by Greg Gutfeld
I would too if I kept using the word “like” as punctuation. But, like, I’m on her side.
She actually was guiltier of a greater sin: She saw life the way her parents or grandparents saw it. It’s a prism that is so uncool these days, it’s comical. This young woman felt getting married and having kids and all the stuff that comes with it sounded kinda nice. You know, the way 99 percent of human civilization always has (except the French). Jesus, where the hell has she been the last twenty years? Settling down is for losers. You’re basically admitting you don’t have the guts to be your own person. Marriage means you’re just a half of a thing, when you can be a whole thing. A whole angry thing that hates other things!
The end result: The part of the mural featuring the wedding rings was painted over. But then a school superintendent insisted she finish the mural as she had planned. Which is a happy ending, if you like happy endings.
Truth is, these days “happy endings” means something else (ask Beckel) and living “happily ever after” is a fantasy for the uncool and stupid. You’ve got to be naive and irrelevant to buy into the appeal of a stable family environment—or believe that it might be a tad superior to its competing lifestyle. I bet you couldn’t get a feminist to admit a married-with-children life beats being a coprophilic activist sex worker who makes her own hours; the former gave up on her dreams to submit to a husband, and the latter is expressing her freedom from the normative views of traditional lifestyles! You go … coprophilic activist sex worker! You raise awareness with every orgasm!
So why are families uncool? Well, it’s cool to rebel against your family when you’re growing up. But you’re supposed to get over that, at some point. It’s called becoming an adult. Sure, you can hate Mom and Dad for a little bit (one year, maybe two, tops), and you usually return to the fold after admitting that they were right most of the time. But these days, a stable family is seen as uncool because extolling the virtues of such a unit excludes those who don’t live that way. And that is hurtful. And being hurtful is uncool. Would anyone have questioned the mural if it had been two gay centaurs copulating on a rainbow? (Probably not, and that would be great, since I’ve spent the last four months painting one in my basement. It’s been a struggle getting it right, but when it’s done, it’ll be worth all the money spent on nude escorts I used as models.)
Fact is, this student’s mural is about the most rebellious thing you’ve never heard of, and this girl, in my mind, is a modern-day Dennis Hopper on a Harley. Her thinking is against the predictable grain of the modern progressive. Is it wrong to say that one way of living is superior to another? Not that she was saying that, but so what if she was? People who live in a traditional family structure tend to do better in life. Although I am sure there are people who believe, after reading this story, that the poor girl needs to be deprogrammed, for it’s just untenable that, in this age, she would have such weird, uncool thoughts about “sex and gender roles.” She was probably abused! By her evil white dad! Who listens to Mark Levin! There must be some repressed memories of Satanic rituals in there somewhere!
In a nation governed by hurt feelings, it’s clear that this heathen simply doesn’t care about all the people different from herself. Should romantic novels be banned because lonely people out there might find them insensitive to their plight? Who do you think reads them? Lonely people! What about sports? Should they be curtailed because they marginalize the uncoordinated? It’s one reason I never watch lacrosse. (There are many others.)
Never mind that when the public is presented with alternative views and lifestyles unlike those of the majority, the feelings of the majority are never considered. Empathy is only a one-way street.
Remember the elephant-dung-encrusted image of the Virgin Mary that was once brought to the Brooklyn Museum? (Which says more about Brooklyn than religion, incidentally.) No one asked me how I felt about it. In fact I don’t think anyone really gave a damn about the “feelings” of Christians, since movies and television have informed the world that we don’t have feelings. Instead, Christ-lovers just have prejudices, bad hair, and closeted feelings for the same sex.
In this country, a mural of two wedding rings is uncool, while a Virgin Mary made of dung is cool. What BS. Head to head, the marriage mural beats the dung art hands down, for it dares to say something modern art would never have the guts to say—that an innate desire for a traditional life isn’t so bad. And that delayed gratification beats immediate satisfaction, hands down. It’s healthier and more stable, and, oddly enough, offers you the freedom to do things you couldn’t do if your life were an unstable, angry pile of dung. As the king of the uncool, Ronald Reagan, once said, “Work and family are at the center of our lives, the foundation of our dignity as a free people.” Translated by me: You can’t be a freak without first having a foundation. (I think that’s what he meant.)
That message never bubbles up in the art world because it’s so uncool. And what passes for daring in art is really conformity. Conformity of the worst kind, in fact—censorship.
Which leads me to my solution to this mess—if you want a traditional nuclear family to survive, what do you do? Perhaps it’s time to champion that as an alternative lifestyle. Make it sound rebellious and different. Because in reality, that’s what it’s become. It’s also tougher, by the way. Responsibility always is. But it’s just too Fred MacMurray for the progressive journals and the sad sacks who pretend to read them.
Treating family like an extreme sport may be the only way the cool might be tricked into thinking it’s a good thing. And before they know it, they’ll be mowing lawns, working sixty-hour weeks, and screaming at their kids to turn down the music. They will have turned into their parents, which is probably the coolest thing that could happen to them, ever.
Which leads me to another question. How uncool is it to be a married dad? Really uncool. How about a married mom? Super uncool.
Remember during the election when a Democratic strategist, Hilary Rosen, went after Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann? It was on CNN back in April 2012, when Rosen said that Romney had “never worked a day in her life.” Mind you, Ann had raised five sons—and if that’s not work, Rosen’s never seen a hamper full of men’s underwear. It qualifies as a Superfund site.
Because it was an election season, her attack on Ann got a lot of media attention, and Rosen quickly vanished from the scene in order to prevent further harm to her guy, President Obama. (The community organizer and no-show senator.) After all, her next trick might be criticizing the comatose for being lazy. Amazing that this lady is a PR expert. Judging from this screwup, it’s likely it was she who’s never worked a day in her life. It’s unlikely she ever worked a day outside of government, that’s for sure.
But forget the politics. The point of this screwup: It could only have occurred if Hilary felt everyone agreed with her. She’s grown up with, been schooled with, gone to cocktail parties with people who agree with her. The lesson inculcated at every opportunity: The chick who works is cool. What’s uncool: The chick with kids who stays home to take care of them. Come on, America, Hilary was saying, you’re with me on this one! Being a mom—and nothing else—is really nothing at all.
I bet a stay-at-home mom would know how to clean up this mess better than Rosen. But don’t be angry at Rosen, for it’s always refreshing when a progressive reveals itself to the world by saying something they all really believe to be true. It’s like watching a rare animal outside its comfy habitat acting like a rare animal. You might not see it again, acting this way in public. For what you heard is what the cool people say in the parties that neither you nor I attend. This is how the cool really feel: that Ann Romney is an example of the quaint, inferior, and irrelevant prefeminist gal. She’s a joke. A dinosaur in Anne Klein pantsuits. An arcane caricature, like the secretary in Beetle Bailey. She’s not really a real woman by modern standards. No, she’s just a nonentity whose lifestyle choices clearly were not her own. She couldn’t seriously want to rais
e a beautiful family, while married to a loving husband, and look forward to the two of them growing old together. Why do that, when you can be a talking head and mock it all on CNN? You’ll get car service to and from work!
From the cool perspective, a full-time, stay-at-home mom (what we used to call, simply, “mom”) is completely blind to her own hopelessness, a victim of false consciousness and every other fifty-dollar word you learned in grad school from wispy weirdos in granny glasses. This is why the media embraced Sandra Fluke (pronounced “Flook,” no matter what she says) over Ann Romney. Fearlessly fighting for free crap is cool, but raising kids? Uncool.
And the end result from this perspective: a message to girls that desiring a full life is impossible, unless you divorce yourself from things that might in fact make you happy. The stay-at-home mom—perhaps the most influential, powerful force for our nation’s future—is suddenly not a guardian of our most important resource. She’s a fascist prison guard, wielding a bloody wooden spoon (which would make a good movie, actually).
This all came about because Ann Romney had talked to her husband about the state of the economy, and he actually listened to her. And that’s what Rosen objected to—how can you listen to a mom about the economy? I guess she doesn’t realize it’s the moms who do most of the purchasing in a home and keep track of the bills. But something tells me Hilary has someone do that for her, since she considers herself an “expert” at more important things. Basically Rosen just said, “Ann should just shut up and cook. Get a graduate degree and a fully loaded Prius, and we’ll talk.”
This is poison, for it creates a new kind of peer pressure. Whereas before we were encouraged to marry and start families, now we have our most “successful” voices championing the opposite—or rather denigrating a basic, tried-and-true method of survival. Families work. Having a mom and dad is a pretty good thing, worth painting about. Thinking about starting a family of your own is not a bad idea. Sure, it’s about as cool as argyle socks, but argyle socks can be pretty cool and you want to be stylish. One thing I learned—you’re supposed to wear them on your feet. Who knew?
THE GUILTY PARTIES
What happened to Wisconsin? Seriously, what happened to Wisconsin? It used to be a fun place, most notably home to the Troll Capital of the World, where I’m considered above average height.
But it’s also home to the new, Caucasian bigot. I’m not referring to the stereotypical white racist you see in your basic cable movie. Not skinheads with swastika tattoos on their testicles and etchings of Hitler hanging in their trailer. Instead the Wisconsin variety are whites who charge that all whites are racist, while claiming to defend People of Color. Their radical agenda isn’t about healing; it’s about breaking up and breaking apart. It’s about preventing a color-blind society from forming, and replacing it with warring factions divided by skin pigment.
To start with, the University of Wisconsin–Superior (superior to what? an online kindergarten?) launched the “Unfair Campaign” in 2012 to boost the “public awareness” about the widespread problem of racial privilege. Their marketing shtick: writing words like “unfair” on white students’ faces. They also Magic-Markered on their own nonsensical noggins a plethora of grievances against white people, as experienced by People of Color. As you can imagine, their faces look like a road map of victimization, a paean to pain. According to the website Mediaite, the university released a statement defending this exercise, claiming it was “designed to be very provocative.”
Ah yes … “provocative”! Whenever something really stupid is performed in an effort to score cool points, it’s described as “provocative.” In commonsense language, it translates into “annoying.” And “pointless.” And “academic.” And usually “harmful.” It’s important to note that this campaign wasn’t the university’s idea alone. It was launched as a group effort by a collection of community sponsors. Meaning, people who think community organizing is a real vocation.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (or WDPI for you initialism fans) conducted their own separate effort to expose white privilege, suggesting that some of their white workers “wear a white wristband as a reminder about your privilege.” And by privilege, they mean the many advantages white people have over all People of Color. We are now at a time when being born white is a fundamentally racist act. If you are white, just by procreating, your parents committed, or rather produced, a hate crime. You are a hate baby (a “hateby,” for short). You should be ashamed of yourself. I bet even the diapers you wore were white. From now on, all of my Depends will be black. They already are (I sat in something).
The WDPI has a Web page explaining their thoughts on white privilege. This is where members of VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America, or HEAY*) can take tests and read other stuff for the purposes of further guilt-building. The sad part: These VISTA workers are supposed to help the poor. Instead they’re annoying them. Because it’s way cooler to expound on your own white privilege than look up ways to apply for building permits if some poor guy wants to open a laundromat (which is racist, if your intent is to make your whites “whiter”). Seriously, can you imagine if you actually needed real employment information from these banal bureaucrats? You’d be better off waiting for Obama’s next “pivot to jobs.” (We’re on #7. He pivots enough to join the Bolshoi.)
This stuff would be laughable if it weren’t being lauded in academic circles (otherwise known as circle jerks) and harming poor people in Wisconsin.
Check out the department’s website, which offered suggestions for the privileged to help facilitate their desire for white penance. For example:
Set aside sections of the day to critically examine how privilege is working
Put a note on your mirror or computer screen as a reminder to think about privilege
Make a daily list of the ways privilege played out and steps taken or not taken to address privilege
Find a person of color who is willing to hold you accountable for addressing privilege
(All of which could be shorthanded as “Vote Obama.”)
I love that last part. Your mission: Find someone to condemn you. Why not save time—get married.
This, my friends, is what passes for organized religion today—at least for people who find paganism too much of a commitment. Instead of confession, you kneel before the Perceived Aggrieved—and take your punishment, willingly, all the while writhing in the pleasures of patronization. American universities have finally become caricatures of themselves.
Does this help the true victims of racism? Of course it doesn’t, but you knew the answer to that question before I asked because you’re not a moron (by definition, since you’re reading my book—or having someone read it to you). All this putrid exercise in white superiority does is foster a victim’s mentality and a teeming class resentment that’s only meant to end up in one place: societal upheaval, full of rage and ruin, and voting “progressive.” All of that stuff, for a cool racist, is pretty cool. The cool racist loves riots, after all. To them, it’s not looting—it’s redistribution. A race riot is actually something like a constitutional convention. Tea Party rally? Evil. Smashing the windows of local businesses in your own neighborhood? Justice! It’s actually cathartic. To these tools, a race riot is just a messy yoga class.
Fact is, the cool racist really doesn’t care about POC. (Now they’ve got me using acronyms.) The moment People of Color stop thinking about color, the cool racist loses clout. And their radical agenda is dead—which is why they must perpetuate the hate. (By the way, can we retire the word “radical” once and for all when referring to crap left-wingers come up with? Radical implies revolutionary thinking that’s genuinely new. However, none of this is new; it’s just applied differently by different dimwits.)
And I should remind you that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is a state agency, so essentially it’s the citizen who’s paying for this bigotry. This new program seems to be performed under the guise
of providing education for poor families, which could explain why these families are doing so poorly. If anything, having these weirdos spread these pernicious ideas to these struggling families should be labeled a hate crime, and these new racists should be hung in the town squares (by their toes, of course—I’m a tickler, not a killer).
Perhaps a better message to send People of Color is to simply point to the White House. Instead of saying “Sorry we’re white,” say, “A black man lives there. Well, half-black—but you get the idea.” The point is, the United States is run by a black guy, and that’s cool, right? For blacks, it’s kinda inspirational, no? It’s far more inspirational than repeatedly pointing out that we are all really sorry your ancestors were slaves fifteen decades ago. I’d love a black leader to emerge from somewhere, with a new campaign, called, “Get Over It.” And that “it” could mean annoying white and black activists who rely on past oppression to guarantee their future income. Sure, slavery was an abomination. An abomination only compounded by whites who continue to live off it. They’re ghouls, misery junkies. I’d boycott Wisconsin, but I rarely make it there anyway. (Something always seems to get in the way. My fear of cheese, mainly.)
* * *
*Had enough acronyms yet?
THE WAR ON WARRIORS
Who are the closest entities we have to actual superheroes in America? Aside from 3:00 a.m. talk show hosts, it’s our military. They are as cool as cool can get. But ever since the 1960s the military has been regularly portrayed in the media, on campuses, and elsewhere as ultimately uncool. Before the sixties, joining the military was about sacrifice (which was sincerely cool). Now, the cool sees recruits as blind, ignorant to the realization that they’re just a sap out of options.