----Original Message-----
From: georgemason1776 < georgemason1776@aol.com >
To: kwendt < kwendt@al.com >; epage < epage@bhamnews.com >
Sent: Mon, Oct 22, 2012 5:31 pm
Subject: I've never operated a wood chipper.
I've never operated a wood chipper.
Not a small electric one, not a medium gas powered version, not a big diesel booger in a woodlot in Skokie. In fact, the only wood chipper I ever got close to belonged ro my grandfather, and it was broken. (All true.)
We came from a long line of Michigan wood choppers so my inexperience with the tools was not a given. Indeed, my grandfather acquired an allergy to Canadian wood choppers, going so far as to assert that the real reason that Canadians put a maple leaf on their flags has something to do with substitute toilet paper for lumberjacks.
But I recall from an early age being warned "Stay away from those, they're dangerous." When I was older, I saw the movie Fargo and I knew that Saddam Hussein used to put his political opponents in them. Wood chippers were bad. Everybody knew that.
It wasn't until I got to Alabama and had a yard big enough with plenty of brush that I discovered what a useful useful tool they really were.. Huh. Who would have thought?
Do you begin to understand, Mr. Wendt, how ridiculous and stupid your assignment of evil to a mere tool is? How goofy your anthropomorphization of inanimate steel, wood and plastic really is? A firearm is a tool, just like a wood chipper. Of course firearms are liberty tools of great utility in resisting criminals, both freelance and government-sponsored. As my friend Kurt Hofmann paraphrases Edmund Burke by the lights of the funeral pyres of Twentieth Century holocausts, evil exists only because good men don't kill the government officials committing it."
I found your paper's obsession with the 10 percent of the law-abiding who carry legal concealed weapons to be laughable. Do the demographics, do the crime statistics and then do the math -- there's undoubtedly double that amount of criminals packing heat at any given moment -- yet it is us, the law abiding who "make you nervous?"
Do you do big spreads on THEM?
I rest my case.
And stay away from those dangerous wood chippers.
Mike Vanderboegh
10 comments:
If I had the same POV about tablesaws, mitersaws, skilsaws, routers, bandsaws, sawzalls, jigsaws, and more, I'd be flipping burgers at McDonald's for a living.
If we could regulate ideas and words the way they want to regulate our weapons we would solve the problem of having Domestic Enemies almost completely but for those refugees from natural selection who would keep volunteering to be dinner.. in the process we would surrender our liberty to keep them muzzled.
They, on the other hand, have given up nothing to gain our sacrifice which makes them vulnerable.
A vulnerable enemy is a good thing.
Yank lll
I still find it an interesting co-inky that Al.com launched this series the day after the 2nd Presidential Debate where the subject of gun control came up.
Almost as if a meme is being crafted.
I'm lousy with most tools, except for guns and guitars, and yet I still managed to fix the toilet before my afternoon "download." Didn't lose any fingers or wound or kill anyone by accident. Amazing, huh?
I'm just glad Domino is very handy with the jigger and the swizzle stick. Who knows what mayhem I could unleash with those???
Good to see you back at it, Mike!
Bill and Domino
III
The guy shows what's wrong with media. It is now dominated by "professionals" rather than by people who understand and reflect the communities they serve.
I'm scared to death of gasoline, wish I could avoid using the nasty stuff. And if you include all the things that use it (autos, chainsaws WOOD CHIPPERS!!!) it's statisticaly way more dangerous than guns.
Unlike guns, a stored can of gas can leak, send out vapors and blow up your house. Can of gas in your basement or an attached garage? Horror show!
The linked author can have his opinions, I certainly have mine...
That's probably the best analogy regarding gun control that I've heard. I'm keeping that for later.
@ Erinyes
Those deep fryers are dangerous. Better keep away from McDonalds.
Someone who had that toolphobic POV consistently would probably end up living put their days in a padded room.
Aonymous: You're right! A buddy of mine slipped and found himself more than elbow-deep in the KFC deep fryer when we were in high school. Took the freckles right off...
My guns spend more time locked away than any other tools I own and all I can say is that is a goddamn shame!
The biggest killer on the battlefield is "Death by Medical Mis-adventure", followed by such things as Dihydromonoxide, vehicles of all types, slippery bath tubs and floors....way down the list is firearms accidents..In short, the most dangerous things are Doctors and Water...Of course, sometimes the Docs are faced with people who are pretty bad off anyhow, and yet they still get the statistics against them...Same with all the other leading dangers, the CDC does not consider all the angles, just the data...
Dale in Pinson
Post a Comment