Or did I want the Mencken line about how, "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats," maybe?
The latest series of jabs in the mutual strawman-wrestling match among leftie "Social Justice Warriors" on one side and a loose association of right-wing/"Men's Rights" types on the other has reached truly elementary-school levels of behavior. Not content with doxxing and (at least threatened) SWATting, which, while despicable, are at least mostly in the category "things grown-ups do," the contestants have moved on to name-calling (the boys have gleefully and predictably adopted the SJW appellation for them, "shitlord") and a string of crude rape jokes on Facebook, starting with, "What's the difference between jam and jelly?" and proceeding downhill from there. What's next? --Probably a careful campaign of writing calumnies on washroom walls, followed by hair-pulling, the passing of mean notes and possibly even tactical spitballs.
I don't have a dog in this fight. Both sides lost me early on -- well, the "Nerf the world for everyone except the pale males" SJWs never had me, 'cos I know what a NO DOGS OR IRISH sign looks like and they aren't any prettier when applied to whatever the current $DESPISED_CLASS happens to be, Jews or African-Americans or crudely-caricatured "Japs" or white men -- and their childish rudeness to one another (and all us bystanders) has sealed the deal. If it was a real dogfight, I'd happily turn a firehose on 'em or spray them down with pepper spray and count it a good deed. Instead, I have some people to unfriend, a few of them with genuine regret. Let me know when you're ready to sit at the grownup table again, okay?
After WW I's* "Christmas Truce" of 1914, the commands on both sides issued orders to try to keep it from ever happening again, including holiday artillery barrages. It wasn't entirely successful until poison gas came into use and convinced soldiers on both sides that the other lot were inhuman monsters. Drop the present-day "shitlords" and SJWs into the same 1914 Christmas Eve and they'd've happily machine-gunned one another and then slit the throats of any survivors while humming "Silent Night" in smug satisfaction, probably harmonizing with their own lice.
Via Claire Wolfe:
Stuff that in your pipe. Or wherever.
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* In my darker moments, I'm convinced that war actually marked the end of Western Civilization. It was a civilization with a lot of warts but it was, largely, civil, and great strides were being made (a few of them, like Prohibition, in reverse). We've been messing about in the ruins ever since, pretending things were going to be okay again, fiddling around with treating our fellow humans as if they were, at least, human and tinkering up high tech, but something important and brave died in the trenches and on the battlefields of WW I, coughing its lungs out, eyes ruined, broken, hurt and wondering why.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
8 comments:
I noticed it was time to clean the furnace filter (must have been) when I watched that a little while back.
You may be right about Western civilization, I dunno. It (and the century that followed) sure as shootin' (you should pardon the expression) showed us the true face of the state, not that many paid/pay attention.
I think wars changed fundamentally when generals were no longer expected to personally lead their men in combat, as happened as late as the US Civil War (and probably later, I don't claim to be an authority).
I also liked the practice of the Swiss mercenary pike companies that, when the going got tough, called the officers to the front ranks to lead from the front, rather than the rear.
Things would be better all around if we all adopted the motto, "I am not the boss of you."
Im with Bob on that point a bit like the armchair warriors and Officers in the Police Force these days they give the orders not lead from the front.
I can't remember where I read it but I offer it here:
"August 1st, 1914. the date Europe committed suicide."
But was Western Civ ever really all that civilized to begin with? Ponder just how nasty the Brits were during the Boer war, the Germans during the Boxer rebellion, ect, ect.
'The latest series of jabs in the mutual strawman-wrestling match among leftie "Social Justice Warriors" on one side and a loose association of right-wing/"Men's Rights" types on the other has reached truly elementary-school levels of behavior.'
That whole thing has been depressing me too. The worst instances of behavior which I have Googled, though seem to have been made up to cast the other side in a worse light. For example, I heard that a woman on the Rosetta team said Matt Taylor's shirt made the team look unprofessional, then she received rape and death threats. Googling it, I found several repetitions of "rape and death threats" but no sources; the closest was a Jezebel article which screencapped a guy on Twitter asking Rose Eveleth (a journalist who complained about the shirt, not on the Rosetta team) to please kill herself. Certainly a death wish, certainly bad, certainly not a death threat.
Joe in PNG: 1914 was about the last time a majority of the front-line troops on both sides were able to stand up to their commanders and say, "No. We're not fighting."
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