Fascism first reared it's ugly head in the United States under Abraham "that traitor scum who deserved every bit of the bullet he got in his head" Lincoln, who had presses operated by editorialists and newsmen he disliked destroyed, had the writers and journalists arrested, and of course there was that whole "federal supremacy/states rights mean nothing" and ruinous march to the sea burning everybody out over an issue that could have been resolved peacefully costing the United States hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides that could have been avoided opening a wound in the sould of America that is still very much their to this day. As a yankee Italian ex-pat, you may not have thought of it that way before but it is TRUE!
Thomas, Thanks for commenting, as always. I'll respond to it on the other thread. But, I wanted to ask what's that little avatar you use? Do the three fingers and the Roman Numeral III mean something?
III references that I'm one of Mike Vanderboegh's alleged "merry gang of three percenters" as we're known in the "gun community". I'm actually referenced in some of his writing and have written scathingly and openly of both the FBI and BATFE, both of whom I've done battle with and WON, under my full Given Name of Thomas Bostian Harris, so I'm open about that...duality of noms de plume explained below...
When I first started posting here and on Weer'd's pages I typed in Thomas as my name because it was at the weer'ds live journal and I never bothered setting up an account. I wasn't logged in and now am in the position of having confused people by have two pen names because I don't always bother to check if I'm logged into the google borg when I post stuff to blogspots and it defaults to tom+icon, not me manually putting in "Thomas".
Hope that un-muddie's the waters. I initially used "Thomas" here so as to try not to muddy the waters but now I'm not sure that was as wise of a decision as it ended up muddying the waters anyway. You can always tell it's me anyway because I favour some anglocentric spellings and usages of punctuation due to personal "preferences".
mr. Vanderboegh seems like an interesting fellow. i've encountered him online before, since that infamous letter to the editor of his.
on the one hand, i think his stance in that letter is way too drastic and overly dramaticized. i think his estimation of three percent is high by at least one order of magnitude.
on another hand, i do agree with the basic principle that we all need to have some line in the sand. we need to think about what to do if we were ever personally faced with government oppression and tyranny --- yes, even though it's a very distasteful and depressing exercise to think about, and even though most of us will never actually face that, or anything like it. we still need to do the thinking.
we need to decide, each for ourselves, whether or not we would ever violently fight back against such behavior, and if so when we would start shooting. i've done this thinking, and i've decided on my own line in the sand; if it's ever crossed, i know i'll die alone and largely pointlessly, that my dying would change nothing. but at least i know that there are things i will not willingly submit to, unlikely (though still possible) things i'd rather fight and die than live through. mr. Vanderboegh could have done us all a great service if he'd more diplomatically reminded us that we each need to find our limits, to do this thought experiment, even as i'm sure he's done it for himself.
then on the mutant hand, he's a ripping good author. his Absolved is excellent reading, if you can read past whichever part of the politics you're likely to find distasteful --- and there's some of that in there for almost everyone, i think. the chapters titled Poor White Boys (both parts), Deacon, and i would even pick The Four Fingers of Death, should be required reading. i just can't decide on required for what, exactly.
Nomen now understands why I'm writing a thesis on the difference between dissent and sedition. Remember, when I type stuff as blog comments, maybe you don't think I'm coherent enough, but I'm typing blog comments, not writing a thesis that might become a book. This thesis is on my own dime and not for college purposes, it just needs to be done by somebody, to put all the case law in one place so people know where the "treason" line in the stand lies vis a vis the US and State Governments. Apples and oranges...Blog comments and serious writing.
You keep that in mind when you read what I write and we might get along just fine...
i think his estimation of three percent is high by at least one order of magnitude.
Semantics. I'm in the very tiny fraction of people who really mean it, have done battle with the BATF( and later added E)E and FBI over it and WON. I WOULD win/lose/or draw "cold dead hands" style if need be. Their is no option of compromise in my land.
It's called having "incontrovertible principles" for the learning impaired amongst us.
The "3 percenters", are they all Libertarians? If I understand correctly, the "tiny fraction of people who really mean it" refers to gun owners and doesn't necessarily indicate a political stance. Or are the two inextricable?
Holy crap! I know this mailbox (or one exactly like it). It's around the corner from my folks' house in PA.
It's on Quarry Road in either Lebanon or Jonestown (the border btwn the 2 is fuzzy round those parts).
A gentleman a few doors down from this one has a mailbox shaped like a giant large-mouthed bass. Though neither of these receptacles existed prior to my departure from Pennsyltucky, they certainly would have hastened it.
Though neither of these receptacles existed prior to my departure from Pennsyltucky, they certainly would have hastened it.
People that are afraid of inanimate objects make me giggle. I'm laughing at you, not with you...For the record.
Owner of that mailbox might change a tire for you or give you a lift if you broke down on the way to the familial home and not be the homicidal maniac that you are making him out to be.
You paint with a BROAD BRUSH and I'll PAINT BACK.
Sound like an idiot to me, worrying about what your neighbor's mailboxes look like.
Dear Vicki, Thanks for coming by to comment. As you saw from Thomas's response to you, it sometimes takes a think skin and quick wit to comment over here. I'm in total agreement with you: I wouldn't want to live in a neighborhood like that. I don't know if that constitutes fearing inanimate objects though. I'd like to ask my gun loving friends a serious question about this. All that talk about proper gun etiquette, the 4 rules of handling firearms, all that insistence about how responsible and considerate gun owners are, well doesn't that ridiculous mailbox violate all that. Doesn't aiming a symbolic and gigantic gun at all comers contradict the philosophy you've all been espousing? Would you put one of those in your front yard?
Would you let a child play with a toy car? Would that invalidate any philosophy of safe driving?
The goal of the 4 rules is to teach safe gun handling. Is someone going to confuse that mail box with a revolver?
The mail boxes, as tacky as they are, are just mail boxes. If people were doing that with realistic toy guns, it might be an issue of teaching bad habits. But I really don't think that there is any danger of someone putting their finger on the trigger of the mailbox or the mail box accidentally discharging anything more then a month's worth of junk mail.
I see an undercurrent of elitism in comments like Vicki's. Things that are tacky, not up to someone's personal standards shouldn't be tolerated or seen in public. What happened to freedom of expression? Isn't it a form of art? I would rather look at mail boxes shaped like a bass or a pistol then to feed goldfish someone's dead body, wouldn't you?
How are the mailboxes any different from the lawn gnomes, or statutes or planter boxes or thousand of other decorations people put up?
Also, consider the mail box as a statement; it could be just their hobby or as a warning to the government. The "3%"ers are a real and growing portion of the population. As the government grows ever more socialist and fascist, I'm starting to support their position more and more. I don't want to imagine what another wave of "New Deal" style legislation will do to our country. The mortgage owner & bank bailout opens, in my opinion, a back door to a very large movement toward complete socialism in our country.
i wouldn't have it in my front yard, but that's just because it's so unbelievably tacky. while gun-shaped, it's also quite obviously not a gun, so the safety rules don't apply.
it's ugly, but it's no threat, implicit or explicit. it's not a thing that could be a danger in and of itself, and it's not even a depiction of such a thing, so the worst part about it is that it's in bad aesthetic taste. no real harm there.
Fascism first reared it's ugly head in the United States under Abraham "that traitor scum who deserved every bit of the bullet he got in his head" Lincoln, who had presses operated by editorialists and newsmen he disliked destroyed, had the writers and journalists arrested, and of course there was that whole "federal supremacy/states rights mean nothing" and ruinous march to the sea burning everybody out over an issue that could have been resolved peacefully costing the United States hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides that could have been avoided opening a wound in the sould of America that is still very much their to this day. As a yankee Italian ex-pat, you may not have thought of it that way before but it is TRUE!
ReplyDeleteJust saying...
Thomas... try decaf. seriously. you're so riled up, i think you even posted that rant to the wrong comment thread...
ReplyDeleteI had just woke up...I don't do caffeine and rarely alcohol...just a mistake.
ReplyDeleteThomas, Thanks for commenting, as always. I'll respond to it on the other thread. But, I wanted to ask what's that little avatar you use? Do the three fingers and the Roman Numeral III mean something?
ReplyDeleteIt means I was logged into my gmail etc. account.
ReplyDeleteIII references that I'm one of Mike Vanderboegh's alleged "merry gang of three percenters" as we're known in the "gun community". I'm actually referenced in some of his writing and have written scathingly and openly of both the FBI and BATFE, both of whom I've done battle with and WON, under my full Given Name of Thomas Bostian Harris, so I'm open about that...duality of noms de plume explained below...
When I first started posting here and on Weer'd's pages I typed in Thomas as my name because it was at the weer'ds live journal and I never bothered setting up an account. I wasn't logged in and now am in the position of having confused people by have two pen names because I don't always bother to check if I'm logged into the google borg when I post stuff to blogspots and it defaults to tom+icon, not me manually putting in "Thomas".
Hope that un-muddie's the waters. I initially used "Thomas" here so as to try not to muddy the waters but now I'm not sure that was as wise of a decision as it ended up muddying the waters anyway. You can always tell it's me anyway because I favour some anglocentric spellings and usages of punctuation due to personal "preferences".
Thomas / Tom, I was never confused by the two names. It was your forthright tone of voice that enabled me to recognize you regardless of username.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the "three" explanation; I'll read about it.
mr. Vanderboegh seems like an interesting fellow. i've encountered him online before, since that infamous letter to the editor of his.
ReplyDeleteon the one hand, i think his stance in that letter is way too drastic and overly dramaticized. i think his estimation of three percent is high by at least one order of magnitude.
on another hand, i do agree with the basic principle that we all need to have some line in the sand. we need to think about what to do if we were ever personally faced with government oppression and tyranny --- yes, even though it's a very distasteful and depressing exercise to think about, and even though most of us will never actually face that, or anything like it. we still need to do the thinking.
we need to decide, each for ourselves, whether or not we would ever violently fight back against such behavior, and if so when we would start shooting. i've done this thinking, and i've decided on my own line in the sand; if it's ever crossed, i know i'll die alone and largely pointlessly, that my dying would change nothing. but at least i know that there are things i will not willingly submit to, unlikely (though still possible) things i'd rather fight and die than live through. mr. Vanderboegh could have done us all a great service if he'd more diplomatically reminded us that we each need to find our limits, to do this thought experiment, even as i'm sure he's done it for himself.
then on the mutant hand, he's a ripping good author. his Absolved is excellent reading, if you can read past whichever part of the politics you're likely to find distasteful --- and there's some of that in there for almost everyone, i think. the chapters titled Poor White Boys (both parts), Deacon, and i would even pick The Four Fingers of Death, should be required reading. i just can't decide on required for what, exactly.
Nomen now understands why I'm writing a thesis on the difference between dissent and sedition. Remember, when I type stuff as blog comments, maybe you don't think I'm coherent enough, but I'm typing blog comments, not writing a thesis that might become a book. This thesis is on my own dime and not for college purposes, it just needs to be done by somebody, to put all the case law in one place so people know where the "treason" line in the stand lies vis a vis the US and State Governments. Apples and oranges...Blog comments and serious writing.
ReplyDeleteYou keep that in mind when you read what I write and we might get along just fine...
Your call,
Thomas
ee cummins aka nomen said
ReplyDeletei think his estimation of three percent is high by at least one order of magnitude.
Semantics. I'm in the very tiny fraction of people who really mean it, have done battle with the BATF( and later added E)E and FBI over it and WON. I WOULD win/lose/or draw "cold dead hands" style if need be. Their is no option of compromise in my land.
It's called having "incontrovertible principles" for the learning impaired amongst us.
The "3 percenters", are they all Libertarians? If I understand correctly, the "tiny fraction of people who really mean it" refers to gun owners and doesn't necessarily indicate a political stance. Or are the two inextricable?
ReplyDelete...the "tiny fraction of people who really mean it" refers to [that fraction of] gun owners and doesn't necessarily indicate a political stance.
ReplyDeleteYup. That covers it succinctly.
Holy crap! I know this mailbox (or one exactly like it). It's around the corner from my folks' house in PA.
ReplyDeleteIt's on Quarry Road in either Lebanon or Jonestown (the border btwn the 2 is fuzzy round those parts).
A gentleman a few doors down from this one has a mailbox shaped like a giant large-mouthed bass. Though neither of these receptacles existed prior to my departure from Pennsyltucky, they certainly would have hastened it.
Though neither of these receptacles existed prior to my departure from Pennsyltucky, they certainly would have hastened it.
ReplyDeletePeople that are afraid of inanimate objects make me giggle. I'm laughing at you, not with you...For the record.
Owner of that mailbox might change a tire for you or give you a lift if you broke down on the way to the familial home and not be the homicidal maniac that you are making him out to be.
You paint with a BROAD BRUSH and I'll PAINT BACK.
Sound like an idiot to me, worrying about what your neighbor's mailboxes look like.
Dear Vicki, Thanks for coming by to comment. As you saw from Thomas's response to you, it sometimes takes a think skin and quick wit to comment over here. I'm in total agreement with you: I wouldn't want to live in a neighborhood like that. I don't know if that constitutes fearing inanimate objects though. I'd like to ask my gun loving friends a serious question about this. All that talk about proper gun etiquette, the 4 rules of handling firearms, all that insistence about how responsible and considerate gun owners are, well doesn't that ridiculous mailbox violate all that. Doesn't aiming a symbolic and gigantic gun at all comers contradict the philosophy you've all been espousing? Would you put one of those in your front yard?
ReplyDeleteMike,
ReplyDeleteWould you let a child play with a toy car? Would that invalidate any philosophy of safe driving?
The goal of the 4 rules is to teach safe gun handling. Is someone going to confuse that mail box with a revolver?
The mail boxes, as tacky as they are, are just mail boxes. If people were doing that with realistic toy guns, it might be an issue of teaching bad habits. But I really don't think that there is any danger of someone putting their finger on the trigger of the mailbox or the mail box accidentally discharging anything more then a month's worth of junk mail.
I see an undercurrent of elitism in comments like Vicki's. Things that are tacky, not up to someone's personal standards shouldn't be tolerated or seen in public. What happened to freedom of expression? Isn't it a form of art? I would rather look at mail boxes shaped like a bass or a pistol then to feed goldfish someone's dead body, wouldn't you?
How are the mailboxes any different from the lawn gnomes, or statutes or planter boxes or thousand of other decorations people put up?
Also, consider the mail box as a statement; it could be just their hobby or as a warning to the government. The "3%"ers are a real and growing portion of the population. As the government grows ever more socialist and fascist, I'm starting to support their position more and more. I don't want to imagine what another wave of "New Deal" style legislation will do to our country. The mortgage owner & bank bailout opens, in my opinion, a back door to a very large movement toward complete socialism in our country.
i wouldn't have it in my front yard, but that's just because it's so unbelievably tacky. while gun-shaped, it's also quite obviously not a gun, so the safety rules don't apply.
ReplyDeleteit's ugly, but it's no threat, implicit or explicit. it's not a thing that could be a danger in and of itself, and it's not even a depiction of such a thing, so the worst part about it is that it's in bad aesthetic taste. no real harm there.
Entrance to the dog fenced portion around the house on MY property!
ReplyDeleteSign on entering my drive before the first gate.
No kidding, no jokes about it, and it's TRUE.
Does this make me "scary" or "white trash"?