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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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Get a large dog, some breed that is very protective and loyal. Train it to bark and growl at the people you don't like while on walks. Regularly take walks around your house and neighborhood.

This is the solution a lot of poor people half ass attempt. They end up with dangerous dogs that bite some kid. I'd suggest you not half ass it.

Dogs are generally way more willing than people to get violent. The fear of violence situation will be reversed.

If you do this, get a shepherd not a pit. They are actually good dogs that don't attack kids, while do attack crazies.

German Shepards have potential health problems, though. And they're still a high-energy herding breed that'll require proper training and handling, so the poor thing doesn't go all squirrelly.

If you do go that route, anyone, please do your research and purchase from a good breeder.

There are better breeds I'd suggest if he was going the herding protection route, but none I'd advise for someone who knows nothing about dogs(and most people who do).

Seconded, my shepherd would absolutely maul a fool while never having harmed a human being in his decade of existence (we don't get much crime here). They're the best mix of intimidating while not hurting anyone you don't want to hurt.

On the other hand, my lab? At most he'd bark at them ineffectually, I'm not sure he's aware it's possible to bite human beings.

Note, however, that the most dangerous sorts of street people may feel affronted by such a dog and initiate lethal violence against it, as in the case that inspired this classic Freddie deBoer article:

The Existence of Random Dog-Killings Would Seem to Imply the Need for Some Sort of Constabulary Force

To be sure, Jessica Chrustic's golden retriever was not a trained personal-defense dog, but according to her testimony in other articles the dog did indeed attempt to defend her from the homeless man who was menacing her (and then beat the dog to death).

In which case they've attacked a sympathetic victim and opened themselves up to the justice system. They also won't necessarily escape unscathed in the altercation.

OP seemed willing to be a police officer or engage in vigilante justice. Raising a dog to do it in your place seems strictly safer from a personal perspective.

It also has a lot of plausible deniability, unlike shooting someone, or beating them up yourself.

There's a class called schutzhund which is available for like, dobermans and shepherds and other breeds used in military and k-9 service. If you're willing to pay for it, you can just buy a dog that's trained under it, or buy a dog trainable under it and send it through.

This is the best way to obtain a personal protection dog if you live in an urban area and aren't a particularly experienced dog owner. Ensure that no one outside of your immediate family feeds it or gives it affection, and have it wear a shock collar for appearances' sake if nothing else.

Awesome suggestion, I don't actually own a dog, or have to worry about this. So it's good that there is an existing training program.

This is the most expensive way to obtain a canine bodyguard- hence why poor people half-ass it(usually with a pitbull crossbreed).

Of course very experienced and competent dog owners can train a dog in house, and pick from a wider variety of breeds, but those by-and-large are rednecks in the countryside who expect to fill any self defense needs that do crop up with firearms(the main reason for such intensive training of a personally owned dog would be for hunting, so pre-existing experience leans pretty strongly in one direction).

Avoid pitbulls though. They are called the BIPOCs of dogs for multiple very good reasons.

Really dude? You should know better, 2 day ban. The second part of your comment is pure low effort culture war antagonism.

He's right, though.

Pitbulls are something like 6% of the US dog population, but commit 60+% of fatal attacks. I'd link but I don't want to possibly subject (a) US law firm(s) to random-linking from a den of witches (with outside observers waiting to pounce upon such wrong-think). I've also often seen 66% quoted, but that's almost too convenient.

Blacks are something like 12% of the US human population and commit 56% or so of homicides (2019 FBI UCR statistics, e.g., via Wikipedia). There is an overlapping cast of characters who often try to make similar excuses for both pitbulls and blacks, which only adds to the parallels.

I was talking about dogs, the OP was talking about crime but made it clear it wasn't a racial thing. Then burdensome comes in and throws a low effort racial insult into the mix.

The hypothetical high effort comment doesn't matter if he is just going to leave us the low effort one.

Pitbulls are not called “bipocs of dogs” though. And Pitbulls were purposefully bred as fighting dogs. Whatever one can say about other humans, they are not that.

The word typically used is much coarser.

Yeah, I just think using minced oaths should be a bannable offense. If you want to say nigger say nigger, terms like "the n-word" should only be used when discussing how stupid it is for people to say "the n-word." It's juvenile, and either hopelessly cowardly or deeply mean-spirited.

On right wing Twitter they are called that and worse, for the same reason.

Pitbull = Black

Golden Retriever = White

Borzoi = Jewish

Huh, Borzoi is not even unflattering. I guess the unflattering ones are either pitbull-adjacent or have very flat snouts.

While I can go to Wikipedia (a dubious source, unless it supports one's views I guess) and search for the FBI stats (a dubious organization, until its statistics support one's views) that you mention, this is still equating human beings with dogs. That's an presupposition that in my view is unfounded. A human's behavior, or many humans' behaviors, may be attributable to various factors other than simply their breed, and I'd suggest this is true more so than in the case of dogs. This may be an unpopular view on the Motte, I'm not sure, but it's mine.

Insurance company data suggests that there really is a problem with pit bulls. Unfortunately pit bulls are not a particularly well defined breed, so there's fuzz in the data anyways, but every source of data that exists suggests that pits do actually commit a disproportionate share of dog attacks.

I have no dispute with the pit bull suggestion. I think the comparing them to humans is the problem.