The lumbersexual and pretensions of masculinity. Once upon a time metrosexual was all the rage. As far as I can tell, men thought that women thought that men would be better if they were lithe, well dressed, controlled their eyebrows to the point of looking like a Kardashian and talked excessively about fair trade organic coffee while writing their next screenplay. Like most style trends, this one bore the seeds of its own destruction and the coiner of the term metrosexual, Mark Simpson, also coined the term retrosexual , which originally referred to people who rejected the trappings of metrosexual style and went for a butcher, less coiffed look (retrosexual eventually got eaten by Don Draper wannabes and means something different now–if it’s used at all).
Lumberjacks are examplars of manliness with the most dangerous job in America and hundreds of years of rugged masculine history, and killing them and wearing their skin is one of the faster ways to cheat your way to a butcher you. And since people are lazy as fuck about their portmanteaus (cf every political scandal being -gate), we ended up with “lumbersexual.”
I am, admittedly sitting at my desk, very bearded and in a flannel shirt as I type this (and looking damn fine). So I’m hardly immune to such trends; although like a good hipster, I would contend that I was wearing flannel shirts after grunge had been abandoned, but before it had been rediscovered as a way of taking a decent looking fellow and giving him just a touch of oomph. One doesn’t really even need the flannel as you can see by this musclebear with a beard and a log. Handing someone an axe to make them look like less of a cityslicker does have its limits though:
Comments
289 responses to “Manly Monday”
How many plastic trees did you hew?
Not enough.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Nuh uh, last time I tried to answer that I was billed therapy time.
Der Mensch ist von Natur böse.
Where do western-wear pearl-snap shirts fall into this scheme? They’re often plaid-ish.
I’m not sure, but I won a cruise ship hairy chest contest stripping out of one a few years back.
That makes it sound as though I dress like an award-winning gay man. Which is… bemusing.
If it makes you feel any better it was a work cruise, not a gay one.
They definitely fall into the hipster category for me, personally.
*looks up from ironing western-wear pearl-snap shirt*
Yup.
I say that as somewhat of a reluctant hipster, myself. I blame Modcloth.
I embraced my hipsterism. I’m happier for it.
*sips home roasted espresso*
Now that you admitted it you have renounce it because it’s too mainstream.
I’m embracing my hipsterism ironically! Nobody understands me!
*rage sobs into obscure Japanese character pillow*
That’s too much effort.
I’m just going to continue being a premature geezer.
I found the slide into curmudgeoness to be all too easy.
Aint that the truth Juris
My role models.
Or
or
Any of those will do.
There are parts of the country where plaid button shirts are not hipster. Visit central Wyoming or rural central Montana and they are everyday work wear among a big chunk of the admittedly sparse population.
Well, crap. Is there anything they can’t ruin?
This is the closest I’ve got to a plaid shirt.
Would look very good on my bedroom floor. 😉
Depends if your 50+, chain smoking, less than 5% body fat, and generally look weather bitten or not.
Have you considered chainmail-and-axe combo instead? Viking may be the way to go!
Fuck that. There’s no way I could possibly compete with this Norwegian child for bossness:
Jousting in cable-knit? tough.
Loving the tutu
Makes the picture for sure
That’s a Knight, not a Viking. Do you even For Honor, bro?
(for the record, I don’t)
Look, I was dragged to Norway for the Sunmøre Viking Festival and then it was basically Renfaire built around the remains of an abandoned Viking settlement. It definitely skewed more English Medieval than “viking” but the fishcakes were bombdiggity and there was a trebuchet launching rocks into the harbor.
there was a trebuchet launching rocks into the harbor.
Aaaand now I have a boner at work. Thanks, glibertarians.com!
[Hey ya’ll watch this]
So Pan, did I tell you about the trebuchet that launched a flaming piano at Burning Man?
sploosh!
Not only can a girl be a knight, she can be stylish while doing so!
That kid went full Deus Vult.
Full Deus Vult, you say?
I’ll just leave this here.
I actually thought for sure there was going to be a tie in somewhere in the article.
Holy jeebers – that musclebear with the…log. I’ll be in my bunk.
Before you go, it’s from a set of the same guy, sooooo here. Now you can scamper off to your bunk.
Hey, body goals.
*checks ectomorph frame*
Oh, right.
Dayum
Shiiiiiiit. Forget splitting wood. That guy’s poor jeans are holding on for dear life.
This made me laugh a little too much
He can split my wood anytime…and neatly stack it on the side of my house for winter. I don’t need a full cord, a quarter or eighth of a cord will do. I do live in Houston after all.
You need a dehumidifier much more than you need firewood.
Did you just make a dirty joke about the moistness in Banjos’ nethers?
https://palabradeosodotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/paulsmith-large.jpg
I eagerly await the emergence of Blutosexual.
Is it “Bluto” or “Brutus”?
Never mind, I’ll look it up myself.
I think those are just strongmen competitors. But I could be wrong.
That is a horrible movie. A taste: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zaspgmHH4wk
So once again I am sitting here doing nothing because the guy that was supposed to update me at 9 this morning still hasn’t and it’s 4 PM. At least I’m getting paid to read glibertarians.
You haven’t been patched?
*backs away from Vhyrus*
No, I’m fine reaaaalllllyyyy gguuuuuuyyyssssszzzz….
*INITIATE RACIST SHITPOSTING SUBROUTINE*
All of my original flannel was inherited, i think it moves me out of hipsterville.
Whatever.
*sips raspberry kolsch*
Vintage Flannel? Welcome brother!
*hugs bigly*
I assume you have not listened to the lyrics of the hipster anthem Thrift Shop then? There’s nothing more hipster than rolling out in a generation-or-two old clothes.
Yo, dawg. We heard you like vintage, so here’s some vintage Thrift shop, so you can vintage while you vintage.
I’d just like to point out that the ad before this is Leinenkugel’s.
That’s a Shandy, right? I prefer to place a lemon slice in my hefenweizen, like mein Fuhrer intended.
I think they do straight beers as well, but yeah they’re known for their shandy. I’m not even 100% sure it’s available in LA. I had it in NY a few years ago for the 3rd of July. It was not pleasant.
Ah! Don’t ruin this for me!
All my original flannel, uh, shrank. Ya, that’s it. It shrank. Too many washings.
Shit I haven’t worn flannel since the 70s. And no it wasn’t a lumber jack thing. People just wore that in the winter.
I’d like to take this moment to point out that Jesse at least has the business end of the ax pointed away from him, as opposed to Rogan O’Connor… who may as well be holding a lady’s ax, as far as I’m concerned.
Lemme ax you dis…
well, it doesn’t help that Rogan is also seemingly hairless besides what’s above the nose.
Jesse, I picked up both the St. George Terrior and the Whole Foods house tonic water. Both excellent recommendations, especially the former which will serve nicely as a sipping gin.
Very tasty as a combo .
Now to figure out what you do with the pack of frozen eel fillets we acquired over the weekend…
Pie and mash?
Is that good? Eel pie has always sounded unappetising.
I’ll eat pretty much anything that is wrapped in a flaky crust and is savory.
But I’ve only had the minced-meat pie with the jellied eels on the side.
Ever had tourtiere? For everything I hear about poutine, I’m amazed that tourtiere doesn’t get more play. It’s incredible.
Drool… I love a mince-meat pie.
Indeed.
The jellies eels sound oddly appealing.
Eel fillets? That is called fish bait.
C’mon, never had unagi?
I’m glad you liked the Terroir! I’m half convinced I only like it as much as I do because their botanicals are a combination of local plants from the region I grew up and it reminds me of walking in the mountains behind Santa Cruz as a kid. It’s good to hear other people enjoy it without the nostalgia goggles.
Can’t help you with the eels though unless you want to do a simple tempura.
Botanicals are great.
Anyone have a good smoothie recipe? Starting my, likely short term, health kick today. I figure a smoothie is essential to get started right
what, like a milkshake? I prefer malts, but I find I have pretty good luck just winging it 😉
Not necessarily a milkshake. Googled it, most seemed to have yogurt or orange juice added but there are a million different suggestions for it.
I was just funning with you.
Jesse’s suggestion below is really solid. I highly recommend you purchase yourself a decent protein powder so you’re not trying to fuel your morning on carbs and fats alone. NTTAWWT.
Thks. Will do
Throw a banana, full fat plain yogurt, and some frozen fruit in a blender with a dash of protein powder and if you’re really self-hating fresh ground flax seeds, soaked chia seeds, or bran. Don’t use whole frozen strawberries because your blender will hate you.
Hemp seeds!
You think mexican dirt weed seeds should suffice??
I actually didn’t mind hemp protein.
@Archie, start small with the chia seeds, and if you soak them in vanilla almond milk or something like that they can be a pretty tasty pudding texture on their own or blend in well as a thickener in a shake. There are plenty of sites that’ll tell you the proportions. They’re pretty high calorie by volume though (but you’ll only be using a tablespoon or so), so just be aware of that if you’re counting calories strictly. If you go flax, buy whole from a bulk bin and run it in your coffee grinder. Flax oil starts going rancid immediately on contact with air, so whole flax is cheaper, easier to store and will taste a hell of a lot better. Also make sure you increase your water intake because the protein powders and fiber mix-ins will all take it straight from your intestinal lining and it won’t be pretty.
I’m not trying to loose weight so much as just be healthier. I burn a ton of calories at work but but I think I should have more energy and generally feel better.
Well then ignore my heroin suggestion.
Been there done that
Just a little self hating. Just need to get back the time I lost smoking and living off fast food and a few other long term bad habits. Now that I think about it I may have to go the chia seed roue
Kiefer or yogurt go well in there, add frozen fruit, maybe an avacado.
Its the hat that throws off the Halloween get-up. A MAGA hat would have done (or really, any trucker hat with an appropriate logo), or even a hardhat.
Clothes, contrary to the saying, don’t really make the man(ly). Its not so much what you wear, as how you wear it. You can rock a suit as either a Master of the Universe or a twink, for example. Put me in the manliest of garb or in a tutu, and I’m still a fat, balding guy with a mean streak.
Yeah, the hat starts pulling it toward Russian or Finnish immigrant. I like, but generally can’t pull off hats. I’m apparently entitled to a lifetime supply of heavy equipment rental company hats, which has only almost gotten me beaten up at a party in the ghetto once.
Being gay had nothing to do with it? I figured that would have been the low hanging fruit (no pun intended).
Nah, there was no real threat. It’s a friend of mine’s roommate. He’s a giant sweetheart, but he works for the hat company’s direct competitor in our region and was entertained to see me in the hat and thought he’d fuck with me and stormed over like he was *pissed*. The BF is savvy to all of the internal politics of the two companies and and looked like he was choking back sobs of laughter while I was squirming thinking I’d actually committed a serious offense.
The only time I’ve ever felt in danger for being gay was a small, Mexican, very religious trucker had me cornered and was talking quoting Bible verses at me about how men who lie with men are to be put to death…right after he’d initiated and been the receptive partner for sex.
I honestly thought I might not survive that.
I had heard the about guys that turn into queer bashers after they cum but I thought it was an urban legend.
I know if I were gay I’d carry a gun. I mean, I already carry a gun, but I’d actually have a legitimate reason to carry one then.
Increasingly rare, but apparently still a thing. I’d never seen it in person before that and luckily was able to preach a well cited sermon on grace, forgiveness and the state of fallenness we are all fumbling around in even seemingly good people, while I edged my way to the door.
I dunno. I’m beginning to think this whole ‘Manly Monday’ thing is one big false fag operation.
Swiss gaze incoming.
Standing ovation
You don’t need an ax to make a faggot.
I can’t gayz any narrower dammit!
Go stick it, twiggy.
I’m trying to think of a pun, but frankly I’m stumped.
I like flan.
I hope you don’t like the wrong flan.
I hope everyone is having a happy Victims of Communism Day.
That was on point. I’m all for it. Where do I sign the petition.
Petition?
Why not do like the founders of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and start observing the holiday until it becomes a thing.
Then government bodies may try to get in on the action if they want.
Like here
Maybe I should start organizing a parade for next year
I don’t care for all this appropriation of my culture by urbanite wannabe fashionistas. The lumberjack is not some occupation to be fetishized for your perversions, it is a noble profession that requires blood, sweat and tears. Why, the percentage of lumberjacks who encounter STEVE SMITH alone makes this sickening to me.
You know what real lumberjacks look like? These guys, but they’re smoking darts in their trucks nowadays.
Look, it’s either lumberjacks or Bieber. You pick.
SMOD, why hast Thou forsaken me?!?
Hey, rip off Bieber’s style as much as you like. He’s part of our anti-American PSYOPS program anyway.
If that’s really what you want your country to be known internationally for, far be it from me to argue.
Don’t lecture me about lumberjacks, Canada-bro. I have been to Akeley and I have seen the apotheosis of lumberjackery and it is mighty and terrible.
If that is not in front of a pancake House, then that is a total waste.
Hoser, that’s in Oregon, not Canadia.
Nah, bro. Akeley is the MN location that claims to be the birthplace of Paul Bunyan. Bangor Maine and some place in central Oregon also claim to be his birthplace. Or are you thinking of the big Kenton statue in Portland?
One of the highways from the valley to the coast as I recall, I was thinking 26, but I’m not sure.
Apparently I was thinking Westwood, CA. I zigzagged from Reno to Portland in a competition to get selfies with Paul Bunyan statues I had going with a friend. Nothing like going over Mt. Lassen in a rental Fiat in the snow just to get to Viola, CA
“Greene now works as a hostess at a hotel lounge.”
http://hotair.com/archives/2017/05/01/female-fbi-agent-married-isis-terrorist/
Jesus tap dancing christ whoever gave her a secret clearance needs to be FIRED.
And these are the people we’re supposed to believe when they tell us Russia was involved in helping Donald Trump get elected.
“I’m seeing sort of like a “Pretty Woman/Married To the Mob”-meets-“True Lies” type thing here. I’m seeing Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington….“
If you don’t cast Ali G as the rapper then you sir are a fool.
“of course of course he’s that arab guy who pretends to be jewish right? hilarious”
A psychic-political-thriller-comedy-with-a-heart
But living in the desert with a bunch of rapists sounded so cool.
Those ISIS guys really know how to neg.
I will say this = he is not as terrible as Michael Brown
It all sounds the same to me.
I assure you, its extremely poetic in German. He’s a Thug Goethe
So, Hitler then.
Straight Outta Gelsenkirchen
Lumberjack treat
http://r.fod4.com/c=sq/s=w350,pd1/o=80/http://a.fod4.com/images/user_photos/1252173/359c57c49946c51a81d2d289ba7edb82_original.jpg
i was hoping for the caption =
“If you don’t know…
…. you better axe somebody!”
He’s a lumberjack and that’s not OK.
He twerks all night
And posts all day
Necrophyliacs treat. Warty’s sister?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39772280
Would. Remember kids: ALWAYS stick it in crazy. And by crazy I mean her.
Morgan Joyce Varn, 24, was arrested after she invited a man to her home in order to rob him at gunpoint, says Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office.
Crazy and stupid. “Hey wanna know my address before I rob you?”
the best kind of crazy. The plot for this hate fucking revenge porn writes itself.
Jesus, 24? She looks like a hard-lived 38 at best.
Are we talking hours dead?
I’m gonna need some red lipstick on her.
HOLY @()*$@()*$ KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!
Sorry bud, but if you actually voluntarily followed that thing ANYWHERE, you pretty much deserve to be skinned alive and have your organs fed to her gremlin army.
A rational person would have made the sign of the cross with their fingers and then attempted to use a pencil, or any other pointy-stick, as an impromptu stake-through-heart implement.
At the very least they would/should have tried setting nearby things on fire in hopes that death-by-flames would save them from the eternal damnation that would await should it bite you
I’ll make the media love me yet
http://hotair.com/archives/2017/05/01/trump-im-looking-breaking-wall-street-banks-maybe-raising-gas-tax/
Wall, meet Spaghetti
Stephan Molyneux videos now have French subtitles. I wonder how Razorfist translates.
MERDE ALOR! L’ANTIFA!
LA VITESSE DES DIEUX!
If it’s Canadian French, it’s just “Razorfist”.
Dude, I know “a screwdriver” north of Plattsburgh is called “un screwdriver”. I want a full idiomatic confrontation.
I’m not going to complain if the Quebecois use more and more English words on a daily basis.
F-ing lumbersexuals and hipster douches. It was so nice to wear a less trimmed beard for the purposes of laziness and Carhartts because the clothes are so darn comfy. Ruining it for everyone.
What you’re saying is you did it before it was cool?
Yes and when I do it, it still isn’t cool. Or hip.
Huh. If my beard gets any longer than “stubble” the hairs actually hurt when I touch my face. The patchiness and varicolored appearance doesn’t help either. I hate beards.
Heh, my mustache used to be light-brown verging on blond while my beard was medium-brown to red while the stuff on top of my head was very dark brown. All of that without a drop of dye. These days the whiskers are white (I quit the full beard after the Santa cracks) and what is on top of my skull is more skin than hair (which is going from salt and pepper to pure salt).
I remember the beard in the miserable phase before it grew out enough to not itch or scratch any female skin it touched.
Still is in Asia, Europe, and among the younger gals as far as I can tell. Well, except for the fair trade stuff.
So Lauren wears a helmet with a MAGA sticker to the May Day riots in Paris. Not sure she expected it to be like this. People celebrate when other human beings are caught on fire. Makes our riots look almost civil.
https://youtu.be/Cn4gnKME4Bg
They really did light cops on fire. How do you not see the fellow cops going nuts on the protesters?
Seriously
The flaming boar made me laugh. Helm’s Deep.
Oh sheet! My mopaid ees on fiyurr!
I just heard may day as the day the left celebrates workers rights. Horse-fucking-shit. It’s commie celebration day where they form mobs and riot. They can get away with that shit in europe a lot more than they can here. I love the flags there with Che, The lineup of the worst commie villains, hammers and sickles etc.
And our former slimy snake-in-the-grass in chief made it a national holiday while swearing he isnt a commie. If you buy that I have a bridge to sell you.
They so want to import that shit here. Right now we’ve got mostly jokey hipsters play-acting at it, but they’re trying.
Yes they are. They have yet to get to the cornerstone…the second amendment. Hillary swore she was going to take a hammer to that, so tough shit for them. That is one of the reasons they are so upset. They just knew they were on the brink.
I am half way through the thread trying to catch up and…what the hell is wrong with you people? Flannel is functional. I have a closet full of it. Flannel shirts, flannel lined shirts and pants, wool socks, boots. I have for or five axes, chainsaws, machetes from broken to old rusted to razor sharp to a new one for replacement. Louisiana winters are cold and damp as hell.
Ooooooh. Fake lumberjackians. I get it now. I actually work in timber so I never thought of any of that as costume or decoration. Bunch of damned cultural appropriation is what we have going on here. Who do I report this to?
Flannel shirt is about the heaviest layer I put on during winter. Course, I live 3 blocks from the beach in California. The coldest it got here this winter was probably 43 degrees. Flannel, long sleeve t, jeans. Okey dokey!
It’s 43 degrees here in NH right now.
May god have mercy on your soul.
Can’t. Stop. Sneezing. Fucking. Santa. Anas.
Other than that I couldn’t ask for a better early summer.
Ugh. My nose is producing about half a pound of boogers an hour, and my eyes feel like… I don’t know, some kind of itchy ball of dehydrated cactus?
Btw, we should get together and go climb a local mountain. Maybe a socal glibertarian meetup?
It’s certainly been a while. I’ve been a bad social chair, and letting Los Doyers take a crack at it went…poorly.
Despite our reputation for being a steaming, tropical swamp (we are) our winters can be exceedingly unpleasant. Most of it hovers just above freezing with constant pissing rain and very high humidity. It will suck all of the heat right out of you in no time.
Oh yeah. Ive spent some wet and cold days in Baton Rouge. Luckily I was drunk for most of that week.
Shreveport gets some nasty weather. I worked most of a winter outside in the Lake Charles area and it never got below freezing long enough to freeze anything.
I used to wear flannel in Buffalo. Now it never gets cold enough in NYC to bother – plus I work in an office.
The Libertarian Purity Test: http://www.bcaplan.com/cgi-bin/purity.cgi
I got 155 out of 160 by answering yes to everything.
shouldn’t it be ‘no’ on everything gets you libertarian?
131
I know what answers to give for a perfect score. The test author allows for that:
“131-159 points: You are nearly a perfect libertarian, with a tiny number of blind spots. Think about them, then take the test over again. On the other hand, if you scored this high, you probably have a good libertarian objection to my suggested libertarian answer. :-)”
Let’s just say I wouldn’t characterize institutions voluntary and/or outside the state as “privatized”. I don’t feel particularly kindly to an aggressor-collective’s “civilians” either.
I scored 156, and the fact that I acknowledged we haven’t yet developed munitions that incorporate A.I. capable of judging combatant vs. non-combatant using Geneva Convention criteria before making the decision to explode is what I think dinged me those 4 points.
the thing is heavily weighted (5X) to questions like
I think if you answer “yes” to some of those, you’re actually undermining a lot of the basic things that make libertarian different from anarcho-capitalism.
I only got a 68. Bad test questions.
dont’ feel bad. I got an 80
I’m right there with you. 81.
That doesnt seem right. I closed the window on my score and aint taking it again. It said I was medium core lib and should probably quit annoying my friends with my views.
i think that suggests one of the questions in group 3 (the 5point questions) is technically a “no”. I assume its the one about whether government is an “unnecessary evil” vs. “inherently evil”. which struck me as weirdly paired, and poorly phrased.
“You have entered the heady realm of hard-core libertarianism. Now doesn’t that make you feel worse that you didn’t get a perfect score?”
I scored a 94.
I’d give the test a “D”.
Libertarianism isn’t a list of issues. Good libertarians could disagree on some of those issues.
Also, it seems to underweight small state libertarians. Anarcho-capitalists aren’t necessarily more libertarian than the rest of us. Small state libertarians just disagree with them on certain issues.
Additionally, it doesn’t allow for nuance. We didn’t get to be a semi-socialist country overnight. We won’t get to be a libertarian country overnight. I’m not against ideological purity, but understand something of the real world and how political change happens.
Also, I got 114.
Yeah, along those lines of nuance, because I want the U.S to withdraw militarily doesn’t mean I want us to do it overnight.
I want us to get rid of social security and medicare, but cutting off that program tomorrow for people who have nothing else?
If I’m committed to getting rid of those two things, maybe doing them in such a way that lends itself to short term crises isn’t a good way to make those changes and keeping them changed.
The Chileans let people opt out of social security. The results were so good for the people who left, that the people who decided to stay on the old social security system sued to get out of it. If they’d thrown everybody off the system, there would have been some horror stories–and they might have gone back to compulsory social security.
At that point, we’re talking long term strategy–not depth of commitment.
Actually, the post-test analysis that is provided is far more interesting than the test itself.
I encourage people to read it. I think it clarifies that the “purity” scale is sort of a joke. Its not about perfection, but rather testing people’s orthodoxy, regardless of how self-contradictory it might sometimes be.
*also – the high concentration of perfect-scores suggest that many many people do what derp did, which is just answer yes to everything without thinking.
I’m not sure you’re reading it correctly. The test was written by Bryan Caplan, an arch-AnCap who probably believes in the correctness of every single item of the test. Perhaps you’re right in that it’s a a bit of a joke, but if it is, it’s a self-aware joke at his own expense.
that’s how i read it. (“Doubtlessly you will become more extreme as time goes””) i’m aware of Caplan’s work.
my point was that the test results are more interesting for what they reveal about the average test takers vs. people who actually do enter the “libertarian range”… and the splits on given questions for peolpe within those ranges… than they are as any measure of “purity”.
i think the test probably shows – if anything – that the ‘average libertarian’ covers a pretty wide spread. The “purists” – the 140s-160s – are a small minority, and given the way the test was designed, i’d guess that’s overstating it since it incentivized people to just click ‘yes’ to everything without actually thinking about the question at all.
If almost a decade of reading the comments to Hit ‘n Run and related sites have taught me anything, it’s that. No doubt.
That having been said, can an inviolable core of libertarianism even be identified? And if not, what does that say about the movement?
I don’t think so
of course that’s based on my own belief that there’s a difference between libertarianism as a political philosophy (something to guide actual real-life political decisions facing people right now), vs. ‘pure’ philosophy which is concerned with idealized hypotheticals.
i think w/ many issues (e.g. abortion being just one), people can use libertarian principles to come to very different answers to the same policy question. i think you could answer “no” to many (if not all) of the Tier III questions and be no more or less libertarian than someone who answers “yes” to all of them.
neither here nor there, i took it again after reading the analysis and got a 96;
Doubtlessly i am getting more extreme as i age
I think a few things can be nailed, at least for an American libertarian. Three things specifically:
1. The bill of rights says exactly what it means and means exactly what it says. (I.E: gun control is unconstitutional, full stop)
2. The government has absolutely no right to regulate business between two or more consenting adult parties (except to levy taxes in an extremely limited and precise manner).
3. The government has no business services that should reasonably be handled by private entities.
Third one is a bit squishy but its a good start.
I went with “yes” when I didn’t like either answer. I consciously chose the “wrong” answer when the “right” one required discarding and remaking custom and culture. I want to be rid of the state, not “all the ways we do things”. Natural law and common law aren’t “private”. The former is universal. Whenever the purity stuff comes up I think of robc’s absurd plan to divvy-up and deed out all the Earth’s surface water through some sort of “land lottery”
“Should we relax immigration laws?
Only 60.52% of test-takers favor relaxing immigration laws. Is this partly due to the recent paleo-libertarian/Mises Institute stance against immigration? Or is it merely continuing fears about free immigration? ”
Reason hardest hit. I’d guess the issue is how and which laws should be relaxed favoring a strong net reduction in immigration laws so long as it increases responsibility.
“Should the government sell off more of the public lands?
A surprisingly small percentage of test-takers favor this measure. ”
They want to hunt, fish, gather wild plants, harvest downed trees, pick up rocks, walk around, boat and swim,hike and camp, see scenic things and enjoy the outdoors. This is perfectly understandable and until relatively recently, was possible to do on much private land as well. I’m a yes but I’m drawing the line at the beaches, oceans and navigable waterways as you should too. People understand there are places they can’t go and things they can’t do on property they don’t own but feel strongly (and correctly, IMO) they have a natural right to do it somewhere.
I took the test again with more thought than reflex. I’m 2 points purer at 133 !
Caplan should further clarify and define “public vs private”. Perhaps use different terms in some cases or entirely.
What does this have to do with the government owning the land? A private trust can own land for the purpose of conservation and public use. Your right to fish, hunt, forage, etc. on government lands extends only as far as the next election.
I got 156. Of course I answered yes to things I actually thought “well, not really” to because I knew what the ‘right’ answer was.
145. If you’re under 100 that means Tony wins.
John McDonnell, Chancellor in Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet (that’s one thing we should steal. We should totally have a shadow cabinet because then there’d be more arguing and less would happen), is pictured here speaking at a May Day rally in front of the Communist flag and the flag of Assad’s Ba’ath Party.
That is what the Labour Party has become. It’s also why Theresa May’s going to get even more power in the elections to come.
It’s also telling that so much of the socialist ‘upper class’ are shitbag old men who are hoping no one remembers the world before 1991.
I feel this is the best argument against socialism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjDIKxYmNDs
I’m kicking myself for not including it in my Derp Classics post.
Ugh Hurley had way too much time on his hands after winning that lottery.
My god we need this. And less bi-partisan budget-making.
To be fair, such assholes have been a part of Labor for half a century or more. And after Blairite wing lost two elections in a row, they jumped on their chance.
I mean, Ba’ath is a socialist party that has been client of USSR since it was founded. It also wants to see Israel dead. What’s not to like?!
I hate hockey.
I hate everything about it.
I hate watching it. I wish I’d never played it.
I hate hockey.
I wish my folks had never bought Caps’ season tickets back in the day.
I hate hockey to pieces.
It’s a shitty sport played and watched by shitty people who should find something better to do with their time!
Being a Caps fan is the third most futile activity possible.
Being a Leafs fan comes in second.
Canucks fans have it the worst. The Canucks are pathetic. They will never win the cup.
Huh I thought that game was on tomorrow. They messed with me.
It’s been every bit the slobber-knocker you’d expect.
Niskanen crosschecked Crosby to the face in the first period. Took a five minute major for it. Crosby hasn’t been back.
The Pens have been playing like they’re possessed ever since, but Hotlby was great . . . right up until the last minute and 35 seconds.
The Caps were leading 2-0 with about a minute 35 left on the clock. They tied it up and sent it into overtime.
I thought for sure we were gonna win.
I hate hockey.
I’m a Rangers fan. I am used to this scenario.
If you’re a Rangers fan, you’re not used to never having won the cup.
It’s something you don’t ever want to get used to.
That way lies being a Canucks fan, and they’re the most miserable people on earth.
You’ll soon learn to resignedly shrug when your team fails to qualify, and set the city on fire if they are in the finals.
I’m used to it as a Flyers fan.
Goddammit why am I a fan of the Philly teams. It’s about the cruelest city to be a fan of all their teams.
I just meant the scenario of playing great and having nothing to show for it. Plus I’ve only been seriously following hockey for a couple years so there’s that.
The Rangers are a big defensive team. They play a less exciting form of hockey than people are used to. If you’re most famous player is your goalie, it gets like that.
I love this commercial by the way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrQWB1sB5jE
LOL I don’t watch ESPN so I missed that.
Yeah, I have noticed exactly what you described. Their captain is a defender too, right?
One of the best things about hockey is that the players care about winning.
They really do.
When a team really starts getting their asses kicked, when they go down 0-4 in front of their home crowd, they start fighting. You know there’s going to be a fight.
And the reason for that (among others) is because they don’t want their fellow teammates or the fans to think that they don’t care about winning.
I don’t think most baseball players care about winning as much as they care about their personal stats, etc. They’d rather win than lose, but . . . it’s not like in hockey.
I don’t think most basketball players care about winning.
I don’t think a lot of football players care about winning.
I see hockey players do things all the time that they wouldn’t do if they didn’t care.
I like hockey players because they’re not a bunch of preening narcissists like soccer players. Probably relates to what you just said.
Your guys beat the Habs, so fuck you, Mongolians!
Right? And I’m thinking Ottawa should be cake after that but apparently not.
Ottawa can be bitch-worthy when they want to. Honestly, for me, the only good thing about a national capital team playing the team who beat the Habs is that one will lose (this includes the Caps, Ken). In all honesty, though, I’d be surprised if the Rangers don’t take them
I love hockey!
I love hockey!
I love hockey!
Oh, sweet hockey. I never doubted you.
And now Crosby may or may not be back for the next game.
Winning twice in Yinsertown was far fetched.
Now we just have to do it one more time.
You’re not supposed to pray to Jesus to make Crosby’s head hurt or to give him concussion symptoms.
I’ll just have to keep reminding myself of that.
Loki has no such considerations. Just sayin’.
Do you like it again?
Shattenkirk is our new Mike Green. Well, him and Carlson.
They’ll need to be because Niskanen may not be back for the rest of the series.
If it looks like the Pens will lose Crosby for the rest of the series, you gotta figure the comish will think that the Caps should have to do with Niskanen.
I dunno. It was (at least from my view) inadvertent, and the ref gave him a game misconduct instead of a match penalty, so at the very least the ref didn’t see intent to injure.
At the same time, this is Sidney Crosby potentially out for a long while given his concussion history. So they’ll probably throw the book at him.
If you look at the play, it’s actually Ovechkin who started the sequence with a nasty slash that knocked Crosby off balance. Niskanen’s follow through didn’t look dirty to me but just one of those things.
Dammit I hope it’s not too serious but given his history, it doesn’t look good.
I had to meet one of my customers today who is a property manager for about ten apartment buildings here in SF. She is a feisty Scottish lady in her mid 70’s that is always on top of it. She called to tell me she would be really late so I did a couple other jobs and met her in the afternoon. She arrived two hours late and was beside herself. IIt took her 2.5 hours to travel four miles due to Communist Day protests here. Fuck those scrumbags with a rusty fork.
If she’s in her 70s, she should have packed heat and took a few bastards down. What are they gonna do – send her to prison for life?
I’d like to think that randomly shooting the bastards is a tactic of our opponents, not the position of ourselves.
OT, but I’m trying to recall a book that I read probably around 8-10 years ago. Don’t recall the title or author, but it was a sci-fi book about a ship traveling to Alpha Centauri, and it took place over a long period of time, to the point where the characters were only present for part of it, before their descendants taking over later on, IIRC (like I said, it’s been a long time.) Does anyone here recognize it? I’ve tried Googling but I can’t turn up anything that sounds right.
I’ve read a few generation-ship books but I can’t immediately recall one that targeted Alpha Centauri. It does ring a bell, though. Could it be Stephen Baxter?
Looking at his bibliography, nothing’s ringing a bell. I should also mention it wasn’t written before 2001, since I distinctly remember the only checkout date (other then when I read it,) to be July 2001.
*After 2001, dammit.
Was there an explicit discussion about how humans could build further ships en-route and thereby expand geometrically beyond AC? Now I’m trying to remember a book.
Not that I recall, but the stuff I remember about the book was weird. Like, I remember the multi-generational stuff, and I also remember a scene where a character is executed by either vaporization or jettisoning out an airlock. But for the life of me I can’t remember any of the major plot stuff except that they were going to Alpha Centauri.
Heh I can probably – given enough time – name a half-dozen books I’ve read that match those specs. Or Star Trek episodes. I dunno… it’s all starting to run together in my head lately.
I also think that the descendants all had the same names as their parents, if that helps.
Vernor Vinge? Probably not. All the names were Scandinavian for… I have no idea what reason. But that was a tiny part of the story.
No, that wasn’t it. Although that does look like a fun read.
Oh, it’s an absolute classic, must-read.
There’s a reddit called “Tip of My Tongue” for cases like this if you have an account over there.
Pushing 50 I find myself really needing something like that. Not sure if I want to put my toe in that water though.
Coyote by Allen Steele?
Kinda looks like “Al” from “Home Improvement”?
Random Nutpunch
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/05/01/balch-springs-police-shooting-department-changes-story-about-15-year-olds-death.html
A suburban Dallas police chief said Monday that his department inaccurately described why an officer fired at a moving vehicle over the weekend, killing a 15-year-old boy.
Jordan Edwards and four other teenagers were in a vehicle leaving a party in Balch Springs Saturday night when an officer shot at them with his rifle. Police initially said the vehicle was backing up toward police at the scene “in an aggressive manner.”
But Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber said Monday that video shows the vehicle not reversing, but instead “moving forward as the officers approached.”
…
The chief called for the community to allow authorities to complete their investigation before jumping to conclusions.
Police say they received a 911 call around 11 p.m. reporting several underage teens acting drunk. Lawyers for the Edwards family said the teens were simply trying to get away.
….
Edwards’ classmates at Mesquite High School described him as a straight-A freshman who was well liked by many. Grief counselors were on hand at the school on Monday.
Jeff Fleener, the school’s head football coach, told the Dallas Morning News that he was “crushed and heartbroken” when he heard about the news of the shooting.
Fleener said Edwards always stayed out of trouble, had a GPA over 3.5 and was set to begin playing defensive back this spring.
******
Oh, so the vehicle was fleeing. Case closed. How about a beer, Lou?
Are you feeling left out? 😉
If you mixed them all together, you’d get brown.
I thought you got gray.
Sign me up for yellow.
My wallet fell out of my pocket yesterday afternoon. Filled with cards and the like. Went to the neighborhood police box, filled out a short document and within 15 minutes I had my wallet back, nothing missing. Props to whoever turned it in. The police box system actually works. The inner anarchist takes a shot.
Every once in a while you get a reminder that there are very honest and good people out there that would never do a stranger wrong.
I don’t know what a police box is outside of a Doctor Who episode, but I remember losing my keys living in Germany, and sure enough they turned up in the town hall’s lost and found box the next day. SMDH.
Koban are small police stations located in every neighborhood. They’ll give directions and help out in minor disturbances. Local policing at its best.
Heh is there really a dude standing at attention in front of each one?
Yep. They’ll often bow as you walk by.
I can’t decide if that’s cute or creepy.
And yes, it’s embarrassing how bad it is in America. Spain was awful, but I can’t count how many times I’ve had shit stolen or lost items never returned in the States.
I had a wallet that had fallen out of my pocket mailed back to my parents’ house. I’d used their address for documents while I was finding a place to live after moving back to the US, which was a bummer because the guy who found it lives across the street from me, but there was a very apologetic note in the parcel apologizing for opening the wallet to find my address. I was floored.
As KSuell said, it’s nice to be reminded that good people are out there. Mailing it seems a bit extreme, though.
I might be jaded from 20 years in NYC but I would never for a second harbor any expectation of ever getting anything back that I lost in the US.
I was shopping for a job and dropped my wee pouch with almost $800 in petty cash and no identifying materials at all at one my favorite produce places (Three Guys from Brooklyn on Ft. Hamilton Pkwy.) and did not notice until I got to my next stop (in Red Hook). It was an hour or so until I made it back and I was absolutely flabbergasted that it was waiting for me in the manager’s office, turned in by an employee. On the other hand, we’ve had our kid’s toys stolen from our yard before so yeah… NYC.
I found a wallet outside of a concert with 1600 dollars in cash in it. I called the local police, counted out and took a picture off all the money (in case the cops got a little sticky fingered) and turned it in in tact. Some days when money gets tight I think about how nice it would be to have that money right now.
The guy give you little reward?
He promised to, but never came through. Surprise surprise.
I’ll be waiting for my luxury suite in heaven, God almighty, you fucking cocksucker.
Cool, but Japan. So long as someone with 5 fingers finds it, it’ll probably be turned in.
I’m disappointed that it wasn’t in the same spot straffin dropped it. So much for that stereotype.
You’ve been here. You know the stereotype is true.
I lost my camera when I was a teen in Japan. It reached my hotel before I did.
That sounds so Germany too. Interesting how similar they can be :O
Hey, maybe they could team up and…
Axis of Helpfulness
Damn. I almost never laugh out loud.
Uh oh, guys. We might be in twouble!
Here’s some “racism” from a bunch of commies.
As someone who’s been to Jamaica, I don’t wanna go back there no more, either.