Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Rioting, such as what is transpiring in France, could not happen in the US today. It is possible that riots would break out for a night or two (or maybe even three). The US has the wherewithal to put an end to such lawlwssness. We have abundant private gun ownership. As such, vigilantism would prevail if our government acted as the French government is now. I'll also point out that in contrast to France, riots here would primarily be in the cities, not the suburbs and rural areas. Especially not the rural areas.

Saddam - yeah, he'll be tried. He shouldn't be. It's a joke. It's a waste of time and money. He should be summarily strung up in front of his old palace.

Free trade between the states is a good thing. Free trade with other countries is a bad thing. Limits and tarifs are constitutional powers given to the federal government that should be used to raise revenue and strengthen this country. Free trade with foreign nations goes against true conservative dogma. If you are looking for a fight, rephrase your statement. Internal to the US, the government should be hands-off. External - they should be very hands-on.

Terrell Owens. Well, I shall refrain from referring to him by any redneck terms, but in his case they are quite applicable. It's folks like him that cause many people to give up on pro sports (see also NBA). So yes, spoiled brat is more apt than misunderstood sports star.

I'd more than likely drive. And while I haven't driven 10 hours to vote, I have made a seven-hour, one-way trip, just to vote.
 

France: I don't think we go out of our way to bring in mass amounts of immigrants, they come here because most of our unions got busted up and they can compete for jobs; unlike in France.

Saddam: Yes

China: Import limits for who?

Owens can suck it

Liberia: Well I assume in Liberia that every vote actually counts and is more a "Democracy" than here where it is pointless to vote Rebublican if you live in Minnesota and pointless to vote Democrat if you live in Alabama. So no, I wouldn't do it here because in the end, living in Illinois, my vote doesn't count. If I lived in Liberia I would probably be worried that I was going to get my hands chopped off if I voted for the wrong guy or that they would just throw my vote away if they didnt like what it said, so no again.
 

REM870:

Private gun ownership would exacerbate the situation. Gun ownership would protect you from people entering your house, not torching a public bus. Imagine if all these rioters had guns; things would be much worse.
 

The limits are on imports of textiles from China. (I'm all for protecting U.S. industries and jobs. I'm a total protectionist that way, which puts me and Pat Buchanan in the same boat on the issue).

--ER
 

Count me in that little boat with you and Buchanan. You ever read his stuff? His last book, Where the Right Went Wrong devotes an entire chapter to the free trade problem. It's an interesting read.
 

I thijk that one is somewhere in the 13 grocery sacks of books on my to-read list. (Not kidding: a friend's dad was a history professor and died; they let me go through his personal library summer before last. Gahhhhhh ...)

--ER
 

Thirteen grocery stacks?!? Wow. I thought I was behind with 6 or 7 books stacked up on my nightstand. I've also got a few hidden behind some stuff in my closet. Not 'cuz they're inappropirate or anything, but my wife got mad a while back for me spending $40-$50 every couple of weeks on books when I already have several that I haven't read yet.
 

Toad,

Here's how I picture it. Let's assume for a second that there is a mob (or several mobs) and they are armed. Let us also assume that said mob has been on a rampage for two or three day/nights. I don't know about where you live, but down here, I can see several posses forming up. These posses would be full of legal gun owners. For the most part we'd be hunters and sharpshooters. Said mob action would end pretty quickly. You see, the thing about a mob is that without leadership, it generally dies a quick death. A well-placed .30 caliber round can take out mob leadership in pretty short order.
 

I can't wait until I see someone like Toad running down the street crying hep me, hep me! I'll just sit quitely in the dark of my opened front door waiting for the mob to enter my air space. I can shoot for hours in 17 different calibers before I have to reload. But I'm not one of them dadgum gun nuts. Just a law abiding citizen. 9mm, 10mm, 40 cal, 45 cal, 357, 38, 357 auto, 32 auto, 30-06, 300 weatherby mag, 338 weatherby, 762x59, 223, 12 gage 00 buck, 22, 22mag and two 50 cal black powder for backup.
 

I don't think you can sue an organization for slander.

I DO have a couple of repeats in my books, including one rare book on the Civil War in Indian Territory that I paid $125 for online. Sheesh.

No anti-gun rants comin' from ER.

--ER
 

I'm wondering if I really would walk ten miles to vote. I was talking about this last evening, and what with all the vote fraud (it happened: the media just won't talk about it) in the last national election, I'm truly starting to think that it isn't worth my time. Mind you, I've felt this way for a while, and it hasn't stopped me yet.
My dad is part of a group here that wants to try to put a stop to the partisan bickering in the state legislature that has gridlocked us and made us unable to fund, say, schools for too damn long. I pointed out to him that divisiveness is just more profitable.
Nonetheless, I maintain my line that voting in local and state elections is always important...Assuming that there isn't any funny stuff like happened in Ohio in 2004 and Florida in 2000.
Guns, huh? I've been shooting them for years, but hadn't actually bought one until the other day. In Oregon, we don't have a waiting period: we just have an immediate background check. While the seller was on the phone with the state police, I was filling out a form that asked me questions like, "Are you a felon?", and "Are you a fugitive from justice?"
Well, if I was either of those things, I suppose I could lie, but even if I did, the background check would immediately have said otherwise. The whole damn thing was absurd.
What I'm doing is telling no one I know (except my girlfriend) that I own the damn thing. I don't want anyone getting their hands on it in some weird, random moment when they're feeling hot. I'm not using it for home protection anyway: my machete will do just fine, and I haven't not noticed the stats: yer a lot more likely to end up shooting someone you care about.
Out camping though; different story. There's been a couple too many weird, bad things that have happened in the woods these last few years. Next time I go, I'm going armed.
Pardon. Babbling.
 

French riots can't happen here? But indeed they have. In 1906, in 1921, and on and on. In the mid- 60's Watts, LA a few years ago, Detroit in the mid 1960's, in 1968 after MLK's death in Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, and sixty (that is 60)other cities.
I was between Istanbul and London on a Pan Am jet when MLK was killed. When we got to London we all crowed 20 to 30 deep around the teleys in the airport pubs. We we go to NYC, we found that there were no custom agents anywhere to be seen, and the guys who were supposed to met me weren't to be found. The airport was closed tight. So I caught my conecting flight to Chicago. About 10 p.m. we fly over Chicago preparing to land a O'Hare AP. The pilot came on the intercom and said ladies and gentelman if you will look out the left side of the airplane you will see South-side Chicago burning. And it was. O'Hare was sealed you could land and take off but you could not enter or leave the AP. So I got my next flight on to OKC. Met my wife whom I hadn;t seen in 6 months and didn't pay attention to anything else until I had to go TDY to Washington D.C. before going to Nam. Big chunks of Washington had been burned when I got there. One of my favorite night club and bar districts was totally gone. Every firestation, Police station, or major intersection had an APC or a radio jeep bothe equiped with lock and loaded 60 cal. machine guns on the them and a support squad of grunts lingering near by. Washington D.C. looked and felt like a occupied city.
It can't happen here? Total bullshit, it has happened here and will happen here again. As for protecting your own and your own property, go for it. But if you get off that property with your guns you will be a target for both the bad and the good guys.
 

And that, Drlobojo, is persactly why what I wrote, lo, those many hours ago:

Could it happen here (again?)

I am saddened that it took so long for someone to give an answer with some history behind. I am pleased that it was your self.

--ER
 

Finding a historical perspective is not all that easy to do sometimes, unless you have actually been there. After all we don't teach this stuff in school.

As I went looking for Web source for the riots after MLK's death, I learned something.
There isn't very much available on the subject.
Now one source says there were riots in 110 cities and some lasted five days. But put MLK and riots into google etc., in any format, and you get very very little information. It is as if there is a collective social amniesia. It is as if we can't say the words "riot" and "Martin Luther King" together.
I finally found something worth while by googling "Washington D.C. riots".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Washington,_DC_riots

You will notice that the dollar value of the destruction, number kill in Washinton D.C. alone in 1968, far exceeds France's current problem.
 

All very Shakespearean:

First, kill all the lawyers.

It proceeds from there. Mayhem. Mayhap. Me-hap.

Happy Tuesday.
 

Dr. Lobojo,

Well - ER said rioting as is occurring in France. The historical riots you cite are not like these. They did not go on for two weeks (nearly two weeks, now). I said they could not happen today. I stand by that. I don't doubt that such lawless displays will occur again, but they will not happen as in France (the original question). The Watts riots in '65 and the LA riots in the early '90s were quickly contained. I believe that officially, the Watts riot lasted 6 days. The government responded on Day One. In France, it was not until day 11 that the government officially responded (not counting the ineffective local police force). No sir, it could not happen in the US today - not like that.

As for being a target after leaving my property - well, now, that is far from certain. I believe it was Patton that said that fortifications were a memorial to the stupidty of man. In other words, staying put is for suckers. Get out on the move. Become the hunter, not the huntee. As a member of an organized resistance (call it a posse, militia, whatever), I feel that I could be integral to ending any on-going civil disobedience.
 

Well, I got introduced to the '60s riots in a history class, "American after 1945," and got more from a sociology class, "Crowds and Mob Behavior," as an undergrad. Dang liberal arts education is worth something, I reckon.

--ER
 

LOL

One word: "Wolverines!"

Two moe: "Red Dawn."

Four more: "It was a movie."

Twenty-six more: "For a riot, I'd sit tight. For a complete breakdown of civilization, or what seemed like it, I might take my small arsenal out on the prowl."

--ER
 

A riot that lasted two weeks? That's a long time to sit tight. Too long.
 

Rioting in France? Could it happen here (again?)

Yes.

Another Saddam lawyer shot dead. Will he ever actually be tried?

Yes. And Convicted.

U.S. negotiates textile trade deal with China, including import limits. Where are the free-traders???

Here I am. And I don't like it. But I have worked in textiles before, and there is nobody in America getting rich working there.
Whatever American jobs that are lost by this deal will be replaced by the free market, and the people who have these jobs now will be better off with their new jobs in competetive, growing industries here in America.

I don't follow pro football, unless Dallas is on a roll. But: Terrell Owens, spoiled brat or misunderstood sports star? (lol)

Spoiled Brat.

From Liberia: In the north of the country 24-year-old Dahn Johnson was walking 35 miles to vote. "This is a very important day in my life. I want to make history. Even if it means I will walk for 10 hours, I will do so," he told Reuters. Would you?

Dahn Johnson? Wasn't he the guy on "Miami Vice"?
Would I walk 10 hours or 35 miles to vote?
If my choice was as dismal as it has been for the last couple of Election Cycles, then NO.

Choose my own topic?

How about this?

What do you think will happen when Scooter Libby's defense team starts calling people like Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, and Tim Russert into court to testify under oath as to the specifics of this whole sordid mess?

I think the charges against Libby will be dropped.

My opinion...
 

I remember the riots after Martin Luther King was assasinated. I am old enough to actually remember them.

My brother in law, who lives in Memphis, wrote a letter to us saying, "people who followed the great non-violent leader, MLK, are now rioting in a non-violent way, burning stores with non-violent fire and throwing non-violent brickbats."

Let me pick a topic now. I pick a song mein Grosspater sang;

Herr Newton beneathen der tree ben gesprawlen
Und watchen ein small ischer apfel gefallen
Ach Himmel! Herr Newton ben oberexciten
Und soonish abouten der apfel ben writen,
Meinself ist nacht thinken das fallen surprisen
Comparen mit iffen der apfel ben risen!
 

The Dallas Cowboys suck. Suck hard. I liken Dallas Cowboys fans to Oklahoma Sooners fans: spoiled by a history of winning and can't take losing one single bit.

Crybabies.

Seems OU fans and Dallas Cowboys fans should love Terrell Owens, who is just like 'em.

Crybaby.

The good news is we won't have to see the overpaid, overstuffed Owens play football again this year. The bad news is we can't say the same about the Oklahoma Sooners or the Dallas Cowboys.

That sucks.

:-)

Were there other topics you wanted us to cover, ER? I don't recall what they are. But I've got one for you: What's better than a warm brat and a cold beer(s) in the parking lot outside Arrowhead Stadium?

Not a damn thing, 'cept maybe watchin' the Chiefs beat the Raiders on the last play of the game. :-)
 

Tuggy!

I think the Vice President of the United States will be impeached.

Dude. As a partisan, I find that idea interesting, as an American, it makes me sad, and as a historian it gives me tremendous wood.

Uh-oh. That mighta been TMI.

She Who Is has been away much too long. L. OL even!

:-)

--ER
 

The veep SHOULD BE impeached, and found guilty and shot for treason.

But what'll happen is just like what happened with his involvement in the California energy crisis of 2000-01 (remember the Enron connection?) -- they'll decide it was too supersecret to hold any hearings on it what.so.ever.

Guy is the axis of evil -- which of course we need as the boogeyman.

So, he'll keep going and going like the Energizer Bunny that he is with his hyped-to-here pacemakers and whatever terminator-like stents and all.

Hell, he may not even be a flesh and blood boogeyman.
 

deja vu? or just a precursor?

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020415/nichols

Cheney's refusal to cooperate with investigators--which presidential historian Stanley Kutler refers to as part of a broad "assault on the legal and Constitutional order" by the Bush Administration--forms the most powerful argument for the appointment of a special counsel. Congress allowed the Independent Counsel Law to expire in 1999, ceding to the Attorney General the right to make such appointments. Current Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself after it was learned that he had taken campaign contributions from Enron, but his aides are free to make the call. John Conyers Jr., the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote the Justice Department in January to argue, "The Enron case represents one of the largest corporate frauds in the nation's history, and the potential for conflicts of interest is so sweeping that it necessitates an outside counsel to insure public confidence." So far, however, Conyers's call has been little noted beyond the ranks of serious reformers like Representative Bob Filner, whose "sense of Congress" call for a special counsel has drawn only eight co-sponsors.

Conyers and Filner have recognized reality. Neither the Justice Department nor Congress appear to be prepared to conduct the sort of investigation that is required to expose the full extent of the Bush Administration's service to Enron. That investigation would have to be broad, since the connections with Enron are not limited to Cheney's office. From Army Secretary Thomas White, a former Enron executive, to Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, formerly on Enron's advisory council, Enron's tentacles have reached throughout the Bush White House, shaping tax, trade, energy and environmental policy. All such connections are worthy of legal and Congressional scrutiny. But make no mistake, the place to begin is at Dick Cheney's door. If there is any realistic hope of exposing the extent to which Enron's machinations corrupted US policy at home and abroad, then the Office of the Vice President is not only a good place to start, it is the essential beginning point.
 

This bunch makes U.S. Grant's outfit look like poster children for the League of Women Voters.

Impeach Cheney. Impeaching Bush would be like spankin' a 3-year-old for swipin' a cookie.

--ER
 

As I've said before, when the White house gets a good look at the mid-term election polls, Cheney will suffer a set back in his heart condition and will resign before the moderate Republicans and the new Democrats can gang up on him in a Congressional investigation. Condoleeza will become the new VP so that they can run her for the office of POTUS. The Congressional look into the war will subside after that, because most of the Demo's who are going to run for POTUS can't stand the light either. Now that is business as usual.
 

Rem870,
I might have to agree with you in this instance. It seems that the Paris etc. riots are targeting cars and something like 8000 cars have been torched. Now we might let all the buildings in the poor part of town burn down, and we might take our time to get into an ethnic area of trouble, but we would damn sure never let anybody burn our cars. So with that caveat I defer to your point.
 

The Dallas Cowboys still suck.
 

Dallas "sucks" only because they were overrated for so long.

They'd be better if Brett Favre were their quarterback!!! (Sorry, I stole somebody else's logic....)
 

cbabER: We still have a textiles industry in the US? I knew we still had carpet but other than that...

REM870:

Yes armed mobs going after and serving "justice" any way they see fit to another mob is a great idea; especially when they are armed and as in the case with the US in the past and France, they are probably racist and have their own agenda. It is not your job to quell a riot; why the police or their army hasn't been able to do it yet is beyond me; oh wait they are French.

JohnQ:

I can't wait for the day when you use all these guns to shoot an unarmed intruder and you go to jail spending time at the front of a tag team lines with the friends of the guy you shot.
 

Toad, I'm pretty sure that the law in Oklahoma is that if you are coming onto my property demionstrating intent to do me harm -- or even to steal my TV -- I can shoot you dead, dead, dead.

--ER