New Duties, New Discords

     Recently I’ve contemplated “doing a Second Timothy:” i.e., writing a graceful “farewell” to active blogging and continuing on solely as the Administrator of Liberty’s Torch. It’s not the first time, of course. But on every previous occasion Gentle Readers have written to cry Don’t you dare! And of course, I’ve given in.

     Duties are like that. The holder of a duty is the person most likely to want to slough it. Those who benefit from his performance of that duty are the persons most likely to flog him back to it. It’s in the nature of things.

     But a duty must be freely chosen. Absent coercion, it can’t be imposed upon you against your will. Attempts by Smith to force Jones to accept some duty nearly always work out badly for both of them.

     Which brings me to the subject of today’s tirade.

     (Yeah, yeah, I know: “What an incredible surprise.”)

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     The morning’s Web sweep brought me two articles of singular impact. First, there’s this one at Ace of Spades:

     If the very PC SNL is too offensive for you, then you should probably just lock yourself in a quiet basement and let yourself wither to death.

     Patel allegedly made numerous "offensive” jokes, including about how being a gay black man isn't a choice since "no one looks in the mirror and thinks, ‘this black thing is too easy, let me just add another thing to it.'"

     Note that this is a very PC joke -- this is basically applauding gay black men for their courage. And also, stating that people are born gay -- which is a major agenda point of the gay movement.

     But this was too much for the Sensitive Suzies of Barnard College. The praise for blacks and gays wasn't overt enough.

     The crowd of roughly 100 students didn’t seem fazed. Three students reported to PJ Media by phone that there was no booing or shouting, but mostly silence as Patel's racially and ethnically themed jokes fell on politically correct ears.

     Halfway through his skit, organizers jumped on stage, stole the mic, denounced Patel’s jokes, and asked him to wrap up his set. Patel pushed back, and said he was exposing students to ideas that could be found "in the real world."

     Why did the organizers react that way? Why was the audience silent? Granted that Patel wasn’t “going over,” but that wasn’t a reason to silence him, was it?

     Or was it?

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     I have a theory. (Yet another surprise.) We already know how easily persons on the Left take offense even at the inoffensive. But that’s no mystery: their organizers and gauleiters have been indoctrinating them about their duty to take offense, wherever and whenever something that even hints at a non-politically-correct sentiment should raise its head. Inasmuch as toeing the party line is necessary if they’re to retain their membership in the Left’s “compact and unified church” (Eric Hoffer), they react as they’ve been ordered...when they can tell that the occasion is upon them. In the case above, the audience plainly could not tell whether their Code of Political Hypersensitivity had been violated. Perhaps they were in the process of trying to work it out.

     The organizers, however, were on a hair trigger. They were Level Two in the Left’s hierarchy – i.e., shepherds tasked with guiding the Left’s flocks – whereas the students in the audience were probably all Level Three (sheep). If the sheep don’t move of their own accord, the shepherds must stand ready to move them.

     The duty to take offense must be faithfully and uniformly discharged. Can’t have anyone laughing at an ordinary joke. The church’s knights must be forever grim.

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     Second in today’s stimulating discoveries is this one, from Twitter:

     Before this I knew very little about Chuck Woolery; mostly just that he’s a television personality. According to InfoGalactic he’s also a Christian minister and a Republican Party supporter. But those things in combination are enough to make him a target of the Left. The Left simply cannot abide that we in the Right should have any media representation or outlets. They’ve already targeted a sufficient number of Right-inclined media figures to make their goal plain.

     Woolery’s tweet cited above suggests that the unnamed producer had taken it upon herself to manufacture an incident that might suffice to silence him. I’d be astounded were she to be politically other than Left. For someone in a position such as hers who would have the opportunity to do so would feel the duty to take offense. But that would require an incident. So she manufactured one.

     The end of this tale has not yet arrived. I hope Woolery’s precis is accurate. If it is, I hope the unnamed producer is fired from her position and blacklisted from the television industry. For we in the Right have a duty, a classical one that free men must bear with perseverance: the duty to punish injustice. It must be done swiftly, and without any cringing or forelock-tugging.

     Yes, there will be howls about it from the Left. There will be accusations, and counter-accusations, and miscellaneous maneuverings in the media, possibly even in the courts. None of that matters a dented copper groat.

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     The discords of our time are nearly all artificial. Political strategists have created them out of whole cloth. Activists have drummed them into the heads of the innocent and naive, and have told them that in taking offense they’re validating their membership among the Wise and Moral. By casting out those who fail in this duty, they reinforce their orthodoxy: the walls of the Church of the Left.

     It cannot go on much longer without an outbreak of mass violence. Recent events in Portland should testify to this. The longer the corrective reaction is delayed, the more severe the consequences will be.

     Think about it.