My daughter attended an elite private independent school, the best of its kind in this part of the U.S. When she was a junior in high school, there was a heavily attended Jr/Sr. party held downtown. Parents were in attendence as chaperones. A couple of fathers were working the door. In the course of the party, some of the kids were so intoxicated and so obnoxious that they needed to be escorted from the premises. As in, their parents were contacted to come and retrieve their drunk, belligerant and nasty brats. At checkpoint Charlie, where the bad seed were being handed off to their retrieving parents, the father of one particularly notorious young trollop being dismissed, and the father working the door at the party venue, were accosted by several athletic adolescents males who objected to young Miley Ray being ejected from the venue. Mayhem ensued, and the two fathers summarily got their asses whooped by these boys.
So let's break down what all had happened here. It was an established fact that these idle rich kids were going to behave badly. The goal of the parents was to contain and control any consequences and any liability attending to the known and predictable bad behavior of their children. Nobody wanted this mess in their home, nobody wanted this mess in a public place where bouncers, random public, and potentially the gendarmes might intervene and implement harsh reality-correcting measures. Some pampered, protected, roided up little monsters got out of pocket and assaulted and battered a couple of men volunteering and acting so as to protect and keep these children out of trouble with strangers and the law. I was not in attendance at this party as a chaperone, so I didn't witness any of this first hand. My daughter was in attendance - and I'm relating what she reported to me as an eyewitness and what I subsequently heard from some of the other parents.
Now, let the record show, I don't particularly like adolescents. They're loud, obnoxious, butt-sniffing, hormone-addled know-it-alls just itching for trouble. Some days, I don't even like my own adolescent, so you can be damn sure I don't like yours. In the aftermath of that incident, I swore up and down that there was no way, no how, under any conceivable circumstance - that I would ever go out like those two dads who got straight whooped by a gang of boys. That incident served as somewhat of a wake up call. I started back at the gym, started making sure I was "moving it" so as not to lose it, etc.., In the intervening three years, I've managed to lose a lot of weight and get into pretty good shape. Not get into pretty good shape for an old man, but get into pretty good shape.
While I pride myself on advanced barbarian skills, it takes a considerable amount of time, effort, and work to maintain those skills. My motto is simple, loose meat and tight joints are a useless tragedy. You've got to maintain tight meat and loose joints if you want the creature to maintain the dignity of the man in the context of a slippery sidewalk where you might otherwise slip and fall on your ass, or, in the context of the slippery slope where you're summoned to safely and authoritatively regulate the antics of young killer-apes.
Yesterday was a federal holiday, so given the time off, I was at the YMCA in the morning in the weight room. The place was packed with the active elderly. Boisterous, busy, loud, territorial old men who socialize more than they exercise, and who give voice to all the nitwit nonsense they've picked up off of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage radio broadcasts. One old, long retired marine, was busy setting up the bench press and had a couple of 35lb weights on the bar. He didn't do any presses, just set it up and walked away to the other side of the room whereupon he proceeded to jaw-jack. Knowing how these old fart knockers think and operate, I dared not just take the bench and get to work, even though he had no intention of doing anything with it for several minutes. He had clearly marked his territory and would be deeply offended.
So I strolled straight up to him, "good morning sir, mind if I quickly jump in there at the bench?"
"Oh no, not at all, go right ahead"
So I take his little 35lb discs off, put three 45lb discs on each side, put the clamps on and grind out three sets of bench presses. (I'd warmed up on the machines in the other weight room) So I'm sweating and pretty swole up, and am in the process of taking the weights off and putting it back like he had it. "You sir are a true scholar and gentleman" and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...., "when you get old like me, you just don't have the testosterone to push that much weight - a youngster like you still full of sap, can still do all that" - whatever cheddar.
I shave my head and don't grow out too many whiskers - so all my telltale grey signs of AARP membership are concealed. Guy thinks I'm 15 years younger than I am. He's as happy as an old dog can be that I showed him his propers (proper respect) in the weight room. As far as he's concerned, I can do no wrong and he's perfectly at ease holding forth, pontificating, and repeating the crap he's heard on Rush and Savage Nation with me too. I smile, excuse myself, ignoring the rest of his prattle and getting on with my business with other weights and machines.
An hour or so later, I'm in the lobby waiting for my wife to finish up on the ellipticals so we can leave. All the old dogs are gathered in their masses yakking about this past weekend's antics on the Plaza and the Michael Dunn/Jordan Davis verdict. The old marine is the main talker and he's wound up in his speechifying. "Dunn should've walked. I would've shot up that car cause you never know these days. Take what happened at the Plaza on saturday, they just don't know how to act."
So let's break down what all had happened here. It was an established fact that these idle rich kids were going to behave badly. The goal of the parents was to contain and control any consequences and any liability attending to the known and predictable bad behavior of their children. Nobody wanted this mess in their home, nobody wanted this mess in a public place where bouncers, random public, and potentially the gendarmes might intervene and implement harsh reality-correcting measures. Some pampered, protected, roided up little monsters got out of pocket and assaulted and battered a couple of men volunteering and acting so as to protect and keep these children out of trouble with strangers and the law. I was not in attendance at this party as a chaperone, so I didn't witness any of this first hand. My daughter was in attendance - and I'm relating what she reported to me as an eyewitness and what I subsequently heard from some of the other parents.
Now, let the record show, I don't particularly like adolescents. They're loud, obnoxious, butt-sniffing, hormone-addled know-it-alls just itching for trouble. Some days, I don't even like my own adolescent, so you can be damn sure I don't like yours. In the aftermath of that incident, I swore up and down that there was no way, no how, under any conceivable circumstance - that I would ever go out like those two dads who got straight whooped by a gang of boys. That incident served as somewhat of a wake up call. I started back at the gym, started making sure I was "moving it" so as not to lose it, etc.., In the intervening three years, I've managed to lose a lot of weight and get into pretty good shape. Not get into pretty good shape for an old man, but get into pretty good shape.
While I pride myself on advanced barbarian skills, it takes a considerable amount of time, effort, and work to maintain those skills. My motto is simple, loose meat and tight joints are a useless tragedy. You've got to maintain tight meat and loose joints if you want the creature to maintain the dignity of the man in the context of a slippery sidewalk where you might otherwise slip and fall on your ass, or, in the context of the slippery slope where you're summoned to safely and authoritatively regulate the antics of young killer-apes.
Yesterday was a federal holiday, so given the time off, I was at the YMCA in the morning in the weight room. The place was packed with the active elderly. Boisterous, busy, loud, territorial old men who socialize more than they exercise, and who give voice to all the nitwit nonsense they've picked up off of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage radio broadcasts. One old, long retired marine, was busy setting up the bench press and had a couple of 35lb weights on the bar. He didn't do any presses, just set it up and walked away to the other side of the room whereupon he proceeded to jaw-jack. Knowing how these old fart knockers think and operate, I dared not just take the bench and get to work, even though he had no intention of doing anything with it for several minutes. He had clearly marked his territory and would be deeply offended.
So I strolled straight up to him, "good morning sir, mind if I quickly jump in there at the bench?"
"Oh no, not at all, go right ahead"
So I take his little 35lb discs off, put three 45lb discs on each side, put the clamps on and grind out three sets of bench presses. (I'd warmed up on the machines in the other weight room) So I'm sweating and pretty swole up, and am in the process of taking the weights off and putting it back like he had it. "You sir are a true scholar and gentleman" and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...., "when you get old like me, you just don't have the testosterone to push that much weight - a youngster like you still full of sap, can still do all that" - whatever cheddar.
I shave my head and don't grow out too many whiskers - so all my telltale grey signs of AARP membership are concealed. Guy thinks I'm 15 years younger than I am. He's as happy as an old dog can be that I showed him his propers (proper respect) in the weight room. As far as he's concerned, I can do no wrong and he's perfectly at ease holding forth, pontificating, and repeating the crap he's heard on Rush and Savage Nation with me too. I smile, excuse myself, ignoring the rest of his prattle and getting on with my business with other weights and machines.
An hour or so later, I'm in the lobby waiting for my wife to finish up on the ellipticals so we can leave. All the old dogs are gathered in their masses yakking about this past weekend's antics on the Plaza and the Michael Dunn/Jordan Davis verdict. The old marine is the main talker and he's wound up in his speechifying. "Dunn should've walked. I would've shot up that car cause you never know these days. Take what happened at the Plaza on saturday, they just don't know how to act."
They.just.don't.know.how.to.act....,
I don't say a word, and thankfully my wife swings into the lobby and we're out just in the nick of time.
15 comments:
Sifting through all that, I find a nugget of truth:["That defendant didn't shoot into a car full of kids to save his life.
He shot into it to save his pride," Assistant State Attorney John Guy
told the jury earlier in the week. "Jordan Davis didn't have a weapon,
he had a big mouth."]-- Derek KinnerIf there are days I don't like my own adolescent, then best be sure, I can hardly stand yours!
I respectfully ask boys and young men to turn their music down all the time in the commons and from time to time, (very rarely) I get impulsive static in response to this request. I'm fully prepared to regulate the unwanted behavior. My size and bearing make it clear that my request is a formality. I'm respectfully observing the protocol, allowing the boy/man to save face and comply, but when everything is said and done, compliance is non-negotiable. Thankfully on the couple of occasions I've had to actively regulate behavior - it didn't prove necessary to kill anyone.
This is not white supremacy or lynching, etc..., it's a grown man asking for decorum and consideration from adolescent males on the commons. If you don't respect the rights of others, you're not entitled to any respect yourself (this is what headphones are for) - While Dunn is a pathetic and cowardly piece of work who should've recognized his own limitations, had these boys been properly reared in the consistent presence of males - they would've understood the protocol and complied with Dunn's request, giving the older male his propers.
When you and I were growing up Bro. Makheru, it is exactly what we would have done because it is exactly what we were socialized by our parents and our community to do. The failure of the present generations to adhere to standards of public respect and respectability is going to be sorely tested over the next several years - and I hope these adolescent males get counseled on respect and respectability rather than on the White Supremacy Dynamic and Afriphobia.
There exist several dozen behaviors Dunn could have used had he been more capable of any sophistication of thought beyond a prosimian level. For example, my usual behavior is to lower my voice down and maintain calm levels of intonation so that the child needs to lean in close to hear. This serves two purposes 1) defuse the situation and get the child's frontal lobes firing, instead of the limbic system, 2) avoid peer embarrassment should he require corrective verbal instructions, and, oh, and 3) puts him in this old silverback's grab zone.
Something else from back in our day Bro. Makheru, we were instructed how to fight and disputes were settled honorably and on the merits. These sorry young punks nowadays fight like a pair of _____________ on the Jerry Springer show http://youtu.be/Ek75k1l_te4
Truth be known, 9 out of 10 of these no-fighting and wannabe gun-packing and gun-fighting mokie jokies don' t even have that art form down pat either http://youtu.be/tnLyxDbdoLk
Well of course, blame the victims for getting killed and shot. Emmett Till had a big mouth also, right. I’ve spent the past eight years focusing on socialization, character-development, and inculcating positive values in young Afrikan American males. I can say from an empirical perspective, many of these young, fatherless men can be transformed. However for those still caught in the throes of reactionary masculinity, such behavior is not a justification for murder.
I’ll bet my bottom dollar that if you pulled up beside a group of skinheads blasting stormfront music, or a group of tatted-up MS13s blasting whatever they listen to, you wouldn’t say a damn thing. Culturally-structured survival skills would keep yo mouf shut.
“This is not white supremacy or lynching, etc..., it's a grown man asking for decorum and consideration from adolescent males on the commons.” First of all you don’t know how Dunn approached these young men, and there is no evidence that he acted like a “grown man.” He acted like the cowardly-punk ass bastard who started an altercation because he was armed. I will guarantee you that without a gun, Dunn does not say jack sh^t. He was not commanding respect. He was asserting white supremacist-driven culturally-structured authority.
[Dunn pulled his car into a space to the right of the teenagers’ red Dodge Durango, and according to Rhonda Rouer’s (Dunn’s fiance) testimony, complained that he “hated that thug music” when they heard the loud thumping bass of the rap coming from the vehicle. Dunn, during his testimony, said he thought the music was “ridiculously loud” but denied calling it thug music. “I’d call it rap-crap,” he said.]-- Richard Luscombe
[According to authorities, Dunn became enraged about the music and ensuing argument. One person walking out of the convenience store said he heard Dunn say, "You are not going to talk to me like that." Dunn testified he heard someone in the SUV shouting expletives and the word "cracker," which is a derogatory term for white people.]
As fate would have it, he will get his chance to meet some real thugs. After he’s raped several times he’ll be begging for solitary.
I’ll bet my bottom dollar that if you pulled up beside a group of
skinheads blasting stormfront music, or a group of tatted-up MS13s
blasting whatever they listen to, you wouldn’t say a damn thing.
Culturally-structured survival skills would keep yo mouf shut.Then you would be mistaken. Though it's been a while, I engaged in an inordinate amount of direct, violent, armed and unarmed confrontation. I've put more skinheads in the ICU and/or jail - than you've attempted to propagandize somebody else's adolescent punks still caught in the throes of reactionary masculinity. (who makes this corny shit up?)
The day you stop making excuses for the atrocious behavior of somebody else's little ratchet bastids - and get on with the program of expecting and enforcing fair and uniform standards of decorum and conduct irrespective of race - the sooner this spectacle of perennially divided and conquered peasants can be brought to an end. The longer you huff and puff all that contrived horse shit about "white supremacist driven culturally structured authority" the longer surplus labor value will be senselessly sacrificed in the street while the powers that be laugh all the way to their banks.
You're talking about addressing someone when it clearly made a difference to you. When the offending party was actually causing you to lose sleep or something like that. In this case we have person who is older and supposed to have better judgment at a gas station for maybe 5 or 10 minutes, seeing a group of kids who are also going to be at the gas station for 5 or 10 minutes playing loud music.
Wouldn't the adult thing to do is understand this is a 5 minute transaction and not give it much more personal mental space than that. The mature thing to do would have been to look at the loud group perhaps wonder if you turned your music up like that when you were a kid, and by the time you think about it for awhile their gone.
And also the mature adult would know, with the peer pressure and the kids trying to impress their friends its no time to expect a warm reception to your demands. I don't know if it was white supremacy, but it certainly was adult stupidity, and he has no business walking around with a gun with the kind of sense he displayed, and should be locked up. I wouldn't call it premeditated, but it has to at the very least be a negligent homicide.
I think adults when I was a kid would have had better sense when to use their "I am your elder card".
When I was a kid, we didn't make presumptions on the good will and tolerance of adults. In fact, at school, adults would strike kids with varying degrees of viciousness if kids forgot their place relative to the adults. Schools, including the public schools I attended, where teachers of both genders unleashed wicked violence at the drop of a hat, were safe, orderly and effective.
The end of adults uniformly enforcing standards of respect and decorum by any means necessary coincides with the wholesale escalation of degeneracy and rampant deflation of social capital. Have you never previously put 2 and 2 together wrt my admiration for Edo era Japan and the vigorously enforced formality and decorousness of that culture?
I agree with all you said, and I have been bounced around the lockers by teachers and then spanked at home if my parents found out my teachers had to go that level to get me in line; I certainly wasn't going tell them, today of course kids can run home and tell on teacher for forcefully getting them back in line. I get that if and adult came up to me and told me I am going to follow you home and talk to your parents, the adult would be backed up all the way and I would be in trouble. Of course those days are gone now, you decide to tell a parent about their misbehaving kid and you'll get cussed out and the door slammed in your face. That's the reality.
Which of course is all the more reason this guy should have just let the 5 minutes pass by. With all the points you just made, why on earth would you expect to go up to a group of a loud group of kids, without any male adult discipline and expect a good good result? The adult has to make the adult decision, and clearly there wasn't an adult present, instead we had a man/boy with a gun trying to make some sort of statement. Nothing good was going to be accomplished by his engagement with these kids. And I wish this was a circumstance where you could bring up being respectful to the elder, or just general being considerate, but this guy who did this, there is not a part of it you can latch on to defend.
With all the points you just made, why on earth would you expect to go
up to a group of a loud group of kids, without any male adult discipline
and expect a good good result?lol, I don't expect a good result, I expect natural law to run its course and for somebody to submit, to get hurt, or to die - and I'm good with that. I expect a whole lot more where this came from - and I'm good with that.
Something is going to change, and taking guns out of the hands of the fearful adults is decidedly not that something. As things continue to tighten up, as people become more desperate, you'll witness for the first time in generations exactly how cheap human life is. The wild, wild west is making a come back. Accept no substitutes.
That old dude with the 70 lbs bench press ought to be ashamed. He really shouldn't be trying to confront any danger. He should stick to tough talking with his friends.
"Something is going to change, and taking guns out of the hands of the fearful adults is decidedly not that something." This guy was not a fearful adult, he used his gun for disciplinary purposes...
I wouldn't describe Michael Dunn as a fearful adult, if narrative is true, I would say he was using the gun for a tool of discipline.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=teXnKE-zmnk
If the young people listening to “thug music” were a group of “pampered, protected, roided up little monsters, and idle rich kids” (meaning white), behaving badly, there is no way Michael Dunn fires ten shots into their car, no matter what they said to them. And if he did, there is no way that jury does not convict him of murder.
“I've put more skinheads in the ICU and/or jail.” Its pretty damn impressive that you managed to do this without getting shot, or going to jail yourself. I assume the statute of limitations has run out on those activities. I would say however, based on empirical evidence, that type of bravado never yielded anything good on my battlefront.
‘Though it's been a while, I engaged in an inordinate amount of direct, violent, armed and unarmed confrontation” The money shot is “its been awhile” because there is no way you would jeopardize your life and the impact it could have on your family by confronting skinheads today over something as trivial as loud music.
“The longer you huff and puff all that contrived horse shit about ‘white supremacist driven culturally structured authority’... A thorough understanding of White Supremacy 101 would have saved the lives of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis. A single, unarmed white man does not start these types of confrontations. Assume they are armed and survive.
“the sooner this spectacle of perennially divided and conquered peasants can be brought to an end.” What I’m doing is not stopping you from building a populist movement with like-minded people. Historically, the major impediment to populism in America has been white supremacy.
“adolescent punks still caught in the throes of reactionary masculinity. (who makes this corny shit up?)” LOL. Basically if some phenomena is beyond the scope of your knowledge, it’s “corny shit.”
http://www.heritagebooksmusic.com/unbladmaviit.html
lol, Bro. Makheru, my father was the first black gun dealer in the state of Kansas. I've had an intimate relationship with guns ever since I was 7 years old. I shoot for fun the way folks in leagues who own their own bags and balls go bowling. I practice a lot with small and with long arms - and I've had a concealed carry permit since I was old enough to have one.
When I tell somebody to turn their music down in the commons, I do it politely, but I absolutely mean it. I don't care who it is, and I'm fully prepared to regulate. A heavily armed society is a polite society. I value that - particularly in the commons.
I hate rude, inconsiderate, unmannerly riff-raff whose demeanor evidences a lack of proper home training. Lack of proper home training means that nobody invested any social capital in them. That means that they have no social capital net worth and their are far better than even odds that they're living lives largely devoid of value.
Discipline looks a lot different than what happened in this situation. Here's a classical depiction of a disciplinary moment when a punk gets properly and thoroughly son'd and there are guns involved. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXpacD0SDh4
What's up with House Bill 2699?
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