Suddenly It’s Offensive to Be Offended
All through the 1980s, feminists called men pigs, leftists called conservatives racists, and columnists openly compared right-wing politicians to Hitler. Then Rush Limbaugh came along and started fighting back, and all of a sudden we started to hear about the lack of civility in public discourse! Civility only became an issue when the left started taking it on the chin.
Likewise, getting offended and demanding apologies has for a long time been the default mode of the left. If you said “Obama’s policies hang over America like a black cloud,” there was a collective gasp. You used the word black and Obama in the same sentence! You must be racist. Talking while conservative was like being locked in a room with one of those Woody Allen characters who hear the word “Jew!” embedded in the most innocent remarks. The idea was to silence and hobble right wingers by making them worry about everything they said.
Well, sorry, now we have the internet where we conservatives can point out that the hatefulness and violent anger spewed by the left against anyone who disagrees with them, especially women and blacks, are megatons worse than anything coming from the right. And what do you know? Suddenly, being offended is out of style!
Here’s Bill Maher, writing not long ago in the New York Times: “Let’s have an amnesty — from the left and the right — on every made-up, fake, totally insincere, playacted hurt, insult, slight and affront. Let’s make this Sunday the National Day of No Outrage. One day a year when you will not find some tiny thing someone did or said and pretend you can barely continue functioning until they apologize.”
Heck, in my life it is offensive if no one is offending me. I hate being ignored. Fend that one off.
You stuck up, no good, racist, sexist, humanist nerf herder.
Princess Leia, when did you get here?
It wasn’t long ago when I heard a sailor saying that he was offended by something he saw on the ship’s CCTV system.
When I was in the army 35 years ago, if a soldier had said he was “offended” by something, that was an invitation for someone to kick his ass.
I agree with the “you first” sentiment.
Just like they expect the U.S. to lead the world “by example” in unilateral disarmament and a tear-filled, sincere Kumbaya sing-a-long to shame into civility and nicety the circling, rabid-dog-pack of those hellbent on our destruction, let the Loony Left lead the parade by henceforth and forevermore abstaining (hmm, might be a too-uncomfortable word for them, how about STOPPING) from ever again getting all kvetchy/whiny about the slightest slight to their slightly slight and fragile self esteem.
We and the crickets are waiting…
Chris Rock may have been funny, but Frederick Douglass said it better 160 years ago.
This is a subset of the Left’s general inclination to appeal to universal principles just long enough to serve their immediate tactical advantage, and then switch to a different set of universal principles as that changes.
The old conservative response used to be, “Look, you get to pick the standard, but it applies to everyone!” That’s never worked. Liberals just keep picking new rules that apply only to their opponents and only long enough to suit them. What’s made the Tea Party so effective is that all it did was adopt the tactics of the Left. The Left has no ability to play defense, and they look like stuffy hypocrites when they try.
“You first” is a nice evolution of that standard, but I don’t think it’ll make a difference.
“This is a subset of the Left’s general inclination to appeal to universal principles just long enough to serve their immediate tactical advantage, and then switch to a different set of universal principles as that changes.”
It’s called hudna.
The only thing that really offends me is the constant leftie drumbeat of offense. Oh, and when some RBC calls me racist.
And it was to parody this sort of nonsense that I wrote Bias Incident: The World’s Most Politically Incorrect Novel.
I’m sure if we actually did, we would, of course, do something so horribly offensive that the Maher’s of the world would have to make just this one exception to not being offended, to be hideously offended at how horribly evil and offensive whatever it was we did.
They aren’t the sort of people who abide by the rules they set for others.
I don’t see the downside to being offensive. After all, they need us. We don’t need them.
” I don’t see the downside to being offensive. After all, they need us. We don’t need them.”
And that is exactly why they hate us. Thanks, Gordon, for pointing that out.
Gordon:
I understand your feelings. But in our case, we know better than they, on almost every topic of import. We therefore ought to hold ourselves to a higher standard of behavior, precisely because because we know better.
Don’t misunderstand me: That doesn’t mean we never ought to be offensive. Truth is offensive, goodness is offensive and we remain loyal to what is true and good.
I merely think that we ought not be unnecessarily offensive. If we’re offensive merely to be nasty, then we’re sinking to their level, which is not necessary and lacks class. It’s juvenile, nekulturny. That’s the left’s job. So we’ll pass on offending them that way.
But, never fear: We’ll still offend leftists just by being correct, by being classier than they, and by refusing to swallow their nonsense and their petty orthodoxies. Whatever offense comes from that is of the unavoidable kind, and is therefore their problem.
“So okay, lefties, let’s all stop being offended. You first.”
Not going to happen.
I ignore such whines now. After the great “Civility!” tirade blew up, I chose to forgo it altogether against the left. The only time they whine and caper about is when they are losing.
They only call for “bipartisianship” when they cannot ram through their agenda
They demand “civility” when we play by their rules
They want to “lower the temperature of the conversation” when they realize it hasn’t cooked things the way they wanted
I refuse their attempts to rig the game. They have turned all of it into an all or nothing power game, and demand that we play by some set of rules wihle they load the dice, stack the deck and switch the checkers on the board when we glance away.
Calls for “Civility” and “Sensitivity” get a single response from me:
“HorseSh*t. You started this, I am going to finish it.”
Chris Rock’s comment was funny? I’d call it ignorant. The culture of ignorance is not an attractive thing. And it’s none too funny either.
Independence Day celebrates independence, not freedom. For American slaves, it meant independence from the British slave trade. This had been two centuries earlier by, primarily, John Hawkins. Sir John is more well-known today as the commander of one of the four squadrons which fought the Armada in 1588, and as the mentor of Sir Francis Drake. But his commercial innovations were nonetheless of historical importance.
In the context of the American experiment, independence came first. What those upstart Americans would do with their independence was (and, in fact, remains) the next question.
What the world really needs right now is a universal EDIT key.
John Hawkins wasn’t the British slave trade, he FOUNDED the British slave trade.
D’oh!!
Chris Rock might be funny in another America. Not in the one now, where the country’s legitimacy is constantly, consciously and ubiquitously undermined by liberals as, pre 1965, nothing but a hellhole of racism, sexism, homophobia, capitalist exploitation, rape of the environment, religious superstition, violence…all on land stolen from the so-called “Native Americans”…who were not American at all, but conquered by Americans.
As for your pic of Bill Maher, thanks for ruining my breakfast, Andrew. If he were on fire in gutter, I wouldn’t….you know th drill.
Your problem, aside from being brilliantly funny, is that you are too nice a guy.
Say it ain’t so. I love poking lefties in the eye, but lately, debating them is like poking yourself in the eye. Well, about as productive.
I had a little debate with one of the newer lefties from Fox on twitter. When she stated that both parties do it, I asked for one example. Yeah, no response after that.
You cannot be a lefty without cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy. It is fundamentally impossible.
“Chris Rock might be funny in another America. Not in the one now, where the country’s legitimacy is constantly, consciously and ubiquitously undermined by liberals as, pre 1965, nothing but a hellhole of racism, sexism, homophobia, capitalist exploitation, rape of the environment, religious superstition, violence…all on land stolen from the so-called “Native Americans”…who were not American at all, but conquered by Americans.”
Chris Rock has made a living saying things that a white comedian would get blacklisted for. Its mostly worked- but he still steps on enough PC toes to take some heat.
His 4th of July saying is partially true- I doubt slaves in Alabama had great 4th’s in 1830 or so- but the North did free its slaves after the Rev War- he forgets about that- if he even knew it.
How about an national day of apology when all the nut jobs and fringe crazies have to stand before a TV camera (right and left crazies) and apologize for taking us down this superhighway of offensive chatter. How about we have a National Take the Mote Out ‘yer Own Eye day, when we can all reflect on our lack of purity and perfection? How about, at least the over 70% of us who call ourselves Christians try to actually live the way were supposed to, with integrity? How about we stop listening at all to the Bill Maher’s of the world, who would be selling pencils on the street corner if we didn’t pay attention to them? We really can be better than this and we’d better be. The other option is not comforting.
This column offends me.
I loved Bill Maher’s movie about religion, “Respectful”. The scene where he prayed with people of different faiths was beautiful.
Look, the thing about him isn’t that he’s outrageous (although that’s how he’d like to be seen), it’s that he’s outraged. His whole shtick is being the reasonable guy pushed to extremes by the absurdities around him. He is in that sense a reactionary. Making fun of people is as reactionary as complaining about them. The only difference is that is shows wit (when done well).
I do believe somewhat in the artist’s exemption from etiquette. But if your entire act is name-calling, you can’t be stunned when people call you names for it. You’ve got to see it coming.
Turn the crank another few turns. Don’t extend an olive branch now, for cryin’ out loud. Drive ‘em off their rails. Goad them into “jumping the shark”. The tactic of crying time out was used by the North Vietnamese in order to regroup and resupply for a major offensive. Be not snookered.
Why in the world would I want to play nice with a faction that is anathema to me, my way of life and the national character?
No, when the enemy is down, and they are an enemy, go for the jugular.
Either they surrender under a relatively peaceful counterattack or we go physical. It’s a history lesson.
Expecting a bunch of evil lying bastards to act with integrity or goodwill is foolish.
The biggest mistake that conservatives and libertarians make is in trying to get along with leftists, in trying to treat them with dignity and respect and expecting some sort of reciprocity.
There is no getting along with someone who wants you dead.
Good article. I ignore all this new civility stuff from the left because I know it is BS. If the left wants some standards, let them apply those standards to themselves first. Bill Mahre can make a good start on his “dont get offended” standard, by spending a segment of each of his programs singling out some leftist that is bogusly offended by something, and riduculing them for their bogus offense taking. He could start by rediculing anybody on the left who uses the word racism or racist, since it is bs about 90% of the time. Mind you Mahre, no pointing to anybody on the right, if you want these standards, you enforce them on your own first. Once you have done that long enough that people on the left genuinely worry you will attack them for their fake offense taking, then and only then will it be reasonable to extend the segment to both the right and the left offense mongers.
Here’s some new civility for you. If I ever happen to find myself in an elevator or a bathroom with a left-wing celebrity I am going to do my darnedest to see that they spend the rest of their life dealing with as severe a disability as I can inflict on them.
It seems to me that this was the tactic used by the North Viet Namese during the Paris “Peace” talks. It went like this: “Holy Sh+t, you guys are winning so let’s be fair and you stop until we can regroup”. Sadly, Nixon and whatshisname bought it every time.
History. Learn it or repeat it.