Keeping Us Safe

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Lately I’ve run into a sort of bizarre mentality. People expect to be safe. I mean, really safe, everywhere, all the time.

No, I’m not being ironical. Which I only need to explain because this bizarre idea that you can be safe everywhere, so perfectly safe that nothing bad ever happens.

Do I need to tell you that’s impossible?

Three incidents from my life:

My older son was three when we took him to visit my parents, who took us to a nice beach resort for a week. The place is extremely safe. At night you might run into a drunkard, and of course, you could drown (though you’d have to make an effort. I can’t swim and never managed it, not even as a kid.) Safe, right?

My mom took my son for a walk. Walking along the street above the beach, kid starts screaming, his face starts swelling. He was stung by a bee and we had to take him to emergency for a shot.

Is the sane thing to call for legislation for bee control? Or to carry an eppi pen? (He doesn’t even do that, turns out this wasn’t exactly a normal bee and his allergy is very specific, so if we’re not in Portugal, he’s fine. And the reason I’m not being specific here is that I only understood half the explanation, even in Portuguese. He is, however, deathly scared of bees to this day.)

Take last week – I was in my kitchen, about to make lemon tea for my son who had a cold, when suddenly I THOUGHT someone had thrown a stone at the window.

It wasn’t. It was hail storm from h*ll. It ended up okay, but if we’d been out walking, I’d probably have been (at least) concussed. Hail control? Or keep a – ah – weather eye out and a place in mind to run to while out walking in summer?

Take the time I was 20 and someone came out of a dark alley and grabbed me as I left college after dark in Portugal. Madman control? No, of course not. What I should have had is a gun, but this was not allowed in Portugal and my dad refused to get me one. So I defended myself with what I had on hand and ran away.

Take that last incident. Every time something like this happens here, I hear talking heads both wringing their hands over “how could this have happened” and calling for laws to prevent it.

Somehow, the idiot in Hollywood who killed people with a knife and a gun is the fault of the NRA for… encouraging the people to have the means to defend themselves.

Honestly, I think this is the “baby proof” generation and their parents distorting the thoughts of the nation.

When I first got pregnant, my oby-gyn gave me a packet on baby proofing the house. I jaw-dropped.

I grew up in an early nineteenth century farmhouse, imperfectly adapted to the 20th. In another country. Yes, we had exposed electrical wires, massive furniture I could pull on top of myself, stuff that was dangerous stored where I could reach it. It never occurred to grandma to move the wood-chopping ax, let alone the knife drawer. In the yard, there were agricultural implements, in my grandfather’s carpentry workshop, well, everything. And I played in there all the time.

It never occurred to anyone to move things, take things away, hide things so that the world was a safe play pen for me.

Instead, they made me a world-proofed the child. A lot of watching, a lot of “don’t touch that, because—” Some slaps if I insisted on trying it. (Who, me, stubborn?) Not SPANKING as such understand? Kids that small, a little slap on the hand and they recoil. Oh, wait, people are against physical punishment, so their kids never learn to control themselves. Because little slaps on the hand will make the child violent, or something. This despite the fact every great ape spanks. (And don’t come to me with our being rational beings. Two year olds aren’t. And at any rate this sort of thing needs to be trained-in below the conscious level. It’s not a “reason with me” moment.)

Were there incidents? Only one. I danced barefoot on a wood pile granddad had bought from a demolition to recycle. (Apparently mahogany of a certain type is only obtainable that way.) Tetanus shot, trip to the hospital. I lived. I also didn’t do it again.

Should he not have had the wood in the workshop yard, because I existed? I bet now they’d charge him with neglect. And it would be stupid. NO ONE CAN KEEP TRACK OF A SIX YEAR OLD EVERY SECOND. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE.

Yesterday in comments there was talk about how women shouldn’t have to defend themselves. Men should be taught “not to rape.” Oy. Where to start. Most men never have any interest in rape. (Unless you define rape as “looked at me funny.”) Those that do aren’t likely to take teaching any too well.

The best thing you can do when someone is threatened is to have them defend themselves. They’re right there, and it’s their life on the line.

There are limits to this, of course. I couldn’t send my little ones armed to school. So I taught them what to do if they even suspected there was an intruder. Schools are gun free zones, of course, but that doesn’t stop people intent on killing other people from bringing them in. It’s a funny thing. If you’re going to do murder, you’re okay with violating rules. And what’s more, you know all victims and their teachers are disarmed.

So I taught the kids to use EVERYTHING – desks, books, chairs – as a weapon. And, before it came to that, if they even suspected there was a shooter, break a window, get out, run away in zigzags. If it wasn’t a shooter, mommy will explain and pay.

Paranoid? Better paranoid and alive…

The world can’t be made safe. There’s always a mad man. You need to be able to do what you can to defend yourself and others.

And if the worst still happens? None of us is immortal. You can die in a crash, and you can die of a bullet. Or you can die safe in your bed. Dead is dead. I wonder if these precious flowers of “I wanna be protected” realize that some day they’ll die. Sure as shooting. No matter how careful they are.

And the same goes for nations. You can’t have a safe world. The war to end all wars wasn’t, and wasn’t said by anyone sane.

No matter how GOOD you are as a nation, and how much you apologize, it’s a wide world, someone will attack you.

You can’t babyproof the world, and it’s scary when we have an administration that thinks if we’re attacked it’s all our fault.

World politics ain’t beanbag. If you both want the same thing, you will fight. And even if your nation decides not to – say, sends Putin a stern rebuke instead of a nuke – the other side won’t stop because of that. On the contrary. Aggressors don’t take your pacifism as an example. They just view pacifists as easy prey.

For this reason, we have fighting men, who volunteer to defend the nation. May G-d bless them and keep them and provide them leadership who won’t expend them in futile gestures and grand philosophical crusades.

And may those who gave their life protecting this nation rest in peace, and know that in a world that can’t be made safe, they did what they had to do.

And let’s not forget them, their sacrifice, nor how necessary it was.

259 thoughts on “Keeping Us Safe”

  1. Well said, Sarah, and thank you for being a voice of reason. I’ve gotten so tired of the fragile little flowers (yes, I’m being ironic here) who claim they don’t feel safe going to a con because a writer who is pro-2nd Amendment will be there. You know all the examples. We’ve discussed them. I long for a time when there is at least a modicum of common sense back at work.

    Like

    1. You beat me to it. [Wink]

      Yah, people wanting to be “safe” from hearing something they dislike seriously annoy me.

      Worst of all, they seem to “think” that “holding wrong opinions” equals “willing to cause real harm”. [Frown]

      Like

    2. they don’t feel safe going to a con because a writer who is pro-2nd Amendment will be there

      Apparently, nobody but my parents realizes that I pack regularly for our household– if I’m not on base, anyways.

      This has resulted in me being entrusted with a long conversation by a cute little girl (19, I think?) about how she just wouldn’t feel safe with a gun around and how she was sure that nobody actually concealed carried….
      I’m pretty sure the Navy grandma that traded looks with me had noticed how I treat my diaper bag and guessed that I was armed.

      I have been scolded by a lot of people who will open the conversation by saying they don’t know anything about guns because we don’t keep our guns in a safe– they’re secure, but accessible. One gal made a scene at her sister’s house because their teenage son had his rifle on the wall in his room and it was going to jump off and hit her ten year old, or something. (Note: the kids of a parent like that probably are the biggest risk because guns are forbidden.)

      Like

      1. I have run across an online complaint about a man who realized another customer in a restaurant was carrying, and tried to leave without paying at the till. Sure, he had thrown the money on the table, but considering that when the owner stopped him, he ranted at great length. . . .

        He complained that the man threatened to call the police on him as if it were shocking that you would call them about the man who looked like he was breaking the law.

        Like

        1. How poorly must one think of ones self to believe that the only reason you’re not dead yet is a lack of those around you having swift means to do so?

          Like

      2. “I have been scolded by a lot of people who will open the conversation by saying they don’t know anything about guns because we don’t keep our guns in a safe– they’re secure, but accessible. ”

        I never had a safe until a year or two ago, and even now no more than half my guns are ever in the safe at any one time. The safe may make it more difficult for a gun to be stolen, but it also makes that gun inaccessible to you, if you need to use it. Whether that is to shoot the turkey in the backyard, because it is the last day of turkey season, or to defend yourself against an intruder. I’ll also point out that most all of my guns are kept loaded at all times, even those in the safe, an unloaded gun is simply a poorly designed club.

        If I have company with little kids over I’ll do such things as pick up the pistol that is setting on the coffee table beside my easy chair, and put it out of the kids reach. But that is about all the concessions I will make, if you need more than that to be comfortable, well I’m not comfortable with you being in my house.

        Like

  2. We’ve become so intent on protecting people’s feelings, we’re no longer protecting their rights.

    Like

                1. Considering the kinds of things that live in my head, I don’t think there’s much danger of that.

                  Like

                    5. I’m not touching it. I’ve already got a stinkeye with no place to put it. You can’t just toss ’em out (I like the men who pick those bags up, why would I do that to ’em?) and you can’t stick it in the attic. What if the giver comes by and wants to see where you keep the thoughtful gift? What’ll you do then?

                      You’ll end up with another stinkeye. And matched sets don’t gain in value.

                      Like

                  1. ‘S OK. Mom said she was perfectly sane until Sib and I arrived. “Insanity is hereditary: You get it from your kids.”

                    Like

        2. Before dying the last act will be to absolve the perp of responsibility, blaming instead the “gun lobby” and “hate-laden culture” and similar “root causes” that drove the assailant to perpetration.

          Like

              1. Like the poor woman who died with her blood-filled emergency whistle in her mouth. (And yet people wonder why I treat parking garages at night as 100% enemy territory . . .)

                Like

                1. Scout cautiously, prepared for retreat or attack, regard with suspicion all shadows and corners?

                  Assume the same during the day, yes?

                  Like

                    1. I’ll start by saying I know exactly what you mean, I really do.

                      But each time I read this my background has my brain pulling up a dehydration monitoring chart for urine…

                      Frustrating brain.

                      Like

  3. A few weeks ago, I saw a comment on the internet about how”the gun lobby” has the blood of children on their hands, etc. and nobody needs a gun because home invasion robberies are such statistical abberations. I replied, “Maybe in YOUR neighborhood. But most minorities and the economically disadvantaged live in neighborhoods that are like war zones, not in gated, gentrified communities with armed guards and short police response times. Check your economic privilege.”
    [EVIL GRIN]

    Like

    3. Statistically speaking you don’t need a fire extinguisher, a spare tire, a first aid kit, or that eppie pen Sarah mentioned. Yet folks who keep such handy are applauded as prudent. Buy a gun, train yourself in its operation, go the extra mile and obtain a concealed carry permit, and you’re a delusional paranoid idiot. At least according to some.

      Like

        1. Yeah, what’s up with that. I wear mine all the time for absolutely no reason! I’ve never been in an accident and probably never will, so wearing one is pointless.

          Like

          1. All the accidents I’ve nearly been in, it wouldn’t have made a difference.

            Usually things like “That simi CAN’T SEE ME!!!!”

            And yet, I still wear mine…at least it improves my posture and if I have to stop suddenly it’s more comfortabe.

            Like

      2. Question: where do you drive where you never have a flat tire? I buy high quality, usually ten ply, tires but over the years I have changed way too many flats to count. Now I drive gravel roads and such where you are way more likely to have a flat, but I have gotten many while simply driving down the highway.

        Like

        1. Where do I drive that I never get a flat tire? I would like to say “in my imagination”but honesty compels me to admit that it is bumpy with many a pot hole.

          Like

    4. This is the sort of thing that makes me so mad I want to start biting myself. The anti-gun lobby regularly stands on the bodies of dead children to give themselves the moral high ground. Everytime there is a usable shooting there is a call for whatever won’t work and can’t work and will fail, and the next time they do it again and call for a more extreme measures.

      Like

    5. Back in the late 90’s, I went to a “Gun Control” meeting at my church. It was a very nice, liberal one. The leaders were two nice people, who taught at thew university down the street. ~80% of the members live in safe, suburban neighborhoods. OTOH, I lived in the “center City.” I said. “How interesting it was who believed in more gun control laws. People who lived in areas where IPD (now IMPD) arrived in single officer cars, on a call. While those of us that didn’t lived in another area. Where we lived, Officers never arrived in less than pairs, or two, one officer cars.” (The dispatchers knew my voice so well from calling to report problems that they automatically assumed I was at home, if I called.)

      Like

  4. Touches on a particular soapbox of mine. A favorite vile prog mantra is “it’s for the children.” Schools are gun free zones for the children. Mandatory trigger locks are for the children.
    Here’s the factual logic, not that it will make a rat’s patootie of difference to the anti gun crowd.
    There are an estimated 300 million firearms in the hands of 80-100 million citizens in the US. What are the chances that your precious sprout will never ever encounter even one of them? The anti gun solution of course is to babyproof every last weapon. IMHO the correct answer just might be to gun proof the baby. I have long called for age appropriate firearm safety and handling training in our public schools. This horrifies the Brady crowd. You know, the same bunch that demand sex education for eight year olds are certain that mere exposure to the idea of guns will warp and twist their precious darlings. And when I point out that the training material already exists from the NRAs Eddie Eagle program they tend to sputter and become even more incoherent. A small guilty pleasure I do take on occasion. The vile progs do purely hate sense and logic when it flies in the face of their narrative.

    Like

    1. Starting when I was about six, my parents showed me firearms, told me not to touch, and left it there. I had a cap-musket from Disney World and a coonskin cap, and got swatted for pointing the musket at people. Only took one time and that was the last time. Played with cap revolvers and learned to respect the hammer. When I was big enough, my dad showed me how to see if the air-rifle was safe, and if not, to leave it alone. Firearms, knives, walking sticks were (and are) tools just like a table saw, to be used for certain things and treated with a certain amount of respect. Since there wasn’t any mystery or “lure of the forbidden,” neither Sib nor I ever got in real trouble with firearms (or power tools).

      Like

      1. My dad’s gun (well, one of them) was always on the dining room table, if he was home. I was told not to touch it. I didn’t.

        I did have cap guns from about age three. We played cops and robbers.

        Like

      2. Oh, and I bought them for my kids, much to my husband’s amusement “Oh, yeah,” he said “Memories of when you were a little boy.” “Tomboy.” “Whatever.”

        Like

        1. These days, I use a CO2 powered airsoft pistol to practice basic handgun marksmanship. Currently I’m shooting a little low and left. An-ti-ci-paay-

          Like

      3. When I was at a con a while back I picked up a steampunk revolver, handling it like it might be a real loaded gun. The seller remarked that most people just point it and deduced that I must have been raised by a gun owner. Which is correct.

        Like

      1. That’s a point I keep trying to bring up to the gun banners. You can’t do it. One of the most popular semi-automatic handguns around – the 1911 – represents the state of the art in manufacturing technology. For 1910. Revolvers are even simpler. A decent machine shop – and any place that’s more than a wide spot in the road has a couple – can crank them out by the dozen. And keeping the extant copies going is even easier. There are plenty of examples of guns that are well over 100 years old that still fire.

        Like

        1. We have the tools necessary in our basement.

          (Husband’s new hobby is machining, so he’s a beginner, but someone who knew what they were doing could make a gun in our basement, and with a little effort and a bit of practice my husband could, too.)

          Like

          1. Even barrels aren’t that hard. Bore out some pipe (or a blank cylinder) to the appropriate diameter, rifle it, and heat treat it. If you go with a polygonal barrel it’s even easier once you have the blank.

            Like

            1. and for any modern cartridge, heat treat it top appropriate hardness for the pressure… Only shotgun barrels are barely more than a ‘pipe’ and rifling requires nonstandard tooling

              Like

          2. A lower for the AR can be made from sheet metal, and well now with 3d printing. The lower on an AR just needs to hold the trigger group and magazine in place, the Barrel and bolt lock together and don’t load it very much. Then there are plans for an upper made from sheet as well with a 9mm barrel and using a sten style magazine, which also can be made from sheet. There are instructions available on how to make this with hand tools.
            automotive wrecking yards are an arsenal waiting for some work (axles for barrels and bolts, lots of spring steel to be had for magazines)

            Like

            1. No, 3d printed AR lowers made on most ‘affordable’ 3d printers aren’t very usable. Even the altered versions where the front and rear of the receiver are reinforced still can’t take full-power rounds for long. .22LR sure… 5.56 not for very many shots… .300 Blackout, forget it. The plastics that these printers use just isn’t enough to take much. Of course, there is one 3d printer now that has a CNC module….

              (Also: AK receivers *are* just stamped metal…)

              Like

              1. Yes, but long is a relative term. Plus with the judicious use of a bit more sheet steel the printed lower is even longer lasting. especially if one is using pistol rounds in it and not mousegun ammo. If one is looking for a singe use maybe two mags gun for nefarious reasons, who cares how long the thing lasts. If one is fighting for freedom reasons, i.e. a Liberartor (made by GM;s signal lights division), it needs only to last long enough to be using the other fellows arms. or be designed as a single shot.

                Like

                  1. I’ve a 2 foot or so length of 1.5″ I.D. stainless lying about.
                    And my local Lowes and Depot are laid out slightly differently then most others so it is aisle 4 I think at H.D. and never looked at Lowes number, but it is well back in the store

                    Like

            2. Said auto wrecking treasure trove can also be “mined” for crossbow and ballista parts, IED “casings”, electronic components, etc. and so forth. (Leaf-spring ballista launching hardened-tip rebar missiles could be devastating against most soft-skinned automotive power plants these days…. “Wolverines!”, anyone?)

              Back to the point made above, and borrowing a Tom Lehrer line (sideways…):

              When correctly viewed, everything is — a potential weapon.

              Like

              1. All that stuff in the junkyard is just potential tools. Your weapon is between your ears.

                Like

              2. the Composite leaf springs used by GM (Astro and ‘Vette) are made by Bear Archery.
                It’s a it like Anarchy…some of us really don’t like it at all ….doesn’t mean we ain’t really, really good at it.

                Like

          1. very easy. During WWII the allies dropped the plans for the Sten sub-machine gun into Holland and they were made in bicycle shops with the parts on hand.
            The simplest design to make is a slam-fire blow-back design with a simple unrifled barrel. It is also the easiest to have a run away on, but really there are two moving parts in the gun (bolt with a fixed firing pin and a simple trigger) two springs (trigger return and recoil) plus the magazine with it’s spring and follower.
            A Liberator style single shot is even easier, and well zip guns and such are always found in places that are “gun free”.

            Like

        4. There were less than a dozen guns in the Warsaw Ghetto when the famous riots started. What are they planning to do that the Nazis didn’t?

          Like

        5. According to some machinists I know, a revolver is more difficult to build (properly) than a 1911-era semiauto pistol. A 1911-A1 has about 52 parts. (So does a Colt Python.) A Smith and Wesson 686 has about 65.
          Regulating the revolver isn’t quite as easy as setting up the, say, 1911-A1.

          Then again, an open-bolt full-auto like the Sten or M3 Greasegun, is easier and cheaper to build than either pistol or revolver. The Sten Mk. III was designed to be built with not much more than some files, a welding torch and a drill press, in about 5 man hours of work.

          If some agency actually was successful in taking handguns off the street, local high school machine shops could easily turn to an easy way to raise funds. More if they decided to resurrect the Sten for motivated buyers.

          Like

        6. Actually it is quite easy to lay out a successful way to strict gun control. The japanese wrote the book. Create a class of legally privileged armed men who may commit summary execution at whim (essentially recreate the samurai caste), charge them with enforcing gun control, and exalt the sword over the gun as the weapon of choice. A strict reign of terror will sort out any temptation towards firearm production in a few decades, at most a century.

          This morally repugnant regime works, at least until somebody from outside the controlled space decides that they want something within it (shades of Perry opening Japan). A global application should work out better because there is nobody outside the system to upset the apple cart.

          It’s useful to examine the level of violence that would be needed to warp society so that it does not spontaneously arm itself at the first opportunity. Japan doesn’t. Advocating that we be more like Japan with regard to arms is advocating a reign of terror because that’s how they created that social norm. It is a psychic scar that echoes across the centuries.

          Anybody who advocates a similar scarring for my society is an enemy of the people.

          Like

          1. Actually, the samurai lasted only as long as it took for firearms to become more effective than arrows. Implement a samurai class today and you’d find a lot of samurai with bullet holes in them tomorrow.

            Like

            1. Japan is that rare bird: a country that succeeding in rolling back a technological advance. They eradicated the gun in Japan for a time.

              (In a small, isolated country, and with draconian controls, temporarily, to be sure.)

              Like

              1. They never really eradicated the gun. When Perry arrived the Japanese were manufacturing matchlocks patterned (really just identical copies) off the Portuguese guns the traders brought centuries before. The thing is that matchlocks aren’t much better (in several ways quite worse) than bows, and the Japanese have always had hard limits on good steel. Since they closed themselves off they missed on the innovations like flintlocks and rifling, so it made sense to focus their steel production on swords. Once Perry opened up Japan they saw how effective his guns were and started a crash modernization program. The army that produced spelled the end of the samurai.

                Like

              2. As you said a “small isolated country”. Part of their method was that only certain people were licensed to manufacture guns and as they died (natural deaths) new licenses weren’t issued. Of course, the major gun owners were the nobles and the Shogun not commoners (save for members of the armies). The nobles were willing to go along with the Shogun because that meant that the average commoner wouldn’t be able to get guns.

                Like

                1. Of course, the major gun owners were the nobles and the Shogun not commoners (save for members of the armies).

                  Well now, that sounds rather familiar, doesn’t it?

                  Like

        7. I still need to restore the half-dozen or so Martini Henry Enfields I brought back from my combat tour in Afghanistan. And I need to get some dies for it. I heard you can easily convert 20 gauge shotgun shells to .577-.450 brass with the right dies.

          Like

      2. I worked with a kid from Honduras who never knew that the handguns his family there had were illegal. They lived a bit outside of any town, and they were always at hand even when the local constabulary were visiting so he had always thought they were just like the US. After I told him he went home for a visit and asked and was told that yes, they were not supposed to have them, but neither were the bandits and it sure wasn’t stopping them, and if the family did not keep them, the law would then be needed to identify the bodies and next of kin as they would never make it to the farm in time to do anything else.

        Like

    3. At one time in this great nation’s history, it was required that every male between the age of 15 and 60 have a firearm and know how to use it as part of the general militia. Weapons have become far more accurate, easy to fire, and easier to maintain, but there is a large group of people in this nation that refuse to even consider the need for a general militia any more. That’s not only wrong, it’s dangerous.

      Right now, the lava dome at Yellowstone is growing, and there are multiple small earthquakes in the general area. A cataclysmic eruption from the Yellowstone caldera would put a third of the US in grave peril. The social upheaval would be unbelievable.

      There are idiots in the world that think nuclear weapons are just peachy keen, and have no restrictions on using them (North Korea, Pakistan, Iran in the very near future, perhaps some we don’t know about). One scenario I’ve studied had a container ship dock in Baltimore harbor with a nuke on board, which explodes. Utter chaos all up and down the Atlantic seaboard! I’d definitely want a firearm in that situation, to protect myself and my family against the hordes of looters and just plain terrified people.

      Let’s suppose the Islamic jihad broke out all over the world at once. Who would be able to defend against it — the disarmed population of Europe, or the heavily-armed population of the United States? What would happen in places like Japan, Australia, or Latin America? Our military isn’t big enough to protect both our nation and the rest of the world. We had a massive build-up of the armed forces at the beginning of WWII, and more than half those drafted knew how to use firearms already. The general militia, however, is pretty well reduced to half what it was back in 1940.

      The world is a nasty, brutish place. Reality isn’t kind or gentle. The only way to survive is to be prepared. NOT knowing how to use a firearm is a major handicap.

      Like

  5. From time to time, I really have to wonder about the politics of the people at Pixar, and in a good way. In Finding Nemo, Marlin is talking about how he’s trying to make sure nothing happens to Nemo. Dory says something to the effect of, “if you do that, then nothing will happen to him.”

    Kind of deep for a kid’s movie, but I really think it’s a message to the helicopter parents out there who are terrified of something happening to their child to the point where they don’t grow and learn.

    Good things happen, just like bad things. We are shaped by our experiences.

    My wife was raised by her grandparents. The story about her mother is a real life mystery, and I’m not exaggerating in the least. Her grandparents took custody of her when she was young away from her biological parents, so even though her father is still around and part of her life, he was a minor player.

    Her grandparents did everything they could to keep her from experiencing the negative parts of the real world. Frankly, they did a good job up until we got married. Then the real world smacked her upside the head because I’m not someone who will shelter someone else from the world. It’s just not my way.

    Trying to keep people safe doesn’t keep them safe. It makes it worse later on because they never learned how to keep themselves safe.

    Like

    1. There was an anti-nanny-state lesson in Madagascar. They wash ashore, and one says, “Let’s look for the people. The people will know what to do.”

      Then they find there are no people and they have to care for themselves.

      Like

      1. I’d forgotten about that one.

        I usually think about The Incredibles and how there are these exceptional human beings who are being told to not be exceptional, and they’re miserable. In the end, it takes an exceptional group to defeat the bad guy.

        Like

        1. How about Frozen? Elsa is an exceptional person whose parents are afraid of what her exceptional abilities would lead to, and they pass that fear on to her. Her fear of her own abilities, and belief that she needs to suppress them to keep others safe, leads to all the problems of the story. (Well, that fear and…no, I’m not spoiling that.) Resolving that fear resolves them.

          Like

            1. A lot of liberals in the entertainment industry make great arguments against their own beliefs. I guess that’s part of why I keep watching movies, in spite of the people making them.

              Like

              1. Part of the irony is that they don’t really think of themselves as collectivists. They think of themselves as artists, and all artists must have a strain of individualism within if they want to do anything but reproduce what’s already been done. (Of course, this also proves how many collectivists there really are in Hollywood, now that I think about it. :D ).

                Of course, it burns my tail when someone who claims to be an artist wants collectivism without realizing what that will do to the arts as a rule.

                Like

                1. “They think of themselves as artists, and all artists must have a strain of individualism within if they want to do anything but reproduce what’s already been done.”

                  Which explains the endless chain of re-makes.

                  Like

            2. It’s a Parti town. Thus, you publically toe the Parti line, but subvert it in your art. Kind of like in other totalitarian socities.

              Like

              1. If it was just the people who stayed quiet subverting it, I can buy that. In fact, I’m willing to buy it for quite a few films.

                But when someone like Matt Damon, who is so vocal about collectivist ideals, makes a movie like The Adjustment Bureau that is so much about free will, it’s hard to buy that reasoning.

                Like

                1. Unlike actual vile progs, they don’t understand their ideology. They’re not entirely useful idiots (though in effect they are), they’ve got some understanding. Just not enough.

                  They do not hold a rigorously examined philosophy, frequently tested and re-examined, they cleave to an emotionally appealing ideology. ‘Tis why so many artistes get sucked in.

                  Thus, they are rabid individualists, at least in their heads, who get caught up in collectivism at the .gov level because it’s a panacea. In the absence of rigorous examination they miss the end result.

                  Pity.

                  Like

                  1. True, but you’d think at some point they would realize that they’re supporting measures that destroy the individual.

                    Of course, since they’re never described as such, I don’t know why I’m surprised.

                    Like

                    1. Your conversiom from liberalism to comservatism came about how? If I remember correctly, you considered the philosophy, the stated goals and the actual results. You re-examined your thinking and reacted and adjusted.

                      But what if you never closely examined the philosophy? Never compared the stated goals with the actual results, except in-so-far as to accept the party line and blame failure on the political opponents? What if you were disinterested in, uncomfortable with, or never actually exposed to political theory?

                      Then your philosophy is based only on stated goals, and modern American liberalism sells a very seductive package. They are noble goals and grand ideas and images to aspire to. That they are illusions, fabrications and bald-faced lies is hidden from casual view.

                      This is why I don’t hate Democrats or leftists. They’re bespelled children. You don’t let children drive the car over the cliff, just because they don’t grok the consequences, but you don’t hate them for their ignorance.

                      Vile progs and their lackeys, on the other hand…

                      Like

                    2. Yep, you remember the conversion story right. I just have a hard time grasping how someone who is in a position where they are thought of as “challenging” folks (think about all the left leaning movies through the years), yet never think to challenge their own views.

                      Believe me, mine change constantly as I challenge and re-challenge my views. It’s just hard to comprehend a mind that doesn’t do this regularly.

                      Like

                    3. Oh, I know. They baffle me. But I’ve met too many of them to doubt their existence.

                      And, of course, progressivism being the dominant intellectual narrative in many circles, it’s self-reinforcing. When all the ‘smart’ people you know agree with you, why question your foundations?

                      I still don’t get it. But there it is.

                      Like

                    4. Oh, I have no doubt they exist. Frankly, I’ve lost too many friends because I have made them think more than they wanted to.

                      I’ve also converted a couple into at least being more independent than straight Democrats. I’ll count those as a win.

                      Like

                2. Part of it may be unconsciously “double thinking” on their part.

                  While part of their thinking is about the “Great Good” that a “Liberal/Progressive” State could do, another part of their thinking is about “one man fighting the Evil State” and yes many still believe that the State (when not controlled by their type) can be evil.

                  Of course, in the movies and television, there is also the idea of the Main Characters fighting alone against a more powerful foe.

                  It makes better drama that way as opposed to a team of government men/women backed by the full power of their government fighting some evil. [Smile]

                  Like

                  1. I think part of it is a matter of degrees.

                    They aren’t fans of full on communism, or possibly even true socialism (at least not for the television, film, and book industries). However, they don’t see an issue with forcing the “rich” to pay more in taxes without realizing that they’re among the richest people in the nation as well. In the unlikely event they do realize it, they see no problem with taking whatever breaks they can manage. After all, high tax rates apply to the other guys.

                    However, at some point, if you keep ramping it up by various degrees of state control, you’ll eventually reach a point where they’ll be on our side.

                    In theory, and I freely admit I could be wrong.

                    Like

          2. Well, they were responding to what would’ve been DEATH if not for sheer dumb luck and fast riding.

            I’m still pretty sure they were planning to introduce her to people as soon as she had some control, since everyone was expecting her to be queen and a queen can’t hide forever.

            Like

        2. Yeah. The plot hole in The Incredibles is — how did the government force all the supervillains to go underground?

          Like

          1. By letting them succeed, unopposed?

            Thus far they’re all insane, so you’ve got a mix of “I have what I wanted, I’m done” and “I have no worthy opposition, I’m out of here.”

            Plus possibly some of the smart ones trying to get folks to go underground for a decade or so and remove ALL of the superheroes.

            Like

          4. I don’t know about that. Some of the “super villains” didn’t seem particularly super.

            I guess I chalked it up to none were impossible for the cops to catch, just not as easily as the supers could.

            Like

        1. I really enjoyed that movie, but I can see why you say that, and I’ve thought about it myself. They slip it in at the end, don’t they? Despite everything you’ve done, it suggests, you can’t change your place in life, and you are forever bound to unchosen duties to others, lest everything go to hell for everyone.

          It just about makes sense, too, in the world of Litvak’s Arcade. But that is nothing like the real world. More subtly, there’s the idea that your job has nothing to do with who you are. Maybe so, if your job has no impact on the rest of the world, as in the case of the game characters, where it’s just a performance. But there are companies I would never consider working for because I object to what they do and don’t want to be part of it. That’s a better philosophy for the real world.

          Like

          1. Yes — the message of the movie would fit in well in traditional India. “You are born in your place. Stay in it.” Watched it at a friend’s house, so I couldn’t hoist middle fingers at screen. But in my mind, I was.

            Like

            1. At least at the end (spoilers)…

              ***********************************

              Ralph was treated more like an equal partner by the other characters, instead of the untouchable he was at the beginning of the movie. They exist in a world where they really can’t change their place in life, which, as I said, is what makes it a bad example for the real world.

              Like

          2. Is it similar to that Chinese movie “Hero”, that all my friends loved, but I found myself slightly ill at the message it was pushing:

            “Who cares if you’ve dedicated your life to overthrowing a murderous dictator – he’s brining order and unity, don’t rock the boat!”

            Like

            1. I know people who just really hate hate hate the Chinese propaganda Historicals… I tend to enjoy them but as a window into an alien world where up is down and sideways is a circle.

              Like

                1. And yet there are always people who insist that China has changed, or is changing. Mao fans who thought that the Chairman’s China was wonderful … instead of just one more murderous and deranged Reign in a history littered with them. Or they BELIEVE the statistics that the current bunch provide to the world. Why? No other Chinese government in history has ever told the truth about China, why would this one be any different?

                  Of course a lot of these idiots also believed the statistics that came out of the U.S.S.R. …. and then argued that the huge drop in all economic numbers post Soviet represented actual losses brought on by abandoning Communism.

                  It amazes me that people that stupid remember to breathe.

                  Like

                  1. China’s isolate and copy dodge that has worked so well for them re: Internet 2.0 is utterly useless in dealing with Internet 3.0 because Internet 3.0 is all about removing the friction currently inherent in finding the truth out about the real world that surrounds you. That’s pure poison for the current regime.

                    Like

          3. OTOH, there are all the special snowflakes who were told from infancy that they could be anything they ever wanted to be. (I can never hear that line without remembering the book in which the three-year-old figures that then she’ll be a ladybug.)

            One of the copybook sayings is “A man’s gotta know his limitations.” The idea that there are real constraints on what an individual can do, and that one has to cope within them, is an idea alien many modern-day Americans.

            Like

        2. I really enjoyed that movie, but I can see why you say that, and I’ve thought about it myself. They slip it in at the end, don’t they? Despite everything you’ve done, it suggests, you can’t change your place in life, and you are forever bound to unchosen duties to others, lest everything go to hell for everyone.

          It just about makes sense, too, in the world of Litvak’s Arcade. But that is nothing like the real world. More subtly, there’s the idea that your job has nothing to do with who you are. Maybe so, if your job has no impact on the rest of the world, as in the case of the game characters, where it’s just a performance. But there are companies I would never consider working for because I object to what they do and don’t want to be part of it. That’s a better philosophy for the real world.

          (entered my email wrong; feel free to delete the other version of this from moderation)

          Like

    2. The story that really makes my blood boil is “The Rainbow Fish”. Absolutely gag-inducing “message” about how nobody should be better than anybody else, and the people that discriminate against him because of their perceptions that he’s better are correct, and that the solution is to bring yourself down the level of everybody else. I was supposed to read it in a Sunday school class once. They got my revised edition and an explanation of why it’s such a repellent idea to persecute somebody else because of who they are.

      Like

            1. Holy cow, I just read that last week with my kids. I have no idea how it even got into my house as I’m the one that buys most of the books.

              Vile.

              z

              Like

          2. I always thought Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer was horrible, too. Not as bad as the fish since he does something to be admired for, but it still seemed that it was okay to exclude him because of his funny nose and than he only got popular by sucking up to Santa.

            I thought this when I was a child… haven’t changed my mind.

            Like

    3. I remember Cinderella Ate My Daughter — the author talking at one point about reading her the Brothers Grimm’s ones instead of Disney and the effects — and in her conclusion, mediating on Rapunzel and the warning of Mother Gothel who, when push comes to shove, can’t keep Rapunzel safe and protected.

      Like

  6. I have this posted on my cube wall:
    “If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.”
    ―Thomas de Quincey

    By the time people talk to me, they have so much else on their plate that even being nice is so low down on the list of things to do it is apparently on the next page. I will never get far being offended by others. I have the right to be offended, but I do not have the right to not be offended. Trying to force someone else to modify behavior to avoid my being offended is, well, a 2 year old’s tactic. The motive for such useful behaviors like “I’ll whine and beg” or the favorite of diners everywhere, “I’ll throw a tantrum publicly and embarrass you”.

    Like

  8. Reminds me a bit of the Peirson’s Puppeteers – when these aliens of Niven’s acheived a technological civilization and their immortality, they went about baby-proofing their world with a vengeance. Padded walls, soft rounded furniture, idiot proofed devices.

    I suppose it isn’t irrational to want to avoid risk that is avoidable. Your example about bee-proofing the world: We *did* at one time attempt to eradicate malaria by fumigating the country with DDT. Almost worked too. We eradicated polio with vaccinations. Give us a technological lever with which to beat a random tragic affliction into submission, and why not?

    I suppose then it is a matter of what it costs – if the cost of safety is to lead a horribly limited life, then taking the risks makes sense. It’s also a matter of who decides and who pays for it – in this country (if it is indeed still America around here) other people can’t have their liberty infringed because they make other people feel ‘unsafe’. (To within certain threshholds below directly threatening them.)

    Like

  9. NO ONE CAN KEEP TRACK OF A SIX YEAR OLD EVERY SECOND. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE.

    That’s what you thought. Introducing the new Google tracking implant, now with mood-correcting shock functionality – >:)

    Like

    1. Give me enough duct tape and I can certify the location and velocity of an entire classroom of six-year-olds. And it comes in all sorts of pretty colors and designs now too (my favorite is the Minions one, and yes I have some). If CPS whines I can just tell them If It Saves One Child is the new standard and look how safe they are!

      Like

          1. Is it available in nuclear-grade? Because we have this Naval Reactors audit coming up…

            Like

              1. Nah, I’m sure it’s too expensive for that. I’d use the EB red on the auditors. I just think it would be amusing to have all of our seals done with minion duct tape. Come to think of it, as long as we don’t put it on the piping, it doesn’t even have to be nuclear grade.

                Like

      5. The proper ritual calls for duct tape and duck blood, rather than the chicken blood that some call for. The really fancy one insists on duck blood and chicken tape.

        Like

  11. Re: knowing where a six year old is — All you have to do is remove all imagination and initiative from the kid, and turn him into a hikikomori recluse or just a plain old couch potato. Explains a lot, don’t it.

    Re: entitlement, it’s the Santa Barbara special snowflake spree killer! Now with manifesto explaining how that when his parents moved to the US when he was five or so, they assigned to his baby sister the room HE wanted! Horrors!

    (And no, he didn’t seem misogynist per se, despite his little melodramatic comment about how no women ever treated him right blah blah blah. He was in love with being passive-aggressive and feeling sorry for himself. He apparently felt like he’d been treated badly by everybody, but he’s not gay so he doesn’t feel aggrieved about guys not dating him. Guys not being his friend or not treating him with his special snowflake privileges, sure. He didn’t seem to think that he had any faults of his own, either. The whole thing was depressingly petty, just as Chesterton said about evil people heading for hell, and as Lewis agreed.)

    Like

    1. All you have to do is remove all imagination and initiative from the kid, and turn him into a hikikomori recluse or just a plain old couch potato

      This is a feature not a bug for some people. They don’t want individuals, they want androids who will live their lives and vote the way they are told.

      Like

  12. Yesterday in comments there was talk about how women shouldn’t have to defend themselves. Men should be taught “not to rape.” Oy. Where to start. Most men never have any interest in rape. (Unless you define rape as “looked at me funny.”) Those that do aren’t likely to take teaching any too well.

    There’s a fundamental error of fact and logic occurring here on the part of those who argue that the way to stop rapists is by teaching men not to rape. It’s the assumption that rapists decide to rape through some sort of collective decision of the community.

    The opinion of the community in Western societies is that men shouldn’t rape. This has been the opinion of the community for a very long time — laws against rape have been in effect, falling out of effect only during conditions of general and severe civil disorder, for thousands of years. They have been well-enforced for the last couple of centuries, as laws have been in general.

    This is not a mere formal admonition against rape, with a wink to the wise not to take it seriously. Rape someone, and a man is at severe risk of being arrested, convicted and sentenced to years in prison. There are plenty of rapists in prison right now to attest to this.

    The problem is that all it takes is for a minority, even a very small minority, of men to see rape as acceptable or even admirable for rapists to exist. Given the reality that rapists exist, rational women must take into account the possibility that they may encounter and be attacked by one, and intelligently plan how they may defend themselves against an attempt to rape them.

    Scolding non-rapists regarding the existence of rapists won’t reduce the incidence of rape. Defending oneself against rapists — and making sure that the criminal justice system effectively prosecutes them — will.

    Like

      1. It occurs to me that this GHH was being awfully judgmental, asserting what men should be trained to. Maybe in her culture that is the case, but there are plenty of cultures in this world where that is decidedly not the case, and she needs to check her privilege and stand-down from her cultural hegemonism, eliminating her testosterophobic attitudes.

        Like

      2. I know … in that they conflate all sorts of things — from actual rape to mild sexual rudeness to simply disagreeing with a self-proclaimed feminist — as being either “rape” or “promoting” rape. This makes it possible to avoid focusing on the actual crime of rape, and instead use it as an excuse to complain about anything they want to complain about.

        Like

    2. I”m afraid that your fundamental error is to ascribe anything remotely resembling fact or logic to these slavering moonbats. It’s all about how they feel don’t cha know, and it never ends. Fix one issue they have and they’ll be back tomorrow with ten more you did wrong. Seems to me it’s more about the game to them than the result.

      Like

      1. “Train men not to rape”? As easy as training them not to kill, steal, covet or pee on the sidewalk.

        Cynical people (not that there are any around here) might suspect such a demand is made in the knowledge that it will prove ineffective and thus provide fodder for complaint and accusation until the end of time. Other people will suggest that the cynics have an unreasonably high opinion of the intellects of those making such demands.

        Like

    3. There is also the fact that due to the toxic combination of perfectionism, idealism, and romanticism characteristic of this particular philosophy, “rape” has been defined downwards to mean not just an act of physical violence that incorporates sexual assault, but any act of sexual intimacy where one partner’s consent is anything less than 100% happily enthusiastic, completely clear-headed, fully informed, and totally without regret afterwards.

      I sympathize with the ideal, but if you are going to use the same word to cover a stranger dragging a terrified young person into a dark alley, a boss using threat of career termination on an underling to obtain cooperation, and a tired spouse gamely going along with a randy one out of a sense of marital duty rather than personal excitement, you *cannot* reliably inculcate the same level of moral outrage nor the same consistent sense of cultural protocol in all these things. [morbo]Human nature does not work that way! Goodnight![/morbo]

      Like

    4. I also wonder how the overall lower IQ of prison convicts factors into the alleged “teachability” against rape. Sorry, I don’t have the references at hand, but I remember reading that there is a distinct IQ gap between prisoners and ordinary people, at the population level, of course …

      Like

      1. I’ve seen that statistic re average inmate IQ too. The question that occured to me was, are the ones in prison the ones dumb enough to get caught?

        Along the same lines, it would be interesting to compare IQ between that prison population and, say, politicians.

        Just picking a comparison group totally at random, you understand.

        Like

        1. The question that occured to me was, are the ones in prison the ones dumb enough to get caught?

          Yep. Low-level street criminals for the most part, who commit dangerous crimes with small prospects for gain compared to the risks they run.

          Like

      1. Good point — especially when you consider that according to feminist theory rape is an act of power, not sexual lust. Treating males as “trainable” is likely to increase the desire to exercise power through transgressive acts against womyn.

        Clearly the problem, as explained during the Clinton Administration’s “compare & contrast” with Bob Packwood’s assaults is womyn’s refusal to accommodate male sexual desire, thus increasing male feelings of powerlessness.

        (‘scuse me — I must now go gargle with hydrogen peroxide to cleanse my mouth after channeling such tripe.)

        Like

  13. This whole thing is cyclical. Preshuss Snowflakes are taught that they can Do Anything and Be Anything- then when they go out into the world, the sweet little sociopaths can’t deal with the fact that the world isn’t going to just throw jobs and sexual partners at their feet. Instead of trying to change their own behavior, they blame the people who refuse to give them what they want. After all, they’re Preshuss! Mama and Papa said so! It must be The World who is at fault.

    Likewise, as an adult, a Preshuss can’t handle themselves when shit happens. They just don’t have the ability to deal with it the way a child of another generation might have.

    As a kid, we were explorers, builders, world creators. We built up confidence by walking on our own to the store or to school, we handled bullies ourselves and learned to mediate arguments with friends- instead of getting parents involved. The Preshuss did none of these things. They were protected by those around them and never learned to defend themselves. When crap inevitably happens, someone has to be to blame, and it can’t be themselves. And if it were an accident or the actions of the insane (perhaps another Speshull Preshuss) then the Preshuss calls on Those In Power to Do SOMETHING.

    Like

  14. People don’t want to accept that bad things happen. They don’t want to accept the reality that there are monsters out there that will harm them and there is nothing the government can do to keep them safe. So they try to wrap themselves in the false idea of safety through a set of laws that does nothing.

    The psycho in California for instance. The guy was bug nuts crazy. He was also smart enough to fool those around him. His parents called the police on him at one point, but the police did not find any probable reason to do anything. He saw a shrink. Refused to take medication and stopped seeing said shrink.

    I ask people, how do you stop someone like that before they reach their breaking point? After all, Ted Bundy was a charming fellow, just ask his neighbors. Who knew he had killed and raped over 30 women until he got caught?

    I’m also getting real tired of the blame game being played by everyone. Blame the NRA, blame firearms, blame the parents, blame this, blame that. How about we blame the person who murdered people?

    Like

    1. ” how do you stop someone like that before they reach their breaking point”

      You stop them at the moment when they HAVE reached their breaking point, by arming the weak.

      In a society in which the violent predator is highly likely to bleed out while the police take his putative victim’s statement, there will shortly be far fewer violent predators.

      Like

  15. A common sense proposal.

    It is a well established consensus by over 90% of behavioral scientist that the one of the major motivations of mass killers is a desire for fame and notoriety. It is readily observed that copy cat killers are inspired by the actions and subsequent glorification of previous mass killers and continue the cycle of mass violence. Since this is the case there should be common sense restrictions on the distribution and publication of information on mass killers. Also the portrayal of mass killers in fiction must be regulated by law to prevent future mass killings from happening..

    Biographies and case files of mass killers should only be accessed by qualified law enforcement and medical personal that have a direct need for such information. It should not be available to the untrained general public as it might inspire further violence.

    Although many will make accusations of censorship, it is only common sense that reporting on mass killings by news services must be limited and should not be broadcast nationally in order to avoid granting a criminal the fame they are seeking.

    Works of fiction, such as Hannibal, Dexter, Breaking Bad and similar works in all mediums must be banned due to their glorification of violence which only can inspires future violence.

    What? You say that violates an amendment to the Constitution and we can violate the Constitution?

    You don’t say.

    Like

    1. Can you name one victim at Columbine? Or the Aurora Theater shooting? Or Sandy Hook? Can you name the psychos who did it? (This is the generic ‘you’.) If a mass murder is caught he (because it always seems to be a male) should be put in a hole and his name forgotten. But that’s against the constitution.

      Like

        1. why waste the effort …. just have them dig the hole then bury them in it. If you want to be nice, club them over the head before dropping them in.

          Like

      2. I’d just like to see an announcement in the news that something’s going on (in case I need to avoid an area) and a second one that the situation has ended. No name, no history, no U-Toob clips or reading the manifesto, nada. Unmarked grave or something plain if the family insists. In short, no “glory” and no credit, so no inspiring copy-cats.

        Like

        1. Or if somebody shoots the killer, be it police, intended victim or armed bystander, give all the attention to him (provided he agrees) and the victims and treat the killer as one would treat a rabid dog in a news story about a dog attack – or maybe the deer when talking about a deer hunt – as if the killer was just an object, somebody who got acted on instead of being somebody who acted. These spree killers want to be seen as people who DO something, who decide their own fate, who are the main character in the story. Take that away from them. Turn them into the object who gets used to glorify some other people, don’t give them their own story but use them as mere props in stories about other people.

          Like

          1. yeah, but now-a-days we get whining and soul searching over the dead rabid dog …”Did they REALLY need to kill it?” and don’t get them started on hunting…buy your meat in the store so nothing has to die! (insert eyeroll here) and real hunters appreciate and glory in the life of the deer … unless they are at pest levels

            Like

            1. I know. I think it would help, possibly a lot, these sickos want the attention, they want to be the star everybody talks about so turning them into just props in other people’s stories might be exactly the right thing to do, but yes, not damn likely that will happen today.

              Like

              1. yeah, derision is the best they should get, but then you have fools like Neil Gaiman’s goofy wife/partner who had to write “touching poetry” about the effin Boston marathon bombers because no one mourned their plight, and then was shocked and angered when folks called her on the massive lack of taste involved, so I hold little hope it will ever happen

                Like

                1. ?!? Hadn’t heard about this. The words, they fail me.

                  ‘Course, I did see the Rolling-over-belly-up Stone cover for the youngest murdering bastard. I suppose when people support the murdering bastard that couldn’t grow a decent beard, Che, then nothing ought surprise. But, still it does.

                  Here’s a news flash for anybody concerned over the ‘story’ behind spree killers, mass murders and terrorists. Once they kill the innocent, I don’t give the thinnest damn about their life, all I care about is when their death is scheduled.

                  Note: There are reasons I’m not a cop, or a lawyer.

                  Like

            2. … and ‘you don’t NEED to eat meat!’ (Um, pretty much, yes, we do. ) Oh right, modern convenience means you can take little pills to compensate for the stuff missing from your food. I remember hearing awhile back that a bunch of vegans freaked out because they found out that the supplements they were taking … to replace the animal products they needed…were made from animals….

              Like

              1. find a vegan with kids that they have forced to grow up vegan and you find a child behind in most all respects to the “normal” kids around them. A former co-worker’s wife was doing child care to one and the girl could not remember names (called his daughter “That Brown Girl” … after being in class together for almost a full school year and most of that together for several hours after classes), and was at the bottom of all her classes … just plain dumb. Forcing a child to be vegan is child abuse in my opinion.

                Like

                1. Yes, and can also result id kidney and liver damage from improper development if one is not carefult

                  Like

                  1. If a child is denied dairy during their early life (birth-5?) I think that their bones won’t grow properly. I heard of a child in England who died because his parents had him on a strict vegan–no meat, fish, eggs or dairy–diet.

                    Like

                    1. A vegan diet of necessity must be very closely monitored in order to substitute and supplement appropriately. Attempting a vegan diet from birth (ill-advised, at best) would require an attention to nutritional science I find unlikely.

                      I’ve known a very few vegetarians with the interest and discipline to monitor and balance their diet accordingly, veganism is another mountain entirely and I’ve not known a successful long-term vegan.

                      By successful, I mean consistently meeting the nutritional and metabolic needs of their body.

                      Like

        2. Reasonable restriction. No more than two articles are needed. Say I, and surely that’s as good as the opinion of anyone who’s never owned a gun and wants to limit ammo purchases.

          Like

  16. For this reason, we have fighting men, who volunteer to defend the nation. May G-d bless them and keep them and provide them leadership who won’t expend them in futile gestures and grand philosophical crusades.

    And may those who gave their life protecting this nation rest in peace, and know that in a world that can’t be made safe, they did what they had to do.

    And let’s not forget them, their sacrifice, nor how necessary it was.

    *Raises glass*

    Like

  17. And, to be honest, I can’t help but think that at least part of it is also the overwhelming secularization, as well as the increasing prosperity and safety already present, of our society.

    In any time and place of the world more than two centuries ago, and in large chunks of the world today, death and suffering were facts of life. They *couldn’t* be ignored or forgotten about, and no man could reasonably think he would never encounter them. Friends, family members, loved ones and children died, on a regular basis, often for no reason anyone was in a position to do anything about. So we did what we could, and when that wasn’t enough, we took solace in praying for their souls and moved on, and *learned* to let go and move on in the faith that we would be reunited with those souls someday.

    Today in the West, death from disease, war, crime or misadventure is *rare*, and the metaphysical beliefs that provide consolation for what senseless deaths do occur have been delegitimized — even if they are still formally espoused — by our cultural tendency to give more moral weight to the suffering of the bereaved than to any attempt to console them. The fundamental impetus here is the basic conviction that Suffering Is *Wrong* — so wrong, and so evil, that even the attempt to “come to terms” with any one example of it is suspect on the face of it, and that any response to it other than rage and indignation is a moral failing… and part of the reason for that conviction is the materialism-driven fear that this life is all there is, that it’s all that matters; that once gone is forever gone.

    I can’t say I don’t understand this mindset. I’ve gotten a lot more paranoid about making sure our floor-length window is closed in our seventh-floor apartment when my autistic son is home — there are waist-high bars, and thank God my son also prefers it closed and will close it himself if he notices, but I still get surges of dread and terror whenever I think about it. But there is understanding, and then there is real life.

    Like

    1. Awareness of death makes you more conservative.

      It’s been tested in the lab. Give some subjects a task to write meditations on the fact that one day their hands will be those of skeletons, and test them, and you get more conservative results.

      This is why the liberals have to treat death as a freakish anomaly that is someone’s fault. To accept it as a fact would be to undermine their whole edifice.

      Like

  18. “Yesterday in comments there was talk about how women shouldn’t have to defend themselves.”

    Somehow I missed that.

    Like

      1. Old? Check. White(ish)? Check. Male? Check. Dead? Check. Yeah: you’re definitely to blame for all this … this … this everything. So there.

        Like

          1. So, you’re merely dead, not really most sincerely dead?

            On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 11:43 PM, According To Hoyt wrote:

            > SPQR commented: “I’m only … sorta, mostly dead.” >

            Like

          2. Well, if you were all dead, we’d be going through your pockets for loose change.

            Like

  19. The world is not safe, Just getting on the 405 requires a determination to live. (When traffic is actually moving.

    Like

        1. It also depends on the direction and location. For example southbound from 105 to CA 22 6 hours, Northbound same direction 6 hours, Near the Getty Center hardly ever.

          Like

          1. I’ve done 70 past the Getty center. Sure, it was 1 AM and i was on my way back from a shoot, but i was doin 70.

            Like

  21. Excellent! It never fails to amaze me that people actually believe that “in this modern world” there are things that can hurt or kill a person faster than they can say “boo”. Yet these same people seem to be the ones who are afraid of their own shadows. They’re afraid a dog standing on a pathway doing nothing but minding its own business is going to attack them, but will approach large wild animals within a few feet because of their idiotic “safeness” beliefs.

    My wife and I bought her daughter a handgun for her 21st birthday. She attended a self defense for women class that we paid for (she was an impoverished student at the time), got her gun, and in the intervening 28 years hasn’t harmed anyone with it. Just don’t give her a reason though because she would harm someone intent on harming her.

    Like

  22. Yep, apparently men are evil demons and the world will be abetter place without them. One woman on Twitter yesterday, using the hashtag #YesAllWomen, said she cried when she discovered she was pregnant with a girl. Because men.

    Men who hurt women don’t care about rules, morality, or law. A rapist can not be taught not to rape. I know a lot women suffered at the hands of men. I know that, but that speaks to the character of the individual that caused the pain and hurt, not men in general. These hashtags and the comments that followed are hateful and bigoted and blind, and serve only to satisfy on an emotional level.

    We live in a cruel, hard world. Best prepare yourself for it. Don’t sit back and say the world needs to adapt to you. You’ll be slaughtered. There are better ways to cure “rapism” and it starts at home. And if parenting didn’t do a good enough job, then we make sure the laws are well-developed to handle and deal with rapists and other violent crimes on women (and men and children and old people). In the meantime, while we wait for utopia to arrive, let’s use common sense and learn how to defend ourselves.

    If ever my daughters are in danger (which I pray will never happen), I sure as hell won’t say, “Well, they’re not supposed to have to defend themselves because the bad guys aren’t suppose to be bad guys.”

    Like

    1. “[S]he cried when she discovered she was pregnant with a girl”? How did that happen? And how did she find out — by ultrasound imaging? Do you s’pose she knows that ultrasound’s inventor Ian Donald wore a kilt, not a skirt?

      Like

    2. What an idiot! She cried because she was having a girl “because men? What would she have felt if she was having a boy?? I guess the solution must be not to have children at all. Considering her idiocy, maybe that would be the right decision for her.

      Like

      1. My sense of that was she cried in joy over having a girl because men are icky.

        In actuality, experience has taught me that women pregnant enough to know what they carry are prone to irrational outbursts of emotion and should not be held accountable for such unless it develops into long-term patterns. Because hormones.

        Like

            1. I suppose so. Lucid enough to join the Hashtag campaign even though the crying happened a while prior to posting, but then, my wife’s been pregnant three times, so yeah, hormone-fulled emotions can be unpredictable.

              I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, because one shouldn’t always assume the worst of people.

              Like

            2. So far I’ve been utterly terrified each time I found out I was pregnant– in the first case, I thought I had serious fertility problems, but it’s been pretty much the same. Stable home, KNOW my family is there for me, but I was terrified.

              Maybe that’s her rationalization for the bolt-of-terror?

              Like

              1. I went back to check her tweets because I thought maybe I misinterpreted her original tweet–maybe I judged too quickly. I had originally responded to her by asking whether she lived in Afghanistan, but now looking at the rest of her tweets using that hashtag I’m sticking to my original impression. Oh, and she is actress Cynthia Silver, but for the life of me I don’t remember if I ever saw her in anything.

                Like

        1. I hope not. I hope all of this is just for the sake of drama. There is a dynamic at play when it comes to men and women and how they relate to each other, and you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. The best you can do is teach basic human decency and mutual respect that includes tolerance (I’m talking about actual tolerance here, not that one-sided when it suits you version). I’m simplifying things, I know, but alienating men because there is a chance they might turn out to be violent rapists is like not swimming in the sea because you might get bit by a shark, or better yet, not swimming at all, because you might get a cramp and drown.

          Like

  23. I’m trying to find the specific case but SCOTUS said that the police have no absolute duty to protect you. What happens when the average person calls 911 and the cops don’t show? I’m not blaming the L.E.O. here. I’m just saying self defense starts with the self.

    Like

    1. Actually, there is more than one relevant decision. The police have no specific duty to protect any individual. (that’s the gist of it)

      Like

      1. there was a group in New Orleans who knew there were two squad cars in a certain section of town at night and early morning (running from the river to the lake and mostly upscale so it was a big slice) and developed a method of robbery that went like this … they gathered a box van and parked it in the industrial section, then at a specified time, one would cause an alarm say at the lakefront, and get the heck out of dodge … both squad cars would respond, while the box van drove to the front of a store on the river side of the area and about 10 minutes later, would smash in the front windows, empty as much as possible into the box van and drive away. By the time the police could get a car there it was a done deal. I don’t recall if the perps ever got caught.

        Like

        2. Police response time in my neighborhood is 17 minutes… on a SHOTS FIRED call… and yeah i can depend on the police to protect me…

          Like

    3. For some examples:
      (2) Barillari v. City of Milwaukee, 533 N.W.2d 759 (Wis. 1995).
      (3) Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616 (7th Cir. 1982).
      (4) DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989).
      (5) Ford v. Town of Grafton, 693 N.E.2d 1047 (Mass. App. 1998).
      (6) Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1981).
      “…a government and its agencies are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen…” -Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981)

      There are more, but you get the picture…

      Like

      1. The big problem is that there are so many cases. I suspect that this is because many are misled and then take that false information into court where the judges slap it down and create another entry in the list.

        It would be a lot better if we found the source of the misinformation and fixed that. We’d have better policy and less clogged courts.

        Like

      2. There are really so many cases that anyone who tries to argue otherwise is clearly arguing from a position of ignorance.

        The fact that so many of these same people, even after you point out what the relevant case law says, will still argue against the individual right to keep and bear arms is proof that we really need to start removing warning labels from things and take a step back until the problems are worked out through natural selection.

        Like

  24. I’m sure someone has made this point already, and it comes up in your post, but the most dangerous place you can be is in your body: if nothing else kills you, it will. (Liz W)

    Like

    1. My son who is applying to medschool (in the US that means he’s done all the theoretical. Medschool is the praticum and is 3 years or so) says most of what doctors do is save people from either their genetics or their stupidity. :-P So, yes. And though I often like to forget I have a body, my body never forgets me. Like right now, my arms are raw flesh from eczema.

      Like

  25. Eczema is vile – I have it on one wrist at the moment. Safety at home is on my mind right now as my 91 yo father is likely to be coming to live with us – he survived Monte Cassino but the most dangerous place for him these days is his own bed: i.e. in case he falls out of it, or near it – he’s done this twice in the last month before the doc got him a bed with rails, and my 92 yo uncle died as a result of a fall out of a hospital bed. Really, life is full of irony.

    Like

    1. I’m filled with same worries for my parents and to make it worse they’re in Portugal. I MUST somehow go see them this year, but I can’t BE there. And I always hear of things after they happened.
      I’ve had eczema on my PALMS for three years now. It’s a weird form of torture, because I use my hands for EVERYTHING. Gets to the point one starts thinking “would amputation REALLY be that bad?” Right now, it’s extending up both arms.

      Like

      1. My sympathies on the eczema – a nightmare.

        >And I always hear of things after they happened

        Yes! “After that fall last month…” Me: “What fall?” “Oh, we didn’t tell you because we didn’t want to worry you….” Argh!

        Like

          1. >YES. So of course, I try to guess what is going on and worry ALL THE TIME.

            Yes, that too! Whatever the logistics (several 1000 books in 2 houses, the moving of which is going to be more problematic than my actual parents) I am relieved that they’re going to be on the same premises.

            Like

  26. This may be too late in this stream for discussion. But this is a question that intrigues me. The setup: Gun control doesn’t prevent guns. Speed limits don’t prevent speeding. Drug laws don’t prevent addicts. Murder laws don’t prevent murders…and so on.

    So, what exactly then is the purpose of having laws? I can think of reasons. Laws make the law makers feel good. They give a moral basis for punishing law breakers after the fact. They prevent the act amongst the subset of criminals that would do the bad thing if it were legal…I think this is a small subset by the way.

    I hope this discussion is one that lawyers have in Law 101 or whatever, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it.

    What exactly are laws for?

    Like

    1. To make known proscribed activities and prescribe punishment for infractions.

      The attempt to use them for other things wastes time and devalues law.

      Like

      1. Eamon’s “To make known proscribed activities and prescribe punishment for infractions.” is IMO basically correct. I would only add that at their best, they are based on society’s view of “proscribed activities” and society’s view of the proper punishment.

        Like

    2. The setup: Gun control doesn’t prevent guns. Speed limits don’t prevent speeding. Drug laws don’t prevent addicts. Murder laws don’t prevent murders…and so on.

      So, what exactly then is the purpose of having laws?

      Recourse when the stuff is attempted.

      Kinda like how laws against suicide only are a problem for those who fail– which means that society at large can try to fix the problem.

      Cops don’t prevent crimes, they’re there to pick up the pieces. Knowing the pieces WILL be picked up prevents some crimes.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. This brings up the question “Are we a country of Men or a country of Laws.” In a country of Laws, what the law says is what should be enforced. In a country of Men, whoever is in charge determines what should be enforced.

      I think few things are as corrosive to a society as laws that aren’t enforced or aren’t enforceable. I live in Colorado where the state says you can smoke Marijuana but Federal law still says you can’t. How is that in any way a good thing?

      Either enforce the law or get rid of it.

      Like

  27. You can’t be safe everywhere, all the time, no matter who you are. But, you can minimize your chances of becoming a victim by being aware of where you are, who you are with and what you and they are doing. What most people refer to as ‘accidents’ really aren’t accidental. It’s people being careless/complacent or they really suck at probability/statistical analysis. Many law enforcement agencies have stopping calling vehicles colliding ‘traffic accidents’ and moved to ‘traffic crashes’ because they really aren’t accidents; nearly all of them are avoidable if people would have paid attention and taken a reasonable amount of precaution.
    I was thinking about this topic of safety earlier today and it made me think of another online discussion I saw months ago about rape and that pointing out some things that the victim could have done differently gets shouted down as blaming the victim. It’s not blaming the victim to point out someone’s situational awareness sucks. Walking down the street while rival gangs have a shootout will get you killed. It doesn’t mean the gangs aren’t at fault, but rather that you did something you should have given more thought to. You bear the responsibility of putting yourself into a bad situation. The other party bears the responsibility of the attack. Not every situation is avoidable. Sometimes a rock falls out of the sky and hit you. Sometimes throwing yourself at the office window on the upper floor of a skyscraper should have been better thought out.

    Like

    1. I freaked out a nurse during my last pregnancy by at one point–when she was REALLY annoying me, but in a nice way– saying that you could control risks, but not outcomes.

      I think it was during the discussion on the risk of having a kid with an open spine.

      She was utterly shocked, and said: “Do you mind if I tell other mothers that?”

      It was just a rephrasing of what I know from being a ranch kid.

      ***

      Human action is not to be discounted, but what we CAN control is ourselves, so recognizing when a predator (or pathetic scavenger– even ONE mangy coyote can kill a cow stuck in mud) may strike is important.

      Like

  28. Pingback: Safety is an Illusion | Something Fishy

Comments are closed.