{"id":53952,"date":"2015-06-24T12:05:22","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T17:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=53952"},"modified":"2015-06-24T15:04:53","modified_gmt":"2015-06-24T20:04:53","slug":"hipster-gets-vapors-throws-snit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=53952","title":{"rendered":"Hipster Gets Vapors, Throws Snit"},"content":{"rendered":"

I caught this in the\u00a0City Pages –\u00a0<\/em>as reliable a barometer of the Twin Cities far-left, as well as the attitudes and mores of the wanna-be hipster, as there is.<\/p>\n

A Minneapolis hipster was offended by something he saw at the Gopher Bar<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Letter to the editor:<\/p>\n

I fancy myself something of a dive-bar enthusiast, and the Gopher Bar was just about the last feather to place in my Twin Cities cap.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No doubt an ironic seed cap. \u00a0No,wait – that was hipsters ten years ago.<\/p>\n

Whenever hipsters talk “dive bars”, they’re talking “dive bars hipsters go to”. \u00a0Which are\u00a0to “dive bars” what the Disneyland “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride is to having your ship boarded by cuttthroats.<\/p>\n

But the Gopher probably qualifies. \u00a0It gives off all the signs of being “not upmarket” and “not even a little bit gentrified”.<\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a>

Click to see full size<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Some\u00a0signs, indeed, that make one suspect the lad might wet his pants, had he stayed long enough to read all the bar’s “flair”.<\/p>\n

Which he did not:<\/p>\n

Having spent the entire drive down talking to my friend about how troubled I was with the church shooting and resulting racial insensitivity, it seemed almost surreal to walk into Gopher Bar and see the Stars n’ Bars flying proudly. Upon asking the bartender about it, he replied with an (almost self-aware?) “Man, that doesn’t mean anything.” All I could squeak out was, “I beg to differ on behalf of nine families in Charleston” and walked out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Confederates didn’t kill those nine people in Charleston. \u00a0A mentally disturbed narcissist\u00a0who’d latched onto racism as his vehicle to fifteen minutes’ fame did.<\/p>\n

But I get it. \u00a0The Confederate flag was the symbol of a nation that existed in large part due to slavery; the political crisis that led to its forming was over slavery; the economic battle between the North and South was between industry and slavery. \u00a0The “preservation of the union” argument leading to the war was over the right to secede…over issues that all traced back to slavery. \u00a0 I have my misgivings about the Confederate flag.<\/p>\n

We’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n

The next morning I called and spoke with a woman, simply informing her that she had alienated a customer, to which she replied: “Actually, if you’re offended at that then you’re the racist, and for every one of you that leaves we have ten that come in because of that flag.”
\nMy natural, earnest follow-up question was “Is this a Klan bar?”
\nThat response was met with an expletive and a phone-slam.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that was better than the earnest young hipster lad deserved. \u00a0I wish he’d come into the place and ask in person.<\/p>\n

But let’s diverge from our earnest young hipster friend for a moment and look at some history.<\/p>\n

Rejection!<\/strong>: \u00a0The day after VE Day, in 1945, the Swastika was\u00a0trayf<\/em>, worldwide. \u00a0Everyone in polite, and most impolite, soceity linked it with world war, with the Holocaust, with millions of dead. \u00a0Since then, the Swastika (outside of its traditional Sanskrit context) is only used for history, or to shock people. \u00a0There’s never been any ambiguity about that.<\/p>\n

Not so the Confederate flag. \u00a0Southerners say it’s a symbol of the south’s valor – which is legitimate. \u00a0In many ways, the South fought the right fight to defend the wrong cause. One might rightly say that “a wrong cause is a wrong cause”, and there’s a point there.<\/p>\n

But most of our society was very slow to get it. \u00a0The Confederate flag has been a symbol in pop culture roughly forever:<\/p>\n

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I mean,\u00a0big\u00a0<\/em>pop culture:<\/p>\n

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Even popular music:<\/p>\n

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Lynyrd Skynrd yn thyir heydyy.<\/p><\/div>\n

Now, a modern hipster might not recognize Lynyrd Skynyrd, but they were kinda PC for their day; how many southern bands today espouse gun control?<\/p>\n

PC, hell –\u00a0\u00a0– even artists with\u00a0impeccable liberal credentials\u00a0<\/em>have apparently committed thoughtcrime!<\/p>\n

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Here’s Tom Petty in 1985. \u00a0Check around the 0:17 mark in the video:<\/p>\n