FBI Stops Washington D.C. Bomber

Stacy McCain misses an opportunity to repeat one of his favorite mantras "Crazy people are dangerous"; Darwinian Terrorist: Feds Arrest N.Y. Man in Election Day Suicide Bomb Plot

Paul Rosenfeld of Tappan, N.Y., worked as a house painter and was a sort of amateur political philosopher and, also, a would-be bomber:

Police and FBI agents searched a Hudson Valley, New York, home Wednesday and arrested the 56-year-old man living there after learning about his alleged plan to build a bomb and blow himself up in Washington, D.C., on Election Day, two law enforcement officials told News 4 New York.
Court documents say Paul Rosenfeld wanted to draw attention to his belief in an ancient election system called “sortition,” a method of choosing political officials at random.
Officials tell News 4 Rosenfeld had no criminal history but had told a reporter in Pennsylvania he planned to blow himself up on the National Mall around Election Day because he was angry about the country’s direction.

More from the U.S. attorney’s office:

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: “As alleged, Paul M. Rosenfeld concocted a twisted plan to draw attention to his political ideology by killing himself on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. — risking harm to many others in the process. Rosenfeld’s alleged plan for an Election Day detonation cut against our democratic principles. Thanks to outstanding coordination between local and federal law enforcement, Rosenfeld’s alleged plot was thwarted and he is now in federal custody.”
Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr. said: “As alleged in the complaint, Paul M. Rosenfeld planned to detonate a large explosive to kill himself and draw attention to his radical political beliefs. Had he been successful, Rosenfeld’s alleged plot could have claimed the lives of innocent bystanders and caused untold destruction. Fortunately, his plans were thwarted by the quick action of a concerned citizen and the diligent work of a host of our law enforcement partners and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. I’d like to extend particular thanks to our partners with the Orangetown Police Department, the Rockland County Sheriff’s Office, the Rockland County District Attorney, the New York State Police, the New York City Police Department, and the Stony Point Police Department for their respective roles in bring this investigation to a safe conclusion.” . . .
In August and September 2018, ROSENFELD sent letters and text messages to an individual in Pennsylvania (“Individual-1”). These letters and text messages stated that ROSENFELD planned to build an explosive device and detonate it on November 6, 2018, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. ROSENFELD’s stated reason for these acts was to draw attention to his political belief in “sortition,” a political theory that advocates the random selection of government officials.

In March 2015, Rosenfeld outlined his views in a 1,600-word blog post that included this paranoid hypothetical scenario:

The logical end of majority rule is monarchy. The constant political maneuvering of individuals and factions must inevitably trend towards a winner takes all conclusion. Even today, despite all our “democratic” pretensions in the U.S., one might easily imagine a scenario in which President Jeb Bush (following an act of nuclear terrorism) suspends the electoral process, under the pretext that “terrorists” have infiltrated the Democratic party. A perpetual dynasty of Bush leaders would be a plausible outcome.

At the end of that blog post, Rosenfeld said it was “was condensed from a much longer essay” which he linked. I’ve uploaded a copy of that 9,000-word essay, “The Extinction of Politics: A speculation on the relationship between Ecology, Politics and Government,” to Scribd: . . .

I think worrying about a Bush monarchy at this point marks him as a pro-Republican loon, don't you?

Speaking of his idea "sortition", the great W.F. Buckley once said: “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory,” he said, “than by the Harvard University faculty.”. It's not clear which phone directory he was thinking of (but he lived in Manhattan at the time). It's not exactly random, but it would certainly avoid many of the pitfalls of government by our current power mad and avaricious political class.