Redneck Nation (7 page)

In other words, if it weren’t for all the diet products, low-cal foods, and social emphasis on good looks and health, these
people would be skin and bones by now. Instead, the spokesperson for the NAAFA I spoke with weighed 375 pounds, due entirely
(she claimed) to failed diets and an insulin imbalance.

Claiming to be a victim because you spend your days flopped down in front of
General Hospital
with Dr Pepper, Colonel Sanders, and Little Debbie—yep, that’s southern, all right. But seizing victim status while making
everyone else suffer—that’s redneck!

And so NAAFA and its allies have mounted a campaign to end the “discrimination” against obese people. You own a tanning salon
and you refuse to hire Wanda the Whale to welcome your customers—you get sued. You own a health food store and don’t think
a four-hundred-pound employee fits into your marketing scheme—get a lawyer. And if your house catches fire in California and
a ladder truck rolls up out front staffed with sumo wrestlers who can’t climb the ladder—that’s America’s victim culture at
work.

In the old, evil, bigoted days before NAAFA, a fire safety employee had to be able to do certain things, little things irrelevant
to public safety like, oh, climb a fire truck ladder without breaking it. Some fire department employees were even expected
to be able to climb up this ladder and back down again
while carrying another person
.

The problem is that when you’re 5’10” and 350 pounds, you’re already carrying the equivalent of another person around every
day of your life. Three wouldn’t just be a crowd, it would be a hernia.

These expectations of mobility and strength prevented some obese fire department applicants from being hired. Bigotry, oppression—and
the old-fashioned belief that it’s stupid to hire people for a job they are physically incapable of accomplishing—combined
to deny these Super-Sized citizens their rights. So these husky would-be hose pullers went to court… and won. And thanks to
a court ruling, obese people are no longer victims. Instead, the victims now are the taxpayers who have to pay the salaries
of these rotund fire truck riders. The taxpayers must also pay normal-sized firefighters who are actually competent and able
to do the lifesaving work.

Then there are the potential victims, the people in the burning buildings or emergency situations who cannot be served by
these public safety employees.

An America infused with the values of self-reliance and objective justice as championed by the old Civil Rights Movement would
laugh these lard-butted loons out of court. But in a truly southern America, these self-declared victims are as at home as
a pig in slo… Uh, you know what I mean.

And only in a Redneck Nation dominated by “it’s not my fault” Southernism could people who smoked three packs a day for thirty
years have the nerve to appear before a jury and blame the cigarettes. In 2000, CNN reported that a San Francisco jury awarded
$20 million to Leslie Whiteley, a forty-year-old smoker who admitted she never, ever smoked a cigarette that she didn’t know
could
hurt her. How, how,
HOW
can a woman who has picked up a cigarette, put it in her mouth, set it on fire, and smoked it—then repeated the action fifty
times a day, every single day, for twenty-seven years—how can that woman look at a jury and say, “But wait—it was an accident”?

This is a claim of victimhood that ranks up there with Bill Clinton blaming his pants problem on Ken Starr (true story) and
former Symbionese Liberation Army bomber Kathleen Soliah claiming to be a victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks (true and sickening
story). You could only get away with this nonsense in a Redneck Nation.

Worse than the “victims” of the right to smoke are the Smoke Nazis who dream of living in a world where we have no rights
at all.

Across the Great Northern America, liberal communities like Los Angeles and Montgomery County, Maryland, have banned smoking
outdoors at public parks. Why? To protect the “victims” of secondhand smoke, of course. Only one problem: When it comes to
smoking outdoors, there
are
no victims of secondhand smoke. Outdoor smoking may annoy you, but not even the most extreme Smoke Nazi has presented evidence
that the dangers of secondhand smoke extend into the ionosphere.

Not to be outdone, in 2001, the same Montgomery County (an enclave of northern-style liberalism) passed an ordinance that
would have essentially banned smoking in the privacy of your own home. Under this new county regulation, if you were sitting
in front of the TV having a cigarette and your neighbor could even smell it, he could call the county EPA and you would be
exposed to a fine of up to $750.

After a bombardment of international mockery, this ludicrous law was laughed into oblivion. When folks asked how any legislative
body could criminalize smoking in one’s own home, an angry Montgomery County councilman insisted the law was perfectly reasonable:
“This does not say that you cannot smoke in your house. What it does say is that your smoke cannot cross property lines.”

In other words, oxygen tents make good neighbors.

Now, I know that if I smoke enough cigarettes, they could kill me. And I know that if someone locked you and me together in
an unventilated room, my smoke might—I repeat,
might
—kill you. But nobody has ever demonstrated that if I wrap myself in Red Man chewing tobacco, sit down in my fireplace, and
set myself ablaze, it’s going to give you so much as a mild cough in your house across the street.

Who is the victim of a smoker lighting up in his own living room? Whom are the self-righteous Smoke Nazis protecting this
time? Aha! This is where the southern victim value system really kicks in. In the world of rednecks, you don’t have to prove
you’re a victim. You simply declare yourself one, and the wheels of the world grind to a halt.

What a warped sense of justice we have when the working stiff sitting on his sofa watching
All in the Family
and smoking a Lucky is the oppressor, and the paranoiac upstairs sniffing the air vents and calling the cops is the victim.

And if the guy upstairs feels victimized by my neighbor’s cigarettes, wait until he smells my Macanudo. Or my mother’s corned
beef and cabbage. Or me, after
eating
my mom’s corned beef and cabbage…

Then there’s my dad’s cheap aftershave, my baby’s poopy diaper, and my dog’s various odiferous events. (I don’t actually have
a dog, but I could get one if you keep calling the cigarette cops, you jerk.)

All of this, inspired by hypersensitive simps who never once had to demonstrate that, by reasonable standards, they had been
victimized in any way.

Right down the street from Montgomery County is our nation’s capital. It was there that a government employee lost his job
for using the word “niggardly” correctly in a sentence. A couple of fellow employees—who happened to be both black and blessed
with a limited vocabulary—did not recognize the word. Worse, they assumed the guy said something all-too-familiar. They complained,
and the literate worker was summarily fired.

What makes this incident so perfectly southern and, therefore, perfectly American is that an investigation by rational people
quickly got to the truth. The man had said nothing wrong. The word “niggardly” is a perfectly good word, the offended employees
were told. It comes from the Scandinavian word
nygg
and predates the African slave trade. And guess what: The guy
still
lost his job.

To D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams’s credit, the victi—er, “fired person” in this case was offered a different city job, but some
black Washingtonians complained regardless. “I still find the word offensive, I don’t care what it means,” one D.C. resident
said. Keith Watters, former president of the mostly black National Bar Association, raised the possibility of a conspiracy.
He was quoted in the
New York Times
asking, “Do we really know where the Norwegians got the word?”

Now flash-forward to a story in the
Sacramento Bee
in
2001. Robert Pacuinas appeared before the city council to oppose red-light cameras being used to ticket drivers. He believed,
as many other citizens did, that these cameras were just another way for the city government to make money. “It is time to
call a spade a spade,” Mr. Pacuinas insisted, “and acknowledge that the city wants these cameras because they increase revenue,
not safety.” When his three-minute comment period ended, he received this reply from City Councilwoman Lauren Hammond:

“You… made an ethnically and racially derogatory remark and I hope you think about what you said…. It is not appreciated.
It is no longer a part of modern English. The phrase just isn’t used in good company anymore.”

The remark at issue was “calling a spade a spade.” Councilwoman Hammond, who is black, went on to tell reporters, “It’s an
old racist analogy and I’m sick of hearing it. This is 2001.”

Ms. Hammond claimed to be the victim of racism, which is hardly news. But Mr. Pacuinas, hardly a member of the White Anglo-Saxons
Club himself, was simply unwilling to be labeled as such. He went to reporters, who then went to Ms. Hammond, with irrefutable
evidence that the phrase “calling a spade a spade” was nearly five hundred years old and had everything to do with gardening
and nothing to do with race. Mr. Pacuinas had not been speaking about race, he said nothing about race, he had implied nothing
about race, and everyone present agreed that the only color he referred to in any way was the red in the red-light cameras.
The accusation of racism was totally and utterly false.

To which Ms. Hammond’s reply was, essentially, “So what?” She argued that since she felt like she was a victim
of racism, she was entitled to be viewed as a victim, regardless of the facts. For good measure, she added that she still
considers “niggardly” to be derogatory. “Any word that has that base word refers to black people, the darkest people on earth.”

Once you untether victimhood from the realm of reality, who knows where it will float next? Will Mexican Americans boycott
the makers of Spic and Span? Will gamblers be tossed out of politically correct casinos for welshing on a bet? If Councilwoman
Hammond ever called the Maryland Smoke Nazis “morons,” would that be a case of the pot calling the kettle black? And if it
is, am I allowed to say so?

For the existence of these and other questions, you can thank the American South. We invented the idea that offended people
have no duty to be rational. If white-supremacist Southerners can be victimized by black citizens claiming nothing more than
their right to vote, then any group anywhere is entitled to ruin the fun for the rest of us.

There’s no end to the examples of the spread of southern-style victimhood, but one more must be told: the day they banned
Santa Claus.

In October 2001, the town council of Kensington, Maryland, voted to ban Santa from his official duties as tree lighter at
the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony. The vote came after two citizens, both Jewish, asked that a menorah be included
in the official part of the celebration.

Now, this is a problem in modern America because the U.S. Supreme Court in its infinite wisdom had decided that all overtly
religious symbols are banned from civic ceremonies.
Therefore, a menorah could not be included. The Jewish citizens countered by saying, “But you’re allowing Santa…” And so the
town council voted unanimously to give St. Nick the boot.

Yes, Santa Claus is, in the opinion of Kensington, as clearly a religious icon as the menorah—a theological position that
should offend every faithful Jew this side of Tel Aviv. Santa Claus isn’t a religious icon anywhere in America outside of
Madison Avenue. He’s more a product of Coca-Cola than Christianity.

When word got out about their foolishness, the town council was barraged by complaints. One flustered councilman, asked to
explain why Santa was too religious a symbol to be allowed but a
Christmas
tree was okay, insisted, “Oh, no, this is not a Christmas tree. This is an entirely
secular
tree.” A secular tree we just happen to be lighting in December. That’s covered with ornaments. At an event sponsored by
major retailers. With lots of singing. You know, one of those “secular” trees. (Ah, yes, who can forget those winter evenings
with your family gathered around a Fraser fir singing, “O secular tree, O secular tree, how nonsectarian are thy branches…”)

The mild-mannered dolts of Kensington wanted to be nice and take these offended citizens seriously, despite the fact that
the nature of the offense was idiotic. Unencumbered as I am by any innate goodness, my reaction would have been very different:
I would have tossed these thin-skinned idiots out on their
toches
, shouting “Merry Christmas” as they bounced down the front stairs of town hall.

The result would have been a minor assault violation for which I would have been fined; and a hate-crime violation for which
I would have been shot.

O
ne result of my genetic rejection of Southernism is an innate bias against conspiracy theories. UFOs in Roswell, secret governments
in Washington, virgins in sororities—all such improbable claims I tend to dismiss without a hearing.

I grew up attending church with people who earnestly believed that ghosts and demons were conspiring to bring them harm. They
were convinced that their ill health and fiscal difficulties were the result of unseen forces of darkness, as opposed to the
half-eaten bag of Oreos dropping crumbs over the unfinished job application on their coffee table.

Today, many of those same church folk live in fear that
Harry Potter
books will lead their children into the clutches of Satan. I am impolitic enough to recall the days when those same worried
parents were teenagers who
ended up in the clutches of hormonal supplicants at summer Bible camp.