Addendum

A little while ago, two Socialist senators (Mazie Hirono and Kamala Harris) described the Knights of Columbus as an “extremist organization” which would be funny except that the Communist cows really meant it.  In response, one of the Grand Poobahs of the K.C. responded with a lovely letter which described their past good works and future activities.

I was particularly struck by this passage:

“We wish to formally invite you all to join us for any social or charitable event.  In fact, this February we are doing the Polar Plunge to raise funds for DC Special Olympics.  You and anyone you know are more than welcome to join us either jumping in the cold water or sponsoring our team.”

…which prompted me to write a letter to Hizzoner (I’m not Catholic, I don’t know the correct appellations) Patrick O’Boyle which included this request:

Please let me know if both or either of the senators have accepted your kind offer to participate in the Polar Plunge, as I would like to get there early and attach a teeny piece of concrete to those participants’ ankles prior to their immersion.

Hey, the Catholic Church used to dunk witches, didn’t they?  As all my Readers know, I’m a great one for old traditions.  And tell me these two foul creatures don’t look like they qualify…

  

In fact, I have it on good authority that Hirono once turned someone into a newt.  (Which would explain quite a lot, actually…)

Snowflake Warnings

One of my most treasured memories is watching the late Frank Zappa tearing into that foul scold Tipper Gore during Congressional hearings.  Gore, you may remember, thought that rock music lyrics were eeeevil and caused kids to become mass murderers or Satanists or something, and Zappa just took her precious little thesis and trashed it with a wonderful mixture of scorn, opprobrium and educated analysis of her silly, nonsensical fears and creeping Puritanism.

I was taken back to those good times when reading this piece of utter bullshit:

Old favorites, outdated attitudes: Can entertainment expire?

They exist throughout society’s pop-culture canon, from movies to TV to music and beyond:  pieces of work that have withstood time’s passage but that contain actions, words and depictions about race, gender and sexual orientation that we now find questionable at best.
Whether it’s blackface minstrel routines from Bing Crosby’s “Holiday Inn,” Apu’s accent in “The Simpsons,” bullying scenes in “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the arguably rapey coercion of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and “Sixteen Candles” or the simplistically clunky gender interactions of “Mr. Mom,” Americans have amassed a catalog of entertainment across the decades that now raises a series of contentious but never-more-relevant questions:
What, exactly, do we do with this stuff today? Do we simply discard it? Give it a free pass as the product of a less-enlightened age? Or is there some way to both acknowledge its value yet still view it with a more critical eye?

I have a better idea.  Treat it all as entertainment.  And in the manner of Tipper Gore and her ilk, feel free to pepper the covers with all sorts of “parental advisories” or better still, my favorite all-purpose warning that one’s childish sensibilities may be offended by the contents thereof (number to increase with the frightfulness of the content):

  

At least a “10-” warning will announce that I’m about to really enjoy myself.

But for the love of Jupiter’s throbbing headache, leave the classics alone for us grownups to enjoy for the fabulous bits of entertainment they are.   Frankly, there’s absolutely fuck-all about the classics which should frighten anyone, whether it’s Mark Twain using the word “nigger” so freely in Huckleberry Finn  (which novel, lest we forget, did more to change attitudes about race than a dozen Jesse Jacksons) or Gary Cooper taking Claudette Colbert in hand in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938):

At the end of the brilliant movie Thank You For Smoking (2006), there’s a scene where the foul Senator protagonist talks about going back into all the classic movies and digitally removing all traces of smoking, thereby “improving” them.  The man’s unctuous smugness coupled with his utter conviction is so creepy it makes your skin crawl.

And that’s what these pricks are talking about now.  And make no mistake, there’s absolutely no end to it.  If a treasured classic like Baby, It’s Cold Outside can be interpreted to containing “rapey coercion”, then let me assure you all of one thing: nothing is safe.

I have a simple solution to this nonsense:  every time some asshole indulges in some censorship dream like the above, the nearest person should horsewhip them.  Literally.  They get “triggered” by the suggestion of stalking in The Police’s Every Breath You Take ?  Well, I get triggered by their wanting to change the whole fucking world to accommodate their tender sensibilities.

Just remember:  this wonderful, sexy scene in Tom Jones is one day going to disappear forever because some fucking vegan got triggered.

I am getting so sick of people trying to tell me what I should or should not do, or what I may or may not eat, or what entertainment I may or may not enjoy, that there may well come a time when you’ll read about some snowflake getting flogged for trying to bowdlerize the lyrics of Run For Your Life.

And the flogger’s name will be mine.  Which reminds me:  I need to oil the old sjambok, just in case.

Solutions

The late (and much-missed) Col. Jeff Cooper once said this about violence:

“One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that ‘violence begets violence.’  I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does.  I would like very much to ensure — and in some cases I have — that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.”

[pauses to let the applause die down]

So when you set yourself up as a “saboteur” — of a perfectly-legal institution, mind you — and part of your modus operandi  is violence, do not be surprised if violence is visited on you in turn.  Such as in this instance:

Hunt saboteurs claim they were attacked after one suffered a bloody eye as violence broke out between supporters and placard-wielding protesters during traditional Boxing Day hunts around the country.
Riders with packs of hounds – following scent trails laid in advance to comply with the 2004 Hunting Act forbidding the hunting of foxes with hounds – set out under cloudy skies this morning in order to maintain the tradition.
But scenes of chaos erupted in Elham, Kent, as a saboteur was hospitalised after allegedly being thrown in front of a passing car ‘that deliberately swerved’ before being punched and kicked by a group of hunt supporters.
A hunt saboteur posted an image of his bloodied eye after allegedly being ambushed by ‘two or more men’, according to the Hunt Saboteurs Association.
A spokesperson for the group said: ‘A group of drunken hunt supporters attacked the saboteurs and their vehicle as they tried to leave’.
And the group claimed a 19-year-old female demonstrator was allegedly punched in the face by a hunt supporter in Tenterden, while a band that had turned up to play reportedly had their equipment damaged.

And we have this as evidence:

But let’s make sure that we don’t just see pics of the loonies.  Here are a couple of the hunt supporters:

And for my Murkin Readers unfamiliar with the ancient custom, let’s make one thing perfectly clear about all this protesting:  it has nothing  to do with protecting foxes, although that’s the pretense.

It has everything  to do with with abolishing an activity largely enjoyed by the upper- and upper-middle classes — in other words, it’s a class  issue.

The very fact that hunting was originally banned by a Labour government headed by the loathsome Tony Blair is sufficient proof thereof.

And all I can say to the hunt supporters is:  keep up the good work of thrashing the “sabos” at every opportunity.

Defending The Indefensible

This was written in 2014.  I sincerely doubt whether it could be published today without an outbreak of total mass hysteria.

Which is why I’m posting the link, as well as a representative sample:

The Constitution allows a defendant to make three crucial decisions in his case. He decides whether to plea guilty or not guilty. He decides whether to have a bench trial or a jury trial. He decides whether he will testify or whether he will remain silent. A client who insists on testifying is almost always making a terrible mistake, but I cannot stop him.
Most blacks are unable to speak English well. They cannot conjugate verbs. They have a poor grasp of verb tenses. They have a limited vocabulary. They cannot speak without swearing. They often become hostile on the stand. Many, when they testify, show a complete lack of empathy and are unable to conceal a morality based on the satisfaction of immediate, base needs. This is a disaster, especially in a jury trial. Most jurors are white, and are appalled by the demeanor of uneducated, criminal blacks.

And then there’s this:

This inability to see things from someone else’s perspective helps explain why there are so many black criminals. They do not understand the pain they are inflicting on others. One of my robbery clients is a good example. He and two co-defendants walked into a small store run by two young women. All three men were wearing masks. They drew handguns and ordered the women into a back room. One man beat a girl with his gun. The second man stood over the second girl while the third man emptied the cash register. All of this was on video.
My client was the one who beat the girl. When he asked me, “What are our chances at trial?” I said, “Not so good.” He immediately got angry, raised his voice, and accused me of working with the prosecution. I asked him how he thought a jury would react to the video. “They don’t care,” he said. I told him the jury would probably feel deeply sympathetic towards these two women and would be angry at him because of how he treated them. I asked him whether he felt bad for the women he had beaten and terrorized. He told me what I suspected—what too many blacks say about the suffering of others: “What do I care? She ain’t me. She ain’t kin. Don’t even know her.”

As so many have said before of this attitude:  “You can take the African out of Africa, but…”  I prefer to think of it as “Africa Wins Again;  Just Not In Africa.”

Read the whole thing.  The observations made by the writer are based on years and years of experience, and are not his opinion.

Afterthought:  Just so we’re clear about the whole thing:  this attitude isn’t confined to Blacks (see here);  it just seems to be more prevalent.

Trump, You Idiot

The story of the late Bush 41 — a man respected by many and distrusted by an equal number — should have proved an object lesson to the once-god-emperor Trump, but it seems like Trump doesn’t want to learn from history unless it’s his own history.  Which makes him an idiot.  Here’s why.

Facing election, Bush 41 got what would be the loudest cheers of his entire presidency when he made the unequivocal statement:  “Read my lips: no new taxes! ”  Well, we all know what happened later:  “no new taxes” became a “great big huge tax”, passed as part of a deal made with arch-socialist and “Lion Of The Senate” Senator Ted “Swimmer” Kennedy.  The result for Bush?  The loss of the Presidency, because the Republican base, which hates taxes of any kind let alone new big ones, felt they’d been betrayed by the President.

Anyone see any parallels with the current incumbent, Trump 45?  Here it is:  “We’re going to build a wall to secure our southern border:  a big, beautiful wall!

And now, this week?  No wall.  Why no wall?  So he can keep a friendly working relationship with not one but TWO Congressional Socialists, Chuck “No-Guns” Schumer and future Repeat-House Speaker “Red” Nancy Pelosi?

Then Trump 45 gets pissed off when Ann Coulter — the same Ann Coulter who back in early 2016 predicted Trump’s eventual Republican nomination, to the loud jeers of a Jon Stewart audience  — entitles one of her articles “Gutless President In Wall-Less Country“.

Well guess what, Donald old chum:  just like Bush 41, you’ve managed to piss off your most loyal supporters, the ones who thought you were different, the ones who thought that if anyone could build a big, beautiful wall it would be a billionaire property developer.

Too bad you fucked up.  And here’s another lesson you’re about to learn from Bush 41 (a.k.a. President Juan Term):  just as Bush 41’s with Kennedy, your “partnership” with Schumer and Pelosi will last as long as the wet ink on the surrender document (“continuing resolution”) that you’re about to sign tomorrow (Friday).  On Monday morning (if not Saturday morning), they’ll go back to sabotaging what’s left of your your agenda, attempting to have you impeached, and turning what was to be a transformational presidency into just another fucking swamp.  Your last two years in the Presidency are going to be dead in the water, and nothing you said would happen, will happen.  And you will go from God-Emperor Trump to President Juan Term II.

I hope it was all worth it, you blithering moron.