PJ Media

I’m a far left-winger, and even I can’t stand most of my fellow liberals. I’m for gay marriage, really for it, and I’m for growing the welfare state, in a big way. And I’m deeply for equal pay for equal work. And yet, what a sad world it would be if we really go ahead and accept the Islamic notion that “hurt feelings” over jokes means the joker is to now censor himself or herself.

I really don’t care that the women I know make jokes about men, etc. I have a facial deformity, and yet me and my friends are free to joke about it. Again, I’m not condoning a truly hostile attack against people with birth defects. But sadly, my pals on the left, have become very boring people. This is true: I’ve known people who actually agreed with Democratic policies, like I do, who stayed Republican because they didn’t want to end up a droll and humorless as we are.

Now I’m all for a solid self-righteous rant against Wall Street Greed, (and yes, Greed should be capitalized; and please keep using the word Greed whenever possible; we are Greedy, Greedy, Greedy), but still, jokes about people’s religion, race and gender, and orientation, when intended to be harmless humor, do not need to be censored.

Now going after this aide like we are is just boooorish. Anyone going after this aide for making a perverse joke is too serious to be human, (and that attack is for real and not a joke).

It all started out with good intentions. Racist, sexist, homophobic jokes, etc., were, originally, a part of a social structure that kept oppression alive. But now I don’t honestly think, (in fact if you say that you think the following, I really believe you are a liar), that everyone who tells a politically incorrect joke is really a hate-filled person. Actually, to the extent that I have real dislike, I have it for the Pro-Censorship mullahs who believe people should be murdered whenever Muslims have “hurt feelings,” and for the identity-politics-lobbying groups who also want self-censorship to destroy comedy in this country. And plus, politically-correct people are always ruining the economic lives of jokers, and, since money is just about all Americans are into, then, you know, it’s about the same as destroying them when you ruin their careers. (Poor men rarely have their families or wives behind them when they go broke, at least not in California where I live, so ruining someone financially is often the same as ending their lives, for all practical purposes).

I am disabled, however, I would be really bored with a world in which all people in my condition were now sacred cows who could never appear as villains in movies, who could never have a joke made about them, who could never be parodied.

I don’t know about the rest of you, right and left and Muslim, but I just don’t think I’m so important that sacred laws protecting my feelings need to be erected, nor do I think people should be fired if, at a party, under the influence of alcohol, they make a harelip joke, (I am also a harelip). My friends are free to tell any joke they’re heard. When they do, I don’t lie to myself, (like most of you do), and fake like I really now believe joke tellers or pranksters are bigoted monsters.

You’re lying when you pretend that every single person who, in a fit of temper, or under the sway of a joking party, makes fun of anyone, is actually, permanently a horribly prejudiced person who must now be fired and go on an apology tour. How droll. How fake.

Fellow lefties, I agree with you on Universal Health Care, I agree with you on a woman’s right to choose, and I agree with you that Republicanism is self-serving and greedy, and I’d like to see some more liberals on the Supreme Court, but must we all become boring people too? Is that absolutely necessary? And now, when Republicans catch a Democrat being politically correct, they do the drum beat too. How dull. You people are really super dull people. I dislike you. (And that’s not a joke.)

In this way, I can see why so many of my fellow lefties are in denial about the threat to free speech posed by Islamism, because, in a way, sadly, my fellow lefties are mullah-lite. They really half-sympathize, maybe not with the Islamist’s conservatism, but rather with their seriousness. They so love seriousness. How very bland. How very dull. How boring. And so over the past eight years I’ve been embarrassed for my own progressive movement when I’d be in San Francisco and see, at anti-Bush rallies, solid contingents of folks dressed up like Hamas people. What could progressives and Hamas have in common? I was confused. Then I realized: Oh yeah, they both are addicted to the most humorless kind of seriousness, and plus they are addicted to the “hurt feelings” standard as a way of silencing people they don’t like. Maybe they are hoping to kind of harness the seriousness of Hamas and kind of redirect it to liberalism. Almost like they need “hurt feelings seriousness” lesson from the real experts in Lebanon.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m totally for some solid victim stuff. I can blame the world for my problems probably better than you can. I’m for sure not a personal responsibility freak. I’m not even sure I believe in free will, and God knows I have little faith in free markets. So I could do a little anti-colonialism blame, and God knows I blame my childhood for everything. But still, does this mean, even if I believe in a welfare state, and even if I believe in receiving some welfare myself, that I must also become a total bore? Why?

Off-color jokes are not a threat to justice and freedom and free speech, but you are, my fellow lefties. And, when you push the “hurt feelings” standard of controlling the speech of others, or pouncing on every politically-incorrect utterance, you waste valuable energy and goodwill and political capital that could be being used to get us Universal Healthcare.

A note to left-wing censorship mullahs: Spend all that anti-Bush conspiracy energy you have on getting us all universal health care. I’ve seen rallies by my fellow lefties in San Francisco for twenty years now, and, not a single rally for health care. Well, I suppose it’s easy to focus on hurt feelings and “end the war”. But do something real with all those giant rallies. Instead of censoring people and concentrating all that academic energy on looking for “subtle signs of sexism and racism,” why don’t you work on tripling the number of Section 8 vouchers and raising the amount that they pay? I’ll make you a deal, fight for funding to get all these homeless folks off the streets, then, after you get us all health care and real social services and cure the homeless problem, then, if you need to, I suppose you can set up foundations for monitoring the jokes of others to make sure there are no hurt feelings.