Anti-establishment rocker apparently lost his sense of irony
Along with his…pick any comedic old man cliché you’d like. Mine would be the ability and inclination to hold in farts in the company of others because when I was young, flatulence was funny to me and now that I’m older, more mature, and a little bit wiser, it’s still funny to me.
So the man who denounced the Vietnam War with For What it’s Worth wants to take a job from a talented man because there’s no war to protest. The man who spoke on the evils of unchecked capitalism with Rockin’ in the Free World thinks a giant corporation should take said job away from him. The artist who contributed to condemning an overreaching government shutting down protests and protestors with Four Dead in Ohio thinks Rogan should just be a good little automaton and fall in line with the government’s narrative on COVID. So it’s more than a little jarring to see him policing the free speech of a man who has built a marvelous following exercising it. I hope he chokes on the irony. Not long, mind you. I don’t want him to die. I’m sure he’s got at least one or two more socially conscious ballads to churn out before he passes.
Never mind the fact the narrative and the CDC’s facts have changed enough times for some fringe folk artist to write a scathing song about them. Were I of the leftist persuasion, I’d advocate for him and some other aging and irrelevant artists to try and take jobs away from CDC and other government officials. I’m not, so I won’t. But I’m tempted. ‘Scuse me while I dust off my guitar and make a first and probably fruitless attempt at learning guitar.
And since when did being an activist entail trying to take jobs and livelihoods away from people you don’t like or disagree with? I thought activism was in response to injustice and the powerful running amok. Being anti-establishment is a more radical position but the reasonable among those guys know that they don’t always have to default to anti-establishment sentiments; just when the establishment starts taking away from the common man…like 2020, 2021, and (looking at the way things are shaping up) 2022. Makes me want to cuss up a storm before remembering I’m a man of dignity and composure (yes, who enjoys fart jokes).
How obnoxious can these people be, what kind of rationale process is going on in their twisted minds, and why do they currently hold the cultural megaphone? When did it become acceptable to do this, and what can we do about it? I’m a moral conservative and a classical political liberal. Like Jefferson, I don’t believe in the necessity of a law that doesn’t address harming my person or picking my pocket. This “Lemme take your job and everything else away from you” brand of activism falls neatly under the picking my pocket category. I’d love to see horrific practices of this social media age like doxing and harassing another’s employer to achieve a professional ousting criminalized.
Right now, one can sue if they’re doxed or egregiously and aggressively lied about on television. Nicholas Sandmann is set for life because he was unjustly slandered by some folks with deep pockets then sued those folks. But what if someone doesn’t have money to hand over? Shouldn’t they also feel the pinch of their horrible actions? If they use their public voice to take away the livelihood of someone else making an honest living—be they a public or private citizen—who is proven to have done nothing criminal themselves, why can there not be a criminal law against such heinous actions? The government spends their time reacting to new technologies and movements. I’d say our closing in on twenty years into the social media age is long enough for them to see that it’s a wonderful tool which—in the wrong hands—is being used to harm others.
And don’t give me “Joe Rogan is a millionaire. He’ll be fine. Were he dropped by Spotify, he’d be picked up by another media outlet”. All true statements and wildly out the path of the real point. Forgive me as I veer into cliché territory and repeat the axiomatic “It’s the principle of the thing”. If a public figure can set their sights on another public figure who draws their ire, what’s to stop it from happening to a private citizen? Oh wait. It does happen.
That’s just one example of many. Johnny Turns-a-Wrench-for-a-Living and Suzy Struggling-Nurse don’t have a golden parachute with fans, followers, influential friends, advertisers, connections, a solid network, etc. When they apply for the next job, they’re bound to hear “Hey aren’t you the guy who (insert obnoxious celebrity puffed up in the pride of their own crapulent virtue signaling) told me to hate on Twitter?” and promptly be denied employment. Men whose conscience has given them leave to run wild in the name of benevolence are a dangerous lot. So says C.S. Lewis; a man much more deft with words than I.
Also, don’t give me the “He’s spreading dangerous misinformation”. There are plenty of people doing so who continue to evade the guns of the activists. This smacks of ganging up on a frontrunner who has so big a following he makes others with journalism pedigree puke green with envy. It’s so very easy to hate on a frontrunner and the practice permeates just about every facet of our society. It’s why I’ll throw some jokes but always make sure not to begrudge someone for their honest, ethical, and legal success. Doing that makes you, by very strict definition, a hater.
And he’s spreading information from the mouths of licensed and published medical doctors. They have the right to say as they please as regards COVID-19, be it the mainstream narrative or no. I have the right to absorb or reject their information, just as much as the next man. The right to free speech includes the right to be misinformed, ignorant, or downright stupid making stupid choices. I’ll fight like a demon to maintain that right, along with the right of the next man to choose his own path, be it ever so wildly divergent from my own. Free men don’t ask for the permission to do so, but they will fight for it when Farmer Jones’ pigs come to deny it.
I don’t know when the prerequisite for free speech and self-determination became being a well-informed and educated man but I would vehemently argue that the solution to dumb free speech is more free speech, not the policing of it. I would argue the solution to unhealthy choices by a free populace is increased access to information, not compulsion to live healthier or tightening your grip on the message. And I have before. If one’s information is rejected by a foolish population, one can simply touch one’s forehead, shake one’s head, and take smug satisfaction in the fact that one is smarter than others. Pointing a gun, a law, or the courts at a stiff-necked but free people is simply asking for trouble.
In addition, don’t give me the “Misinformation kills people”. A free people with unlimited and unfettered access to information and opinions choosing their own path will at some point choose unwisely and suffer/die. I’d rather live in a country where people are free to be grossly obese, smoke a cigarette on the hour, every hour, drink like a sailor on shore leave who somehow mated with a fish (gross, I know), and continue to be free to die from seven or eight comorbidities of COVID than be compelled by the threat of force to be healthy, unthinking, unquestioning, (eventually) unfeeling wards of the state. A man’s body can be healthy but his mind askew because smiling enemies have beaten out of him that which was not theirs to take.
And what if the virus is spread by people not taking what the DNC advises? That’s what viruses do. They also mutate when presented with a challenge like vaccines and perpetual boosters but that’s none of my affair, being a Christian and thereby a science-denier by people who feel their way into new and inventive genders.
I can spread them without knowing I’m spreading them. I can have it without knowing I have it. When I do know that I have it, I can forewarn others and make adjustments, maybe take a few days off work. I’ll be damned before I let the government tell me I can’t make my wages and I should rely on them for any amount of time, be it long or short term. That’s not their role in my life. Their role is to punish the man who steals from me, harms my person, or bears false witness against me. I take responsibility for me and mine and will also live (or die) with the consequences.
Besides, if “misinformation kills people” is the metric by which we take someone’s freedom away, we might as well start charging with murder and locking up aforementioned CDC officials, who made definitive statements regarding COVID which were later countermanded by reality and rigorous statistical study.
It’s hard to get people to comply, yes, especially when the rules are inconsistently applied between the proletariat and the aristocracy, illogical, and vendetta-based. Difficulty with compliance is a holdover of the revolutionary spirit that makes me so happy to live in such a place. And yes, I like noncompliance from the left as well, so long as it’s a worthy and truthful cause and done peacefully. I’d take peaceful and discard the truthful prerequisite, even. It’s acceptable to believe and work in conjunction with a lie, so long as you’ve not disturbed the peace. Often the left’s instances of noncompliance can be not-so-much peaceful. In addition, it’s hard to get things done in this country, yes. Again, that’s a good thing. It’s a manifestation of the brilliant checks and balances on power so expertly woven into the fabric of our Constitution and other guiding documents. I’ll make a desperate stand on them any day of the week, were my sword shattered and my bullets exhausted.
So can we stop with this nonsense and let people live, die, and repeat? That’s what they’ve done for millennia, so what makes COVID so special? Ah, yes. Bad Racist Orange Man was in office at the time, spewing his stream of consciousness all over the news and Twitters. I get it now. I know, he’s a man that many consider a bad one. He’s gotten no love from me. But that’s where the checks and balances come in. People who equate him to Hitler are doing violence to words. Hitler seized and consolidated power, disarmed the public, lied to them, and then ran wild with his genocidal and world domination aspirations.
Trump was voted out of office and some of the people who followed a Viking shaman into the capitol building are facing legal consequences from a still-intact judicial branch of the government. Where exactly do Hitler comparisons hit their ________=_________ ratio? I’ve never spoken to a survivor of the Holocaust but I’d imagine they’d be offended hearing Trump called the next Hitler. Since getting offended on someone’s behalf, canceling the person with the reckless words on Twitter, and taking their job away is in vogue right now pardon me while I do some research and cancel some folks. White people are always an easy and welcome target.
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