freecounterpoint: They support the troops, they really do

Thursday, March 22, 2007

They support the troops, they really do

Yeah, right.

41 comments:

Arelcao Akleos said...: Good Morning, AI. It looks like a banner year for Planet Pepe, eh? Maybe we should buy stock in bic firelighters?; 3/22/2007 8:33 AM
Pepe le Pew said...: by what strange logic are war protesters unsupportive, unlike an administration that sends troops in cardboard-armored vehicles (and tells them to quit whining when they complain about it)?; 3/22/2007 8:44 AM
Arelcao Akleos said...: Cardboard armored vehicles?? You wanna bet?
Meanwhile, on Planet Pepe, the Duke has declared an unstrange logic in which burning soldiers in effigy is a sign of support.; 3/22/2007 8:48 AM
Pepe le Pew said...: Cardboard armored vehicles?? You wanna bet?

Surely you know that the Hummers are inadequate to protect occupants from IEDs. But they go with the army they have, not the one they want.; 3/22/2007 9:17 AM
Pepe le Pew said...: so here's the logic:
stonewalling equipment upgrades which resulted in the burning deaths of many? supportive.
war opponents burning soldiers in effigy ? unsupportive.
right on guys.; 3/22/2007 9:24 AM
Tecumseh said...: The only cardboard-made vehicles I know of was the kraut-commie-made Trabant (yes, we owned one way back when).

The Humvee is not made of cardboard. It was made to specifications deemed appropriate by the Army -- sometimes in the 90s I think. But, as is the wont with wars, the enemy gets creative, so one has to adapt, and simply do a better job at defending the troops, and killing dead the enemy. But thinking of ways to improve the US military is not part of the mindest of your random pinko-lefty -- it would involve using one's gray matter, or one's hands. The typical pinko would rather just yap, and mindlessly spew the Party Line. Par for the course.

As for burning in effigy US soldiers and the US flag on US soil (Portalnd is in the US last I checked, yes?) sounds to me like treason (aid & comfort to the enemy), as defined in Article 3, Section 3 of the US Constitution. Am I missing some subtlety there?; 3/22/2007 9:41 AM
Pepe le Pew said...: sounds to me like treason (aid & comfort to the enemy), as defined in Article 3, Section 3 of the US Constitution. Am I missing some subtlety there?
no, no, you are being very subtle here: opposition=treason=hanging (presumably?). A hussein-ian view of democracy: i love it.; 3/22/2007 10:54 AM
Tecumseh said...: I refer you to said Article of the US Constitution. Presumably, you heard of that document, Pepe? Or, being a Frenchy Lefty means one if above bothering with such pecadilloes as pieces of paper written by dead white anglo-saxons?; 3/22/2007 11:10 AM
My Frontier Thesis said...: Pepe, the soldiers took action themselves while the bureaucratic machine attempted to solve the problem.

Sandbags were placed on the hoods, right near the windshields to catch deflects and richochets. Sand bags were loaded into the floorboards of each vehicle. Metal plates were welded to the sides of the humvees as well. When complaints were filed, it took a little bit (and a little bit, in battle, is already too long), but funding did go through. Still not quick enough, I'll admit with you. But we know the Bigger Idea you're trying to convey with that little statement (Pepe Hates Bush at Any Expense). That's fine. Just so long as we're all clear.

The Republican Party has a pretty good history of providing proper funding for the military. Democrats, for various reasons, don't. I like to tell myself that at least a few are taking Eisenhower's warning about the Military Industrial Complex into account. However, I'm afraid the majority of them do it out of fronting to all that they are pacifists. It looks good to academics like yourself. What we also need to consider is the Jounalistic Industrial Complex... but that's another topic.

I was thinking the other day that you probably have a good reason to think that funding a military is a waste of time -- all of us might think similarly if our country poured resources into building a monstrous defense that the furor just drove his tanks right around. You guys should've just went with more armor, airpower, and infantry. Then again, the only real threat for Eurasia, according to Vichy, Rome, Moscow and Berlin, was the Jew. But I'll spare everyone what has previously been said enough.; 3/22/2007 11:28 AM
Tecumseh said...: More support for the troops from the suual suspects:
"We do not use those tactics ourselves, but the movement is very broad, and as this war continues, the anti-war movement is going to take many forms - not all of which everyone feels comfortable with," Enslow said.

Oh, I'm sure Pepe will feel comfortable with whatever tactic his soulmates will adopt. After all, the ends justify the means, eh? Demonizing the US government and the US military is just the first step, the rest flows naturally in this "logic".; 3/22/2007 12:31 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: ai - how is protesting the war providing aid and comort to the enemy? (you go to war with the population you have, not that you wish you had).; 3/22/2007 12:36 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: Here's an excellent take on it.; 3/22/2007 12:56 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: Oh, I'm sure Pepe will feel comfortable with whatever tactic his soulmates will adopt.
it depends on what whatever is, but as long as they aren't directly harming anyone, i'm all for it.; 3/22/2007 1:04 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: Pepe, then do you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wished you had?; 3/22/2007 1:46 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: Note: Pepe's not even reading half of my responses, which is fine, he has the option to do so, as do we all.

I'm gonna bow out of FCP for a while. Without critical analysis and thoughtful response, (rather than knee-jerk reactionary remarks) it's just starting to feel like too much a waste of time. It reminds me of going to political debates as an undergrad, where the historically uninformed make historical arguments about what ever contemporary event they've convinced themselves to get wriled up about. Some time ago, a friend and I decided that political discourse, for this reason, was the most idiotic form of conversation individuals could enter in to.

I may retract and return. But for now, nope.; 3/22/2007 2:00 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: Pepe said: " Surely you know that the Hummers are inadequate to protect occupants from IEDs. But they go with the army they have, not the one they want."

Pepe, presumably you have the capacity to think on technical issues at a fairly deep level in your field. So if you reflect just a little on the brute fact that technology is technical then it may motivate you to tampen down that Versaillian hubris that refuses to think through the problems faced by peasants [e.g. ricain soldiers] and their tools [e.g. troop transports, tanks, etc...]
Note that when the hummer was designed it was designed as a troop transport, so you have the demands for speed and maneuvarability as well as demands for armorments. Encase the hummer in a titanium shell, and you have a useless troop transport. Use a swift light design and you are blown away by parisian "youths" throwing molotovs. Finding the right balance is made more difficult in that the uses of the vehicle, the context in which it may be used, may shift through time. The hummer was designed for battle field conditions, where a coordinated campaign over fairly wide terrain is being carried out and you need a vehicle which carries soldiers with necessary speed and is yet reasonably well armored against non-direct hits [a tank shell will blow you with a direct hit, but it should not if it hits 15 m to the side, for instance. The shrapnel will be stopped]. That is the original design. Unfortunately, in Iraq, with the politicians having followed Planet Pepe's dictum that the best way to fight a war is not to fight a war, the context is one of convoys trundling through developed areas, over roads one does not control except in passing, and bound by Pepean constraints from clobbering the enemy sufficiently to prevent their control of the roads. That is one problem. But there are others, as you would see if seeing was natural to one Eyeless in Nawlins.
For instance, in warfare there is always a very rapid evolution in that an enemy is always seeking to engineer a way around or through your defenses. The ieds we first faced, say 15 years ago in Somalia or the first Gulf War, were pretty well neutralized by the design of our fighting vehicles by the late 90's. Which is why we, as well as your favorite objects of hatred, the "Neocons" in Jerusalem, were not much affected by these until ......until a new form of ied, developed in Iran [although it is not clear if they originated with the Iranians, as opposed to Russians for instance], using a high powered and concentrated blast of gasses [this last is essential in that by giving a fairly precise direction to the blast it can punch through armaments far more effectively]. These new ieds, just a few years old, have been used with great effectiveness against both the Neocons of Jerusalem and against we Ricain Neocons in Iraq. They are so powerful that even heavily armored battle tanks cannot resist them if hit underneath or the near side. This is not the fault of lack of support by Yankee military designers for their soldiers, this is due to an enemy that also thinks. [would our enemies were all like Pepe!].
No one has yet engineered a solution which allows for a properly functioning vehicle and yet able to resist these. And if we do, one day, well, then, our enemies will think of something more powerful or efffective to try. That is the reality of war.
But on Planet Pepe the Duke neither respects reality nor begins to understand war.; 3/22/2007 2:44 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: Oops, I see that AI already raised these points. Sorry AI. A Sleeman's on the house when you get up by Vancouver way!; 3/22/2007 2:45 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/22/2007 2:45 PM
Mr roT said...: This cardboard Hummer thing is a straw man construct put together by democrats like Kerry and Murtha so that they can differentiate themselves from the kill-the-troops crowd. It would work if there were any basis in truth to the allegations (IEDs have a couple kilos of HE in them. You need tank armor almost, and certainly no glass windshield and windows) or if they wouldn't turn around and in a couple days, change tactics and admit after all that our soldiers are war-criminals and Mongols and abu-Ghraib is now being run by the White House exactly as before and that Gitmo is the same as the Gulag,....
If there were a coherent policy to help the war effort, then these vomit could be taken seriously. There isn't.
Sorry to hear you're leaving MFT. I think that being the odd Humanities guy has made things difficult.
Hard for a physicist to stomach a nonfacetious reference to Hegel you understand.
Keep in touch via email.
Best.; 3/22/2007 3:12 PM
Tecumseh said...: AA: No need fort apology, you developed the point much better than I. Also, I must say I enjoyed your repartee,
[would our enemies were all like Pepe!]
Ouchhh!!! Of course, once one decides that common sense, logic, etc, are to be jettisoned on the altar of Lefty Ideology, one preumably becomes immune to such repartees, simply wallowing in the presumed superiority of The Cause. Ah well.

MFT: I do share some of your frustrations, and do wish that here at FCP we'd enforce some higher standards of discourse. Full agreement on issues is not necessary, of course -- things would be too dull otherwise -- but some kind of basic agreement that we all live in an OK civilization (I'd say one of the great ones of all time, but I'd settle for a half-hearted nod), which civilzation is worth preserving (and yes, fighting for, if necessary), and, moreover, some kind of consensus that there is such thing as logic, and that words and concepts have a meaning that can be nailed down.

Hey, btw, where is JJ? After all, he's the one that started this whole shebang, almost one year to the day. How about we let JJ have his say on these weighty matters?; 3/22/2007 3:14 PM
Mr roT said...: What weighty matters? The level of discourse? I have often criticized you for your failings, AI. You then get pissy and won't come to beer and pay.
I'll keep my mouth open so I can hold a pintglass!

Seriously, though, I think the quality of the discourse is just fine. I would like more members rather than less, but it has been difficult to procure them.

My view is that for a while Pepe was peeved that AA would be rude. I didn't like the rudeness much either, but AA seems to have shifted to a more issues-based method of argumentation.

It's still a little passionate for my tastes, but his background is in philosophy where it seems that part of the MO is to insult your opponent so that you eventually get Aquinas > Aristotle (or some such nullity) bucause your testosterone levels are higher.

In math and physics we're trained more to suspect loud and slobbery speech as it's the unmistakable characteristic of the philosophic skenockterer.

As to MFT, I think there has always been a little mismatch there. I wonderful gent he certainly is but from a very different culture of thinking.

He denied over and over that slavery might just be a social thing dictated by prevailing morals in spite of Christ's being absolutley mum on the topic and Wilberforce claiming it was unChristian.

Must have gotten some Hegelian Kool-Aid in there somewhere if we got Christian ethics from slave-owner Aristotle through Aquinas (sorry repeated reference. Had interesting talk yesterday about that).

So I think FCP has its flaws. It is a human endeavor and people get mad when they are arguing. I think it's fun to fight these things out when there's time to and I like very much the spectrum of ideas present from you and AA through me to Pepe.

I like our collective enthusiasms for a host of things including babes and humor and politics. I think it's a good mix.

What I don't like is that it has fallen to me to provide all the members.

It would be great if Pepe and you and AA brought others in to this. I am trying to get another moderate onto the board but he's a busy guy.

Leftists are hard to procure because they are largely weak-kneed pussies and don't have the will to fight like Pepe.

We'll see if we last another year. My feeling is that we'll slow down in a while, thoguh I hope not.

I still think this is a better way of talking than through a bunch of emails.

I have been thinking SJB would be a good addition.; 3/22/2007 3:58 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: Just a few comments I feel are deserved out of courtesy since you fellahs took the time to respond:

1.) this is a much better way to dialog than mass e-mails (no way I could keep up with it all).

2.) JJ, just so we're clear, I'm not a Hegelian. While important to read and understand, a simple one-time reference should not immediately lead anyone to think that I have a Philosophy of History akin to that windbag.

I'll make Nietzsche references, and Adam Smith references, and David Hume references, and R.G. Collingwood references, and Insert-Philosophe-Here reference. When I remark on them, at the very least I've read at least one of their books. They all had important things to say, but much like AA reminds us of the context that the Humvee originally rose out of, in the History of Ideas, context was also a determinent (in my book, that still doesn't excuse historical characters for enslaving other humans -- but that's another tangent).

3.) I've attempted to recruit three people to FCP: One is a lawyer, but he's busy practicing and trying to fight city commissions who want to kick exotic dancers out of small towns in North Dakota. Another is my nihilist friend who lives in Mongolia (he despises both religion and politics -- that's why I thought he'd bring a new dynamic to FCP), but he's too admittedly self-absorbed, and I think he'd rather read Proust, "Remembrance of Things Past" for about the fifth time through. The third friend I attempted to recruit lives in Chicago, is of the Pepetian ideology, but bounces around the world too goddamned much trying to whore books out for a small publishing house. I keep looking all the time.

4.) I don't mind that people don't read posts -- it's literally impossible. But it seems a common courtesy that, if one is going to engage in conversation in a particular subheading, that one should first read the link; and second, should read the remarks that others take the time to produce.

5.) My remarks were mainly directed at Pepe. I know he's an ideologue, but I suppose he could whack me with that label too. I have political liberal friends who, even though they disagree with the war and despise Bush, can at least empathize with American soldiers and/or provide context to why Subject A might think the way he or she thinks.

And anyhow, as I mentioned in my previous post, there's a good chance I won't depart FCP. But it fucking pisses me off when I bang out four paragraphs, and put the time to make sure I'm as intelligible as possible, and then Pepe breezes over 'em and makes some Protest the War Because of the First Amendment when that's not at all what I was referencing. It's like trying to lead a graduate seminar in history with a bunch of freshmen who only reply with single phrases or sentences (example: "What contributed to the onset of the Crusades?" and the Freshman replies, "Pope." -- WTF am I supposed to do with that?). At least speak in aphorisms (which Pepe does from time to time) as Nietzsche did.

And then again, maybe my greviences are just in my head. I digress. I'll be around.; 3/22/2007 4:53 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: As to MFT... He denied over and over that slavery might just be a social thing dictated by prevailing morals in spite of Christ's being absolutley mum on the topic and Wilberforce claiming it was unChristian.

Must have gotten some Hegelian Kool-Aid in there somewhere if we got Christian ethics from slave-owner Aristotle through Aquinas (sorry repeated reference. Had interesting talk yesterday about that).

JJ, butt-sex was a prevailing moral in certain regions and at certain times. But it also was not a prevailing moral in different regions during those same times. For slavery, I can easily use (one example) Benjamin Franklin as a vehicle to denounce it then (in the 18th-century), and denounce it now (obviously). We clear on that?

Fuck, I gotta get back to work.; 3/22/2007 4:58 PM
Mr roT said...: I'm happy to hear you won't be leaving as abruptly as I was led to believe from your previous comment. I admire a lot of what you write and I value your logic though like Pepe's I think it is twisted as hell sometimes.

We have different tactics when it comes to these arguments. Part of the Proustian philosophe Pepe's method (that drives AA insane, incidentally) is to make a wild assertion. When it goes over the top and is knocked down by a prisoner of logic, the way of admitting defeat, or at least that it's not worth fighting over, is to breezily crack a joke or be ironic or obfuscate.
I don't think this is bad, actually, and reading him has taught me to deal with a lot of people in person that insist on pushing (to my mind) wrong views. What better way to defuse the situation than by noting that married life is no better than being gangbanged by Sumo wrestlers with sake on their breaths?
We certainly can all agree, in principle at least, to that.
I have appreciated your efforts to bring others in, but alas,...
Pepe wanted to bring a woman in. Again, alas,...

Still, let us be clear, and you have backed me on similar points to this before, mft: People argue and post in different ways and part of the civilization of discourse is to try o sway one another by many means, be they charm, logic, insult, money, or whatever. What you find intolerable in your interlocutors others may find acceptable and what you may do in your discussions (you are guilty as hell of evading issues that are brought up, in my view) with a clear conscience might drive others to smashing their keyboards.

There is one 'rule' I was thinking of proposing for our one-year birthday and would be interested in your ideas. You once proposed that there be a limit of 3 or 4 posts a day per contributor so as to make keeping up less a burden. I thought it better to leave things be because it is a rare occurrence and after all, everyone tolerates welll their posts being ignored. You agreed it was a good libertarian solution.

I am not so sure, though. Sometmes it will happen that there will be new posts that will go up with no evidence that the contrib has gone through previous posts. There's a little joke about owing a Sleeman's. Fine. It's no big deal.

BUT, when there are so many new posts that arguments that are still not ripe for the relegation bin are at the bottom of the main page, there's a problem that we're talking past each other.

Part of this is blogger's fault. What should happen is that recently commented posts should graduate to the top of the page. I have no idea how to do this through this template. It seems the order is very rigidly the posting time, not the time of the last comment that determines the order of the posts.

I have no silver bullet that will solve the problem. I don't like rules between friends. If you have an idea,please share it.

Actually, I think this might be a major reason you're peeved. I find that your posts have a complicated angle and it takes me longer than usual to come up with anything reasonable to say. I am ignorant about Teddy Roosevelt, for example. The article about the Phillipines was fascinating and provides an alternative to this idiotic replaying of Vietnam we hear. (Though unlike you I see the subversion by the media and internal 5th columnists very similar to what lost us Vietnam and killed hundreds of thousands of them and Cambodians).
What the hell to write? Wow! Good article. Thinking. By the time something comes out my head, the damned post is five pages downa nd you're the only one looking at it to see if anyone's paying attention at all or if we are, as I say, talking past one another.
All I can think of is to ask blogger gys what to do or agree upon a rule like: Thou shalt not post more than three without commenting on everything that has come before.
I hate the sound of it.; 3/22/2007 5:21 PM
Mr roT said...: Butt-sex was (unfortunately) the prevailing moral in those countries that survived or whose culture survived. Like Ancient Greece. Slavery too. Maybe there were even big gangs of barbarians that were free. They didn't write history like Herodotus and Thucidides and Pliny and Tacitus so we might never know. What we know now is that they were not the big players then. Whether that is because they didn't employ slavery when most work was manual is something worth agruing about with an economist. They also had restrictive attitudes about adultery (death penalty in Republican Rome) the authority of a man over his wife (absolute, mostly),... when on the ascendant and relaxed as they slid down toward suffering sack and pillage at the hands of those with more restrictive morals, certainly, we may also argue about.
The cause and effect is a bit complicated, but I think it can be worked out acceptably with some effort.
The relevant dictum is something like 'the strong family is the basis of the strong state'.
Maybe there's a Romanian saying.; 3/22/2007 5:39 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: No, imposing rules is silly. This can work, and I was alluding to Pepe commenting on the T. Roosevelt article (or commenting on something I said) without reading the article. There's an awfully good chance (and I'm using understatement here) that my frustration is right in the mirror. Not referring to this board, but referring to the Journalistic Industrial Complex, I have a loose theory that says over half the barbarity in this world is instigated by journalists who say wild things; or who rush their story to press. That's one of the reasons I could never stay with the profession (if we could even call it that): here I was, told to crank out 3-to-5 "truthful" stories/day, about 800-words in length a piece, and feel satisfied at the end of the evening. Journalists are a different breed. They know the game they are playing, too: they have limited time to digest what they see, rehash it in their own words, slap a few quotes in there, and run it to press (or get on O'Reilly and shoot their mouth off). Sure, the Ann Coulters and Michael Moores of the world do a good job of wriling folks up, and it could be argued that by doing so they get people engaged in the debate. The other side, however, is that they are already preaching to the converted. There's a guy in town here who runs a regional neoCon magazine, and he's asked me to write for it several times. So far I don't, because whenever I start typing out an arguement (either from a Libertarian or Conservative standpoint), I know I'm so completely uninformed that I feel ashamed that anyone would read what I wrote; and I really try to stay away from the Absolutisms of life.

Yes, I'm guilty as well for not commenting on every article. That's what initial got me wondering if something could be done about it. But it's silly to try and restrict others dialog and fun just because I'm not always around a computer during the field season, and because it takes me a while to "get" things. And when it comes to math or physics: shit, I wish I knew 1/4th (the jargon, equations, etc) of what you guys did when you were in your first freshmen math/physics course. I'll attempt understanding the stuff, but that takes more time than the day allows.

Like you said, it would be nice if blogger had a graduated posting system. It would keep us abreast of the important themes ("important" in the sense that we're all engaging the same topic with varying degrees of takes on it).

You're right, though: no rules is a better way to do it.

...and shame on you, JJ, for being ignorant of Teddy! ;-) In seriousness, it was a wild and exciting age when the term Progressive still had a semblence of non-Partisanship. Industrialization was slamming full-force into the American West, and every Tom-Dick-and-Sally were attempting to uncover (or "discover") their gold fortunes from Montana to Colorado to California. There was a lot of a lot of misery, a lot of treachery, a lot of death, but it could be said that it made the happy moments that much better. Teddy always did encourage individual Americans toward the Strenuous Life, and he drank oceans of coffee. If you have a moment, just take a quick gander at his bibliography. Lots of hunters and furtrappers stormed into the American West as well, and at the end of the day, by the late nineteenth-century, they all started wondering if they should've shot as much game as they did.; 3/22/2007 6:05 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: what ? mft is bailing because of me?
mft - it takes me longer to answer your cogent arguments than the mindless blabber of the other three boneheads! I run a company and rarely have the opportunity to answer in as much length as I'd like to, if I answer at all. Please don't take it personally.; 3/22/2007 6:08 PM
Mr roT said...: There were also Carnegie and Frick giving slavery a quaint good name. I know that much.; 3/22/2007 6:11 PM
Mr roT said...: No! MFT's not bailing because of you.; 3/22/2007 6:23 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: i wish you'd bail because of me...; 3/22/2007 6:48 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: JJ said: "It would be great if Pepe and you and AA brought others in to this. I am trying to get another moderate onto the board but he's a busy guy."

I asked a guy when in Montana, whose now in Wyoming, but he decided otherwise. Have been looking for an interesting, tough-minded, but wiling to read and present arguments, commie apparatchik around here. There are many apparatchiks, but have not found one yet who otherwise fits the bill.....Canucks are really really not used to being confronted by discordant speech [except the hockey game variety].
As for all the above comments, there is one thread which I think stands out as particularly irritating; People commenting on a post who have not read the post nor the prevous comments [not reading the post being the stronger irritant], or commenting on comments without actually reading through the entire comment [for not all comments are short, eh?].
As for the refusal to present arguments, never mind argue in good faith, that is an individual choice. All we can say there is that our choices, sustained through time, are a good measure as to what we are about.
Anyway, shall we all toughen our skins and perservere? It would be a shame if this particular collection of loose cannons were to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.; 3/22/2007 6:52 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: de nada, culera; 3/22/2007 7:21 PM
Pepe le Pew said...: "It would be great if Pepe and you and AA brought others in to this. I am trying to get another moderate onto the board but he's a busy guy."

I showed the blog to aa couple of like--minded friends (rabid commies in fcp-speak). They all declined (and are now looking at me funny).; 3/22/2007 7:22 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: Pepe, I think I was bleating more than bailing.; 3/22/2007 7:34 PM
Mr roT said...: Typical of plains sheepfuckers...; 3/22/2007 7:47 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: On my end, there's definitely a level of intimidation that the people I have presented FCP to construct for themselves. I show them the Pepe and JJ porn postings, and let them know that everyone on FCP really likes beer. For whatever reason, they tell me what I want to hear — "Yeah, let me have a look at that... I'll start commenting..." — and I go ahead and try to pave the way by introducing them, and the next thing I know I'm e-mailing them that they are chickenshit and they owe me beer (which they have bought). I guess it hasn't been a total loss, at least not for me (in that I got a couple beers out of it).

AA remarked on Canukians who hesitate to get into a heated debate. That sentiment is incredibly wide-spread throughout North Dakota. After I got frustrated with myself this afternoon and posted my temporary, 2-hour resignation, I found myself thinking that, at the very least, you guys are willing to tell someone else when you believe they aren't seeing all the angles (often times with a bit more enthusiasm). Seriously, you rarely come across that in the Dakotas (the demographic -- or lack thereof -- explains a bit of it). Not that all of us are American Bumpkins and Rubes, but there's a different social paradigm in this geographic region, and A.) when you don't see a new face for days, there's a tendency to be really nice and hospitable toward strangers; and B.) there's a good chance that you might need to call on that neighbor, or stranger, if you get your ass stuck in a snow drift in the winter, or if your barn gets plowed by a micro-burst or tornado in the summer.

Keep in mind, I've seen the negative of all this as well: small towns mean everyone knows who you are, what you're doing, who you're with, and the Level of Morality is amped up to Strange levels.

And then you can literally get away from it all with a five minute drive, go north of town (Bismarck metro area is about 90,000), and stand in a field and look at the open prairie that rolls on for miles in every direction. You can also watch a storm roll in for miles out as well, watching the clouds pile on top of one-another as they edge-away at the clear blue sky, sheets of rain visible, smelling the ozone, humidity building. No kidding if any one of you ever makes it up or over here, I'd give you the Dakota that would otherwise take you years to uncover.

There's just not a dense enough population concentration (the hammer and anvil), and North Dakotans aren't used to having their ideas called "fucking retarded!" by a friend they're having a beer with (unless you hang out with my nihilist buddy and myself when he's back visiting from Mongolia -- talk about me having an exercise in damage control when we're out at the bars!).; 3/22/2007 7:56 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: JJ, in western Dakota its the Badlands' goats. Montana is the sheep-fuckers. Too much ranching in western Dakota anyhow (sheep herds will often eat the grass down to the nub, leaving no green pasture to run your cattle in, or anything else for that matter).; 3/22/2007 8:00 PM
Mr roT said...: Could be some of that community feeling the Scandinavians are into that keep people from wanting to have a go at their real opinions out loud and maybe keep them from producing a Faulkner or a Heller.
The politics of polite agreement must be stultifying.
We was talkin about that a couple days back.
Pepe's little gay-o buddies in New Orleans just are too busy going to galleries.
Canadians are a lost cause. They make the Danes look like Colombians. Also, they'll get you throwed outta school, AA, to keep the niceness race pure.; 3/22/2007 8:09 PM
Mr roT said...: On topic, MFT?; 3/22/2007 8:11 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: You could make that argument, but I think it has more to do with demographics than strict ethnicity. There's at least a couple factors at play here.; 3/22/2007 8:13 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: U2's Bono. Gap, Emporio Armani, Converse and American Express

There's the brains of the operation...; 3/22/2007 8:17 PM