Making a provoctive clothing choice

[chasfm11]

I don't want to cause thread drift in the D.C. incident about the Catholic boys so I'm opening a new discussion. But that on-going discussions seems to be turning the MAGA hat more toxic to some in the media than it already was. I would have thought that the exact opposite would be the case after the truth about what happened came out.

I'll be honest and say that I've limited wearing my NRA logoed clothing to places where I knew that I probably wouldn't start an incident. Situational awareness in our surroundings is often difficult enough without shining a spotlight on myself. While I'm sure that many have walked into a Wal-Mart with an NRA ball cap on without incident, it would be just my luck to find someone there who was already having a bad day and decided to take it out on me.

But another part of me is now wanting to sport a MAGA hat in defiance of the excessive suppression of the concepts that it represents. I look at the contrast between the will-not-be-named high school student from the Florida shooting school and the one who was targeted by the Native American activist in that D.C. incident. The difference was pretty much that hat.

Another realistic side to me wonders what would happen if I did manage to trigger someone and they decided on a physical confrontation. Like the D.C. incident, there is little hope that no matter how I conduct myself, the truth about my actions or even the lack of them will be told. I don't want to be a one person crusader. But this is worse that open carry in that regard. I do OC at times and have yet to have an sort of negative reaction. That isn't necessarily so with a MAGA hat.

One of the local Facebook groups has contemplated a MAGA hat day. While my initial reaction is that I'm all in, I remember the Proud Boys incidents and don't want to be a part of one. I recognize that Texas isn't Washington State or D.C. but we are not immune from some of those same type of thinking people.

My opinion is that while I think that gun control nuts can be out of control, the anti-MAGA hat activists go beyond that and are getting worse. Is wearing a MAGA hat a provocation?

[C-dub]

I'm not an "in your face" kinda guy. I don't have a MAGA hat, but I don't wear hats much anyway. However, I'm just waiting for someone to start up that conversation with me and say that the boys or anyone wearing a MAGA should have known that it was inflammatory and would start something like this. What they'll get in response will be, "Then I guess every woman that has ever worn a short skirt, low cut blouse, or tight clothing should have known better and she deserved whatever others did or said to her because of that."

Typical liberal junk. Let's be all politically correct up until it is something they are opposed to. Ya'll know how the rest of that goes.

Way to get me going on a beautiful Sunday morning.

[G.A. Heath]

I don't have a MAGA hat for a number of reasons. First, I don't wear hats. Second is that I wish to avoid confrontation and Third is that America has always been great so we can't do it 'again'.

[crazy2medic]

I'm of the opinion that certain people are looking to be "triggered" those people need to get a life and get on with it! I was at Walmart wearing a t-shirt that has a silhouette of a Labrador on it and the shirt reads "Chocolate Dogs matter" my wife bought that for me because of my big chocolate lab, this guy at Wal-Mart reads my shirt and his demeanor instantly changes, I'm thinking what's his problem, when I pass him the second time he said something under his breath but I couldn't hear exactly what he said. I believe had I not been open carrying there would have been an incident! My wife ask me what's his problem, I told her I don't think he likes my shirt! Some people need to grow up and stop acting like children with hurt feelings!

[Jusme]

I'm of the opinion that certain people are looking to be "triggered" those people need to get a life and get on with it! I was at Walmart wearing a t-shirt that has a silhouette of a Labrador on it and the shirt reads "Chocolate Dogs matter" my wife bought that for me because of my big chocolate lab, this guy at Wal-Mart reads my shirt and his demeanor instantly changes, I'm thinking what's his problem, when I pass him the second time he said something under his breath but I couldn't hear exactly what he said. I believe had I not been open carrying there would have been an incident! My wife ask me what's his problem, I told her I don't think he likes my shirt! Some people need to grow up and stop acting like children with hurt feelings!

I think that there are those who just want to a victim of something. I have no reaction to those who wear clothing espousing ideologies I disagree with. To each their own. But there are those who are conditioned to be offended, by almost anything, the USA flag, the Confederate flag, anything supporting the police, the military, or a million other things.
I don't go out of my way to wear things that may trigger someone, but I don't avoid wearing those things either.

[crazy2medic]

Exactly!

[Liberty]

I haven't been a big Trump supporter, and I don't wear baseball hats. I find fishing style hats more practical and fashionable for me. I do believe that we can and should strive to Make America Great Again. I've been putting it off for a while now, but I think I'm going to order a MAGA hat today. If I cause a snowflake meltdown,. I will just write it down as the cost of freedom.

[The Annoyed Man]

People are always looking to be triggered by something these days, and that is NOT only the province of the left. The differences are only a matter of degree, and whatever the object of the outrage happens to be. Look at how people on the right sometimes react to “coexist” bumper stickers. My son, an otherwise rational and intelligent man, gets totally triggered by the sight of a Toyota Prius - especially from the driver’s seat of his lifted Chevy pickup truck - and he’ll start ranting on about stupid cars and stupid lefties.....never mind that plenty of conservatives drive Priuses. It’s irrational.

The thing is, our society is becoming increasingly tribalized. And everything from clothing choices, to what we drive, to where we shop, to our food choices, to where we choose to live, have increasingly become markers of our tribal identities. It’s not merely limited to race/gender/age. That’s what happens when people stoke identity politics, and that is why the politics of Marxist intersectionality is such an evil and vile thing. Instead of finding ways in which to bind us together over our commonalities, it finds ways to divide us .... and conquer us. To my view, the conquest has been very successful so far, and it isn’t going to let up. It’s why we are finished as the kind of nation we once were. We are entering the stage of agonal breathing. Yep, I’m a pessimist, but I see exactly ZERO evidence pointing the other way, and the intersectional marxists are large and in charge, and they are now of breeding age and reproducing themselves, so......

The triggering is merely a tribalist reaction to encountering members of the “other”. It is no different than the threat displays when one troop of chimps encounters another troop anywhere near their territory, and starts breaking off branches and waving them around. Unabated, those threat displays turn into attacks, which in turn become rumbles in the jungles, and chimps die.

This is the state of our society today. And anymore, it isn’t even necessary to wear overt expressions of tribal identity in order to run into intertribal dynamics. Simply being male, or white, or lacking in the prerequisite facial piercings and tattoos is enough to coax a reaction out of some people. You can’t avoid it.

So what it really boils down to is whether or not you give a cup of warm spit for what other people think, whether or not you care if you’ll have to contend with their chimpanzee displays, and whether or not you are willing to defend your choices. Yes, we have a moral and to some extent legal responsibility to deescalate situations when we carry a firearm, if it is at all possible. But we also have a right to stand our ground, and no legal requirement to retreat from any place where we have a lawful right to be. So all you can do is accept the increasing likelihood of chimp displays - no matter what you choose to wear - and then decide if the likelihood of those displays are worth either staying or leaving, or being willing to take a life if things escalate that far by staying.

I submit that in the vast majority of cases, things are not likely to escalate to the point of actually needing your weapon. The triggering is merely low-grade threat display. However, they may get unpleasant, and only you can decide if that is acceptable to you.

But consider this: all that a bully needs to affirm his bullying and be encouraged in more bullying behavior, is for decent peace-loving people to submit to his bullying. If you want to wear a MAGA hat but refuse to do so because you’re afraid that you’ll be hassled for it, then you’re submitting to the bullying. There is no other way to describe that. But if you don’t wear a MAGA hat because you never had the inclination to wear one in the first place, then you’re not submitting to bullying....you’re just exercising your normal choices.

I don’t own a MAGA hat, and I never had the inclination to wear one. I’ve been an NRA member since around 1993 or 94 if memory serves me correctly, but I haven’t worn an NRA hat since sometime in the 1990s. I just tend not to wear hats that declare any kind of advocacy position. I do have a Velcro patch on one of my ball caps indicating membership in north Texas Chapter 19 of the Zombie Squad, but that is for humorous purposes. It’s kind of a secret handshake joke...and occasionally I actually run into someone who actually knows what the patch means. But generally, I prefer to be the Gray Man, rather than the guy who stands out. If I were a lefty, I wouldn’t wear BETO hats either. It just isn’t my style.

That said, my position is that if you want to wear something that makes some kind of statement, let your freak flag fly, and don’t submit to the bullying that may ensue. Just be aware that as our society descends more and more into tribalism, humans tend to get more and more in touch with their untamed primate nature, and when that comes out, the results are predictable.

[RSX11]

The Left constantly demanding that words and symbols they don't like (MAGA hats, OK hand symbols, unsanctioned pronouns,calling illegal aliensm illegal aliens) be prohibited are merely symptoms of their desire to take over language and other means of expression, for reasons best summed up in Orwell's novel, 1984. The character Symes said -
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten."
"By curtailing frivolous and "fighting" words, the Party seeks to narrow the range of thought altogether, such that eventually thoughtcrime will be literally impossible. The same goes for disruptive or subversive behavior."

[G26ster]

By wearing non- provocative clothing, you will be denying the PO's (Perpetually Offended) leftists their non-constituational right to not be offended.

[philip964]

I have a, made in China, knock off MAGA hat. I have an NRA hat. I have a pretty sizable number if those hats. Even one from Big Ass Fans.

But I don’t wear hats.

Around when Trump was elected, a brand new ZO 6 Corvette convertible, red with like 6,000 miles came up for sale at one of those websites for wrecked cars. The bidding was at $48,000 for what was a $90,000 car.

The car had been vandalized. White paint had been poured all over it. Soft top had been cut and torn open so paint could be poured inside. Most of the windows had been broken. Taillights smashed. Someone had gone to a lot of effort to trash a brand new car.

I first looked at what it might take to get it perfect again.

Then from the rear view I saw the rear bumper - a Trump for President bumper sticker.

Then I realized it needed to be preserved. To show the hate the left has. Price got too high didn’t buy it but what a great attraction it would have made at car show. Maybe some day in his library.

[mojo84]

I have never been triggered by people wearing this. It just tells me about the wearer.

[SewTexas]

I have several "pro-gun" type shirts, to my knowledge no one has ever been "triggered" when I've worn them, I've actually had people say "pro" things when I've worn them. And I don't wear baseball hats, but I'm tempted to get a MAGA hat.

[Flightmare]

I actually wore a t-shirt today that said NRA on the front, and "Keep calm and carry guns" on the back. I don't think people gave me a second look, even as I walked through a neighborhood walmart in my area.