IL - Man threated to "skin alive" GOP gubernatorial candidate and kill his family

[Anti Federalist]

Report: Illinois Man Threatened to Kill GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Darren Bailey and His Family

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...gubernatorial-candidate-darren-bailey-family/

JORDAN DIXON-HAMILTON 2 Nov 2022

Twenty-one-year-old Scott Lennox of Illinois left a depraved voicemail last week for Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey in which he threatened to “skin” Bailey “alive” and “feed his fucking family to him,” according to state prosecutors.

Lennox had a “heated argument” with his friends at a Chicago bar last Friday over pro-Bailey advertisements that made him “angry,” which led to the threatening voicemail, prosecutors allege.

In that message, Lennox allegedly threatened to “skin Darren Bailey alive,” and “feed his fucking family to him as he is alive and screaming in fucking pain.”

Lennox allegedly called Bailey a “piece of white ass racist shitt” in the voicemail before claiming to know Bailey’s home address.

(The poison has done it's work well in this one, who is as white as cream cheese. - AF)

“Honestly if he doesn’t kill himself, I will. You know what? I know where he lives. I know where he sleeps. I know where his kids sleep. And I know the fuck school he works at,” prosecutors say Lennox said.

Lennox also reportedly added, “the candidate teaching all this mother fucking misinformation is going to die. So honestly he should just kill himself before anything else happens.”

The voicemail continued:

"So fuck him for being a piece of shit. So you know what? I am going to take anything and everything possible. You know what? I am going to make him scream. I am going to make him scream and suffer. Yeah, that’s right. So he better kill himself, and if he doesn’t, I am going to kill him."

The schools affiliated with Bailey and his family were placed on soft lockdown after the threats, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Law enforcement also reportedly gave Bailey extra security and advised him to avoid public appearances.

Lennox admitted to leaving the threatening voicemail shortly after his arrest on Monday evening, police announced.

Bailey condemned the “misleading rhetoric” that fueled the threatening voicemail.

Bailey said in a statement:

Divisive, inflammatory, and misleading rhetoric is driving hatred across our state as some attempt to label political opponents as dangerous threats. Whether we agree or disagree on policies, we are all Americans. I pray this young man gets the help he needs. We must bring our state together and fight for the safety and prosperity of every Illinoisan.

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Susana Ortiz on Wednesday set Lennox’s bail at $75,000 and issued an order prohibiting him from contacting Bailey, his family, and his staff.

 

[Occam's Banana]

Whether we agree or disagree on policies, we are all Americans. [...] We must bring our state together and fight for the safety and prosperity of every Illinoisan.

This is nothing but a bland bowl of word salad. I can'f figure out what the hell this guy is trying to say.

Apparently, "we" are supposed to be united (because "we are all Americans") - but at the same time, "we" are also supposed to "fight" for things.

Whatever the sense in which "fight" is to be understood, against whom are "we" supposed to fight ("for [...] safety and prosperity", or for anything else), if not other "Americans" (or "Illinoisan") with whom "we [...] disagree on policies"?

 

[Occam's Banana]

Whatever the sense in which "fight" is to be understood, against whom are "we" supposed to fight ("for [...] safety and prosperity", or for anything else), if not other "Americans" (or "Illinoisan") with whom "we [...] disagree on policies"?

How about we not fight at all (again, regardless of what whatever "fight" is supposed to mean) [1], and just go our separate ways?

Divided we stand, united we fall.

"A united populace is the ultimate and explicit goal of every totalitarian state." -- Michael Malice
​

[1] Except in self-defense against the aggression of others.

 

[LibertyEagle]

I'm all for hanging together, as long as it is to defend principles for each other like individual liberty... each living as we see fit, as long as we are not infringing on another's own individual liberty, a small, very limited constitutional government, with the vast majority of decisions made by each individual and so on. Problem is we have lost the belief in these common principles somewhere along the line and if we have, the whole reason to be united.

 

[Occam's Banana]

I'm all for hanging together, as long as it is to defend principles for each other like individual liberty... each living as we see fit, as long as we are not infringing on another's own individual liberty, a small, very limited constitutional government, with the vast majority of decisions made by each individual and so on.

This, please. It will do for a start.

Problem is we have lost the belief in these common principles somewhere along the line and if we have, the whole reason to be united.

Yes.

The problem has been building steam gradually ever since "manifest destiny" was effectively achieved well over a century ago - but things may finally be coming to a head.

This was pretty much inevitable. There just isn't any way to establish or maintain a single set of common principles over a continent-spanning population of a third of a billion people - not without artificially and forcibly imposing it on everyone. The variations of culture, geography, demography, ideology, economics, etc. are just too many and too great. "Representative democracy" ends up being representative of no one except the people who happen to be in power - who are not necessarily the same ones who were elected (and, inf fact, probably aren't). At best, slight majorities will end up wielding power over near majorities, which is not a stable configuration. At a scale of hundreds of millions of people, even just 10% in opposition can be a challenge to deal with. But when 49% are in opposition (and enough of that opposition is sufficiently agitated and motivated), then you've got a really serious problem on your hands - and bland, generic appeals to a pleasant-sounding but hand-wavingly vague sort of "unity" (of the kind Bailey offered in the OP, for example) are just not gonna cut it.

 

[ClaytonB]

I learned just one thing from this article: people who live in Illinois call themselves Illinoisans. Who knew...

 

[Brian4Liberty]

...Problem is we have lost the belief in these common principles somewhere along the line and if we have, the whole reason to be united.

Marxism and elitist socialism replaced it. The long march through the institutions sealed the deal. The new common belief is big brother government to coddle and distribute crumbs to the left, and crush any opposition.

 

[SpiritOf1776_J4]

This, please. It will do for a start.
The variations of culture, geography, demography, ideology, economics, etc. are just too many and too great. "Representative democracy" ends up being representative of no one .

Representative democracy isn't the same thing as a constitutional republic. The changes in meaning and problems are so numerous that many of the problems aren't even mentioned here, and a substantial portion is a change in the meaning of law.

 

[Occam's Banana]

Representative democracy isn't the same thing as a constitutional republic. The changes in meaning and problems are so numerous that many of the problems aren't even mentioned here, and a substantial portion is a change in the meaning of law.

https://twitter.com/stevenB24096121/status/1588312319142277120

https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1588312480316465152

 

[AngryCanadian]

https://twitter.com/stevenB24096121/status/1588312319142277120

https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1588312480316465152

That same Democracy that Biden wants to export to Iran now?

 

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1588312480316465152

The United States stopped being a "republic" of any kind in 1865.

After Reconstruction, the states became little more than semi-autonomous administrative districts of the federal [sic] government.

And the cracks were showing well before 1861. (Exhibit A: The Missouri Compromise - enacted just 32 years after the ratification of the Constitution.)

 

[Anti Globalist]

Those peaky right wingers. They need to stop going around being domestic terrorists.

 

[LibertyEagle]

This, please. It will do for a start.



Yes.

The problem has been building steam gradually ever since "manifest destiny" was effectively achieved well over a century ago - but things may finally be coming to a head.

This was pretty much inevitable. There just isn't any way to establish or maintain a single set of common principles over a continent-spanning population of a third of a billion people - not without artificially and forcibly imposing it on everyone. The variations of culture, geography, demography, ideology, economics, etc. are just too many and too great. "Representative democracy" ends up being representative of no one except the people who happen to be in power - who are not necessarily the same ones who were elected (and, inf fact, probably aren't). At best, slight majorities will end up wielding power over near majorities, which is not a stable configuration. At a scale of hundreds of millions of people, even just 10% in opposition can be a challenge to deal with. But when 49% are in opposition (and enough of that opposition is sufficiently agitated and motivated), then you've got a really serious problem on your hands - and bland, generic appeals to a pleasant-sounding but hand-wavingly vague sort of "unity" (of the kind Bailey offered in the OP, for example) are just not gonna cut it.

I don't really agree. We used to have one culture; the American culture. We allowed them to divide us; they did it intentionally. And if we had required that our federal gov. remained within the Constitution, they wouldn't have much power, nor special favor to give to whomever fills their pockets. And our founders didn't give us any kind of democracy; they gave us a republic. States have much more power than they have been exercising. One of the worst mistakes we made was to change who was chosen for the U.S. Senate from being appointed by state legislatures.

 

[TheTexan]

I don't really agree. We used to have one culture; the American culture. We allowed them to divide us; they did it intentionally. And if we had required that our federal gov. remained within the Constitution, they wouldn't have much power, nor special favor to give to whomever fills their pockets. And our founders didn't give us any kind of democracy; they gave us a republic. States have much more power than they have been exercising. One of the worst mistakes we made was to change who was chosen for the U.S. Senate from being appointed by state legislatures.

The Constitution was never intended to safeguard freedom by itself.

It was intended to be upheld by free men, for only free men know what freedom even means.

When Lincoln turned us into slaves, the Constitution never even had a chance.

Slaves cannot, by definition, uphold freedom.

The Confederacy's loss of the civil war, was possibly the largest setback for human liberty for 1000 years.

It destroyed this nation, and set a tyrannical example for nations across the globe.

An example we still have not yet recovered from.

 

[Occam's Banana]

I don't really agree. We used to have one culture; the American culture. We allowed them to divide us; they did it intentionally. And if we had required that our federal gov. remained within the Constitution, they wouldn't have much power, nor special favor to give to whomever fills their pockets.

The key words here are "used to".

When the country was much smaller (as in the colonial period), American culture was at least broadly homogeneous - sufficiently so that the democratic dimension of its politics could at least be roughly "representative" and stable, if not always harmoniously so. But as the country grew and subsumed ever more and more people and places (and as the democratic impulse waxed and republicanism waned), things inevitably became less and less stable.

The issue of the expansion of slavery into the western territories, for example, was just one of the most obvious symptoms of the struggle over the distribution of power in America's federal polity. Once a country - even a republic - grows beyond a certain point, there is just no way for its democratic elements to be "representative" of the country (or of anyone except those in power). This induces an increasingly escalating cycle of reaction and counter-reaction along the democratic axis, which must inevitably culminate in either (1) an increasingly totalitarian authoritarianism that is neither democratic nor republican (except in outward form) [1], or (2) the "crack up" of dissolution and separation (peaceful or otherwise).



[1] The dysfunctions of the Late Roman Republic were a textbook example of this - and note especially in that case the expansion of enfranchisement from just the Romans to include the Latins, and then all Italians (the last of which even involved a war, not for separation, but for inclusion).

And our founders didn't give us any kind of democracy; they gave us a republic.

Whatever they gave us, what we actually have now is a democracy (or a cross-party oligarchy disguised as a democracy).

It is certainly not a republic, and it hasn't been for a long time (going back to at least 1865).

"A republic ... if you can keep it", Franklin said.

We couldn't (or didn't, anyway - which amounts to the same thing).

States have much more power than they have been exercising.

They should, but they don't - not if they never actually exercise it. (It remains to be seen whether they really have any left.)

Power that isn't used when it needs to be is pointless. It might as well not exist, for all the difference it makes.

One of the worst mistakes we made was to change who was chosen for the U.S. Senate from being appointed by state legislatures.

I agree:

[...] The US Senate was never intended to be democratic.

US Senators were supposed to represent their states' governments, not their states' people [1], thereby giving the states a direct role at the federal level. The 17th Amendment put an end to that, and was a critical step in turning the states into little more than pseudo-autonomous administrative districts of the federal government.

IOW: The 17th is one of the major reasons we live in a democracy, not a republic.

[1] Representing states' people is what the US House of Representatives was supposed to be for.

[...] The dynamic of federal power vis-a-vis state power was substantively and significantly altered when state governments were effectively cut out of the loop and the Senate was converted to a variation of the House.

[...] The 17th Amendment significantly reduced the power of the several states, and centralized and concentrated more power in the federal government. [...]

[... T]he 17th Amendment transferred significant power from state governments to the federal government, and substantively altered the dynamic between states and the federal government (by effectively neutering the influence of the former over the latter). [...]

[...] By design and intention, the 17th Amendment represents a signal failure in this regard (as did the Constitution itself, for that matter, vis-a-vis the Articles of Confederation).

If the engineers of the 17th Amendment had actually given a damn about corruption and its consequences, they'd have sought to significantly reduce the power of the federal government, not transfer more power to it at the expense of the states.