Over at Hillary Clinton’s website, there is a Pantsuit T-shirt for sale as a fundraiser.  I just love how it is descried as “Unisex sizing, women may consider ordering one size smaller” – meaning a men’s shirt, but they don’t want to say that.  Also, I’d be wary of actually wearing this on a causal Friday, since I’m pretty sure wearing this shirt to work anywhere but CNN might be a fireable offense.

This is the perfect shirt for the male petty tyrant that really wants to put the boot in your face but is not man enough to lace it up and do himself.

All I know is that if I ever saw that shirt in the wild, it would take the self control of a Shaolin Monk to resist the urge to punch the wearer into paste.

I was tempted to post the last stanza of this as a comment to Miguel’s Under Armour post, but decided it would be better served as a post of its own.

For historical context, Danegeld, which means Danish Tax or Danish Gold, was a “tribute” that was paid by locals to Viking (Dane) raiders to keep the Vikings away.  It was protection money.

Vikings fought every viciously, which was part of their reputation.  Rape and slaughter one town, let the few survivors spread the word of just how terrible the Vikings were.  When the Vikings showed up at a nearby town a little while later, they would demand tribute or they would repeat the rape a slaughter.  Most villages would pay tribute and the Vikings would go away.  The Vikings operated a very effective protection racket across Scandinavia, The British Isles, Ireland, and the coastal countries of Northern Europe for several hundred years with this tactic.

Rudyard Kipling, who is by far my favorite classical English poet, wrote a poem about the Danegeld, as a warning.  I have committed it to memory, it is not long.

As a warning it is every bit as appropriate today as it has ever been.

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
  To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
  Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
  And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
  And then  you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
  To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
  We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
  But we've  proved it again and  again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
  You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
  For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
  You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
  No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
  And the nation that pays it is lost!"

A professor of law at the University of Miami will be giving a lecture at Drake University Law School on September 15 to discuss the alleged similarities between “constitutional extremists” and religious extremists.

According to the press release on the lecture:

In recent years, the Constitution has become an article of faith in the worst possible sense, t is increasingly invoked to justify irrational and destructive agendas in a way that strongly resembles the way religious extremists use the Bible to advance fundamentalist views. This constitutional extremism occurs on both ends of the political spectrum: in the Right’s obsessive focus on the Second Amendment and the Left’s equally obsessive focus on the First. Though their targets are different, constitutional extremism on both the Right and Left is united in the privileging of the powerful.

I am not a law scholar by any means, but I from my experience and study of the world, I believe this professor is mistaken.

As a layman, when I try to understand religious extremists, the basic philosophy seems to be:

Believe that I tell you to believe.  Pray how I tell you to pray.  Say only what I allow you to say.  Do only what I allow you to do.  Live exactly how I tell you to live.   If you don’t, I will kill you, kill your family, kill everyone that doesn’t fall in line with my beliefs.

Religious extremists seek to control a population.  The use whatever god they believe in, and the rules set down in their holy book to justify their control.

When I think about “Constitutional extremists” the basic philosophy seems to be:

Leave me alone.  Don’t tell me what to believe, what I can or cannot say, how I should live, what I can own, or anything else for that matter.  Don’t treat on me and I won’t tread on you.  If you do start to tread on me, you won’t like it, and then shit will get real.  So for you own protection, fuck off.  

Constitutional extremism pushes the limits of small government, almost to the line of anarchy.  It is defined by an almost complete lack of control.

I assume that this professor is going to try and link religious extremism and constitutional extremism by rhetoric of violence.  But even then they are different.  Religious extremism violence is (to coin a word) actionary.  The religious extremist initiates the violence to get what they want.  Constitutional extremists violence is reactionary.  It is used to repel oppression, which generally manifests itself in the form of violence or the threat of violence.

These two philosophies are diametrically opposed to one another.

Keep in mind, I am not defending or justifying Constitutional extremism in all of its forms.  The Bundy Ranch and BLM (Bureau of Land Management) stand-offs were stupid and dangerous.  It is that this professor seems to have a bone to pick with the NRA, which is often considered to be a Constitutional Extremist group since it puts the 2nd Amendment and Constitutional rights over the feelings of anti-gun activists.  I am concerned that her interpretation of Constitutional Extremism means any time someone says “my rights are more important than your feelings.”  Which is not extremism.  It is a foundational principle of our Nation.  Then again, some on the Left go so far as to identify our Founding Fathers as extremist.

I guess what I am doing is defending a philosophy, not a group.  The idea of parading around with AR-15’s in front of some Park Rangers over cattle is extreme for me.  It’s stupid.  If some Progressive president decides to go full Vichy France and try to appease the Iranian government by putting the boot down on the Jews, well… all bets are off.  Extremism is a matter of degree.  I’m not going to wage war over cattle.  I will wage war over children in cattle cars.

I found it funny, however that this professor associates 1st Amendment extremism with the Left.  Maybe once upon a time, that was true.  Today, is the Progressive Left that tries to crush free speech with hate speech laws or diversity initiatives.  We have seen the loss of free speech on college campuses, which are overwhelmingly left of center.

The Progressive Left has waged war on religion, forcing the religious to comply with their whims against religious doctrine.  The desire of religious people to be left alone to practice their religion in peace is considered bigotry by the left.

This has led to the term Regressive Left.  Liberals who fight against freedom.  If this professor wants to talk about extremist political violence, she needs to focus on this area of politics.  The philosophy of the modern Progressive Liberal is:

Believe that I tell you to believe.  Don’t pray if you practice a “privileged” religion.  Say only what I allow you to say.  Do only what I allow you to do.  Live exactly how I tell you to live.   If you don’t, I will kill you, kill your family, kill everyone that doesn’t fall in line with my beliefs.

The modern left is a religious extremist who worships at the Church of Big Government Our Non-Gendered Person of Tyranny.

But i have a feeling that would cause this professor to take too long and too hard a look in a mirror, so she won’t.

While doing research for my last post, I cam across this article: Millennial men are significantly weaker than their fathers, study shows.  Of course they are.  Of course.  I know so many who don’t know how a hammer works, let alone have ever swung one.  Adult children whose heaviest lifting is an I-Phone to take a selfie.  Worse, who are physically revulsed by tools and the self sufficiency that come with them.

I used to get offended when I read article after article how millennials are the dumbest generation.

I am one of them, technically, and I am nothing like what these people describe.  Neither are my friends.

Then I realized what it is.

These weak, narcissistic, safe-space ninnyhammers, that have come to be the public face of the millennial generation are Eloi.  The live their sheltered, pampered lives on the surface, in the daylight.

Those of us who toil, doing useful work, keeping the lights on and the economy running are the Morlocks.  We have the hand strength, bad backs, calluses, and paychecks to prove it.  We live in the dark, underground.  Ignored by the media and pop culture.  We terrify the Eloi by our very existence.  Mocked for going to bed because we have to get up early for a job, and can’t stay up all night taking pictures of our craft beers for Pinterest.

I’m OK with being a Morlock.  The Eloi were never the good guys, happy to watch a fellow Eloi drown (nowadays while videoing the drowning Eloi for their YouTube channel).

I think if a Victorian man, with the hand strength that comes from a life of having to shovel coal or split wood when it got cold outside, came to Earth today in a time machine.  He might be more inclined to marvel at the underground industry us Morlocks created than the pampered indolence that the Eloi complain is too much work for them.

As for me.  When the big one hits, SMOD makes impact, or the dead rise up and start to walk the earth; I’ll be fine sitting down to a nice, juicy, Eloi steak.

So the most ridiculous anti-gun group in America is back in the news again.   Cocks Not Glocks is going to state another absurd protest on the first day of the 2016 Semester, next week, on August, 24.

According to the groups website:

The State of Texas has decided that it is not at all obnoxious to allow deadly concealed weapons in classrooms, however it does have strict rules about free sexual expression, to protect your innocence. You would receive a citation for taking a dildo to class before you would get in trouble for taking a gun to class. Heaven forbid the penis.

Anybody can participate in solidarity: alum, non-UT students, people outside of Texas. Come one dildo, come all dildos. “You’re carrying a gun to class? Yeah well I’m carrying a HUGE DILDO.” Just about as effective at protecting us from sociopathic shooters, but much safer for recreational play!

There is so much false equivalency in that statement that my head swims trying to form a rational argument against it.

But the opening picture (no screen shots for decorum) from the Observer’s article I think goes a long way as to making it clear why this protest is so detached from reality.  If you were to conceal carry on campus, NOBODY BUT THE PERSON CARRYING SHOULD EVERY KNOW.

We’re not talking about open carry here, which I happen to disagree with.  The only way this sort of, kind of, makes sense to me, is that these idiot-children are so affected by the very idea that someone in their vicinity, who has gone through a rigorous background check to get a CCW permit,  might be concealing a gun on them, that they have to be over-the-top distracting by waggling a prosthetic phallus around.

The true equivalent is if every one of these wastes-of-their-parent’s-tuition-money carried their marital aid in their backpack such that nobody else could see it and didn’t tell anybody else they had one with them, and it only came out of their backpack when they got home or in case of an emergency.  (Don’t think too hard about what type of emergency requires the public use of an erotic device)

This is such safe-space-esque “I am being hysterical because somebody else is hurting my feelings” bullshit it is indescribable.  The very idea that a public college campus, especially one that is integrated into the city that it is in, should be a gun-free zone is the ultimate in safe space bullshit.  One one side of a public street my CCW is valid but on the other it is not?

The video  from the group’s website poses the question “Are guns grosser than dildos?”  WTF?  Grosser?  That is the terms on which this is being discussed?  Guns are gross?  This is beyond childish now.  “We can’t have guns, they are oogie, and concealed carriers have gun cooties.”

The video goes on to claim how many professors are against expanding state CCW laws to include state college campuses.  Well, we know from studies that over 60% of professors are “Liberal to hard Left” so much so that they openly discriminate and hate on the conservative students they teach.  So forgive me if I take the unhinged screaming from inside the echo chamber with just a little bit of salt.

This is the zenith of gun-control “feels before reals.”  Let’s ignore that to be a CCW holder in Texas, you have to be 21 or over and go through a lengthy background check.  Let’s ignore that CCW permit holders are far and above more law abiding than the average citizen.  No.  Guns are gross and make me scared so I’m going to embarrass a bunch of sexually repressed, stodgy, Conservatives by waving a fake penis in their faces.  Hooray me!!!

If this is the depth of thought and critical thinking that these kids are being held to in their colleges, they are overpaying for their education.  You can be this dumb and shallow for free.

Update: one commenter brought up the “recreational play” part of the quote.  I want to address that.  I have shot bullseye and IDPA.  I am getting into Steel Challenge since it fits my schedule better than IDPA.  I have never witnessed a bullet related injury at any shooting match I’ve been to.  I searched in Google for “injury shooting match” and I came up with no hits for gunshot injuries.  A few twisted ankles.  Even at shooting ranges the injury rate is very low.  A few cases were reported, and the little girl the killed the instructor with the UZI was everywhere, but that was one case.  I have covered before just how safe shooting is compared to other sports.  Shooters don’t regularly suffer head trauma as part of our hobby.  But since there is a TV show on TLC called Sex Sent Me To The ER, I feel like I’m on good footing saying that kinky sex might actually be more injury causing than recreational target shooting.

When people refer to “The Narrative” in American politics, they are referring to a baseline set of assumptions to be made about a specific situation or group of people.  The Narrative is crafted by politicians, pundits, the media, and others to shape the way the American people discuss certain issues.  The goal of any group is to control The Narrative and therefore get the assumptions on their side.  The Narrative need not be true, in fact The Narrative is designed to obfuscate the truth, when the truth gets in the way of your political goals.

A good example of this is the abortion debate.  The Narrative (or at least part of it) is that Republicans/Conservatives don’t like abortion because they are mean and they hate women.  Whether or not Conservatives hate women or value the life of an unborn child is neither here nor there, The Narrative makes anti-abortion equivalent to the hatred of women.  The “War on Women” mantra that the Democrats have pushed has been effective in helping craft that Narrative.

Over the years, the Democrats have crafted several Narratives about different groups that, when evaluated, are highly offensive.

One Narrative is that every time a Republican tries to get Welfare reform, the motivation is racism.  The Narrative says that the only reason Republicans want to cut welfare is they hate black people.  Nothing about reigning in spending, the destructive power of government dependency, subsidizing socially disruptive behavior like single parenthood/fatherless homes, or any of the other negatives associated with a cradle to grave welfare state are ever discussed.  It is Republicans hate Black people.  If you think about that for a moment, The Narrative equates Black people with welfare.  Black America cannot survive without Welfare.  Any discussion of a Black middle class that is not dependent on welfare is ignored.  Blacks and welfare go hand in hand.  This Narrative should be highly offensive to Black America, but the Democrats continue to push it.

Another Narrative associates all persons of Hispanic descent with Illegal Immigrants.  Any discussion of immigration reform and border control is deemed racist.  The Democrats have worked to win the Hispanic/Latin vote by kowtowing to Illegal Immigrants.  Any discussion about crime rates in sanctuary cities, drug trafficking, sex and human trafficking, wage depression for low skilled American workers, is immediately dismissed as anti-Hispanic racism.  What is worse is that this Narrative assumes all persons of Hispanic/Latin descent are Illegals or have ties to Illegals.  Never mind the people of Cuban heritage who came here as refugees from a Communist revolution and genocide.  Never mind the  people of Puerto Rican heritage who are actually US citizens.  Never mind the people who have legally immigrated here from the various nations of Central and South America, each with a unique culture and identity.  According to the Democrats, they are all just a bunch of Illegal fruit pickers who should support the guy with the D after his name to stop the guy with the R after his name form keeping all their Mexican fruit picking cousins from hopping the fence.  Of course, this Narrative is also highly offensive, equating all people of Hispanic/Latin heritage with illegal immigrants.

One of the funniest and most offensive thing I’ve ever seen was my buddy, who is a US born citizen of Venezuelan descent (whose parents came here to get there MS degrees in engineering and applied for and were granted US citizenship after my buddy was born here) rip a Democrat pollster a new asshole or two, after the pollster saw a swarthy guy speaking Spanish and assumed he was 1) Mexican, and 2) wanted to help other children of Illegals have the same shot as he did.

But the newest Narrative being crafted by the Democrats is by far the most offensive one yet.  One I hope that goes to far and burns the party.

Rudy Giuliani has noted that the Democrats have become the anti-law enforcement party.  Hillary Clinton snubbed America’s largest police union turning down their endorsement.  The DNC has made Black Lives Matter part of their platform and allowed their leaders to speak at their convention.

Democrats across the country have allowed the protests associated with #BLM to happen.   From the Mayor of Baltimore giving the protesters “room to destroy” to the media and Democrat politicians downplaying the violence and destruction as “peaceful protests.”

The Democrats are siding with Black criminals against cops.

Of course the Democrats are doing this trying to secure the Black vote for Democrats after eight years of the Obama Administration absolutely destroying the Black community economically.  Here is the thing, for this Narrative to take hold the number one assumption that it makes is that Black people are criminals.  That has to be the assumption.

One would think that law abiding Black people would want law and order.  They wouldn’t want their business looted and burned.  They want safe places to raise their children.  They don’t want to be robbed or shot in their neighborhoods.  The Ferguson Effect is the increase in crime associated with a decrease in police patrols due to political fallout.  It is taking its toll on American cities.  Even some on the Left acknowledge that policing is necessary to keep crime at bay.

But the Democrats are going after cops.  They are supporting cop haters and cop killers.

Why would law abiding Black people to vote against their own safety and self interest?  They shouldn’t.  Unless… the Narrative can take root that “Black people = crime”  and the police are the natural enemy of Black people.

This is taking negative assumptions about the Black community to 11.  Right now, the Democrats seem to be effective in crafting this Narrative.  My only hope is that the law abiding Black community can realize how bad it is for them when their communities are no longer policed and the criminals truly take over.  Maybe then the will realize just how bad the Democrats are for them.  But until then, this awful, evil, horrible Narrative will continue to grow, and God help the good people caught in its wake.

This story gave me the giggles (because I am a bad person).

In north Atlanta, a large bird of prey – an owl or hawk of some type – is attacking people in a park.  On its own, that’s not all that funny.

However, this doofus has been attacked THREE TIMES.  When he is interviewed by the news about the fact that he has been attacked multiple times by this bird while running, he is wearing a Mom’s Demand Action shirt.

Just look at him with his stupid face and MDA shirt.

Now I’m not saying this is a case for a defensive gun use, but this guy obviously forgot the first rule of nature, when outside, you are on the food chain.

Right now, it’s a bird that made him a bitch.  But he’s just in a park. Put him out in the real wild and it will be a bear or a pack of wolves that will turn him into shit.

That is for only four-legged predators.  Depending on what source you look at, and from what year, but between 2012 and 2016, Atlanta, GA has been somewhere in the top 10 most dangerous cities in America.  If this guy is going to get his ass kicked by a bird, what is going to happen to him when he runs into one of Atlanta’s less friendly citizens?

I that MDA shirt might as well say “rob me because I’m not carrying.”  His only defense will be his smug air of self-satisfaction, and I doubt that is bulletproof.

Maybe I’m being unfair to this guy.  It’s just that this guy just seems to hit every stereotype of the urban anti-gun crowd.