Things that Make Me Want to Tell People to Shut the Hell Up

I plan to write about certain of the following excretions from the decomposing body politic in detail at some point in the future. But I'm beginning to feel like total shit physically again, so who knows when that will be. (Hey! If you want to be a real pal, you could make a donation to Artie's Fund to Go to the Doctor Once in a Blue Moon and Maybe Before the Heart Attack that Will Kill Him Happens. Or not. My deep thanks to the 10 or 12 readers who make regular donations. You are, truly and genuinely, saints, and I am profoundly grateful for your spectacular generosity. As for the rest of my vast readership -- ha ha ha HA! [that's laughter about the "vast," which, you know, it isn't] -- oh, well. And, nope, I can't cover next month's rent. But given how I feel at the moment, I mean, I can barely stand up, or even sit up half the time, without feeling that I'm about to keel over, I have the strong sense that whether I can pay next month's rent may not matter a damn. Well, we knew this day would come, right? I certainly have, for quite a while. No, acceptance isn't worth shit, if you were wondering.)

So just to take our bearings very briefly -- sort of to, ya know, have a handy-dandy map of contemporary moronity in our itsy-bitsy widdle heads -- let's consider the first item on my list:

"Libertarians" who "justify" their support for what are indisputably racist immigration laws by pointing to public opinion polls. I absolutely love this one. Consider: "libertarians" say they're individualists, in favor of individual rights above all. So to "justify" irrational, blatantly discriminatory policies, they cite polls which indicate that majorities of groups of morons agree with them. It's the libertarian thing to do! The height of individualism!

Recall that in 1968, a year after the Supreme Court decision striking down anti-miscegenation laws, a decisive majority of Americans (roughly 72%) remained opposed to marriages between blacks and whites. Shoulda left those laws in place! If we'd been real individualists, we would have!

And that brings us to the other aspect of this especially moronic approach. "Aw, how can it be racist? We just wanna enforce the law!"

For some words on that subject, start with another rude post. There are lotsa links there to take you to other essays about "the law." (Try this one, or this one.) "The law" means absolutely nothing in terms of what's just or, as in this case, even remotely defensible. To reframe an old saying for this issue (and many others): appeals to "the law" are the last refuge of scoundrels, racists and worse. And may we please always keep in mind that in contemporary America, no person who is a racist and/or who advocates racist policies, and who wishes to be taken "seriously" or achieve any degree of "respectability," is going to admit that's what he is or what he's doing? There. That didn't hurt too much, did it?

When immigration was a hot topic a few years ago, I wrote several essays about it. Here are some links, with some excerpts. The full essays have much, much more on the subject.

From three years ago, in "The Triumph of Racism":

[T]he record is disgustingly clear on the question of the single major factor that led to the death of this bill: the most repellent and primitive kind of racism. Ann Coulter is a singular blight on our cultural landscape, but she does possess one useful characteristic: she will often rip aside the false mask of more "acceptable" arguments concerning a particular controversy and allow us to see the remarkably ugly truth that seethes beneath. [I include Coulter's sickeningly racist statements, all of which are accompanied by her indignant protestations that she is not a racist. As events today demonstrate again, Coulter is very far from alone in these efforts. And just keep reading. Gotta love this fucking country.]

...

Here is the fuller truth that most Americans don't want to acknowledge, including and often especially "well-intentioned" liberals. This kind of vicious racism is usually kept more skillfully under wraps, especially in the last couple of decades when those in public life have learned to become increasingly clever at deploying hatefully wrong ideas covered with effective camouflage. But Hillary Clinton expressed much the same idea, in a comment at the last presidential debate that went almost entirely unnoticed. (Ruth Conniff noticed it, but she's one of the very few who did.) As I note in that post about Clinton, John Kerry offers a similar perspective, as does virtually everyone in our governing class.

As I've discussed in a number of essays, racism has been a foundational element of the United States since its earliest beginnings, long before an independent nation was even formed.

...

Despite all this, the myth of an inclusive America, one that opens its arms to all, continues. During the past week, I heard and read any number of comments that insist we affirmatively welcome immigrants. We welcome them so long as they are "legal" -- disregarding the hugely and incomprehensibly arbitrary nature of our immigration laws, and that those laws are crafted by already vested interests, those who also possess immense political power; we welcome them so long as they are willing to be fully "assimilated," that is, they are willing to be "Americanized," self-reliant, and independent in the mode adopted specifically by the ruling class in America -- which is to say, by affluent, white (and until very recently, exclusively male) Americans, who have always determined the particular content of the term, "American."

From March 2008, in "The United States: Now a Private and Exclusive Country Club, Ruled by Monsters":

In short, if the United States government decides you are not the "right kind" of person, you are not wanted and you will not be admitted. Following general principles of truth in advertising, I suggest we immediately rename America:

The United States, a Private and Exclusive Country Club

This should properly be followed by a brief warning to prospective applicants for membership, as well as to those requesting only brief visiting rights:

Please be advised that our membership requirements are restrictive in the extreme. We maintain the most rigorous standards of admittance, and only allow a select number of new members to join each year. If you think you have cause to wonder whether you are the right kind of person for our club, you are not.

...

Finally, consider the following. Sebastian Horsley is a private citizen, who happens to have written a book. He was detained for eight hours, questioned extensively about personal behavior that is not criminal by any reasonable and valid standard, and then sent packing back to London. Your kind is not wanted here, he was told. And the United States government used its considerable power to enforce its judgment.

At the same time, the United States government begins the sixth year of a criminal and illegal occupation of a country that never threatened it, and it has murdered more than one million innocent people. It appears to me, as I think it would appear to any sane human being, that these are actual crimes -- and crimes on a world historical scale, of a scope that is stupefying and almost ungraspable. Has even one person been called to account for those crimes? No. And with the deeply corrupt collaboration of the Democrats who have controlled Congress for over a year, no one ever will be.

For the United States is not just any exclusive, highly restricted country club. It is a country club run by and for a profoundly immoral and corrupt ruling class, led by those who order and direct genocidal murder and those who aid them in their monstrous crimes.

Well, this turned out to be not so brief. But I still have further points to make about this latest eruption of the disgusting racism that lies at the core of the American State and of American culture. I'll get to it, I hope.

In case you didn't follow the above link concerning Hillary Clinton, I want to highlight her statement. I consider it among the most deeply immoral, horrifying and repellent statements offered by any leading politician in recent years. Here is what she said:

Our troops did the job they were asked to do. They got rid of Saddam Hussein. They conducted the search for weapons of mass destruction. They gave the Iraqi people a chance for elections and to have a government. It is the Iraqis who have failed to take advantage of that opportunity.

I discuss the significance and nauseating immorality of Clinton's statement in, "Some Races Are Just Not as Good as Others." I have much, much more to say about the monstrousness of Hillary Clinton in particular. That may be the next installment of what I think will be a separate series: "Things that Make Me Want to Tell People to Shut the Hell Up." There is an astonishingly large number of "dissenting" progressives who strongly condemn many of Obama's policies and who simultaneously offer a ridiculously sanitized, even romanticized, view of Hillary Clinton. But Hillary Clinton is a war criminal and a monster. She has lots of company -- indeed, with less than a handful of exceptions, the same is true of the entire national governing class. On her record, such a judgment is unavoidable. I imagine some readers want more evidence and demand to see the full case. Oh, I'll provide it. You may be sorry you asked.

I offer one observation for those who seem incapable of grasping that it is entirely possible to hold more than a single idea in one's head at a time. Please note that my judgment that Clinton is a war criminal and a monster has nothing to do with my judgment that Clinton has been the target of disgustingly misogynistic attacks. I've written about the nature of those attacks at inordinate length; see "Kill That Woman!" as just one example. But note that these judgments do not contradict each other in any manner at all: they concern completely separate issues. O the wonder of it! Why, I sometimes think as many as five or ten entirely different things before breakfast! (No, I cannot contain my scorn for people's inability to understand this. And my scorn is prompted by many factors, including numerous comments I've seen to this effect: "I don't understand where Arthur's coming from exactly. He writes so powerfully about the deep-seated hatred of women in our culture, but he doesn't seem to think much of Hillary. Gee, golly, how can that be?" Yes, I've seen comments by actual human beings that say exactly that. One of the severely daunting problems that face us is not a shortage of fucking morons.)

So lots more to come! And again, just cuz I'm a pushy motherfucker who would prefer not to die just yet, you can consider contributing to my Visit a Doctor Before You Croak Fund. Or I could just wait until I have to call 911 again. Of course, that might be too late. Heck, not a biggie either way. I joke about it so I don't scream. Trying to avoid screaming is unfortunately one of my preoccupations these days. As always, your consideration is greatly appreciated.