I suspect that they don’t really hate turtles specifically(and how could you, with their adorable teeny flippers and tiny little turtle eyes…dawww); but associate turtles and their goddamn-‘special-rights’-for-so-called-endangered-species-job-killing-regulations-EPA-jackboots-telling-me-what-I-can-do-with-my-property-incoate-frothing-big-gummint into one nebulous but potent rage globule.
Maybe this guy’s slash and burn development plans were personally foiled; maybe he just feels a strong class identification with people who he hopes to be as wealthy as; but either way I suspect that the turtles are just a symbolic locus of a more general feeling of resentment toward state intervention to protect interests other than his.
Sort of the same way that people who modify their trucks for ‘coal rolling’(pictures and video are abundant, disturbing) probably don’t actually do any better in the presence of massive diesel particulate exposure than bleeding-heart-liberal-elitist-environmentalists do; but still consider ‘clean air’ to be symbolic of their cultural and economic enemies.
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Oh the rolling coal idiots. Absolutely pains me to know that’s a thing.
“Oh, you like that mountain/wetland/prairie because it’s so pretty? Yeah, well we’re gonna SHIT ON IT, for reasons!” To my mind, they were the lunchroom bully that would see someone enjoying a meal only to walk over and throw it to the ground. Essentially being a douchebag for the sake of being a douchebag.
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On my (largely theoretical) magnanimous-attempt-to-simulate-walking-a-mile-in-the-other-guy’s-shoes days; I tend to come to the impression that the ‘coal roller’ is ultimately a pitiable figure(raised and living in an environment whose economic and social viability are largely dependent on extraction industries, feels that their way of life is under siege by a deeply hypocritical ‘other’ who is happy to buy their coal at the lowest prices they can manage and then sends their college-punk offspring to evangelize to the lesser people before heading off to a job that is ‘green’ in the sense that its massive energy demands are handled indirectly and it doesn’t involve dirty, dangerous, manual labor.); engaged in a a symbolic protest where they demonstrate a willingness to directly engage with noxious emissions as a part of what their culture and way of life depend on(as do the ways of life of those too squeamish to want filthy coal mines or plants within the same state as their precious back yards.
On my less sympathetic days, I’m inclined to see ‘coal rolling’ as very similar to using the phrase “How is that hopey-changey-thing working out for you?”: it’s a well constructed taunt; but a deeply incoherent one: Yes, said hope and change have largely been disguistingly under-delivered; but why were people so enthusiastic about hope and change? Because they thought that the status-quo really, really, sucked. The fact that you’d use a taunt that is founded on the implication that your party’s preferred outcome was so lousy that people voted in the mere hope of getting something else should give you pause to think; but it doesn’t. The situations where even native Appalachian residents, with generations of local cred, get harassed, ostracised, or roughed up when they try to fight for such controversial causes as “it would be bad if mountaintop removal allowed the extraction of the remaining coal without even paying many workers, and then left us with a toxic moonscape” tend to push me toward this unsympathetic position.
The ease with which the activity spills over into ‘I feel like I’ve won if I piss off a liberal!’, rather than any sort of advocacy for, or defense of, the economic viability of their culture and area; makes it hard to sympathize; but it is the case that the peons are going to be brutally fucked over by those who they cling like whipped puppies to, so they are going to come to an arguably pitiable outcome.
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HEY! Not all Georgians… Not even all the rural ones… 
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Thank you for that, and I agree for the most part with the prior two paras. The ‘coalers’ always bring to mind the commercial where everything is powered by a small, noisy, and ostensibly dirty gasoline/diesel engine, and I always imagine that group smiling broadly as they inhale directly from the exhaust manifold.
That their activity so nicely dovetails with other causes I find reprehensible and socially backwards (flying the confederate battle standard, war with everyone and government support for none, etc., etc.) leaves me pretty close to the no-sympathy line. I’ve been on a self-awareness kick lately, and it’s troubling to see how easily we can swallow a mindset with no reflection upon that mindset or the effects it might have on our local, state, or national community.
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As someone with asthma, I feel that if I see anyone rolling coal, I should be allowed to shoot them in the head and claim self defense.
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Dunno what Marine training was like back in his day, but surely they learned something similar to the Tueller Drill (that is, humans of average fitness can close a 20-foot gap in ~2 seconds).
Regardless, lowering (let alone pocketing) a weapon in the immediate presence of a threat is specifically contraindicated by most self-defense manuals and teachers. Dude set himself up.
If the guy thought the situation warranted the lethal threat of a brandished weapon—and it doesn’t seem a poor judgement—then he should’ve either left or verbally convinced the belligerent to leave.
If even 20% are pure Floridian, you should be investigating the water supply
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