I have to the conclusion that politicians and elitists think that ordinary Americans are imbeciles. I cannot think of any other explanation as to why every aspect of American culture is being censored in a politically correct manner. This sanitizing of American culture is nothing more than a pack of lies.
A great movie about advertising executives was “Crazy People,” starring Dudley Moore and Paul Reiser.
Moore’s character has a mental breakdown, tired of lying for a living. He exclaims to Reiser “Let’s stop lying. Let’s level with America!”
Reiser’s character responds, “We can’t level with America you crazy b@stard, we’re in advertising!”
So Moore’s guy develops honest ads on various products. The results are riotous.
“Don’t kid yourself. If you look like this, you’re fat.”
“Metamucil. It helps you go to the toilet. Use it or you’ll get cancer and die.”
“This movie will not scare you. It will f*ck you up for life.”
The ad campaign is a success, and sparks a wave of honesty across America. Yes the movie is fiction, but it does not have to be. I am tired of sanitizing. Sanitizing is just a fancy way of spreading lies.
Liberals do it by refusing to recognize that their leaders are mere mortals and not demi-gods.
FDR was a smoker. This does not diminish his influence during World War II. If I had to worry about the fate of the free world, I would have possibly smoked as well. Lloyd Bridges in “Airplane” mused, “I picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue.”
Yet now politically correct leftists want to show the famous photo of FDR brimming with conference in his fedora, but without his cigarette. This is ridiculous. We did not know back then the effects of smoking, and it was part of his character and style. A dashing man, which he was, always had a cigarette for the lady.
Contrary to liberal beliefs in 2008, Barack Obama is not a god. He is a mere mortal, no better than you or me. He is a smoker. Yet not a single picture of him with a cigarette has ever been taken.
Liberals will claim that this is because he does not want to set a bad example for children everywhere. This is nonsense. If he wanted to set a good example, he could quit. He would do it publicly in a prime time speech to get as much praise as possible, as his his style. Doing good things quietly without fanfare is beyond him. Yet either way, the reason the left ignores his smoking is because it reduces his godlike status. He is not allowed to have a flaw. If George W. Bush can quit drinking, yet Barack Obama cannot quit smoking, people could draw conclusions about discipline that would horrify the left.
I personally do not object to smoking, but if the left wants to harass smokers, President Obama should not get a free pass.
Republicans also do it. They made a big deal about reading the entire U.S. Constitution on the floor of the House yesterday. It was a noble gesture, and I agreed with it. Yet some parts of the Constitution that could be deemed offensive to some were left out.
Why? The Constitution does not have to be perfect. The Founding Fathers were brilliant, but they were mortals. They were flawed. Stoners today love to point out that the Founders were stoners. Times were different then.
The Constitution is our document. If something in their is bad, it can be repealed. Yet to not read aloud certain aspects of the document dealing with sensitive topics such as race relations and citizenship defeats the whole purpose of educating people.
This brings us to Huckleberry Finn.
(I have not read the book. I am intelligent, but not well-rounded. This is who I am, and I freely admit I should be more well-rounded. I know who I am, and am at peace with that. I do not read enough literature.)
Apparently new prints of the book are eliminating the n-word, the one that rhymes with “bigger.”
I hate the n-word. It is vile to me. I choose not to use it.
When Jamie Masada, owner of the Laugh Factory, banned use of the word in his club, I was fine with that. It is his private club.
(Full disclosure: I have performed at his club. While he is on the left, he created a night of conservative comedians in the interest of real diversity. It is smart business, and I applaud him for doing this.)
As a radio dj, I agonized over whether to play a song by a rock group called the Electric Angels. The song was called, “The color of hate.” It is an anti-bigotry song.
“Are you color blind? (N-word, redacted) ain’t a color, it’s a state of mind.”
Now I voluntarily decided to not use the word. That is my choice. Yet the station manager was fine with me playing the song because it clearly attacks racism. To bleep out the word would have confused people as to what was being bleeped out.
Perhaps the N-word is necessary in Huck Finn to teach people about how awful racism is. Yet to remove the word from the book is cheating the author who wrote it. That is erasing a part of history.
If something heaven forbid were to happen to me, I would not want to be sanitized. I would not want people at my funeral telling the world I was awful, but I am just a guy, flaws and all. I have done good things and bad things, and hopefully more good than bad.
People have to develop thicker skins and level with each other. This brings me back to politicians.
When Iraq was going badly in 2006, President George W. Bush had to do the toughest thing for any human to do. He had to admit that despite his noble intentions, his strategy was not working. He fired his Secretary of Defense and brought in a new general who got the job done. He leveled with himself and the American people.
(For those who want to rant and rave about lies and WMD, you’re liberal, you’re boring, and you’re still wrong. Let it go.)
Barack Obama will not level with the American people about his health care law. He hides behind the CBO, but they are just number crunchers. Mr. Obama is cooking the books and we all know it.
You cannot provide more things to more people at a lower cost. It is not doable.
He said you could keep your own doctor. Not true.
He said his plan would reduce costs. Not true. It explodes the debt.
He said he saved or created jobs. Not true. This cannot be measured.
He said that everything he said he would do in the campaign, he either did or tried to do.
Tried to do? When is attempting something worthy of praise? Either you succeed or fail. Either you get the job or don’t.
He should have told people that he wants to pass a health care plan that gets up closer to a European style social democracy. He believes that American capitalism is unethical, and that government can do a better job than the private sector of improving people’s lives.
That is honesty.
No more sanitizing lies. Our leaders need to treat the American public as adults. Our cultural institutions need to stop trying to erase the past.
Alex De Tocqueville never said that America is great because it is perfect. He said “America is great because America is good.”
We are not perfect, but we are very good. The true America needs to be passed on to generations, without whitewashing anything. The goal is not to present the best or worst history, but the right history.
FDR smoked. He also led us in World War II.
The Founding Fathers owned slaves. They also created a miracle document that is a beacon of light and hope to people all over the globe.
Future generations deserve the unvarnished truth.
Contrary to Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, we actually can handle the truth.
eric
I hadn’t heard anything about this FDR picture thing. Do you have a link?
Look, from the left and right there is always this element of sanitizers. Far more troubling than silly, stupid trifles like this, are the efforts of Southern state governments and school boards to sanitize the Civil War, or the paranoid, rambling, twisting of political history by the likes Glen Beck at el, or the sanitizing of religious history.
That stuff is important. The picture of FDR is just an example of silliness.
JMJ