There is more to come on the CAOs and SMP, so pay attention to those who have made harassment one of their core competencies.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Security State
I'd like to thank everyone who contributed their smart and heartfelt comments to the last post. Since security and harassment issues are on everyone's minds, we should talk briefly about two forums offered by the Common Sense Alliance (CSA) earlier this month. The purpose of the forums was to explain the status of the CAO debacle from CSA's perspective. One of the presentations concerned "What the Friends Really Want," given by Tim Blanchard. Based on everything Blanchard has observed in recent years, he put together a summary slide that bluntly summarizes his interpretation of the Friends' goals. It's not the kind of thing you will find in the Friends mission statement or website, but you will see it in action if you pay attention to the way they operate.
There is more to come on the CAOs and SMP, so pay attention to those who have made harassment one of their core competencies.
There is more to come on the CAOs and SMP, so pay attention to those who have made harassment one of their core competencies.
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The Friends and their supporters also operate from a point of view that says "everything is forbidden, except what is explicitly allowed".
ReplyDeleteThis is in direct opposition to one of the fundamental foundations of our legal system.
You can see this well in the ways their supporters argue for the construction of language in the CAOs and SMP - listing your few "allowed" activities on your own land, instead of listing the specific prohibited uses that cause real impact.
Because, well, you know, the precautionary principle. And eelgrass. And someone might build a Walmart in their back yard next to a steel mill. Think of the whales!
Speaking of threats to mankind, I was in the bank in Mt. Vernon a couple of Friday's ago and who should walk in to get some papers notarized, but none other than Kit Rawson, in yellow rain jacket, blue jeans, and sneakers, talking in a stage whisper about how he's banked at that branch for ages and -- wait, I have to take this important phone call -- then standing around the lobby blabbing on his cell.
ReplyDeleteSmall world. Kit doesn't seem to have time for us out in the islands anymore now that he's retired. Too busy cycling, notarizing, and enjoying the dying planet to blame us anymore for killing it.
Too bad we didn't get to 200 on the last melodrama before moving on to this new one.
ReplyDeleteBut finally all the issues and players are conflated. Easy for CSA rabble rousers to sound off about excessive regulation and getting government out of our lives while some of their strongest supporters hypocritically dive into the Federal honey pot at the slightest opportunity.
Fine, the Friends are hypocrites. CSA any better? Is that what we come down to? Hypocrites fighting hypocrites for the Annual Islander Insanity Award?
Nice try shifting topic. Won't work. Even if Kit is a threat to mankind.
Just imagine the time that's coming when the Border Patrol is pursuing the precautionary principle. Probable cause and all that. Let's keep things in perspective folks.
@2:43
ReplyDeletelol. For someone with a one-track obsessive mind, anything is shifting topic.
Please list the ways that the Friends of the San Juans are just like the Border Patrol:
ReplyDelete1) They like to snoop on islanders from gun boats
2) They are both part of this community
3) Neither one is going anywhere
4) We all know why they are here, appreciate the important work they do and understand they need more office space downtown
5) They shop locally and have their kids in schools here
6) They both rely on outside government funding to do what they do
7) They are just here to protect you
8) They are really good at creatively interpreting vague laws and regulations.
Nothing to see here. Just walk away.
@3:09
ReplyDelete9. They are both brought up in inane comparisons by overwrought commenters who have lost their perspective or never had one in the first place.
I assume you are the same commenter as @2:43. We all admire your purity, and I'm sure Edward Snowden would love some company in Moscow, or perhaps you could stop paying your federal income taxes too. Go for it. No need for you to be sodden with us hypocrites. Show us how it's done. Lead us into the land of purity by example. Or do you just make blog comments?
@3:09 and @2:43 aren't interested in changing anything, they're just bloviating. Coach potato, arm-chair activism.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
ReplyDeleteLet's focus on the real threats to mankind as per @2:19
The Friends obviously present the greater danger.
Maybe the Border Patrol will protect you simpering Rinos from the socialist hordes that terrify you so.
Can we assume that @3:20 and @3:25 are one in the same?
ReplyDelete"... inane comparisons comparisons overwrought commenters who have lost all perspective."
OMG, Shirene and Lovel could not have said that better.
ROLF!
@3:50
ReplyDeleteI'm @3:25 but not @3:20 so your assumption would be in error. Either your name is "Rolf" or you can't spell ROFL either, and there is only one "comparison" in the quote from @3:20. It turns out you have a mistake in every single line of your comment.
"CSA rabble rousers to sound off about excessive regulation and getting government out of our lives while some of their strongest supporters hypocritically dive into the Federal honey pot at the slightest opportunity"
ReplyDelete--------------------
Rabble rousers? Yes, those meetings were a hotbed of rabble.
"Some of their strongest supporters dive into the federal honey pot at the slightest opportunity."
First, I believe you are referring to Gordy, one supporter, a SLIGHT overstatement on your part. And that you are referring to his decision to lease his property, which has stood empty or under-utilized for some time. Hardly jumping at the slightest opportunity. More like meeting the mortgage. But the difference is this: he's providing a necessary service that the government needs, and is getting the government market rate for it.
The government didn't say "make up a worthless program that requires meeting and conferencing and thinking about doing something sometime in the far distant future; it said hey, we need a place to move our customs guys and the usual suspects were not able to provide it.
But the commenter about sea level rise is quite right. As the Friends insist that every decision be governed by the knwoeldge that the sea will rise by 60" in the relatively near future, the Customs guys really didn't have a choice. Heck, soon they can have a boat drive through lane at the window of their new offices.
And for all these people who live in subsidized housing and have hobby farms that have tax breaks and whose kids get free lunches to complain about the big bad Obama government is very entertaining.
@4:06 and @3:25
ReplyDeletexD and well spoken. All opinions are not of equal weight. Shireene and Lovel think their opinions are better only because it emanates from them. I think I am right about my position because it is based on evidence. If someone wants to argue that Customs has been as big a threat to the citizens of these islands as the Friends, by your leave, but I will continue to point out that such a comparison is inane based on the evidence. The comparison of my position with that of Shireene and Lovel's is inane too. They imagine things with no evidence, and so do you.
@3:20
Hey, off topic, people.
ReplyDeleteThe question is, given the choice, would the friends want any human living in our islands? (Well, THEY could stay, because they are the only ones who know best.)
And what about the large number of people who own raw land and hope to build a house someday. Are we buying up those lots? Eminent domaining?
CSA hasn't taken any position about the CBP situation as far as I know. Neither has the County, or the Friends, the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party ... or the Chamber of Commerce ... or the Rotary Club ... Lions ... not even the Tourist Board ... and I even saw a letter from the Town supporting, or at least accepting, the location.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if a major part of the fuss about the presence of Customs is the persistent claim that they will be "expanding," then presumably the other failed bidders (the Port and McCauley) also knew they were "expanding" with their antennas and interrogation cells and water board chambers and bathrooms and dungeons. Why didn't the now-complaining other bidders say something to the public about the dreaded end-of-the-world "expansion," if it's true, that is? Did the Port and McCauley plan to deprive CBP of their dungeons and put them in a closet-sized office like the one they have now? The "expansion" complaint seems to b a distinct complaint from the "iconic downtown core" nonsense. Would opponents would have been just as upset about "expansion" and cavity searches no matter where CBP was located? That information was as available to all bidders. We don't have to presume. CBP's space requirements are right in the presolicitation notice posted by a previous commenter. For the Port and McCauley to even hint at complaining about CBP expansion is disingenuous given that it was a published requirement of the presolicitation and they knew it all along. It was a published fact well over a year ago.
Wow, welcome to Swearin' Heron Friday I guess. I'm just getting off work, surfing around a bit before heading to a watering hole haven't perused TH for a day or so. Jeez. Looks like a few diehards are glued to their screens with itchy keyboard fingers. Can't all you left wing - right wing extremists go off and have a food fight somewhere else? You're all the same. You just want attention. Bugger off.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, since we're bloviating about inane comparisons and wild exaggerations let's apply the same standard when examining the CSA claim, that basically seems to say, watch out the Friends have become criminally insane and are about to kill you in your sleep.
The Friends objective is to eliminate all human beings from the San Juan Islands. Breathtaking. Epic.
But the topic is Security State and I am wondering if looking at our little local mafia out of context with the larger forces enabling them, is a serious distraction.
Who out there really wants to eliminate all human beings from the San Juans. Tell the answer to that, and I will show you the real threat.
196 posts on the previous TH topic and not one mention of Ron Zee? That has to be a record.
ReplyDeleteBy God we were cleverly distracted! Let's get back to the issues that matter: Obamacare and eelgrass!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I think ROLF means vomiting profusely from overindulgence. In other words, to hurl as in: "I stumbled out of Herb's and ROLF'd into the rain garden."
@4:54
ReplyDeleteI think you are underestimating the Friends' position. If you look at the pattern of their objections, of their comments, of their lawsuits, and of their participation in government, they don't place any limits on themselves. They show no restraint in wanting restrictions on human activity. Nothing is too extreme. For example, I have heard Kyle Loring say that there if it weren't for white people, there would be no pollution and no environmental damage. Tim Blanchard isn't using hyperbole, although I don't want to speak for him. No one has studied the Friends written statements more than Tim Blanchard over the last three years. I think the Friends thrive on the fact they they continue to be perceived as being less extreme than they actually are. They are very extreme and without being blunt, the general populace just doesn't get it. It looks like you don't believe it either, so I invite you to tell me the last time you heard of the Friends not push for more. The win one battle, and then immediately start to fight to get more. That's what they did on the CAOs. They fought for as much as they could get, urged its passage, and as soon as it was passed, they filed an appeal with the Hearings Board for more.
Tell me one time, just once, where the Friends have exercised any reasonable restraint.
I thought that was ralfing, but I'll go with it. Rolfing also is a type of therapy where your body is manipulated into various contortions. It is sometimes described as someone doing yoga to you.
ReplyDeleteOK 4:54 go for it!
ReplyDeleteJeepers Jughead, I'm gettin' skeered. Check out the final comments in that last post, its close to 200 now. Our tortured poet of Spring Street went off his tryptophan meds and by inane comparison makes the Friends seem calm, rational and helpful.
ReplyDeleteOMG. OMG.
"off his tryptophan meds" and making the "Friends look calm, helpful, and rational" said the commenter using Jeepers Jughead and two OMGs. Projection.
ReplyDelete5:39 after following this for many years, I agree with your assessment of the Friends. Total lack of responsibility to the human community.
ReplyDeleteWhat floored me when I first moved here was how they would attack a single family home owner.
In any normal community you get resistance to a high rise or something of some magnitude, but not here. Here it is the Friends and their associated thugs in the DOE who beat the shit out of just about anyone.
Unbelievable then, and nothing has changed now. This Friends outfit is bad, bad, bad.
@2:19 PM If you miss me that much, Anonymous, please identify yourself next time and I will buy you a cup of coffee or something. Your report is mostly right -- life is good. Sorry if I disturbed you by talking on my cell phone. I get very few calls these days, so I do try to answer each one even though none of them is important, I'm sure. By the way, I am plotting your demise from my San Juan Island hideaway right now and have been doing so since last weekend. Only a few days left, so maybe you'll be able to spy on me in Friday Harbor. I will try to remember to dress a little better.
ReplyDeleteKit--everyone is afraid to go into Friday Harbor these days--there are gun totin' PTSD-stricken rude and crude schemin' federales there imposing a police state. Or haven't you heard? (If you haven't, you're lucky.)
ReplyDeleteNo one claims that the Friends have become criminally insane and are about to kill you in your sleep.
ReplyDeleteThe Friends are simply chipping away, family by family, at the people who live here.
2:19 to 6:32 - 4 hours and 13 minutes. I won.
ReplyDeleteNo need to broadcast it smarty pants. I know. I'll pay you tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI think the term 'inane comparison' enters the lexicon tonight. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteAnd, there is an alien alinksi in our midst, help us! To the Batshit Mobile, flame on Gordoman, up and away!
Kit, "I will buy you a cup of coffee if you identify yourself" Rawson. Says" life is good".
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteSounds like Kit enrolled in the Dick Cheney School of Diplomacy.
The best defense is a good offence.
No, I don't want a cup of coffee, but thanks anyway.
Enough about Kit please, he's just a private citizen enjoying life, not our tribal MRC lever puller anymore. Speaking of that, does anyone know how our new MRC is doing?
ReplyDeleteNot just the MRC, but the planning commission, and the council too. The council and planning commission passed the transportation element. The SMP is being pushed through by Colin Maycock. The council is quietly getting things done, and that worries me because I'm not sure they know what they're doing.
ReplyDelete@ 1:59 AM
ReplyDelete"Dick Cheney School of Diplomacy"
Inane comparison. Send word to Gordoman: Destroy, Destroy.
7:10 p.m. It worries me because I'm fairly certain that they do not know what they're doing.
ReplyDelete