So the concept that we just “be nice” isn’t exactly realistic. If it worked, and if it was widely adopted, you’d still need 30,60,90 years to have society free of all the people born before the new way and carrying the old baggage. If any number of them pass trauma of some degree to the younger generations through the old ways, then we start to need centuries or more to be clear of the old ways.

And of course- it ignores underlying realities of generational issues like generational poverty or cyclical abuse. Often times parents or care givers to children don’t know a better way. Many people can overcome this if someone opens their eyes to it and they work and study to do better- or each generation might do slightly better than the last so that abuse etc. is less extreme. That said- some people just… is “can’t” the word? Maybe. Maybe not. They won’t. That’s the reality. Wether it is a fundamental inability or lack of interest or other factors or anything else- at the end of the day so many people just won’t. Some percent of people will intentionally not do better. They won’t believe in the ideology or philosophy or methodology etc. they will want to stay with what they know. They believe that is the best way.

The same can be said of personality issues. The woman hating incel may slowly get past their hateful thinking and actions if they spend enough time in fulfilling relationships or have enough emotional or physical intimacy. Or they might not. They may never be able to completely trust or respect a woman right? So there are older kids and young adults and older adults who grew up in an unkind world and carry that baggage. You may not be able to “undo” the negative impact of those things on them.

Even if we flipped a switch and society started raising every kid in such a home and offering such an environment in every home… what of the people who are already scarred by their time before the change? If all it took to stop a person from shooting up a park was to give them the hugs they were denied for 17,22,40 whatever years- we probably wouldn’t have the issues we do would we? Love doesn’t make depression and trauma vanish. The spouse to the soldier returning from combat with mental scars or the parent of the suicidal teen or the lives one of the bipolar- yes, support is generally better than none and generally helps people adjust, but they will have bad days and they may never be “back to normal” as they once were in your mind. It isn’t your fault and loving them or supporting them harder won’t “cure them.”

I don’t really see a real and compelling downside to creating a loving and supportive healthy society- it probably wouldn’t cause more crimes if nothing else. With all that said though- these sorts of sentiments ignore something kinda important. Inertia.

Indeed. I don’t fault the sentiment of this saying- although anyone acquainted with crimes and horrible acts could tell plenty of stories about people who seemingly had everything from love to looks or financial well being or success and more. It’s a broad question if some people are just “destined to be bad” or just some people can be “set off” in certain ways etc- but there is a fallacy that criminals and killers and such come from broken homes. Even in many cases where criminals or shooters have been socially isolated etc. the home lives are often fine and contributing factors are often self inflicted or the result of persecution syndrome or self outsider status etc. regardless it is a myth that people from happy homes don’t do bad things or people from unhappy homes are predisposed to anti social behaviors.

Eliminating a topographic mesh sounds unpleasant- but I’m on the hook for 16 foot long cedar split fence lumber so you’re doing ok.

There are plenty of useless or worse than useless teachers in the world too, lots of foolish people who seem not to know anything. Does that mean we don’t need or should t have teachers or public schools? We should probably keep toy mix schools and teachers even if there are some bad eggs. Maybe that’s a good reason to focus on ways to try and make sure there are less bad eggs to give those things bad names and try to make sure the ones there are actually are competent and potentially beneficial.. but yeah.

There is no reason that militias cannot operate similarly and militias can, historically often have, and where in practice still do at times coordinate and work with official organizations.
Of course when we think of a militia we either tend to think of the so called militias that are perhaps a stones throw or less away from being bumpkin extremists, borderline cultists, or domestic terrorists; or we think of some “in the army now” group of burn outs or rejects with dreams of being Rambo but who are out of shape, unskilled, disorganized, tactically inept and ineffectual- basically we think of crazy radicals or a group of idiot drinking buddies who like to carry guns and play GI JOE. There are those groups, but that isn’t what a militia has to be or what all of them are.
So I mean… yes.. maybe not everyone that decides to call themselves a militia should get a pass to do so, but also maybe don’t write off the importance or potential relevance of militias.

A militia is not strictly a martial organization anymore than the uniformed military is. National guard, reservists, and regular military routinely offer services and resources as needed to the civil good. National guard are often used for disaster relief or to assist in areas and times of instability etc. Military corps of engineers often work on civilian construction projects and relief efforts and various military medical personnel and resources are often leveraged in times and places of civilian need. Military pilots perform rescues and arial recon or scouting such as finding survivors, spotting safe or clear routes, identifying hazards, assessing situation or damage and assisting in identifying areas of most severe impact and such.

Of course a proper militia can also be of great help outside of such scenarios. In recent decades several high profile and devastating disasters, natural and man made, have taken huge human tolls and stressed or overwhelmed the ability of oficial resources to respond. In some cases mismanagement or other issues have delayed or inhibited help. A large well regulated local militia or joint operating command of several regional militias could have proved highly beneficial in the events surrounding hurricane katrina for example. Militia volunteers keeping peace and order, searching for and rescuing survivors, offering first aid, taking up tasks that could relieve official organizations or fill gaps in coverage or response times, organizing and administrating shelters, resource programs, hospitals or aid stations etc. and later coordinating with official organizations.

There is also the far fetched but possible scenario of foreign invasion. Although somewhat poorly supported by historic precedent, geographically mitigated, and arguably contradicted by foreseeable probabilities of politics and tactical advantage- to assume invulnerability is a hubris that tends to incite ruin. Now that DOES have historical precedent in a long list of nations and empires that assumed that they were too big or powerful or connected or feared etc. to need to take precautions and found that their undoing.

That scenario brings up the slightly less far fetched (especially in light of recent trends) topic of civil war. It might not be super great if a civil war were to break out, to not have some form of militia reserves. Depending on the ideological or demographic breakdowns of such a war, certain regions could find themselves greatly disadvantaged as the bulk of the American military can be found in certain places- and if the “good guys” or the side you’d favor in such a conflict doesn’t happen to fit the demographic that might claim a significant portion of materiel or ideological loyalty of a significant military force- having someone to represent and defend you might be prudent.

But ignoring the far fetched scenario of some mass conversion to totalitarian government (although of January 6th had gone differently, the more liberally minded American citizen may have suddenly felt differently about having a well armed and like minded militia had treasonous extremists managed to install their illegitimate dictator via coup and Liberal Americans suddenly found themselves in front of a run away train without brakes towards far right totalitarianism..)

That’s not how that works is it? Because we all have our thresholds. Now I’m not saying we need to make hurting peoples feelings illegal- but if you go around intentionally and willfully hurting people… what is that usually called? The thing about freedom, including freedom of speech, is that how we use it reflects on us.

The whole “quit being sensitive” or “cancel culture” narrative is lazy, simple, dismissive. It attempts to side step that entire dialog and instead of having to have conversations and having to learn and adapt and se different view points or sometimes admit we didn’t mean to hurt anyone but we did- it puts all the weight on everyone else. “I’m not responsible for what I say, YOU are responsible for how you take what I say…” well… that’s not how that works is it? “I’m not responsible because my food killed you- you’re responsible for not having a strong enough immune system to fight the food poisoning..”
“Yes I hit them, but if they were stronger it wouldn’t hurt as much.” Because that’s how that works isn’t it? Legally if you don’t leave a mark it doesn’t count because pain is in your mind- lord of guys have been punched by Mike Tyson and stood- so if Tyson hits you, they were fine, so you’d be fine too no harm no foul right?

Because if your “joke” is a semi serious and thought out argument as to why someone doesn’t deserve to exist or shouldn’t have equal rights or be considered for equal rights because their existence or consideration causes some problems in your worldview- that’s not really a joke is it? You might use humor- but you are making a point or advocating an idea- an idea that someone else shouldn’t have rights or exist or be considered human.
So yeah- it can be complicated and there isn’t a rule book. There isn’t an actual “line” that is codified and says one joke about a group is ok by one person in one set of circumstances and not another. There is a dialog there. There isn’t a single person or a department that decides it.

I’m saying that it becomes much harder to laugh or make light hearted fun with the things that hundreds of people or thousands or millions are grieving the loss of loved ones to or living with trauma from or living in fear of. So yeah- Jewish people can be a little sensitive to certain insults or stereotypes or “teasing” because… duh. Massive genocide and thousands of years of persecution that were preceded by or fueled by those sorts of things. Certain other groups are pretty sensitive to some things that maybe are similarly often or historically tied to… murdering them or taking their rights or such..?

In simple terms- when you tell a topical joke there is generally a message there. A kernel of thought. When Road Runner crushes the Coyote under his own anvil and generations laugh- why? Did the people telling those jokes or the people laughing think animal cruelty was funny? No. It’s a cartoon. It’s fake. You know it is “safe” to laugh. No one is hurt by it in theory. If a bunch of kids start killing each other with rockets and hammers and anvils do you think those cartoons would still be made? No. Guns and weapons have been increasingly absent from children's programming as those things have increasingly become common threats in ordinary life. Am I saying cartoons with guns cause gun violence? No. That’s a bit daft.

So we know you don’t have to offend to be funny- but sometimes offense is a consequence of being funny or humor is a way to say something on a sensitive topic but dull the edge. We know you don’t have to insult people for existing to be funny. We know that often generalizations and such in comedy that use a group as a foil do so to point to social injustices or failings- a joke about police brutality against a certain group- not to insult that group or speak positively of brutality, but to highlight the problem without preaching a sermon or moralizing dryly.

Do you think that the Orta of the constitution that grant rights to “all people” only apply to the people that the founding fathers knew about, or groups that existed at that time and not nationalities and ethnicities that didn’t yet exist? Like- anyone who identifies as Thai isn’t protected by the constitution because there was no Thailand when the thing was drafted? Are you so daft that you think that anyone born after an amendment is signed isn’t covered because no one could have known they’d be born later? Social Media director or cable installer weren’t businesses that existed then either- so no constitutional freedoms apply to those industries..? Put on your thinking cap a little longer next time.