Has Rand Paul spoken out against this or is he still a situational libertarian?

He spoke out against it.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/508158-rand-paul-no-place-for-feds-rounding-people-up-at-will-in-portland

We cannot give up liberty for security. Local law enforcement can and should be handling these situations in our cities but there is no place for federal troops or unidentified federal agents rounding people up at will.

Alright, I'll grant him that.

Pretty good punch line.

Also note that it's the UK version (Comedy Central UK), which may be viewable for more of us.

Democracy Now interviews Noam Chomsky.

The_Metatron wrote:

Alan C wrote:Hmm. It's probably unwise for certain people there to refer to other countries as shitholes at the moment.

If there were a place to go, a way to do it, I would emigrate tomorrow to get out of this shithole.

I think wherever you go you will finish in a shithole.
I don't think there are a country better than another because there are all different in all matters.

Country "A" can be better in matter "Alpha" than country "B" but country "B" can be better than country "A" in matter "Bravo".
They can be at the same level in matter "Charlie".
I use fictions countries names and fictions name for matters to explain things in a generic way.

I consider each places of the world as prisons because there are no place where you're free because freedom for me is equal to anomie (Wikipedia explain this concept).
You can change of penitentiaries but you can only live in one of these.
In some of them food is better but water is worse than your.
In some of them food is worse but water is better than your.
In some of them food is better and the water is better than yours and in some of them these two things are worse than yours.

Those imprisoned where already imprisoned by the rules of the society in which they live before going in a prison.
Those in an asylum to execute a criminal conviction (I'm not speaking of those who weren't convicted because they were considered as irresponsible of theirs acts) are in a triple prison that is "the society + prison for criminal conviction + asylum".
The worse situation is the quadruple prison "the society + prison for criminal conviction + guardianship + asylum".

I'm a French citizen who lived his whole life in French Republic. I dream to leave the territory of this state for many reasons but I don't forget leave it means only being displaced in another jail.

“One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one willl only in time come to hate. In this there is also a residue of belief that during the move the master will chance to come along the corridor, look at the prisoner and say: "This man is not to be locked up again, He is to come with me.”

- Franz Kafka

Gotta be an optimist. Either a bit of an idiot/ignorant or just have the chemistry ;)

viocjit wrote:I don't think there are a country better than another...

What utter crap. It would take me less than a second to make a decision were I given the choice between living in Australia or North Korea. Not a great deal longer were I to choose between living in Frankfurt/a.M. or Miami, Fl.

Hermit wrote:

viocjit wrote:I don't think there are a country better than another...

What utter crap. It would take me less than a second to make a decision were I given the choice between living in Australia or North Korea. Not a great deal longer were I to choose between living in Frankfurt/a.M. or Miami, Fl.

"Democratic People's Republic of Korea" and "Commonwealth of Australia" are two different countries and each of them have its political system , economical system , culture etc...
DPKR are worse in some matters than Australia but maybe North Korea is better or equal in some matters.

The Hermite Kingdom is a dictatorship from a Western point of view (For me it is one) but we must never forget that how we perceive a political regime is based on ours political and religious beliefs , culture , what we want and what we don't want , what we like and what don't like etc...

What we perceive to be a democracy can be seen as a dictatorship by others and vice-versa ?
Each political regimes have democratic things and undemocratic things.
You will never find a state that is fully democratic or fully dictatorship.

There are not an universal manner to note a country on a particular matter and if there are not universal manners to do it we can't compare countries in all matters with an universal system.
Each of these have different parameters (Each parameters is important) and are managed by different entities and the entity who manage it can influence the objectivity of the system of comparison. Never forget no one is objective in political matters.

See this list of freedom indices : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices

Democracy Ranking , Freedom in the World , DD Index and Democracy Index are four different index to make a comparison between countries about democratic rights.
None of them use the same methodology and none of them is operated by the same entity.
None of these index can be objective as I did already explained. Politic isn't a science.
We all agree that 2*2 = 4 but we don't all agree about political questions because these are subjective.

I would choose Aussie land if I have the choice between it and the country of Juche but I know my choice isn't based on objective grounds but subjective ones accorded to my preferences.

If you had a choice between Frankfurt am Main (Largest city of State of Hesse in Germany) and Miami (The second most populous city of State of Florida in USA) your choice depend of how do you perceive the political regime of "United States of America" and "Federal Republic of Germany" without forget how do you perceive local politic.
Your perception of a politic system are based on your religious and political belief , culture , what do you want and don't want , what you like and don't like etc...

You can prefer a city to another because of your hobbies.
If you're a surfer you will likely prefer the city of Miami instead of Frankfurt.

You can prefer a city to another because of your job.
If you're a manufacturer of fire weapons you will certainly prefer an American city than a German city because there are more opportunities in a city of North America than a city of Europe because the market is bigger and there are less legal constraint in NA than EU.

If you're family live in this German city you will likely prefer to live there if you are in good terms with your family.
If the majority of yours friends live in this city of Hesse you will likely prefer to live there.

...or one could shun all cities and live out in the middle of nowhere, like my wife and I. Cities are not the end all be all no matter where they happen to be. Dark skies at night, clean air, quiet, wildlife and many other small things add up to a pretty good life without having to deal with thousands of ground apes every day.

RS

Cities? No thanks. Nice for visiting, not so much for living in.

That's what Rocky Valentine said!

The 'burbs are as close as I get, I was never drawn to living in the city here.

I have always liked cities. Burbs drive me crazy.

I grew up in the burbs. All done there. I used to say I'd live in a city like NYC, but in recent years I changed my tune, thinking it would be tough if I had to get out fast, for something like a pandemic, and here it is.
I might move to a Maine suburb someday though if medically expedient, on a large private lot away from town. Maine suburbs have those things.

Did cities and town of most sizes, and the country. I'd pick country all the time.

chango369 wrote:Trump's Stasi.

In the early hours of July 15, after a night spent protesting at the Multnomah County Justice Center and Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, Mark Pettibone and his friend Conner O’Shea decided to head home.

It had been a calm night compared to most protesting downtown. By 2 a.m. law enforcement hadn’t used any tear gas and, with only a few exceptions, both the Portland Police Bureau and federal law enforcement officers had stayed out of sight.

A block west of Chapman Square, Pettibone and O’Shea bumped into a group of people who warned them that people in camouflage were driving around the area in unmarked minivans grabbing people off the street.

...

Federal Law Enforcement Use Unmarked Vehicles To Grab Protesters Off Portland Streets

Unmarked vehicles have been used to make arrests for decades in this country so I'm not sure how any of this is news. It is entirely true that officers aren't bearing name tags, opting for unique serial numbers instead, but that might have something to do with antifa doxing them and threatening their entire families. "POLICE" in bold yellow letters and other insignia can be seen on the feds in videos like this:



And this:



Anyone portraying this as totally anonymous unidentified goons black-bagging people is either misinformed or lying.

Oh, really? What is the telephone number of the agency where those stormtroopers work? Whom would you name in a lawsuit?

The_Metatron wrote:Oh, really? What is the telephone number of the agency where those stormtroopers work? Whom would you name in a lawsuit?

I believe DHS and these other agencies have phone numbers. "Stormtroopers" is a curious term for people who have already withdrawn from Portland with shit like this now going for months in Portland:



"Stormtroopers" would have reacted far differently to attempting to set a federal courthouse and succeeding in doing the same to the police union:



This shtick about the feds being big, scary Nazis is a massive nothingburger.

You can't answer the questions, can you? When one of these nazis misbehaves, you have one and only one course available, which is to sue their assess in federal court. You need the name of the nazi to sue, don't you?

Start to see the problem yet?