Monday, June 27, 2022

"I Could Never Shoot Another Person."

That's what a friend of mine told me earlier today. She's almost my age, she's white, Christian and has lived a typical middle/upper-middle class life. So I understand where she is coming from.

I'm almost like her, except for one important difference: I'm not Christian. My religious tradition teaches that there has been many times when government-sponsored groups have attempted to enslave us and to murder us. They have had varying success, but we're still here.

BadTux has pointed out that, thanks to the Supreme Court's hard turn to the right, that those times are coming for this country.

He is right about one other thing: The Supreme Court, in 1954, did not hand down Brown vs. Board of Ed. of Topeka like a bolt from the blue, the way that they just overruled Roe v. Wade. The NAACP attacked Plessy V. Ferguson for decades, challenging "separate-but-equal" in case after case. The NAACP picked apart Plessy, challenging the denial of admission of a Black man to U-MO because there were no state facilities for higher education of Black people. The NAACP challenged school conditions in other states, each time, proving that there was no equality and obtaining Supreme Court orders to change those conditions. Finally, it because clear to the Court that there was no piecemealing to be done and they made a national ruling.

That wasn't what the Right did. They, instead, worked for decades to salt the judiciary with ideologues and, when they finally got their majority on the Court, they struck. Not by appealing to reason, not by providing evidence, but imposing a decsion based solely in ideology and their religious beliefs.

Worse, they have worked diligently to strip away voting rights, to ensure that their voices are heard above all, and to ensure that the states can tilt their playing fields so that their voters have an outsized impact. They are working to ensure that, even if they lose elections, that those results will be thrown out.

We are standing on the edge of a right-wing, Christianist authoritarian state.

We are in real danger of losing our democracy. Not to any external enemy, but to the enemies of democracy and freedom that we, ourselves, have grown.

What are you going to do about it?

13 comments:

  1. I knew guys, I was one of 'em, when starting their tour claimed they'de never shoot at anybody ... shoot at the trees. Changes with that crystal-clear stick with you the rest of your life moment, that epiphany that rocks your bowels: when you realize "oh fuck they are shooting at me!" And shoot a little lower into the trees.

    Don't know ...

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  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoQZ0qmf-mk

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  3. I'm with Ten Bears. It's easy to say you won't kill even the enemy but next to impossible to do. I would stick the M16 over the sandbags and blast away blind just to feel like I was fighting back and to make myself feel better on the few occasions when my fire support base was shelled. Futile as hell but it let them know I was still there and dangerous (although I wasn't) in case sappers joined in after the mortar and rocket fire. Fear is a mother.

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  4. I disagree that the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe Vs Wade was a bolt from the blue since a certain segment in this country was smiling when Gorsuch took Merrick Garland's intended seat. The when Kegs Kavanough and Amy Bony Carrot got in there the Christian Taliban were shouting for joy because they knew if they people on the court who actually don't care about other's rights got in they would have their way. In twelve years in a Catholic school I seen enough of this self-righteous way of thinking from some, even though I didn't realize it at the time.

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  5. DUKAT: You people really do not do this very well, do you? Now, on Cardassia we know how to extract information, though it can get a bit unpleasant, and we all know how the Federation dislikes unpleasantness.

    AMAROS: I share very few sentiments with the Federation.

    DUKAT: Oh, that's right. You're renegades, aren't you? Or so you'd like to think. Unfortunately, the Federation has taught you your lessons all too well. You simply lack the commitment it takes to do what is necessary.

    AMAROS: You tell that to the crew of the Bok'Nor.

    DUKAT: Anyone can blow up a ship. Ha! But to look your enemy in the eye, knowing you'll remember his face for the rest of your life. Now that takes a stomach much stronger than you'll ever have.

    ST:DS9 The Marquis, part II.

    Hate to break it to you pal, but wanting an excuse to shoot people isn’t a valid reason for weapons training. Most people would be better off knowing how to use a blade, as it never runs out of ammo.

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  6. Dark Avenger, bringing a knife to a gunfight looks like this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQKrmDLvijo

    A knife can certainly be a deadly weapon, but there's a *reason* why we arm our soldiers with guns rather than knives as their primary weapon.

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  7. Rather than answer the question directly...

    My firearms training is the first shot counts, a cold shot.
    It allowed me to take dear and varmints without first
    consideration beyond was it a good safe shot.

    My line is distant, I keep that to myself. The basic
    idea is my life is worth more than any attempt on it.
    So never send what you may not like if you got it.

    A long life is also a teacher, wait and if they aren't
    shooting they may be a target for someone else.


    Eck!

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  8. Bad Tux, the belief that treating civilian life as if one is on the battlefield is how we got here in the first place. Most folks here would faint before they could put a blade to good use.

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  9. Anyone with a modicum of hand-to-hand combat experience can disarm a knife wielder quickly, and effectively. Just quicker, and more effective, with a Colt.

    My favorite is with the opposite hand grab and roll the assailant's knife wielding wrist, exposing the inside of the elbow to dislocation by a cross palm-punch that leaves you setup for a ninety or more degree back-fist to the bridge of their nose ... :)

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  10. The accepted idea is you are trying to stay alive.
    The better plan is either avoid or RUN fast!

    That's the premise of all the discussion,
    staying alive first and foremost.

    Using a blade requires the commitment to the idea
    that it will be messy and if there is competence
    or determination the other guy gets cut worse.

    By messy I mean you may get cut.
    By committed, once that close with stabby things
    you are in it to win. Your betting on knife
    wounds being more survivable.

    My 02 is bayonets are only slightly better.
    Swords of most forms are also better, if
    you are skilled.

    Generally Army and other services knives are
    for cutting things (ropes and dinner packages)
    or when you can't use something that goes BANG!


    Eck!

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  11. Ten Bears, there is a guy who does a demonstration at martial arts events. He grabs a totally untrained person from the audience, like a teenage girl, and gives her an uncapped red felt tip marker pen. Then he challenges any of the trained participants to keep her from "knifing" him. The only instruction he gives the girl is "swing wildly and try to mark up as much of him as possible."

    Very rarely is she disarmed before managing to put red marks in areas where the trained martial artist would bleed out.

    Point being there is a lot of difference between attempting to disarm a trained martial artist where you *know* what techniques he is going to use, versus some random person off the street who is going to use a knife in some wild and unexpected manner.

    That said, as I point out above, bringing a knife to a gunfight rarely is very useful. And as Eck points out, since you're trying to get *away* from the attacker, a knife (which requires you to charge *toward* the attacker in order to get into its effective range) is the last weapon you really want to be using in a typical self defense situation, because it means you're already within a range where a physically superior attacker can overpower you. I mean, it's better than *not* having a knife if you're in that situation, but preferably you stay out of that situation in the first place.

    Dark Knight, one advantage of a gun over a knife is that it isn't up close and personal. Let's say you're Jewish. A bad guy wearing Nazi paraphernalia breaks into your house with intent to do close personal harm to you. You might hesitate before breaking out your Ka-Bar and charging him. You're not likely to hesitate just pulling the trigger on your .357 revolver to end him.

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  12. Good knife work requires practice and training. But bad knife work is often good enough. Clip a guy on his arm and he may lose the use of it, or bleed out.

    And frankly, most people are afraid of knives. Everyone knows what a knife will do.

    But yeah, in a self-defense situation, give me a Ruger Security Six with some 125-grn .357 hollowpoints. Those have a good track record of putting bad guys below the dirt end of the grass.

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  13. I guess it all comes down to "are you going to stand and fight or lay down and die?"

    It is better to run away, live to fight another day. Always best to avoid disarming any weapon, indeed is best to avoid any confrontation at all and of course then only respond in self-defense. In the end though, it all depends on the circumstance; sometimes the best defense is an overwhelming offense. Gonna' get cut one way or the other, and there's a lot to be said for the element of surprise. And brute force.

    Yes, I grew up short, why do you ask ... ?

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