Can there be peace between our people?
Or You see what kind of shit we gun nuts have to put up with?
Remember those birds I mentioned yesterday? They that kept flying into the window? Yeah, those birds. It never once occurred to me to walk outside and say ‘Hey birds, knock it off. That’s your reflection and you’re just hurting yourself.” Followed by me giving a lengthy explanation to the birds about wavefronts and refraction and what not. You know why that didn’t occur to me? Because they don’t get it. And they never will. They will continue to fly into the window, pointlessly attacking their imagined opposition.
This brings me to Mike Vanderboegh’s merry band of keyboard commandos. Mostly, I’ve been ignoring these guys and not engaging them for the same reason I did not engage the bird. It’s pointless. The trend is the same:
1 Crazy talk about shooting the bastards
2 followed by attacking those folks who think maybe shooting the bastards is a bit much
3 ending with righteous indignation about how those of us who may disagree with them are, well, pick your favorite insulting term.
After, it gets repeated elsewhere. Second verse, same as the first. I would try to engage them and point out that maybe scaring the white people isn’t the best policy decision. That their efforts are better spent being politically active instead of engaging in mental masturbation all over their keyboards. Or, as Sebastian said: If 3% of gun owners were as involved in political activism as they supposedly are at preparing for civil war, we’d be an unstoppable political force.
But, like reasoning with the birds, it’s a fruitless endeavor. It will waste my time and probably annoy the birds. After all, these are guys who accuse other bloggers of cowardice for not drawing a clear line in the sand, while pointing out their own lines have been crossed while they do nothing but engage in a New World Order induced circle jerk. But other gun bloggers do engage them (most recently here, here, and here).
And that’s the other rub. In addition to a complete unwillingness to think that maybe their strategies aren’t helpful, a lot of these guys are complete assholes. I mean, zero attempt at convincing someone of their point without inflammatory rhetoric. One of the comments made recently in an offline discussion was that some of the gun bloggers were part of the three percenters these guys were counting. And they were even turning us crazy gun nuts off.
So, can there be peace between our people? Not until they stop acting like douchebags. Until then, I’ll continue my policy of not engaging them.
I mean, at least the birds aren’t douchebags.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Update: And to be clear, Mike has been personable to in our few online exchanges. I’m not calling him a douchebag. Rather, the inevitable stream of other commenters who tend to show up.
December 9th, 2008 at 2:26 am
I wonder why there are no comments at the famous Mr Beck’s blog?
I guess it is so much easier to shit on other people’s blogs and keep your own perfection of thought unsullied by the chattering of the rabble, eh Riff?
December 9th, 2008 at 3:08 am
This is obviously an issue that needed to be aired out amongst us gunnies. Despite the name calling and trash talking (or perhaps because of it) I think this is one of the most interesting, and dare I say productive, blog posts that I’ve seen on the Web in a very long time.
December 9th, 2008 at 9:16 am
“I wonder why there are no comments at the famous Mr Beck’s blog?”
It’s mine. That’s why. It’s none of your goddamned business.
December 9th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Guns are *a* line, not *the* line. But they’re the last line, beyond that, there is no more way to draw lines. What the prags don’t realize is that drawing the line at gun confiscation is the *most* conservative, least reactionary, least radical place it can be drawn. Many people have other lines, and nothing in III precludes other lines. But gun confiscation is the fulcrum around which means, opportunity, and motive pivot. It’s where those three naturally intersect. Everything possible must be done not only to prevent it from getting there, but to have real freedom by other means.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I just re-read this thread. I retract my previous comment that Uncle’s post was lame. Way to psych-ops us into a discussion Uncle. Oh sure, a lot of flames, but also a lot of reasoned content.
I previously said “…Us owning guns scares uncle’s white people. …”
To which Uncle replied “That’s a pretty pragmatic position. I would venture the pragmatic solution is to convince them otherwise rather than to assume they will always be scared.”
That is a rub. I don’t think most of them can be convinced. Hoplophobia and all. Sure some can be but not most. Remember people, the media is not on our side. (Where ‘our’ means people standing for liberty both pragmatic and line types) How can you pragmatically work with people who will always be scared without giving up your guns? In this case it does not bother me if the are scared by line in the sand talk, they are already scared.
“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” — Abraham Lincoln
December 9th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Chris, I think rampant hoplophobia is far less common than you think. Even less so if the press stops parroting every anti-gun misrepresentation out there.