So today I visited the slack of a local software developer group, which will remain nameless. They have a #politics channel. Normally, I avoid it. But every few months I dip into it, usually as an observer only, to read how much farther its members’ worldviews have diverged from mine and most of the people I know in meatspace, aka “the real world”. Its quite educational and amusing… and often head-shakingly sad.
Its a channel redolent of SJW pieties, safe space-ism and cancel culture. Whenever anyone utters something mildly out-of-tune with woke progressivism, people are urged to remain calm and “take deep breaths”. The offensive person often leaves the channel soon thereafter… usually out of disgust, I suppose. That’s what I end up doing.
Initially, I was surprised to see a few people who were resignedly expecting Trump to win, showing an electoral map from some website, with what states they expected to go this way or that. I weighed in on my opinion regarding certain states that I expected to go somewhat differently. I am not at all certain of the outcome, though. I see what the polls are saying, but I put no faith in them. Aside from bias, I’ve seen the studies showing how few people were willing to respond to polls in 2016 versus prior elections. And how fewer are willing to respond to polls this election year compared to 2016. And we know how well the pollsters did last election. The polls aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit. I also see the huge rallies for Trump that surprise me. One, not far from me in Butler, PA, yesterday, drew an unbelievably large crowd. But I also see the raw naked hatred for Trump that seems to twist some people up into complete irrationality and incoherence. I also don’t see much actual enthusiasm for Biden. All of that leaves me with no gut feeling one way or the other.
Then the talk turned to the possibility of violence and civil unrest after the election. One person opined that if Biden won, there would be gangs of right-wing thugs going around inflicting punishment for a stolen election. On the other hand, if Trump won, there would be gangs of right-wing thugs going around imposing a fascist crackdown. So it doesn’t matter who wins, any post-election violence will be by right-wing thugs. Yeah… because violence by right-wing thugs has been so common in 2020. The rioting, burning and looting in various cities this year has been all caused by right-wing thugs. Right-wing thugs running rampant in right-wing controlled cities run by right-wing mayors in states run by right-wing governors… like in Portland, Seattle and Chicago. Uh huh.
Things went downhill from there when I opined that were many communities across the country where neighbors have gotten together and discussed the issue of what happens if it comes to their friendly neighborhood. I surmised if there were a number of such neighborhoods in several states that were just known to me through my acquaintenances, there are probably a lot more that I’m not even aware of. The discussions those neighbors had amongst themselves all went pretty similarly. Nobody really expected it to happen in their neighborhoods because they were all small towns or rural areas… All were on the edge of suburbia to very rural. But they also agreed to keep in touch with each other and on some basic things they would do if things did, God forbid, go badly. These were all communities awash in armed citizens… veterans, hunters, plain old folks who like guns or believe in self-defense.
I didn’t actually get to say all that because the moment I mentioned that these communities had decided to not let any mobs come rioting, burning, fighting and killing through their neighborhood in the possible absence of police protection… well, howls of protests went up. How horrible it was that people might take things into their own hands. “Things” being the protection of themselves, their families, neighbors and community. There’s no excuse for putting up an armed resistance to an armed mob coming in to your neighborhood bent on destruction, they cried.
But the democratic mayors and governors of states and cities across this country have taught us that we are on our own. They have withheld police protection and not let them intervene to protect people and communities. They have protected the “protestors”, calling riots, looting and burning “mostly peaceful protests”. And communities have been burned and looted. And people have been hurt, raped and killed. And shooting sprees have continued going on in Chicago (known as Chiraq to locals, so I’m told) and New York City under its communist mayor and elsewhere. People with the means to do so are leaving cities in droves. And, as usual, those too poor to leave are stuck in these hell-holes with their hellish leadership. I do not use the word “hellish” lightly.
So yeah, I do believe that people have an individual right to protect them and theirs, and a right to band together to protect their communities against armed mobs or armed insurrections, whichever you desire to call them. I certainly hope that there is not violence anywhere in the country after the election, no matter who wins and loses. But if there is and there’s no law enforcement around to protect a community because they are overwhelmed and occupied elsewhere or are being withheld due to treasonous mayors, governors or other politicians, I do hope people step up to protect their communities from any armed mobs… be they Antifa wanna-be thugs… or the “right-wing thugs implementing a fascist crackdown” that we all know are out there, even if we haven’t really seen that happening this year, anywhere. I truly pray there is no violence of any kind. I will be extremely unhappy to hear of any “mostly peaceful protests” commiting arsons and injuries or deaths. But if there are, I will, at least, be grimly satisfied if I hear of people stepping up in “mostly peaceful” self-defense of themselves, their families and their communities.
So here’s hoping that wherever you live has a truly peaceful election day and beyond with no hints of “mostly peaceful protests”.