There's Cheap Land In Newfoundland Where Nobody Can Screw With Us
More and more often these days I find myself asking just what the flying hell is wrong with this country? There seems to be a new timidity, a new spinelessness that cuts across ideological lines and geographic regions.
No, I'm not talking about the dumbass Red/Blue thing.
I'm not talking about The Queering of America (or, if you will, the pussification of the American Male), nor the duToitification of the American Conservative.
I'm not talking about abortion, spending habits, class rage, or antiwar agitation.
I'm talking about this new puritianism that's all the rage these days, except it's puritanism with the fun parts removed. The actual Puritans, once you got past their Calvinist, Manichean Great Chain of Being City On a Hill bullplop, liked to drink and screw as much as the rest of us, as long as everyone was up for church in the A.M. and none of the Commandments got broken.
No, now you can't drink. You can't screw. You can't screw. You can't screw. You can't show a boobie on TV, unless the boobies in question are paid for by beer companies or football teams. It was a nice boobie. You can't say stupid shit on the radio without the government fining your ass from here to Tuesday. Chilling effects? You bet! A California college investigated a student for murder, and expelled him, for writing a crudely violent fiction piece in a creative writing class. The professor was eventually fired for teaching the David Foster Wallace story "Girl With Curious Hair." Ohio has mandated that "intelligent design" be taught in science class. Tommy Chong is in prison for selling bongs (and still terrorists run free!)
So sex drugs and violence are on the outs, especially the sex part. But what's the proximate cause of my dismay? The Attorney General-- and it is John Ashcroft behind it this time, really, for real, seriously-- has declared a fatwa against paw-naw-gra-phy, that insidious disease which "invades our homes persistently though the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV and the Internet," and has "strewn its victims from coast to coast."
Right. A Playboy Home Invasion, just forcing itself on you. Now, I don't know about John Ashcroft, but I had to pay for every lapdance I ever got.
Everyone is talking about this today, from blogmother Kathy to instahack. Instapundit, in fact, points to an extended and loving takedown of the entire anti-sex trend at classicalvalues.com which you should read if you think I'm being paranoid. His plea: "But I thought we were at war -- with the enemies of sexual freedom who declared war on us. While I know that we're not there yet, I hate to see the United States moving in the direction of developing its own anti-sex mutawein like the damned Saudis."
Exactly. I cannot-- CANNOT-- vote for Bush if he's going to let this stuff happen on his watch. Terrorism is a threat from outside. This is a threat from within. Both threaten my way of life. What to do?
[wik] An addendum to my esteemed colleague Buckethead, who is juuuust about to comment: yes, dear, the terrorists will kill me if they get the chance and the moralists won't. But life has to be worth living!!
[alsø wik] I know I post this same phrase every couple weeks, but it's like a tic now so here we go again...... "So Glad They Took Care Of The Important Stuff Like Terrorism First!"
[alsø alsø wik] Jeff Jarvis has a long collection of reactions and analysis. Many points for the title "The Daily Stern: This slope slippery with KY."
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Newfoundland is in Canada.
Newfoundland is in Canada. While you can get all the porn you want, and screw baboons if you like, they have their own restrictions on speech, in many ways more restrictive than we have here.
The only answer is to leave the planet altogether, and make a new home on Mars, or in the asteroid belt, where they really can't mess with us. Lets get all the cool people, and if everyone chips in a c-note, we can afford to build our own rockets. We'll just give a contract to Elon Musk of Space-X, or Burt Rutan, and say, here's a billion dollars, get us the heck out of here.
Then we can set up a new polity, and rewrite the bill of rights, adding the phrase, "And we mean it this time" to the end of every amendment. (And add it twice after amendments nine and ten.)
B-- the Canadians may have
B-- the Canadians may have restrictions on speech, but the Newfie backcountry is as wild-ass as Idaho, and less peopled with fundamentalists I won't get along with. I still say that's our best bet.