A conservative is just a liberal who another conservative beat up until he disavowed all of his previous views.
The "war criminal" thing is weird. I know all sorts of weird accusations were thrown at Kerry, but I hadn't heard that one. Perhaps the guy was thinking of Bob Kerrey, the senator who might have actually committed war crimes in Viet Nam?
No, that was part of the Swift Boat stuff. One of the incidents where Kerry was decorated included someone shooting at his boat from shore, and Kerry at least shot at, maybe shot? I've forgotten all the details, him. The SBV version is that the guy was an unarmed teenager.
I really don't know what to make of "war criminal" except that maybe the guy was thinking that Kerry lied about his injuries during the war, which makes him a war criminal.
Didn't Kerry jump ashore and kill the dude with his bare hands? I'm about 90% sure that was it; then the swift boat people made is seem like he was showboating/killing an innocent.
But do you really think that the angry walrus was upset about that?
I'm thinking maybe the angry walrus was upset about a lot of things, and his confused thoughts about John Kerry were just the outward manifestation of an extremely confused and angry life.
8 seems highly applicable to most red-faced screamers who drive badly.
Not with his bare hands, no.
Damn. Sounded too good to be true even when I typed it, but the citation doesn't specify the way he killed the guy.
Good drivers are all the same. Angry red-faced screamers who drive badly are each angry in their own way.
10: if I remember, it was with a pistol.
Am I the only one who's eyes jumped to the war criminal part in all caps and was confused for a moment, thinking he had a Bush bumper sticker?
I was there and it was nothing like what Burke said. For one thing, it wasn't a man in a truck, it was a 4-year-old girl on a tricycle. Also, I have evidence that he induced his own adrenaline surge.
Did Burke get the license #? This seems reportable.
I wonder what the guy would have done back in 2004 had Bush lost.
re: 18
Yeah, and then he can send round a couple of pipe-wielding liberals round to get Enlightenment on his ass.
I know, I know. We were just talking on Saturday (after mcmc's opening! awesome!) about how absurd it is that people correct their spelling mistakes here. But ones that aren't obviously just typos are sooo embarrassing. What if someone thought I actually thought it should be 'who's'??!
It's just that about ten seconds before I read your comment, Blume, I was reading a cover letter that was motoring along, about to be put in the "consider" pile, when it substituted "companies" for "company's." What I'm trying to say is that we're not going to offer you the job, but we wish you the best in all your future endeavors.
It would mean we reject every intelligent thing you've ever said and now assume you are teh stupid.
At least, this is what I imagine happens every time I do something like type "wonton" instead of "wanton."
my condolences, tim. this sounds like a nightmare.
it might be instructive to hunt down the transcripts of limbaugh/hannity etc. for that period of the afternoon.
this guy was out of touch with reality, but clearly in close touch with wing-nut radio.
there may have been one particular rant that precipitated it, that you could more or less locate via time and transcript.
don't know if it would bring any consolation, but perhaps interesting.
"cause you voted for that criminal!"
"yeah, me and 49 million other americans, you asshole! you wanta take us all on?"
Wait, I've got to run to Yglesias and grab something wise from his quote from the Weber Vocation before Emerson recites from memory.
I don't have a handlebar moustache, and I was in Texas that day. I got witnesses.
Here it is
"However a man who believes in an ethic of responsibility takes account of precisely the average deficiencies of people; as Fichte has correctly said, he does not even have the right to presuppose their goodness and perfection."
...crazy Max the loser, loser, loser
Burke's is a Platonist and vacuous liberalism, I fully expect strangers to run me down and beat me up every time I leave the house.
There were times right after the 2004 election where I felt urges to chase down and beat up people based on bumper stickers. But I didn't.
24: that's a more fun one. I like the idea of Milton writing about "wonton ringlets".
Of all the academics to endure this depredation, Burke is the least deserving. Tim Burke's Reason™ and Moderation™ are at least as identifiable as Gordon Brown's Prudence™.
Also, that his comments are twenty pages long.
As to the attacker, there's just nothing to so. Years after the election that his party won....years after they've messed up everything they've touched... and you're still blaming the other guy? what, so we'd be losing in Iraq with more vim and vigor?
I have a strong desire to treat every vehicle that still has a Bush sticker on it as my own personal mountain laurel bush, but I restrain myself.
At the time, this post by Ogged seemed excessive, but it has pretty much proven to be true.
I actually think the guy was so apopleptic that he sort of splurted out the "war criminal" thing when he meant to say something else kind of about Kerry and war and me being a liberal faggot. I dunno, a kind of Freudian-political slip of displacement.
About two minutes after he drove off, I thought to myself, "You should have looked at his license plate."
every vehicle that still has a Bush sticker on it
Truly, there's something perverse about keeping your W '04 sticker on.
I mean, even more perverse than having it in the first place. Which reminds me, you doctors who go out in public with your scrubs on? are not cool. You wear scrubs to protect you from nasty substances. Don't be wearing your institutionally issued rags covered with nasty substances out in public.
There was a study that showed all kinds of things hiding on doctors' pens.
If we started referring to the president as Tungsten, would it be taken as an insult?
Doctors buy or steal special dress scrubs which accent their cute medical butts.
And especially don't wear them in the grocery store. Hey, look, you've got a peculiar burnt umber streak on your scrub leg, right near the fresh broccoli! Is it blood? Stool? Merthiolate? Who knows?
Stupid doctors, with their scrubs and W '04 stickers and science.
Are we sure the guy wasn't a Kucinich supporter? Naderite, maybe?
I read Burke's narrative as a parable about the futility of procedural liberalism.
I keep wanting to smack a new bumper sticker on top of the Bush/Cheney '04 ones I occasionally see about town.
I'm thinking Gravel '08. If I can find any.
Just superglue on some actual Gravel? It'd be like a visual pun!
Slol tailgates doctors and threatens them with contaminated broccoli. "Look what you've done!" he yells. Enlightenment rationalism has disenchanted the broccoli forest.
Superglue isn't free, LB. Campaign bumper stickers should be.
Well, I did suggest that we hold a committee meeting, and also asked if he had any evidentiary material on his claims for me to evaluate thoughtfully.
I keep wanting to smack a new bumper sticker on top of the Bush/Cheney '04 ones I occasionally see about town.
'Diesel smoke makes me horny.'
Enlightenment rationalism has disenchanted the broccoli forest.
This is perilously similar to a sentence I just read in a report on someone's promotion to tenure.
asked if he had any evidentiary material
But cautioned that he would have to present it under "new business," according to Robert's Rules.
43:finally, somebody to help me putsch this blog
I keep wanting to smack a new bumper sticker on top of the Bush/Cheney '04 ones I occasionally see about town.
You're much nicer than I am. Bush/Cheney sticker + open sunroof = almost irresistable temptation.
The "war criminal" thing is weird.
The Kerry=War Criminal slur was fairly standard-issue in 2004, as I recall. If you google "Kerry" and "war criminal" you get a lot of free republic/ ann coulter.com crap hammering the point home. The argument goes:
1) Kerry says all soldiers are war criminals
2) Kerry is a soldier
3) Therefore, Kerry is either lying, or a war criminal
4) hahaha! your move, liberals
I always thought it was one of those aha, you see, Martin Luther King was the REAL racist! things that wingnuts do specifically because they know it's ridiculous and it annoys, but I don't pretend to understand how their minds work.
52: As soon as I read the link, I thought: I must get my wise-ass remark in immediately or mcmanus will beat me to it.
Tim, if you really wanted people to stop doing this sort of thing you'd hire a private detective and find that guy and talk to his wife.
Or mom, whichever.
52:Hell, I can't get the Burke post to completely open in 5 tries, and I am sure the really good stuff is in the bottom half.
But this really isn't about Burke today. I am pissed off at Weber for dissing syndicalists. Like they were important in Germany anyway, unless the ignorant melancholic wretch was confusing Rosa & Karl with the Italians, Spanish & French movements.
Burke finally opened, and all i missed were the comments. But but the perfessor who is "Bill Benzon" at the Valve is "William Benzon" when he comments at Tim's place.
That says it all.
smack a new bumper sticker on top of the Bush/Cheney '04 ones
Yeah, I'm having trouble with the blog loading properly. Working on it, but I probably can't fix it until tomorrow.
This is funny. Right-wing bloggers were asked whom, on the Right, they most despised, and this is the first comment on the article:
I don't know why any human should hate another human being. If you can't destroy or create a human in an instant, and at all stages of your existence, you have no right to hate.
The most you could technically do is to dislike a human being, and that is allowed by providence. Only providence can hate. Hate is a function of life and death, and since none of us has control over life and death, we thus ascribe the function of hate to providence who has key to life and key to death.
So, I love and dislike Republicons and Dimwitcrats in equal measure as I love myself. So, i will gladly and joyfully take apart the useless ideas and policies of Dimwitcrats and Republicons in equal measure.
As a reminder, the love humans have for the other is a lower level of love, fairly different from the love that Providence bestows on us. No human could love in the same measure and intensity as providence. Else, we would equally have the power to destroy our existence and create it a thousand times over, which can be hair-raising for humanity.
Take that, hatred!
63: Apparently Lindsay Roberts has a new hobby.
64: Somehow the numbers are off.
63: There's more to postmodernism than self-referentiality, you know.
66: minneapolitan
I was wonton to go back and correct that.
That's the trouble with these Republicans. They'll careen crazily down the road, start a fight, but they don't have the stomach to finish it.
Can I mention how annoying it was when Slate did a feature during the 2004 campaign about the relative intolerance of Kerry and Bush supporters?
The author donned a Bush t-shirt and visited a cafe in Silverlake, then a Kerry t-shirt for a trip to Orange County.
On this basis he concluded that Bush supporters were more tolerant than Kerry supporters. Fucker should have tried that in Alabama. That shit would have ended like the final scene of Easy Rider
54 Kerry War Criminal rap.
To my knowledge this first came up via the Boston Globe in his '96 Senate campaign. It was a low drumbeat in early 2004 when the wingers were throwing anything they could against the wall to see what would stick. (About the time that the Swiftboaters made an abortive attempt for traction in April or May 2004 - before they got together in June and got their stories straight.) Then Alexander Cockburn wrote a story pushing it in July '04 in Counterpunch.
Elmo Zumwalt,told me --30 years ago when he was still CNO [chief naval officer in Vietnam] that during his own command of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam,just prior to his anointment as CNO, young Kerry had created great problems for him and the other top brass,by killing so many non-combatant civilians and going after other non-military targets. "We had virtually to straitjacket him to keep him under control", the admiral said.
And now Tim's going to have Michelle Malkin driving down his street looking for skid marks and seeing whether a car can go as fast as Tim says and disputing whether you can get within 6 inches of another car's bumper. Because if any of those things are wrong ....well then we had to invade Iraq. QED
69:And why should he have been safer in Silverlake than Alabama?
Here's some Digby
"The right is going after the 12 year old who gave the Saturday Democratic address supporting the SCHIP program...
...Malkin visited the Frost's home and business today. A coworker of Mr. Frost tells Malkin that the family is "struggling," but she refuses to believe it."
I better not say any more. I hope the parents of the boy who needs physical therapy and the girl who needs special education don't lose their jobs, their home, their benefits. That would be bad.
Did Malkin have a camera with her? She could become a reverse Michael Moore, doing ambush interviews of the poor and underprivileged. You know that it would be popular, especially the episode where she sticks it to the illegal immigrant. Take THAT, compadre!
Pity you didn't have a shotgun in the trunk. "I got your 2nd amendment freedoms right here, you fucker!"
The setting matters a lot. You kind of expect crazy near-violent nutters around town at night, etc. But getting randomly set upon like that in a setting where you wouldn't normally expect it to happen is pretty upsetting. I had a co-worker shove me once in a fit of near-hysterical rage over some imagined slight. He was basically unhinged, and everyone knew it, but no one really expected him to go nuts in a quiet office corridor. I was surprised by how bothered I was by it afterward.
Ah, yes, and the fact that Burke signs his comments 'Timothy Burke' but allows people to call him 'Tim Burke' says it all.
Malkin visited the Frost's home and business today.
Ack. That woman.
This country is crazy. The guy makes $45,000 a year. That puts him right in the middle. The fact that he can't get insurance explains how broken this system already is, and fucking Malkin's using the same facts to explain how he really doesn't need it.
Why didn't I move to Canada? Oh, right! My career! BWAHAHAHAHA.
but no one really expected him to go nuts in a quiet office corridor. I was surprised by how bothered I was by it afterward.
Is it possible that this is what people were saying about the time that I physically battered a slow plotter?
Huh. I guess that might seem a bit unhinged. But there was a deadline.
What was he plotting, JRoth? If it was jihad I'm sure nobody would blame you.
Why didn't I move to Canada? Oh, right! My career! BWAHAHAHAHA.
Canada has some pretty good depts.
Or you could move to the other thread and work as a granola-bar wranger in CA. Possibly dangerous work, but I hear there's money to be made out there.
78: I'd suggest a nice granola bar, but that would piss LB off and we don't want that.
Hang in there. It could be worse. I've been resisting the temptation to link a local blog by a brand-new baby lawyer who is way too open about her marriage difficulties and assorted personal foibles and may not realize how easily identifiable she is, which blog got linked over the weekend by a guy whose blog is fairly widely read by folks with whom she probably doesn't want to share that much dirty laundry.
76:Did Cala actually take that seriously? Now that's funny.
Do I need smiley-faces and irony tags? Are ascents into solipsistic self-mocking absurdity banned in Unfogged comment threads? Was I trying to set someone up, or was it a driveby dadaism, the comment equivalent of Harpo's horn?
Not sure myself anymore.
Honk.
I believed it.
Very sly, McManus.
COMINTERN has trained you well in the art of deception.
This country is crazy. The guy makes $45,000 a year. That puts him right in the middle.
He and his wife combined make $45,000 a year.
Nope, didn't take it seriously, was just mocking your comment, bob.
I am surprised B can't find that brand of granola bar because around here one need not wrangle them, just shop at the chain grocery store in the low income neighborhood. They're pretty common. Maybe in California they fall prey like gazelles, to the stronger and meaner West Coast granolas.
85: Whatever. Household income is $45,000. For many people, that's a comfortable living. It blows my mind that car insurance on a brand new expensive car is cheaper than health insurance for most families.
Hm. How appropriate this came up. on the interstate last sunday night, some pickup had his brights on behind me. I breakchecked, and he keeps them on. So I half-pass a semi, then slow down to ~50mph that the semi is going for like 5 minutes. When i finally sped back up again and got past the semi, the two (handlebar moustached, sleeveless t) guys gave me a red faced spitting tirade.
It blows my mind that car insurance on a brand new expensive car is cheaper than health insurance for most families.
Funny, I have sort of the opposite reaction: it blows me away that we expect to spend far less on health insurance that we do on transportation. Modern medicine is both very expensive and very valuable. I'd be thrilled if universal health care actually produced enough savings to make my coverage cheaper, but I'd be perfectly satisfied to have more people covered for the same prices that we're paying now.
ITs not that surprising, when a lot of whats being spent on transportation is go-fast sports cars and easily-tipping SUVs. Noone really thinks about saftey, except for the hysterical parent types.
I've never had a problem finding Happy Valley Granola bars in California.
59 reminds me of a throwaway gag in a Howard Waldrop story ("Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance"), in which the voice of the piece mentions that he keeps a stock of bumper stickers handy for people who have threatened his life on his bike. One uses a couple of notable racist slurs; the other one says something like "Kill a Cop to Defend American Freedom".
36, 41: Weird! Tonight I noticed a doctor with scrubs in my local grocery. First time I can recall seeing such a thing. I did a confused double-take and then she gave me a dirty look.
No, we don't want no scrubs... a scrub-wearing doctor can't get no love from me...
This post makes me feel guilty and stupid; I myself react to bumper stickers, though I know it's stupid. It's bad enough knowing that our country generally endorses torture; advertising one's endorsement seems beyond the pale. So I understand the yeller's rage. He "knows" that many horrible crimes have been perpetrated against the republic; Mr. Burke is, by displaying the bumper sticker, boasting of his complicity. It's quite infuriating.
Fuck a bunch of bumper-sticker-judgements-being-stupid. They're opinions they chose to advertise. I don't chase people down and harass them because people have the inalienable right to be idiots and it's not my place to tell them otherwise but seeing a 'W' on the back of someone's car immediately makes me assume - in what I'm sure is scathing silence - that they're either stupid or an asshole. I am bereft of other explanations.
I once walked out of Best Buy to see a foursome of old cranks clucking loudly at the Cthulhu fish on the back of my car and I grinningly asked them if they had any questions or if I could otherwise assist. We are all one big pile of judgemental stupidity but that's just basic human nature. Some days it isn't worth fighting with ourselves.
Cthulu fish? That one I haven't seen.
I felt quite justified judging the person driving the Cadillac Escalade with a bumper sticker that said "Don't let the car fool you. My real treasure is in Heaven."
Basic Jesus fish but it says CTHULHU inside it and some tentacles and various protrusions are coming off the front of it with little bat wings on the back. Holy crap I need to go to bed.
It's a jesus fish w/ tentacles and CTHULU. Visit the east bay some time: it's a sociology course in bumper sticker form.
Why vote for the lesser evil? Cthulu '08!
I felt quite justified judging the person driving the Cadillac Escalade with a bumper sticker that said "Don't let the car fool you. My real treasure is in Heaven."
You should have buckled up and rear-ended it. Then you could have told the driver to offer it up.
Alas, they were in front of me and one lane over. But yeah, tempting.
"Don't let the car fool you. My real treasure is in Heaven."
s/b "Please carjack this vehicle."
Why vote for the lesser evil? Cthulu '08!
Vote Erich Zann!
While reading wikipedia sites on Lovecraft (which are damn thorough, btw) waiting for sleep to finally overtake me, I find someone has added this to the possible etymologies of Necronomicon:
Necro-tele-com-nicon : The Book of the Phone Numbers of the Dead.
It seems to have gone unnoticed.
I'm ashamed to admit that there was a period in late '04, early '05 when my brother and I played "Hit the Republican Vehicle" with shopping carts. 1 point for a hit, -1 for a hit on a "civilian", 5 points for a Republican car alarm. A civilian car alarm was a instant loss.
No eye had seen, no hand had touched that coaster since the advent of man to this planet. And yet, when I shined my keychain flashlight upon it in that frightful abyss, I saw that the queerly pigmented numerals on the brittle, aeon-browned cellulose disc were not indeed any nameless hieroglyphs of earth's youth. They were, instead, the marks of our familiar writing system, spelling out my phone number in Arabic numerals in my own handwriting.
107: that's either a Pratchett or a Robert rankin reference.
Honk.
Honkeyty Honky Honk.
I actually think the guy was so apopleptic that he sort of splurted out the "war criminal" thing when he meant to say something else kind of about Kerry and war and me being a liberal faggot.
No, actually!
According to the after-action report, after beaching the Swift boat, Kerry "chased VC inland, behind hooch, and shot him while he fled, capturing one B-40 rocket launcher, with round in chamber."
None of the villagers seems to be able to say for a fact that they saw an American chase the man who fired the B-40 into the woods and shoot him. Nobody seems to remember that. But they have no problem remembering Ba Thanh, the man who has been dismissed by Kerry's detractors as "a lone, wounded, fleeing, young Vietcong in a loincloth." (The description comes from "Unfit for Command," by Swift boat veteran John O'Neill.)
NEW RULE: Never shoot a man in a loincloth no matter how much hardware he's packing.
Anyways, freeperworld says that John Kerry went to 'Nam and committed a war crime to get a medal so he could be President and Bush stayed home and didn't get a medal so obviously Bush is honorable and decent and Kerry is treasonous scum. Also, Kerry testified to Congress to lots of people committing war crimes which isn't true, except Kerry who is obviously a Nazi Communist. Pacifist. Vegetarian. Protestor. War Criminal. Rich guy. Everything makes so much sense now! And the theory has been granted the Christopher Hitchens seal of approval!
So Walrus-dude probably fully intended to say war criminal, and probably just forgot to mention the pacifist vegetarian liberal communist Nazi rich guy part.
Leaving Bizarro world, I would note that I have been through a near-identical experience and I would say that the gentlemen in question probably drinks a great deal everyday. He was almost certainly three or four six-packs to the wind at the point he started tailgating you. That's why he was red-faced.
max
['His BAC was probably high enough to register as embalming.']
107, 111: Pratchett, Sourcery (I think), but it's nice to find somebody else out there who's aware of Robert Rankin.
107: In Pratchett, it's a book that instructs you how to talk to the dead, written by the dark wizard Achmed the Mad (who preferred, however, to be known as Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches); it's also known as the Liber Paginarum Fulvarum.
Pity you didn't have a shotgun in the trunk. "I got your 2nd amendment freedoms right here, you fucker!"
See, Gonerill gets it.
OT: I wonder why this isn't a bigger story.
Speaking of asinine bumper stickers, the other day at the Home Depot, I saw a car with
1. A "support our troops" yellow ribbon and
2. A sticker that said "I hate high gas prices!"
I was trying to figure out if this person put these two ideas together. "Yes the troops are fighting to keep gas prices down, and this is obviously a noble cause we should support them in."
It's interesting that the same people who'd start sweating from the teeth and muttering about guns if you suggested that anyone else in Vietnam shot an unarmed civilian - and there were plenty - are obsessed with convincing themselves that John Kerry did, in the face of all available evidence.
Oh yes, and I'd forgotten the Alexander Cockburn involvement. Great work, fella!
115: Yup. That drunk/crazy would have died had he pulled that stunt on me or either of my kids.
119: See, this is not a good thing.
See, this is not a good thing.
If walrus dude is going to run someone off the road and then get out of his car and announce he's going to viciously assault someone, it shouldn't come as any great surprise if that someone responds with a bullet.
Granted, he'd have to actually attack the person for it to be justifiable.
120: On the asphalt veldt it doesn't pay to pick fights with people you don't know.
re: 122
Afaik, under UK law, if someone threatens you, and you've reasonable grounds to believe they are serious, pre-empting them is legal. I believe this is also true in much of the US [given the occasional shooting of drunken tourists, etc].
Not any great surprise, sure, justifiable in the case of real fear of attack, I'll give you. But looking at an incident that ended with no one hurt, just some shouting, and announcing that the shouter would have ended up dead if they'd shouted at you, seems off. Might have happened, might not have been criminal, but would have been a distinctly worse outcome and one to be regretted,
In fantasy world, Burke would have been armed, leading to much use of the laugh track when walrus guy had to tuck tail and run away after being emasculated by the brave professor with his gun. And sword-cane.
Or a simple walking-stick and waxed handlebar moustache.
Afaik, under UK law, if someone threatens you, and you've reasonable grounds to believe they are serious, pre-empting them is legal.
In this case though, it doesn't sound like the guy actually got out of his truck. He was just shouting stuff from the cab. Now if he'd gotten out and tried to approach that's a different story.
re: 125
Yeah, the gun thing is bad.
However, if someone gets in someone else's face that way, they'd be perfectly justified in flattening the fucker [in a not-shooting sense].
125: We get to the nub: should the shouter have ended up dead? It's so tempting to answer yes, but he'd become a martyr to 30% of our fellow citizens.
Today's obnoxious bumper sticker sighting: a plate affixed to the back of someone's truck that said "USA Terrorist Hunting License." On the bottom right, "No Bagging," on the left, "No Tagging." On top, "Expires: Never." On the right, "Dead or Alive," on the left, "No Limits."
I felt justified judging that guy, too.
It's so tempting to answer yes, but he'd become a martyr to 30% of our fellow citizens.
True, but violence is a two way street, and I don't think it would be a bad thing for liberals to get that message across from time to time.
should the shouter have ended up dead?
No, but shot in the kneecap seems about right.
That's the hard part. The vast majority of people in the US who really want to kill people and have prepared themselves to do so are wingers.
126: That would make a good movie. Who would play Burke?
kicking his ass would be one option, certainly. I'd recommend pulling him out of his truck and then, after he's tumbled onto the ground, 8 or 9 swift kicks to the balls. Then you can have a breather, maybe a nice iced tea to cool off, before you finish him.
Potentially more satisfying, however, and dependent upon whether you've got the stamina, would be to calmly invite him in for a cup of coffee. This guy plainly needs someone to talk to.
Mmm. Mania tele le tama Samoa. (Jesus, I hope no one reads Samoan around here -- mine's probably deteriorated into incomprehensible pidgin.)
The men of the land of the Forbidden Chicken are an attractive bunch.
136. Everyone knows who The Rock is, so any guys who click that link are merely wanting to see scantly clad pictures of The Rock's chiseled flesh, and are therefore gay.
The Rock was already in that movie. And thirty years earlier, Joe Don Baker.
Neither of them played liberal humanities professors, though. It would take some re-tooling.
129 gets it exactly right. Anyone who's too much of a wuss to flatten a (non-lethally) aggressive asshole shouldn't own a gun.
This includes me.
kicking his ass would be one option, certainly
I would have thought that Tim would have tried to come up with a solution that appealed to the moderate, reasonable, centrist violent tailgaters and didn't involve questioning anyone's patriotism. Perhaps involving waving a little flag or mentioning how much respect he had for soldiers.
I felt justified judging that guy, too.
I would've felt justified in saying the dude was overcompensating for feelings of dicklessness.
Afaik, under UK law, if someone threatens you, and you've reasonable grounds to believe they are serious, pre-empting them is legal.
In the US, generally, you're supposed to try and escape before you pull out the cannon. A fistfight, OTOH, would've been perfectly fine. This guy was deliberately riding the line, from the sound of it, and really needs killin', but the authorities tend to frown on that.
I think Burke did fine, except for not getting the licence plate and reporting him as a DWI. Wouldn't matter whether he was drunk or not. ('He's acting drunk!')
max
['The swordcane would've been cool tho.']
Anyone who's too much of a wuss to flatten a (non-lethally) aggressive asshole shouldn't own a gun
Actually, a gun is just the ticket for people who aren't capable of much in the way of physical violence.
There's also just swallowing your machismo and walking away.
after being emasculated by the brave professor with his gun. And sword-cane.
Wait. Burke's an Africanist, right? You mean he doesn't already carry a whip with him everywhere?
There's also just swallowing your machismo and walking away.
Gah. Surely I don't have to explain to you that sometimes this can't be done?
148, I think the issue here is that you weren't clear at first that you were talking about what you would do if actually under physical attack, rather than in Burke's actual situation which was limited to shouting from a ways away.
Sure, but you know, this interaction is a textbook example of a time when it worked great -- no deaths or injuries, wingnut drunks or mild-mannered academics. If adding a gun to a situation increases the odds that it will turn violent, rather than merely changing the outcome of that violence, it's not a good thing.
Surely I don't have to explain to you that sometimes this can't be done?
How often is this the case in the U.S., really? I have never once in my entire life been threatened with lethal force, and I anticipate that this will be the case for another 40 long years or more.
How often is this the case in the U.S., really? I have never once in my entire life been threatened with lethal force, and I anticipate that this will be the case for another 40 long years or more.
There are, however, more than zero such incidents per year in most metropolitan areas.
this interaction is a textbook example of a time when it worked great
No it isn't. The other guy drove off. Burke didn't leave. And he did the right thing.
But if the guy had actually gotten out of his truck and started to approach him, that would be the time to contemplate pointing a weapon at him.
153: This is true. And usually the lethal force that people are being threatened with is . . . someone's gun. Hmm.
146 is my usual choice.
But, I retain the right to kick someone's arse, dammit.
B, this might be the weakest argument I've ever seen you make on any subject. "Well, it's never happened to me." As a middle class white woman, your anecdotal data here isn't worth much.
For the record, in recent years like 2005 total assaults in the U.S. were approx 860k. Homicides were under 15k, about 68 percent by firearm. Victimization on both counts is overwhelmingly male.
Random Opinion #489: People don't kill people, guns kill people.
157: But I'm still stuck in the context of this post. Suggesting adding one gun to the situation, in Burke's hands, seems unlikely. If we're going to add more guns to the mix, the crazy drunks are going to have them too. That doesn't seem like a net gain.
157: As a middle class white woman, supposedly I'm supposed to live in fear of rape every time I walk out my door, you know.
Yes, I realize that most murder victims are men (which is one reason I don't buy the idea that women should be afraid). I also realize that most murder victims are killed by someone they know, and by someone carrying a gun. My point, which should be obvious, is that guns are the problem, not the solution; and that the *vast* majority of 2nd amendment defenders are not, in fact, likely *at all* to "need" their guns for the purposes they claim justify owning them.
Guns are a hobby. If people will just own up and admit it, then fine; I, personally, would argue that it's a dangerous fucking hobby to have. But that's a matter of opinion. The argument that guns are for self-defense is not, and surely you know as well as I that the facts do not bear out that argument.
152: For what it's worth, used to happen to me a couple times a month on average. Now, pretty much never. You're right that adding a gun to this particular situation is stupid (it usually is).
the crazy drunks are going to have them too. That doesn't seem like a net gain.
Think positive. No way are the drunk guys going to be as good in a shootout!
The argument that guns are for self-defense is not, and surely you know as well as I that the facts do not bear out that argument.
The facts bear it out just fine. Some numbers can be found on page 115 of the study done by the National Research Council.
Drunk guys can kill the wrong person when they miss the right person, though.
163: WTF is that? "Probability of injury and loss"? Are these numbers based on actual incidents or on guess work? What kinds of incidents are we talking about here? Are we taking into account issues like whether the person who defended him- or herself could have escaped safely rather than doing so (with or without a gun)?
I'm going to dismiss out of hand the "loss" issue; if you're talking about *self* defense, then that means your person or the persons of your immediate family. I don't care about property defense, and I think shooting someone to keep them from stealing your shit is wrong.
Also, in that same link you provide, they admit that assessing how often people use guns for defense purposes is extremely hard to figure out and (if my quick skimming is accurate) that the numbers they're using are at best a very rough estimate based on a paucity of data.
IME, people who claim that guns don't work well for self defense aren't very familiar with the data.
re: 167
As BPhD has said, there's a paucity of accurate reliable data for them to be familiar with.
Also worth checking out, the discussion on page 103 of the same study.
How many times each year do civilians use firearms defensively? The answers provided to this seemingly simple question have been confusing. Consider the findings from two of the most widely cited studies in the field: McDowall et al. (1998), using the data from 1992 and 1994 waves of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), found roughly 116,000 defensive gun uses per year, and Kleck and Gertz (1995), using data from the 1993 National Self-Defense Survey (NSDS), found around 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year.Many other surveys provide information on the prevalence of defensive gun use. Using the original National Crime Survey, McDowall and Wiersema (1994) estimate 64,615 annual incidents from 1987 to 1990. At least 19 other surveys have resulted in estimated numbers of defensive gun uses that are similar (i.e., statistically indistinguishable) to the results founds by Kleck and Gertz. No other surveys have found numbers consistent with the NCVS (other gun use surveys are reviewed in Kleck and Gertz, 1995, and Kleck, 2001a).
I argued out the gun question at length with "Armed Liberal" and others lo these many years ago. I ended up concluding:
1. High gun ownership is not a risk factor in itself.
2. High gun ownership is also not a safety factor in itself.
3. To the extent possible and necessary in a given situation, restriction of gun ownership might have the effect of reducing violence.
4. There are guns and guns. The NRA has convinced hunters that hunting and plinking guns are at risk, which they shouldn't be.
5. 2nd amendment absolutists often have tunnel vision and serious personal issues.
167: I'm sure they work great for self-defense for (1) people who are trained in their use; (2) people who are sane and even-tempered; (3) people who find themselves in situations where someone else is seriously threatening their life. What I'm saying is that situations where you are in such danger that you "need" a gun for self-defense are, thankfully, quite rare for the vast majority of Americans, and in no way justify or explain the popularity of gun ownership.
I forgot 3a:
In a given high-crime situation, an individual might be well-advised to get a gun, but that does not mean that high gun ownership should be the preferred response to high crime.
The NRA has convinced hunters that hunting and plinking guns are at risk, which they shouldn't be.
Largely not, but San Fran and NYC kind of give that impression.
To get even own a rifle or shotgun in NYC means $140 application fee, and another 100 bucks for a fingerprint fee. Application fee for handgun is $340. That's absurd.
There were some flat sharp thin rocks in a pile next to my driveway. I could always have done the Oddjob thing and flung them like a razor frisbee had there been need.
170 and 172 are pretty much my views as well.
At the same time, there's no hunting or plinking in NYC or SF.
Local gun control doesn't work well in the US because cities are not isolated, but even so, NYC (which is very restrictive of guns) is safer than most cities.
174 is basically my view as well.
wanting to see scantly clad pictures of The Rock's chiseled flesh, and are therefore gay possessed of questionable taste in men
Sorry, needed to rectify that one for you.
I know what you're thinking. Is he really reasonable, or is that only online? Well, to tell you the truth, when I get all excited, I kind of forget, myself. And being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Does Tim Burke look reasonable? Well, do I, punk?
152: For what it's worth, used to happen to me a couple times a month on average.
Huh? You used to be threatened with lethal force several times a month? Were you infantry in Iraq or Vietnam or something?
At the same time, there's no hunting or plinking in NYC or SF.
It's not like I can step into the backyard and pop off a few rounds here in Salt Lake either.
181: aw, go for it. What's the harm?
Would anyone notice? Wild West, man!
The one time I've fired a gun, a bunch of us (all young Iranian males) pulled over to the side of the road in somewheresville, CO, walked a little ways, and shot at a telephone pole. This was almost twenty years ago. That'd be an instant trip to Gitmo these days, if the locals didn't shoot you before the law arrived.
That there's a terrorist training camp. They'd nuke you from orbit.
This is yet another way you can tell Iranians are Caucasian, 'cause that's a total redneck thing to do.
177:Well, I think the Rock's pretty hot. Hotter than Arnie or Sylvester or Dolph, tho not quite as hot as Van Damme.
"There's also just swallowing your machismo and walking away."
Being immature, I'm still spitting mine.
It's easy to choke trying to swallow your machismo. It does hurt to do. There's a drive to prove yourself. It's much better than being seriously injured or killed, but I wonder if it doesn't feel worse than getting a beating.
152:
been shot at twice, and that's int he usually placid Netherlands.
I wonder if it doesn't feel worse than getting a beating.
Er, no.
I hate the whole machismo swallowing thing. I have both class and nationality chips on my shoulder which make me think/feel that the natural response to any situation where someone 'disrespects' me is to batter fuck out of them and I feel fairly pathetic for not doing so. But, seriously, getting the shit kick out of you, fucking sucks.
shit kickED.
[pre-coffee grammar]
I wonder if it doesn't feel worse than getting a beating.
hrrrm, how long is it since you refreshed your memory of what that feels like?
Ooh, I think dsquared just asked ttaM to step outside.
No, I think he just asked Marcus to step outside.
I'm totally with ttaM. Waking up to find your face glued to the floor with the blood from your face is way worse that swallowing anything.
max
['Except maybe roaches.']
re: 196
dsquared is agreeing with me, as he should.
Just out of idle curiosity, how many of the menfolk at this site have been in these sorts of fights?
Actually, my curiosity is not completely idle...I'm wondering if this is a UK thing?
People tell me that the so-called Welsh are winps, anyway. Actually, "mild-mannered" and "mellow" were the words used. but you know.
For the record, I can't fight worth a dime but, like McManus, am capable of looking insane.
In the U.S. it depends on where you are and what your habits are. Non-upward-mobile urban neighborhoods in mixed-ethnicity cities seem to be worst, along with very poor areas anywhere, and probably the wild west. Small town Minnesota and Portland OR are pretty mild.
199: From prior conversations, my impression that the odds of being in a situation involving getting hit or hitting people are wildly higher for someone in the UK than for someone of equivalent social class in the US. I'm figuring it's got something to do with gun control -- any sort of violence is much higher stakes when there are a lot of guns around.
IME face-to-face is usually strutting or an angry person out of control. Fights are where the other guy comes up from behind, or waits at a relevant place, usually not alone.
I've successfully avoided violence as a full-grown adult, having to back away from it on a few occasions, but at least being able to. As it's always been complete strangers, usually somewhat "randomized" in that whomever was threatening would have anybody, I never felt any loss for having extricated myself, apart from the fright and intensity of the feeling to fight, but that passes and gives way to shakes.
When we were reminiscing about school fighting a few months ago, I recalled that I was only relatively smaller for a few years in my teens. Now I'm appreciably bigger than average, and must look formidable; just as gender changes your world, size must also, so a big guy and a small women inhabit a different city.
180: never military, just a different life (and all in US/Canada). Besides, LB might just be right.
202: maybe, but location etc. matters, see 152.
oh, and re 152: not to be blase about it, but some of those times weren't all that serious. Some were. By which I mean someone can wave a gun around in a pretty casual way, oddly enough. I'm reading `lethal threat' to include cases where someone is making it obvious that things could get messy, not only those were it is imminent.
re: 199
I haven't been in an actual 'street' fight since I was about 19 and I'm 35 now. So, it's not like I am strolling about either initiating violence or being the victim of it.
I have been in quite a few near-violent situations since then -- resolved without real blows being exchanged -- but nothing I'd describe as a 'fight'.
Before age 19, though, the usual high school fighting, plus a few more serious incidents.
195: If I had any idea who you actually were or where you lived, I would totally kick your ass!
There, machismo satisfied, no beating necessary. All hail the Internets!
More seriously, the closest to a beating I ever got was having my nose broken with a punch in the face, and that was almost 20 years ago. It was indeed very unpleasant, but the fight was broken up before any further damage was done.
