Tough guys don’t dance…
This week, after Nasim Aghdam entered the Youtube campus, shot two people and then killed herself, the coverage was relatively subdued. Outside of an NY Times editorial that stated that big tech, Silicon Valley must now enter the gun debate, the story faded.
Not surprising, here are the details:
Nasim was not male, not “white” or a conservative. She was a vegan and she did not use an AR-15. She was not an NRA supporter and committed the crime in a strict gun control state, as well as in a “gun free zone”. Bummer, dudes. So much for the gun narrative de jour.
Here’s the problem. Since Parkland, the American political left, essentially Northeast Postmodern Bourgeois Liberalism, has attempted to frame an argument in the name of “common-sense gun control”, which, after pulling back the curtain is simply an argument for giving up more rights and being submitted to more government control. It’s really just about control.
What has been unmasked is the darkness and vicious nature of these proponents. While they bemoan the tragedy and hysterically cry about ‘children’s safety’, behind it all is an abject hatred for those that disagree with them politically, and the yen to dominate and control the ‘flyover people’.
NRA members have felt the brunt of this.
As an NRA member, you know that almost 100% of us believe in gun control, even as we insist on being able to legally purchase the proper firearms for the task, whether for self-protection, hunting, or range work. Rather than consulting the NRA, which was the first group in this country to promote gun laws and gun safety, the left has instead attacked them as terrorists, somehow blaming them for the actions a few very disturbed people.
And by the way, the AR-15 is a hunting rifle.
This is where we stop listening. We understand what this is about.
I’m less sad than disgusted by what this country has become. When did it become overrun by a bunch of Le Chattes? I understand that a large portion of the country has been lobotomized by eight years of Obama, but I never realized things had gone this far south. It made me remember something Norman Mailer said during a lecture many years ago at George Mason University. He was describing a scene from his novel Tough Guys Don’t Dance. The main character climbs a 100 ft. tall monument, and once at the top, realizes he cannot get back down. But he wasn’t worried, because he knew that someone would eventually come and get him down. As Mailer noted, “individual responsibility, owning the good and the bad is all but gone…replaced by blame, or the belief that someone will be there to rescue you.” Free to be as stupid and boring as you want.
“The essence of spirit, he thought to himself, was to choose the thing which did not better one’s position but made it more perilous. That was why the world he knew was poor, for it insisted morality and caution were identical.” – Norman Mailer, The Deer Park
I get what he’s saying. We’ve lost some toughness somewhere. Not so much about fighting, but having some consideration, having a backbone, some grit. America used to be politeness and hard work. Now, you tell me.
We now occupy a world of #Dystopian Soda Flavors such as FBI Fig, Government Grape, Zuckerberry, Twitterlicious Tamarind, Cranberry Censorship and Social Justice Starfruit. As they like it.
As a programmer in the early 1990s, I remember the distinct excitement surrounding development around the world wide web. Then came the Mosaic web browser, which was co-written by Marc Andreessen, and eventually, Netscape Navigator. What many of us believed, especially in the open source community, was that this tool represented freedom–freedom from government control and censorship, freedom from corporate domination. We were wrong. The Google motto of ‘do no evil’ has turned out to be a sham–it has been appropriated. Facebook willingly gave away personal data to ensure an Obama victory, Google and YouTube actively censor viewpoints and mines user data, Twitter and YouTube actively censor ‘inappropriate’ accounts (usually conservative).
We thought the web would be the tool to free us, it is instead the tool used to watch and keep us in line. Of course, that is what the progressive movement has wanted since 1912. Say hello to the NSA…Snowden knows.
That brings us back to the gun control “debate”. The fact that people are stupid enough to fall for this garbage is truly depressing. Face it, the chance of dying from a gunshot is very, very small. To be sure, your death is imminent, but the chance of meeting your end from the barrel of a gun is practically non-existent. You are more likely to get struck by lightning in a boat, or even more likely to die in a car crash…let’s not even talk about the threat of disease. For guns, if you take business (drugs, organized crime, etc.) and suicide out of the data, and it almost doesn’t exist.
Yeah, I know, murders and bad things happen every day…I drove a cab in the DC Metro area during the 1980s during the glorious reign of Marion Barry. I’ve seen it. However, back then just being in the vicinity of a murder, or being robbed at 2 a.m. didn’t make you an expert on anything…except on how to try and shake it off. You never really do though.
How do people really expect this thing to end? Instead of focusing on our relative affluence and all the real opportunities in the American world, the narrative of white privilege, the gun lobby, the evil alt-right, etc. is used to strategically divide and marginalize. People are just dumb enough to believe it. It just pisses the rest of us off.
With a populace anesthetized, lobotomized, weak, subdued and bathed by the phone and computer screen, the cult of personalities actively use the techniques of mass media, propaganda, spectacle, the arts, patriotism, and organized demonstrations and rallies to create an idealized, heroic, and very big lie.
It’s just so easy, and so attractive. Much more enjoyable than work.