Of Maus And Men - (Alternately: Riding The Moral Panic Into National Divorce)

So the latest thing to trigger the "How Dare You!" response on social media comes to us out of Tennessee. Some local school there has banned a graphic novel called "Maus", which from what I understand tells the story of the author's parents as Jews living under Nazism. The story is told using anthropomorphised animals, mice for Jews and cats for Nazis. The complaint raised? Apparently there might be some spicy language and nudity (the nudity being... how do describe it... 'historical', I guess? Well, from what I'm told it's not intended to be 'pornographic' or 'sexy' if that makes sense.) So that's all I knew about it by the time the below interaction took place.

Obviously NOT a picture from the graphic
novel 'Maus'.

So I have a friend that I haven't spoken to in person for at least 15 years, sadly. He lives on the other side of the city but we were still friends on social media. For the sake of this rant, I'm going to call him Roger.

Now like I said, I haven't spoken to Roger in person for many years. But there was a time when I use to see him and others quite a bit, especially for tabletop games. Roger's a nice guy, affable and smart. And when I say he is a 'nice guy', I don't mean just polite on the surface. Roger is the kind of guy I'm genuinely sure would give the last $5 to his name to someone who was hungry. He's that kind of guy in my opinion.

This whole discussion took place on Facebook. The red bar designates Roger's posts, and green designates mine. I have of course blanked out profiles and names throughout. It started with his post here:

 

Sorry about the tiny pictures. This is 'Blogger', a free product and you get what you pay for. Just pinch and zoom or mousewheel to see the text if you have to.

Now this struck me as somewhat hyperbolic: The idea that the only type of person who would raise a concern about this being in a Tennessee school is a Nazi or some such. Yes, the ONLY reason anyone could ever object to a book, that has some nudity in it, is because they are all Nazis.

Now keep in mind, I'm open to the idea that the person(s) who objected to this might indeed have been Nazis, I guess. But we don't know that, and neither does Neil Gaiman. And neither does Roger. My problem with this is that some dark, anti-Semitic plot to try to conceal the Holocaust is far less likely in a school in Tennessee than someone being prudish about nudity devoid of any context. We are talking about Tennessee, after all, where schools banned "Harry Potter" because, and yes this is the real reason apparently, "it showed that magic could be good instead of just evil."

So I responded. BTW, sorry about the missing text, as I forgot to open the comment up before I took the screen shot:

So for Roger the fact that it got banned on "Holocaust Remembrance Day" is a huge thing for him. I didn't even know that "Holocaust Remembrance Day" was an official day in the US (I seriously doubt the person who brought up the objection knew either).
 

So he's all in on an anti-Semetic conspiracy. But showing government inconsistency as 'proof' of a conspiracy is shaky ground to say the least. Expecting consistency in action requires a greater leap of faith than believing in the Easter Bunny. It's almost as big a leap of faith as thinking all people who have expanded degrees must be smart.

Now Roger is extremely emotionally invested in this idea that the Tennessee schools are a bunch of anti-Semites. This isn't surprising as he's by nature a very passionate person. You can tell when someone is emotionally invested when they take any objections you may have and interpret them as a irrational denial of any and all evidence or as a personal attack, as we see next.

Fuck it. This has already gone way past the single post I made just cautioning we shouldn't just to conclusions, so surprise me. Hit me with your best shot, Roger.

Why do I ask for his #1 thing? Saves time. Whenever anyone is super emotionally invested in something, be it politics, gadgets or even just the latest game they found on Steam, they will gush about every detail and you'll find you're not really swayed by anything and it gets tiresome. If you can get them to give you their #1 thing about the topic, you can quickly decide if you want to go on. If it's lame, you know not much else is going to be worth the time. If it piques your interest... tell me more!

I've heard there is a saying in sales: the first person to mention a specific price loses. I don't know if this is a principle in official debates. I never went to debate camp. Roger, however, actually did debate in school. I'm not sure if he's using those skills here or not, perhaps he didn't want to say a specific thing as his #1 argument because he thought it was a losing setup or something, I have no idea. It wasn't my intention anyway. It was after 11pm at this point and I was wanting to sign off for the night so I wanted to save some time.

I don't know what it is about people who have done formalized debates, but they all seem to have this habit of attempting to 'summarize' everything you say in the most negative light possible. He wants me to make his argument for him, which is weird because I've already said I don't know much about the details and he obviously has read a lot about it. So I tried to explain why I was asking for his #1 reason.

Halle-fucking-lujah! Finally. Ok, I was quite happy about getting this. Hard and fast info, probably the strongest thing he could offer by the sound of it. Fair enough, I dug right it.

You can read this Twitter thread on your own if you like. Long story short, this lady has a couple of general tweets about censorship and notes, importantly, when censorship of materials happens in schools and libraries, it's most often due to people being offended by some perceived explicit material (ie, being prudish). She then goes on to talk about historical censorship over the past near century and notes how such censorship has harmed important causes, and how there have been historical instances of coordinated censorship in the past by organized groups.

Fair enough... but nothing of what she said actually gives any proof that the person(s) who complained about the this book in Tennessee is an anti-Semite. The only way it could be an argument is to make an inference leap, sans evidence, and just assume that because it happened sometimes over the past century it MUST have been the case here too.

 

So yeah, moral panics about banning silly things isn't exactly a new thing. It also doesn't provide any actual proof of anti-Semetism.

But here is where the real kicker came in. I got some actual info on the complaint about the book, namely that we DON'T KNOW WHO EVEN RAISED THE OBJECTION at this point (still the case as of this writing, 2/1/2022).

So even his strongest source admits we have no idea who these people are and what their 'real' motivations are. Which is exactly what I was saying. QED, right?

Here the responses get a little out of sync based on my slow typing. I'm going to paste the images in the order that they were being responded to instead of their timestamp. It's not too much. Also, again apologies for forgetting to expand the post content prior to screencap.

I didn't even know you could be an official 'scholar' of a graphic novel. I didn't know that was a thing. The whole CRT thing was an instant red flag, as was the final line insisting that 'since racism is growing, this is obviously caused by racism.' None of that proves anything about the nature or the motives of the person who complained about this particular book. That's all of his proof: I believe there is a growing racism problem, THEREOFRE the person(s) who complained about this book are obviously anti-Semites. WTF?

You can tell he's starting to get flustered. Now keep in mind my position here. I am making no positive assertion about the people who made the complaint. All I'm saying is that we don't KNOW what they 'really' intended, we just have what they SAID they intended, and their assertion matches with the 'evidence' that his source claims: being offended by nudity. In fact, we really can't know what they 'really' intended, because we don't even have a clue who they are. He's getting flustered that I don't agree that this unknown phantom of a person(s) must be raging anti-Semites because they got offended by a book he likes. The next post and response were posted almost simultaneously, hence they seem a bit out of sync.

I was kind of mistaken to be using the term "Occam's Razor" up to this point, BTW. The more correct idea is "Don't assume a conspiracy when stupidity, laziness or incompetence will suffice as an explanation." There's a term for that, but it escapes me now. Anyway, again, my point is that we don't know this person(s) and so we really have no factual way of inferring their 'real' motivations, and it's just as likely, if not more so, that you're dealing with a prude and not an anti-Semite. So I had to know, does he really think there is no way, no possibility no matter how remote, that the person might not be a Nazi. His response:

I don't agree with Pen Gillette on much, but he had something he said several times, that if someone tells you that they will not consider any questioning of a belief they hold, then that person is fundamentally irrational. I don't have the exact quote so I'm paraphrasing here. Roger here can not even entertain a possibility that his assumption of the nature and motives of a person he knows nothing about could be wrong. Roger is fundamentally irrational.

So the red outline means I wasn't able to post as he unfriended me. Keep in mind, my premise and 'impossible standard' is that we have no evidence that this unknown person is a Nazi, so we should keep an open mind about it. But to a zealot, doubt and open-mindedness is intolerable.

So what does this have to do with 'national divorce'? I think this simply showcases how even minor rifts in opinion are now unbridgeable. One must either be a 100% total, unquestioning believer, or you are being unreasonable. This phenomenon is growing throughout our country, even to the point where disagreement over what is, at the end of the day, a comic book, ends friendships. Balkanization, in my opinion, is inevitable. But hey! I'm willing to entertain the idea that I'm wrong about that.

So what is the answer? I dunno. I think all one can do when faced with such zealotry is the standard:

1. Smile and deescalate and extricate yourself if you can

2. Quarter away

3. Maintain distance

4. Watch their hands

*UPDATE*
My wife mentioned something that I hadn't thought of regarding this, BTW. Tennessee is mostly made up of Evangelical Protestants according to national statistics. Also Evangelical Protestants, in general, are VERY supportive of Israel. Now, that may mean something or not, I don't know. But in my opinion it simply adds more doubt that this unknown person is some kind of Nazi.

Olshaker and The Myth of The Super-Cop

This entry is a bit specific, as it's a response to an article posted to a friend's Facebook page that was originally written by a man named Mark Olshaker, an ex-FBI profiler and fiction author. The article is billed as a kind of debunking of the idea that civilians are able to deal with confronting and neutralizing mass shooters.

First, a couple of observations.

Mr. Olshaker is probably quite good at profiling, probably a very competent author and compelling storyteller (he was in a Netflix series it seems, which is no small feat). Looking at his own provided background, he seems to have nothing in the way of actual first hand knowledge of weapons, tactics or use of force. I'm not attacking him over this, simply pointing out that he has no real experience in the topic he's discussing here. If you'd like to read the thoughts of someone who has done a lot with law enforcement, is a compelling writer and public personality, and also DOES HAVE first hand experience with these topics, I'd recommend Larry Correia's blog:

https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/06/23/an-opinion-on-gun-control-repost/

Olshaker relies entirely on summarizing a single source: a Mother Jones article from 2012. In fact his own article is written is such a way that I'm not sure if he's even added much of anything of his own thought to this article.

He also doesn't seem to have much understanding of the topic in general, as he appears to buy into several false assumptions about law enforcement, spree killers and armed citizens in particular.

Anyway, let's go over a few points.

At the very beginning Olshaker, summarizing Mother Jones, notes that there's a "catch" to the idea that armed citizens being able to mass murderers. Most often, mass shooters are stopped by people who turn out to not be 'armed citizens' but rather current, ex or off duty law enforcement. Apparently cops aren't citizens in Olshaker's eyes.

Now I want to pause here a moment and think about the problem here. See if you can see it. Let's keep going.

The problem is that for a mass murderer to be a 'mass murderer', there have to be a bunch of dead people or at least a lot of people shot in this case that will end up dead (the FBI definition of a 'mass shooting incident' being 4 or more dead excluding the attacker. This generally means that if an armed person is right there when the attack happens and intervenes, there usually ISN'T a 'mass shooting' recorded, because the attacker didn't have time to kill a bunch of people.

Do you see the problem now? A lot of what Mother Jones is doing here is taking any incidents where the killer was stopped BEFORE he committed mass murder, excluding them by definition, leaving almost no other incidents other than when a killer was entirely unopposed, and saying 'See? Armed citizens don't stop anything!' As an example, the recent incident in the West Freeway church would NOT have been counted because the attacker got his face blown off by a civilian before he could kill a bunch of people, even though the killer was carrying a lot of ammo and was intent on maximizing his kill count. It's a neat trick once you notice.

Olshaker also seems to fall into the trap that many people who have little exposure to firearms stumble into: the idea that only cops have the ability to handle firearms with any degree of competence and skill in a fight. That somehow the reality that your average cop may fire two or maybe three magazines worth of rounds at a stationary paper target once or twice a year at close range to 'qualify' somehow transforms them from what must be some complete bumble-f*ck rube into Sgt. Riggs from Lethal Weapon.

The average CCW holder I guess, according to Olshaker

It's a conceit held by people who don't actually shoot. I might write more on this later, but for now I just want you to remember this: being a cop doesn't mean you can shoot for shit. There are a good many who can. There are also just as many who should't be allowed around anything more lethal than the hand held stop sign they give crossing guards. This is because departments don't really spend money on training them to shoot much. It's viewed as extremely expensive and after all, that's what they have a dedicated SWAT team for, right?

Olshaker the gives several examples of how mass killers are only stopped by police. Let's look at a couple that he provides.

He mentions the "2002 shooting at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, in which armed law students took out the shooter" and then points how those two students were current and ex law enforcement. See? Those silly non-supercops just can't handle these sorts of things! But, his surface reading of the incident betrays either bias or laziness on his part. We need to consider a few things about this incident.

First of all, it's in 2002. This was only a couple of years after Virginia actually began allowed concealed carry permits to be issued to anyone who met criteria. Prior to that, Virginia was what was called a 'May Issue' state. That is, the local sheriff 'may' choose to issue you a concealed carry permit if you could show cause that you were under a demonstrable, serious threat, or he 'may' instead choose to give you a middle finger. Almost always it was the latter as it was entirely up to his discretion. Was there an exception? Well of course there was, and that exception was for... wait for it... current or ex-law enforcement. In fact, in most departments, active law enforcement is REQUIRED to carry a firearm even off duty. So the chance that anyone other than a cop or ex could could have even HAD a legally carried firearm on their person is drastically and artificiality limited.

He goes on to mention a 2005 shopping attack in Tacoma where he says that the killer was confronted by a "brave civilian with CCP" (apparently Olshaker doesn't understand that cops are 'civilians' as well, since they are not military, but whatever,) and the killer shot and paralyzed him. I actually partially agree with our author on this one. While technically true that the armed guy confronted the killer with a 'CCP' (concealed carried pistol), it's not really accurate. The defender drew his CZ pistol, had a clear shot to take down the person who was ACTIVELY KILLING OTHER PEOPLE but then, according to his own testimony, didn't want to shoot a 'kid' (Dominick Maldonado, the shooter, was a then 20 y/o man with fucking facial hair. KID?), so he holstered his own gun, approached the killer, who was in the act of shooting a rifle at other people, and told him to put it down. What possessed him to pull such a dumbshit move I don't know. Perhaps he thought if he could just give him a hug, everything would be ok. And yes, it was a dumbshit move, don't even try to debate me on that. Lesson here: if you do not have the fortitude to actually USE a weapon you intend to carry, leave it at home and don't bother.

The last one I want to go over (as this is getting way too long already), is the Tyler courthouse shooting. Here, our author takes a very complex case and sums it up with only these words "a civilian who was an accomplished firearms instructor tried to stop a man on a rampage at the county courthouse in Tyler, Texas. The offender shot the civilian dead with his AK-47." See? The implication is that the accomplished instructor was just a typical bumblefuck, dumbass civvy, in over his head, and didn't have the super-commando black belt gun samurai training that all cops magically know. He should have know better and left it to cops who are just magically awesome at this stuff!

It's really this entry that convinces me that Olshaker is not making honest mistakes here, but rather lying by omission to promote an agenda. Honestly, there isn't any other good explanation available for his treatment in this case, as anyone who even reads the Wikipedia entry would know. Briefly summarized, the killer showed up outside a courthouse wearing an overcoat (that's an important fact, btw), took a rifle and killed his ex-wife and shot his son. The cops burst out and proceed to unload at him with their service pistols before being forced to retreat. Now here's an important point: there is some conflict on how many rounds the cops fired at this point. Some reports say about 8 rounds each, and some say they emptied an entire mag each before having to fall back to reload. Either way, they shot a LOT. And they hit nothing but air. Let me repeat that: Our super samurai delta force awesome cop commandos... hit NOTHING. That is in the official report.

Now the CCW holder mentioned above rushed out with his 1911, took aim at a range of over 50 feet, and fired once, striking the killer squarely as he was standing over his son about to finish him off and causing him to stagger. Our hero advanced and continued to engage, striking the killer several more times full in the chest until the killer struck him with a 7.62 round, killing him. The attacker then fled and was chased down later by police. The boy who was wounded survived, btw. Mark Wilson, the CCP holder, had saved his life. The killer's bulky, long coat had concealed the fact that the killer was wearing body armor, which is why the .45 rounds hadn't killed him. Had the cops tagged him with their service pistols they wouldn't have had much effect either, but they, the only ones with the REAL skills, as we are informed by Olshaker, didn't even manage to hit him once.

Summarizing a lot of the other incidents: Most of these mass shootings take place, specifically, where legal concealed carry is OUTLAWED specifically. Why do you suppose that is? Kinda makes you think, eh?

Now I want to make a few general comments about cops and CCW in general:

There are four main reasons why you don't see people like me, who are not connected to law enforcement (who HAVE to carry) who carry concealed take down all mass shooters.

First, we're actually kind of rare. There are comparatively not that many people who have permits. So yes, there DO need to be WAY more of us.

Second, among people who DO have CCW permits, quite often they don't carry their weapon much, for various reasons. So not only do there need to be more of us, those additional people need to actually carry their weapon.

Third, mass shootings are so rare that they qualify as mere statistical anomalies.

That last point will probably trigger outrage by some people. "My GOD! How can you say the public slaughter of people is a mere 'statistical anomaly' you monster!?" Well, because it's true. According to both the FBI and the CDC, there have been around 900 people murdered by mass shooters, total, in the last 40 years. That sounds enormous, right? Not really. We're a nation of ~380,000,000 people and that's over 40 years. It works out to about 22 people per year. To get a sense of scale, over 61,000 people died of the common flu in 2018 ALONE. Do you spend your days in pants-shitting terror that you're going to die from the flu (which I guarantee you've been sick with quite a few times already, amiright?)

Fourth, it's not my job or my responsibility to possibly throw my life away to save your ass. Now that may sound selfish, but the simple truth is my obligation is first to my family. If I'm at a public place with my family and some 'sperg whose mommy didn't tell him she loved him enough times decides to try to show the world how angry he is while you're there, I'm not going to turn to my wife and children and say "Good luck to you all, hope ya make it, daddy's going to go try to be a hero!" No, I'm going to get them out or, worst case, bunker down and protect THEM. They are my responsibility. Now if you feel outraged that I won't go out of my way to try to save you there, ask yourself why I should risk getting shot up when you don't even consider putting effort into protecting your own life? Because if you've made the conscious decision not to be able to defend yourself, that is exactly what you've done. You may have a what you feel is a good reason for that, but it doesn't change the effect of your decision. That's on you, bro. Now some other CCW holders think differently on this than I do, but this is how I think.

Now if I MUST close to engage such a killer, then I will. If I determine there is a chance I can maneuver and easily shoot him in the back, then I might do that as well. But it isn't my job to play Junior Danger Ranger. CCW holders carry and practice to defend themselves if necessary. They didn't sign up to go out like Neo in the Matrix lobby scene.

Now when it comes to cops, I think I've made the point that just because they pinned on a badge as a reward for not being able to complete the Firefighter qualification (oh calm down all you cops, it's just a joke!) doesn't mean they are actually 'trained', 'competent' or even have the correct 'mindset' as Olshaker likes to say to be able shoot effectively. Two recent events showcase this quite well.

In Dec 2019 a bunch of cops from Miami-Dade, and by a bunch I mean 18 cops total, just unloaded their weapons, blasting away at a UPS truck, killing two suspects, the driver whom they had kidnapped and an innocent bystander who just had the shit luck to be in Florida that day. I guess they didn't get the super secret, gun-fu samurai skills and mindset that Olshaker seems to think they all have. The other is the Parkland officer who, when the mass shooting was underway, turned coward and hid outside while a bunch of children were killed. He must have skipped samurai class too, I guess. Compare that with the West Freeway Church shooting mentioned above where a civilian (yes, a civilian, he was NOT in the FBI as was first reported) took the killer down before he could cause real damage.

BTW, Olshaker's article was published in 2012. Since then there have been quite a few shootings where civilians have taken them down. Olshaker hasn't bothered making an update to reflect this. I wonder why...

A final note on the killers themselves. Look, these spree killers are not Delta Force, Navy Seals, Green Berets or anything. Randy Stair, the guy who fired 50 rounds from a 12ga at people locked into a grocery store with him and only managed to kill 2 people. These people are losers who are playing out a fantasy. The simple, verifiable fact is that in these situations the killer will continue until he's done all he wants and then usually offs himself, OR, until he is met with force. These killers don't go to get into a firefight and do battle. They attack shopping malls that have anti-concealed carry signs out front so they can just murder people. If they wanted a fight they'd attack a police station.

You don't need to be a John McClain from Die Hard to defend yourself from a 'sperg whose idea of fighting came from playing Call of Duty. Have a little perspective.

Stupid Songs Idiots Like - Entry 2

Today, we have a critique of an attempted parody song that's been making the rounds. I say 'attempt', because it ends up saying more about the song writer than the topic it's meant to be addressing.

The Song
A Scary Time For Boys - Lynzy Lab

What People Think It's About
Well, I guess it's supposed to be about how difficult it is to be an attractive blond woman in the United States.

What It's Really About
The singer's laundry list of personal insecurities and ongoing battle with paranoia.

Let's just go down the lyrics.

"I can't walk to my car late at night on the phone..."
- You should never be doing this. Ever. This is stupid. I don't care if you're a woman or a man. You're in a transitional space and being WILLFULLY distracted. That's where many attacks happen to ANY victim. You could also get splattered by a car you didn't see and walked out in front of, or faceplant on the curb because you didn't pay attention to your surroundings.

"I can't open up my windows when I'm home all alone..."
- Where the hell do you live, Afghanistan? If you live in an area where people who open their windows are assured of being attacked, then fucking MOVE. Otherwise, you're being paranoid and perhaps need medication.

"I can't go to the bar without a chaperone..."
- What bars are you going to? Again, is this Bangladesh or India?  Is the bar known for being the hang out of of a biker gang? Are you perhaps too dumb to go out in public by yourself in general? I mean, that would explain a lot. We've already established that you wander around intentionally oblivious to your surroundings, so maybe you're just dumb?

"I can't wear a mini skirt if it's the only one I own"
- I'm not sure what this means. Are you saying you have to own more than one mini skirt to wear one, or all you own is a mini skirt? Or are you saying that you're getting eyes and attention by wearing clothing that's, well, kinda designed specifically to do that? I mean I can't actually believe you don't know that. I don't see fit, ripped guys wearing tight t-shirts complaining 'Ugh, women are slyly looking me up and down and making me uncomfortable, ugh, they're so insensitive.'

"I can't use public transportation after 7pm..."
- Do your buses and trains shut down at 7 or something? I think this may be due to how she wants to wander around with her mind totally detached from what's going on around her as opposed to anything else. I mean I once was having an in depth conversation with a guy on the bus and missed my stop, so you actually DO need to pay attention at times, which I'm guessing she doesn't like doing. But if you're genuinely avoiding the bus after a certain time because people on there get attacked all the time after that time, then you need to probably move. Or, maybe you need that medication we talked about earlier?

"I can't be brutally honest when you slide into my DMs..."
- I had to look this up, because I haven't been 'cool' in a long time. It's something about direct messaging someone in social media with the hope of getting a booty call, I guess? Why wouldn't you be honest? I'm actually seeing a trend here. A lot of these are not "I can't" really, it's more of a "I don't have the fortitude to do this." This is a laundry list that is saying way more about YOU than anything else.

"I can't go to the clubs just to dance with my friends..."
- Yeah you can. If you lack the conviction or fortitude to tell unwanted attention that you're not interested, then go to a dyke bar. You won't have any men hit on you there. Problem solved. Right now you're getting yourself all dolled up and going to a place that, culturally, is designed specifically to facilitate meeting members of the opposite sex (why do you think 'Ladies drink free!' and "Ladies Night!" exist?) and complaining that members of the opposite sex try to awkwardly try to get to know you. That's like me going to a cigar shop and complaining that there's smoke in the air.

"I can't ever leave my drink unattended..."
- Again, that's just stupid. Why would you order an EXPENSIVE drink at a bar, where individual drinks cost as much a six pack in the store, and just LEAVE it there? I did that once. I came back, and it was gone. The waitress apparently thought I had left and disposed of it. Again, we see the theme that she shouldn't have to pay attention to anything.

"... and any woman you've assaulted could turn up anytime..."
- See, this is why I always wrap my victims in chicken wire, weight with stones and toss them in the river. Nobody's showing back up from that. But seriously, the fear is that having done nothing, you still get smeared. That's really the genuine fear. If you DO do something like that, then yeah, you should be afraid that your victim would come after you. Or their brothers or father. The easy way around this for guys is a two step approach. First, DON'T HANG OUT ALONE WITH MENTALLY UNBALANCED AND/OR PARANOID WOMEN. EVER. AT ALL. Also, in professional settings, always follow the Mike Pence rule. Third, don't go home, or even date, women you pick up in a dance club or bar. There are exceptions, but for the most part, they are NOT wife/partner material.

An example of what a mentally unbalanced, crazy woman might look like.

"...can't speak to a woman or look her in the eyes..."
- No man should behave this way. She won't respect you and, if you don't look at her in the eyes, you can't tell if she has CRAZY EYES. I can't tell how important that last point is. (Again, reference photo directly above).

"...it's so confusing, is it rape or just being nice..."
- Well, before you modern women went insane, that wasn't a problem. Because in fairness, when you have people complaining that getting a compliment about how you 'look beautiful' is the equivalent of sexual assault, I can't blame them if some people wonder if genuinely just being nice can get them into trouble.

"...I can't live in an apartment if it's on the first floor..."
- OK, here we're getting close to confirmation that you have a genuine paranoid mental issue. If you live in a location where it's literally too dangerous to live on the ground floor, then you live in a location where it's too dangerous to live on ANY of the floors. Perhaps if you live in the wonderfully Democrat controlled inner city of Baltimore this would be understandable, but by the look of you and the surroundings in your video, that doesn't seem likely. Have you perhaps considered Risperidone or Clozapine?

"...I can't be wearing silk pajamas when I answer the door..."
- See, here is another conflicting statement. It's just too brutally dangerous to live in a first floor apartment in your area, but in the SAME area, you will just open your door for a random stranger? How retarded is that? That's pretty retarded. If you have a stranger knocking on your door on an upper floor in an apartment building, that's a weird situation, as the main entrance to the stairs is usually controlled access. I wouldn't do that either, and I don't own anything that's silk.

Oh, I have heard some good things about Olanzapine! Tried that?

"...I can't have another drink even if I want more..."
- OMG I totally can't drink myself senseless around strangers! To make that statement is to show yourself to be an idiot. I wouldn't do that either, and I probably outweigh your bony ass by 100 pounds and I know how to take care of myself. But notice one thing: she already mentions, by inference, that she doesn't go to bars or clubs alone and goes with friends or a 'chaperone'. What you're saying here is that you can't even trust you friends or your designated chaperone. That just tells me you have shitty friends. Or, again, you're suffering from paranoia.

"...I can't make you feel invalid..."
- I... I don't know what that means.

"... I can't jog around the city with headphones on my ears..."
- Again with the total lack of responsibility. I'm sensing the trend.

"... I can't speak out against my rapist after 35 years... "
- Oh you can speak out, but don't expect to get far if you remember nothing about the event that can be verified, people you claim were with you either don't recall or contradict you, etc. You should do it right away. Or better yet, shoot or stab the person attempting it. (sexual assault is considered a lethal attack for purposes of self defense law). You're a 'strong, independent woman', right? Act like it.

"...I can't be taken seriously if I'm holding back tears..."
- Opposite, actually. Every woman out there knows that her super power is to cry, or 'try to hold back tears'. I'm not even going to bother defending that position because every one of you knows it to be true. Now, as a man, I won't be taken seriously if I start weeping when arguing with someone. Which is exactly how it should be.

"...And I can't even speak earnestly about all these fears..."
- If your fears are irrational, which I think we're all starting to see is the case, then yeah, you shouldn't. Meds above should help with that.

"...Can't text a girl repeatedly asking for nudes..."
- Here I can't help but comment: I very much doubt, based entirely on your video appearance here, that you actually have this problem. Ok, with that out of the way, the first time you have someone do that, you should act the same way if you get a MLM business spam text, block them at once and be done. It's not that difficult. or have your 'chaperone' do if for you if you just don't have the fortitude to do it.

"...boys have always had a choice..."
- This is indeed true. And it's time men exercise that choice and DON'T associate with people like this. They are angry at the world and not worth chasing. Spend your younger years NOT dating or trying to get laid. Go do you own thing, establish yourself, work to be successful, DON'T RUSH IT, and you'll find worthwhile women come out of the woodwork.

Worked for me. It can work for you.

I'm A Disgusting Racist!

Did I ever tell you all about the time I was accused of racism before the city government?

Me, apparently?

Well, sit back and let old Mike Johnson tell you the story...

It all happened some years back. In those days I was trying to get into real estate heavily. I made a few deals, some profitable, some not so. One of the better deals I landed was a house in a VERY desirable area at just the right price point. It was an area with one of the best school districts, very desirable area favorable for commuting to downtown. PERFECT! As soon as I had it prepped to lease option, I started getting a LOT of interest.

I mean a LOT of interest.

Of many people who came though to see the house was an African American woman. She liked the house and wanted to submit an application. I received her application a day later... but there were some problems.

In my application docs I stated clearly that applicants must have full down payment and no evictions within the last several years to be approved. Well, this lady wrote that she didn't have the down payment, but wanted to work it out in payments. Also, and this was the kicker, she actually DID have an eviction on her record in just the last year. Just one of those was enough to invalidate the application, but she had both strikes.

Anyway, like I said, I had a lot of interest and I think it was two days after that that I got the winning app: the family had the full down payment and a great renting background. I signed them up and they moved it.

Fast forward two weeks and I get a large document package in the mail from my city's housing authority. They were writing to tell me that I had been officially accused of racial discrimination in housing by refusing to rent a property to the woman I mentioned above. The lady had actually called in to the office and told them, DIRECTLY, that I refused to rent the house to her because she was black.

At first I thought there had to be some mistake. I took the case number, called the office and asked what this was all about. Nope, it was no mistake. This lady officially opened a complaint of racist housing practices with the government. I was totally shocked.

I asked the lady at the office I spoke with what proof this woman had given that I had racially discriminated against her, as I didn't see anything referenced in the documents they had sent. She told me that opening a complaint required no evidentiary support for her claim, that was only needed if the case went to a full trial. She continued that I could of course deny the claim, but i would need to provide conclusive evidence that I had NOT racially discriminated in order to have the case closed.

Now, just think about that for a sec. You don't need to provide ANY evidence of any kind to accuse someone, but the ACCUSED must provide conclusive proof that he DIDN'T do the crime. That's official FUCKING POLICY. I was beyond incensed. I don't think I've ever been that angry before or since then.

Well, after that conversation I took the official's advice and contacted an attorney. I would have done so anyway, as if you try to fight a legal battle with a government and represent yourself you're just ASKING to be screwed.

So, $700 in attorney fees later (which I could barely afford) my attorney sent an official response, along with copies of my correspondence, the docs I include with the application, the application itself, my reasons for rejecting the application, EVERYTHING. My attorney laid out the data quite well. I thought that was going to be the end of it.

LOLOLOL!!! Yeah, it wasn't. You see, after getting all this the rep called the woman back and laid out everything. The woman's response, thought, was to lie. She told the rep that I already KNEW about all these issues on her application, and her not having the down payment, and that I had told her they were not a big deal and we could work around it. Yes, that's what she told the rep, and the rep forwarded to me. I of course denied that and again got very angry and wanted to know what evidence the woman had given her that I said I would overlook all those issues. The rep told me she hadn't given any, and wasn't required to do so, as this wasn't a trial. But because of her response, the case couldn't be closed.

The accuser, who accused me with NO evidence to back it up, was able to bat aside the mountain of evidence I provided (that I shouldn't have had to provide in the first place) that showed my innocence, merely by making up a completely baseless lie.

Seriously, stop reading now and just think about that for a second.

Done? OK, let's continue.

So, after that I called my attorney again (and spent several hundred more dollars, because nothing with attorneys is free). He recommended I reach out to the people I rented the house to and get them to assist. I REALLY didn't want to do that, because this is NOT their problem and it shouldn't involve them in any way. But, short of spending a LOT more money prepping for a trial, I didn't have much of a choice. So I reached out to the family I rented to. When I spoke to the husband, a very pleasant air force vet who worked with troubled inner city kids (that sounds like a Lifetime movie character, I know, but I swear that's what he actually did) he immediately agreed to help. In fact, he got kind of angry when I told him what was happening as well. So I gave his number to the rep and she reached out.

I called back two days later and spoke to the rep and she informed me she closed the case. Interestingly, now that there was no longer an official complaint against me, she was rather talkative. She told me that after she informed the lady that, based on her latest findings, there was no way the city could continue the complaint. The lady then claimed... Well, let me just quote the city rep from memory. No it's not verbatim, but it's close:

"Then she said, 'well, he musta turned me down because I'm a single mother then.' And I told her 'Sorry ma'am, that's not a protected class.'"

You may find that unbelievable, but I swear to you it's the truth. That's what she told me. It floored me to be honest.

She also told me that just based on the package I had originally sent her, had the situation gone to trial, the complaint would have been thrown out almost at once. In fact, lots of these complaints end up just like this, with the complaining party withdrawing their complaint as the date for trial gets close.

After all this, I asked the rep what I could do to recoup my losses in this. Her answer: nothing. Yes, you read that right, I could do NOTHING. In fact, the law directly PROHIBITS people from going after even demonstrably FALSE claims such as these (and the rep agreed, it was an obviously false claim). Now, if it had actually gone to trial, there was a slim possibility that the law would allow me to try to recoup, but as mentioned above, the accuser wasn't going to let it go to trial anyway.

But, you may be thinking, it all ended well! Truth prevailed! Why are you upset? Well, for starters, I had slightly over 1,000 reasons to be upset, counted in US dollars to my attorney, tot to mention sleepless night worrying about losing my business and savings in a case of slander and having my good name destroyed. What did the accuser lose? About 20 minutes total in time on the phone. That's it. So no, fuck you, the 'kids aren't alright'.

I suffered REAL LOSSES all because this lying, narcissistic bitch was angry that she didn't get what she wanted and wanted revenge for it. And the government assisted her, and PROTECTED HER so she could KNOWINGLY do it because, as I detailed above, there is no way she could be 'mistaken' about why she was turned down.

So, there ends the story.

Why do I bring this up now? Because our culture has this problem, and encourages it. Specifically with this bullshit of 'We believe victims!'. The correct attitude to have should be 'We believe victims, if there is an actual reason and evidence given to support their claim.' Too many people reflexivly accept the first while thinking the second is 'too harsh'. This is because they are emotional geldings, easy marks with no spine or use of reason, who abandon all logical thinking the moment they hear a wavering voice or see the glisten of a tear. They rush automatically, and stupidly, unthinkingly, to the defense, just like Kirk in that old episode 'Elaan of Troyius'.

"But it's not a TRIAL (yet), we don't NEED evidence!" Thing is, you can destroy people, ruin them, drive them out of business, without even going to trial, especially if you have media support.

It may seem harsh. It may offend the delicate sensibilities of any 'White Knights' reading this, but you must demand evidence of things, not be slaved to your emotions. Act like men, not like characters in an Oxygen channel movie.

P.S. Almost forgot. The reason asking the people I rented the house to ended the complaint? They were an African American family. Had I not been able to do that, I honestly don't know if I could have financially survived all the costs with prepping for a court battle with the city, a battle which, like all the other times I've heard of, ends up getting canceled by the accuser, but not before you shell out all the cash to prep.

On Jews and Lying

Some of you who haunt the Catholic blogsphere may remember that last year, when people weren’t completely losing their shit over Trump, a big topic was ‘lying’.

Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, in Catholic moral teaching, it is never acceptable to choose to commit an objectively evil act, even if the goal of doing it is laudable and good.

Anyway, the big example was, of course, what would you as an American do if the Gestapo came to your door and asked if you were hiding any Jews (the assumption being that you were). There was much debate going back and forth of minutiae, touching on aspects like ‘the Gestapo here has no right to the truth due to their intentions’, some people claiming that you had to tell the truth, but in some way that wasn’t a direct lie, etc.

First, let’s be clear: In that situation, most every single of you reading this would lie, end of story. This is not because you are evil, or want to choose to commit an objectively immoral act, but rather your human reaction would simply be “SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT, if they find that family hiding in the concealed crawlspace area in the back of the basement we’re all dead!” and you’d simply say “Uh, no. Nobody lives here but me.” That’s just the way people are, in general, wired when exposed to something stressful like that.

Some people in the various arguments even mentioned that, then proceeded to go back and forth with if that was a valid response, if you had sinned, etc.

I’ve never seen so many pixels used for so little reason and to such little effect (aside from this year when people are trying to convince others that the latest Star Wars movie isn’t complete trash). Everyone seemed to miss the point that we’re Americans in that situation. That simple realization would have a saved a lot of time and gigs worth of posts. So what would be the correct response?

“Good afternoon, herr citizen. I am Lieutenant Klaus von Butthole vith ze Gestapo. My associates and I are here to check if you are hiding any Juden in your house. We need zem all rounded up you see. You aren’t by any cha-“

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! . . . . BANG! . . . . BANG! BANG!
*drop empty mag and insert full one. Drop slide. Check for any still alive. *
BANG! BANG!

Problem solved.

This may seem like nothing but bravado to many, and I don’t intend it as such. It’s really the most effective, moral answer.

“But they will just keep coming.” some say. Maybe, but that depends on how many Gestapo want to die, doesn’t it?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a man who actually lived through a similar horror as opposed to just some blogger writing about nebulous ‘what ifs’ and wondering if the enemy had a ‘right to the truth’, had this to say in The Gulag Archipelago:

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

In the described situation, the Gestapo may or may not have a ‘Right to The Truth’. I don’t know. I don’t really NEED to know. What I do know is that they would have a Right to Lead, and I think people should be willing to fulfill that right if necessary. 

Bustin' a cap in Dumbo

I think it's time we had a discussion on big game hunting, specifically elephants. Some of you seem to be losing your shit over this topic in ways that are totally out of proportion to its importance.

So there's currently a flap over the possibility that Trump will allow elephant hunting torphies to be brought into the United States. This has caused roughly 100% of Starbucks patrons reading it to instantly spit their soy lattes and angrily update their Tumblr blogs with calls for impeachment. I mean, who else besides HITLER would think hunting elephants is an ok thing to do?! What's next? Killing the unborn? (Actually they're usually ok with that.)

Let's get a couple of basic facts out of the way first.

Nothing Trump does will alter whether elephant hunting is legal or not. In some African countries it is, in others it's not. Nothing Trump does will affect that in one way or other. There is simply a ban on bringing in trophies, ie tusks.

Even if the US were to somehow ban its citizens from elephant hunting it would change nothing, as it doesn't affect the rest of the world. Aussies, Europeans, shit even the Chinese go on safari now.

Preventing trophy imports doesn't dissuade rich people with stupid amounts of money from going on safari any more than finding out you couldn't bring your Louis Armstrong bobble head on the plane home would prevent you from going on vacation to New Orleans.

With those out of the way, let's dig a little deeper.

Going on Safari is a huge business. In some African countries like Mozambique it's almost the only way they can get money to fund conservation efforts. Guided elephant hunts run around $70,000, which is by no means the total cost. We are talking about Africa afterall, where you have to constantly bribe governments just to give you permits and licensing for things you already paid for.

That's also not counting the cost of weaponry. When you go to hunt a massive elephant, you're not going to cart along your AR-15 or even your .308 bolty. You're looking more at something like a .458 mag, or even real monster rifles like the 577 Tyrannosaur loaded with Barnes solids. Hunting like this is not cheap. All of this gets expensive very fast. Yet many of the same people who would decry this as waste would have no problem with someone using the cash instead to buy a high-end Jaguar or Audi which would cost about the same, and would even spend such money on them themselves if they had the opportunity. And none of that money would go toward conservation of the very animals they claim they just LUV SO MUCH.

The cost is important because it means only a few handfuls of people can afford to do it. It's not like every Bubba in the US is now flocking to Africa to blast an elephant and wipe out the populations within a year.

Hunts are also strictly regulated. This is obvious when one considers the amount of money they get from these things. They are guided and only certain individual animals get designated as allowed for harvesting by those responsible for the conservation effort (for example, if a herd has too many bulls). So you don't just get to shoot whatever you want.

You're also not guaranteed to get anything. Like any other type of hunting, you could come home empty handed.

I've also seen people declaring angrily how it's a 'coward's sport', and super easy to just go out there and shoot an elephant. What I find funny is these same people also usually claim they don't have a problem with people hunting deer in the US. These people don't seem to understand how easy it is to hunt deer. It's way easier than hunting an elephant (and less dangerous). If drunk hillbillies in northern Arkansas can blast them away from tree stands, literally just sitting in a chair and waiting for the deer to happen to walk into the field of fire, it's really not that hard. Hell I've done it. It's easy. Also, deer are way cuter than elephants, so why aren't they angry about harvesting deer too?

Just to sum up, the hunting they do actually pays to preserve the elephant herds. In fact, the only places in Africa where the elephants are growing and the herds are healthy and doing better is where the safari hunting is allowed.

Do you want the elephant herds to grow, or slowly disappear? You certainly aren't dropping $70,000 in conservation funding in Africa are you? Shit, you still get pissy when you have to drop $40 on Steam when the game you wanted isn't on sale. Should said rich guy drop the $70,000 on one of those ridiculous 'pizzas' that is covered in gold instead? No, you'd be angry about that too. What, should they just give YOU the cash? Well, yes, you'd TOTALLY approve of that. Then you'd just GIVE all that money to the conservation effort, right?

Bullshit. You'd just go buy an Audi.

Dear Conspiracy Theorists: This is why no one takes you seriously.

By now everyone except 7 Inuits and your mom know about the mass murder that took place by the gunman in Las Vegas. It’s a peculiar case as it doesn't appear to be religiously motivated, angsty teen, etc. It's a retired man who was, by all accounts, a millionaire.

The cops as of this date (10/4) are being very tight about what info they release yet, which is about how it always works with them on active investigations. This has given rise to wild speculation regarding the nature of the attack and who was involved. In principle, conspiracy theories THRIVE and actually grow in scope in direct proportion to lack of facts. This lack of facts can either exist due to the police/authorities not releasing all info yet OR (to the point of this post) self-anointed 'experts' mischaracterize the things we do know.

I'm not going to go through all of the crazy shit I've seen on this topic as it would then be too long and I don't have the patience for it. Far from being bombshells, these points do little than to showcase why people tend to laugh at conspiracy theorists. The ones I want to focus on are classic examples of people declaring something 'doesn't add up' because they simply don't know the subject matter.

(In summary) "OMG you guys, there's like totally no way this old dude could have killed them. He was, like, a bazzilion trillion yards away and he wasn't a super Call of Duty Delta A-Team SEAL man trained killer, so NO WAY he could have hit those people. Besides, the guns he had couldn't hit anything at that range. FALSE FLAG!!"

I say: I swear, the number of retards who keep saying this is legion.

If we were talking about a total newb firing off hand with a Century Arms AK clone at a moving steel plate or bullsyeys at 300 yards, one could make that point.

HOWEVER, here in the real world, you had a situation where a man with high quality arms, shooting from a comfortably braced rest from a position of height fired down at an enormous (tightly massed group of people), mostly static target, well illuminated, that was held in position by fencing. He wasn't exactly sniping here. He was simply firing into masses of people who had nowhere to go. Viewing the phone videos that have surfaced shows this well as there are long bursts of fire that seem to put rounds everywhere by the look of the strikes on the ground. Yes, ANYONE, including your mom, could do that.

As for the guns (or rather, the caliber he used) being incapable of it, I suggest you look up some youtube vids that Blackwater put up after the initial fights in Iraq, where they are firing on targets at that same distance from rests in their stronghold, and being very effective indeed.

"OMG, if he was so rich, then why did he do that?? It makes no sense!!"

I say: The implication here is that rich people are always stable and happy. Put like that it sounds pretty retarded doesn't it? You could just counter with "If Robin Williams was so rich and successful, why did he commit suicide?" Having money doesn't inoculate you from hating people or having mental issues.

"OMG, why were nearly all of the exits blocked and fences around the venue?? 'They' obviously wanted to make sure everyone died!!"

I say: The only honest people who can say this are people who have never seen nor been to an outdoor event and don't know what money is. The rest are just retards. Why, at an event you have to pay a high ticket price to get access to, would they put fences around the venue? How about….. to make sure the only people coming there PAID for a ticket? How hard is that to understand?

"OMG, how did he get all those guns into the hotel room without anyone seeing them?? He, like, had no training!!!"

I say: The same way you bring your 27" suction cup dildo and full collection of Star Trek commemorative jumbo butt plugs on vacation with you - in multiple suitcases. He was there for over week and it's not like he was trying to sneak a giraffe up to his room. Although this is Las Vegas so I doubt anyone would have noticed anyway.

Anyway, more to it, but that's all I have patience for.