Conservatives are comically obsessed with manliness. They don’t even feel silly about using the word. But the best part of it is that they really feel that the only way to be truly manly is to be invulnerable to any kind of intimidation. And that means that there is only one really truly manly man. That would be the one man who can kick the asses of every other man on the planet. Fortunately, there’s a solution for the rest of us penufied people. We can carry guns around with us and we’ll never have to take off our pants for a large black man. In this way, we can be manly, too. There’s only one flaw with the incredible plan. Ironically, the author inadvertently divulges it while talking to a English shoe salesman:
I’ve had several recent conversations with Englishmen, who have led me to conclude that the English people will continue to hand over their liberty in the hopes that one day — despite all the lessons from history and human nature — their government will create the peaceful, socialist utopia they’ve long been promised.
For example, I recently broached this topic with an English salesman at my favorite shoe company, Johnston & Murphy. He commented that he’s frightened by America’s “gun culture” and added that Americans needs to drop “their Wild West attitude.” I listened patiently before pointing out that England currently looks a little more like the Wild West. He wasn’t swayed. I pointed out that gun rights are women’s rights, as they make the frailest woman the equal of the strongest male. He kept shaking his head.
If a gun can make a woman just as manly as me, then how can I maintain by superior manliness? I give up. The whole thing is hopeless.
I’ve always though that the best way to engage conservatives is to try and drive them crazy by suggesting that they don’t live up to the ideals of manliness.
It would be even more fun if one could use derogatory language without being worried about being accused of sexism.
you mean by reminding them that they got five deferments from the Vietnam War or used daddy’s connections to sit it out in the Indiana/Texas/Arkansas national guard?
That’s too sensible. These are people who you can’t have a rational discussion with, so you might as well just try to piss them off.
It’s more like trying to find an excuse to call a Republican a “pussy”, such as when they obviously are afraid to answer a question or meet with constituents. I get that some people find that sort of language offensive, but there were times when I just wanted to scream out that George W. Bush was a gigantic pussy who was afraid to make a public appearance unless the crowd was heavily filtered. I may have restrained myself (most of the time), but I always felt that was the best way to rile up conservatives.
The word “Coward” works well also and offends fewer people.
But I agree with your point.
I don’t think “coward” works as well. You can usually refer to someone (not in the room) as a coward in polite conversation. I( might be a bit more selective in my company when saying that someone needs to grow a sack.
I really want to go for that out-of-bounds connotation, abusive like an insult comic, but trying to be mean and hurtful instead of funny. I suppose I can keep the language PG (“You can put lipstick on a pig, but you can’t make that pig dumber than Sarah Palin”, for example) but it’s more fun to use some truly offensive language.
I don’t get it either. I actually am the liberal caricature when it comes to guns: I HATE THEM.
I’m not much for gun control; we’ve lost that battle anyway, and there’s simply too many guns in circulation. It’d be nice to hear some ways to curtail the violent nature so more people would willingly admit that having a gun is more dangerous than not having one in terms of protection (any self-defense person will tell you that it’s putting yourself in a more dangerous situation to whip a gun out rather than just giving your stuff away).
On the topic of the British, though, I’ve been having a long argument back and forth all day (one reply every hour I guess) between three to four British people over this:
Rioting leads to Cameron call for social media clampdown
All of them are in favor of it, and I couldn’t get them to understand the absolutist stance to free speech. They do seem willing to give up their free speech in favor of security without any problem. That’s troubling.
You know, there actually were uprisings before twitter.
I’m pretty opposed to them myself.
of course, when I went to high school 1966-1970, I was in Rifle Club. On Wed, we would bring our guns to school and leave them in the front office.
Note, for the record, guns in school.
So, I would be carrying this old .22 to school by walking there. You gotta admit that that is a pretty amazing idea. There were 10 or 12 of us who went to the police range and did target shooting.
All carried guns into school. I have a picture of myself in Rifle Club, holding the old .22. Pretty funny stuff.
This is semi-tangential, but the right’s obsession with guns is symptomatic of the fear that strikes me as the core motivator for their footsoldiers. Not the top 1%, but the people who kneel at their feet. One of the reasons, it occurs to me, that it’s so hard to reason with this crowd is that fear is at the heart of it.
Maybe this is old hat to a lot of people, but to me it’s a new thought.
Yep, they are all chicken shit cowards. Occasionally I would discuss RKBA on Orange when I was still on it. I said once that of the hundreds and hundreds of people I knew, none had ever been attacked by anyone else. They simply flat-out called me a liar. The gun nut wack gunsel is basically a cowardly paranoid in most cases. Except for the ones who are actually carrying guns because they are doing something illegal or moronically stupid, like going into clubs in East St. Louis at 2AM.
Speaking of Gun Nuts, I have been trying to figure out what movie or TV actor Rick Perry most reminds me of. He looks and behaves EXACTLY like someone, but I just can’t seem to remember who, or what movie or TV show they were in. I think this actor is even still alive and working from time to time.
Anyone know? Even if you don’t know the name of the actor, tell me something they were in and the character they played. Every time I see this guy on TV or listen to him speak, I try to figure this out but I’m just stumped.
It’s telling you can’t remember, because he is precisely like that actor that you think you know but can’t quite recall. Perfect candidate.
That’s not the way I see it. Whenever I see Rick Perry, I see a dumb actor reading a bad script. I keep expecting Zomboo to jump in front of the camera and tell a campy joke.
He looks like Larry Hagman on Dallas or like those guys on The Wild Wild West. But he’s a lot stupider.
I think I may have found it:
James Brolin in this clip as Governor Ritchie of Florida from the West Wing.
Brolin is a bit greyer but everything else seems so similar.
“I listened patiently before pointing out that England currently looks a little more like the Wild West.”
Yeah, right. If only they had as many guns in the UK as we do here, everything would be just peachy there right about now.
Did anyone think to ask: “What if the rioters in England had guns?”
Puts an interesting take on things then, no?
A lot of Brits did.
Probably as many Democrats and progressives own guns as conservatives and Teabaggers. Maybe not as many per person, but the number of people is probably equivalent. This is something that the wingnuts never consider in their fantasies about mowing down the wimpy lefties.
States with strong gun cultures have had gun cultures for quite a while. What happened in the 20th century is that most folks became civilized and didn’t take their guns out and wave them around or swagger with them in holsters. “Son, don’t take your gun to town.” was not just a song it was and element of self-restraint by those who owned guns. Almost a courtesy. Except for the few who remained uncivilized.
Prior to the 20th century, it was not uncommon for even two of the elites to go at each other with guns on the main street of a town. Not a showdown, western movie style, just losing it in the middle of the day over some disagreement.
Probably the best book about the perceptions of loss of manhood by conservatives and other anti-feminists is Susan Faludi’s Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man. It has to do with the promises to the generation coming out of World War II, the promises that shaped the 1950s. And the disappearance of those promises has created a sense of loss and disorientation that now has been propagated to a new generation. From the book’s precis:
So they ramp up doing what they were told they should do, only with anger. Which prevents actions that might just restore their integrity and dignity. It is what psychologist R.D. Laing called a knot. The harder they try the worse it gets and the worse they get.
Holy crap. That describes my step-father to a T. He’s extremely insecure, and in my opinion, largely unhappy. Thanks for the information.
A job to do well
A family to protect
A war to fight
A wife who respects him
I can’t find the passage, but something like that was the promises that Faludi itemizes.
And the ability to do the first three plays into the perceptions of the last one.
This is the content of what the Democratic line “worked hard and played by the rules” are pointing to. Too bad Democratic communications consultants are too dumb to come out and itemize this.
I thought Booman was going to watch the Republican debate and give us a report of what he thought about it.
He must have played the drinking game though – and chose some very commmon Republican words or phrases to drink to. Poor CabinGirl probably had to drag his wasted ass off to bed.
I guess I’ll check back in the morning.
Rumproast and Wonkette had lively and wicked funny liveblogs of the debate; I spent my time there instead of actually scooping my brains out with a rusty can opener and watching the thing.
So far we can count one dead as a result of the riots.
Imagine the English riots with guns.
Apparently the man the police killed, sparking the unrest, was carrying a modified replica pistol. That’s how hard it is to get ahold of illegal guns in the UK, and it might as well stay that way.
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By my count the death toll is five …
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Are they talking about macho women with guns?
Too bad for the Conservitards that the “Black Socialist Muslim Usurper” has got thousands of nukes at his disposal.
The gun-nut arsenals are rather…mmmm…PUNY by comparison, aren’t they?