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Abraham wrote:VMI77,

Yes, we are a tribe of so-called "Gun Nuts".

Kowabunga!

Absolutely. A looser set of affiliations than some tribes perhaps, but sharing the same tendencies.

C-dub wrote:That all or nothing mentality is really disturbing. Support everything or it means you are anti whatever. Really bugs the heck out of me.

As someone who works in a heavily top down regulated industry and is ex-military I find the anti-authority stuff highly amusing....but I know what you mean. I don't understand it. It's easy to write off as merely a desire to avoid accountability but I don't think it's that simple. We still contain vestiges of our tribal nature. People get in fights and even kill people over some football team they identify with so it's not difficult to see how much the psychological investment can be when someone is involved in something truly important.

I think there have been experiments where people are issued different color emblems and end up fighting over some color they've been assigned. As Eric Hoffer described in "The True Believer" there is a natural human tendency to want to be part of something larger than self and a great deal of comfort in being part of the tribe with a resulting emotional compulsion to defend it against outsiders. And within the tribe any dissent from the prevailing view is rarely tolerated and often punished. There are still tribes and tribal conflict in parts of the world. Nationalism tends to supplant local tribes in favor of the national tribe, but that requires a common identity and set of values that seems to be vanishing from today's America. I think that tends to reinforce the more tribal associations of those groups that still retain a common identity and set of values.

mayor wrote:

Abraham wrote:I wish him a speedy recovery as I'm sure everyone else here does.

as do I.

I don't understand this:

A-R wrote: All you cop blockers, anti-authority types etc - feel free to keep your opinions to yourself

A "cop blocker" or "anti-cop" is what a government employee of a certain attitude (or naturally obedient citizen) calls anyone who doesn't fully support everything a LEO does, whether it is rescuing a puppy from a burning building or shooting a fleeing and unarmed man 8 times in the back (or any other act that would put one of us plebes in prison). An "anti-authority type" is anyone who questions the actions of and/or isn't immediately obedient to a certain type of government employee who believes that anyone not sufficiently cowed by his position is guilty of contempt.

Whatever the motive, an ambush like this is a cowardly act.