I could have called this post “Pronoun Confusion”, given what I found at Wikipedia:
And here:
I suppose there are other variations, but I quit digging before I became terminally confused. (UPDATE: Here are some new variations hot off the web. Read ’em and weep.)
It used to be that a person didn’t care what he (the generic kind) was called, as long as he wasn’t called late for dinner. That’s a tired joke, of course. People do care what they’re called, but it’s usually when they’re called something demeaning (e.g., “hey, you” to a general, “Harvey” to a doctor you don’t know as a friend) or insulting (e.g., “jerk” and worse).
I guess it’s insulting to (some) persons who have “chosen” a sex other than the one that they were born with (not “assigned at birth”) to be mistaken for persons of that sex. But give me a break. How am I supposed to know that you’re “really” a man if you look like a woman who’s trying to look like a man, or you’re “really” a woman who looks like a man who’s trying to look like a woman?
Sane persons — which is about 98 percent of the population, aside from posturing leftists and the gender-confused — are by definition in touch with reality. The traditional pronouns given in the first part of the Wikipedia table reflect that reality. They cover everything. I therefore reject all that follows, in the name of accuracy, clarity, and simplicity. (I would invoke Occam’s razor, but that might be taken as an endorsement of genital mutilation.)
So here’s the deal. If you don’t want to be called “he” or “she”, or any of their cognates, I will comply politely and use “you”, “your”, “yours”, or “yourself” when speaking or writing to you. When speaking or writing about one of you, I will use “it”, “its”, or “itself”; for more than one of you, I will use “they”, “them”, “their”, “theirs”, or “themselves”.
There’s absolutely nothing insulting about such neutral usages. If you believe that there is, please consider the possibility that you are nuts (whether or not you have any). But don’t insult my intelligence by trying to make me believe that you’ve acquired a gender other than the one you were born with — or none at all.
Related reading:
Gregory Cochran, “Transsexuals“, West Hunter, May 8, 2013
Gregory Cochran, “Internal Contradictions“, West Hunter, December 12, 2015
Related posts:
1963: The Year Zero
The Transgender Fad and Its Consequences
Some Notes about Psychology and Intelligence
The City of Austin, the blue boil on the butt of Texas, recently hired a new city manager. The previous city manager, who left for greener pastures 15 months earlier, was a black man.
Austin’s “leaders” (the sneer quotes mean that they’re not my leaders) are nothing if not au courant in politically correct virtue-signaling. But their political correctness stops at the water’s edge of transparency. Austin’s taxpayers were kept in the dark about the candidates being considered for the city manager’s job until near the very end, when two finalists were unveiled:
Two white males. How could it be?
Never fear. Austin’s “leaders” salvaged their reputation for politically correct virtue-signaling by choosing the one on the left, who has a husband. The one on the right is married to a woman who has produced children and is therefore an actual female*. How boring.
And so the day was saved for “diversity” in Austin. But not for diversity of thought, of which there’s precious little here.
__________
* As opposed to a delusional male who “identifies as” a female, or an impressionable boy-child whose criminally negligent parents have convinced him that he is really a girl. I “identify as” a 6’6″, 250-pound bodybuilder with X-ray vision who is able to leap the Freedom Tower in a single bound and understands the mysteries of the Universe. Alas, what I “identify as” and what I really am are entirely different things.
Related posts:
Driving and Politics (1)
Life in Austin (1)
Life in Austin (2)
Life in Austin (3)
Driving and Politics (2)
AGW in Austin?
Democracy in Austin
AGW in Austin? (II)
The Hypocrisy of “Local Control”
Amazon and Austin
Pew Research Center offers “17 Striking Findings from 2017“. I have the impression that some of the findings are bad news to the Pew folk. But many of the findings are good news to me, as you will see in the following commentary. Pew pearls, in italics, are followed by my demurrers, in bold:
1. Partisan divides dwarf demographic differences on key political values. The average gap between the views of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents across 10 political values has increased from 15 percentage points in 1994 to 36 points today.
The growing divide is unsurprising given the sharp leftward lurch among Democrats since the days of Bill Clinton’s “triangulation”. The good news is that there are still a lot of Americans who haven’t lurched leftward lemming-like.
2. Donald Trump’s presidency has had a major impact on how the world sees the United States. A global median of just 22% have confidence in Trump to do the right thing when it comes to international affairs, according to a survey conducted last spring. The image of the U.S. abroad also suffered a decline: Just 49% have a favorable view, down from 64% at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency.
This is excellent news, inasmuch as America is loved by foreigners only when Americans are being killed or taxed on their behalf.
3. About four-in-ten Americans say they live in a gun-owning household, while three-in-ten say they personally own a gun. Protection tops the list of reasons for owning a gun.
But if you were to believe the leftist media (about which, more below), you would think that the main reason for owning a gun is to kill people — randomly and in large numbers. I own a 12-gauge, bolt-action shotgun, which stands ready to be used (with 00 shot) against an intruder. I am merely representative of the vast, gun-owning majority who — unlike a lot of gun-grabbing politicians — don’t live in a virtual fortress or have armed bodyguards (paid for by taxing the likes of me).
4. Democrats and Republicans disagree now more than ever on the news media’s “watchdog” role. Roughly nine-in-ten Democrats say news media criticism keeps political leaders from doing things that shouldn’t be done, compared with 42% of Republicans who say this – the widest gap in Pew Research Center surveys conducted since 1985. This stands in stark contrast to early 2016, when similar shares of Democrats (74%) and Republicans (77%) supported the media’s watchdog role.
How (not) surprising is this finding, given the media’s transformation from leftist puppet to frothing-at-the-mouth, leftist, anti-Trump, attack dog? For a longer view of the public’s lack of confidence in the media, see the graph here. There was a sharp rise in the fraction expressing “hardly any” confidence in the media at about the time that Bill Clinton became an accidental president, thanks to Ross Perot’s candidacy. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
5. Muslims are projected to be the world’s fastest-growing major religious group in the decades ahead. By 2035, the number of babies born to Muslims is projected to modestly exceed births to Christians, mostly due to Muslims’ relatively young population and high fertility rates.
This points to another reason why Democrats want to open the borders to “political refugees”. Whether they’re Muslim or Central American, they breed faster than gringos and are much more likely to vote for Democrats.
6. In the U.S., Hispanic identity fades across generations as distance from immigrant roots grows. High intermarriage rates and declining immigration are changing how some Americans with Hispanic ancestry see their identity. Most U.S. adults with Hispanic ancestry self-identify as Hispanic, but 11%, or 5 million, do not. While nearly all immigrant adults from Latin America or Spain say they are Hispanic, this share decreases by the third and fourth or higher generations.
Nothing new under the sun. The same was true of the vast waves of European immigrants of the 1800s and early 1900s. Probably even more true of them, come to think of it. But they weren’t enticed to America by tax-funded benefits, as are so many Hispanic immigrants. I say that with great respect for the hard-working Hispanic immigrants whom I have encountered.
7. Americans see fundamental differences between men and women, but men and women have different views on the cause of these differences. Majorities of women who see gender differences in the way people express their feelings, excel at work and approach parenting say differences between men and women are mostly based on societal expectations. Men who see differences in these areas tend to believe biology is the root.
Thus does the emotion-based reaction of most women neatly contrast with the fact-based reaction of most men.
8. Many Americans expect certain professions to be dominated by automation in their lifetime – but few see their own jobs at risk. Roughly three-quarters of Americans think it’s realistic that robots and computers might one day do many jobs currently done by humans, and sizable majorities expect jobs such as fast food workers and insurance claims processors to be performed by machines within their lifetimes. Yet just 30% of American workers expect their own jobs or professions to become automated.
The final sentence confirms the prevalence of irrationality. Which is why I have been happy with the rise of automation. To take just one example, it is easier, faster, cheaper, and more pleasant to buy many things online than it is to schlep to a store and be “helped” by an indifferent, inarticulate ignoramus (too often bedecked in tattoos, piercings, weird garb, and outré hairdo). Vive l’automation!
9. The share of Republicans who hold negative views of the effect of colleges and universities on the country has grown significantly since 2015. Nearly six-in-ten Republicans and Republican leaners (58%) now say colleges have a negative effect. Two years ago, by contrast, 54% of Republicans said colleges were having a positive effect. Democrats and Democratic leaners have consistently held positive views of the effect of colleges on the U.S.; 72% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say this today.
Thanks to the “resistance”, the true nature of the academy has been exposed to the view of people who had been blissfully ignorant of it. If the GOP holds and builds a majority in the central government and in State governments, its next big initiative should be to slash subsidies for the enemies of liberty who “profess” and are “professed to” at to colleges across the land.
10. Immigrants are projected to play the primary role in the growth of the American working-age population in the coming decades. The number of working-age immigrants is projected to increase from 33.9 million in 2015 to 38.5 million by 2035, with new immigrant arrivals accounting for all of that gain. Absent these new arrivals, the total projected U.S. working-age population would fall.
But automation will more than take up the slack. Who needs more immigrants? Democrat politicians, that’s who.
11. News stories about President Trump’s first 60 days in office offered far more negative assessments than they did of prior administrations. About six-in-ten stories on Trump’s early days in office had a negative assessment, about three times more than in early coverage for Obama and roughly twice that of Bush and Clinton. Coverage of Trump’s early time in office moved further away from a focus on the policy agenda and more toward character and leadership.
See #1 and #4.
12. In the past 10 years, the share of U.S. adults living without a spouse or partner has increased. This rise in “unpartnered” Americans, from 39% in 2007 to 42% today, has been most pronounced among young adults: Roughly six-in-ten adults younger than 35 are now living without a spouse or partner. The share of “unpartnered” adults also has risen more sharply among those who are not employed.
Pew ignores the really bad news, which is that “unpartnered” Americans give birth to children, who are then raised in (generally) unstable, poor households without a father. Perhaps it’s time to re-institute the shotgun wedding.
13. About half of 2.2 million people who sought asylum in Europe during the 2015 and 2016 refugee surge were still in limbo at the end of 2016 and did not know if they would be allowed to stay.
Another glaring omission: Mention of the Europeans who would be on the hook to support the asylum-seekers, most of whom would probably side with the politicians who want to give them “free” stuff.
14. About eight-in-ten Americans say they understand the risks and challenges of police work, but 86% of police say the public does not understand. This is one of several areas where the views of police and those of the public diverge significantly. For example, while half of the public says the country still needs to make changes to give blacks equal rights with whites, this view is shared by just 16% of police. Law enforcement officers and the public are broadly in agreement on other issues, such as making private gun sales and gun show sales subject to background checks.
How could 80 percent of Americans possibly understand the risks and challenges of police work? By watching TV shows about cops or reading crime novels? Cops, by the way, aren’t upholders of gun rights because (a) every gun is potentially turned against a cop and (b) a gun-wielding citizenry is a threat to cops’ law-enforcement monopoly.
15. About six-in-ten Americans ages 18 to 29 say the primary way they watch television now is with streaming services on the internet. Much smaller shares of older Americans cite online streaming services as their primary way of watching TV; older Americans tend to rely on cable connections. Overall, just 28% of Americans cite streaming services as the primary way they watch TV.
I’m with the streamers, despite my advanced age. I have cut the cord, and use an indoor antenna to get local TV stations, which I watch about 5 minutes a day for the local weather forecast. Even that is only a residual habit; I can get the same thing any time of the day from the internet. Most of my TV viewing is devoted to programs that I stream via Netflix and Amazon Video. Vive l’automation!
16. Views on whether whites benefit from societal advantages that blacks do not have are split sharply along racial and partisan lines. Nearly eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (78%) say white people benefit at least a fair amount from advantages that blacks do not have. Among Republicans and Republican leaners, 72% say whites do not benefit much or at all from these advantages. An overwhelming majority of blacks (92%) say whites benefit from societal advantages, while just 46% of whites say the same.
Whites are generally smarter and more law-abiding than blacks, which accounts for most of the “advantages” enjoyed by whites. Only a Democrat (or worse) could believe in the unfairness of the situation.
17. Science knowledge is closely related to expectations for harm from climate change among Democrats, but not among Republicans. In 2016, Democrats with high science knowledge were far more likely than Democrats with low science knowledge to say a series of environmental impacts would be very likely to occur as a result of climate change, including rising sea levels and intensifying storms. But there are only modest or no differences among Republicans with different levels of science knowledge in their expectations of harm to the Earth’s ecosystems.
Almost all Democrats with high knowledge about science say climate change is mostly due to human activity (93%); a much smaller share of Democrats with low science knowledge (49%) say the same. Among Republicans, there are no significant differences by science knowledge about the causes of climate change.
All of which just goes to show the wisdom in the adage that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially when it’s harnessed to an ideological agenda. Communism was (and still is, I suppose) a “scientific” political theory. Ditto Hitler’s brand of National Socialism, with its “scientific” attitude toward Jews. All those marchers for science weren’t marching for science, they were marching to demonstrate their (hysterical and generally uninformed) belief in AGW. That belief, in fact, arises from a neo-Puritan mindset, and serves as an excuse to subjugate and impoverish other Americans (though many of the neo-Puritans are loath to give up their SUVs, large homes, and extensive air travel).
Austin is on the list of 20 finalists for the site of Amazon’s second headquarters (HQ2). I have a strong interest in the outcome of the competition because I live in Austin, and I hope that Amazon puts HQ2 somewhere else.
Why? Because the Austin area — which already has terrible traffic, rapidly rising real-estate prices, and high property taxes — will just get worse with the addition of 50,000 employees (i.e., perhaps 100,000 more residents) and a $5 billion investment in HQ2.
It is de rigeur for persons who have lived in Austin for a long time to bemoan its changed character. And they should. Thanks to growth-oriented politicians who have governed Austin for the past few decades, its character and quality of life are as faded as Warren Beatty’s looks.
What was once a rather laid-back “town”, dominated by the government of Texas and the University of Texas (before it became UT-Austin), has become part of the 31st largest metropolitan statistical area in the U.S., as of 2016. The population of the city proper has quintupled from 200,000 to 1 million since I first came to the city as a visitor in the 1960s. It has been only in the last decade or so that Austin’s skyline has sprouted a flock of towers as high as 80 stories. Until then, it had been a low-lying city, with only a few 15-story buildings, which weren’t even tall enough to challenge the dominance of the State Capitol, perched atop a modest hill. Austin’s hippies, who are still around but rather the worse for wear, are almost invisible among the vast army of yuppies which has come to Austin from other locales — California being a leading supplier of the rude, SUV-driving jerks who clutter roads, stores, and restaurants.
Several locales among the 20 finalists are less populous than the Austin area. Raleigh, the smallest of the lot, would seem to be an ideal choice. Any of them would be ideal from the point of view of most of Austin’s current residents, who need more traffic and higher property taxes like a hole in the head. It is mainly Austin’s lame-brained “progressive” politicos who seem to want HQ2 in Austin, as if a bigger (more crowded, more expensive) city would somehow make them more manly, womanly, or it-ly (as the case may be).
In case you have some influence over Amazon’s decision about where to locate HQ2, I would like to point out some things about Austin — in addition to traffic, real-estate prices, and property taxes — that ought to push you in an another direction:
Austin’s summers, which last from April to November, are very hot. In 2011, for example, there were 90 100-degree days, 27 of them consecutive. And when there’s a prevailing wind from the Gulf of Mexico (as there often is), Austin is also quite humid. Not as humid as Houston or Washington, D.C., but the combination of heat and humidity is “challenging”.
Only a hardy few bicyclists will be seen doing something stupid, like bicycling, in the the heat of the day. And in most of Austin they will not be using bicycle lanes that take up valuable road space for naught.
Austin has some attractive areas, including a traditional downtown on the 10 blocks of Congress Avenue south of the Capitol, and some parks and hike-and-bike trails along and near the wide spot in the Colorado River called Lady Bird Lake, which is geographically in the center of Austin. The rest of the city is a mixed bag, which ranges from mostly flat and ugly (east of Loop 1) to somewhat attractive and hilly (west of Loop 1). But Austin isn’t in a truly scenic area like Pittsburgh (which is among the 20 finalists).
Those Amazonians who aren’t in the higher echelons will end up in the ugly parts of the city and surrounding area because they won’t be able to afford to live in the nicer parts. In fact they may not be able to afford to live in the ugly parts of the city proper. Pittsburgh is much more affordable, and it’s hard to find an ugly area in and around the city.
Loop 1, mentioned above, isn’t a loop. It’s one of Austin’s two, limited-access, north-south highways. There are no limited-access, east-west highways, and nothing resembling a loop around Austin. All of which is why Austin’s traffic is incurably terrible.
Austin has no “culture”, unless you think of bars with live music as culture. Its orchestra is third-rate; whatever passes for opera and ballet is almost unnoticeable; and its museums and art galleries are fourth-rate. It is decidedly philistine for a university town. Many of the 20 finalists, including Pittsburgh, are culturally superior to Austin. The prevalence of burnt orange (the color worn by UT athletes) should tell you all you need to know about the level of culture in Austin.
And about those live-music bars — and theaters and upscale restaurants: They’re mostly downtown, which has become practically inaccessible except to people who already live downtown. That’s Austin’s traffic for you. There’s no subway, and the dinky commuter rail line is about as useful as a table-top model, so the alternative to driving and searching in vain for a parking place is to hire a cab or ride-sharing service. But the ride won’t be cheap, and it will still take quite a while to travel a few miles (or more) to your downtown destination.
A p.r. person dubbed Austin the “Live-Music Capital of the World” — an accolade that I dispute. A more authentic title would be “Allergy Capital of the Word”. As a life-long allergy sufferer, I can tell you that Austin has more allergens in its environment than any other place I have encountered. And there’s something going on year-around. Mold spores are almost always in abundance, thanks to southerly winds from the Gulf of Mexico. But the granddaddy of them all is the pollen of the so-called mountain cedar tree (really the Ashe juniper), which grows profusely in central Texas. Pollen outbursts begin in December and peak in January. And when you’ve lived in Austin for more than a few years, you’ll probably come down with an attack of what’s called cedar fever — an extreme allergic reaction to the pollen that reduces you to a wheezing, sneezing, lethargic puddle of humanity. It’s like a cross between flu and pneumonia. Enjoy!
I would leave Austin in a trice, but house-selling, house-hunting, and moving are daunting tasks at my age. Luckily, I am long-retired, so commuting isn’t a problem for me. As for the rest of it, I patronize only those restaurants that are easy to get to, shop online for everything but groceries, avoid bars and theaters altogether, and give thanks that I enjoyed Austin’s few nice parks in the years immediately after I arrived here.
What else can I tell you about Austin? Perhaps some readers who know the place will comment. For now, I’ll leave you with links to some related posts:
Driving and Politics (1)
Life in Austin (1)
Life in Austin (2)
Life in Austin (3)
Driving and Politics (2)
AGW in Austin?
Democracy in Austin
AGW in Austin? (II)
The Hypocrisy of “Local Control”
In the truly disgusting department:
Bestiality brothels are spreading through Germany faster than ever thanks to a law that makes animal porn illegal but sex with animals legal, a livestock protection officer has warned….
‘There are now animal brothels in Germany,’ Martin told the paper, adding that people were playing down the issue by by describing it as a ‘lifestyle choice’.
Armed with a host of similar case studies, Ms Martin is now calling for the government to categorically ban bestiality across the country….
German ‘zoophile’ group ZETA has announced it will mount a legal challenge should a ban on bestiality become law.
‘Mere concepts of morality have no business being law,’ said ZETA chairman Michael Kiok.
If inter-species “dating” catches on in the U.S., there is bound to be a legal movement to legalize inter-species marriage. If that happens while Anthony Kennedy is still the swing (pun intended) justice, I can easily imagine what his deciding opinion will say:
No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family, pack, flock, herd, etc. In forming a marital union, two animals (one of them human) become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, inter-species marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these animals to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea (sometimes expressed by piteous looks rather than words) is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness (in a pasture, stable, doghouse, etc.), excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. Amen, baa, arf, moo, whinny, etc.
Oh, wait, that’s what he said in Obergefell v. Hodges (with a few immaterial changes). Well, recycling is an essential aspect of the “progressive” religion, is it not?
What greater tribute to the social benefits of traditional marriage than to extend it to different sexes and different species? In fact, why discriminate against pond scum and compost?
In the brave new world to which Justice Kennedy has led us, it can be literally true that a man is married to his golf game.
The author of Imlac’s Journal quotes Malcolm Muggeridge on George Bernard Shaw:
He wanted to make a lot of money without being considered rich.
Here is Theodore Dalrymple, writing in the same vein:
[D]uring the early years of the AIDS epidemic … it was demanded of us that we should believe incompatible things simultaneously, for example that it was simply a disease like any other and that it was a disease of unprecedented importance and unique significance; that it could strike anybody but that certain group were martyrs to it; that it must be normalized and yet treated differently…. It was a bit like living under a small version of a communist dictatorship, in which the law of noncontradiction had been abrogated in favor of dialectics, under which all contradictions were compatible, but which contradictions had to be accepted was a matter of the official policy of the moment….
The demand for recognition and nonrecognition at the same time is surely one of the reasons for the outbreak of mass self-mutilation in the Western world in an age of celebrity. A person who treats his face and body like an ironmongery store can hardly desire or expect that you fail to notice it, but at the same time demands that you make no comment about it, draw no conclusions from it, express no aversion toward it, and treat him no differently because of it. You must accept him as he is, however he is, because he has an inalienable right to such acceptance….
I think the same dynamic (if I may call it such) is at work in the current vogue for transsexualism: “You must recognize me and not recognize me at the same time.” In this way, people can simultaneously enjoy the fruits of being normal and very different. To be merely the same as others is a wound to the ego in an age of celebrity, and yet we are herd animals who do not want to wander too far from the herd. And in an age of powerlessness we want to exert power.
What will be the next attempted reconciliation of our incompatible desires? [“Everyday Snowflakes“, Taki’s Magazine, July 15, 2017]
Good question. I don’t have a ready answer, but I have some other examples of incompatible desiderata. Each entry in the list below has two parts: (on the left) an objective that most leftists would claim to support and (on the right) the left-wing policy that hinders attainment of the objective.
Ample employment opportunities for low-skill workers – Minimum wage
Vigorous economic growth – Regulation
Property rights* and freedom of association – Public-accommodation laws
Less crime – Strict gun control or confiscation of guns*
Peace – Less defense spending (and therefore lack of deterrence)
The result of each left-wing policy is to create victims, ranging from young black men to law-abiding citizens to most Americans. The left’s constant search for “victims” is evidently hindered by intellectual myopia.
Moreover, in many cases leftists are actual or potential victims of their own policy preferences. But their magical thinking (unconstrained vision) blinds them to the incompatibility of their desires.
* There are many hypocrites on the left (like Shaw) who would vigorously defend their property rights while proclaiming their attachment to socialism, and who employ guards (with guns) to protect their property.
More posts about the left and magical thinking:
The Left and Its Delusions
A Keynesian Fantasy Land
The Keynesian Fallacy and Regime Uncertainty
America: Past, Present, and Future
IQ, Political Correctness, and America’s Present Condition
The Barbarians Within and the State of the Union
The Pretence of Knowledge
“The Science Is Settled”
The Harmful Myth of Inherent Equality
“And the Truth Shall Set You Free”
The Transgender Fad and Its Consequences
Most people marry young. Even though the average age at first marriage is creeping up, it is still below 30 as far as I know. And it was closer to 20 when I wed several decades ago.
A person who is in his early 20s has a lot of life and learning ahead. His political views are likely to change. Mine changed from idealistic “liberalism” to informed conservatism, with a few stops in between. (For more, go to “About” and scroll down to “Beliefs”.) If one’s political views are heritable, as this piece suggests, what happened to me is that nature — my parents’ innate conservatism — finally overcame nurture — the attitudes and ideas that I absorbed as a collegian.
I married my wife only two years after completing my undergraduate degree, still a naive “liberal” with simplistic views about such things as race (not a problem), markets (suspect), and government (more is better). Fast-forward more than 50 years to the conservative me, still wed to the “liberal” lass who views Donald Trump as unalloyed evil, daily expresses the hope that he will be shot (though that may stop after the shooting of Steve Scalise), cannot understand why Texas Republicans care about who uses which bathroom, favors abortion (in principle, not practice), supports gun control (though we have guns in the house), has swallowed the global-warming hoax, and bases most of her other views on the slants of NBC Nightly News and the Austin American-Statesman.
But she hates to pay taxes.
That, plus love, unites us despite our differences.
Maverick Philosopher makes an excellent case for cultural appropriation. I am here to make a limited case against it.
There is an eons-old tradition that marriage is a union of man and woman, which was shared by all religions and ethnicities until yesterday, on the time-scale of human existence. Then along came some homosexual “activists” and their enablers (mainly leftists, always in search of “victims”), to claim that homosexuals can marry.
This claim ignores the biological and deep social basis of marriage, which is the procreative pairing of male and female and the resulting formation of the basic social unit: the biologically bonded family.
Homosexual “marriage” is, by contrast, a wholly artificial conception. It is the ultimate act of cultural appropriation. Its artificiality is underscored by the fact that a homosexual “marriage” seems to consist of two “wives” or two “husbands”, in a rather risible bow to traditional usage. Why not “wusbands” or “hives”?
Related posts:
In Defense of Marriage
The Myth That Same-Sex “Marriage” Causes No Harm
Getting “Equal Protection” Right
Equal Protection in Principle and Practice
Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, is quoted as saying that
[i]f there is a move to deport immigrants, then I say start with me. I am a son of immigrants. If we deport immigrants then I ask, ‘Who is safe and who will be left?’ Because we are all immigrants. If we deport immigrants then the only ones left will be the Iroquois, the Sioux and the Cherokee and the Apache.
What I want to know is what his lordship has against persons of the Sioux, Cherokee, and Apache persuasion. He makes it sound as if there’s something wrong with being such a person. In the parlance of the day, that’s r-a-a-a-cist!
Let’s parse the rest of his excellency’s statement. First, he’s not a son of immigrants. His father, the late, overrated Mario Cuomo, was born in New York City, as was his mother, Matilda Raffa Cuomo. It was their parents who were immigrants.
But Andrew is just exercising his poetic license, to which liberals are entitled by virtue of their self-defined moral superiority. By the same standard (poetic license, that is) I am the son of immigrants because my paternal grandparents were born in Canada, though they were of non-exotic English-Scots-Irish descent. But my maternal great-grandfathers and all of my maternal great-greats and beyond were born in exotic French Canada and France. Voilà.
It’s obvious that Andrew, like his parents, is a lawyer. His lawyerly mind slides over the word “illegal.” Thus he implies that Mr. Trump would deport all immigrants, even though Mr. Trump has said only that he would deport illegal immigrants.
In any event, Herr Governor Cuomo isn’t an immigrant (supra, as they say in legalese). So he wouldn’t be deported even if he were correct in his lawyerly casuistry regarding Mr. Trump’s stated intentions.
But if he would like to be deported to prove a point (whatever it is), I’ll gladly pack his bag.
Facebook, for me, is a mildly amusing diversion. I have only 39 Facebook “friends,” and I follow only about a third of them. The rest are obligatory friends whose doings don’t interest me.
I strive to make Facebook as unintrusive as possible. To that end, I have long used the F.B. Purity extension for Firefox, which eliminates a lot of clutter and unwanted features. I also use Adblock Plus, though Facebook has found a way to work around it and plops an ad or two in my newsfeed every day.
I’ve just learned that Facebook categorizes the politics of its users. I was amused to find that I’m a Liberal. I guess it’s because of the postings of some of my friends — postings that I usually hide to avoid irritation. It’s easy to delete the political preference setting, so I did.
And I’ve just come to understand the meaning of the popular abbreviation for Facebook: FB = For the Birds.
“Fairness” usually is invoked when a person or group seeks special treatment — unfairness, in other words. Here’s what’s unfair:
Making Johnny share his toys with Billy when Johnny is having a perfectly good time playing by himself.
If Billy wants to be treated fairly, he should bring his own toys and refuse to share them with Johnny. Then they can bargain about which toys to play with jointly and which toys to trade, either temporarily or permanently.
Refusing to let Abby into college because a less-qualified candidate happens to have darker skin than Abby, and there aren’t “enough” darker-skinned students.
If only there were more darker-skinned students, college authorities say, they would feel more secure and mingle with white students, thus giving the white students a broader “life experience.” How many more darker-skinned students? Well, there’s no magic number, the college must continue to prefer less-qualified darker-skinned students over white ones until mingling magically occurs. In any event, mingling is unlikely to be fostered by raising the dark-to-white ratio, though when the ratio gets large enough a certain kind of mingling will occur: Mobs of dark students will start to give the white ones some “life experience” by attacking them.
Taking money from Jack and giving it to Joe because Joe doesn’t earn “enough.”
Joe doesn’t earn much money, relative to Jack, for one or more of several reasons: Joe is dumber, lazier, less well-educated, less well-connected, or less lucky. But Jack didn’t cause Joe’s dumbness, laziness, lack of education, lack of connections, or unluckiness. Why is it “fair” to penalize Jack for things that aren’t his fault? Because everyone “deserves” a certain minimum standard of living? Who says so, a bunch of politicians who know that there are a lot of votes to be gained by spreading Jack’s money around? Jesus Christ was big on charity, but when government takes money from Jack and gives it to Joe, it’s not charity — it’s legalized theft.
Changing the definition of marriage because homosexuals want to be “married.”
For thousands of years it has been understood that marriage is a bonding of male to female. This definition seldom was so well understood and accepted that it was unnecessary to make it explicit until it came under attack. The attackers then claimed that it was “hateful” to make the definition explicit, and that persons of the same sex ought to be able to wed each other. So it’s “hateful” to defend a principle? Isn’t it therefore hateful to call someone hateful in defense of the principle that same-sex couples should be able to wed, even though the idea is relatively new and defies an understood definition of marriage that’s thousands of years old? In fact, it’s fair to call the shrill proponents of same-sex marriage hateful.
Allowing anyone who claims to “be” a female to use restrooms designated for women.
Do you know how to tell a female from a male? You don’t? Then you’d better ask your Mommy or Daddy to explain it to you — again. Do you claim to believe that a person’s sex is what that person says it is, even if the outward evidence contradicts that person’s claim? Perhaps, then, you will believe me when I say that I am God and will smite you for being such a ninny. Oh, you don’t believe me? Then why should you believe the tall, bearded fellow with a deep voice who barges into the “ladies” room and insists that he’s really a woman? Why does your judgment fail you in such cases? Because it’s only “fair” to the bearded guy to believe his story? But what if it isn’t “fair” to the real females who want privacy from prying male-like persons when they go into the “ladies” room? You’re not being fair, you’re just sticking it to “the system” because it gives you a thrill. As fads go, swallowing the transgender line makes as much sense as swallowing goldfish.
Not advising the prosecution of Hillary Clinton because “no reasonable prosecutor” would purse the case, after describing clear violations by Mrs. Clinton of an unambiguous statute.
That is unfair because, as the Director of the FBI admitted, almost anyone other than Mrs. Clinton (or another highly placed politician) would be prosecuted.
This is an old one, and I don’t remember where I first saw or heard it:
NUKE THE WHALES.
“transgender” people aren’t: they’re just crazy.
Gregory Cochran, physicist and anthropological geneticist,
writing at West Hunter* * *
The current craze for self-definition suggests a cure for crime: Deny its existence.
If a biological male (female) can claim to be a female (male), and his (her) claim can be upheld by a court and given credence by major corporations,* it follows that a criminal can simply deny that he is a criminal.
End of crime problem. Police forces and courts can be disbanded, and the savings passed on to taxpayers.
Oh wait, that won’t happen. The savings will be used to subsidize the purchase of gender-appropriate clothing, sex-change operations, hormone treatments, voice coaching, and other trappings of terminal gender confusion.
_________
* Recent examples are Target’s decision to allow self-declared transsexuals to enter the fitting rooms and restrooms of their choice, and ESPN’s firing of Curt Shilling for openly stating his opposition to such lunacy.
This is an edited version of a column that appeared in my long-defunct weekly newspaper on February 23, 1977. Gerald Ford had recently relinquished the presidency to Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon had fallen from grace less than three years earlier.
It’s expected that Richard Nixon will rake in millions for his printed and televised memoirs. Mr. Nixon wants the government to turn over the documents he compiled while an employee of the taxpayers, so that he can refer to them in writing his memoirs.
Henry Kissinger, another incipient memoirizer, wants the same deal. In fact, it’s reported that he removed from the State Department the stenographic records of thousands of phone conversations he had while Secretary of State. Dr. K. claims that those are personal documents. If that’s so, he should refund a good chunk of his government salary, to compensate taxpayers for the thousands of hours that he spent on personal phone calls.
There’s something to be said for allowing ex-presidents and other high officials access to their records so that they can tell us how great they were: Memoirs are a boon to insomniacs. Sleeping-pill manufacturers should have sued Truman, Eisenhower, and Johnson for unfair competition.
Many Americans are eager to read Nixon’s version of his presidency. I’m among them, mainly because I want to see if Nixon will say that he was Deep Throat*. I’m serious. Can you recall another politician who reveled in misery like Mr. Nixon? Remember the “Checkers speech“; the 1960 election that Nixon lost to JFK, but probably could have won by contesting the Illinois results (enough votes turned up in Chicago to swing the outcome)**; the lashing-out at the press after losing the California governor’s race in 1962; and the sweaty, lying performance during the Watergate affair. Why couldn’t the person who as a boy signed a letter to his mother “Your good dog, Richard” have become a man who satisfied his need to grovel by blowing the whistle on himself?
Whatever the truth about Nixon’s role in the Watergate affair—the cover-up, the cover-up of the cover-up, and the uncovering of the cover-ups—we are unlikely to learn it from Nixon’s memoirs, except by inference. Look for the parts where his innocence is most stridently protested, and assume that the opposite is true.
Will Gerald Ford also write his memoirs? The question doesn’t seem to be keeping book publishers awake at night. But, if he does, you can throw away your Sominex.
Jerry Ford would be a good guy to have a beer with. I even voted for him. But I draw the line at self-inflicted boredom. Rather than read Ford’s memoirs, I would watch grass grow.
As for Kissinger’s version of events, one should keep in mind Voltaire’s remark that “History is the lie agreed upon.”
_________
* In 2003, long after I published the original piece, Deep Throat was revealed as Mark Felt, then Deputy Director of the FBI. In 1972, following the break-in by White House operatives at Democrat headquarters in the Watergate Hotel and Office Building on Virginia Avenue in Washington, D.C. Felt fed inside information to Bob Woodward, who with Carl Bernstein wrote the series of articles in The Washington Post that led to congressional hearings into the Watergate affair, and Nixon’s eventual resignation on August 9, 1974. Felt’s secret meetings with Bob Woodward were held in the parking garage of an office building at 1401 Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia. At the time, I worked at 1401 Wilson Boulevard.
** This is a common bit of folk-lore. In fact, even if Nixon had won Illinois, JFK would still have led Nixon in electoral votes: 276-246. Another 15 electoral votes were cast for Senator Harry Byrd by Virginia’s electors. Even if those electors had switched to Nixon, the tally would have been 276-261. It’s possible that if Nixon had won Illinois, enough Kennedy voters in the West would have stayed home to swing New Mexico or Nevada to Nixon. Kennedy won both States narrowly, and a Nixon victory in either State, coupled with a win in Illinois, would have made him the winner. Maybe.
This is a polished and updated version of a column that appeared in my long-defunct weekly newspaper on January 26, 1977, six days after Gerald Ford relinquished the presidency to Jimmy Carter.
President Ford, shortly before leaving office, urged Republican partypersons to form a “shadow” cabinet. (This is an old tradition in Britain, where the Loyal Opposition assigns certain of its members in Parliament the duty of keeping cabinet ministers honest.) But before proposing a shadow cabinet, Mr. Ford should have reconsidered the need for a cabinet in the first place. I will venture to do so here.
Take the Defense Department, which contains three military departments: Army, Navy, Air Force. Right away you can see the possibilities for confusion, if not riot, because there is no Secretary of the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is a separate military service—which is the first thing that any Marine with one day in boot camp will tell you. But the Marine Corps is administratively in the Department of the Navy. If for nothing else, the Secretary of the Navy is paid to referee the daily combat between the Navy and and the Marines Corps.
But. you may ask, why should the Navy and Marine Corps be in conflict if they belong to the same department? If you have to ask, you haven’t seen any movies made during World War II, wherein it was common to have a scene that included the following elements: a bar, some sailors, some jarheads (as Marines are often called), and a brawl. Those fraternal tiffs have not been forgotten. For many decades after World War II, the Chief of Naval Operations (the top sailor, who has nothing to do with operations) and the Commandant of the Marine Corps (the top Marine) were housed in different buildings.* (Who says that time heals all wounds?) I question the wisdom of the decision to house both of them in the Pentagon. It’s a huge place, so they can be kept well apart, but …
Before moving on, I must mention the Navy-Air Force relationship. The Air Force has an air force, as you might expect. The Navy, too. has an air force. The result is that the Navy and Air Force spend a lot of time quibbling about whose air force should have the biggest, fastest airplanes. Neither will admit that it has the most expensive ones, of course.
The fact that the Navy has an air force leads to another reason for having a Secretary of the Navy. It is he who must make the Navy’s case for its air force. Why couldn’t the Chief of Naval Operations do that? Well, the Marines have their own air force, too. If the Chief of Naval Operations were to go before Congress to plead his case, the Commandant would have to do the same. Imagine what would happen if they showed up on the same day!
If you think inter-service rivalry is a problem in the Department of the Navy, consider life in the Pentagon, which also houses the chiefs of staff of the Army and Air Force. There are not only four air forces to fight over (yes, the Army has one, too), there are two services with soldiers (but don’t call a Marine that), two with long-range missiles (the Air Force and Navy), four with air-defense missiles, and so on, into the night. Thus the need for a Secretary of Defense.
Therefore, as to the necessity of cabinet officers: it is dire — in the Pentagon, at least. If the Secretary of Defense didn’t get the troops pretty much in order before they marched to Congress with their demands, Congress would have to referee the fights among the services. This would leave Congressmen with no time to interview secretaries (the typing kind**).
Long live the cabinet, whoever they may be!
__________
* The Commandant’s office and other elements of Headquarters, Marine Corps, moved to the Pentagon in 1996.
**A reference to a scandal that broke in 1976. U.S. Representative Wayne Hays (D-Ohio) had hired one Elizabeth Ray as a member of his staff. Ms. Ray was nominally a secretary, but her real job description was “mistress.” She admitted that “I can’t type. I can’t file. I can’t even answer the phone.”
This is a column that appeared in my long-defunct weekly newspaper on January 12, 1977, eight days before the inauguration of Jimmy Carter, who succeeded Gerald Ford.
James (“just call me Jimmy”) Carter has filled his new Cabinet with “old” faces. Will the old
faces, and the old minds behind them, come up with the same old answers? It is likely.
Despite promises of efficiency–which means collecting our tax money faster–the Carter regime is likely to follow the pattern set by a certain former governor of Georgia: more government employees, more government spending, and more government debt.
Perhaps Mr. Carter can improve on the performance of the Ford flivver. There will be plenty of opportunities. Shortly before leaving office Mr. Ford apparently decided not to ask for an aircraft carrier in the new budget to be submitted to Congress. Not having the carrier (we already have a dozen or more, all in good shape) and the planes that would go on it, could save us over $4 billion during the next several years. This may seem sensible, but there’s more.
It is reported that during the past year, Mr. Ford-through his super-salesman. Mr. Kissinger, agreed to renew the leases on some of our bases in Spain. Turkey. Greece, and the Philippines. It is estimated that the right to have bases in those countries would cost over $4 billion during the next several years. (The bases themselves are optional extras.) Maybe the Navy should have its new carrier. Make that two!
But, politicians should not be accused of stupidity until all the returns are in. I, for one. can
plainly see the method to Mr. Ford’s machinations. First, he expects that Congress will agree that the Navy should not have a new nuclear aircraft carrier.
Second. Mr. Ford expects that Congress will not be foolish enough to pay $4 billion to our third-string allies for the privilege of parking military hardware on their property on the remote chance that it will be useful in a war.
Third, the Puerto Ricans will overwhelmingly endorse Statehood, and Congress will vote it.
What does Puerto Rico have to do with carriers and bases? Puerto Rico is a big island.
(Right!) It can hold a lot of airplanes, tanks, and missiles. (Right again!) It’s probably just
as strategically located as the Philippines, and less likely to be overrun than Spain, Greece, and Turkey. (Give that man a cigar!)
Therefore, we get a new State, new taxpayers, a well-located base bigger than a thousand
aircraft carriers, and save $8 billion in the bargain.
Who said that Mr. Ford couldn’t ski and chew gum* at the same time? Top that. Jimmy.
__________
* During his presidency, Ford became the brunt of jokes for a few well-publicized instances of clumsiness. One joke was that he couldn’t chew gum and walk at the same time. Ford was, in fact, an excellent athlete, who counted skiing among his abilities. Thus “ski and chew gum at the same time.”
The last deal negates all of the concessions made in the other deals — for those of us who will choose to live in Free States.
The punctilious say the century won’t end until midnight on the 31st of December 2000. Meanwhile, the other 99.99 percent of Earth’s denizens (or those who care about such things) prepares to celebrate the end of the decade, century, and millennium on December 31, 1999. Contrary to our custom, we bow here to the popular will, but just long enough to offer this paean to the Twentieth Century. After boldly diagnosing the last 100 years in a few hundred words, we also thrown in a prognosis for the next 100 years.
The American Century?
The Twentieth Century, like any other complex phenomenon, cannot be judged one-dimensionally. Let us begin by comparing it with the other centuries of our nationhood.
Yes, the Twentieth Century has been called the American Century, but that soubriquet reflects one of the least of our achievements as a nation, namely, our dominant role in world affairs. In any event, the American Century was the Eighteenth Century, when the greatest heroes of American history gave us liberty and framed the Constitution to assure liberty’s blessings unto their posterity. (Well, that’s how they talked in those days — you can look it up.)
The Nineteenth Century was decidely less stellar than the Eighteenth. The Nineteenth started well enough, with Mr. Jefferson in the White House, the purchase of Louisiana Territory, and the expedition of Lewis and Clark Then the British burned the Executive Mansion, causing it to be painted white (whence the White House). That was one of the first — but far from the last — whitewashings in Washington.
If the history of the presidency counts for anything in rating centuries, the Nineteenth weighs in with one great (Lincoln) and a whole flock of losers and nonentities: Van Buren, Harrison I (he of the 30-day term of office), Tyler (the “too” in “Tippecanoe and…”), Polk, Taylor, Fillmore (later an avowed Know-Nothing as that party’s candidate for President), Pierce (a New Hampshire dipsomaniac), Buchanan, Johnson I (he of the first impeachment trial), Grant (the bury-ee in Grant’s Tomb), Hayes, Garfield, Arthur (call me Chet), Cleveland (who, unlike Billy-boy, fessed up to his sins before he was caught lying about them), Harrison II, and McKinley.
In the Twentieth Century, there have been three honorable Presidents — Coolidge, Truman, and Reagan — surrounded by a sea of fools and scoundrels: Roosevelt I (a Napoleonic nut-case), Taft (the answer to two trivia questions: heaviest and only one to become Chief Justice), Harding (sex-Clinton I), Hoover and Carter (two humorless engineers), Roosevelt II (our first socialist President), Eisenhower (principle-Clinton I), Kennedy (sex-Clinton II), Johnson II (wager of disastrous wars on poverty and Vietnamese civilians), Nixon (truth-Clinton I), Ford (duh!), Bush (principle-Clinton II), and Clinton (combining the worst of Harding, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and Bush — oversexed, unprincipled, and a congenital liar).
The Twentieth Century may have been the century of American power, but it has not been a century to be proud of if you still have any principles.
Major Themes of Century XX
The century’s dominant theme was established in its first decade: Capitalism became evil incarnate and — in the name of fighting evil — the federal government began to usurp the socializing roles of family, friends, neighborhood, and church. The second and third decades should have disillusioned the true believers in progress through government, as Wilson led us into the charnel-house called Europe and the sons and daughters of Carrie Nation led us into Prohibition. But prosperity casts a rosy glow on the sordid truth, as attests Clinton’s survival of l’affaire Lewinsky.
The fourth decade — specifically, the Great Depression — legitimated the federal government’s seizure of power in the name of “good.” The President and other elected officials became Santa Claus incarnate, doling largesse and special privileges to the masses in return for their votes, at the expense of the objects of the masses’ envy. Judges briefly and episodically resisted the power grab, then joined their executive and legislative brethren in the rape of the Constitution.
Succeeding decades saw more wars (perhaps only one of them was not a senseless exercise in presidential megalomania), more “social progress” (read aggrandizement of government), more “freedom” (read erosion of moral and ethical standards), more crime, and less civility. More crime and less civility being the direct result of moral and ethical erosion; moral and ethical erosion being a by-product of aggrandized government (the “nanny” state).
Other than that, it’s been a peachy 100 years. Somehow, our high standard of living (which would be even higher were it not for senseless wars and aggrandized government) doesn’t make up for all the rest. But perhaps the prospect of the “grand nanny” of them all — Ms. Rodham-Clinton — lecturing us from the well of the Senate is makes us just a bit peevish.
Inside and Outside
Each decade’s foreign adventures reflected the home front’s view of the world outside. In the 1900s, government could do no wrong: it busted trusts, stole Panama, and sailed the Great White Fleet — all to great acclaim from the masses. A decade later it was time to assuage national guilt and get into a serious war, but only after much vacillation about what side to join. As if in atonement for trust-busting days of the first decade, the Marines were enlisted to the aid of capitalism in the “Banana Republic” skirmishes of the 1920s.
In the 1930s, the hangover from the Great War and the cancer of the Great Depression sapped our willingness to confront the most potent (but nevertheless distant) threat to national sovereignty since 1812. But Roosevelt II, with the unwitting help of the foolhardy Nipponese, managed to drag us into another foreign war. The feat of vanquishing not one but two legitimate powerhouses, awakened the will to power that lurks just below the skin of every politician and policy wonk.
The poobahs on the Potomac — who reap vicarious ego gratification (and perhaps sexual gratification) from the very thought of being at the center of world power — demanded that we stay in the arena so that we could shape the world in the American image. (Well, in the self-image of an all-wise, all-powerful effete stratum of the Eastern establishment and its acolytes, who come from all regions and walks of life to sniff at the seat of power.) Whence the misbegotten Korean War, the utterly tragic Vietnam War, and the various travesties, gunboat diplomacies, and chest-thumpings known as the invasion of Grenada, “peacekeeping” in Lebanon, the bombing of Tripoli, the confrontation with Iran, the seemingly endless Persian Gulf War, the feckless “humanitarian” excursion into Somalia, and the “humanitarian” bombing of Kosovar civilians so that the “good” thugs of the country formerly known as Yugoslavia can take their turn at savagery.
Thus has self-interested isolationism — like constitutional government — given way to the self-indulgent whims of the “wizards” behind the curtain of the ominscient, omnipotent state.
Historical Determinism Revisited
Moralists would say that the Great Depression was the price we paid for the Roaring Twenties. If that is so, think what might lie beyond the turn of the millenium. In any event, there may be something to the theory that what we sow in one decade we reap in the next.
The “gay” 1890s gave way to the “uplifting” 1900s, when such moralists as Frank Norris, Ida Tarbell, and Roosevelt I strode the land. Their moral vigor gave way to the next decade’s Great War and the disillusionment it wrought. What could follow moral disillusionment but the amoral and “immoral” goings on the the materialistic 1920s? We paid for that holiday from reality with the plunge into the Great Depression and the rise of fascism.
Our indifference to fascism led to the next decade’s Greater War and thence to the Cold War. Fatigue set in, and the 1950s became the decade of “complacency,” featuring such entertainments as “Ozzie and Harriet,” “I Love Lucy,” and President Eisenhower’s studiedly incoherent ramblings at press conferences.
“Down with complacency,” said the children of the 1960s. “Up with the people (of all colors), down with imperialistic, paranoic foreign adventures, up with sex and drugs and rock and roll,” they chanted. And they were mostly right — but some of them became what they had hated and…but I digress.
If the 1960s began in hope and ended in despair, the 1970s began in despair and ended in despondency. It was a decade of unremitting bad news, from the presidency and resignation of Nixon to the “oil shock” to double-digit inflation to the seizure of American hostages by Iran. There was nowhere to go but up, and up we went, through most of the 1980s and — with a breather for another foreign adventure and a brief recession — on into the 1990s: ever more prosperous, ever more hopeful of the future — materially if not spiritually.
And so here we are in what should be called — for more than one reason — the “gay” 1990s: where “rights” flourish and responsibilities diminish; where more and more parents neglect their children and blame the schools (if not society) for the tragic results of that neglect; where gratuitous sex and violence pass for entertainment; where reading, writing, coherent speech, and good manners are practiced more in the breach than in the observance; where those who believe in and practice personal responsibility are simply sick and tired of giving a free ride to the indolent and self-indulgent (of all colors, genders, and political persuasions across all socio-economic strata).
Century XXI
Just when you think things can’t get worse, they do. It’s not hard to imagine a United States in which the following new “rights” have been legislated and/or adjudicated:
“How,” you ask, “could all of that happen?” Simple…Al Gore is elected President in 2000 and re-elected in 2004, with Ms. Rodham-Clinton as his running mate the second time. Ms. R-C shoots Gore at his second swearing in. She pardons herself (as a misguided product of society) and the Chief Justice swears her in — at gunpoint. In case you’re wondering, Ms. R-C was authorized to carry a gun because, following her unsuccessful Senate race in 2000, she became Gore’s Attorney General. (That’s called “first the good news, then the bad news.”)
And it goes downhill from there…
This is a farce in three acts. The first act takes place in the presidential study near the Oval Office — also known as the nookie nook. Act two is set in the presidential boudoir, where the air is definitely chilly. Act three takes place beyond the great divide, that is, when Willie Whatsit meets the Chief Justice of us all.
Act I: In the Nookie Nook
Willie Whatsit: Wow, Veronica, that was great!
Monica Crapinsky: It’s Monica, you schmuck. Get it right. That’s only the fourteenth time I’ve given you a back rub, lard butt.
WW: Well, as leader of the free world, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and first fund-raiser I’ve got too much on my mind to remember a detail like your first name.
MC: You’d better remember it, buster, because I’ve just been subpoenaed to testify against you in a wrongful discharge suit.
WW: But I haven’t fired anyone since I cleaned out the travel office to make room for the meetings of Hillary’s coven.
MC: Oh, I meant to say “paternity suit.” Paternity, wrongful discharge, same thing. Get it?
WW: Yuk-yuk-yuk. You’re as funny as Orrin Hatch eating a sour pickle. Anyway, if I’m the sue-ee, who’s the sue-er?
MC: You have to ask?
WW: Of course I have to ask. It could be almost anyone, couldn’t it?
Act II: In the Deep Freeze
WW enters the presidential boudoir to find Hillary Ramrod — his liberated, emancipated, and constipated spouse — writing his State of the Union speech.
HR: I heard a rumor that you’ve been cavorting with an intern in your private study.
WW: Who told you that? Come on, I need to know so I can figure out how to wiggle out of this one.
HR: Since you’re not going to be able to wiggle out of this one, I’ll tell you. It was our favorite flack, Sid “The Snake” Loveinbloom.
WW: You can’t believe anything Sid tells you. He’s got the hots for you and he’d say anything to tear me down.
HR: Well, you of all people know that he can have all the “hots” he wants, but it won’t get him anywhere with me. I’ve sworn off sex since I discovered witchcraft. Double, double, toil and trouble, send money to Washington, on the double.
WW: I’m glad you have such a laid-back — I mean relaxed — attitude. I was afraid you’d heard about the paternity suit.
HR: What paternity suit?
WW: What do you mean “What paternity suit?” How do you expect me to keep track of them? Do you think I do all that fund-raising, to help elect a bunch of yokels to Congress?
Scream of rage from HR. Blackout. Loud thwack (simulated by striking Arkansas watermelon with baseball bat).
Act III: Beyond the Blue Horizon
The Great Chief Justice in the Sky: How do you come to be here, Mr. Whatsit?
WW: That’s a trick question if I ever heard one. It depends on what you mean by “come.” Where am I, anyway?
CJ: You’re in the land of the final judgment — beyond civil suits, criminal prosecutions, and impeachment trials.
WW: I always thought you had a flowing white beard and wore a blinding white robe. Why are you wearing that silly black robe with gold stripes on the sleeves?
CJ: Shut up. I ask the questions here. And the robe’s not silly, Justice Sandy made it for me. Do you have anything to say for yourself before I pass sentence on you?
WW: I didn’t do it.
CJ: “It” what?
WW: It depends on what you mean by “it.”
CJ: Enough with the clever wordplay, already. Do you take me for some dumb Senator?
WW: You’re about the right age.
CJ: Before I get any older, I’m sentencing you, William Jefferson Whatsit, to eternal community service, in the “other place.”
WW: Is that the best you can do? The “other place” can’t be any hotter than an Arkansas summer, and I’ll be glad to service the community. There must be some hot babes down there.
CJ: Just for that, I’m changing the sentence. Earphones will be permanently affixed to your ears and you will be forced to listen to right-wing talk radio twenty-four hours a day for all eternity.
WW grins broadly.
CJ: How can that sentence cause you to smile?
WW: It could have been worse. You could have sentenced me to listen to Hillary.
CJ: Mmmm….
Lights dim. Drone of HR reading from It Takes A Village Idiot to Know One swells in volume.
Politics and Prosperity 