On my mind — the general nastiness on social media lately. I try to be a) entertaining, and b) post only items that include some ideas I haven’t seen elsewhere. If I’m overdoing something, I would hope people would let me know personally rather than defriending or unfollowing me.

Meanwhile, some friends post incessantly in an apparent attempt to persuade others. There is a virtue-signalling component — “see, I think correctly, and I am a good person with good feelings,” and a campaign purpose — “let’s get those bastards [which may be R or D, depending.]” Especially nice is blaming relatively harmless Americans who might not be a supportive as you like instead of the murderous Islamist ideology.

This is psychological displacement. The US Progressive mindset only allows for certain classes to be hated and Otherized — white cishetmale Christians, or some mix thereof. So the natural anger at the inexplicably evil shooting of fifty innocent (mostly) Latino gay young men last week at the Pulse disco in Orlando *must* be directed at rightwing Christian white males, not the actual Islamist shooter, a registered Democrat and son of an abusive Afghan father who supported the Taliban and trained his son to hate.

So yesterday I posted a middle-of-the-road thought piece suggesting neither knee-jerk gun controls or bans on Muslims were likely to be helpful responses to recent events. This brought some commenters who wanted to mix it up. I tried to calm them down, then left. Then a nice fellow I know of the transnational elite sort tried to suggest one *must* concede that guns are too available, and other countries are *so* much more enlightened. Which of course brought forth a Red Tribe American to push back. Now a really sensitive person criticizing a culture he didn’t grow up with would be careful to concede the feelings of a native, but not my friend — he retreated in bewilderment at the hostility he had evoked.

I deleted that part of the thread as unproductive. I understand why my Red Tribe friend was belligerent — he and people like him are tired of having to explain themselves over and over to people who don’t know much about guns but are happy to judge and imply they are stupid for believing as they do. It does not help that pro-gun control friend was obviously coming from a non-American background and suggesting Europe etc do these things better. Which is offensive to many here. “You French people — why are you so racist toward Arabs? Can’t you see your discrimination against them plus your welfare support for their idleness is damaging them? We do this so much better in the US!”

Both of them brought statistics, and they were as it turns out not inconsistent — gun controller brought raw data about murder rates, which gun owner correctly noted include the high murder rates from areas dominated by lawless drug gangs and culture — once those are removed, the geographies dominated by “gun nuts” have murder rates well below average European levels, as low as Switzerland (where it is viewed as a civil defense duty to train and keep a semiautomatic rifle in your home.) The presence of long guns is barely relevant to murder rates, and terrorist mass murderers have many other methods to accomplish their evil acts. The heavy-duty gun control regime in France did nothing to slow down the Islamist mass murderers.

If you want to persuade American gun owners, make the effort to understand them. Insulting them and their country is not a good start. We do have a voluntary militia — and by the way, the amendment’s “well regulated” means “well-equipped and trained.” And BTW, Harry Reid and others campaigning against “automatic weapons” show their ignorance — automatic weapons are tightly controlled and legally-owned ones are both rare and essentially never involved in mass shootings.

Can we work on understanding and forgiving our closest cousins? Or will we always be manipulated to hate them so that certain people can hold onto power?

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Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations

[From Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations,  available now in Kindle and trade paperback.]

The first review is in: by Elmer T. Jones, author of The Employment Game. Here’s the condensed version; view the entire review here.

Corporate HR Scrambles to Halt Publication of “Death by HR”

Nobody gets a job through HR. The purpose of HR is to protect their parent organization against lawsuits for running afoul of the government’s diversity extortion bureaus. HR kills companies by blanketing industry with onerous gender and race labor compliance rules and forcing companies to hire useless HR staff to process the associated paperwork… a tour de force… carefully explains to CEOs how HR poisons their companies and what steps they may take to marginalize this threat… It is time to turn the tide against this madness, and Death by HR is an important research tool… All CEOs should read this book. If you are a mere worker drone but care about your company, you should forward an anonymous copy to him.

 

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Some Red Tribe readings:

Larry Correia: “Self-defense is a Human Right”
More Larry: “An Opinion on Gun Control”
Damon Root: “Of Course the Second Amendment Protects an Individual Right: Correcting the record about guns and the Constitution”
David French: “The Orlando Shooting Launches a War on Christianity”
Rachael Larimore: “Bullet Points: If the media wants a healthy conversation about firearm laws, it needs to stop getting basic gun facts wrong when reporting on mass shootings”

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More reading on other topics:

Islamist, Communist, Nazi: Ideologies of Hate
A Milestone For Women In Politics: Libertarians Reflect on Hillary’s Nomination
Free Trade, Specialization, and Economic Dynamism
Jane Jacobs’ Monstrous Hybrids: Guardians vs Commerce
The Great Progressive Stagnation vs. Dynamism
Death by HR: How Affirmative Action is Crippling America
Death by HR: The End of Merit in Civil Service
Corrupt Feedback Loops: Public Employee Unions
Death by HR: History and Practice of Affirmative Action and the EEOC
Civil Service: Woodrow Wilson’s Progressive Dream
Bootleggers and Baptists
Corrupt Feedback Loops: Justice Dept. Extortion
Corrupt Feedback Loops, Goldman Sachs: More Justice Dept. Extortion
Death by HR: The Birth and Evolution of the HR Department
Death by HR: The Simple Model of Project Labor
Levellers and Redistributionists: The Feudal Underpinnings of Socialism
Sons of Liberty vs. National Front
Trump World: Looking Backward
Minimum Wage: The Parable of the Ladder
Selective Outrage
Culture Wars: Co-Existence Through Limited Government
Social Justice Warriors, Jihadists, and Neo-Nazis: Constructed Identities
Tuitions Inflated, Product Degraded, Student Debts Unsustainable
The Morality of Glamour

On Affirmative Action and Social Policy:

Affirmative Action: Chinese, Indian-Origin Citizens in Malaysia Oppressed
Affirmative Action: Caste Reservation in India
Diversity Hires: Pressure on High Tech<a
Title IX Totalitarianism is Gender-Neutral
Public Schools in Poor Districts: For Control Not Education
Real-Life “Hunger Games”: Soft Oppression Destroys the Poor
The Social Decay of Black Neighborhoods (And Yours!)
Child Welfare Ideas: Every Child Gets a Government Guardian!
“Income Inequality” Propaganda is Just Disguised Materialism

The greatest hits from SubstrateWars.com (Science Fiction topics):

Fear is the Mindkiller
Mirror Neurons and Irene Gallo
YA Dystopias vs Heinlein et al: Social Justice Warriors Strike Again
Selective Outrage
Sons of Liberty vs. National Front
“Tomorrowland”: Tragic Misfire
The Death of “Wired”: Hugo Awards Edition
Hugos, Sad Puppies 3, and Direct Knowledge
Selective Outrage and Angry Tribes
Men of Honor vs Victim Culture
SFF, Hugos, Curating the Best
“Why Aren’t There More Women Futurists?”
Science Fiction Fandom and SJW warfare

More reading on the military:

US Military: From No Standing Armies to Permanent Global Power
US Military: The Desegregation Experience
The VA Scandals: Death by Bureaucracy