More Thugnuts Behaving Badly.

Today, the Cliffs goes on a trip to see: the thugs, Mayberry, the dogs, the Dog Whisperer, UP, the Deacons for Defense, back to Mayberry, and to the bathroom.  Enjoy the trip. 

Saw this on Breitbart. 



I kept waiting for the melee to break out.  But it ends peacefully with a policeman coming over to take names and stories.  (Which is all they are to him-stories.)  Sorry to spoil the ending. 

Questions:

• So . . . .where is this? 
• When is this?
• Who are these people? 

I ran with this immediately off of Breitbart, so maybe they haven't gotten it together yet.  The video on YouTube only had 129 views when I saw it. 

The surprise is gone, okay.  You can't be surprised at a dog for being a dog.  We should expect this by now. 

As many times as this has happened, why not just go ahead and call the police if you're going to counter-demo at a union event.  Call them before you even get out of the car and start walking.  You know it's going to happen.  Otherwise you wouldn't be there.  Go ahead and make the call and perhaps the cops will be there to watch it all for themselves rather than just write down your story and later ignore your video of the event (like they did to Nathan Tabor).     

I am not downing the cameramen who went to counter this rally.  It takes some stones to do this.  But how is success being defined?  Went to their rally, got shoved around, got it on camera, didn't shove back, press charges.  We Win! 

How would our founding fathers have defined victory faced with a similar situation? 

Perhaps these need to be thought of as operations that require planning and preparation.  Perhaps the team needs to be expanded to include distant cameras as well as others who are side by side with the cameramen and have their hands free. 

We can pretend that the law will take care of it. But isn't this subcontracting liberty in a way-asking the law to fight our battles for us?  Let's examine some bully psychology.   Until you stand up for yourself, the bully will continue to bully.  And calling the teacher-sorry, police tells the bully that he wins.  It encourages him to do it again.  And not just to get away with it, but to try and get away with more.   

I love the Andy Griffith Show.  Opie and the Bully might shed a machete to our thicket.  (I would embed, but embed was blocked by YouTubistan.)

Part 1/3  Part 2/3 Part 3/3

It's true for bullies.  It's true for politicians.  It was true for Hitler in 1938. 

Prime Minister Chamberlain promising that his glass jaw won't hurt Hitler's iron fist

It was true for the Soviet Union during the great detente of the 1970s. 

1979, the USSR's doomed, decade-long attempt to subdue Afghanistan begins. 

(Say, how are we doing in our decade-long attempt?)

It's also true for dogs.  You get the behavior you encourage.  Lady Zane loves to watch Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer and I like it as well.  What's really happening on most of his cases?  It's not the dog that needs reprogramming, but the owner.  In many cases, the owner is failing to lead the dog and instead is led by the dog.  This encourages the bad behavior that the owner complains about.  So the distraught owner who doesn't know what else to do calls Cesar (and I'm sure pays him handsomely) to solve the problem.  On one episode, a lady asked him about his pack of dogs and said, "So who your pack's alpha dog?"  Cesar just smiled and deadpanned as serious as a heart attack, "Me."  There was no pause.  No, "uh", no "hmmmm".  Without thinking, he knew the answer to that question because it's fundamental to everything else that he's doing.  Not surprisingly, a common theme that runs through the show almost without regard to the problem the dog is having is that you the owner have to be the By God Alpha Forkin Dog.  Just for kicks, read this article from Cesar, Avoiding a Dog Attack. 

The first thing I try to remember if a strange dog is acting aggressively toward me is to not take it personally. I don’t feed any fear in me, or anxiety; I get very calm. Believe it or not, what will be instrumental in blocking the animal from attacking you is for you to be calm and unafraid. An aggressive dog wants you under stress before it attacks. If you are calm and in control of yourself, it slows them down and throws them off.

See anything in there that might parallel?  Anything that might apply or be useful?  We're obviously not dealing with dogs here.  But in accord with what Pete has for us to consider in the last few posts at WRSA, we need to quit trying to play the wrong game.  

Who's going to be the alpha dog and who's going to wear the cone of shame? 

At the end of the movie "Up", who's wearing the cone of shame, how does he get the cone put on him and who does it to him?  At the end it's not Dug who's wearing the cone but Alpha-the bully of the pack.  Dug is able to get out of the way, get himself out of the cone, and then through his own aggression, it's Alpha who winds up in the cone.  The rest of the pack is stunned, but must now acknowledge that having beaten alpha, Dug is the leader of the pack. 

For the time being though, this poster of Dug is the GOP.  They're walking around in this cone of shame-distracted by any squirrel that passes by, leading no one, accomplishing little, and ridiculed a lot. 

The Deacons for Defense made it clear to all that they would not be intimidated and would not allow their own to be attacked without a response.  The Deacons didn't carry the signs.  They just stood at the ready.  They knew that self-esteem and empty holsters never stopped a lynch mob and that if they wanted to be free they were just going to have to start acting free.  (Yes, the Klan's hats are analogous to the cone of shame-glad you noticed.)  The Deacons took some hits, did some jail time.  But they delivered hits as well.  And in the final analysis, it's clear that they won. 
 
(Opie and the Bully spoiler alert)  I hadn't ever seen the tag to the end of the Opie and The Bully episode.  they never showed them when I was a kid.  Andy is ready to treat Opie's eye.  Opie is busy admiring that shiner in the mirror, wondering how long it will last.  Andy reconsiders, "If a fella gets a medal, it ain't right to ask him to hide it."  The converse might be that if a fella doesn't have a medal, he's got nothing to show.  Where are our medals? 
 
What would I do for liberty?


I'm taking that question to my bathroom mirror to demand an answer from the man I see.  I encourage you to take that question to your mirror and do likewise.