FACT-CHECKING...YOU DON'T HAVE TO CALL IT CENSORSHIP ANYMORE

I freely confess to having hated social media from the very beginning, and not just because of the word “media”. First, email made us too lazy to write actual letters anymore, and now posting and texting makes us too lazy to even email. I held out for many years but finally got badgered into getting a Facebook account.

            Basically, I've just avoided anything political because even within my circle of friends and family there are a few who go into Pavlovian attack mode, triggered by certain words or phrases, such as “keep and bear arms”. And knew I knew the Facebook powers-that-be were left-wing kooks who would immediately censor anything they really disagreed with.

            Recently, I happened to share the post at the top of the page when I saw it on a friend’s page for a couple of reasons. One, it made me chuckle a bit. Two, it was a simple but brilliant in-your-face example of the just how biased and deceitful the MSM truly is these days.

            Naturally, I was immediately taken to task by a self-proclaimed “independent fact-checker”, an entity officially approved by the Facebook Thought Police. Think of Stalin or Khrushchev vindicating himself by saying his “facts” were independently checked by Pravda and Tass.

            As usual, the gist of the whole deal was wanting to quibble about a couple of numbers in order to confuse, distract and obfuscate attention away from the entire point of the post…media bias.

            I was also amused, and a little nauseated, by the whole pompous “fact-checking” proclamation. For the entire eight years of the previous presidential administration, the media did no fact-checking whatsoever, with the sole exception of the time that Saturday Night Live FINALLY did a really soft and bland Obama skit. The next day every major media outlet was just “fact-checking” the living hell out of the SNL skit. That was the only time during the entire Obama Administration I ever even heard them use the phrase “fact-check”. Which is not surprising considering that their entire coverage of the economy during those 8 years was entirely fictional.

What really amazed me is how much more fictional they’ve gotten since. Just when you think they’ve reached the very bottom layer of the sewer and can’t crawl any deeper…I weep for all the satirists who’ve been put out of work.  

            Additionally, it’s also kind of funny how the Leftists are such great and holy self-proclaimed champions of Civil Rights, right up to the point someone else’s opinion disagrees with theirs in the slightest. Knowing who and what they were, I have traditionally just given them a pass when, in their championing of the Bill of Rights, they completely discard the 2^nd Amendment outright. And pretty much ignore the 10^th. And the 5^th if there is a “Hate Crime” involved.

            Their hypocrisy about the 1^st, though, tends to go a bit far. I’m not even going to bring up their whole stand on “separation of church and state”, a phrase that has been strangely absent from every copy of the Bill of Rights I’ve ever seen.

            No, I mean that everyone has the inalienable right to Freedom of Speech…but only as long as that speech agrees with the Leftists. The moment it doesn’t, it’s time for some good old-fashioned censorship. Any speech that doesn’t express the politically correct leftist-approved Party Line must be ruthlessly rooted out, suppressed, edited, deleted, cut, muzzled, silenced. Even some smartass quip on social media.

            When you boil it all down, Civil Rights as approved by the Politically Correct Thought Police actually only cover two things: the right for Leftists to be offended by and suppress anything anyone else says and the right of pedophiles to take your son’s Boy Scout Troop camping.

            So if you’re one of those Right Wing extremist kooks who actually thinks Freedom of Speech means that you can actually express your own opinion, just shut your piehole, turn off your brain entirely, and keep repeating the following phrase.

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

SOME RIGHTS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

On our last trip to Yellowstone, I took a picture of a sign on the door to the visitor center. Similar signs would have caused a nation-wide outrage. Can you imagine anyone tolerating this sign on a public building?

Or this?

Or perhaps this?

No? Then why is this perfectly acceptable?

 

Does anyone really believe this will be the result?

I say we quit pussy-footing around and just ban all of those pesky Civil Rights for the convenience of Big Brother.

Remy: Imagine (There's No YouTube)

Liberty Pub Revisited

In January of 2008 I spent the evening of the New Hampshire Republican primary in the Liberty Pub in Washington D.C. [See "Not All Pleased With McCain's N.H. Win" 1-10-08] I watched the results roll in with a group of regulars to the pub. The ten grizzled old friends, amendments to the Constitution collectively called "The Bill of Rights," provided a unique perspective on the election results that night and the direction of the country in general.

During a recent trip to D.C. I decided to stop by the pub to see how my ten amendment friends were getting along. I found them gathered around their usual table in a dark corner of the smokey bar and I pulled up a chair. After a round of greetings (and boilermakers), I counted noses and noticed that there were only nine of them at the table. I asked about the whereabouts of the Tenth Amendment (called "Ten" by his friends) and was answered only with awkward silence.

After a moment the Sixth Amendment answered, "He's... passed on." I noticed the lip of the Ninth Amendment (Ten's "longtime companion") begin to quiver.

"Here comes the waterworks," the Third Amendment said, leaning in to warn me. True to the warning, Nine burst into tears.

Ten, I had learned in my previous visit, had been unemployed since the Great Depression. His job had been to "tell the Federal Government to do their own friggin’ job and let the States and the People do theirs," he had told me at that time. And now he was gone.

"It was all too much for him, " Nine explained tearfully, putting down his mamosa. "The Feds taking over the banking industry, then the car industry, pretty soon the medical industry. Ten just felt so... violated. One morning he jumped in front of a metro bus on his way to the unemployment office."

"Don't criticize!" the First Amendment warned, looking nervously around the bar. "Do you want to end up on some terror watch-list?"

There were a few more beats of awkward silence, then I commented that it really makes you think. "You never know who might be next," I observed. I noticed that that comment caused several worried glances down at the Second Amendment, seated at the far end of the table, with his back to the wall. "Two" looked different than before.

He retained his snakeskin boots, leather chaps, and ten-gallon Stetson hat, but now over his shirt he wore a O.D. green Kevlar flak vest, festooned with ammo pouches. Last time we met, Two's pistol hip had been barren. Now, buoyed by some recent court victories, a brace of Kimber .45 auto pistols hung in tactical holsters, one on each hip. On his lap he cradled a new semi-automatic AR-10 battle rifle. He rested his right hand on the rifle's pistol grip, while he poured and drank his whisky with his left. He looked as if he could be equally at home in Deadwood orFallujah.

Besides different accessories, Two looked different physically too. His eyes were still full of life, but he looked tired and had bags under his eyes. I commented to him that he looked a little haggard.

"Son, I been sleepin' with one eye open," Two explained. "I been watching that Bareback Omaha fella, to see what his next move is."

Chuckling, the Fourth Amendment corrected his friend, speaking slowly, "Barack Obama."

Two, avoiding that tongue-twister all together, continued, "The President's been putting together a whole herd of some of the orneriest sidewinders I ever tangled with. Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emanuel, Sonia Sotomayor. It's purdy obvious it's a hangin' posse. When they figger the time is right, they'll be coming after me."

I ask if that makes him nervous. Two shakes his head as he leans to spit tobacco juice into a spittoon three feet away. "Hell with um," he continues. "Ain't the first bunch of bushwhackers to try to send ME to Boot Hill. And I'm still here."

I ask how he can be so confident. He explains, "The President might have all the hired guns, but I got a lot of good folks on my side. You see, folks all around the country been armin' theirselves for a showdown. They got my back, I reckon."

He pours himself a shot and continues, "Tyrants tryin' to disarm folks ain't nothin' new. My pappy, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, used to tell me stories about this ol'boy named King George tryin' the same dang thing at Lexington and Concord."

Two's shot glass pauses in front of his mouth and the corners of his long mustache curl up a bit, the only sign of the toothy smile underneath it. He continued, "As I recall that didn't work out too well for the king." The shot disappears.

I said my goodbyes and thanked my friends.

Later, as my plane back to Des Moines climbed into the night sky, I watched the lights of D.C. disappear behind me and thought about the nine remaining amendments. They're old and showing their age. They seem increasingly lost and forgotten in the modern world. But that world is so much the richer for having them in it. I hope they'll be around for a long time to come, so my kids can get to know them as I have.