Another bird story that devolves into politics

The Missus and I were availing ourselves of a lovely post-Delta day here after two solid days of rain brought by the remnants of the latest climate-change-induced-threat-to-life-as-we-know-it. Took a drive to the nearby seaside town, enjoyed a long, maskless walk along the mostly closed boardwalk, and wandered the sandy shoreline for a while. It was a bit windy, the ocean was rougher than normal in the aftermath of the storm, but the weather was mild. There were a few brave souls wading in the shallows. Surfers had come out, hoping to take advantage of the rough seas. Surfable waves were in short supply, but they looked to be enjoying themselves anyway.

Accompanying us along with the surfers, waders, and other walkers were multiple gatherings of a shorebird we had never seen. Sort of like your basic gull, but blacker and with long beaks ringed with flamingo red. A Google lookup by Mrs. F (a world-class expert in phrasing productive Google queries) told us our new friends were Black Skimmers. They’re very cool, but native to the Gulf shores of the US and points south, not here. I wonder whether they had been riders on the storm. [Cue The Doors.]

Maryland to Louisiana: We have your birds. Please send postage.

After our walk, we wandered to a new restaurant and, being parched from our exercise, sat outside along the boardwalk to have a couple of post-walk cocktails. A joyful ruckus soon arrived as a bicycle built for six rolled noisily by, staffed by a half-dozen young men in yarmulkes and white shirts (and one carrying a MAGA cap) chanting “Four more years! Four more years!” It might have been easy to write it off as young smart alecks being sarcastic except that the guy with the MAGA lid was also yelling “Biden for Senate.” This, the day after the Democrat presidential candidate publicly and pitifully announced - again - that he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate. That young man (a) was up on the news and (b) had a sense of humor. I don’t think those guys were joking. Bravo, boys! And L’chayim!

Watched bits and pieces of the Barrett hearing, and loved her brain and demeanor. It strikes me that the reason Feinstein and other of her tormentors can’t let go of forcing her to disclose her hidden agenda is because that’s the world they live in. They’re lifelong politicians. They all have hidden agendas, frequently not in sync with their constituents or even legality. Hard for them to comprehend someone who flies straight.

This week’s shutdown by the Twitterbook cartel of the free dissemination of a legitimate news story by a legitimate major newspaper is stunning, scary, and totally on course. They declared themselves the Ministry of Truth some time ago and no one has stopped them. So they get ballsier and ballsier, protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which safeguards tech companies from being sued for what their users post on their platforms, and has evolved to give them broad discretion to censor content.

Ministry of Truth is not too strong an image, either. In Orwell’s 1984, control of communication and the language is the government’s most insidious and useful tool. Today, we have our own version of newspeak being promulgated by the oppressively tolerant: the lists of things one cannot say aloud and of terms one must use in polite company grows every day. And the major media organs pass it along, demonstrate how to use it in a sentence, and punish slow learners gleefully. (And yet, they can’t agree on how to pronounce Kamala.)

These Twitterbook people are not kidding around and somebody has to stop this before it’s too late. Not being fans of government regulation when there’s a viable free market solution, the Missus and I say rescind Section 230 and let them get sued by everybody they screw with. (We don’t like lawyers much either, but sometimes you gotta pick your poison.) It’s like your kids. You gave them some freedom, and they showed they can’t handle it with maturity. So you ground them. Forever.

Did you finish Animal Farm? Good. Now go read 1984 and visit the world that gave birth to Big Brother, memory hole, doublethink, and thought crime. Then look around honestly and tell me it’s not happening here.

Next to last point. An excerpt from a recent magazine article by Robert B. Charles that includes a famous quote generally attributed to Ronald Reagan:

…"Communism only works in heaven, where they don’t need it, and in hell, where they’ve already got it.” ….
When party elites take control over private property, national production, distribution, jobs, benefits, and where money goes, the end is approaching. Greater suppression follows, ends justifying means, until killing becomes part of of how a society gets to utopia.”

Think that’s overstatement? Then read some real history (i.e., history books written in the pre-woke era) about how that worked out for the people in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela. As a hack writer said recently, gulags were not part of the original sales pitch.

Last point. The property, money and jobs they want to redistribute are yours, not theirs. How did people like Biden and Pelosi, who have spent their entire working careers as government employees, get so rich?

Keep smiling, but vote your wallet.