Reader Amiee Staggs left a comment on an old post and that bounced on my head to something Kathy (Cornered Cat) Jackson mentioned in a post about being polite in her Facebook page which now I can’t find but went something like this: For Safety’s sake, you can be impolite.
My hometow (OK, homecity) is hyper-violent. It is 103 murders per 100,000 people violent. Ladies and Gents, that is warfare casualties we are talking about. In fact a radio station every Monday morning used to run a section called “Parte de Guerra” (War News) in which the announcer would give us the number of murders that happened from 6:00 pm Friday to 6:00 am Monday plus the highlights of the most impressive cases…and this was a Rock station, not an all news station.
So it is easy to say I was not the most refined and polite of gentlemen while living there. When I moved to the US, I was shocked and suspicious at the people being so nice and private and I swore they were setting me up for some heinous stuff. Eventually I came to realize that they were indeed nice good people being genuinely polite and I sort of relaxed…a couple of bits. I am still not a gregarious people and I don’t invite people over my house as that privilege is reserved only for those who have passed the test of my trust. And as you can imagine, interlopers are welcome even less than that. On the strange occasions that I open the door for people other than the Postman or UPS (gun goodies or Amazon Goodies? of course I am opening!), I make a quick assessment and I am short and less than friendly with my response followed by a door slamming.
I want the reputation of being the impolite ***hole down the street. I want people to know that the fat bearded bastard that lives in the white house is somebody that may be a good idea to leave alone. If the word spreads far enough, maybe some idiot meth-head will re-think his initial plan about breaking in looking for pawnable stuff in my abode. And maybe the reason that I fly a Gadsden flag on my back porch 24/7 is to scare some Liberal idiot also living in my neighborhood who is gonna believe the lies told about Tea Party members and how violent they are and tells friends and visitors who even after getting stupidly drunk and in the mood for mischief, will re-think hard the idea to break into my property to play some idiotic prank that may end up with a 00 buckshot tattoo in his chest
Will all this image give me 100% protection from bad stuff happening? Nope, but it helps lower the percentages some and in cases, a lot. There is never one single approach, no magic bullet, no secret Aztec herbal medicine that will cure all the nastiness out there. Bad attitude and barbed wired is a better combination than just bad attitude.
And for those moments when nothing seems to work, you can go for the Advil in 9mm.
PS: The one with the real deficit in people skills is SWMBO. You really don’t wanna cross the Southern One.
Or you could go the opposite direction and build up your community. Reverse everything you just said and build alliances with your neighbors especially those bordering your house.
Experience says that the “alliance” will last about 24 hours after SHTF. Once McDs is no longer working and the people cannot get their coffee and toys for the kids, politeness and community feelings go out the window.
I get that when the SHTF we are on our own. In the meantime we are better off having neighbors who actually care about us. It’s better to have a neighbor call you when they hear a loud noise in your house or backyard than ignore it. What happens when you DO have to shoot an armed intruder who happens to be a different race than you and under 18. Picture you shooting a young black male right after George Zimmerman is acquitted and there is rioting. What will your neighbors say about you to the reporters? Will it be all stories about how you yelled at their kids? Story after story about how you yelled and were unfriendly to everyone. Remember, every action is blown out of proportion. You’re a good guy Miguel, show that to people. Show them how to arm themselves so they will have a better understanding of how a self-defense shooting actually works when the time comes. Wouldn’t you rather have neighbors tell the media about the time you bought their kid a bike because it got stolen?
All I’m saying is you should do it because that’s who you really are….in my expert opinion about you. 😉
One of the great disappointments in life is figuring out (sometimes too late) that you cannot depend on your neighbors, specially in an urban area and specially if the media is involved. If the narrative is set as you being the bad guy in the picture, it won’t matter if you spent your free time saving baby seals and feeding the poor, you will be portrayed by everybody as a bad guy.
You mentioned Zimmerman who was keeping an eye on the neighborhood, stood up to police abuse and forced the investigation of a beating on a homeless man and was a person involved with his community. The narrative has him guilty of murder and ready for his execution from day one because that is what sells papers/advertising time.
There’s something to be said about being the neighborhood asshole although there’s a certain risk of being considered the neighborhood sociopath, too.
Hey and don’t be afraid to fly the Gadsden in the front of the house. Nothing to be ashamed about, dude.
Actually by the way the house is set in neighborhood, the flag is seen by more people this way 🙂
I’m the gregarious next door neighbor, but still every window has an alarm sticker and I have a camera in plain view at the front door. I thought about those cute gun stickers (e.g. we don’t call 911, or protected by S&W) and though that should discourage thugs, it could be a reason for a home invasion.
However, the fact that my house is lighted at night on all sides is probably the best defense. It is cheap, and is probably even more effective since my two neighbors like my family and keep watch.
I would think that the “unfriendly SOB” defense in public is a good approach. Your reputation from home is not going to go far out into the community, but that is where you need to look like you should be left alone. Think about victim selection; would you attempt to rob a dominatrix with a whip on her hip and an attitude or the little old lady hunched over her walker? Be that dominatrix!
My two cents (and worth exactly that much…no refunds).
Be that dominatrix!
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I dunno Miguel… I agree with Dante here. I think a lot of society’s problems these days are exactly related to our breakdown of neighborhood ownership. I live in in the country in an already rural area, and neighbors show up at random on my doorstep with bags of veggies or stop by while I’m out in the yard working to chat for awhile. There’s a guy down the street who behaves the way you describe, and frankly I probably wouldn’t piss on him if he were burning to death. Ask yourself which attitude will more likely pass down your values to the next generation.
Survival. I had the unfortunate luck to see neighbors of 30 years, neighbors which we shared the good and what we thought the bad, neighbors that I knew since I was 4 years old and I grew with behave like rampaging animals. It was an experience that opened my eyes and made me even “grouchier.” You can only trust a very small circle of proven people…and I mean proven, not “I guess they are cool because they gave be a bag of corn last September.”
Disappointment in cases like these are nothing but deadly.