Stop Me Before I Vote Again

I'll take the pistoleros, any day...over the liberals, with their geschrei and gevalt about the terrible "mistrust of government" among the poor benighted American peasantry.

So say we all.

It's worth noting, perhaps, that "mistrust" of the government--or "the Feds" as they say back home--gets exploited too. For example, by the mining corporations (in particular, George I's Barrick Gold Strike NE Nevada operation) so they can seize public land and create opponents to environmental regulation (in case such meaningful regulation were ever to come!). Mistrust (or worse) of the Feds is great; but without the same for their private associates I can't get too excited.

"mistrust" of the government--or "the Feds" as they say back home--gets exploited too. For example, by the mining corporations

OMFG. I'm getting close to not looking here any more. MJS, do you need meds? WTF are you up to these days?

You're going to collapse the distinction between existing public authority and public authority as a principle? You're going to endorse Loughner? You're going to insist on this irrational take on gun control? Even though it patently supports the SMBIVA thesis?

Gun control and Constitutional Re-Convening are obvious issues in this society. Those who deny that are enemies of the good side of our history, not to mention our obvious present interests. Those who present themselves as the left while refusing to speak directly and reject "mixed seating" at precisely such moments are exactly as destructive.

Meanwhile, seriously. WHAT THE FUCK?

"One won't really be quite happy until the pistoleros start paying some attention to these bad actors, too."

Jesus. You imagine this will happen? How?

Holy shit. This is getting awful.

The photo is blasphemy, too, MJS. If that was my daughter and I saw this post, I'd come for ya, as a pistolero.

Retract all this, please.

P.P.S. "0ne won't be quite happy"?

So you're any percent happy?

WTF?

My dear friend is one of them pistoleros. Not a right winger, since he's sympathetic to the socialist argument, and for a guy with a few apartment buildings and several employees, surprisingly mistrustful of money and property.

[Not very long ago, we were even able to discuss the skimming of labor value which he takes as profit, and he didn't blink an eye. He's had a trades company for almost twenty years, and he's still able to see how his livelihood depends upon not paying his laborers the full value of their work. He hates it, I think - but doesn't know how to make the leap from the life he knows and has built, to the uncertainty of whatever abandoning it would do to his family.]

But, he seems to confirm the connection between mistrust of the government-that-is and gun ownership.

We've talked about it rationally, over wine and cayenne chocolate. I asked him, "You think you'd win in any sort of engagement with the police, or in an uprising? Wouldn't shooting off guns in this over-policed environment just call attention to yourself?"

I was making the case that most overt political violence is suicide by cop.

He said, "Nah, it wouldn't get to that. They'd probably 'find" kiddie porn on my computer long before I did anything threatening with a weapon."

I asked, "So why have them?"

"Because it feels defiant," he answered. "It feels like I can say 'no' and mean it to whoever shows up to tell me what to do."

We kind of left it that, but from my experience, that attitude is typical. I don't mean that the fetishists and nutters and racists who goon up in militias look at it that way. But for your average gun owner - even in hippiemunes like Burlington, which has a fuckload of guns - that's sort of the logic.

I don't think they believe they can take on a regiment impressed on a city during some sort of future martial law.

But that they could, in a pinch, shoot the zealous agent of Uncle, or his armed escort.

Not my thing, since I'm a fan of revolution-by-corruption-and-crime, but I can understand the logic of a "no" with some gunpowder behind it.

Dawson,

Perhaps the problem with "public authority as a principle" is that its angelic form remains forever a chimaera. A myth.

The "public authority that exists" invariably ends up looking like every other public authority that ever existed. Religions, justifications, orders of magnitude and population groups change, as do the surnames of those in office, or in bloodlines.

But a modern corporation has an underlying hierarchy similar to that of a medieval royal house, and to a Hellenic polis, because that form of power works. It works well, for those who want to get other people to obey. It endures. The economies change. Social awareness changes with the alteration of material existence. But the form of power is fairly durable, and stable over time.

Liberals love non-violence, it elevates their cowardice into a virtue.

This development, I would say, is a tribute to the perceptiveness of the American people; it is increasingly plain to anybody paying attention that the Federal government, as actually now existing and operating, is a police-state horrorshow, pursuing goals fundamentally inimical to most of its subjects, and utterly beyond any answerability to them.

Yeah, but that's not what they're mad about. They're mad about the government giving health care to illegal immigrants, and stupid shit like that. People who love guns also tend to love cops -- especially badass abusive ones. They also hate 'regulation,' especially when it comes to "safety" and "environmental conservation," two issues which most Glock-fappers probably think of as 'pussy.' (Unless they've come up with an even more insulting word, with fewer letters.) Because they, like nearly all Americans, are fucking idiots.

So, I cannot endorse any description of the American populace that includes any form of the word "perceptive." We have never been a nation of thinkers, no matter what, and as a group we are not getting smarter.

Liberals love non-violence, it elevates their cowardice into a virtue.
This, on the other hand, is also true. I know I'm a peace-loving coward!

I do not agree that nearly all Usians are idiots. Adopting that idea leads nowhere. Usians are heavily indoctrinated and the thrust of the indoctrination is quite infantilizing. But "idiot" suggests that they don't know, for example, when the national system is screwing them. Perhaps, they might acknowledge that that screwing-thing is "difficult to identify" without leadership guidance, of course, i.e. more indoctrination. Enlightened persons don't perceive the "difficult to identify" confusion so much, but they do tend to argue a great deal about what is the principle problem behind so much screwing over. Are they idiots because they get into these arguments?

This then suggests that "everyone is an idiot but me and the few interlocutors that I have not 'shared' with sufficiently as yet to realize that they are disagreeable on some issue or other that I regard as an idiot-qualifying shibboleth." In short, everyone is a idiot and the term loses its meaning.

"Mistrust (or worse) of the Feds is great; but without the same for their private associates I can't get too excited."

Peter: One step at a time! Remember, the ideology of democratic government is the biggest obstacle to seeing the truth.

everyone is an idiot but me and the few interlocutors that I have not 'shared' with sufficiently as yet to realize that they are disagreeable on some issue or other that I regard as an idiot-qualifying shibboleth
I didn’t say I wasn’t an idiot. When did I say I wasn’t an idiot?

everyone is a idiot and the term loses its meaning
No, it doesn’t. If you’re standing in a field full of daffodils, they don’t stop being daffodils just because there’s a lot of them.

These are people who, overwhelmingly, based on polls and on the caliber of the people whom they elect to office, don’t want to pay taxes, like, at all — but who want full benefit of federal programs like Medicare and Social Security, as well as a good interstate highway system and lots of fancy inspirational national parks to go to. They want to remove all types of law that relate to regulation of the private sector, and eliminate the already-toothless EPA and labor unions. They want to pay next to nothing for amazing-cool electronics and other merchandise which was NOT made in China or Taiwan. They also want to deny benefits to the undeserving poor, and to illegal immigrants. They are fucking idiots who want to live in a Norman Rockwell painting, with Jesus. This is not an argument that has two sides.

And, again: I know I’m an idiot. Just not that particular kind.

"This development, I would say, is a tribute to the perceptiveness of the American people"

With respect, MJS, I think you're being wildly optimistic with this reading. How do those numbers break down by partisan self-identification? The big difference between now and 2003 isn't a growing cultural awareness of the American police state - which, of course, was as solidly entrenched then as it is now - but whose hand was at the reins. When the Rs are in power, a certain percentage of Ds are going to suddenly find religion on civil liberties and limited government; when the Ds seize power, a certain percentage of Rs are going to rediscover the merits of questioning government authority. Add the fact that the current emperor is a Democrat to the fact that there will always be a rump element in the GOP that expresses some pro forma "distrust" in the government - whether that distrust is genuine, as in the Paulites and other members of the vestigial Old Right, or whether that distrust will only ever be expressed in periodic demands for lowering the marginal tax rate - and in general these numbers are going to be higher whenever a Democrat is in office. Once the next Republican president is installed and continuing/expanding/rebranding America's various forever wars, we'll see the usual surge of loyalty-oath talk from the right, and those numbers will creep down again.

And to pick up on Emma's comments, actually listen to the complaints of the pistol-packing right and it becomes pretty clear that - aside from a few edge cases on the libertarian right - these are not people who see, or are opposed to, "a police-state horrorshow, pursuing goals fundamentally inimical to most of its subjects, and utterly beyond any answerability to them." These are not opponents of the drug and terror wars; these are generally gung-ho fans of government violence, who often insist that the government isn't dispensing enough violence (in order to more effectively expel immigrants, for instance).

I don't understand the comment about the picture, Michael D. What do you see a picture of?

"..a modern corporation has an underlying hierarchy similar to that of a medieval royal house, and to a Hellenic polis, because that form of power works. It works well, for those who want to get other people to obey. It endures. The economies change. Social awareness changes with the alteration of material existence. But the form of power is fairly durable, and stable over time"

utter vacuity

For what it's worth, I too take a dim view of the usefulness of privately-owned weapons in resisting state terror. The problem, of course, is that the state has any potential resisters badly out-gunned.

On the other hand, I have heard people familiar with the situation in the South, during the high days of the black struggle there, argue persuasively that the possession of arms among blacks did tend to deter certain kinds of unofficial racist violence, and this I don't find hard to believe, having grown up in the South myself.

Still, of course, it's the official terror that we mostly have to worry about now. So the guns don't seem to me much of a solution.

What I sympathize with is the attitude that underlies self-armament, to the extent that that attitude is anti-government (rather than, say, anti-immigrant, which is probably part of the mix too).

And it doesn't bother me a bit that people might be anti-government in the abstract, rather than just against the government they actually have. People's attitudes to abstractions don't interest me.

sorry i'm anon
using diff machine

don't want crow
not to know its me

People's attitudes to abstractions don't interest me.

for some spirits here
those are the only attitudes
that keep them believing
their not just floating along huck's river
but a righteous witness
if not a holy missionary

axiomatic sky hooks
attached to the seat of their pants

Liberals love non-violence, it elevates their cowardice into a virtue.

Need anything more be said? While non-violence is always preferable, it shouldn't become a fetish or a goal in itself.

I have more respect for all the "gun nuts" who are prepared to defend themselves if it comes down to it than the Birkenstock Brigade that thinks it can shove flowers in gun barrels and call it victory, or submit and call it passive resistance.

I see a lot of the people where I live up in the mountains, mostly Left, but some Right, who are extremely distrustful of government and not for partisan or ideological reasons, but because of objective reality. They see the system for what it is, and in my view are far more sophisticated politically than many on the Left and certainly most liberals. They are de facto anarchists without the ideological baggage or brand name issues.

They have organized themselves into informal "mutual aid societies"--with guns--and are ready to fight together should the need arise. They are under no illusions they could take on a regular infantry company with all its firepower, but they'd put a hurtin' on a posse of cops or death squad types.

Groups like Hezbollah start out like this, just a bunch of guys getting together and saying "Fuck it, enough."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/world/africa/15tunis.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

this is the real deal

MJS, my ex father in law (son's grandpa) died yesterday, so I suppose I was in a maudlin state. The photo just seemed to imply this whole thing is silly and small. That seems wrong this morning.

But I still find the whole event rather serious at many levels, including the level of access to semi-automatic Glock pistols. And the Dimbots are not going to touch that issue, which would cost them political points for the sake of a cause that doesn't pay. Instead, we get Obie talking like Reverend Lovejoy and his party's Congressbots further reducing their already non-existent partisanship. They might've refused to enter the building with the party of the NRA.

I apologize for over-reacting, in any event.

JC, it seems you think I am a dunce about power and states. One doesn't have to be naive about those things to retain the view that democracy (which is always a struggle toward an ideal) is the worst system except for all the others, anarchy included.

"up in the mountains" ??

of what state ??

sean's never never pink frontier land
is mostly a sick joke

death squads after white folk in the hills...come now ...

"de facto anarchists " ???

what manner of covert defiance
COULDN'T that label cover

why woodstock "nation"
with all its
giddy ebulliant evanescence
was an outlaw moment
unarmed of course
but as surely anti establishmentarian
as any band of pop gun infested
up country soakers

"Groups like Hezbollah start out like this"

no they don't

"They are under no illusions they could take on a regular infantry company with all its firepower, but they'd put a hurtin' on a posse of cops or death squad types." (Sean)

Sean: MJS is not talking about real guns, just rhetorical ones. He's even maybe lightly toying with us (Oscar Wilde-ing us), approving an attitude universally out of favor (among liberals, for the moment.)

sean's never never pink frontier land
is mostly a sick joke

Presumptuous, snide and clueless as ever, op. Should I bother? Naaah.

"Groups like Hezbollah start out like this"

no they don't

They started out as a small, local militia. You have a different version of their history? Let's hear it.

Sean: MJS is not talking about real guns, just rhetorical ones. He's even maybe lightly toying with us (Oscar Wilde-ing us), approving an attitude universally out of favor (among liberals, for the moment.)

I can't speak for MJS, but I am talking about real guns, and the real possibility they might have to be used.

I dunno that much about the history of Hizbollah, and would like to know more.

Hamas actually is said to have benefited, in its early days, from some Israeli reptile-fund subventions -- the hope was to diminish support for Fatah, divide the Palestinians against each other, and so on. One hopes somebody lost his job over that one.

Dunno whether there's some similar skeleton in Hizbollah's closet; if so, I never heard about it.

The context in which Hizbollah developed is very different from anything here in the States, certainly. There's no analogy to the Iranian connection here, and the role of religion seems quite different -- Islamism, for want of a better word, is a genuine grassroots global phenomenon. Militant Proddie fundamentalism seems like a slightly different breed of cat.

All that said, of course I love Hizbollah and Hamas like brothers, and if we had something similar here, I'd join up, ancient and decrepit as I am. Oh and the wrong religion.

Dunno whether there's some similar skeleton in Hizbollah's closet; if so, I never heard about it.

Hassan Nasrallah is probably the only honest politician on the planet, if I can insult him by calling him a politician. I can't think of anyone I trust more. Hezbollah has a good track record of standing by its principles and putting Lebanon's interests above its own. They're the real deal.

I'm not so sure anyone could say the same about Hamas, particularly given its shady history with Israel. Even now, to what extent they play to Israel's interests through sheer political stupidity or something more nefarious is a question remaining to be answered.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/SZA204A.html

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2477/

Religion is a powerful motivator and a major factor in Hezbollah's strength. I've always imagined Bubba with his gun and Bible would make better revolutionary material than many secular Leftists I know. You might not like what he chooses to fight for, is all.

As far as Hizballah, a supra-state entity put a hurting on the most belligerent state actor in the region. That would be Israel. This occurred while the recognized official state was in connivance with the belligerent as the wiki-cables show. As for op. he thinks he's clever with his post-modernist rantings that amount to lots of words strung together but mean next to nothing. As for Woodstock being a "revolutionary" moment or something all I can say is; are you fucking kidding me?

PS. If idiotic hedonism is revolutionary than I stand corrected. But how can one argue with a characterture.

Easy now, demize

"As for Woodstock being a "revolutionary" moment or something all I can say is; are you fucking kidding me?"

That's what he meant. He's saying that if they could be called "de facto anarchists" then that label doesn't count for much.

As for op's style: it does takes a little getting used to, but don't let that deter you. He's the sharpest guy in the park if you ask me.

PPS. "death squads after white folk in the hills...come now ..
Have you not heard of the Harlan and Hazard County United Mineworker Strikes?

Amen to FB's comments. Owen and I know each other from of old, and we are both odd ducks, to say the least. I thought Owen was the smartest guy I ever met, apart from myself of course, until I met Noam Chomsky. Actually, Owen was present on that occasion. If we ever write our memoirs...

Hassan Nasrallah is probably the only honest politician on the planet

thanx fb ..mjs...

--------------
sean i also have high regard for
Nasrallah and the hezzy wezzy outfit
you have one tiger of a paradigm there ...
by the tail unfortunately

as to "a different version of their history"

i submit its a bit more intricate and multi causal then a bunch of white faced
mittyesque door mice
hold up in what ??
an over mortgaged log cabin ??

i recall your love of the owner operated hearth and home
i imagine you
on the north slope of a rugged
goat chewed hill
it's deep fall
and you're smoking a hash pipe perhaps
shotgun in lap ...off off broadway indeed
somewhere in greater ex urbia though state side

no its not a shotgun acrossed your knees
it's a banjo
--the rockin duelin idiot in deliverance
comes to mind--

only your radical baby radical
playing joe hill shit on your axe
and smart too
smart as regis philbin's wife

sean
talkin "real guns "
only makes the image of u more absurd
to me
i ask your forgiveness
in any case
you doubtless
deserve far more respect
from some body or other
then i'm likely to show u

-----------
demizel :
the up country miners wars
are a heroic chapter
in american history
but hey ...that was then ..this is now
now mr peabody et al
straight up
blow the tops off them hills

i'd prefer to compare the hezzy crowd
not to todays american bible bashers
but rather their distant 16th century ancestors

john knox always struck me
as a fairly tough hided agent of jehovah
maybe he ranks up there with nassy

i submit its a bit more intricate and multi causal then a bunch of white faced
mittyesque door mice
hold up in what ??
an over mortgaged log cabin ??

In other words, you don't have a fucking clue but don't let that stop you from camouflaging the fact in your usual ode to op verbathalon.

i imagine you...

You imagine a lot, but understand nothing, which is what makes you such an insufferable ignoramus and pretentious asshole. Go find someone else to play John to your endless attention whoring and narcissistic contempt-mongering. It's basically what everything you write comes down to: I'm great, you suck. I would consider respect from a self-superior fop like you to be an insult.

Wank yourself in front of the mirror you've set up here until you ejaculate with contempt over whoever you like, but I'm done with you.

In so far as protest and resistance against the government goes guns are the most useless pieces of shit on the planet. I say that as someone who owns some fairly sophisticaed weaponry, up to and including what is at the limit of what is legally obtainable by private citizens in these here United States of America.

Claymores on a Scottish Keep wall. That's all they are. I have no visions of them being useful for anything other than handing down to my sons as a legacy from father to son. Well, except for the goose gun and the .300 mag. They're nice for killing game.

Anyone who thinks guns are good for much more than hunting is living in a dream world. Even for so called "self defense" I'll tell you I've never bothered to carry a weapon with me and your best self defense is described as the better part of valor. Discretion...

Guns are fun, don't get me wrong. I can nail a paper plate with my M14 from 100 yds with iron sights every single time. A paper plate is very small when it's 100 yds away. I get a certain satisfaction from doing that. But if the government comes around and has me in their sights I'm throwing my hands up and hoping for the best. You should too.

Of course, and to repeat myself, showing the discretion to not get into such a circumstance in the first place is the best thing to do.

Wisdom and knowledge are greater than brute force.

Of course, and to repeat myself, showing the discretion to not get into such a circumstance in the first place is the best thing to do.

The best way to win a fight is to not have one. The rest of the time you have to pick your battles. Unfortunately, that isn't always a choice. Who goes around looking for fights?

Guns are the only reason South Lebanon isn't an Israeli colony right now.

I didn't mean to be abrasive. I'm sowwy!

MJS,

Hamas is a porous conduit to and from the Eretz. Hizbollah takes its integrity seriously. Israeli spies tend to find themselves chasing themselves, or worse, in that embrace.

Plus, their Islamism has a peculiar twist, no? They've got a healthy number of women forming up their core cadres, and no real predilection for the Wahhabist variety of self-destruction.

"Guns are the only reason South Lebanon isn't an Israeli colony right now."

I humbly disagree.

The strength and will of the people who live in South Lebanon is the reason they've maintained their freedom from Isreali domination. Guns are just the tools. And for any people who are determined guns are easily available.

The international arms market is awash in hardware.

@Emma: See? A bunch of idiots! No leadership and not much commonality of viewpoints.

But calling them that is as useful as saying: "See that daffodil? No, not that one. I mean the yellow one."

JC: I concur wrt Hizbollah. I think you might be a little too harsh on Hamas. But perhaps you have sources of information unavailable to me.

Religion is a powerful motivator and a major factor in Hezbollah's strength. I've always imagined Bubba with his gun and Bible would make better revolutionary material than many secular Leftists I know.

"I didn't mean to be abrasive. I'm sowwy!"

Abrasiveness is not a problem around here. Angrily remonstrating that the conclusion of a reductio ad absurdum is in fact absurd, on the other hand...

i thank sean for spearing me on hez-wz

we as mjs suggests ought to know moree about
this outfit

to clarify my point
about any analogy to hez
in an ad hoc gaggle of
possibly un shaved frito bandito whiteniks
in hunting caps and union suits
trading fantasy feats
against some future peak freak out
death squads
around a tavern booth
i think mjs makes the key point above

from a very different context a very different outcome will arise

don't expect a catskill ranger boy outfit
forming up any time soon into
hezy on the hudson

upstate new york now or in any foreseeeable future
isn't southern lebanon
circa 1982

" too harsh on Hamas"
indeed
one might point to the sealed train ..eh ??

food critic approach to outfit evaluation :

"their Islamism has a peculiar twist... They've got a healthy number of women forming up their core cadres, and no real predilection for the Wahhabist variety of self-destruction"

using our own tastes buds for say
regional seasonings ..
in what a group might add
into its gal treatment recipe
to evaluate and sort
into universal preference rankings
various corporate global empire counter cultures
is well... pure petty burger poetry

culture monkey see
culture monkey like or don't like
in the end ... mere mirror posing

along such sampling tours
smart bomb humanists
are among your fellow travel-ers

here is a native white son worthy of nas

fairly secular too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Warren