Power Line's John Hinderaker offered up for Christmas three items of evidence showing that "we are living in a world gone mad." He opens with the controversy surrounding the Duck Dynasty star's views on homosexuality:
The biggest news story of the last week was about Phil Robertson, a TV reality star who gave an interview to GQ. The interviewer eagerly solicited Robertson’s views on homosexuality, which turned out to be middle of the road. Robertson said that 1) the Bible disapproves of homosexual conduct, along with lots of other sins, and 2) he personally thinks women have a lot more to offer than gay men.
I'm not sure this captures the flavor of Robertson's remarks. It leaves out, for instance, the notion that homosexuality is a kind of gateway sin leading to bestiality. That's "middle of the road"? But it's Christmas. Let us follow the lead of Virginia Cannon and wish--pray, if so inclined--that Robertson, who preaches in his church, will undergo a change of heart like many others, including the formerly right-wing clergyman who was recently defrocked by the Methodist church for officiating at his son's same-sex wedding. If I were a right-wing blogger--there's a hypothetical!--I'd stop flogging this horse. It's not hard to see which side is winning, and why.
He continues with exhibit 2:
A similarly crazy episode occurred a week or so earlier, when Fox News’s Megyn Kelly, probably the smartest reporter on cable news, made the offhand observation that Santa Claus and Jesus are both white. Here, too, faux outrage was the order of the day. Numerous commentators weighed in on behalf of black Santas, and some seriously tried to claim that Jesus wasn’t white.
This is crazy because, in part, "the real St. Nicholas was a Greek who came from what is now Turkey" and, anyway, "I have never heard of anyone objecting to black, Latin, Asian, or Native American Santas."
Except, I guess, the smartest reporter on cable news.
Exhibit 3 concerns Justine Sacco, the native South African who lost her job with a PR firm after tweeting: "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!" The case of Ms Sacco, who without evidence is described by Hinderaker as "a cookie-cutter liberal," is final proof of the world's madness. Naturally, it follows that all patriots should be packing:
Here’s the thing: saying what you think isn’t that hard. We do it all the time. Lefties can call you a “racist,” try to get you fired, or threaten you with violence. But are we men, or are we Pajama Boys? Here on the right, we are still men. (That includes our women, of course, most emphatically.) In reality, the leftists are almost always impotent to carry out their threats. And, if it comes to that, I am generally carrying; you should be, too. The Second Amendment defends the First. So screw them: we have a right to free speech, as long as we claim it, and use it.
Merry Christmas.
The bluster and manly swagger: does it not seem a little outsized for the "madness" that is described? Possibly madmen are particularly susceptible to thinking the world has gone mad.