The Rule of the Exception

I am sad to report that I regard the impending future of our society, our country, with very grave pessimism. Many years ago, when my daughters were little girls, I remember telling them once, “Girls, if you ever find yourselves thinking the world is run by idiots who have no idea what they’re doing, I just want to tell you that you’re right. That’s a correct perception!” At that time I didn’t know how dismal it would become. Government ineptitude had not risen nearly so high. It didn’t yet seem that the Imp of the Perverse ran the place. He does now. Political Correctness did not yet strangle discourse and decisions as it does now. One heard only of the “Loony Leftists” making a farce of the United Kingdom. But surely “it can’t happen here,” can it? It has. One cannot express dissenting opinions without vituperative zealots spewing abusive invective. Society has become rude and uncivil to an astonishing degree. At least it has among intellectuals and the self-congratulatory cognoscenti.

One of the axiomatic stupidities that rule public policy in our day is that the exception must become the rule. The minority must have things their way, and if they do not, it is tantamount to discrimination and oppression. Is it not so? Let’s take inventory.

One dare not sing Christmas carols in school since the kids belonging (involuntarily) to other religions might feel left out. Why not sing “Dredel, Dredel,” too, and explain Hanukah to the class? Are you afraid that would “offend” the Nazi kids? In the UK, they omit teaching about the Holocaust because it offends the Muslim kids whose anti-Semitic parents tell them it never happened. (Ever notice how the only people who deny the Holocaust are those who would love to see another one?)

It is unfortunate when the crippled and handicapped (or I guess you can’t call ‘em that?) cannot gain access to everything in public places. So business owners have to remodel and rebuild (or close up shop if they can’t afford it) as if everybody were handicapped.

Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate birthdays (believe it or not, because John the Baptist got beheaded at Herod Antipas’ birthday party). So nobody can have birthday parties in school any more.

I love peanut butter. My battle cry is “Give me peanut butter or give me death!” How tragic that some kids are allergic to the stuff. So they remove it from school cafeterias altogether? If they can’t have it, nobody can!

One terrorist smuggled explosives aboard an airplane in his sneakers, so now we all have to remove our stinking shoes. Another tried to ignite a bomb in his briefs; I’m surprised we don’t have to take our friggin’ underpants off as we stand in the security line! Some nut tried to bring liquid explosives on board, so we can’t bring shampoo. We make commercial flying an obstacle course on the off chance some villain might blow up a plane. (How about banning all flight since it is always possible a plane might get hit by lightning?) Of course, we could obviate that need to have all travelers run the TSA gauntlet if we profiled people who fit the terrorist stereotype, but, oh no! That would be racism!

But the fear of profiling is itself racist. It assumes that, if you admit terrorists are usually Arabs, then you must regard all Arabs as terrorists! What? Huh? What’s the logic here? They seem to think that if you admit a tiny minority of Arabs are terrorists, you will have to, like the PC police, make this exception into the rule and accuse all Arabs of being terrorists! See, it’s just like I told my daughters: utter stupidity among those who rule us.

Let’s ban firearms since criminals use them. That’s the exception becoming the rule, too. Somebody please explain to me what’s wrong with the slogan, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” They’re discovering the truth of that in the UK and Australia these days, the hard way. I bet you’ve heard the joke about the guy on his knees looking for his keys in the light of a street lamp. A friend comes up to him to help him search. “So this is where you dropped them?” The guy replies, “No, it was over there.” “Then why aren’t you looking there?” “No light there.” That’s the “thinking” of gun confiscation fans. No law they make will affect criminals, so (to look like they’re doing something) they pass laws to affect law-abiding citizens, preventing them from committing crimes they wouldn’t commit anyway, while leaving the felons only mildly inconvenienced.

Remember that little bastard who gunned down people at a theatre screening a Batman movie? Predictably, the mavens of moralism urged that Hollywood reduce violence in movies and that government ban violent videogames. Yes, it looks as if some (already insane) movie goers and gamers were inspired to commit mayhem by their favorite entertainments. But does it make sense to treat the exception as the rule? Why punish the innocent for what the guilty did? That’s what you’re doing.

The tender feelings of griping atheists (“Westboro atheists”) must not be wounded by the public display of religion. Of course they claim they are merely safeguarding the separation of church and state, but I don’t buy it. It’s not like battling against the teaching of Creationist pseudo-science in public school classrooms. It’s just a scorched earth policy, like the Red Guards in Maoist China. I am an atheist, but I cannot see this crusade as other than one more variety of the “indignation industry” (George Will). (I bet some of you are thinking I’m a fascist just for quoting him. See what I mean?). A few of my buddies would like to have a country free of religion, so everybody else has to accommodate them.

Religionists are veterans at this game. Personally, I loved incense in church, but my Episcopalian church would not use it for fear that, hypothetically, somebody might have asthma. If they did, wouldn’t you think they’d find another church? I used to shake my head in frustration when my Baptist deacons nixed innovative ad strategies on the off chance somebody out there who was already not coming to our church, might get their nose out of joint and not darken our door. Let’s let the tail wag the dog. Even if there only might be a tail.

I guess none of that should come as a surprise, since the Bible advocates the same silliness. In 1 Corinthians we read that those with a more enlightened view ought nonetheless to self-impose the legalistic strictures of the neurotic “weaker brethren” lest they be offended.

Not that I would miss beauty contests, but eventually there will be none, since the very nature of the event presupposes that some are beautiful and others are not. (And this “discrimination” happily co-exists with a crusade to shame fat folks like me.) There will be no prom dances so the wallflowers will not have to feel neglected. The celebration of Christmas will be discouraged (though not actually outlawed—I’m not that paranoid. Not yet anyway) because some people feel depressed around the holidays. Just wait. It must happen.

We are headed for the lowest common denominator, exactly the enforced mediocracy depicted in the movie Harrison Bergeron. Excellence makes the mediocre feel bad. Well, maybe they should try being more than mediocre. Maybe instead of whining that no one should (accidentally) “offend” them, the whiners should grow up and let it slide off their backs. Maybe the “Occupy” parasites (including the Occupier-in-Chief) should realize that the way to end inequality is to make more people prosperous, not to make everybody poor, which is where crypto-Socialism is taking us.

Nietzsche’s Mad Prophet came announcing his message “too soon!” The light hadn’t yet spanned the galaxy from the exploding star. But now it has. Now the slave army rules, imposing their cringing cowardice on everyone else. They may not have begun as cowards, but they allowed themselves to be intimidated, “guilted,” by the contemptible whiners. And now we must all cater to them. Such is the pathetic survivor guilt of liberalism. And now we are all whimpering slaves—even proud of it.

So says Zarathustra.