One of [Dmitri] Pagourtzis' classmates who died in the attack, Shana Fisher, "had 4 months of problems from this boy," her mother, Sadie Rodriguez, wrote in a private message to the Los Angeles Times on Facebook. "He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no."
Pagourtzis continued to get more aggressive, and she finally stood up to him and embarrassed him in class, Rodriguez said. "A week later he opens fire on everyone he didn't like," she wrote. "Shana being the first one." Rodriguez didn't say how she knew her daughter was the first victim.
May 20, 2018
"Texas school shooter killed girl who turned down his advances and embarrassed him in class, her mother says."
The L.A. Times reports.
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A modernized Romeo and Juliet story.
What do we expect when boys and men are constantly being bashed, told that they are the root of all evil, etc.?
On a link in the article- Rodriguez said Shana knew the shooting suspect, Dimitrios Pagourtzis: He was her best friend’s ex-boyfriend. “She had 4 months of problems from this boy,” Rodriguez told the Los Angeles Times in a private Facebook message. "He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no.” Rodriguez said Pagourtzis continued to get more aggressive and Shana finally stood up to him and embarrassed him in class. “A week later he opens fire on everyone he didn't like,” she wrote. “Shana being the first one."
Best friend's ex-boyfriend. Sounds complicated.
What do we expect when boys and men are constantly being bashed, told that they are the root of all evil, etc.?
Obviously, he shouldn't shoot anyone. But we are dehumanizing men and boys. Embarrassing him in class sounds like something women are being encouraged to do, but it isn't kind.
Shooting up a school because you were turned down by a girl, and people are defending him becuase its just so hard for boys. Fucking snowflakes who need a safe space, away from the female haze.
Kid needed to suck it up and act a man, not like a baby whose assholery put him in that situation.
Blamong otbers for life being normal. Everyone gets turned down in high school, and people are saying this is some new terrible situation boys are forced into ... really?
mark,
No one is defending him or his actions. The point is that if you keep ostracizing groups, you are likely to see them act out violently.
You are arguing that boys are being ostracized? Please explain how in something other than talking points.
Why didn't marginalised groups in the past suffer and react this same way?
Cpuld it not he that boys are still so coddled y they are not being prepared for the disappointments and failures that life sometimes brings everyone?
Boys have it no worse than other groups had it in the past, yet are unable to control their worst impulses ... so we are blaming the girl for having to escalate the way she said 'no' after 4 months of him unable to accept that answer?
A modernized Romeo and Juliet story.
Yeah, straight to the denouement.
Boys have it no worse than other groups had it in the past, yet are unable to control their worst impulses
In a place near where I once lived, there was a woman who had been left by her husband, she took her son to the lake and tied him to a radiator and drowned him, then unsuccessfully tried to kill herself. A couple days ago a lady pushed her son off of a building then jumped after him.
The culture, the media, for profit (If it bleeds, it leads), is putting out a model for adolescent rage that seems to include mass killings. I have a brother who is schizophrenic, and has spent his life in and out of institutions and group homes, in the seventies, it was all alien abductions, and sure enough, he believed he had been abducted by aliens, when he was off his meds. Now it’s all violence, and the weak-minded absorb this stuff. He is being lionized, to some eyes anyway, just like the Columbine killer (Bowling for Columbine? Who wouldn’t like to have a hit album dedicated to them?) Anybody who says, no, we are scorning him, should watch a few Scott Adams videos ’til they sink in.
The media has such a vested interest in pushing gun control that they sensationalize these acts, putting them front and center in the national conversation for days. It’s what’s called a “wicked problem”
"We must do something!"
OK, what about sex segregated schools. Of course there aren't very many boys only schools in the country, but is there an example of a school shooting in a boys only (or girls only) school?
Or: Have the heroic activists from Parkland initiated an anti-bullying organization where bullied victims can reach out to a group of the cool kids for intervention and protection?
Danny said...
"Best friend's ex-boyfriend. Sounds complicated."
You've got your nuclear boots
And your drip dry glove
Ooh when you bite your lip
It's some reaction to love, o-ove, o-ove
Mark said...
Shooting up a school because you were turned down by a girl, and people are defending him becuase its just so hard for boys. Fucking snowflakes who need a safe space, away from the female haze.
Kid needed to suck it up and act a man, not like a baby whose assholery put him in that situation.
Blamong otbers for life being normal. Everyone gets turned down in high school, and people are saying this is some new terrible situation boys are forced into ... really?
Hear! Hear!
Huh! Mark is a girl.
Learn something new every day.
White male's problems are all the fault of the media. Are the problems of black males all the fault of the media also?
Successful girls schools are fine and dandy, and also empowering. Successful boys schools are dens of privilege, exclusivity and toxic masculinity.
That’s why single sex public schools won’t catch on — except for girls schools, because they can advance important social justice goals. The only acceptable boys schools will be reform or military-type schools for troublemakers who make other students, particularly girls, uncomfortable.
Mark: Why didn't marginalised groups in the past suffer and react this same way?
Of course they react, in precisely the same way. Most of the claimed near-daily mass shootings occur among "marginalized groups."
I think trying to generalize this specific incident - especially the possible relationship/rejection cause - into a "white fragility" issue is wrong. It's both more specific and more universal than that.
Best friend's ex-boyfriend? I couldn't find that in the story.
If true, then he's in another category. Not bullied, not rejected so much as jilted. Boys really have trouble with that. One thing for me to find a cuter girl and go off with her, if I can, but don't you dare dump ME goddammit.
Sorry my empathy quotient is rather low.
@Mark, I mostly agree with you, but I do think modern boys are dealing with the same old problems within what is in many ways a new cultural context. “Suck it up and act like a man,” for example, used to have a well understood meaning with reference to the desirable attributes associated with masculinity. Today, many people would find that expression offensive (or at least pretend to), and you can get a hot debate about whether there is any such thing as a desirable attribute associated with masculinity. This all needs to be worked out as a by-product of positive social change, but I think a reliable template for how to act like a man can play a role in keeping the behavior of adolescent boys within two standard deviations of the mean, and I don’t think we are giving them a reliable template.
“Boys have it no worse than other groups had it in the past, yet are unable to control their worst impulses.”
“White male's problems are all the fault of the media. Are the problems of black males all the fault of the media also?”
There is some seriously stupid shit being posted here this morning.
P.S. Is there any impulse worse than a woman killing her own baby? Where are we with that now, 59 million?
The problem is school. Children used to be taught by an apprentice system. This meant that they were surrounded by adults, in a status system run by adults and based on productivity. In that environment, what a child most wanted was to become a competent adult. But Americans have shunted their children into an unnatural environment where they are surrounded by other children. This was unpleasant but workable when the few adults in that environment maintained control of it. But that has largely stopped now, and the inmates are running the institution.
If your kids aren't criminals, don't send them to prison.
“Suck it up and act like a man,”
See Mark.....this is the problem. They are told that all the things masculine are toxic and a part of the dreaded Patriarchy (whatever that means) and then told to Man UP with no role models or positive direction. What does it mean to be a MAN today? They do have lots of negative male role models, helpfully provided by movies and other media.
Girls on the other hand are elevated. Go Girl!! Girl Power!!!!
You think that young boys and young MEN can't see and feel this difference?
Boys are confused, thwarted, treated like defective human beings, told they are toxic, blamed for things that they have had zero control over and that happened long before they were even born...... and then expected to be....what? WHAT are they expected to be? To do?
Obviously, killing people is NOT the answer. However, the hounding, unfair treatment and literal oppression of a group [boys, young males]is bound to create a backlash in those who have marginal mental health.
Careful. If we ostracize Mark, he might lash out like Chuck and ARM do.
When my niece was being stalked by her ex-boyfriend in college, I asked if she was prepared to use violence to stop his harassment. She said yes, but thought it would not come to that, because the school, her entire family, and her friends had all made it plain to him that he would suffer severe consequences should his harassment continue. He stopped.
My suggestion when confronted by unwanted attention: be very clear in your rejection, and then back it up with additional resources, friends, family, authorities. Four months of this guy bothering her was about 119 days too much.
All these murderers, with very few exceptions,
1. Have divorced parents
2. Are raised by their mom
3. Hate women
Can we talk about this now?
If the girl did embarrass the boy in class, she should have been taken aside and told not to do that. I’ll bet she was lauded instead.
Stephen King, "Carrie" scenario.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
Boys are confused, thwarted, treated like defective human beings, told they are toxic, blamed for things that they have had zero control over and that happened long before they were even born...... and then expected to be....what? WHAT are they expected to be? To do?
Obviously, killing people is NOT the answer. However, the hounding, unfair treatment and literal oppression of a group [boys, young males]is bound to create a backlash in those who have marginal mental health.
Even it this were true, which is debatable (boys, receive a variety of signals not just these), it is the role of parents to instill self-confidence in their children not society. Society encourages competition and conflict to select the best and brightest for the greatest rewards.
“Suck it up and act like a [twink].”
There, fixed.
chickelit said...
Careful. If we ostracize Mark, he might lash out like Chuck and ARM do.
Cowardly shit stain post. Were you picked on in school?
PJ and DBQ made a great response to Mark. And absolutely, nobody is defending the shooter.
Shooting up a school because you were turned down by a girl, and people are defending him becuase its just so hard for boys. Fucking snowflakes who need a safe space, away from the female haze.
Kid needed to suck it up and act a man,
Mark, you talk about marginalized groups in the past, but part of the problem isn't how those groups respond, but how those doing the marginalizing see those groups. They see them, by definition, as "less than". That isn't good for society. Just as it isn't good to see black people or women as inherently bad, it isn't good to see men as inherently bad.
Yeah, this guy needed to act like a "man", but the problem is, he saw being a man as shooting up the school. Where is he getting that from? It isn't what most people think men are. But when the message is getting out there that men are toxic, maybe the more damaged among us will do toxic things. When we group people together- and group them together as "bad"- we miss those who are outliers and need help or intervention.
We wouldn't approve of a story of a guy embarrassing a girl for asking him out. We wouldn't approve of a story of a white student embarrassing a black student in front of class for asking him out. We should strive to see all people more equally, so we can have a better view of how it might feel to be embarrassed in front of the class, and how that feels to an already borderline person. I guess I'm saying, as we talk about reducing school shootings, I'm thinking we could do more to recognize those among us who are emotionally damaged, and find ways to de-escalate emotional situations.
In ancient times such an atrocity would have caused a feud or war.
Which was a powerful deterrent to peoples who lived in and for a community.
Things like this were done by strangers, men gone "rogue", far from home.
But in the modern US there are nothing but individuals, increasingly without even nuclear families, so there is no possible proportionate sanction. There is no fear for ones kin that can temper selfish urges.
buwaya said...
But in the modern US there are nothing but individuals, increasingly without even nuclear families, so there is no possible proportionate sanction. There is no fear for ones kin that can temper selfish urges.
I doubt the shooters father's life is going all that smoothly at the moment. Obviously sanctions/opprobrium extend beyond just the shooter. If early reports are correct he is going to face serious legal sanctions and civil forfeiture.
How or why would someone do such an evil act?
Last night I read a facebook post from a mother of a child in that shooting. She ran into the Art storage closet with several other students. The shooter shot into the closet. He taunted the students in that class while he killed them. He taunted the people in the closet before he shot into it. Repeatedly. Two students were shot dead in the closet. This went on for about 30 minutes. She was in denial that her friends and fellow students were dead next to her. Her parents were reunited with her hours later. She had blood on her clothes. Horrific.
Why does this happen? Why is it happening repeatedly? Teenagers had access to shotguns in the 70s and 80s and they rarely shot up schools. Columbine was a marker. These events are increasing in frequency.
David French wrote a great piece in the National Review on May 18th on the why. It links to another article from 2015 that he calls the best explanation for these school shootings. Goes go the psychology of crowds, and how these shootings are linked. The internet and mass media has created a genre for these shootings. Crowd psychology lowers the inclination of someone to act.
This boy's profile does not make sense. Never been in trouble with the law. No mental health issues. Parents married. Danced in a Orthodox Greek church group. Boys and girls have been getting rejected in high school for a long time. Some teenagers have horrible acne. Some can't get a date for the prom. Others are socially awkward in school. Some are bad at sports. Others are teased for wearing something odd. Typical teenage drama that 99.99% of all teenagers experience.
Something lowered his thresh hold for performing an extraordinarily evil act. What causes boys who have never been in trouble with the law, boys who have had no mental health breakdowns to commit mass murder?
The internet is useful. It is a social tool. It provides useful advice for parents on local activities for kids. There are also weirdo groups that develop. Anti-adoption people and Anti-vaccine people. These are some of the weird parenting sites and social groups. The internet allows fringe people to find each other, affirm their strange beliefs, and act on those beliefs.
There are weird social groups about school shootings. Websites that lionize shooters. The Columbine shooter, Harris, is held up as a hero. These sites discuss how to make explosives. It's a social group. It's a genre. It could lower the inhibitions of a boy who would not have thought to do this, except through this interaction with these websites.
What is necessary for typical, non-profile, everyday people to engage in horrific acts? The David French piece is good, as is the article about crowd psychology.
ARM erupted: “Cowardly shit stain post. Were you picked on in school?”
And your posts — all of them together — are a huge skid mark.
At least arm is into attacking and blaming individual people, however misdirected. That’s an important change from blaming the inherent motives of guns.
He put explosives around the school.
This was not an act of passion. This was not a husband finding his wife in bed with another person and shooting.
This was a planned massacre. He likely planned it for months, if not a year or longer.
Boys have it no worse than other groups had it in the past, yet are unable to control their worst impulses ... so we are blaming the girl for having to escalate the way she said 'no' after 4 months of him unable to accept that answer?
I guess this is the new leftist theme. ARM certainly likes it.
First, I trust nothing in the LA Times. It is the NY Times but in crazy California.
Second, separate sex schools would be an improvement but is unlikely to occur.
SJWs are very suspicious of anything that seems to please males.
The boy-girl thing has been supercharged because so many kids are having sex at 15. That adds a lot of emotion that didn't used to be a part of dating.
This kid DID have a father at home but there is a lot of copy cat stuff in this case. The black trench coat in summer, etc.
Still way too early to figure out what his motive was, other than anger and mayhem.
You want to just snipe like a coward? OK. But expect to get called on it. If you don't like my posts make an argument, not the petty name-calling that you usually rely on. It's childish and tiresome and its the tactic of losers.
This was a planned massacre. He likely planned it for months, if not a year or longer.
Yes. The parents of the Columbine killers were oblivious and this kid's family must have been, too.
David French:
"Writing in 2015, Malcolm Gladwell wrote what I think is still the best explanation for modern American mass shootings, and it’s easily the least comforting. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex argument, essentially he argues that each mass shooting lowers the threshold for the next. He argues, we are in the midst of a slow-motion “riot” of mass shootings, with the Columbine shooting in many ways the key triggering event. Relying on the work of Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter, Gladwell notes that it’s a mistake to look at each incident independently:"
"Gladwell then argues that Columbine changed the thresholds. The first seven of the “major” modern school-shooting incidents were “disconnected and idiosyncratic.”
"Here’s the most ominous part of the Gladwell thesis. The “low threshold” shooters are motivated by “powerful grievances,” but as the riot spreads, the justifications are often manufactured, and the shooters more and more “normal.” Here’s Gladwell’s chilling conclusion:"
"In the day of Eric Harris, we could try to console ourselves with the thought that there was nothing we could do, that no law or intervention or restrictions on guns could make a difference in the face of someone so evil. But the riot has now engulfed the boys who were once content to play with chemistry sets in the basement. The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It’s worse. It’s that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts."
ARM is getting even more paranoid. Time for an intervention ?
Gonna say this one more time, because it's the most worrying:
"But the riot has now engulfed the boys who were once content to play with chemistry sets in the basement. The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It’s worse. It’s that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts."
wwww said...
Why does this happen? Why is it happening repeatedly? Teenagers had access to shotguns in the 70s and 80s and they rarely shot up schools. Columbine was a marker. These events are increasing in frequency.
These are all good questions and can lead us to the real root of the problem. Addressing these questions might actually make progress to solving the problem.
The knee jerk reaction to punish the rest of the population by taking away their 2nd Amendment rights to own guns and their 1st Amendment rights to fight for those (and other) rights is NOT the solution. Doing this creates even more and even larger problems.
The WHY is more important than the WHAT or HOW. Until you solve the WHY of the problem there will always be other means to accomplish the WHAT and the HOW.
"In the day of Eric Harris, we could try to console ourselves with the thought that there was nothing we could do
Yes but the parents could have.
It's easy to say that these boys don't have fathers. A lot of bad inner city violence can be explained by the "gang as father" pathology.
These latest mass shooters, although the Florida one is an exception, have parents who did not notice anything or ignored it.
"Yes. The parents of the Columbine killers were oblivious and this kid's family must have been, too."
Those poor parents. I can't imagine. I don't think they had any warning. The parents of the children killed. It's horrific.
These shooters often contemplate killing their own parents -- even if they have no grievance towards them. The crowd psychology of this is horrific. It's the same psychological stuff that allowed normal people to become guards at Auschwitz.
Michael K paranoid.
Shit stain post. Try to up your game loser.
Interesting thoughts, wwww
Dust Bunny Queen said...
The knee jerk reaction to punish the rest of the population by taking away their 2nd Amendment rights to own guns and their 1st Amendment rights to fight for those (and other) rights is NOT the solution. Doing this creates even more and even larger problems.
How? Reducing the number of guns reduces the chances that those suffering a rush of blood to the head have easy access to weapons that can kill dozens quickly.
ARM, my 10:05 post was intended to bring the larger problem home to roost in this thread. By way of example. You responded like the bully you are.
ARM
Shit stain post. Try to up your game loser.
WTF? Are you the new Hall Monitor? Get a grip :-)
Molly says: "OK, what about sex segregated schools. Of course there aren't very many boys only schools in the country, but is there an example of a school shooting in a boys only (or girls only) school?"
Good point. In my area, sex segregated high schools are Roman Catholic--which then would introduce the question if there has been any examples of shooting in religious schools by students. My next question would be also if there are any examples of shootings in private schools, whether religious or not. None spring to mind. Generally I would guess that private schools have more flexibility to expel students or reject applicants. At my son's all boy Catholic high school, the last few expulsions / suspensions were over social media infractions that occurred both on and off campus. They run a tight ship with high expectations to represent the school well at all times.
"These are all good questions and can lead us to the real root of the problem. Addressing these questions might actually make progress to solving the problem."
Yes, we need some way to research and figure out the problem. This article is a start, but we need more information and research to figure out solutions.
Teenage boys and girls are going to get rejected. High school is a time for awkward kids to figure out social interaction. They are going to be awkward and make mistakes. High schools used to have rifle clubs and boys didn't massacre their classmates. People practiced target shooting at the high school. Something more is happening and it's not simple.
The WHY is more important than the WHAT or HOW. Until you solve the WHY of the problem there will always be other means to accomplish the WHAT and the HOW.
Exactly.
“How? Reducing the number of guns reduces the chances that those suffering a rush of blood to the head have easy access to weapons that can kill dozens quickly.“
Back to blaming the guns I see.
Let me explain by way of analogy: Curtailing 1st Amendment rights for all is not a way to limit the speech of those you despise. You continue to speak in gross generalities like “guns are bad.” Focus more on preventing lunatics from getting guns and you might get more traction.
The father of this pathetic character had to know that his son was a bullied loser and weird, and should have kept his guns under struct lock and key. I doubt whether he ever too the boy to the range and/or gave him basic firearms handling and safety instructions. Also, the media has been saying that the fathers' gun were legal or at least legally purchased. No sawed-off shotgun is legal anywhere in the USA. Di the the kid take a hacksaw r he old mans shotgun on his own initiative or wa it already so customized?
Since every school shooter is male (any females we don't know about?) how long before someone suggests dividing up the student body into girls schools and boys schools, with the latter having prison-level security?
The guns were there and in most populous places even more easily available during the previous hundred years. The guns used in this case were indeed designs dating from the late 19th century and have been ubiquitous ever since. They represent, broadly speaking, the bulk of the hundreds of millions of firearms in the hands of the public. These are things that used to be sold to teenagers in hardware stores and by mail order. That was America.
These incidents would have been even more easily arranged, logistically, in those previous hundred years.
Human nature hasn't changed either, the base animal is the same.
Whats changed, other than guns having become more difficult to buy, is in the culture. What that is, in these cases, is speculative.
“But the riot has now engulfed the boys who were once content to play with chemistry sets in the basement.”
I was content to play with a Skilcraft chemistry set as a kid. But I couldn’t even buy one for my son — not like the one I had, Chemistry has been absolutely vilified in this country. I blame litigiousness.
Oliver Sacks would agree with my last comment as would the author of “The Dangerous Book For Boys.”
Whats happening is feeding a vicious circle of alienation and enmity.
This stuff causes one side to express rage at the other, generating every sort of symbolic threat, reducing a sense of security in the targets thereof, therefore causing ever-greater sales of guns and ammunition, and counter-rage, which feeds more rage.
Its very much like the old anarchist idea of "propaganda of the deed", terrorism, which was intended to provoke the ruling class to become oppressive, and thus alienate the workers from them.
This is just one of many vicious circles ongoing.
Bring back the Duel. Use it like AJ did. Everyone is polite, including yellow press. “shame my wife with the truth in front of my children?! Pistols at dawn”. Allow all to concealed carry, passing range test includes a free Glock 16 and shoulder holster you trained quick draw with. Laser sights. Deterrence works. Like it would with capital punishment if carried out same week, one appeal in same week. Civil society skyrockets as odds of violent crime, someone not keeping their word, drops to near zero. Inner cities at peace. Property Values soar, stores return. No more mean (sexless term) bullying. Demand a duel where you can pick or buy a great second or wear a sign that says "I am a coward" around your neck for six months. Justified because a Duel puts both lives at risk. Equal odds of wounds of death, No Kill no foul. Less if a (laser assisted) hit on extremities if some death manslaughter penalties. Benefits far exceed costs, both in loss of life, Civil society, peace of mind, safety of children and quality of life. Terrible errors will occur, very sad. Ends do justifying means, shame on me. Show us something better. Would stop when our descent inverts. Duterte welcome home. Dirty Harry and Death Wish returns.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
WTF? Are you the new Hall Monitor?
More and more of these threads have degenerated into childish name calling. It is killing discussion here. Clearly a few people get their rocks off calling each other names but it drives off the more thoughtful people who are getting sick of this shit and just don't bother contributing. The decline in the quality of the comments recently is very noticeable.
chickelit said...
Let me explain by way of analogy: Curtailing 1st Amendment rights for all is not a way to limit the speech of those you despise.
Poor analogy. I have never favored limiting speech because I am unconvinced that even the vilest speech harms well-adjusted people. Clearly this is not true for a bullet in the head.
Whats changed, other than guns having become more difficult to buy, is in the culture. What that is, in these cases, is speculative.
No..what's changed is fatherlessness.
It is the main reason for the school shootings and innercity violence.
buwaya said...
have been ubiquitous ever since
They aren't ubiquitous in most countries, which is kind of the point.
No sawed-off shotgun is legal anywhere in the USA.
I don't know what type of shotgun this kid used. None of the articles have mentioned a "sawed off" shotgun. If you have a link that says that, please post it.
However, 18 inches is the shortest barrel to be legal. Many shotguns for household protection are of this length. A barrel shorter than that which used for goose or pheasant hunting doesn't necessarily make it illegal. Even sawing off your regular length shotgun to a legal 18 inches is not illegal. Stupid. But not illegal.
A Mossberg Persuader 500 with an 18.5 barrel (my preference :-) makes for an EXCELLENT household or close range weapon. Perfectly legal.
My stupid EX (thank God) husband sawed of one of my own 12 gauge shotguns (pump action Mossberg bought in 1976) without my knowing about it. When he left, I found that my old hunting gun sawed off to an illegal length AND he had altered the stock to a sort of pistol grip!!! It was a good thing he was several States away when I discovered this. I had to take the gun to a local hobbyist gunsmith that I knew and had a legal barrel and new stock put back on.
There is no way I'm having illegal weapons in my possession....unless they decided to try to take away our guns. Then that is a different story entirely.
@ARM: You seem to be in favor of limiting speech in these threads, else why would you play hall monitor?
Marble statues don’t have working eyes so mirrors are useless to them.
Sometimes, a good fistfight is necessary to bring those who only understand force and fear into line.
I got into one of those once as a kid. It was unsupervised by adults, spontaneous & attended by all the neighborhood boys.(details here). It did even scores.
chickelit said...
You seem to be in favor of limiting speech in these threads
My view is that if people lack the mental discipline/capacity to get through one of these threads without attacking another commenter personally they should be called on it. I don't see the repetitive slinging of personal insults as a free speech issue.
Cuck Philosophy derived from Alinsky seeks victim status:
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...
What do we expect when boys and men are constantly being bashed, told that they are the root of all evil, etc.?
"An Armed Society is a Polite Society" -- Robert Heinlein
@ARM: You should leave the role of hall monitor to Meadehouse as injudicious as it may seem. Surely you must know that one of the worst offenders is one of your own — someone you’ve never taken to task.
gilbar said...
"An Armed Society is a Polite Society" -- Robert Heinlein
Pakistan and Afghanistan are armed societies, how's that working out?
It is however American culture. Americans, individually, have always been heavily armed by any human standard. It really is one of your things. You share that with only a few other cultures, in retaining, more than most advanced societies, the ancient every man a warrior thing, in a very personal sense.
Conscript army systems are very different, other than the Swiss. It is a highly constrained system where armaments aren't available outside of an institutional context.
Its a bit funny to think of the worlds most productive economy and the cutting edge of technology as sharing such an ethic with traditional warrior-cultures like the Pushtun, or Comanche, but there you are. Lose that and you won't be you, you will be lesser, generic.
It is part of the American individualist idea, where "revolt" is not only licensed but expected. They are beating it out of you though, everywhere and in every way. The gun controversy is highly symbolic.
Blogger gilbar said...
"An Armed Society is a Polite Society" -- Robert Heinlein
An Armed Dimitrios didn't seem very polite to me
ckickelit working the refs to score points.
What I like about Buwaya Puti is how he looks at us from his intellectualized iron cage like we are chimps in a zoo.
Pakistanis are generally very poorly armed, and most of it is, by tradition, actually a feudal culture of an oppressed share-cropping peasantry lorded over by landowners and officials. What you are thinking of are the "uncivilized" minorities, Pashtuns, Baluchis, Kashmiris, etc. They are ancient hill tribes doing the hill tribe and pastoralist thing, in which every man is a warrior.
In most other "civilized" cultures weapons are the privilege, formal or informal, of the gentry class. I grew up in such a culture, and we were indeed gentry, in effect, so we had weapons as we could comply with the rules and I could train with and bear arms. I used to carry a .38 revolver in Manila, when working nights. I had a police permit. This was not something ordinary citizens could easily get.
Americans are unique. They have merged the prehistoric warrior culture with civilization.
Howard said...
What I like about Buwaya Puti is how he looks at us from his intellectualized iron cage
The thing with cages is that if one has too narrow a perspective it can be hard to tell who is on the inside and who is on the outside.
Howard,
Quite. I like to think that perspective is important. Take yourself out of your context, and see yourself as others see you. I am an other, and I should be valuable to you. Let your wisdom guide you.
George Spix said...
Bring back the Duel
Agree. But matching edged weapons only.
I believe most of my generation (born 1955) handled rejection pretty much the same way. We were told by older and wiser people "There are plenty of fish in the sea." And it's true. Looking at current Facebook photos of several of those who rejected me and comparing them to my better half - I'm really much better off that they did. And another point often brought up by older and wiser heads- Things usually work out for the best.
A point in the comments- how to handle bullying. Kids need to be taught to stand up for themselves. Once in a while that means a small bit of violence properly applied. We had all my kids in karate at an early age. Our kids were never bullied. More than once, anyway. And they never bullied anyone.
There's one story I remember from 5th grade, because it was unusual. Had one girl in class who was unusually well developed for a 5th grader, and a guy who was shaving. She was walking back to her seat after a trip to the bathroom and he said something rude loudly to her as she passed in front of him. She raised her hand to slap him and turned to look at the teacher. Who turned around and started writing on the board without missing a beat. When the echo died down she turned back towards the class and continued without interruption. No parental involvement, no trips to the office, no lawsuits, everyone understood what happened, and there was no repeat overt rude behavior from him. Used to be a quick slap was all that was needed to let a guy know he needed to behave better. Whether in school or at a bar. Methinks today it's assault. I don't think that's an improvement.
Its a bit funny to think of the worlds most productive economy and the cutting edge of technology as sharing such an ethic with traditional warrior-cultures like the Pushtun, or Comanche, but there you are
Buywaya.....if you are interested in this phenomenon, you might want to read some on the Scots-Irish influence on America from the earliest days of the foundation of the country. The Scots and the Irish are very tribal societies.
They are also a bottom UP type of society where the Tribal Leader, who is generally respected, is also acknowledged to be easily deposed and replaced. Not a King who rules by divine or hereditary right, but by the consensus of the tribe.
The influence of the Scots-Irish (I know.. a different group than Irish or Scottish people separately) cannot be minimized. Especially in the area of Free Speech and the right to Bear Arms. Jim Webb wrote a very interesting book on this Born Fighting.
Many other books have been written on this subject. I haven't read this one yet so cannot comment on the truthful or untruthfulness of the context but here you go. How the Scots Invented the Modern World
This cultural dynamic also explains a lot in the Westward settlement of the North American Continent.
The viewpoint of Buwaya is quite valuable in that it is a viewpoint from the outside looking in. As if an anthropologist is studying a different culture. Sometimes we view ourselves too closely in the mirror to be able to see the entirety of our Selves.
On the Scots-Irish and buwaya's interesting observation. Also a reason why people are so reluctant to have a top down gun control grab in this country.
More than 27 million Americans today can trace their lineage to the Scots, whose bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland, and later in the bitter settlements of England’s Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scots-Irish migrated to America in the eighteenth century, traveling in groups of families and bringing with them not only long experience as rebels and outcasts but also unparalleled skills as frontiersmen and guerrilla fighters. Their cultural identity reflected acute individualism, dislike of aristocracy and a military tradition, and, over time, the Scots-Irish defined the attitudes and values of the military, of working class America, and even of the peculiarly populist form of American democracy itself.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
The influence of the Scots
The Scots did have a remarkable run, but their descendants are among the whites who seem to be adapting least well to the changed circumstances of this century.
“The Scots did have a remarkable run, but their descendants are among the whites who seem to be adapting least well to the changed circumstances of this century. “
Obama’s “war on coal” targeted the Scots-Irish mountaineers in Appalachia. It was deliberate.
The Scots did have a remarkable run, but their descendants are among the whites who seem to be adapting least well to the changed circumstances of this century.
Missing the point.
Think about WHY this group is not adapting. Refusing to "adapt" in your terms....."bend over and take it in the butt" in my terms. Think about WHY forcing ideas, mandates, rules, restrictions will NOT work.
Think.
Speaking of Appalachia, there’s a horse named “Justify” in the running for the Triple Crown. There’s a lot at stake in Belmont.
“Obama’s “war on coal” targeted the Scots-Irish mountaineers in Appalachia. It was deliberate.”
50 years ago, the twin problems of black urban poverty and white rural poverty (happy pappies) were given equal resources. Under Obama, and with the blessing of “republicans” like Kelvin D. Williamson, the latter ceased to be a problem and were slated for annihilation.
Dust Bunny Queen said...
Refusing to "adapt" in your terms....."bend over and take it in the butt" in my terms. Think about WHY forcing ideas, mandates, rules, restrictions will NOT work.
But it's not me. It is how the world is turning. The spoils once went to the Scots. For centuries they went to the Scots. Increasingly, now, they go to people with other characteristics.
“The spoils once went to the Scots. For centuries they went to the Scots. Increasingly, now, they go to people with other characteristics.”
WTF are you talking about?
I find myself of the same opinion as Jupiter- the problem is that children are immersed with other children almost exclusively. Adults at the schools are increasingly nothing more than bystanders and managing nothing of significance.
chickelit said...
WTF are you talking about?
Are you seriously saying that you can't see that other ethnic groups/races are grabbing an increasing share of the pie? Even within the Scots it is the ones who have adapted to the new realities who are doing best.
OK, but what a sad way to admit you want the world to be. You really do believe in identity politics, don’t you.
Oh and the “war on coal” was an insidious attempt at genocide. Given the US status as the “Saudi Arabia of coal,” it was also a deliberate attack on America’s energy independence.
WTF are you talking about? I am not saying how I want the world to be. I am just describing how it is. You keep projecting what you don't like about reality onto me as though it is my fault.
chickelit said...
it was also a deliberate attack on America’s energy independence.
Renewables don't make us any less energy independent. The energy is still produced here.
The original idea of the integration of immigrants was to teach them the culture of the natives. Thats why a proper integration scheme for Mexicans, Chinese, South Asians should be teaching American folkways, including the "gun culture". And, perhaps, folk dancing. Other countries do these things.
That, the gun culture, is close to the core of what is essentially American. It really is. It is the spirit of spitting in the eye of your betters.
Integration as an ideal however has gone away. So has any respect for the idea of an American identity, which is instead intensely hated.
What you are getting instead is a sort of nutritionless, flavorless grey mush, where compliance is the highest value.
We are not talking of reasonable things here, there is no room for compromise, for some in-between of cultures, of some committee pap. People don't negotiate myths.
"Howard said...
"'An Armed Society is a Polite Society' -- Robert Heinlein
"An Armed Dimitrios didn't seem very polite to me."
Way to miss the point. An armed *society* -- not an armed individual. Because the armed individual has to expect people to shoot back at him if he shoots first.
"Renewables" increase the cost of everything and reduce a primary American economic competitive advantage, which is cheap energy.
I'm very suspicious of the L.A. Times's reporting here. A Facebook post by one person who is not an eyewitness and who may well have an axe to grind is hardly classic double-sourced journalism. How do they even know it's really her on Facebook? Indeed, the Times itself seems to have doubts -- vide their remark about how she knew who was shot first.
Renewables contributed 15 % of the domestically produced electricity in the US in 2016. Not huge but not insignificant either since that number just keeps increasing.
What do we expect when boys and men are constantly being bashed, told that they are the root of all evil, etc.?
Well, either you grow a pair or ignore it.
What you don't do is kill the ones who spurned you.
OpenID openidname said...
"Howard said...
"'An Armed Society is a Polite Society' -- Robert Heinlein
"An Armed Dimitrios didn't seem very polite to me."
Way to miss the point. An armed *society* -- not an armed individual. Because the armed individual has to expect people to shoot back at him if he shoots first.
The 2nd Amendment is an Individual Right. Your making the Socialist argument which on this blog means Stalinist.
The armed man, traditionally, was owed respect. He could not be ignored, as any monarch or would-be monarch needed him, or needed to keep him from joining enemies. Bearing arms was a mark of honor. This is very ancient. Its why Greek citizens hung their panoply on their walls.
An armed man could also rebel, and be a true nuisance. Independent hillmen kept their arms because, collectively, they were too difficult to dominate. As we see to this day.
This has a psychological effect. The modern US economy benefited from an extreme dynamism connected to this, an entrepreneurial and iconoclastic spirit. This is going away, as we see with economic consolidation, on many metrics. The gun business is a symbolic symptom of the struggle for, and resistance to, this process of deadening decadence.
The centralizing controllers are the agents of decadence, whatever the reason of their arguments. Creation is unreasonable.
ARM: Obviously we are all inside cages filled with halls of mirrors. It's the fundamental basis for human existence.
Electricity has been getting more expensive, or more than it should given abundant natural gas, not unconnected to mandates to use "renewables".
Other than hydro there would be very little use of "renewables" were it not for regulatory and legislated incentives and mandates. This stuff is forced on people.
More and more of these threads have degenerated into childish name calling. It is killing discussion here. Clearly a few people get their rocks off calling each other names but it drives off the more thoughtful people who are getting sick of this shit and just don't bother contributing. The decline in the quality of the comments recently is very noticeable. - ARM
Shit stain post.
The Second Amendment, like the First, is meant to have a collective political effect. Its obtuse to see these as simply individual rights.
The people who put them in there were not concerned about the individual but the polity and the society.
Buwaya Puti leads Bunny Queen back into her own cage of white wing PC identity politics. I do think BP highlights a salient fact that the western US is more influenced by the wild west, Indigenous, Latin and Asian cultures than Europe and the eastern and rust belt US.
Renewables should be called Subsidiables
Jim at said...
Shit stain post.
Hi Jim, would you like to expand on why you feel this way? Maybe you could explain why trying to maintain some reasonable level of civil discourse here is a bad thing.
The collective aspect of 2nd Amendment is the militia clause securing a free state, not enforcing social politeness. Bearing arms doesn't always mean guns. It's a known health benefit to be polite. Perhaps, though, more politeness to Dimi may have prevented his slaughter.
Fracking won the War on Coal because economics
Buwaya@1:53: Very well said. Decadence may be inevitable for us, but that’s no excuse for embracing it.
The collective effect of the Second Amendment is complex.
It encourages the people to defy despotic governments, and it causes apprehension to would-be despots. Look deeper Howard.
Howard said...
Fracking won the War on Coal because economics
Eveyone knows this, if for no other reason than I continually bring it up, but the War of Coal sounds so evil, so genocidally.
buwaya said...
The collective effect of the Second Amendment is complex.
Not really. It results in a lot of unnecessary gun deaths.
Renewables contributed 15 % of the domestically produced electricity in the US in 2016.
Now let’s hear the number without hydro, without the TVA, without flooding river valleys in Northern Quebec.
Oddly, under Trump (cause and effect uncertain) Coal is making a comeback
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/04/20180420-coal.html
Had to work for that stat. In reality a very small increase in employment largely related to coal for steelmaking.
ARM: “Society encourages competition and conflict to select the best and brightest for the greatest rewards.”
Yes. That’s what Affirmative Action, Title IX and progressive income taxes are all about. /s
hombre: perhaps you don't understand the hyperbolic nature of the world. Helping people climb out of a hole costs less than dealing with the consequences.
The modern US economy benefited from an extreme dynamism connected to this, an entrepreneurial and iconoclastic spirit. This is going away, as we see with economic consolidation, on many metrics. The gun business is a symbolic symptom of the struggle for, and resistance to, this process of deadening decadence.
The centralizing controllers are the agents of decadence, whatever the reason of their arguments. Creation is unreasonable.
The resistance to centralized control and a TOP DOWN ruling party or entity is the central core of the Scots-Irish and the American psyche. Deadening decadence by the centralized controllers. The elite who presume to 'rule'.
Once again we are shown the brilliance in the framing of the Bill of Rights to guarantee certain freedoms and powers to the INDIVIDUAL people in accordance with the historical and cultural experiences of those who were fighting against a King/Top Down/ Divine Right type of rule.
Freedoms guaranteed to the People and not given or granted by a Government. Freedoms that are given can be taken away. This guarantee of freedoms/powers and the divorcement from Government granting those things which are not in its power to do are integral to the ability to live free.
The power being vested in the individual as opposed to a centralized ruling controller or controllers is what makes American and Americans what we are. Is it messy? Messier than just having someone issue orders and you all better obey? You bet your ass it is messy. It was meant to be that way.
Some people see the bending over or "adapting" to the central controllers as being beneficial. Others see it as the slippery slope to subjugation and loss of freedoms.
Choose. I know what I have chosen.
This sounds good right up until it meets objective reality - a massive mercantilist bureaucracy in China. Then, not so good. You can take the attitude 'my way or the highway' as long as you also accept that this also means declining living standards, at least relatively, and possibly in absolute terms.
"Kid needed to suck it up and act a man, not like a baby whose assholery put him in that situation."
There is always going to be a certain percentage who can't suck it up, and a very small percentage of those who can't suck it up who turn to violence and guns to cope.
What do you suggest as a solution? Beat down those least able to suck it up until they start acting like men? How's that working out?
You can take the attitude 'my way or the highway' as long as you also accept that this also means declining living standards, at least relatively, and possibly in absolute terms.
Live free or die is a preferable motto to "tell me how to live massa".
Massive bureaucracy?? Welcome to Californika. Unfortunately, we are too old to start all over again somewhere else. Our business is tied directly to the land so we can't move just yet. The best we can do is keep our heads down and try to avoid the insanity.
Chip chip chipping away at our freedoms and ability just live. Again, we are old and can tough it out for the rest of our life. Young people? They may be taking a different view and looking at the long road of toughing it out....or not.
Back to the original thread of young men cracking under the pressure. When there is NO alternative or light at the end of the tunnel, when you feel like you are backed into a corner, the choices narrow to a very few palatable options. We need to give young men and women a way out and a feeling of hope.
It's a sad old story---see Banks of the Ohio
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said @ 2:09 PM...
...Maybe you could explain why trying to maintain some reasonable level of civil discourse here is a bad thing.
You know... this blog doesn't exist just for you. If some other people were clamoring in distress about the supposed level of 'uncivil discourse' here, I could perhaps get your taking it upon yourself to both lecture all us deplorables about the need to maintain some reasonable level of civil discourse AND appoint yourself the official arbiter of what does and doesn't constitute the same. But as it is, you're the only one I read wailing and gnashing their teeth about 'uncivil discourse' - so perhaps taking a step back and considering that you're being a bit overly sensitive is in order, O Beloved One...
I am not even very sensitive, much less over sensitive. I find all the personal attacks stupid. I would prefer if all the stupid people went somewhere else.
I would prefer if all the stupid people went somewhere else.
You mean, if you had the entire blog all to yourself?
ARM, please understand that there are other "reasonable men" -- and women -- who disagree with you. That is why we are here.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
You mean, if you had the entire blog all to yourself?
Non conservatives are always going to be a small minority here. I think it would be preferable if they didn't disappear altogether.
Pearls before swine, unless you are the pig.
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