Not long ago, I wrote an article about the Instagram star, Dan Bilzerian, who was present at the country music festival in Las Vegas where a man in his 60’s shot and killed over 50 people and 500 more suffered injuries.
The article was not political; it was not pro-gun or anti-gun, it was merely reporting what other publications said had happened with Dan during the event.
However, despite my intentions to be neutral on the issue, I wrote carelessly that the perpetrator used a “heavy artillery-style” weapon, which isn’t the appropriate term.
As I recall, the gunman used a modified semi-automatic weapon illegal to purchase in the United States.
Anyway, a person in the comments freaked the fuck out about my choice of words in the article.
Gun control to some Americans is an incredibly touchy subject, even more so than religion. In fact, I would say it’s far more contentious than religion, probably even 3x as much.
This guy in the comment section lost mind at me, calling me a fucking retard and what have you. I stated that Dakota Meyers was “allegedly” the recipient of the Medal Of Honor when it is not “alleged.”
It’s a straight-up fact, but for some reason, most likely due to laziness, I wrote “alleged” because I didn’t want to take the time to confirm that he was indeed the recipient of that medal.
As a result, the guy took me to task about that shit. I did some thinking about the issue, and I realized something about the gun control issue.
People who are “gun-nuts,” self-proclaimed or not, get super pissed off for reasons that I now understand.
The media – which undoubtedly has a liberal slant with some exceptions, notably in issues such as gun-control – often is dominated by people of a specific ideological persuasion.
What I mean, is that whenever talk show hosts, comedians, celebrities, news anchors, journalists, and analysists speak about a particular issue, usually it’s the type of person who has little or no knowledge of the topic which they’re discussing.
For example, any time you hear about anything related to guns in the mass media, it’s usually incompetent, ignorant, loud-mouth celebrities who haven’t done any research on the topic at all.
People like Piers Morgan, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Megyn Kelly, Kelly Ripa, and the list goes on-and-on, are usually parroting the same talking points over and over again, not even because they agree with what’s coming out of their own mouths, but because their job requires them to do so.
In short, specifically regarding the topic of gun control, ignorant people dominate the narrative.
Anti-gun liberals dominating the narrative is the reason why so many pro-gun people become infuriated whenever the issue of gun control comes up.
The people who are the most vocal, are usually the people who are the LEAST educated on the subject.
In other words, people who the public consider to be “authorities” on the subject will spout information that is flat-out wrong, and this infuriates people who ARE knowledgeable.
It doesn’t stop at gun control either. The gender wage gap is another one that you hear EVERY celebrity, politician, and public figure discussing. It’s dogma at this point.
Despite the fact that there are clear and practically self-evident reasons for men having more money than women, one being that women give birth to babies, and often women’s children take priority over their careers, even though at one point they probably considered their job as the most important thing.
The idea that makes the most sense, and isn’t rooted in postmodern jargon, is that women’s responsibilities and “obligations” to their family (if you want to call it their obligations) increase as men’s responsibilities goes down after the age of thirty.
Feminists argue that it’s the patriarchal social norm (the idea that our culture expects women to take of children or the subject will subject them to mass-shaming) which holds women back from having a prosperous career and going on to be the CEO.
However, the truth is, most women just don’t want to be a CEO when they start having kids.
After they’ve had a couple of kids, a majority of them decide that they would much rather have a regular 40-hour-a-week job, rather than be a man and hustle 80 hours a week to get that raise or promotion.
Additionally, men have far more to gain from competing in dominance hierarchies than women. Think about it; it’s not difficult to understand that if a man is on top of a hierarchy, he has more to gain because he gets FAR more access to all of the hot young women.
Not only do women find social status super attractive, but they also like the fact that he is a rich motherfucker who can pay the bills and handle his shit.
As a part of my job, I have to scour the latest news to find topics to discuss. It’s mind-boggling how many celebrities and public figures are touting this “gender wage gap” and anti-gun bullshit.
I’ve never heard anybody ever in the mainstream make a solid point without using emotionally-based arguments and stupid jargon, like “patriarchal social norms and social constructs.”
However, I’m aware of where this trash is coming from, and it’s coming from the social science departments in universities who have become obsessed with critical theory in the recent past.
Half of their content is merely deconstructing the shit out of everything and criticising systems. Do any of these “intellectuals” contribute anything to the world?
I don’t think so, all they do is talk shit. I’ve been re-reading my “The Political Economy Of The Mass Media” textbook recently, and there is an interesting piece discussing the cons of universities taking a critically theoretical approach to pertinent issues.
In the essay, the author mainly states that educators aren’t teaching kids useful skills that make them valuable to the workforce. As a result, young adults go out into the world with a “critical perspective” rather than skills.
It’s as if everyone graduating from the social science departments in Universities has a Ph.D. in criticizing, bitching, and complaining rather than a useful skill that pays the bills.
There needs to be a more substantial plurality of perspective and opinion in not only the mass media but in Universities as well. Rather than facilitating “diversity and inclusion,” which means focusing on petty bullshit like a person’s ethnicity and upbringing, there should be more of a concerted effort to have dissenting opinions all over the public sphere.
However, it’s easier said than done, especially nowadays, when you risk losing your job, career, family, and everything else in between merely because you have an alternative viewpoint that the media and social justice activists misconstrue to demonize you as well as your point.
I find myself intentionally avoiding stating how I feel on my Facebook account for example, because I know my opinions are not accepted, at all! When I worked at a vegan restaurant among super-liberal kids my age, it was pretty clear that I didn’t belong there, and it’s a lot harder to speak your mind when your job is on the line.