The Groupthink Mind

This is a first try at some notions that have been a-brewin'. It may evolve. It may fall flat. You pays no money and you takes your chances!

A recent flap involving a lefty-ish Australian blogger's anti-gun-ownership musings and a couple-dozen gunbloggers led me to read a bit more widely. What I'm finding in a mode of thought not unique to the Left but often seen there and it's a worldview I can't find a word for.

In referring to others, the blogger in question leaps from individual to group behavior as if there was no difference -- conflating government-controlled foreign aid with private charity, tax money taken and handed out to other nations with individual contributions of time, expertise, money and/or materials. But he himself -- and his nominal, like-minded peers -- is never considered a member of the collective, always a proud individual. (Never mind, for now, the mad faith that the needs of others imposes an obligation upon those with more; let alone the essential valuelessness of required charity).

Is it solipsism? Blind arrogance? Look, if'n you are gonna treat everyone else as if they are a hive-mind, where d'ya get off exempting yourself?

If this was just the usual PSHness over firearms in the hands of free individuals, I'd shrug it off; we are, after all, talking about a writer who in all earnest believes that gunbloggers receive "marching orders" and "talking points" from what he belives to be a self-evidently horriawful, wicked NRA (of which I am at present not even a member, btw, funds bein' a bit shortish), fears any of what he describes as "manly" virtues and who appears incapable of distinguishing hyperbole and sarcasm from plain talk. I'd shrug it off as a desire for blog-hits, since there is one (1) item about which he happens to be right: there are few (non-NSFW) topics that draw online attention better than an anti-self-defense screed. I would -- except the same attitude and zeitgeist shows up over and over in his other posts. Nor is he by any means alone or exceptional in this attitude; he's just a handy example, recently met.

Folks who were there at the time point out how Ayn Rand could be utterly vicious to witlings and the ill-informed, especially later in life; witnessing this particular form of aristocratic Queen-Bee collectivism, I begin to understand how she got that way.

Readers, I do not assume you are monolithic in thought, attitude and/or deed; while I don't especially care about your politics, religion or shoe size as long as you can accept the necessity to not impose 'em upon unwilling others, I hope it is an active, engaged sort of apathy that sees each of you as who you are (or who present yourself to be, my third eye still bein' at the repair shop this week) and not some unit of the collective. Left, Right or orbiting Pluto, that may be one of the more basic differences among people: do you see others as individuals, or some seething mass to be bent to your image of the "common good?"

Me, I'm not even sure there actually is a "common good" or that striving to enforce it is such a great darned idea even if it exists. Who decides? The Queen Bee? (My mom kept bees. I've seen the heap of dead ones outside the hive, a pile that grows and grows as Winter continues. There's your "sacrifice for the common good." Count me out!) Perhaps a roughly and incidentally shared "good enough" is about as far as we ever manage.

MISSION: CATASTROPHE

"...your mission, Agent Feline, should you choose to accept it, is to traverse the hallway and dining room, ending up deep in enemy-cat territory, where you will penetrate their private litter box and leave a steaming pile of concentrated obnoxiousness. That'll show those dirty rotten other cats not to bogart the best sunny spots and the place right by the heater! This tape will self-destruct in five seconds...."

They're all doing it. It seems this is some kind of tactic. I'm imagining how it might work if humans thought that way: The year is 1942. Deep in Germany, a door slams open and a rumpled, pudgy, sweaty Allied paratrooper with a three-day growth of beard saunters out of Reichsmarshall Goering's private latrine, clenching a smoldering, cheap cigar in his teeth while he tucks in his shirttails: "Y'might not wanna go in there fer a' coupl'a days, Herman...." Yeah.

Mom X: Home, Healthy, Fit To Climb The Walls

...Not that she told me; and I wasn't clever enough to ask: they told her not to drive 'til the middle of this week. With my sister and my nephew at the house, it's not like she was totally trapped but her recovery's been, oh how shall I put it, dumbfoundingly rapid. So you can just imagine this very active, energetic woman, with energy she had not felt in some time returned thanks to the stent, faithfully following Doctor's orders. And counting the days like a prisoner!

She's doing extremely well and we're all counting our blessings after her misadventure. She's looking forward to the Spring. (Come to think if it, so am I).

(I didn't tell her about the entire lawn-ful of crocuses* Tam, the Data Viking and I saw Sunday, right around the corner. What a sight!)
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* Tam asks, "Shouldn't that be crocii?" But I'm pretty sure that's the plural of "frog."

Indy 1500 Gun Show!

Tam and I did a quick walk-through Friday evening; Sunday, The Data Viking drove down from his lair* and we hit the show bigtime!

Could not be more fun. This thing's too big to adequately describe; suffice to say that every aisle contained something I made a note to come back and see...and that wasn't time to do so once we'd seen it all.

I looked long and hard at Nagant revolvers, which are becoming ubiquitous and, at $129.00 and down, aren't such a bad deal, especially if you know someone who's got one of the .32 conversion cylinders for them; otherwise the going rate for the oddball rounds makes them a bit dear. One of days, I shall purchase either a Nagant or (preferably) a Webley or Enfield revolver. (With a Smith & Wesson expert for a roommate, if I'm going to buy wheelguns, it's either that or Colt$!)

We did pick up a nice little Colt, but not a revolver: a .25 pocket pistol. I've had an Eibar-type of similar size (a "Protector," quotes and all) but with an enclosed hammer to the Colt's striker. Browning's design incorporates a grip safety, which is smooth as can be. How's that for a pistol made in 1916! Glock fans who espouse Gaston G.'s straightforward design, please note that even the fancy Colt has just over two dozen parts. (Tam says, "It's like a gun, but smaller." --I'd say the same of the oddly kewl old Webley air pistols, myself).

SF writer/bladesmith and all-round cool guy Mad Mike Williamson was there, with his offspring and spouse. I bought a copy of Freehold, his first novel, which I should have picked up a long time ago! I'd been passing by his tables for several years and just happened to find a copy of The Weapon at a local used book store. --Should have bought another copy of that one, come to think of it, so I'd have one to loan out or give away. If you liked Heinlein's Starship Troopers -- not the movie, the book -- you'll like The Weapon. Count on it. So far Freehold is every bit as good. For awhile, I thought I was going to have to stop reading new SF; one reason why I'd been passing by Mr. Williamson's work was because I was leery of being disappointed. The more fool I -- his stuff is good!

All in all, another fine gun show. I saw cartridges I'd never seen before (missed the trounds Tam found at one table, darn it -- but I'd'a wanted to buy a Dardick to shoot 'em in), we all saw plenty of fascinating and wonderful guns and the Data Viking even found sugar-free jerky, which was utterly delicious. (I had to refuse more after a taste; otherwise, I would have gobbled the whole bag!)

So, if you were at the Indy 1500 and saw a tall blonde in a black CCA ballcap, a sturdy blue-eyed Viking with a friendly smile and a tallish dark-blonde with Bettie Page bangs, that was us. Say "Howdy" next time, okay?
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* Or penates, I dunno which. Give yourself ten points if that makes any sense.

I'd've Offered Him A Light

In far-off, exotic New Mexico, a dear, sweet little old lady defied the "experts" and successfully thwarted a purse-snatcher at a gas station. Oh, hully gee, it worked!

...Somebody alert the media (oh, wait, they already know), and wake up Helmke and his band of fools. You don't stop crime by knuckling under, you stop it by sayin' "No" in word and by deed!

This should be the rule and not the exception. It shouldn't even be newsworthy; but perhaps it'll help spread the meme.

What Is It About Fort Wayne?

First they give us PSH-er par excellence Paul Helmke and now, this: Fear of turnip. Maybe there's something in the water?

Meanwhile, Texans are, at least, a little better at knowing what they've found, if not so wise in choosing where to take it: Here, desk sergeant, please accept this token of my esteem.

Conclusion: let's try to stay with horseshoes for the rest of the year, okay?

ADD For A Reason

It's just about the prettiest day we've had in months. The sky's like an overturned blue porcelain rice bowl, impossibly high and dark overhead and shading to the palest blue at the horizon, scribbled in cryptic ideoglyphs by a scant few lost clouds and wavering contrails; as a motorcycle buzzrumbles by outside the fence, I know what they mean: Sun's callin'. Get out here. Have some fun.

I cannot. Most of my day has been and will be spent in a windowless office. But my heart? My heart's still 14 or 13, gazing over sunny roofs and tree-lined back yards out the third-story windows of the Art classroom, seeing the birds soar and dreaming of escape.

I'd like to dish up some prime snark on the Declining State Of Things (Balkanization* Now!). Can't. Maybe later!

Update: So, I got off work early ('cos I started early) and came home to go riding and...it started raining. Hmpf. There was a kind of a break in the rain (and the worst of the salt and oil had a chance to go to the gutters) , so I went out and around until it began to rain in serious earnest and added another entire mile to this year's time in the saddle. Ooo. Well, better than nothin'.
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* Delightfully, Blogger's spellcheck thinks this should be "Vulcanization!" How illogical.

Categories

It will come as no surprise (at least if you read Tam's blog, too) that today at work I stumbled across some old, small cardboard parts bins once used to sort various small starship-repair items labelled variously "Weevily," "Smells Like Cheese," "Probably Burnt," "Velcronia," and "Makes Me Itchy." Sure looks like my handwriting....

The War on Guns: Taking the Bait

David Codrea has been passed a deliberately-chilling little message from a Fed: The War on Guns: Taking the Bait. Read it and decide for yourself.

Me, I'm thinkin' Mr. U.S. Marshal Public Servant Blog-Threatener might want to double-check the tinfoil lining in his cap, if he's so all-fired fretted about Gunbloggers. Even firebrands like Codrea will be found urging change through voting and other peaceable means, motivating readers by pointing out the excesses and abuses of our elected and appointed officials. If that's treason, cut me a slice of it, too. Save the biggest hunks for the Founders, who'd probably all be rotting in the pen if some of the dimmer lights present amongst our putative masters had been runnin' the show.

I Voted Today. Better Protect Yourself!

Special election, no less. So we all rode the short bus in the Federal Junior Body 7th District beauty pageant, especially the three candidates.

This is a good thing about Indiana: the ballot offered a Republican (a State Congressbeing and maybe a bit of a nimrod, but that's the worst I've heard), a Democrat (Indianapolis City Councilbeing, scion of a political dynasty and formerly some sort of Homeland Security d00d) and a Libertarian (nice guy and no zanier than his opponents, or not much more). This gave the folks who might have voted D or R reflexively another choice; I've already heard from one chap who picked the Lib mostly on the basis of disliking the other two guys. Media treated the Lib about as well as the other two, despite voicing the belief that he hadn't a prayer. Hey, could be; me, I'd be just as pleased as long as the Democrat loses. We have enough Big Federal Secret Police boosters in the Federal House O'Misrepresentatives already.

...But the real reason I'm here is to once again remind folks that I voted. All things considered, maybe you had better get out there and vote right back at me! It's your first line of defense.

I Rode My Motorscooter This Evening

And it was good. That is all.


(Yayyy!)

It's a Bajaj Chetak, BTW.

What, Like In A Jar Under The Porch?

Daylight Savings time came as a personal shock this morning, though professionally I'd been making changes and updates to account for it since the end of last year.

I'm not at all convinced we're "saving" anything but it does mean we're at the verge of two-wheelin' season! Possibly even later this week if the weather forecast holds, I'll be trying my first motor-scooter commute of the year. I've already been scanning the route for potholes. Thanks to a busy Winter, there are plenty of them and they're hungry for 10" wheels. All part of the fun? Perhaps.