Istmatics DownUnder: A Report

     The Istmatics – i.e., those who attempt to enforce political correctness by calling those who dare to tread outside its bounds “racists,” “sexists,” “ableists,” “homophobes,” “Islamophobes,” and so forth – at times seem to be everywhere. It’s not just an affliction of the Land of the Formerly Free. Our Southern Hemisphere cousins are equally afflicted:

     It's a dangerous world in which to speak your mind.

     To quote from June's Economist: "From the mosques of Cairo to the classrooms of Yale, all sorts of people and groups are claiming a right not to be offended ... A right not to be offended implies a power to police other people's speech."

     I have often commented on our overly sensitive and easily affronted society especially, it seems, if the offending speaker is an older white male, yes, like me. But not exclusively. Ask Germaine Greer or Chrissie Hynde.

     In the past unreconstructed dinosaurs could often be relied to make prats of themselves over gender and race issues but now everyone is on notice. The boundaries are shifting daily it appears, and being educated, smart and hip doesn't make you less of a target.

     Read the whole thing. I know nothing about commerce or academe in Australia and New Zealand, but from the examples columnist Martin Van Beynen presents, we “unreconstructed dinosaurs” are in as much difficulty there as anywhere in the United States.

     The entire tempest is about the Left’s assertion of a privilege to police all speech and other forms of expression. They strive to eliminate “crimethink” by social ostracism, commercial boycott, and occupational consequences. However, Van Beynen’s assertion that this makes it a “dangerous world” for us “dinosaurs” actually misses the point:

The danger lies in conforming – in giving the Istmatics what they want.

     Every time anyone submits to the Istmatics’ “police power,” they become stronger. They can only be broken and put down by scoffing at them. That’s why whenever I’m accused of any of these various sins against political correctness, I own it – “Damned right I am!” – and cheerfully flip off the accuser. As Istmatics are cowards by nature and will never personally attack their targets, it’s the only approach that preserves some modicum of social peace.

     There are days I feel like strolling around wearing a sandwich board. On the front:

     And on the back:

     Yes, it would cause talk, but that’s the point!

Science project or PSYOP?

My YouTube take here.

It’s not a paranoid-American’s conspiracy theory when the Muslims tell each other “Here is our plan to conquer Western Civilization from within.” Muslim teenager Ahmed Mohammed's clock stunt, the propaganda-theater in Irving, Texas this week is just one more example of how Islamists use their holy-deception or taqiyya to intimidate the host-nation.

Rebel with a cause: #FreeSpeech and the flying of the #ConfederateFlag

It started with a cartoon on Wednesday, then a little bit of a video rant on Thursday. Since it's Friday, I'm sharing both here. Like I said in one of those places (or was it on Facebook?), I never cared to wear this particular flag before. Now that it's come down to a Free Speech & Free Expression issue? I just can't help myself.

Do you agree or disagree with my premise that the flag, "isn't about slavery; it's a sign of rebellion against 'Authori-TAH'?"

Constitutional Math

Oops! Sounds like it was a "Shooting & Cartooning" contest.

My husband and I had the "interesting" fortune of attending Pamela Geller's Mohammed Cartoon event in Garland, Texas, Sunday night, May 3rd, 2015. As you probably know, Bosch Fawstin was the double prize winner, making my entry a loser. (No worries, though, I'm already planning next year's entry and it's sure to be a winner.)

It was a very long night, with no physical injuries to either of us, just some stretching of our patience (towards its limits). Monday afternoon, after the long trip back to Garland, we retrieved our vehicle. Immediately we rushed back towards D/FW airport to get my husband off on a business trip he wasn't actually sure he could complete until finally stepping into the terminal in the nick of time.

Once I got back home - alone - it all hit me fairly hard, but in a way that quite surprised me. I was what I can only describe as despondent. I took a couple of days, during which I talked to my husband of course, but only briefly, after all he was "soldiering on" so I needed to as well.

But as my mood refused to budge I wondered, "Where online might I find people who've been in stressful situations, events that didn't go the way they'd planned...yet they'd made it through a little bit wiser for it?" And so I sought and recieved some timely advice from readers over at westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com.

I got my thoughts on the totality of Sunday's events together only after letting those readers' good advice sink in. I put it in a video for my YouTube channel which is as much confession as it may be advice for others. YouTube is where I keep up with many of the issues I'm interested in and so it's a natural place for me to share a lot of my "deeper thoughts" these days (sometimes attempting a tounge-in-cheek delivery style). I hope you'll let me know what you think of my thinking.

"Shylock"

ANTONIO : Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you?

SHYLOCK: Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help:
Go to, then; you come to me, and you say
“Shylock, we would have moneys:” you say so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold: moneys is your suit
What should I say to you? Should I not say
“Hath a dog money? is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?” Or
Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness,
Say this:
“Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn’d me such a day; another time
You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies
I’ll lend you thus much moneys”?

ANTONIO: I am as like to call thee so again,
To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.
If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
As to thy friends; for when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
But lend it rather to thine enemy,
Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face
Exact the penalty.

[William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice]

We see in the above a truly iconic pair of characters, each an archetype of his times: Antonio, a Christian noble much given to reviling Jews; and Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, sick of the abuse he and other Jews have received from Christians and determined that he should have either redress or revenge.

Most persons dimly aware of the play think of Shylock as an unmitigated villain. This, to put it gently, is not the case, as Shakespeare makes plain throughout the play (which few have ever read in its entirety):

SHYLOCK: There I have another bad match: a bankrupt,
a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the
Rialto; a beggar, that was used to come so smug upon
the mart; let him look to his bond: he was wont to call
me usurer; let him look to his bond: he was wont to
lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look
to his bond.

SALARINO: Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not
take his flesh: what’s that good for?

SHYLOCK: To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and
what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath
not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,
passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same
weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the
same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we
not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you
poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we
not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what
is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew,
what should his sufferance be by Christian example?
Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute,
and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

Have a gander at a brilliant execution of Shylock's soliloquy:

Shylock has clearly had enough from the arrogant nobles of his time and place, and has determined that if he must suffer loss from their cupidity and dissipation, he will have revenge. Perhaps after that, he might well reason, spendthrift Christian nobles will think twice about abusing a Jewish moneylender to whom they might later need to apply for aid when in financial distress.

I find Shylock a sympathetic character, much more so than bigoted Antonio or his spendthrift friend Bassanio. But a little historical perspective is required for a full explanation:

• Yes, the Jews of Europe were generally reviled and abused by the Christian majority, as usual for no good reason whatsoever.
• The great majority of occupations were barred to European Jews, as the guilds that controlled those occupations would not admit them.
• Goldsmithing, the trade that led directly to banking, was one of the few that was open to Jews, which is why so many Jewish families went into goldsmithing and later banking.
• Christian nobles of the period were notorious for:
  • Abusing and humiliating Jews;
  • Lending political support -- including force of arms -- to measures that kept Europe's Jews in subjection;
  • Forcing Jewish moneylenders to lend to them;
  • Defaulting on the loans;
  • Often refusing, even when they were able, to repay what they had borrowed.

Wherefore, then, should "Shylock" be considered an anti-Semitic slander? When it's used to refer to supposedly unscrupulous bankers without any mention of race, creed, or origin? Simply because Shylock, enraged by yet another failure to repay funds he had loaned to a Christian, had decided at long last to exact a penalty for it, hopefully not only for his satisfaction but to the improvement of Christian attitudes toward his badly oppressed people?

---

Conservatives have long decried "political correctness" and the victimist mentality. In particular, we've condemned the treatment of ordinary words and phrases as racist, sexist, or otherwise bigotry-indicative "code words," when they're used by conservatives. But sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. He who is impaled on a politically-correct lance is the true victim regardless of his political affiliation. A liberal in such straits deserves to be defended quite as much as any conservative.

Consider how many commentators have taken acerbic note of the way liberals refuse to criticize one another for the very things they pile on conservatives' heads, most especially verbal "misdeeds." Consider how often we have called for even-handedness in this realm and many others. Why should we be granted what we will not grant to others?

If conservatives turn censorious toward a Joe Biden merely because he's not a conservative, we are committing the very sin for which we so frequently castigate the Left: elevating partisanry over justice.

Some wag whose name escapes me at the moment observed that you cannot claim to be a defender of rights if you're not willing to defend the rights of sons of bitches. How, then, stand we?

Enough censorious horseshit, brethren of the Right. Look to your own souls instead. Few among us can claim our souls need no attention.

I have spoken.

“Oh Hell,” or Your 1st Amendment right to Tweet

Even though Justice is no longer blind and taxes are more confiscatory than ever, for the most part we still live in interesting times. Until you try and find an agent to get your book published.

If this agent stalking goes on for a long, long while (or a few short months if you’re the impatient type) and you decide to go the Independent way and self-publish, you will quickly rediscover that increasingly rare sensation, Freedom. That fundamental freedom we (still) have to wield a free press. Think of it. You picked the celebrity you just Tweeted about. Similarly you can choose the Cause to célèbre; the dragon to slay; or simply the rat (or the dozen) you’ll toy with next.

And then you’ll “just” do it. Because Francis Porretto makes exercising your 1st Amendment rights look oh-so-easy, doesn’t he? Well…hats off to him. Maybe even shoes and socks, too.

After a winter and spring of unsuccessful agent-hunting, smarty pants that I am, I thought, I can do that self-pubbing thing. And so this past summer I did. In a small way. Successfully “premium-listed” several short stories on the indie-publishing site (find them here) that I first learned about three years back, on Mr. Porretto’s EternityRoad.

I got this, I thought, after those first-timer uploads went Premium. I assumed that preliminary story business would prepare me for putting my (first) novel up “sometime later.” Well, later came sooner (about three weeks ago) in the form of a swift motivational suggestion by my better half (see post here). I’m pretty wordy (if you can’t tell) so I found getting the (equally-wordy) “Oh Hell” manuscript through the approval process by Smashwords a (well-fed Yellowstone Grizzly-) bear.

And here I thought I was such an expert.

What I’m trying to say (and using three-hundred words in the process!) is: my first novel, “Oh Hell,” is available (Patrice's iTunes/Apple page; Barnes and Noble page; Amazon.com page; Smashwords.com page). It toys with several rats: male suicide, a divorce-ravaged family, legislated Inequality, and restless Spirits, for starters. In an irreverent way.

If you’ve ever thought, I can do that, too, join me (and 189,000+ others) in creating your own unique and thought-provoking story. Fly by the seat of your pants with fellow freedom-of-the-press fighters by participating in National Novel Writing Month (visit NaNoWriMo). There’s tons of inspiration, camaraderie, and plain ol’ fun to be had. If nothing more stop by and get a unique peek into “the writer’s mind.” 

Thanks Mr. Porretto, for lighting the way (for me).

Because I lack the grace to accept with serenity...

...all the downright dangerous shenanigans

going on in the world, I create.

"Deliver us from Evil, one Beasturd at a time. Amen."

I must thank Mr. Porretto for the opportunity to share my work with you, his trusting readers (fingers crossed that a few of you will thank him, too). I passionately favor Jeffersonian Liberty; passionately oppose Hypocrites of all colors, flavors, and shapes, regardless their field of expertise or station in life. If, through my work, I can show them-and-their-kind the Fool and/or dangerous, I will have succeeded. I know I'm not the best creative I can be, so I honestly ask for your help in getting closer to that goal. Tell me if my characters aren't likeable/believable or are just plain MEH; ditto for their quandaries or solutions to their problems. Additionally, let me know if I use too many: obvious anagrams, commas, far out foreign words, or am just too wordy, generally. (I probably won't ever give up: hyphenated-words-and-phrases, ellipses...or parentheticals. You can try.)

I write fiction for several reasons, not the least of which is to shut-the-voices-up :-). (Of course that only encourages the ones previously in the wings to step to center stage, so off we go again.) Many ideas come out of pure frustration noted above, which is primarily "political" - and fiction therefore serves as a way to vent, constructively.

I'm pretty quick to assess news and other information, so unfortunately can come across as purely "opinionated." But believe me, in the face of compelling feedback in the case of my creative work, or new facts about some real-world issue? I'll readily accept my mere-humanity (maybe get a little embarrassed) and change my method or my mind, depending.

You'll find my work quite different from the other Liberty-Literature out there. My theory is that I choose  "magical realism" or "paranormal elements" because I'm a bit too timid for the times, and therefore for my own good! By weaving in such otherworldly- or fantastic- abilities, my good-guys and gals can often avoid the whole getting down & dirty & bloody & gutsy. They avoid (as do I, as their "cinematographer") all the throat-cutting, all the exploding skulls, and all those beyond messy crime-scene cleanups and explanations. (Just so you know, I'm not opposed to such doings. For instance I take pride in being in the first wave of Rob Olive/"Essential Liberty" fandom; find my Amazon review here.)

The following is my first offering at the Torch. It was written in April and first posted on my writing blog.

"Three if by fire"

Part 1 of 5 - "Don't change horses..."

Yoshi Pratt bolted out of the nightmare and straight up in bed. The 26-year-old D.C. native’s hand flew to his heart. He pressed mightily, as if the wildly beating thing would break free at the next beat…or the next.

It didn’t. He threw off the now cold clammy sheet and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He couldn’t stay up. Still too many hours before the alarm would screech.

From the bathroom, by shear contrast in the dark, the mussed up bed’s expanse of pale colored cotton-innards glowed. He grabbed the top sheet; it was far from dry. He flipped on the overhead fan. His dream, like the fan on low, was still going around and around his mind lazily. Though Yoshi didn’t think much about politics normally, the pulse-pounding final scenes had been nothing but.

When it came to Washington machinations and his so-called civic-duties, he’d describe himself as frozen in time. 26-going-on-18.

After college he’d tried living at the ground zero of American politics. Had dreams of working at its newspaper, The Post. That dream died, however, with multiple rejections; quickly followed by a bailing roommate, then a near-zero bank balance. He preferred renting a stranger’s basement than bunk for “free” with parent-babysitters in his boyhood room. Now he lived just over the river and through a wooded part of Virginia.

Though he’d finally been hired by a suburban newspaper, the 18-year-old in him was still angry at The Post’s rebuff. To “punish” their stupidity he purposefully donned a political cone-of-silence. Lifted it for one thing only: the Presidential Elections. He went back under the cone after the inaugural parade. This time the election “cycle” seemed to last years.

“To torture us longer,” Yoshi’d joked.