Once in a rare while, someone tries to engage me, usually in an intelligent and articulate fashion, about why I ‘need’ an ‘assault weapon’. Years ago, I would have tried to reason my side of things out with them. Perhaps in some naive country-mouse way I think that a light will go on in their brains and they’ll say “Gosh, you’re right. I never considered that.”
Yeah, no.
In addition to that particular would-be argument, I also get the ‘do you really think that [type of TEOTWAWKI] is going to happen?”
Again, there was a time I’d lay out my reasoning in the hopes of causing the other person to come to the same conclusions I had, and welcome them into the fold. Welcome to the world of survivalism, here’s your complimentary tinfoil hat.
Again, no.
Guys, you do you and I’ll do me. If you want to try and evangelize, proselytize, witness, preach, or otherwise try to convert ‘the others’ you are, by Crom, welcome to do it. However…and this is strictly my opinion, YMMV… give it up. The time to convince people to learn how to swim was before the ship hit the iceberg. You warned ’em, you offered to help teach them, and all they did was tell you the ship was unsinkable and that you don’t need that life jacket anyway. The time to try and save these people is long past. Stop spending energy on them and leave them to sink or swim as best they can, you’ve got to find a path to the lifeboats and you don’t have time to convince people that they need to head towards the boats as well.
Is that enough with the Titanic metaphors?
Look, here’s the real deal, sans cloudy metaphors and analogies – there are three kinds of people in the world right now: those who agree with what youre doing and support it, those who neither agree nor disagree and do not purposefully interfere with what youre doing, and those who disagree with what youre doing and are actively trying to hamstring you. Work with and value the first, respect but ignore the second, and stay the frak away from the third.
Stop worrying about other people who aren’t important to you and focus on the ones who are. Its a wild ride we’re on these days and there’s no room in our lives for people who are working against us.
I’ve covered this before. Our lives are too short to waste resources (time, money, emotional bandwidth, tears, trust) on people who are, intentionally or not, working against you.
Lately I’ve been thinking about a lesson from the lion king. The donkey insisted the grass was blue, the impala said it was green. They argued and argued back and forth. Finally the impala suggested they go have the king settle the dispute. After hearing the issue the lion smacks the impala hard in the mouth. The impala is shocked and asks wtf? The lion king says ‘…that’s what you get for arguing with donkeys…’
Not to mention why keep reminding them you’re some sort of (insert current Media Nastiness HERE) problem child that needs to be reported under the SEE Something, SAY Something system.
Betrayal, it’s a socialist thing. Grey man might not be so bad?
This is spot on and hits home. Two and a half years ago I cut a person out of my life I have known for 56 years and was one of my best friends to the point he was best man at my wedding. Thousands of great memories. But then Trump became President. My friend was born, bred raised Democrat and in all those years it had not been any problem before Trump. I started noticing cracks after a while and when the scamdemic got into full swing he became snarky and mean spirited to myself and another lifelong friend of ours who like myself is conservative but we both eventually cut him from our lives. There are a couple of siblings of my wife who aren’t in our inner circle either especially one’s husband who was a compadre back in high school. Another born, bred and raised Democrat who likewise twisted off because of Trump. Seems to be a common thread. Time figures not into the equation, if they stab me in the back they’re gone from my life.
Wow, you just described my entire family. Maybe we’re related? 😉
I was raised as a brain-washed democrap, then (oddly) in college, I realized that all these democraps around me just really wanted me to die & go away. As long as I voted for them, I was welcome in their tribe. Any dissent, and I was out.
I never looked back.
When did Need have anything to do with ownership?
If somebody asks me that, I tell them they don’t understand the Constitution and leave it at that.
I get it. Why preach to the choir?
I tend to ask people why government agents and law enforcement need those firearms. In California, cops can take their “weapons of war” AR-15’s and such home with them… why? If they are not necessary, why do cops have them and even have them at home? They always answer, their job requires it.
Cops are super protected under the law. If a gang banger sprays a house with an AK killing a 3 year old, he might get 7 years in prison after arguing his rough child hood and disadvantaged blah, blah, blah. Same douche bag shoots and kills a cop, he is on death row. Cops are super protected by the law, we are not. Criminals tend to avoid the well armed cops and go after the disarmed citizens in the no gun zones. If the cop needs the gun to be safe, then those of use who do not have the super legal protection government bureaucrats have, need those firearms even more.
Seems like simple logic, but it is not about logic, it is about creating a dependent population that is scared and willing to give up their rights and money to the politicians, who just want more power.
Yep.
All relationships are transactional. If the debits outweigh the credits cut ‘em loose; you’ll have more time, less hassle and much less resentment. Filial and religious values impact such valuations to some degree, but not as much as most people might think.
Would you rather fill your limited time here with resentment or joy?
Hard lesson to learn. Easier as one gets older.
You are a master pragmatist. That’s a very good thing.
About 10 years ago one of my sons-in-law asked me for long term financial advice. I said, pay off the mortgage and get rid of any debt you have. I explained to him how close the US financial system was to cratering. His response… that’s not going to happen in my lifetime. He is now 38, and has, not one, but three mortgages, and five growing boys. I have no expectation on him ever admitting that perhaps I might have been right, and I only hope that I have prepared enough to feed those boys and my daughter.
Be he got some super-neat stuff with mortgages #2 and #3…. Jet-ski, boat, ATV, maybe a vacation or two, a weekend at the casino…good thing your kids can eat memories when they’re hungry.
Why do they always seem to buy a Jet-Ski?
Because it’s hard to ride an enormous sign reading “I’m a short-sighted self-indulgent man-child!” around the lake on Memorial Day weekend?
It is not possible to have an intelligent dialog with someone who denies truth, history and common sense. Everything the left believes in is a lie to control/eliminate the herd. The same party that gave us Jim Crow laws, the KKK, segregation, planned parenthood and the welfare state, is now telling us they know what’s best for us. Stay away from these insane people.
The funny thing is when times begin to look bleak, the people who you tried to convince survivalism was just long term insurance in case things go bad begin to say “If things go bad, I’ll just go to your house” out loud. A good time to ask them to read the parable of the Ant and the Grasshopper and take from it what they can..
I think quite a few of the deniers just cannot think that their world can turn to a nightmare so quickly and leave them with only the resources they have on hand.
Yes. Agree. The readership has many valid and applicable inputs. We all will find these instances whether we live in a lefty college town that elects a Trans nutjob to state office or one lives in a one street town that is supposedly akin to Mayberry. Maybe they all have a T. Ghondi type parasite that is actually in control of the brain. I am donating a few scholarly second ammendment books to my local library for their reference section. Perhaps some youth in the future can purview them. I am past the point of debate and citing facts and historical anecdotes with these people. I am at the fix bayonets stage and manning the parapets. I guess just being a hermit gray man and adopting a disgruntled veteran mumbling F. T. W. posture is not unreasonable. Your mind is yours alone, hold the line.
Stay Frosty out there.
Curious you say “Maybe they all have a T. Ghondi type parasite that is actually in control of the brain.” The ‘jab’ is a self replicating nano machine derived from a parasite per Phizer and Karen Kingston. I heard this mentioned several times on Greg Hunter’s usawatchdog.com channel.
I found that not even paying any attention to most of the noise and the people out there helps me live a more peaceful life – not completely peaceful, mind you – I have stuff that troubles me – but MORE peaceful than if I’d been “concerned” about all that’s going on. Most stuff is far beyond my control, and \ or has no direct impact on me, so why bother giving it any mental bandwidth?
“there are three kinds of people in the world right now: those who agree with what youre doing and support it, those who neither agree nor disagree and do not purposefully interfere with what youre doing, and those who disagree with what youre doing and are actively trying to hamstring you. Work with and value the first, respect but ignore the second, and stay the frak away from the third.”
Too bad that wont fit on a bumper sticker or t-shirt. It’s dead-on gold.
i find that no amount of logic will override their “feeling” once they have one regarding virtually any subject. it become religion to them, imagine someone trying to change your religion. i will not engage these folks, i just do whatever business i have with them and try to avoid any further. when they say “i’ll just come to your house” i look them in the eye and say in my command voice “NO, YOU WON’T”. and walk away.
Something for the left to ponder……
“The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of men who wanted to be left alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know, that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over.
The moment the men who wanted to be left alone are forced to fight back, it is a form of suicide. They are literally killing off who they used to be. Which is why, when forced to take up violence, these men who wanted to be left alone, fight with unholy vengeance against those who murdered their former lives. They fight with raw hate, and a drive that cannot be fathomed by those who are merely play-acting at politics and terror. TRUE TERROR will arrive at these people’s door, and they will cry, scream, and beg for mercy… but it will fall upon the deaf ears of the men who just wanted to be left alone.”
– Soviet Dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn
If the inquisitor is a woman, I ask why she needs as many pairs of shoes as she has.
If a male, I ask what’s need got to do with it?
Assuming I give them any answer, or an answer more than F-you, that is.