Worse than Swinish

There are a couple of things to make clear at the beginning about David Hogg. First he is not a child. He is seventeen  - old enough to join the armed forces, old as many young men who fought at Normandy or on Guadalcanal.  Also he is not a victim. The victims are the people who were shot.  He is only a vulgar,  dramatizing opportunist seeking to exploit what happened to the actual victims for personal and political gain. As such he is a nearly  perfect manifestation of what has been going on on the left and in the traditional media since the shooting.  

On the one hand we are told he is a serious person whose ideas on politics should be taken seriously and considered thoroughly.  On the other we are told he is a poor, traumatized little kid who can't be expected to behave properly or argue rationally and whose profane and senseless rants, temper  tantrums, and hissy fits must be ignored or excused (and are often praised).  The leftists claim  that while he can call millions of innocent fellow Americans accessories to murder, slander anyone he likes, and display a vicious and almost mindless hatred, he must enjoy immunity from any criticism or ridicule. (This is an old trick of the leftists. It is similar to what some call the Hillary Clinton gambit in which a woman claims full equality of strength and competence with men and demands to be taken completely seriously but falls back on saying she’s just a girl and only meanies pick on girls whenever things get tough.)  All of this should be rejected.  His opinions are wrong. His thinking is nonsensical. His behavior and demeanor are reprehensible.  His ghoulish grandstanding is repulsive. He deserves all the criticism, ridicule, and lampooning he can  get.

Normally there would be no reason to write about such a  character.  However there is a reason in the present  situation.  I often disagree with Laura Ingraham, but  the way she was treated over  a mild jibe at this little jerk is inexcusable. There are people in this country who have no bosses or sponsors and are immune from livelihood-threatening reprisals.  I am one of them. We have a responsibility to speak up in situations where more vulnerable people may think they cannot.  Besides the little twit and those working with him are costing me money. I wasn’t planning to send the NRA’s political fund anything this spring, but now I will have to.

Intimidation

While looking at a news site this morning,  I noticed that a movie star is being castigated on social media as an “ableist” for her kind tweet wishing Stephen Hawking to rest in peace and saying he is now free of physical constraints.  This  is unimportant in itself.  Anyone taking offense from her comment or not recognizing that being crippled is indeed constraining likely suffers from another sort of disability – being a fool. The movie star will either properly  ignore or laugh off the criticism or cave in and tweet some sort of craven apology. However it and the fact that it made national news are a fine illustration of something that is worth noticing.  Lacking the political power they had when Obama was in office, leftists are working, often successfully,  at getting their way and enforcing their orthodoxy  through intimidation.

Intimidation can be a powerful tool that can be used to gain obedience from people over whom the intimidators have no actual power.  It works well on people who are unsure of themselves or guilt ridden and works especially well on moral cowards. On a good deal of evidence this last group apparently  includes a large percentage of executives in big corporations.

A  recent example is the rush by companies to end relationships with the NRA after a deranged criminal shot several students at a school in Florida.  The NRA stands for exactly the same principles and policies after the shooting as it had for years before it. The fact that criminals sometimes use guns to shoot several people at once was well known.  The millions of  members of the NRA are as desirable a target for marketing as they were earlier.  Yet the executives of many companies  joined the stampede, not because of anything of substance but seemingly only because they were scared – scared by a log rolling blitz in the traditional media and a few tweets and emails, many probably fake. This behavior is not unusual.

There are a couple of things people who care about the country can do.  They can speak their minds fearlessly,  refuse to accept undeserved guilt, and either ignore would  be enforcers of the canons of political correctness or tell them to go to hell, depending on situation.  They can also take advantage of the cowardice of  executives by putting the same sort of pressure on them through social media and other means that the leftists are doing. (I cancelled a credit card with First National of Omaha over their behavior on the NRA and told them why in writing.) That does not come naturally to those who are used to minding their own business and letting others mind theirs, but the leftists picked this fight and its rules.