Pack Animals
Read the story of how an intelligent, disciplined and icy-calm high-school senior dealt with an attack by a pack of animals.
Of course, there are elements of this story that are philosophically untenable, such as giving credence to SCOTUS opinions* and such, but his heart and courage are sure in the right place.
(via van Bakel)
* As John Lopez said: "Think: if the US Constitution were amended to explicitly state that the
government could take whatever it wanted, what would these people argue
from? In fact, such an amendment would logically have to constitute total victory for them: the government would have admitted its wrongs and rectified them via the legal system."
WHAT IT'S ABOUT AND HOW IT WORKS
Free The Animal is an eclectic writing project about everything since November 2003. 23 years, 5,500 posts, 5 million words.
It's a paid membership blog. Most posts are free and public, but only paid members can comment. What determines whether it's free or paid is when I publish. Monday through Friday, free and public. Saturday and Sunday, for paid members. That's it. Membership info here.
Welly,
One of the key symptoms of a raging leftitis infection is thinking that if we don't call it socialism and quote Marx all day, then it's not really socialism, its just the mainstream. You're in good compay, many famous as well as not-so-famous people suffer from the same affliction. Take Dan Rather, for instance. Or those teachers who thought they were just teaching facts, not ideology.
Still, you might want to have that looked at before it starts oozing pus.
I just read the article about the student posting the flyers around school, and being generally objectionable.
Three things stuck in my mind.
He referred to everybody that wasn't helping him as either "the left" or "leftists" (which made me laugh – the word doesn't exist – I guess all words that don't exist are 'American English').
He had no reason for posting the flyers. Why would you force right wing propoganda on people if you are not directly affected by the subject you are demonstrating?
Finally, America doesn't have "a left". America has conservatism (the "right"), liberalism (the "center"), but it certainly doesn't have Socialism (the "left").
Welly:
These days, I don't bother with distinctions between commies, socialists, fascists, democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives, moderates, and even lots of libertarians.
That does not mean that there are not important distinctions to make — it's just that I'm less and less interested in such distinctions.
The State is a fundamentally communist institution, and every one of its adherents, in even the tiniest, slightest respct are communists. To varying degrees, of course. This is at a core level, and most of communist's worst aspects are not [yet] manifest in many governments, but all the premises are firmly in place. The collectivist state exists as close to omnipotence as you can get.
There is virtually no practical limit to its power over individuals.