It’s the perfect system.
April 2, 2021 5:43 AM Subscribe
I've Been Sleeping With A Shovel Under The Bed an excerpt from Luke O'Neil's book Lockdown in Hell World
"I asked Michelle what she thought the lesson was just now and she said something about how people who always ask what are you going to do if you need to call the cops someday should know that they’re probably just gonna come poke around and play with their balls for a bit then leave having solved nothing. Not in those exact words but like that. And then she said maybe the lesson for me personally is to learn not to escalate things with anger despite how I might feel about confronting white supremacy or being an ally or something like that but that part was about me changing so I didn’t really pay attention.
Or maybe the whole stupid affair just reminds us of the most American lesson of them all which is if you get enough guns you never have to say you’re sorry. If you’re capable of enough potential violence much like the police themselves then you get to be the scary one and the victim at the same time. "
"I asked Michelle what she thought the lesson was just now and she said something about how people who always ask what are you going to do if you need to call the cops someday should know that they’re probably just gonna come poke around and play with their balls for a bit then leave having solved nothing. Not in those exact words but like that. And then she said maybe the lesson for me personally is to learn not to escalate things with anger despite how I might feel about confronting white supremacy or being an ally or something like that but that part was about me changing so I didn’t really pay attention.
Or maybe the whole stupid affair just reminds us of the most American lesson of them all which is if you get enough guns you never have to say you’re sorry. If you’re capable of enough potential violence much like the police themselves then you get to be the scary one and the victim at the same time. "
I live in a fairly blue part of a red state. (Aside: You know, I still have to think about that. I know Red and Republican make sense like blue for boys, but it changed in my lifetime and still doesn’t feel right, like pink for girls for some 90 year old.)
My state is a couple of months away from permit-less carry.
In a month it’ll be 19 years since Rodney King asked,”Can’t we all just get along?”, which is the vibe I get from this, even if the motivations are different. I know this ain’t no binary world, but sometimes I think it’s divided into the types that want to get along and those that vehemently deny they need to acknowledge that others even exist, which is funny because those types sure seem to be the ones that want you to know they exist.
In the day to day I worry about many things, but they seem to boils down to health and safety of my wife and I. I worry that the city had 330 homicides last year. I worry that people drive with a careless attitude, a game of Russian roulette behind the wheel. I worry that soon I’ll be out and about and encounter some newly emboldened asshole who wants to make sure the world knows he exists and has an opinion. Sure, I worry about carjackings, too, and the monetary motive, and the desperate desire to have the many things I have acquired so easily. I don’t agree with their methods but at least I understand the motivation.
I disagree with the notion that this is about self-defense. I think this is about self-offense. I think that like me, the author would feel better if his neighbor would just come out and say it.
This is a ramble. Would like to hear some other takes on this.
posted by grimjeer at 6:39 AM on April 2, 2021 [6 favorites]
My state is a couple of months away from permit-less carry.
In a month it’ll be 19 years since Rodney King asked,”Can’t we all just get along?”, which is the vibe I get from this, even if the motivations are different. I know this ain’t no binary world, but sometimes I think it’s divided into the types that want to get along and those that vehemently deny they need to acknowledge that others even exist, which is funny because those types sure seem to be the ones that want you to know they exist.
In the day to day I worry about many things, but they seem to boils down to health and safety of my wife and I. I worry that the city had 330 homicides last year. I worry that people drive with a careless attitude, a game of Russian roulette behind the wheel. I worry that soon I’ll be out and about and encounter some newly emboldened asshole who wants to make sure the world knows he exists and has an opinion. Sure, I worry about carjackings, too, and the monetary motive, and the desperate desire to have the many things I have acquired so easily. I don’t agree with their methods but at least I understand the motivation.
I disagree with the notion that this is about self-defense. I think this is about self-offense. I think that like me, the author would feel better if his neighbor would just come out and say it.
This is a ramble. Would like to hear some other takes on this.
posted by grimjeer at 6:39 AM on April 2, 2021 [6 favorites]
I liked the introspection that on the one hand, the guy realized he should not have started a testosterone-fueled argument with his neighbor, but on the other hand living next to a loudly performative racist is not a great option either.
The ol' small town system where everybody knows everybody but only attack each other through gossip and passive-aggression is totally toxic, but you can see how it has its charms.
It sucks to be on the outs with a neighbor, even if the neighbor is at fault. A previous next-door renter liked to have bonfires in his front yard that were obviously dangerous. I tried to stay cool about it until I woke up one morning and had to extinguish his yard, which was on fire. I told him I'd call the fire department if he had more fires because he couldn't be trusted. And he made ME feel like the asshole, and our kids couldn't play together, and it was a source of constant tension. After we moved he managed to burn the house down (though somehow it was ruled an accident).
posted by rikschell at 7:20 AM on April 2, 2021 [9 favorites]
The ol' small town system where everybody knows everybody but only attack each other through gossip and passive-aggression is totally toxic, but you can see how it has its charms.
It sucks to be on the outs with a neighbor, even if the neighbor is at fault. A previous next-door renter liked to have bonfires in his front yard that were obviously dangerous. I tried to stay cool about it until I woke up one morning and had to extinguish his yard, which was on fire. I told him I'd call the fire department if he had more fires because he couldn't be trusted. And he made ME feel like the asshole, and our kids couldn't play together, and it was a source of constant tension. After we moved he managed to burn the house down (though somehow it was ruled an accident).
posted by rikschell at 7:20 AM on April 2, 2021 [9 favorites]
You know, I still have to think about that.
Throws me every time too. Here in Britain, red = Labour and blue = Conservative, so you guys always seem to have it the wrong way round.
posted by Paul Slade at 7:46 AM on April 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
Throws me every time too. Here in Britain, red = Labour and blue = Conservative, so you guys always seem to have it the wrong way round.
posted by Paul Slade at 7:46 AM on April 2, 2021 [3 favorites]
Canada too... red is Liberal, blue is Conservative. I have to think about it every time someone says red state or blue state.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:00 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:00 AM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
In the US the various media outlets generally tried to keep from binding a color to a party, because Red was communist (and indeed that's why the color red is bound to Labour and many other left-wing parties), so they switched every presidential quadrennial when doing the results. It just happened to be blue for Dems and red for Republicans in 2000, and the long extended afterlife of that election turned it permanent.
posted by tavella at 8:50 AM on April 2, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by tavella at 8:50 AM on April 2, 2021 [7 favorites]
Ok story time with grandpa Balrog.
I'm occasionally called upon to mediate disputes between neighbors. I put on my clergy collar and a nice jacket and we work together to reach some actionable steps and agreements and I try to leave everyone feeling like we "got over" that 'heavy blanket feeling' that Luke so perfectly describes.
And I'm yet young enough that many of my peers are buying their first homes. I try to tell them as soon as they get their paws on those house keys: "You can disown your parents. You can kick your kids outta the house. You can even divorce your spouse. But you can't get rid of your neighbor. So decide right now exactly how you want to handle this relationship because it's permanent."
I've had peers let things get way, way out of hand. One of my friends, my God, before I even heard the story people were threatening each other with guns, driving on each other's lawns, it was bananas. And there's only so much you can do in terms of cold-war style escalation. Security cameras, etc.
But my favorite (FAVORITE) neighbor dispute was when some young friends of mine purchased a "fuck you" house from (someone they thought was) a sweet old lady. By "fuck you" house, I mean a house that was specifically built to fuck with a neighbor by subdividing a parcel, sticking a house on it, and depriving said neighbor of a clear view of the lovely pond THAT THE NEIGHBOR OWNED!
Good God. The rage in this man's heart. Anyway, my young friends bought that very house with zero knowledge of what had transpired. The angry neighbor was, ostensibly, a Trumper who seemed to have a weird amount of money.
My friends immediately hung up their giant Bear Pride flag and a whole assortment of other freak stuff.
Trumpy neighbor assumed (in true, Limbaugh fashion) that these two were effeminate liberals. Thing is, they weren't *at all*. They were radical anarchists and military veterans with face tattoos and shit. The angry neighbor tried to intimidate them by "shooting guns" in his back yard. His new neighbors retaliated by inviting some local girl biker gang to have a three-gun shooting rally in their new backyard, which I witnessed, and which filled me with the same holy terror that I think a man would experience facing down a fully armored charge of Valkyries.
It was then that I was asked to intervene, but I declined because things had reached Defcon 2 and I didn't think a clergy collar and a Bible would do much good.
One of the couples ended up fixing things by accident.
He wandered to the property line and saw some weird "shrubbery" on the Trumpers property - turns out the guy was growing weed in his back yard. New neighbor shouted over, "Aren't you worried about the cops with all that weed you're growing?!" Angry neighbor shouts back, "FUCK THE COPS!"
Turns out he was a Libertarian the whole damned time! Anarchists and libertarians - now those are two groups of people who can actually hash out a little middle ground! They bonded over their mutual hatred of the carceral system, the police state, and a common love of the simple marijuana flower. It was beautiful!!
Anyway, the moral of the story is that there is always some kind of common ground, there is always a path toward a DMZ, there is always something there if you're willing to disarm for a moment and look for it. Because there is nothing worse than living next door to your worst enemy and it will sap the life outta you quicker than just about anything.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:00 PM on April 2, 2021 [23 favorites]
I'm occasionally called upon to mediate disputes between neighbors. I put on my clergy collar and a nice jacket and we work together to reach some actionable steps and agreements and I try to leave everyone feeling like we "got over" that 'heavy blanket feeling' that Luke so perfectly describes.
And I'm yet young enough that many of my peers are buying their first homes. I try to tell them as soon as they get their paws on those house keys: "You can disown your parents. You can kick your kids outta the house. You can even divorce your spouse. But you can't get rid of your neighbor. So decide right now exactly how you want to handle this relationship because it's permanent."
I've had peers let things get way, way out of hand. One of my friends, my God, before I even heard the story people were threatening each other with guns, driving on each other's lawns, it was bananas. And there's only so much you can do in terms of cold-war style escalation. Security cameras, etc.
But my favorite (FAVORITE) neighbor dispute was when some young friends of mine purchased a "fuck you" house from (someone they thought was) a sweet old lady. By "fuck you" house, I mean a house that was specifically built to fuck with a neighbor by subdividing a parcel, sticking a house on it, and depriving said neighbor of a clear view of the lovely pond THAT THE NEIGHBOR OWNED!
Good God. The rage in this man's heart. Anyway, my young friends bought that very house with zero knowledge of what had transpired. The angry neighbor was, ostensibly, a Trumper who seemed to have a weird amount of money.
My friends immediately hung up their giant Bear Pride flag and a whole assortment of other freak stuff.
Trumpy neighbor assumed (in true, Limbaugh fashion) that these two were effeminate liberals. Thing is, they weren't *at all*. They were radical anarchists and military veterans with face tattoos and shit. The angry neighbor tried to intimidate them by "shooting guns" in his back yard. His new neighbors retaliated by inviting some local girl biker gang to have a three-gun shooting rally in their new backyard, which I witnessed, and which filled me with the same holy terror that I think a man would experience facing down a fully armored charge of Valkyries.
It was then that I was asked to intervene, but I declined because things had reached Defcon 2 and I didn't think a clergy collar and a Bible would do much good.
One of the couples ended up fixing things by accident.
He wandered to the property line and saw some weird "shrubbery" on the Trumpers property - turns out the guy was growing weed in his back yard. New neighbor shouted over, "Aren't you worried about the cops with all that weed you're growing?!" Angry neighbor shouts back, "FUCK THE COPS!"
Turns out he was a Libertarian the whole damned time! Anarchists and libertarians - now those are two groups of people who can actually hash out a little middle ground! They bonded over their mutual hatred of the carceral system, the police state, and a common love of the simple marijuana flower. It was beautiful!!
Anyway, the moral of the story is that there is always some kind of common ground, there is always a path toward a DMZ, there is always something there if you're willing to disarm for a moment and look for it. Because there is nothing worse than living next door to your worst enemy and it will sap the life outta you quicker than just about anything.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:00 PM on April 2, 2021 [23 favorites]
Red was communist (and indeed that's why the color red is bound to Labour and many other left-wing parties)
I’m pretty sure that is not the reason for the red/blue split in Canada. Tories (Conservatives) have long been traditionally blue in the commonwealth, so that was already taken. Our left wing party, the NDP, uses orange.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:19 PM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
I’m pretty sure that is not the reason for the red/blue split in Canada. Tories (Conservatives) have long been traditionally blue in the commonwealth, so that was already taken. Our left wing party, the NDP, uses orange.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:19 PM on April 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
"And then she said maybe the lesson for me personally is to learn not to escalate things with anger despite how I might feel about confronting white supremacy or being an ally or something like that but that part was about me changing so I didn’t really pay attention." If this were completely true, things would never change.
I am incredibly pro persuasion, sometimes change necessitates direction.
posted by firstdaffodils at 12:46 PM on April 2, 2021
I am incredibly pro persuasion, sometimes change necessitates direction.
posted by firstdaffodils at 12:46 PM on April 2, 2021
giv
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:58 AM on April 4, 2021
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:58 AM on April 4, 2021
Anyway, the moral of the story is that there is always some kind of common ground
There really often isn't.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:05 AM on April 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
There really often isn't.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:05 AM on April 4, 2021 [6 favorites]
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