I read this article via Insty a few days back, and it’s stayed with me ever since because it’s becoming an increasingly-familiar feeling:
Would you feel comfortable wearing a MAGA hat? Or would you worry you might get assaulted?
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The Democrats are now embracing “democratic socialism.” Their activists are dressing up in hoods and masks and terrorizing citizens.
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But we’re not supposed to complain about it. It’s getting dangerous to speak your mind. Dangerous to your career, and even to your safety.
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I worry about how free America still will be in six years because the Democrats… they’ve got an agenda. They want to narrow the range of acceptable opinions. To cow us, restrict us, make us scared to speak. From day to day, Americans are getting bullied, browbeaten, and herded like sheep. The Democrats are driving us into the narrow, reeking pen of political correctness. Its fences are constantly moving, and in only one direction. They are closing in on us.
Here’s what worries me about this. I don’t worry about being assaulted for wearing some kind of “offensive” clothing. I don’t worry that my car will be keyed because I have an NRA/TSRA decal on the back window. I don’t worry about being screamed at or spat upon because of [insert Lefty outrage here].
I don’t worry about any of that. I worry about how I’ll react to any of the above.
I don’t want to beat the shit out of some snotty punk screaming insults into my face, or break someone’s hand when they’ve just keyed my car. And if some Pantifa asswipe comes at me with a bike lock or pickax handle, I sure as hell don’t want to shoot the little prick in the face.
But I might well do any or all of that — and then have to face the legal consequences.
It’s all very well to say, “Oh, but you were in the right: you were justified in responding to [whatever just happened to you].” I might be in the right, but there will still be a mountain of legal crap to be endured, lawyer’s fees and all that nonsense. It’s like having a car accident when the other guy ran the red light: he’s in the wrong, but you’re still the one with a wrecked car.
That said: I think these little Lefty shits need to face up to something: it’s all very well to play these little games, but I don’t think they realize that our patience may be great, but it’s not limitless.
It’s only a question of time.
But in the meantime, I find excuses not to go to Austin, even though I have close friends there I want to visit, because Austin TX is Loony Lefty Central. I sometimes worry about that NRA sticker getting me a bad Uber review from a passenger (I’m a “five-star” driver, which has its privileges). I worry about some SJW waiter spitting in my food after overhearing my dinner-table conversation. And those are just the things that trouble me off the top of my head.
As the linked article suggests, they and all the other little micro-terrorisms are all fences. And I’m starting to resent them. Greatly.
I like/need my job. I’ve learned to shut up as a result.
Social media got us here, to the point that bully-mobs can convene and ruin lives. I am not happy with the state affairs, but I have little choice but to play along for now.
Same here. So I post mostly under a pseudonym.
Kim makes an excellent point though, even he is cowed. Not cowed by the leftist idiots and their child like tamper tantrums, but by a legal system that protects them over law abiding citizens.
Which means the left has already won. Those who disagree with their agenda either don’t admit it because they’d lose their lifelihood, because they’d lose their life, or because they’d get thrown in prison for protecting themselves from the domestic terrorists the left employs to browbeat the general population.
All that’s left for them is prevent enough people opposed to their communofascist ideology from voting for them to gain enough power to make opposition to themselves illegal.
Which I fear won’t take long. If they don’t manage it in the 2018 midterms, the 2020 general election looks bleak.
And it’s the same in Europe and indeed all over the west.
Living and working in the greater NYC area as I do, I’m a decided minority politically, so I’ve also learned to keep my mouth shut. I will give an example of fences I see on a daily basis though.
Often when going into the subway there are cops conducting “random” bag searches, if you refuse you’re not allowed to enter the subway. These have been done since shortly after 9/11/2001, and to date they’ve not stopped one terrorist attack (the alleged purpose behind the searches). They’ve not found ONE explosive, chemical or biological weapon in almost 17 years. By far the most common arrests made during these searches are drug arrests (because some idiot forgot he had his stash in his bag, or didn’t know he could refuse) and disorderly conduct (aka contempt-of-cop). I guy I know got a hard time because he had a Swiss Army knife (one of the little ones with about a two inch blade) in his bag, he had to tell the cop WHY he had it (he uses it for cutting open boxes at work), had to give the cop his business card so he could check up on it (and the guy was half-owner of the company), and was told that he’d have confiscated it had he not had a valid (in the cop’s eyes) reason for having it. Oh, if it had been in his pocket instead of his bag he might have gotten arrested, let alone that the searches are only bags, not person so had it been in his pocket the cop would’ve been none the wiser.
Now obviously people who are Middle Eastern can’t be randomly selected (profiling you know). Nor can Hispanics (they may be undocumented, and we wouldn’t want to frighten them into thinking they may be deported). Nor blacks (more profiling). So the only people who get pulled aside for a search are generally the most law-abiding portion of the population (whites). And more and more people get accustomed to the random searches, and fewer and fewer people know that the Fourth Amendment says you don’t HAVE to submit to a search just because someone with a badge tells you to. Not to mention the SWAT cops standing around as a “police presence”, if I owned one of the magazines for the M4 they’re carrying I’d get thrown in jail so deep my wife would have to ship me boxes of sunshine.
For the record, if I see the table set up for searches, I walk to a different subway entrance, that way I’m not put into the position of refusing and potentially getting arrested by a cop who doesn’t know refusing a warrant-less search is not probable cause for arrest.
From blogging two decades ago, to social media and whatever else, I’ve never used my real name for anything. There’s a good reason for that: I used to work quite extensively in the entertainment industry, which is populated by approximately 99.8% effing morons. Said morons are all too happy to blacklist you if you don’t subscribe to the groupthink. I traded my true feelings on any number of issues for a paycheck, and I was largely fine for that for the same reason I’m largely fine with the same deal today with social media.
That reason is: I voted with my dollars then, and I still do. I supported candidates with the right opinions and platforms, and many of them were elected and went on to do good things.
That, by the way, is how you win– because Johnny Bike Lock isn’t about to put his money where his mouth is, even if he had the ability to make it in significant quantity.
Failing that, by all means, vote from the rooftops– but I don’t think we’re anywhere near close to that yet.
Kim, I feel the same way you do.
I do have insurance coverage if things don’t go the way I hope.
https://www.uslawshield.com/member-sign-up-3/
Hasn’t dressing up in hoods and mask to intimidate people a traditional part of Democratic party behavior?
Like Kim, I stay in my part of Texas, just an hour and a half SW of Austin and here in the Hill Country a world of difference. I went to the local HEB grocery store this morning, a huge store, over 120,000 sq ft, one of the largest in the chain which also owns Central Market to purchase my annual hunting license with the new season opening September 1. The store has lots of deer feeders and corn for sale at the front entrance, the women behind the service desk who know exactly how to sell the license, with migratory bird stamp and HIP certification were wear cammo shirts and liked talking about the best way to grill doves, breasted out with jalapeños and cream cheese and then wrapped in bacon.
I moved from Dallas over five years ago and I think a lot has changed in that time, I lived in a decent neighborhood adjacent to less well off Hispanics and Blacks to the West of us and very wealthy mostly white to the East in Preston Hollow and at that time with NRA stickers and gun type caps I never felt out of place. We put Republican candidate signs in the front yard, mostly brought to me by my gay neighbor and my more liberal neighbors put their signs out and we treated each other with respect.
Today with the Trump backlash were I in that environment I might not want to stand out and I don’t want to create a situation where I have to stand my ground and defend myself against an idiot. I think that’s the problem because when these jerks do their street drama being bad asses they are not worth the trouble of engaging in a confrontation. As said above I don’t want to get caught up in a law enforcement situation trying to make a point with an asshole who disagrees with me. At the same time, if I ever find myself in a situation where my life or the lives of those with me are in danger I really don’t care what the motives of the aggressors are, I will defend myself to stop the threat of bodily danger and I have the means to do that.
In the meantime, I am old, like my community and I have no reason to go looking for trouble. I suspect there will be others who through no fault of their or or lack of good judgement might find themselves victims of these auntie assholes and I hope they have the means to avoid their own personal injury and make their attackers suffer the consequences.
We are inching closer to the point were “Pantifa” will be seriously upbraided by someone or more. It will not be sanitary, and it might not be final, but it will be deserved.
Living in a small (60k) town in Cencal, I very rarely see or hear liberal shit.
I will wear a NRA or MAGA cap all over town and mostly get a smile or a “Nice hat”.
10 to 1 if you see a lib bumper sticker or yard sign it will be on a school teachers Prius.
When I served on the Grand Jury and a board member of our local gun club, I got a few jury members signed up as new members and taught a few to shoot for their first time.
Kim is right in that when I have to go into a city, I am low key. Chickenshit? Maybe.
Not afraid of assholes but will not deal with the aftermath.
In this way, they are winning…..until.
Boy, I hate going to Austin. It’s an occasional necessity since my son lives there, but it always feels like enemy territory. The liberal bumper stickers, the democrat political yard signs, the “We accept and welcome everybody” yard signs. The wall to wall tattoos and piercings on everyfugginbody. If they knew what I was thinking I’d never make it out of there alive.
I live in Utah, one of the reddest of the red states. Took my daughter to her 1st day of school on Monday. Found the classroom, met the teacher, and noticed the portrait of Barack Obama sitting on top of a cabinet. SJW’s are teaching everywhere.
And an instructor at the University of Utah tried some BS, putting CCW holders in a box in the back of the classroom….
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11241
They are everywhere. Even Utah. At least the University gave them a paid time-out.
Eventually they will awaken the Sleeping Giant and fill him with a Terrible Resolve. Can’t wait for that day.
Living in lefty Broward county as I do and long since retired, I am very careful in what I say and do.
There are NO stickers on my car, my hats have no political or firearm logos etc on them.
When I go to my local shooting club or the local municipal range, I am very careful when I put my
firearms in my car. I’ve had a concealed carry permit the 18 years I’ve been a Florida resident and carry every day, all day, US lawshield too. I do not want to meet an angry antifa or a progressive on a vendetta.
I can no longer run fast so I avoid any places that might bring about confrontation.
HOWEVER, since I am no longer physically capable of defending myself against youthful offenders bent on teaching an old man a lesson, that leaves me with few options if I am confronted.
My 9mm helps me to be at least capable of stopping someone from injuring me or my handicapped wife. Beyond that, I hold master classification in several types of rifle competition and regularly compete in my club’s pistol matches.
I will NOT be a victim.
Patience is indeed not limitless. Old saying taught me goes “beware the fury of the patient man”. Updated version goes; “mess around you’ll lay around’.
Whatever their stripe, Lefty’s will meet reality head-on one day. When it occurs, it will be their shock ‘n awe moment as spoiled children get spanked.
In the meantime, I sometimes wonder if it ever occurs to them that their acts are also an audition to become some modern version of Horst Wessel. Odds are not and they won’t get a catchy tune for their effort either.
The petty leftists are a problem but as was suggested above a legal system that protects them from the normal people is worse. Worse yet is corporate leftists, especially the tech industry. They control the high ground of the economy and the communication infrastructure. They are increasingly using this power to shut down any unauthorized thoughts or actions.
I feel exactly as you do Kim which is why I don’t put a Trump sticker on my truck. I’m not concerned at all here in w Texas but I travel frequently, like to Denver and recently to San Fran.
Expressing my support of the President just has to take other forms.
Fookin’ sad, ain’t it?
I was going to pay the extra for an Air Force (Oregon) license plate for my Suburban, when my wife says, “You park anywhere in Portland with that plate and you’ll wind up with a knife hole in all four tires.”