46. I’ve never heard of anyone being robbed at the shooting range.
Just think about it - Multiple instances of usually expensive items, which beyond resale value have great occupational use for an aspiring thief, often tended by just one or two people, who are far more interested in viewing holes in paper hundreds of yards away than keeping track of their $500-$1500 investments laying on the table next to them.
And despite all that lax security, despite the major incentives, I’ve never heard of one instance of anyone’s guns being stolen at the range. And doesn’t more guns equal more crime? You’d think the gun range would be a MAGNET for the criminal class. Why isn’t it?
Nah, the obvious answer can’t be the right one.
47. Riffing on school shootings a little more, why is it that whenever some little wacko flies off the handle and kills someone the predictable response is always “He was bullied. Where were the social workers?”
Bullying is a bad thing. I’ve dealt with it some in my life. And it seems to me that as long as we allow their unconstitutional, completely useless existence, schools should be safe places for kids.
But: Would these kids find it necessary or desirable to shoot up a school IF they were allowed to respond in an appropriate fashion to their tormentors? But no: Jack a bully in the face a couple of times and you’re getting booked for assault and battery and expelled from school.
But instead, we turn a blind eye to the bullying, dang near criminalize the resulting fisticuffs, and then we can’t imagine how things could’ve gone so wrong when these tormented youths, forced against their will to spend 8 hours inside a concrete box running around to the Prussian equivalent of Pavlov’s bell finally explode in an unjustifiable and evil surge of repressed rage.
48. I hate the way most TV portrays men. For the most part, men are portrayed as arrogant, ignorant, lustful, socially insensitive clods.
Look at the classic sitcom Home Improvement. The basic plot goes thusly: Family breadwinner Tim Taylor does a whole host of stupid, dangerous things at work. He comes home and causes a major disturbance by getting in an argument with his wife – which is ALWAYS caused by him being wrong and unable to admit it, or completely ignoring his wife’s feelings. After fumbling around a bit in the dark (so to speak) he’s enlightened by his genius neighbor, usually to the tune that he needs to listen to his wife more and quit obsessing over himself or his tools and (though I hate to say this) ignore his some of his male instincts and behavior. He goes into his house, misapplies his neighbor’s sayings, and begs his wife’s forgiveness, understanding, and tells her to go ahead with whatever it was he was too blind and stupid to take a shine to in the first place.
Or watch any episode of According To Jim. Much the same situations, same portrayal of men. Heck, most any sitcom you can think of shows husbands and fathers as completely out of touch with their family, and usually obsessed with projecting a stereotype of maleness.
Now, reverse the gender roles, and tell me it would be as well received. Tell me there wouldn’t be a public outcry to the tune that it’s stereotyping women in a negative way. Tell me there wouldn’t be hate mail, demonstrations, boycotts, and finally an apology or cancellation.
Most men strive and sacrifice for their families, usually with very little thanks or recognition. This is not the norm on TV. And yes, it is television – so what, right? What lessons do people take away when they constantly see MEN being held up as objects of ridicule, the wonderful and defining differences between them and women being scorned as old-fashioned or out-of-fashion or stupid? Yes, there are traditional roles for men and women in society. That doesn’t mean that women should be kept barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen, it means that MEN are usually the ones to run the household, and that’s the way things have been for thousands of years, in any society worth noting (find me one instance of a matriarchal society worthy of the label "Civilization"). It’s almost human-bloody-nature. When MEN as heads of households are held in scorn and contempt, and their NECESSARY roles in their childrens’ and significant others’ lives negated by social assistance and scorn, it’s no wonder we have a skyrocketing problem with out-of-wedlock births and broken homes. The simple presence of a male role model, teaching them traditional values of honor, loyalty, hard work, and respect (especially for women) is invaluable for boys – I would propose that it is as damaging to have a large percentage of our young male youth raised solely by their mother as it would be to have a large percentage of our young female youth raised solely by their father. Each gender needs close role-models for its gender, and you chip away at some of the validity of that by ridiculing one or the other.
Best sitcom ever was Malcom In The Middle. At least there both parents were portrayed as equally insane.
49. Like Christians never being able to outrun the Crusades, I’ve come to the conclusion that constitutional government will never outrun slavery.
Speak of the wonderful freedom guaranteed (not granted) by the Bill Of Rights – the other side brings up slavery. Speak of the wisdom and courage of a handful of men in creating, out of thin air, a style of limited government never before seen on earth – the other side brings up slavery. Speak of following the Constitution as the only way to achieve legal, righteous government – the other side brings up slavery.
Yes, slavery was bad. Yes, it was antithetical to hold people in servitude while espousing the cause of freedom.
HOWEVER: In the eyes of the majority of the people back then, blacks were not viewed as anything more than property. To speak of giving them freedom was like speaking of giving one’s carriage freedom. This is not an excuse, it’s an explanation. Furthermore, in order to create and continue a union that guaranteed freedom to the MAJORITY of its citizens, the founders had to pander to certain…special interests. Despite a good number of them believing black should be free, we would not have the freest country on earth if the founders had’ve stood on pure principle and demanded equality for everyone RIGHT NOW. They realized that the union had to be preserved, else NO ONE be free.
Yes, that was a terrible decision to have to make. But frankly, I’m glad they made the decision they did – that decision guaranteed that we’d have the freedom some day to sit back and call them dead white men and bigots and racists.
To conclude: The prevailing attitude towards blacks, mixed with the necessity of preserving the union led to the perpetuation of slavery. It was a fault of the day, not of the men of the day. Their failings in no way taint the beauty of the gift they gave us.
50.Yet again, it is time to be insensitive. *sigh* You’ve been warned.
If I were presented with a lineup of the Halloween decorations of fifty domiciles, I could, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, pick out which belonged to duplexes, and which belonged to houses.
For some reasons, duplex dwellers buy really expensive, massive, and totally ugly lawn decorations, mostly the inflatable variety. One would think, if you live in a duplex, it’s generally because you can’t afford a house. So why decorate with dozens of expensive (and horrendous) blow up dolls and tinfoil headstones and fog machines.
Not that I’m saying every duplex yard contains ugly Halloween decorations, or that houses don’t occasionally go overboard (there’s one in my neighborhood that is an absolute eyesore any time there’s a holiday), but in my experience, people living in duplexes have a monopoly on the ugly lawn ornament trade.
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