.
On the red carpet, Maná frontman Fher urged American Latinos to recognise the collective power of their votes.
Also vodka bants

This is also after the Californians let illegal immigrants vote in the Motor Voter act lol
They don't even need to fight, but if they did what would they be then? Patriots or terrorists?

[Baffler]

I'd say fuck 'em. Their rhetoric is along ethnic lines which immediately makes me wary of even seemingly moderate groups. They're also the minority in the territory they're claiming and the only way to reverse that would be to import ridiculous numbers of foreigners to support their cause. What happens to the majority that suddenly finds itself in territory claimed violently by a minority mostly composed of first and second generation immigrants? It's never going to happen, so I'm not terribly worried about it, but "a literal invasion by Mexico" is one item on a very short list of things that would get me to enlist.

These guys in Oregon, on the other hand, are... not that. They're a small handful of men who've promised to resist eviction from an empty building they occupied in an empty part of an empty state. All that sovereignty crap is just talk to get their base (such as it is) fired up and attract attention to them so they can push their actual agenda instead of just being a mostly forgotten footnote that attracts limited regional attention and nothing more.

[PTTG??]

Loud whispers, let me know when Mexica movement people or the Jefferson State people or the Cascadia people actually get an armed militia and take control of federal property.

[WealthyRadish]

I'd say fuck 'em. Their rhetoric is along ethnic lines which immediately makes me wary of even seemingly moderate groups. They're also the minority in the territory they're claiming and the only way to reverse that would be to import ridiculous numbers of foreigners to support their cause.

Not actually true. Hispanics are the majority (and were before the surge in immigration) in a large number of the counties near the border, and have at least a 30% population in 5 states (almost 50% in New Mexico). Some of the territory in the southwest that was seized is still primarily culturally Mexican/colonial-Spanish with secondary US influence, while almost all of it retains some Mexican influence. You can see it on display easily in New Mexico, and even here in Colorado, anywhere south of Pueblo.

I have no idea how you got the importing foreigners thing in your head, it sounds crazy. If the US lost a nuclear war, or Hillary lost the nomination and led the machines in an uprising, or something similarly catastrophic happened that forced the US to give in to a secessionist movement, it'd be hispanic people living elsewhere in the US that you'd expect to go there, no? Between that and yuppies fleeing the Clinton killbots, I could see it happening.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but here are the facts:

• An unknown number of people have entered federal property.
• They have weapons.
• They plan to stay.
• They haven't specified an intent to enact violence, but they do suggest it.
• They aren't openly secessionist.

The way I see it, they aren't committing Treason yet.

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

They haven't declared war, as of yet, by my understanding of the situation.
As I understand it, they are Trespassing, and, as Rolepgeek pointed out, potentially Assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers or employees.

[Baffler]

I'd say fuck 'em. Their rhetoric is along ethnic lines which immediately makes me wary of even seemingly moderate groups. They're also the minority in the territory they're claiming and the only way to reverse that would be to import ridiculous numbers of foreigners to support their cause.

Not actually true. Hispanics are the majority (and were before the surge in immigration) in a large number of the counties near the border, and have at least a 30% population in 5 states (almost 50% in New Mexico). Some of the territory in the southwest that was seized is still primarily culturally Mexican/colonial-Spanish with secondary US influence, while almost all of it retains some Mexican influence. You can see it on display easily in New Mexico, and even here in Colorado, anywhere south of Pueblo.

I have no idea how you got the importing foreigners thing in your head, it sounds crazy. If the US lost a nuclear war, or Hillary lost the nomination and led the machines in an uprising, or something similarly catastrophic happened that forced the US to give in to a secessionist movement, it'd be hispanic people living elsewhere in the US that you'd expect to go there, no? Between that and yuppies fleeing the Clinton killbots, I could see it happening.

I thought they were less numerous than they are. By importing foreigners I meant "it would require a good deal more immigration to make people of hispanic descent the majority in the states formerly controlled by Mexico." Nothing crazy like smuggling terrorists over to help them with the struggle or some shit like that, though reading the post again I guess I can see how it'd give that impression.

[Arx]

Man, I'm glad my country isn't run by Americans. If the government here decided to do some of the things you guys are suggesting with a straight face, they'd reduce our population by roughly 11%.

Fallacious comparisons aside (E: in case it's not clear, I'm well aware that that's not a reasonable comparison at all), serious question: those who support the hellfires/storming/assault/manbearcats/etc., do you propose that making threats* should become a crime punishable by execution without trial? Because as far as I can tell, that's what you're suggesting.

*Edit: Hmm. On further thought, it currently seems to only be threatening to resist arrest with violent force.

[Dorsidwarf]

Why do we continue to listen to LW in this debate? He's responding to six-paragraph explanations with

"wot m80 erdo did nuffin rong m8y!??!"

Go back to serbia

[Strife26]

I selectively read and respond