On October 18, 1775, African-American poet Phillis Wheatley was freed from slavery, upon the death of her master. Widely appreciated in her day, she was the first African-American to publish a book.
It was in bad taste.
The “meme” — an altered video — depicted extreme, murderous violence. But it was not “weaponized” as incitement to real violence; it was, instead, “memeticized” contempt against the meme’s “victims,” the full panoply of media outlets along with a few iconic politicians.
The video was very popular over the weekend on social media. It took the church massacre scene from the first Kingsman movie, but with President Trump’s head placed over Colin Firth’s visage, crudely in “meme” fashion, and a few other heads put over other actors’, and the logos of major news outlets superimposed over most of the movie’s victims’ heads.
Cartoonish, yes, but done with élan.
Brooke Baldwin, however, is a paid agent of billionaire president of CNN, Jeff Zucker, and she has her marching orders, as revealed this week by a Project Veritas scoop. So she lit into the president in high moral dudgeon: “Mr. President, why is it taking you so long to condemn this video? You tweet all the time. I don’t want to hear from your press secretary . . . who says you strongly condemn the video . . . I want to hear from YOU.”
What Ms. Baldwin and her boss don’t get is that a growing swath of the American populace does not want to hear from a news reporter scolding demands that the president “condemn” things he had nothing to do with.
Trump didn’t make the meme, after all, nor had it made for him.
Brooke Baldwin’s effrontery shows why someone might make a meme like the one in question.
Not because you deserve to be killed, Ms. Baldwin, but because you deserve derision.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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On October 17, 1933, Albert Einstein fled Nazi Germany for the United States.
If you say ‘fascist’ it means ‘Hitler,’ although Hitler was probably more influenced by Stalin than by Mussolini — and ‘Hitler’ means ‘Auschwitz.’ So as soon as you disagree with the prevailing leftist culture or with either of our political parties and they want to call you a name, then you become a ‘fascist,’ which means you support the extermination of millions of people in a concentration camp.
Paul Gottfried, on the Tom Woods Show, April 28, 2016, a discussion of Gottfried’s book, Fascism: The Career of a Concept (2016).
“The thing is, LeBron, we’ve come to expect more of you,” writes Dan Wolken in USA Today, taking the National Basketball Association star to task for his comments taking Houston Rockets executive Daryl Morey to task for having tweeted “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.”
Morey’s pro-protester statement had caused a backlash against the NBA from the totalitarian Chinese government, threatening the league’s — and LeBron’s — continued access to China’s large and lucrative market of basketball fans.
LeBron James told reporters that Morey was “misinformed, not really educated” about the Hong Kong situation, before adding, witlessly, “I have no idea but that’s just my belief.”
“Yes, we all do have freedom of speech,” acknowledged James, “but at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen, when you’re not thinking of others and you’re only thinking about yourself.”
Ramifications for whom? The people of Hong Kong yearning for freedom and democracy? Or was Mr. James . . . only thinking about himself?
Criticism came fast and furious. “@KingJames — you’re parroting communist propaganda. China is running torture camps and you know it,” tweeted Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse.
“Let me clear up the confusion,” responded the King of Basketball, if not public relations. “I do not believe there was any consideration for the consequences and ramifications of the tweet. I’m not discussing the substance.”
And then LeBron further clarified, “My team and this league just went through a difficult week. I think people need to understand what a tweet or statement can do to others. . . . Could have waited a week to send it.”
Hong Kong protesters are now burning LeBron’s No. 23 jersey.
Apparently, their freedom can’t wait a week.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Laissez faire, telle devrait être la devise de toute puissance publique, depuis que le monde est civilisé […]. Détestable principe que celui de ne vouloir grandir que par l’abaissement de nos voisins! Il n’y a que la méchanceté et la malignité du cœur de satisfaites dans ce principe, et l’intérêt y est opposé. Laissez faire, morbleu! Laissez faire!!
René Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marqis d’Argenson, Memoir es et Journal inidit du Marquis d’Argenson (1736 diary entry; first published 1858), echoing the words of M. Le Gendre, who, when asked, in 1681, by the eager mercantilist Controller-General of Finances Jean-Baptiste Colbert how the French state could be help promote commerce, Le Gendre replied simply: “Laissez-nous faire.” In a Journal économique article in 1751, d’Argenson put the Le Gendre anecdote into print first. “Laissez faire” became a rallying cry after that, and a major feature of liberalism until its transformation by its encounter with socialism. One often sees the phrase “laissez-faire capitalism” used to distinguish free markets from protectionism and dirigisme. René-Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d’ Argenson
Leave be, which should be the motto of all public power, since the world was civilized […]. A detestable principle is that of wanting to be enlarged by the lowering of our neighbors! There is only malice and malignity of heart in it, the principle being directly opposed to the general interest. Leave us alone, gadzooks! Leave us be!!
On October 16, 1781, George Washington captured Yorktown, Virginia, after the Siege of Yorktown.
October 16 is a traditional date to award Nobel Peace Prizes, good (Desmond Tutu, 1984), and bad (Henry Kissinger, 1973). Two Nobel laureates were born on October 16, as well: Austen Chamberlain, English statesman, saw daylight first in 1863; Eugene O’Neill, American playwright and Nobel Laureate for Literature, made his debut in 1888.
“While Lower Manhattan is desperately in need of affordable housing,” writes Yuh-Line Niou in an official statement of her re-election campaign for New York State Assembly, “we cannot pit the need for housing against the need for green space, especially when so many good alternatives are available. . . .”
Assemblywoman Niou (D-Lower Manhattan) is making the case against a housing project in her district. What she is really trying to do is save the Elizabeth Street Garden, a one-acre sculpture garden.
Uh, OK.
I have nothing against sculptures or gardens, but it seems like a strange sort of public space to exist in a high-demand real estate locale like Manhattan.
But you know what is stranger?
Ms. Niou also supports the notion that “housing is a right.”
Christian Britschgi, of Reason, notes her pickle, drawing our attention to the similar predicament of a socialist city councilwoman on the other side of the continent, in Seattle. “Now, one can reasonably argue that open space is a precious commodity in a city, one that needs to be balanced against the need for shelter,” Britschgi writes. “But it’s hard to argue that while also asserting that housing is also a right that needs to be guaranteed by the government.”
Niou insists that “both need to be protected and expanded,” and somehow thinks the “best way to achieve this is by engaging the community from the start so decisions are made with a full knowledge of community sentiment and impact.”
Not mentioned? Rent control.
It is almost as if pols have no idea that goals they promote might be exacerbated by existing policies they dare not criticize.
Or even bring up.
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Laissez faire et laissez passer!
Let do and let pass.
Jacques Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay popularized the phrase following either (a) an anecdote about a meeting between French Finance Minister Colbert and a group of businessmen, who protested to be “let do,” as related by René Louis de Voyer de Paulmy d’Argenson, or (b) economist François Quesnay, who translated “laissez faire” from the Chinese Taoist term “wu wei.”
On October 15, 1894, Alfred Dreyfus (1859 – 1935) was arrested for spying: The Dreyfus Affair began. And thus began a scandal that brought anti-Semitism into the cultural center.