Rand Paul

[Phoebe]

So, uh, definitely not trying to blame the victim in this case, and I'm a big fan of about 15% of Rand Paul's agenda, the part where he protects Liberty, so please don't take this as a criticism of Rand Paul at all. If some Nutjob neighbor of his attacked him for political reasons that's absolutely horrifying and terrible. However the way the story is being reported, something in the milk ain't clean. First it was just that they had some altercation of a manly sort and Rand Paul was slightly injured. Some ongoing dispute of the sort bad neighbors unfortunately may inflict on you. Then it turned out it was a full-body tackle and Paul had suffered enormous injuries. And now apparently it was while he was riding on a tractor lawn mower? Wut? It's a very strange thing to get about 15 versions of this and none of them make sense.

[Cazmonster]

This year, a Senator and a Representative have been attacked. Sick and wrong as it is, the American people may be making a statement about their current leadership.

[Phoebe]

Nah, imo criticism has absolutely nothing to do with the violence of horrid wicked people. But something is going on in that Paul situation that led to weird stages of reporting. They have some conflict going back, and the guy didn't just attack his neighbor in a way that would now get him the usual punishment, but due to the worse injuries it's a felony assault on a Congress person. Major crime! I can't help wondering what actually happened. I feel like news outlets didn't tell it correctly.

[Ronster]

[buckett]

I'm sure Rand Paul's state-sponsored healthcare that he'd love to destroy for every other American will fix him up fine.

[bralbovsky]

Ya, the reporting on this has been very fishy. It's in no way clear whether this was a personal or political dispute, since they had both kinds of conflicts in the past.

These statements absolutely belong in the voting booth, but that's in a place where voting has a prayer of making a difference.
Tampering with districts and eligibility and all the other things that insulate incumbents and make outcomes predictable make events like this inevitable.
Right now, otherwise empowered and enfranchised people have made choices like this. Watch out for when it begins to be folks who feel they have nothing to lose.

[Ronster]

When you see gigantic over-reactions to things like elections and persons bringing guns and seeking out republicans because they are so worked up that is probably cognitive dissonance.

It is a year after the election and there are plenty of people still obsessed with President Trump. If you feel you simply MUST do something then the advice I have is get a 4 year calendar and waste your energy wising the next 3 years away looking forward to the day when someone else might not be President.
Meanwhile most of the people who voted for him have moved on. There are some who flaunt their Trumper stickers but I took mine off after the election because I didn't want to rub it in. I haven't the time to get upset over what some person somewhere has or has not done. I can only prepare to deal with the aftermath. No amount of reason in a healthy sane person can excuse violence like we are still seeing. The key words are healthy and sane.

Possibly looking at massive numbers of mental cases.

[Mike]

So Ron, do you see people seeking out Republican politicians in order to physically attack them for political reasons as being a trend?

I know my news is influenced by my social media bubble, so I'm probably missing stuff, but the only politically motivated shootings (of U.S. politicians) I can think of in the last decade are the Republican congressmen at the ball field this year, and Democrat Gabby Giffords a few years back. It never occurred to me to see a pattern in this.

[Kyle]

So I know someone that works with someone who is friends with Rand Paul's wife and texts her regularly. Immediately after this happened, she told me that Rand's wife said this was their crazy neighbor that they always fought with about the petty things that neighbors fight about (it wasn't "Fence is too high" but stuff like that) and it just kept escalating until this jackass assaulted him while he was working in his yard.

Here's why I believe the story, because I saw several reports today that this was an argument that got out of control about Rand Paul not properly disposing of yard waste.

Checks out.

[Kyle]

Also- and I mean this in the kindest way possible. But I also view this discussion as everyone on both sides kind of having their heads up their own butts just a little bit. No offense.

*sees anger on everyone's faces*

I said NO OFFENSE!

*runs away*

[mimekiller]

Guys are you all high on cat piss? this is simply two neighbors having a fight about lawn maintenance that resulted in fists being thrown, probably one of the most relatable incidents a elected official has been involved in all year.

[buckett]

It's extremely hilarious to me.

[FlameBlade]

[Mike]

Right. That was the one example I could think of.

[Phoebe]

If the telephone gossip chain leading to Kyle is right, then some of the reporting I saw on this really was a case of fake news. So yeah, milk, tainted! I figure we aren't going to hear the truth on this one.

[FlameBlade]

[Kyle]

https://boingboing.net/2017/11/09/leaf- ... tment.html