Toxic masculinity in full bloom

On 40 home from the office yesterday a couple of cars blew past me like I was standing still when I was going 65-70, whatever the rest of the traffic was going. They were maybe doing 90-95 in late rush hour traffic (admittedly diminished by the ambient work at home culture). Sitting out on my deck this morning, looking out at the lake, I heard at least one if not two guys revving their engines, seemingly from out on Airport Road. It would have been much louder if it was on North Lake Shore. Then there's the jackass next door with his truck. There is a sign in the yard indicating he is shipping out to the Army soon, praise the Lord. Then think about all the NRA-militia dudes nationwide brandishing their semi-automatics, because they can.

More and more, it seems like guys are just reveling in their ability to spew testosterone on those around them on the one hand because they can and feel empowered by the current regime, on the other because they are so threatened by all that surrounds and it. Could it ever be the last hurrah of these jerks?

Interestingly, I brought it up in the car when Natalie and I were driving north and we passed some dude in a Mustang and no muffler, and she was by no means ready to exempt me from charges of the same. It didn't seem like the time to push on the topic at length.

In the "defund the police" excitement of recent weeks, I read a sensible analysis which claimed that having cops on highways enforcing speed limits encouraged highly arbitrary and abusive enforcement, especially when speed was easily enforced with cameras and computers. Makes sense to me, though surely technologies will emerge to game that system and speed where cameras aren't, so there will be a cat and mouse game with the techonology. Maybe cops could then focus more on quality of life issues like the noise created by cars without mufflers.