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Right Angle: Backstage 11/21/23

All the regular goodies plus a remarkable story of Jury Duty from Scott Ott.

This week: The Biden Stare, apologies to the F-35, a military hardware geekfest, the power of checklists, who stole America from the Vikings?, on the nature of slavery… and a remarkable tale of the burden of being a Jury Foreman by Scott Ott. This last segment was so good we kept talking about after we ended the episode… so we included that as well. All of this on this weeks’s edition of Right Angle: Backstage!

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41 replies on “Right Angle: Backstage 11/21/23”

RE: Bill’s comment toward the end where he struggled with the phrase “trial by jury by compassionate, moral people”
There is a phrase that John Corriea (yes, Larry’s son) uses on ‘Active Self Protection’ (channel on YT):
“Good, sane, sober, moral, prudent people”
A great description of how all people should act, and a standard I try to hold myself to every day.

Your discussion about the statue of Lincoln and the former slave rising that was paid for by former slaves made me think of this photo from Powerline blog’s recent Week in Pictures:

No Scott, I think you’re wrong. There are such things as bad people. There are people who have seared their own conscience so black and charred that they just don’t care if what they do is evil and harms others or not and in many cases will intentionally opt for the evil when good is a viable choice.

You’re right, those sorts of people should be killed. No matter what you do, no matter what happens, those sorts of people will always go on to do more and greater evil.

Short of that extreme, justice should be meted out in proportionate doses on an individual basis. That’s what good judges are for. That’s why we call them “Judges”. When we put bad judges on the bench we’re asking for injustice and it only gets worse from there.

I agree. In fact, I find blind optimism in the “goodness” of men to be as problematic as apologizing for the evils men do.

I also find that attitude of belief in the inherent goodness of human beings puzzling in someone who professes to be an adherent to the Christian Faith. Because Christian theology teaches that we are all fallen beings prone to do the most evil things.

I have faith in humanity, and that faith is the belief that lacking any other constraints human beings are in fact evil and ill willed at their core. Without any motivation that civilized spiritual restraints incur, people think they’re “good” when the opposite is so. Because left to their own resources on the matter they will inevitably choose evil and call it good if for no other reason than to feel superior about themselves.

Indeed, a large part of the problems we are now experiencing as a society are due to the abandonment of civil and religious constraints. From my viewpoint the result of doing that is obvious.

Notice please that I’m not saying that there is no one beyond redemption. To say that would be to limit the omnipotence of The Redeemer. I’m saying that there are many who reject redemption with a will and so carry that rejection to their graves. To the detriment of us all and their own damnation.

There is no such thing as a temporal utopia. It is the evil nature of men’s hearts that lies to them that that is possible. It is the truly evil among us that use that lie to manipulate others. It is the rejection of the tenets of Faith that allows those others to succumb to that lie.

I think one thing Scott said toward the end, about 1.20 that they have decide, that it sounds like jury nullification. A jury can find that someone did actually do something, but what they did should not be illegal.
[spoiler title=”what the guy did…”] now in Scott’s case, that the guy was convicted in the past would not be something I would think a jury should nullify unless there was some extraordinary punishment that they thing is just too much. [/spoiler]

During the OJ trial I served on a jury in the same courthouse; ON THE SAME FLOOR. What an effing zoo! Long story short, dude sold a couple rocks of crack to a cop. He wasn’t a big time, or even small time dealer; he was just hoping for a taste as reward. After finding him guilty, we, like Scott’s jury were asked to validate this guys previous convictions, which, like you said; we really didn’t have any choice considering the court, and jail documentations.
After all is said and done, we learn from the clerk that the judge was very disappointed in the outcome. Not because we didn’t reach the correct conclusion, but because the defendant got bad council. Evidently the judge realized this fellow was just a crack-head, not any kind of dealer, so he had advocated early on for the defendant to take a plea so the judge could get him into some kind of treatment/diversion program. AND, since this turned out to be dude’s third strike for crack, CA law required a 25 year minimum sentence.
Not one ounce of regret, but it sure made me sad, both for the judge and the defendant.
I served on a murder trial a couple years later – hung jury; story for another time. Made me wonder how in the hell we ever manage to convict; get 12 total strangers to agree someone did something really bad.

the first time YOU are “mistaken identity” and it cost YOU THOUSANDS of dollars and have your name dragged through the mud then you may stop the book licking.

Wow, you have some pretty serious anger issues, huh? Is there something you want to tell us or do you think spitting out absurd accusations of “book licking” (whatever the F that is) has some validity? Because in your bile and rage you aren’t making any sense.

If you think, in some inexplicable fashion, that there’s some “book licking” going on here, maybe you’re in the wrong place. If you do this to friends who are nominally on your side … You have issues with friend-or-foe recognition too.

I’m not saying you have to agree with everything said here, I don’t and would certainly never claim you should either. I’m saying your “book licking” and such nonsense, including previous comments you’ve posted to that end, is doing nothing but make you look like an idiot who does not pay attention to what’s being said.

I don’t know why you do that, but I’m not willing to just let it slide either. If you want to pay for a membership just so you can take your anger out on people supporting our side I can’t stop or ban you and wouldn’t if I could. I’ll just keep pointing out the error of your ways. Which is something I enjoy so thanks for the Thanksgiving Day entertainment. If you’re this much of an un-thankful wretch on Thanksgiving Day I can’t wait to see what kind of regurgitation you come up with at Christmas.

OMG if you have to mortgage your house to defend yourself so you can be free to worth rest of your life to pay a debt that should have never happened. THAT is why the cops arrest everyone so the lawyers make money on the innocent

“… so you can be free to worth rest of your life …”

Yeah, there’s this thing called “spell check” that doesn’t seem to be working right for you. You might consider actually reading what you write before you tap POST COMMENT. Nearly every post of yours contains that kind of screw-up. Which makes you look like a screw-up. Because a grown man who can’t figure out how to make some pretty simple tech work is a little pathetic. Everyone makes mistakes, the difference is you don’t seem to care to even try to get it right.

Unfortunately, a simple “spell check” would not work here. A grammar or word usage checker is required since both “worth” and the intended “work” are correct words. Now, I realize that you are conflating the tow (two? toe? dammit!) capabilities, and that’s fine. I also realize that your hackles are raised in responding to this member; so were mine when I read his rant about Scott’s alleged fraud below. All that being said, usage of an incorrect word is just an error that would not have been highlighted by a spell checker, and it is easily missed — I do it often, which is why so many of my posts get edited after the fact while the air turns blue around my head.

Well, that was more verbose than I planned. 😀

Lol, I see your point, of course. My intention was to give this guy an excuse for saying incomprehensible things. The main point I was making was that if he’s going to post a comment and expects others to understand what he’s on about then he could at least do himself and us the favor of proof reading it first. Or as you and I both do so often, read it after it’s posted, realize that it doesn’t say what you wanted it to, and go back and edit it so that it’s understandable.

Yeah, because me pointing out that someone posts nonsense and unfairly attacks our hosts for things they didn’t say or do is “bullying”? Got it. Thanks, I’ll take that under advisement.

Did you even listen to and comprehend Scott’s description of how he evaluated a poor video image? I’d like to see you do any better. Actually, I’d hate to have someone on a jury that decided my fate that included someone as overly-emotional as you seem to be. YIKES!

F-35 rendering with full AMRAAM load out. IV Testosterone right there.
Once upon a time I built a very specific motor for AMRAAM missiles. We were punching those babies out fast back then.

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South… Here in this pretty world Gallantry took its last bow.. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and Slave… Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization gone with the wind…

GWTW vibe strong in Atlanta growing up. Bought into it when I was young and dumb. Now it’s tough to read the words gallantry and slavery in the same paragraph. Alonzo and Klavan helped me disabuse myself of this.

Ugly, but well hung! ROTGLMFAO … A-10 is 1st airplane I ever worked/crawled on/in. Still got a 30 mm target round w/spent Uranium tip. Simply awesome.

That old pervert does not have a sufficient number of functioning brain cells to create, let alone remember, any plan. I think we’re safe.

Oh, I dunno. Have you ever watched Jeff Dunham and his puppets? It would not surprise me to learn that Creepy Joe is just an empty skin bag marionette being controlled from offstage. His movements are sometimes as jittery as an old animatronic doll.

Columbus made use of Viking navigation data by way of a relative who was a Templar if I recall correctly.
Clovis and Folsom peoples (true first Americans) are most likely from the Iberian Peninsula based on unique stone working techniques.
Islamic slavery (Barbary Pirate era) was especially brutal and unpredictable!
Slaves in America were the lucky ones when you figure what all the process had been to get to that point. They were alive first of all. Had slavery not existed, the neighboring tribe that raided their village and captured them, would have simply killed them if there was not a market for them. The raid would have occurred in either case.
Scott, you have at least in part, unburdened yourself here on Backstage, and we can assure you that you have done nothing wrong, and as much right as you could. Please do remember that it wasn’t you who decided to pass judgement upon this person, but it was he that put you in the situation where you were required to do so!!!

Just finished a book, “The First Americans” by J.M. Adovasio that discussed the objective data that there were humans pre-Clovis in both Americas.

I just watched a very interesting documentary a couple nights ago. The title was “Ice Age America” and was about evidence that there were human beings in the Americas long prior to the last Ice Age maximum. Like maybe as far back as 30,000 years ago. That would pre-date Clovis by 18,000 years or so.

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