To take our minds off the recent fighting in the Middle East, the economic turmoil at home, and the possibility of another season of anything involving the Kardashians, let’s read a book. That is, if those evil mean illiterate nasty Republicans let you!
Over the past year or so, parents have been finding out there’s more being taught in schools besides the 3 Rs (which, if you want to get technical, is really an R, a W, and an A), and it’s pissed them off a little bit. Then again, who needs to learn math, English, and science when there’s albino bisexual midget quadriplegic slam poetry to learn?
As a result of these revelations, Republican governors like Ron DeSantis and Kim Reynolds have rolled out what the Left has called “book bans.” Leftists also proudly proclaim “We Read Banned Books” if the Facebook and The Social Media Network Formerly Known as Twitter posts and laminated stickers are any indication. The Right has pushed back saying they’re not book bans because the books are still available, just not to certain students.
So, what’s the truth? As you might expect, it’s a lot more gray than you’d think.
book bans
What the Left thinks it means – efforts by the Right to ban books because they don’t like them and want students to be ill-informed
What it really means – keeping creepy shit out of the hands of those unprepared to deal with the subject matter
Recent American history has not been kind to fans of the written word, such as your humble correspondent. We’ve seen books burned, trashed, destroyed, and otherwise maligned by people whose intentions may have been good on the surface, but were really just the motivations of some crazed dickweed with a Paul Bunyon-sized ax to grind. For a long time, it was the more religiously-bent among us who enjoyed making a bonfire out of Bonfire of the Vanities, but around the 1990s, the Left started getting into the act, not with torches, but with Political Correctness.
It started with Huckleberry Finn, a literary classic that entertained young and old alike since its initial publishing. But when PC became a thing, the book fell into disfavor for its frequent use of a term I won’t repeat here because a) it’s offensive, and b) I’m not Michael Richards. After raising a stink about the word, Leftists sought to remove it from schools to fight racism. Context and time period didn’t matter because even though the words were written several decades before these dipshits were born, they were offended now! And back then, just like today, when something offended them, it had to be eliminated. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the adventures of Huck and Jim were safe.
That’s the kind of book bans the Left doesn’t want us to talk about or acknowledge. They want us to think about the Right burning books or wanting Harry Potter books removed from school libraries because concerned parents think it promotes witchcraft and the occult. While the overt push for book bans is still being done, quiet book bans are also taking place, either through complete disinterest in the subject matter or author or through a shame campaign forcing people to choose between reading some books and being on “the right side of history.” Unfortunately, shame works all too well, especially in today’s society where we’re more narcissistic and status-conscious than ever before. And if it’s not something about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, it just ain’t important, amirite?
In the current sense, book bans are being done by both sides, just for different reasons. The Left wants books (and sometimes even authors) memory-holed for not staying in lock step with the current ideology. The Right…well, let’s just say they have a slightly different reason, namely the absolute stuff being passed off as elementary school and young adult literature. Such as Gender Queer, a graphic novel geared towards young adults that shows illustrations of how to give a blow job.
At this rate, the 3 Rs are going to include have to make room for one or two more, such as rimjobs. (Author’s Note: if you don’t know what one is, don’t look it up. Trust me on this.)
And then there is This Book Is Gay, also geared towards middle school students, with mentions of the gay dating site Grindr. (And I must repeat, this is being geared towards middle school students, something definitely not appropriate for anyone under 18.) Having been a middle school student once, I know for a fact I wouldn’t have been ready for that kind of subject matter because I was just getting used to the changes in my own body, as well as the emotional and intellectual maturity going on. Today’s kids are even less prepared than I was to handle it. They may be more accepting of it, but that doesn’t mean they’re ready for it.
As much as I criticize the Right for the crazy shit they do with regards to books, they actually have a point here. To make matters worse for the Left, DeSantis, Reynolds, and others aren’t actually banning the aforementioned books, but rather suggesting they be kept in more appropriate libraries with the option for parents and/or students to request they be checked out from said libraries. And they aren’t prohibiting parents from buying these books themselves.
If that’s a book ban, it has to be one of the shittiest ever.
On the other side of the coin, the Left’s current brand revolves around “cancel culture” so it’s not that much of a stretch to think they’re fine with banning books they don’t like. Just ask J.K. Rowling, once a Leftist darling whose books inspired Leftists to pretend Donald Trump was Voldemort, but then became a pariah for daring to think…women are women and trans women aren’t! How revolting!
Along with Rowling, you can add authors like Ayn Rand, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Tammy Bruce, and a laundry list of Right-leaning writers who have been removed from Leftist minds by virtue (or in this case vice) of not being Leftists and, therefore, not worth their time. Amazing how the Left’s version of diversity excludes the intellectual kind.
More disturbing to me, however, is the cavalier nature of the Left redefining book bans to include what DeSantis and Reynolds are doing. But, as with most things Leftist, it’s being done for multiple purposes…or is that purposi? Anyway, the point is the Left has a vested interest in painting those parents and politicians who don’t think little Johnny should be learning how to assfuck his best friend along with his ABCs as extremist whackjobs.
The most obvious motivations are political. After all, the LGBTQIA+2R14X-ROCKINTHEUSA community is firmly in the back pockets of the Left, both figuratively and literally, so Leftists want to make them happy. Gotta keep those coffers full, right?
Which leads into another motivation: to create more of the LGBTQIA+APOLLO13CUBS2 community to perpetually keep the coffers full. The Left’s real anger over the book bans isn’t that the books are being banned, but rather that the subject matter of those books and where it’s being placed in public schools got revealed. And they would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids…err…parents. If nobody found out, Leftists would have been able to keep it going and create an assembly line of kids who parrot Leftists squawking points without even so much as a second thought.
Including those who continue to parrot the “Republicans are banning books” lie.
The Left have caught themselves in a trap of their own making. On the one hand, they’re putting these books into public school libraries without telling anyone outside of their ideological and work bubble to ensure they get there. Then, when called out on it, they lie by omission by conflating books like Gender Queer with other controversial, yet far more innocuous, books. But when parents and groups like Moms for Liberty show up to school board meetings and try to read from these books, the board tries to shut them down and Leftists go after the parents. If there’s nothing wrong with the books, why try to silence those who want to share the intellectual wealth, as it were?
Because it’s never about the books themselves. It’s always about the ideology.
I’m of the mindset that the best way to handle controversial topics is to bring them into the light of day. Not only does it offer the best possible way to provide a way forward and foster understanding, it exposes the bad faith actors. Although the Right still has their book banning assholes, the Left is doing their best to keep pace. Blaming Ron DeSantis, Kim Reynolds, or any Republican Governor for taking steps to keep inappropriate subject matter out of the hands of kids not yet ready to process it exposes the bad faith actors on the Left and only serves to make their arguments against said Governors weaker by compassion.
And, no, “because DeSantis is a meanie head” isn’t an argument. Even if you stomp your feet and threaten to hold your breath.
Tag: gay community
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
Leftists can find a way to be outraged by just about anything, even sources that are outside of their usual frames of reference. This past week, we saw Leftists get their panties in a bunch over…get this…the death of a professional wrestler, or more specifically how some of the wrestler’s colleagues chose to honor his memory.
Jamin Pugh wrestled under the name Jay Briscoe for many years and recently died in a car crash. He was beloved by his peers, with some offering condolences using the phrase Rest In Power.
It was these three little words that made Leftists shit themselves in outrage. Of course, if they were in San Francisco, you wouldn’t notice a difference, but the use of those three words became a personal affront to them because…get this…Jamin Pugh was…a white man! And Rest In Power? That’s a black phrase.
Better sit down for this one. The stupid is going to fly!
Rest In Power
What the Left thinks it means – a phrase to honor deceased blacks that should never be used by white people
What it really means – a phrase to honor a human being that doesn’t belong to anyone
To dig further into this situation, I went to where all self-respecting scholars go, Urban Dictionary. They define the phrase thus:
Phrase meaning that a deceased cannot rest in peace until society changes due to the circumstances of a death.
Well, that explains the boom in zombie movies and TV shows…
Dictionary.com provides this definition:
A variation on rest in peace, rest in power is used, especially in Black and LGBTQ communities, to commemorate a person whose death is considered unjust or wrongful. In this way, rest in power is a call to continue the struggle for social justice and as a show of solidarity.
Rest in power is also used to pay respect to a person, especially a person of color, who made a difference in the lives of minority communities. It is sometimes used to note the death of a person felt to have died too soon or senselessly, or a person who was influential or meaningful to people more generally.
At the core of both of these definitions is Leftist ideology. Victims of an unjust system are saluted with a Rest In Power, but the presumed oppressors can’t even utter the words because…well, they’re still trying to figure that part out. And they’re not the only ones.
Seriously, though, the phrase is believed to have originated as a way to honor a street artist, but was popularized in the black community as a way to memorialize people killed by violence. Oh, and rappers. With the death of Michael Brown and the suicide of a teenaged trans girl, Leelah Alcorn, Rest In Power got put behind rhetorical red velvet ropes complete with a bouncer to make sure only the “right” people got to use it.
Then, it got co-opted by white people and everything went to hell. Ain’t that always the case?
Although I can respect the origins of the phrase, I have to call bullshit on its presumed limits on usage. Once a phrase enters the cultural lexicon, the ownership transfers to society at large. Take the word “cool” for example. It started off with black jazz musicians, but evolved to the point of being universal. Now, there are grandmas walking at the mall who say something is “cool.” I don’t know if they can scat to a jazz riff, but that’s not the point.
Language is one of the most fluid things we have as human beings that isn’t actual fluid. As such, there is a lot of cultural cross-pollenization through diverse sources from music to fashion to cartoons. It doesn’t always work (see the drop-off in the use of “wack” in the past 20 years), but when it works, it works well.
So, why is Rest In Power exempt? Because…reasons?
The real reason is because Leftists need to control the language, even within communities already sympathetic to Leftist causes. By limiting who can use it, the Left acts as gatekeepers in the spirit of elevating the oppressed. Not that doing this actually elevates anyone, mind you…
What good does limiting who can say “Rest In Power” do when it comes to the Left’s stated goal of dismantling the current power structure and making it more equitable? It’s a SBD fart in a hurricane. The needle doesn’t move at all, nor will it ever. But it makes Leftist voting blocs feel good, so…yay, I guess?
Within this strategy is another Leftist concept, equity. Note, equity is not the same as equality, even though they share many of the same letters. Equality means everyone gets the same treatment across the board, no matter what. Equity allows for a bit more leeway in treatment because it allows for different circumstances to affect the outcome. And guess who currently pulls the levers on equitable treatment.
Leftists. Either that or an amusement park ride operator.
Setting standards on who can use “Rest In Power” is the Left’s commitment to equity writ large. But the entire concept falls apart like a balsa wood love seat at Michael Moore’s house when you consider the Left’s adoption of Rachel Dolezal and Shaun King. Two white people who are considered black because they identify as black in spite of being as white as an Edgar Winter concert in the middle of a blizzard after a typing correction fluid explosion.
I take that back. The aforementioned concert would have far too much rhythm to be truly white. My bad.
And guess what? That’s a joke comedians of all colors have been telling for decades, and yet no one has tried to limit who can tell it. Sure, the wording will be different, but the concept remains the same, and it has no one trying to gatekeep.
I never thought I’d be putting “cool” and “whites have no rhythm” on the same level, but here I am killing it!
And let me also point out the limits Leftists put on “Rest In Power” are completely arbitrary and, thus, rooted in logic shakier than the Biden White House’s response to why classified documents were found within 500 feet of Hunter. After all, whites make up the largest section of the LGBTQWTFFUBARLMFAO community. So, that means whites can use “Rest In Power” but only if they’re gay, lesbian, bi, trans, queer, etc.
How’s that dicking feel, straight white Leftists?
It’s these kinds of rules that make Calvinball look like Candyland. Yet, it’s the insanity of these rules that makes the best argument against this rhetorical version of Affirmative Action. If no one knows the rules, they are impossible to enforce, and even when you try to enforce them, they can easily be circumvented. Why, it’s almost better not to have any rules on who can say “Rest In Power” in the first place!
Yes. Yes it is.
And that’s the point. People should feel free to use whatever wording they want in honor of a fallen friend, a late family member, or even a respected figure in the community. Yes, there are still going to be consequences if somebody takes it the wrong way, but that’s the risk you run when you say anything. You could post on Twitter that you like chocolate, and some asshat with a checkmark will take it that you hate vanilla and try to troll you back to the Stone Age. (In computer terms, that’s 1980.) But does that mean you can’t or shouldn’t say you like chocolate? Not at all!
There is a reason we have free speech in America, and it’s because even loudmouth assholes should be able to speak their minds, if only to make it easier for us to figure out who to stay away from in the future. Limiting speech, especially as innocuous as “Rest In Power,” doesn’t help anyone, literally and, well, literally. Oh, I almost forgot. Some of the people posting “Rest In Power” to the late Jay Briscoe happen to be members of the groups Leftists say get to use the phrase in the first place.
Checkmate, motherfuckers.