Saturday, October 27, 2018

Dear Angus













When you meet the occasional @$$hole, that's life.
When everyone you meet is an @$$hole, you're the @$$hole.
                                                - fortune cookie wisdom

Dear Angus:

You and Tam blogged on the same topic on the same day.
I plucked both posts out, as people whose blogs I read regularly, read both sides, and selected them both for further commentary.
That was the entire extent of your participation.

IMO, she's right, you're wrong.
End of story.

You're not the official spokesperson of anything, AFAIK.
You're taking this far too personal.

There were multiple comments on several posts, and on multiple blogs, none of them by you, which I responded to.
Not to you.
Nor to any one quote by you.

Simply to address the entire retarded idea.
Which has been tried and failed before too, all over the place, not just FL.

Get over yourself.
It ain't about you, and never was.
Stupid is as stupid does.

I'm demanding nothing.
I'm suggesting that crapping your pants in public is dumb, and not in anyone's best interest.
And then you and twenty other people all lost your minds, because someone (actually, several of them, from coast to coast, including right there in FL) dared to suggest FL Open Carry was doing something that won't work, and never has.

Stop pissing on people's heads and telling them it's raining.

If some group seven states away wants to act stupid, it's a free country, with free speech.
But it's not consequence-free speech.
Expect people, especially me, to point and laugh.

But if David Hogg is your gold standard for intelligent commentary on any topic, let alone this one, well, by all means use that as the intelligence meter that works for you.
And if the cops stayed polite, and continue to do so, tell me how you couldn't have "won" without egregious stupidity in public.

I suggested even more in the first or second post on the topic:
If about the only place you can open carry in FL is while fishing, why do those events only once a month?
If your goal is to "normalize" the sight of weapons legally and openly carried, why not do them once a week?
Or, hell, seven days a week, morning, noon, and night, except in the exact low-key, handguns-only manner that does not describe Stupid Carry Day?
Shocker: I "hate" Open Carry so much I think you should do it all the time.
Just leave the jackassical long guns and eleventy-nine guns at home.
Not because you have to, but because it looks better, which sways more uncommitted people, including in a bunch of other states far beyond FL Open carry's tiny-minded perspective.
How bastardly of me to suggest this might be an issue that affects more than Floridians, I know.

Wouldn't that have made your point far better all around, demonstrated the exact common sense and circumspect behavior that is true of the vast majority of CCW holders in any state, including yours every time they publish the stats, and without having a bunch of Ramboneheads providing fodder that'll be whipped out forever from coast to coast, every time this topic is discussed, including far beyond the precincts of your little peninsula? Why in hell do you want the biggest jackwagons to be in the limelight, and hand them a megaphone?

You want people far and wide to knee-jerk support you, but you're more than happy to tell them to go and screw themselves, and accuse them of Zumboism and worse at the merest drop of a hat in suggesting you might maybe have stepped on your own dicks, and hosed it up for ten other states worse off than you, far beyond your little squabbles.

That's some pretty big balls, man.
With your cleat marks in them.

Maybe open your horizon a bit beyond the borders of the Sunshine State, if you expect anyone else to give a crap, and back you up, even rhetorically. Or get used to being the butt of jokes.

All I suggested was that it's possible to do good things in smart ways, and vastly preferable to doing them in stupid ways.

You and a small gaggle of folks are wanting to defend doing things stupid ways too.

That's not "living in my head."
It's hitting yourselves in the face with a 2x4, and then putting it on YouTube.
Hell yes I'm going to blog that.

You do what you think is best.
Just like FL Open Carry does.
I ain't your dad or mom, just a guy like Mel Brooks, who thinks me stubbing my toe is tragedy, and someone else jumping off a cliff is comedy. Like everybody since Adam.
But if all you can do when it gets noticed is name-call the people that laughed at your antics, maybe taking off the floppy shoes and clown nose might be in order.
Or just growing a thicker skin.

Or best choice, stop dressing up with a bunch of your closest friends, piling into the Volkswagen, and shooting seltzer in each other's faces and down their pants, unless you were going for the laugh.

And FTR, besides you, and Tam, and myself, the topic was addressed shortly afterwards by Borepatch, and Miguel, and even Sal the Agorist.
Suffice it to say, it wasn't a good week for Team LARPer.
We'll grant your premise, and forget me, because I'm stupid, m'kay?
But those others are all some pretty Zumbo freedom-hating anti-gunners there. Not.
And that's just the handful I read all the time.

When your friends and allies can't disagree with your tactics without being railed as secret commie gun grabbers, you don't have any friends or allies.

Maybe rethink that approach, too.

Scorched Earth seems like a lonely place to live.
YMMV.




And FYI, I posted this first at Angus' site, and he promptly deleted it:
Two comment from Aesop deleted.

You wanna comment here, you be polite. You be nice. You don't insult.

Try again, or not.

I do have a comments policy and I do enforce it.

You can keep your football, Lucy. After leaving this little butt-nugget here last night, which I left up:
Angus McThag said...
If you're anti-openly stupid, you should probably shut up.

Just sayin'.

Just so we're transparent about the whole polite/nice/not insulting thing.
It's nice to know that the polite commentary policy there is strictly one-way "laws for thee, but not for me" way.

You keep your policies, Angus.
I have principles, and mine aren't situational.
Best wishes with your approach.














Reasonable and intelligent people can disagree.
Those who are neither cannot tolerate any other opinions.
My apologies for expecting better from you.

If you ever decide to come in off the ledge, I'll still be here.
If not, best wishes.

6 comments:

  1. As far as I can tell they didn't "win" anything but the right to open carry while fishing or hunting, which is ALREADY the law. So they go down to the fishing pier all dressed up in a ton of weaponry instead of just fishing with a holstered pistol, some cops show up, bluster at them, they show that they're obeying the law (while still looking like they were ready to what, blow away a ton of fish off the pier? Do the fish in Florida have freaking laser beams on their heads or something?), and that was it. No laws have been changed, open carry isn't normalized in Florida except on fishing piers and while hunting. Big whoop. It's already the law, and nobody looked NORMAL.

    If you want to look NORMAL while you open carry while fishing, you FISH, which means you're wearing your fishing gear (for the uninitiated, that does't mean nice pants and a polo shirt, it usually means cargo shorts and a T-Shirt), you have a holstered pistol, and you FISH. After a goodly while of that, nobody blinks, and then maybe you can broaden the open carry laws.

    If you're out to make statements you put people's backs up... the idea is to normalize, right? Basic psychology 101 here, FFS. Make it every day, routine, and like it's just part of your normal fishing gear in case you catch a small shark or something (not unheard of). People get used to seeing the pistols without feeling threatened as they fish, and the idea gains traction. It takes time. So which is it - you want to make an in-your-face statement, or do you want open carry to actually be normal?

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  2. Amen!

    If your mission is to persuade thousands or millions of people, shocking the crap out of them with bone-headed and irresponsible behavior not only isn't going to work, is us going to massively, or even fatally, hurt your cause. If, ITOH, your mission is to draw attention and to impress people with extreme behavior, then naturally going around carrying a rifle and enough guns strapped on to liberate Stalingrad from the German 6th Army is the thing to do...though I don't know a single rational reason why anyone would consciously choose Door #2.

    This is Exhibit # 5436794 in the case to prove that God must love stupid people, because He made so many of them.

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  3. i don't see that many weapons when we go on hunts. i saw the picture and your comments seemed rational and your reasoning without flaw. pity them if there narrow little aperture cannot capture the entire picture.

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  4. Epic rant is Epic.

    [stands]

    [clap] [clap] [clap]

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  5. I suppose they wouldn't like it much if they were told they look like this either.

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  6. A CrossFitter, an atheist, and a vegan walk into a bar. I only know this because they told EVERYONE in the first two minutes.

    ReplyDelete