chasfm11 wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 10:05 am
The Annoyed Man wrote: Sun Jan 27, 2019 11:19 am
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 have no intention of submitting to bullying. But another one of your favorite phrases, I believe, is "you need to pick the hill that you want to die on." Like the example of the Corvette being trashed, some will go to great lengths to try to enforce their dominance. I'll go further. You talked about tribalism. I think that the gangs that we have in the big cities are a manifestation of that. People are reduced to protecting their turf and even the hint of a rival gang sign or an implied "dis" is enough for the situation to escalate to murder. I see this latest boldness on the part of the more radical Left as a society level devolving into the gang warfare that they have abided, perhaps encouraged in the city areas that they control. All this "trigger' stuff is a carbon copy of the gang situation. That is the part of wearing a MAGA hat or similar clothing that bothers me. I ask myself if this is really the hill that I want to die on. While that might seem extreme, I think a lot of whether it is extreme or not is derived from your surroundings. In my suburban home area, as the others have said, a MAGA hat might not draw any attention. I passed out door hangers before the last election to people registered in my party and was hitting 90% of the neighborhoods that I canvassed. But you just never know whose turf you are on when you go out of your immediate circle. Gang turf in cities turns on blocks. One block you are safe, the next you are not.
Lastly, if someone is triggered and a confrontation ensues, would a court of my peers hold me blameless if I was wearing a MAGA hat? I have to say that I've lost confidence in our judicial system in matters like this. Too many DAs seem to be hard Left types. I find it ironic that I face less potential push back in public, based on the history of the past couple of years, wearing an openly displayed pistol in public than I might a MAGA hat. We all know the emotional outbursts that can come from the gun control opponents and were threatened after OC passed. Those seem to have waned. I do wonder what could occur with that combination - OC and a MAGA hat.
Actually, we agree, and I might have stated my “bullying” comment too vaguely. I did not mean it in a belittling manner. My point is this....I think.... if you WANT to wear a MAGA hat, go ahead and wear it, but first make sure you understand that you may be picking a hill to die on which you hadn’t intended. But if you’re dead set on doing it, don’t let a leftist bully dissuade you from doing what you have every right to do. It’s just that in my default state, I prefer not to draw artillery fire, and to be rigged for escape and evasion. And I freely admit that this is my reaction to the potential for bullying by others.
But I also stated that I prefer a Gray Man approach in most things
anyway. My
ideas and thoughts might be considered by some on the left to be dangerously extremist (and by some on the right), but I don’t want people to be able to tell that about me just by looking at me. Consequently, I tend to dress in a way that is normal for men of my age cohort, and I don’t stand out much in a crowd....or at least, that is my
intent. My vehicle has two stickers on it. One is small and circular-shaped, and unreadable from more than a couple of feet away, and it merely has the name of my church on it. The other is a comical “no step on snek” sticker in the back window, which I put there for humorous purposes, and has generated more laughs than anything else from anyone who has noticed it.
It’s this one:
But I even have my doubts about that sticker, and if the fecal matter ever really hits the rotating oscillating ventilation device, that sticker will come right off as easily as it went on.
Other than that, I almost
never wear loud colors, and I don’t wear advocacy hats. For instance, although I do own a couple of brightly colored Hawaiian shirts, I haven’t worn them in years. I tend to wear sunglasses and a neutral colored baseball hat most of the time, and I have a beard. I can lose the hat and sunglasses, shave the beard, and dye my white hair brown, and I can fade into the crowd. The flip side of that is that I could deliberately wear bright colored shirts with a neutral colored t-shirt underneath, and drop the Hawaiian shirt in the nearest dumpster if necessary. The point is,
I actively think about these things all the time BECAUSE the situation is deteriorating.
It’s a shame too. Among the YouTube channels I’m subscribed to are three that are owned by Matt Carriker: Demolition Ranch, Off the Ranch, and Vet Ranch. Matt’s younger brother Mark is now in a desperate fight against a particularly aggressive cranial cancer, and he is also a husband and father of two adorable kids. So Matt’s company, Bunker Branding, made up some tee shirts and hats for sale, with the revenues from those sales going to help his brother defray the costs peripheral to his treatment. He has health insurance to cover the
medical costs, but he has to travel back and forth between the San Antonio area and MD Anderson in Houston. The money raised goes to help pay for lodging and other travel expenses for Mark and his family when he goes down there for treatements. The hat is bright red, and in text similar to the MAGA hats, it says “Make Mark Great Again” above the bill.
I bought both a hat and a tee shirt, but I won’t wear that hat because it’s not worth the possible blowback for me. The tee shirt slogan is much more generic, on olive green fabric. I’d wear it, but unfortunately was not available in my size, so I gave it to my son. Here are the links, for anyone who cares to support that cause. But you can see why I won’t wear the hat.
Hat:
https://www.bunkerbranding.com/products ... 5473594413
Tee shirt:
https://www.bunkerbranding.com/products ... 5469531181“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
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