Dirty Boots and Kit?

[CaptainSwoop]

I bet CaptSwoop never thought this thread would end up in socio economic political discourse.
Of course if the Cherry Blossom factory hadn't gone bust we'd all have more shoe polish in the first place.....

It's all good, it got some activity into the board

 

[Theoutlaw]

I feel obliged to trot out the expected response of "If I wanted to be nagged about cleaning my boots I'd have joined the army".

Or listen to the wife.....

 

[Ian_Gere]

Not sure where buying stolen goods came in to this, but how I look after my own things is not a crime.... stealing is.... I don't feel morally obligated to polish my boots, it is something that just doesn't interest me or concern me enough to do.

It's about the moral equivalence I mentioned above. If you wilfully ignore the fact that your civilian boots will last longer if you clean and polish them, you also ignore any and all the consequences of creating a need for more. Whether something is a crime or legal matters not at all: it's only been illegal to fcuk kids for a little over a hundred years, does that make all the kiddie rape previously ok? Obviously not. The question becomes then, what is just as bad as receiving stolen goods?

Yup, sort of.... going airsofting is essentially littering on quite a large scale (admittedly on private land). What right do any of us have to fill the woodlands etc with a layer of plastic? Unless a person collects every BB they fire they are themselves morally wrong surely?

Actually non-bio BB's will break down eventually, but in the meantime they are no worse for the environment than, say, the gravel created by glaciers dragging granite over granite, ie hard stones which do not readily interact chemically with their environment. However the point is moot because what difference would it make if I turned up to every skirmish with a container of toxic waste and surreptitiously spread it all over the field? What if I bought my boots from a thief? What if I was a paedophile? Would anything I did/do affect the morality of your behaviour?

Am sure those of you that polish your boots and iron your combats have just as much fun out on skirmishes as I do, and you may save some cash by looking after ya kit better than I do but I seriously doubt on my death bed my last words will be "I wish I'd spent more time polishing my boots"

Ahhhhhh... the meat and spuds of the argument. Those of us who polish our boots are also the sort of people who iron their kecks even though we don't have a chain of command making us do so, ie ponces. We are probably homosexuals also. I dunno what my last words will be, probably something like, "Eeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurghhhhhhhh...", but you never know, I might get one last chance to offer a male nurse a blowjob. One thing I will not be thinking though is, "Ffs, look at the state of this world. I know there was stuff I could have easily done to avoid making it any worse, but I was just too lazy to do it."

 

[PT247]

lol, so now me not polishing boots makes me as bad as a paedo pmsl

Couldn't give a monkey what your sexual preferences are.... men, women, it makes no odds, and neither does it make any difference to me or any other airsofter if you polish your boots or not.

If it makes you feel like you are saving the world by polishing your boots then good for you. If I am still airsofting in 20yrs I'll let you know how many pairs of boots I've gotten through ;-)

 

[Lozart]

If it makes you feel like you are saving the world by polishing your boots then good for you. If I am still airsofting in 20yrs I'll let you know how many pairs of boots I've gotten through ;-)

I think he's more bothered about saving a few quid on new boots

 

[Lozart]

It's all good, it got some activity into the board

Good point, this place is pretty quiet...

 

[Ian_Gere]

lol, so now me not polishing boots makes me as bad as a paedo pmsl

Piss yourself laughing!?! What are you talking about? Are you suffering from subconscious guilt or something? You know that you've done something wrong, so it doesn't matter what anyone actually says, if they do not agree with you, they must be accusing you?

In what system of logic does pointing out that something which is morally wrong was not illegal until relatively recently in the history of morality equate to accusing you of being as morally deficient? The point is clearly, as I said, that it doesn't matter whether something is a crime or legally allowed when we discuss its moral rectitude. You made a distinction between not looking after your boots and receiving stolen goods, because theft is a crime. I say it's a spurious distinction and gave an example of why.

TBH I have as little patience with explaining logic as you apparently have with polishing boots. Still, since you know reductio, you're probably also on nodding terms with non sequitur, eh?

No Lozart, I have so much status that I habitually demonstrate it by wasting money in conspicuous displays of income. During the long dark tea time of the soul, it makes me feel powerful!

 

[PT247]

I guess I don't manage to put my point accross quite as elequently or with as large a volcabularily as yourself. And to be honest I really do not see why I need to use more words than these:

I don't polish my boots because I can't be bothered to, I don't care if others do or don't. I don't believe it will save the world if I do and don't believe the world will come to an apocalyiptic standstill if I don't.

I hardly think a pair of muddy boots is a "conspicuous display of income" if that is what you were getting at?

 

[Sam_G]

I wash my ubacs and combats because i sweat like hitler waiting for a gas bill!

My rigs aired out and then chucked back in my kit bag!

I clean and polish my pro-boots to keep them waterproof and wearable.

however having shiny boots is a huge NO NO!!

 

[PT247]

Piss yourself laughing!?! What are you talking about? Are you suffering from subconscious guilt or something? You know that you've done something wrong, so it doesn't matter what anyone actually says, if they do not agree with you, they must be accusing you?

Sssshhhhhhh (it's our little secret, you'll go into care if you tell anyone).

Hardly subconscious guilt..... you have just said there you think I have done something wrong, not me saying it but you. You are correct though; on the internet it does not matter one iota what anyone says. Not because they must be accusing someone but because on the internet folk tend to rant off at the slightest thing blaming the worlds problems on trivial items. Am guessing some may interpret that as mistakenly thinking that if others are wrong, then in comparison they themselves must be right, good, and capable. Does the strategy of putting others down to build up your self-esteem work? Some people psychoanalyse others, using their half-baked knowledge of pop psychology to put someone down. Comments such as "morally deficient" make it sound like they have an insight into someone's brain, when in reality they point out others faults because their ego was offended.

 

[Liam1992]

Not read all of this but, you wouldn't go play 90 minutes of football and not wash your kit before the next game would you?

Your kit inevitably gets damp/muddy when playing, leaving it on your floordrobe attracting all sorts of rubbish just isn't healthy or hygienic.

Regards Boots, at least brush the crap off under a tap, its good for the longevity of the boots for starters to get the mud off, and give it a single thick layer of Kiwi black, good for waterproofing and protecting the leather. No need to buff them up, you wouldn't out in the field anyway, just leave them dull, but clean...Don't be grotty.

 

[Moose87]

theres no excuse for dirty kit. theres no need for it.just laziness

 

[Unrustle_Thine_Jimmies]

I don't like shiny boots,I only polished my Pro-boots for a photo.

I do however use frightening amounts of some creamy wax thing(Unbranded,came from some care kit or whatever) And it really helps water resistance,especially in some areas where the Pros are more vulnerable. gives a nice matte look.

I run an Alice/Soviet/Pat58 hybrid abomination rig thing,I just spray everything down lightly with a pressure sprayer, leave it to dry and maybe fabreeze it if I jumped in some cow sh*t or whatever.

KLMK is super handy as it's a onesie,it rather resistant to fading. It's 30-ish years old,been issued,used heavily and of course lots and lots of washing. Still retains it's original color and looks new from the wash(From a distance,until you notice the blood stains,field repairs and such...)

My gear usually looks good as new on the day but no shiny bullshit.I like running around in fresh kit before I sweat like a priest in a playschool or a knacker trying to read.

 

[sp00n]

I put my trousers and top in the wash after each game, guns get a quick external clean if they're lucky, and the sniper gets its barrel cleaned every once in a while if it's very lucky. Boots I'll bash them against a tree or the wall before I leave, but I very rarely clean them. Vest I wait for mud to dry, then scrape most of it off, but don't spend excessive amounts of time cleaning anything.

I am the same, as normally I am knackered when I get home

 

[Ian_Gere]

Well PT, unfortunately I have reason to know a good deal more about psychology, psychiatry, and indeed sociology, than i wish to - it's a bit like a master baker watching someone else master bake and then being obliged to join in... the resulting biscuit cannot be simply enjoyed for its flavour and texture, there's a whole raft of decision making, reasons, and possibilities that go into each nuance; basically there is no such thing as an innocent master baker.

As you have noted, I'm also an accomplished rhetorician. I would be lying if I claimed that flexing those mental muscles gives me no pleasure, however a quick recap will disabuse you of any suspicion that I am attempting to big up ma chest at your expense, for I have said nothing at all about you personally. That would be to commit the sin of ad hominem, which, to my mind at least, is way worse than allowing boots to wear out faster than need be for laziness' sake. I have stated that such laziness is morally comparable to other more commonly recognised culpable behaviour, to wit receiving stolen goods, however I have not even resorted to the common "lazy bugger", have I?

I get it that one or even several hundred pairs of boots are a very small item in the grand scheme of things, but let us for a moment consider the hypothetical journey one pair may have taken before reaching an airsoft site:

Our protagonists are deployed and find themselves worn by a young soldier in the desert. They have just encountered a camel, which is fortuitous for the soldier and his fellow platoon members because not thirty minutes previously their sergeant had noted that they had little to do and driven them out into the middle of nowhere and ordered them to pick up and carry the huge pile of straw they found loafing there. Naturally each man would have liked to reduce his own burden by as much as possible, but they all realised that there is some unknown limit to the amount a camel can carry. Let's cut a long story short and simply ask, when the camel's back breaks, whom is more culpable, those soldiers who loaded their share of what seemed a conservative estimate of what the beast could in fact carry, or those who thought "Out of all the straws going on that camel, the extra few I'm going to put on it don't matter." and packed the camel with enough to reduce their own burden to a comfortable weight?

 

[PT247]

what ever makes you happy Ian.

Being judged as some heinous villain because I do not polish my boots is just ridiculous in my eyes however logical it may be in your own.

People have told me I read too much into some stuff in the past, but this thread really takes the biscuit.

Seeing how much effort you have put in to trying to get your point across it almost makes me feel bad for still not being bothered to even clean my boots let alone polish them, but I still don't, and won't no matter how bizarre or convoluted you become with your rhetoric.

 

[Mr_awol]

I wash my clothing after every skirmish (particularly the shemagh which ends up sodden and stinking if sweat, stale smoke and spicy food mostly). My boots get put in a plastic bag for the drive home, and aired in the porch before being put away. Sometimes ill bang the mud off them and every now and then they'll get a clean down. Then again I currently have very cheap boots - if I'd spent more on them I might look after them).

Holsters, belt, vest, etc don't tend to get cleaned but if they were totally encrusted in mud I might do.

 

[Ian_Gere]

But, PT, I haven't judged you as a heinous villain, I have likened your laziness to some other mildly culpable behaviour. I realise that in this discussion you cannot escape the position that admitting your laziness has placed you in and naturally you do fully understand that, whilst it is not a heinous offence, waste through sheer laziness is culpable. This is why you attempted to divert the discussion topic onto my reasons for continuing the discussion at all, not quite there but definitely flirting with ad hom, and now you are attempting to simply ridicule my position by claiming that I have said something extreme when I have not.

Trust me, this takes very little effort :lol: I will not be unpleasant about how little attention this requires, there is no need. However attempting to characterise me as a nutter who would obsessively expend a great deal of effort over that which you are attempting to portray as meaningless is yet more indication that you have nothing but cannot either just admit it or cease.

Also, let me be clear, my purpose here is not to make you feel bad. I don't care how you feel. I am simply demonstrating so that there can be no confusion that your professed attitude makes no sense and that there are consequences other than simply having to pay for more boots that result from being lazy. I fully realise that, at this stage, if I started telling you that there is something wrong with allowing laziness to be the reason for not shagging, you would become celibate, and naturally I don't care: you are not the only person reading this.

 

[PT247]

okily dokily