Blogging is a lonely business. We don’t get many comments, likes, or ratings. Oh, sure, we have a hearty core cadre of commenters and likers that keep us busy and feeling like we are making a difference, but we just don’t get much by outside affirmation.
We haven’t had many of the trolly-type comments, either. It saddens me that we don’t. I think we must be missing some be doing something wrong. Either that or requiring every commenter to submit an Email address and wait in the approval queue discourages them. Feel free to speculate in the comments, and, perhaps, your comment will be approved for public consumption!
I suppose other more successful blogs do have lots of commenters and such, but here at Ye Olde Blogge, we do not. Consequently, we cherish and celebrate every commenter trolly or not, we just don’t always approve their comments and allow them to appear after the articles they are posted to.
We now have eight whole comments in the pending pile that I have answered but will not approve because they don’t rise to the standard of informed comment. They are far more harsh opinion and vitriol and really deserve little attention from anyone. About the best that lot had to offer was this comment from MarxistHypocrisy101 who was so upset by the post, He’s a Narcissist! What Else Do We Need To Know? That he posted three comments each one more hysterical and caustic than the last until we ended up with this gem of incoherent angle-bargle:
“WAAAHHH NOT LETTING THE REGRESSIVE LEDT BE A LAWLESS SOCIALIST DICTATORSHIP IS AN ABUSE OF POWER!”
And this is why your side is so dead that you can’t even win elections you rig. Good riddance.
That mess of sputtering outrage needs no further commentary; however, the latest one does.
On Saturday 22 February, one, socialist RA, graced Ye Olde Blogge with his insights into the post, Open Carry: the Ultimate Gaslighting Technique.
so [sic] you’re ok with police open carrying – police, who murder more minorities than any other group in the US, but when we carry guns to protect ourselves from violence -which I can assure you many of us have had to go through, unlike conservative democrats [sic?] in their gated communities- we’re suddenly “gaslighting” – a term you clearly don’t understand.
huh ok. great. keep on supporting white supremacist mass murder and the disarmament [sic] of vulnerable groups then I guess.
There are some interesting “points” here. The notion of police open carry is, well, “interesting.” I guess socialist is trying to draw an equivalence between an armed citizenry and an armed constabulary? I guess, the notion of the state having a vested interest in having a monopoly on the use of violence is a bit lost on him. I mean, if the state did not hold such a monopoly, we would live in anarchy, right? If just anyone could do violence to anyone for any reason or purpose, then we would not be able to live in an organized working society, would we?
One of the problems with open carry for citizens is that when someone shows up to a public place with a weapon, no one knows whether the person is a good guy with a gun, a bad guy with a gun, or a guy with a gun who thinks he can shoot anyone who he thinks deserves it, which to me is a bad guy.
When a police officer shows up with a gun, white people, at least, have enough privilege to feel like he, she, or they will only use those guns under sanctioned circumstances, which is to say, against criminals and PoC. If you’re a woman, mentally or physically disabled, or a Person of Color, though, you don’t warrant enough privilege to feel safe with armed police, especially, if you’re a young black man.
I haven’t noticed many of socialist’s armed vigilante types coming to the aide of young black men who were being gunned down in the street for no better reason than they are young black men. In fact, I suspect that many of the armed vigilantes are the ones vocally opposed to Black Lives Matter.
We shall ignore the dispersion cast by the implications of conservative Democrats living in gated communities protected from the mean streets that everyone else has to live on. Because socialist seems to disdain capitalization or fancy him, her, or them self as some kind of modern day trolling e.e. cummings, it is difficult to discern whether he means democrats as the people who believe in and support democracy or Democrats as in the members of the political party. I suppose conservative democrats might be people to the left of Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar in spite of their party affiliation. It’s hard to say.
I do take exception to the accusation that I don’t understand gaslighting. I’ve spent the past three plus years working to understand gaslighting and feel like I’ve got a pretty good grasp on the concept. I also feel like the thesis of the post, open carry as gaslighting, is accurate. Trying to convince us that we can some how divine the intention of an armed stranger is gaslighting. We’ve spent 40,000 years evolving ways of keeping ourselves safe from the ill-intent of strangers armed or otherwise. Demanding that we allow the armed vigilante types the privilege of deciding whether they are the good guy with the gun, bad guy with the gun, or the guy who decides who needs to be shot and when seems to me the ultimate mind fuck. I don’t think I will accept it as plausible, and it is the very reason we should not allow our populace to be armed in the first place.
Couple that thought of socialist believing he, she, or they should be privileged enough to decide whether he, she, or they is a threat with what happened in California when the Black Panthers decided that they were safer armed — when was that 1967? — well, it didn’t take long for the white California legislature and the racist governor, Ronnie Reagan, to pass legislation banning open carry.
Talk about the disarmament of vulnerable populations! Disarmament, sheesh! What is it with these people?
I think that just about does it for the motivated reasoning hour of our commenters who think that we should just trust their judicious use of firearms in our midst. Seriously, in the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, What a maroon!
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The Psy of Life 
I really appreciate your blog, Jack.
Thanks as always for your invaluable posts!
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Howdy Margie!
Thank you for your continued support! I’m glad you find it useful.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Calico Jack – Who gets to show their gun?
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I get the thought of there being such a thing as a Gaslighted Gaslighter. Some percent of the Open Carry (and probably more of the Concealed Carry folks) are suffering from the political and media gaslighting (cable news constant repetition of news and scenes of violent attack, the same one twice an hour until the next one takes it’s place) that persuades them that they do need that gun everywhere all the time. And then there are the ones who display the weapon to feed their narcissistic hunger (“See ME and know I am dangerous!”)
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Howdy Bob!
It is that malignant narcissism that is the driving force. The malignancy and narcissism is not as great as Trump’s is. The narcissism drives them to believe that if they think they’re “good” then, we should accept them as “good.” The malignancy is little more than everyday sadism by which they reveal in the fear that see in the faces of the passersby.
It is not just the CNN effect that causes people to believe that the world is more dangerous than it is, it is our other entertainments as well, TV and movies. We are designed to accept what we see as truth, so seeing fictional crime and violence has a similar effect as real crime and violence. When we see it on the news and in our TV shows and movies and hear it from our neighbors, friends, family, and politicians, we come to accept it as true.
Worse, our media heroes sell us a bill of goods. They would have us believe that the lone maverick wolf fighting the pure fight against evil will prevail and that the end of triumphing over evil justifies whatever violent means is necessary to achieve it.
The armed vigilante types think that because they watch a movie and can tell the good guy with a gun from the bad guy with the gun, then people watching them will see them as the heroic good guy with a gun never realizing that all we see is a guy with a gun. Since the majority of these yahoos is white and male, they are further reinforced by their privilege. White men are not violent criminals like black men are.
We have created a witch’s brew in our society that is as flammable as any gasoline, and we have elected the one party that is willing to set it aflame and dance in the burning embers.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I grew up in the time of Western TV shows and movies when it was easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys by the color of their hats, if not their skin. In that context, I was fascinated by the exception, a cynical hired gun and detective with doubts, a black hat, and scruples, Paladin (played by Richard Boon) in “Have Gun Will Travel” – sort of Western Noir.
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Howdy Bob!
I’ve managed to watch a fair amount of TV on the Netflix since this coronavirus thing started and all of those superhero shoes — nauseatingly repetitious are all the mavericky good guys are kung fu fighting all the evil bad guys while trying to avoid the police. The message consistently is that sometimes to do the right thing, you’ve got to break the law. In those shows, the right thing is usually painfully obvious and crystal clear. It seems to me it’s what led to OJ Simpson bursting into that Las Vegas hotel room guns drawn to take back his memorabilia. That’s a made for TV solution to a problem that we have a real world legal solution for that’s a lot less dramatic but usually results in a lot fewer people getting hurt.
And, for folks like my “socialist” troll, it’s not even that well defined. All he’s interested in is owning the libs, and, I suspect, discriminating against PoC and women, and inflicting fear and apprehension. Trolling is essentially driven by everyday sadism.
Huzzah!
Jack
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That sort of story telling is probably largely responsible for my loss of interest in TV and most movies. Stories in which The Right Thing is unclear and people are complicated are more interesting.
Trolls like that one do seem to be mainly finding a sense of “power” in causing pain and fear. Their justifications of their “Cause” are generated by motivated reasoning and little else.
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Howdy Bob!
I remember Paladin and “Have Gun Will Travel.” I had to watch that and a whole lot more in syndication, but they were a big part of my formative experience.
Huzzah!
Jack
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