this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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Public Freakout

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

... and this concludes my TED talk on why everyone in the United States should be armed.

Seriously, though; road rage, drive through rage, having-a-bad-day rage. Background checks are not going to prevent people from behaving emotionally and irrationally.

And what's the 2A advocate argument here? That the driver should have pulled out his own firearm and had a shoot-out with this server, with his wife in the passenger seat and daughter in the back?

"An armed society is a polite society" is the the biggest bullshit.

I'll say it again: I own several guns myself, and I love to shoot. But if the laws changed and I had to relinquish them; and if there was a reasonable chance that it'd actually dramatically reduce the number of Americans with guns, I'd support it. I could live with renting at the range.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I don’t disagree with you. I also pretend like food service employees have guns already so I am especially nice to them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can also be nice to people you don't suspect are armed. Being nice to people you decide are armed is a little transactional.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

I do that as well for sure

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I'm nice to them mainly because they don't get paid enough for the shit they have to put up with. And, because, I just try to be polite with everyone.

Most martial arts instructors have some basic philosophy of conflict they try to impart, and the wisest one I've ever trained with was (paraphrased):

Say you get into a fight, and you win. You dominate him, no contest. So now, this guy's humiliated, and he's going to carry that around with him all day. And when he gets home, he may take his frustration and humiliation out on his dog, or on his kid, or his wife. And for days after, he's going to carry that anger and it's going to affect everyone he interacts with, like a karmic domino chain.

He wasn't saying that we're responsible for other people's actions, but we are responsible for how our actions affect others; and that our egos aren't worth someone else, someone more defenseless, getting abused just because we were capable of winning a fight when we could reasonably deescalate or walk away.

This resonated with me, because it's more generally applicable than just physical conflict. While I can't claim I've always been good about it, and especially not online, I do try to remember that there's a bit of butterfly effect in every social interaction I have with people.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Well as a general rule, don't fuck with the people who make your food. Am service industry and can attest. I've never spat in food or anything against health code, but if you're a dick your gonna reap your reward.