“Jack” was British nickmane for the ordinary man, going back to medieval ages thus phrases like “Jack Tar” meaning sailors and “Everyman Jack” meaning everyone no matter how low down on the totem pole.
Back prior to the 1950s, most men in the developed world did manual labor and in the late 1800s it was closer to 80%. So, “Jack Boots” were the heavy working-man’s boots, like construction boots today. But the materials were heavier, the conditions (like mud and manure) worse, so the boots were heavier in the soles and tips than anything you’d see today and usually went up over the calf.
Jack Boots as intimidation began with the British labor movement who used their physical power borne of lifting weights all day 6 days a week, combined near armored boots, to make sure all the rest of working class toed the line in labor disputes. It gave great plausible deniable, “No sir officer, we don’t have any weapons, just dressed for work.”
Of course the same thing happened in Europe but worse. By around 1900 or so, just a bunch of working class guys standing around in their work attire was a serious threat in the disarmed urban populations of the day. A lot of people, as always in labor disputes, the very poorest workers, were kicked to death, by heavy boot belonging to anonymous faces.
Hence, in English, “Jack booted thug” became a phrase. (For the Brits the class connotations didn’t help either.)
The Nazis and the Stalinist went at in the poor neighborhoods of Wiermer Germany, they had the same equipment and used the same tactics. No weapons most of the time, just dressed for work.
Or, if you prefer it comes from ‘jaque’ meaning ‘mail’ (a type of armor) reinforced boots. Specifically made for cavalry it extended above the knee to protect it from sword blows, and is still worn by Her Majesty the Queen’s Household Cavalry.
There is a theory that the pekingese and shih tzu were bred partially as guard dogs — they’re fiercely loyal beasts, and WILL attack someone who they think is threatening their human. Mind you, the way they attack is mainly by being very, very loud.
However, if you’re a Chinese emperor, and someone sneaks into your room to assassinate you, and your dogs start making that much noise, your guards WILL hear and rescue you. So really more watch dogs than attack dogs, but it’s still a security thing.
Oh, they’re still here, they’re just way more subtle than in the past.
Your good old fashion Jack-booted thugs pinned you down and kicked your face in until you did what they wanted.
The modern variant never lays a finger on you, they just stealthy remove choices from your world one by one, preferably ones you didn’t even know existed. Takes longer, but the effects are the same. Eventually, you do what they want because you don’t have any options left and don’t even realize your missing choices.
Everything remotely dangerous from playgrounds to hotrods slowly stripped away. Any form of concrete individual material action stripped away from owing weapons to having personal cars to living in the suburbs or country and so on. Anyone who takes risk from personal stunts to investing is stigmatized. All knew technologies are presumed dangerous (“precautionary principle”) until they are “proved” to be “safe.” The latter no one can define and former utterly subjective.
We’re not being kicked to death, we’re being swaddled to death, with each year adding another few millimeters of nerf around us until we can’t move. Eventually, we’ll just be rolled off like that be blueberry gum girl in Willi Wonka
You still fell free because you can live anywhere you want (that they allow housing to be built), buy and drive any car you want (that they allow to be built), take any medicine you want (that they allow to be manufactured), work any job (they allow to exist at the wages they mandate) and so and on in every practical choice of your life.
Suddenly, housing is expensive, car crappy and expensive or their aren’t enough roads, medical outcomes don’t improve as in the past and get more expensive, jobs are gone or poor paying…and so on yet, there’s nobody to blame. It all seems like a natural phenomena largely because it takes 30 years or more to manifest so everyone thinks all the weirdness is “normal.” d
The scariest thing in Orwell’s dystopic writings, based on his real-world observations of his own far-left of 30s and 40s, was that people began to see being controlled as a virtue, something an individual could take pride in. That was the pinnacle of double-think, people willing themselves to believe in whatever their master’s told them to being the highest moral attainment an individual could reach.
I see a lot of that today. People proud they never watch Fox News. People proud they don’t or can’t have cars. People happy to live in broom closets. People happy to have the government censor speech about medical care and restrict medical choices by killing technologies off years before individuals even knew they existed.
An Oceania is always at war with Pacifica. Everyone is so afraid that eating the wrong thing or using the wrong plastic will kill them. Everyone is so afraid of their neighbors, of anyone slightly different will horrifically discriminate against them.
We don’t have jackbooted thugs because they don’t need to kick. They don’t have to kick people in the face if they make us believe we ever had many choices and then make us so terrified of…what’d-you-call-it… life, that they run into their control like cattle scared by lightening.
Then they just close the carefully padded gate behind us, and we’re all happy to safe and protected, squeezed behind the padded fences of the stockyard.
Elipses galore…the Shih Tzu was what killed me.
Be careful, Shih Tzus can be nasty little dogs. German Shepherds, on the other hand, are just softies that are so misunderstood.
in general, in most of the times, the bigger the dog he nicer, at list the dogs i saw
…throwing you in the Goulash instead of the Gulag…
“Well, he looked like he needed fattening up.”
Well I got a friend who is a jack-booted nerd.
Cinnamon, lunge truly strikes fear into all!
I hope the new Mad Max movie will have a jack booted wuss.
The only thing amiss in this cartoon is that the Shih Tzu isn’t more bug-like.
Maybe its antennae are in the bow on top of its head?
And what did Jack do to get these particular boots named after him? He must have been a real jerk-face!
“Jack” was British nickmane for the ordinary man, going back to medieval ages thus phrases like “Jack Tar” meaning sailors and “Everyman Jack” meaning everyone no matter how low down on the totem pole.
Back prior to the 1950s, most men in the developed world did manual labor and in the late 1800s it was closer to 80%. So, “Jack Boots” were the heavy working-man’s boots, like construction boots today. But the materials were heavier, the conditions (like mud and manure) worse, so the boots were heavier in the soles and tips than anything you’d see today and usually went up over the calf.
Jack Boots as intimidation began with the British labor movement who used their physical power borne of lifting weights all day 6 days a week, combined near armored boots, to make sure all the rest of working class toed the line in labor disputes. It gave great plausible deniable, “No sir officer, we don’t have any weapons, just dressed for work.”
Of course the same thing happened in Europe but worse. By around 1900 or so, just a bunch of working class guys standing around in their work attire was a serious threat in the disarmed urban populations of the day. A lot of people, as always in labor disputes, the very poorest workers, were kicked to death, by heavy boot belonging to anonymous faces.
Hence, in English, “Jack booted thug” became a phrase. (For the Brits the class connotations didn’t help either.)
The Nazis and the Stalinist went at in the poor neighborhoods of Wiermer Germany, they had the same equipment and used the same tactics. No weapons most of the time, just dressed for work.
Or, if you prefer it comes from ‘jaque’ meaning ‘mail’ (a type of armor) reinforced boots. Specifically made for cavalry it extended above the knee to protect it from sword blows, and is still worn by Her Majesty the Queen’s Household Cavalry.
There is a theory that the pekingese and shih tzu were bred partially as guard dogs — they’re fiercely loyal beasts, and WILL attack someone who they think is threatening their human. Mind you, the way they attack is mainly by being very, very loud.
However, if you’re a Chinese emperor, and someone sneaks into your room to assassinate you, and your dogs start making that much noise, your guards WILL hear and rescue you. So really more watch dogs than attack dogs, but it’s still a security thing.
Yeah, they’re really good at the ‘loud’ thing. It’s kind of adorable, a tiny little thing like that trying to be protective.
Oh, they’re still here, they’re just way more subtle than in the past.
Your good old fashion Jack-booted thugs pinned you down and kicked your face in until you did what they wanted.
The modern variant never lays a finger on you, they just stealthy remove choices from your world one by one, preferably ones you didn’t even know existed. Takes longer, but the effects are the same. Eventually, you do what they want because you don’t have any options left and don’t even realize your missing choices.
Everything remotely dangerous from playgrounds to hotrods slowly stripped away. Any form of concrete individual material action stripped away from owing weapons to having personal cars to living in the suburbs or country and so on. Anyone who takes risk from personal stunts to investing is stigmatized. All knew technologies are presumed dangerous (“precautionary principle”) until they are “proved” to be “safe.” The latter no one can define and former utterly subjective.
We’re not being kicked to death, we’re being swaddled to death, with each year adding another few millimeters of nerf around us until we can’t move. Eventually, we’ll just be rolled off like that be blueberry gum girl in Willi Wonka
You still fell free because you can live anywhere you want (that they allow housing to be built), buy and drive any car you want (that they allow to be built), take any medicine you want (that they allow to be manufactured), work any job (they allow to exist at the wages they mandate) and so and on in every practical choice of your life.
Suddenly, housing is expensive, car crappy and expensive or their aren’t enough roads, medical outcomes don’t improve as in the past and get more expensive, jobs are gone or poor paying…and so on yet, there’s nobody to blame. It all seems like a natural phenomena largely because it takes 30 years or more to manifest so everyone thinks all the weirdness is “normal.” d
The scariest thing in Orwell’s dystopic writings, based on his real-world observations of his own far-left of 30s and 40s, was that people began to see being controlled as a virtue, something an individual could take pride in. That was the pinnacle of double-think, people willing themselves to believe in whatever their master’s told them to being the highest moral attainment an individual could reach.
I see a lot of that today. People proud they never watch Fox News. People proud they don’t or can’t have cars. People happy to live in broom closets. People happy to have the government censor speech about medical care and restrict medical choices by killing technologies off years before individuals even knew they existed.
An Oceania is always at war with Pacifica. Everyone is so afraid that eating the wrong thing or using the wrong plastic will kill them. Everyone is so afraid of their neighbors, of anyone slightly different will horrifically discriminate against them.
We don’t have jackbooted thugs because they don’t need to kick. They don’t have to kick people in the face if they make us believe we ever had many choices and then make us so terrified of…what’d-you-call-it… life, that they run into their control like cattle scared by lightening.
Then they just close the carefully padded gate behind us, and we’re all happy to safe and protected, squeezed behind the padded fences of the stockyard.
A tskmaster, as it were.
BTW…nice title, yet again, Adam!
Thanks! Got lucky with that one.
This whole thing, right down to the title: <3
…but "jack-booted weenies" got a lol that made me glad I wasn't drinking tea at the moment!