The Joy of Hate (10 page)

Now, somehow I just don’t think viewing these threats as potential examples of workplace violence is going to be our most effective method of attack. What are we going to see on the walls
next to the “no smoking” signs? Posters that exclaim, “No massacres in the name of Allah”?

Fact is, we are living under a government that’s head over heels in love with euphemisms. Whether it’s “man-caused disasters” or “workplace violence,” our leaders can’t stop creating new lies out of old words. Taxing the rich is now “paying our fair share.” Class warfare is now called “a war on inequity.” As I’ve said before, calling the Fort Hood massacre workplace violence is like calling Pearl Harbor an air show.

I keep waiting for the day they start calling rain “solar moisture,” as a way to somehow link it to global warming. And will it be too long before child molestation is called “impatient courtship”? After all, wasn’t their only crime that they just couldn’t wait?

Where does this all come from? Hurt feelings. We have an administration fearful of making people feel bad.

Consider the space program (or what’s left of it). President Obama sees NASA not as just a place for technological innovation and achievement but also a great place to help Muslims feel good about being Muslim. At one point his administration suggested that the space program was one way to raise self-esteem among followers of the Koran. Called “outreach,” it’s something you normally see in youth soccer games, where the weaker players are forced to play a half a game even if it means your team loses (worse, they still get their fair share of orange slices). Can you imagine if this mentality infected the medical sciences? Instead of finding cures for disease, we’d be focused on how the doctors felt about medical school, and all those intense pressures to, you know, study and achieve. Better let the very worst doctors operate on you. Who cares if you die from a simple appendectomy? At least the doctor felt included!

Intolerance for achievement is masked as tolerance for difference. It’s more important that the astronauts or the hospital staff look diverse than that they actually be any good. I know it’s entirely possible for both aims to be accomplished, but trying to aim for diversity over excellence is a recipe for failure—and in some areas of work, death. Want proof it’s pure hypocrisy? Let me ask you this: Would Obama get in a space shuttle piloted by someone whose science and math teachers were termed “scholastically challenged”?

We overlook the fact that pushing an inept person in a realm where they can be more inept only makes their lives worse. Better to put them in a place where they do the least amount of damage (like hosting a show on Current TV).

At the heart of all of this is a deliberate dismissal of exceptionalism, in favor of tolerance. Remember when President Obama was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he said, sure—just as Greeks would believe in Greek exceptionalism and so on. So really what he said was: Everyone believes in exceptionalism, which means there
is no such thing as exceptionalism
. What has replaced the belief that America is the greatest country in the world? Well, that America is the most “tolerant” country in the world. After Bush, being liked meant so much more than being feared. Hence the push for Muslims in space. Hey, maybe a functioning Islamic Earth program would be a good idea first.

In Obama’s mind, tolerance is far more valuable and wonderful than superiority. It’s better to be liked, and to like everyone, than to be number one. In the end, that’s the real crime of tolerance: it’s used as a ceiling on achievement relegating the U.S. to being just another country. And you see the aftereffects of that in the Middle East revolutions of early 2011. What most Americans might
expect from their leader is more than a mildly worded statement condemning certain behaviors. But we barely got that. Instead of leading the world, we gawked. We are now exactly what Obama envisioned: not a leader of the free world but just another inhabitant on a planet—observing the wrath of assholes in Syria with a dispassionate distaste one might have for a loud party happening across the street. The fact is, Obama got more upset about the cop who arrested Henry Louis Gates than he did about the shit going down in Iran. Maybe he should have asked Ahmadinejad to a beer summit. I bet the little ingrate wouldn’t even bring a bag of pretzels.

THE FIRST THING THEY DO WHEN
anyone starts a country is draw lines on a map. Guess what? We did it, too. But thanks to tolerance, America is the only nation in human history not allowed to have one of those border thingies. Mexico gets one. Several, in fact. Can we have just one? When do we get to call bullshit on the rest of the world and get to have a border? But that would place citizens over noncitizens in the American pecking order—which is utterly intolerant.

And so you have an exercise in revulsion, directed at the state of Arizona, which was only trying to figure out this crap for itself. By simply trying to enforce the laws that the feds are too scared to enforce (God forbid they appear racist or even judgmental), they’ve become painted as intolerant bigots. And this is fueled by our own government, waving their spindly, cowardly finger at the governor and her fed-up constituents. It gets so bad that even when tragedy strikes (the Tucson shooting), the media sees fit to blame Arizona for it, not a crazed maniac. That’s because if you actually believe in something as simple as borders, you must be intolerant—and in the eyes of opportunistic leftists, it was that climate of hate over immigration that made the shooting possible.

This logic extends to the most ridiculous of places, and I say that as I pop an extra-strength Mucinex, which requires a form of ID to purchase. It’s true. When I go and buy cough or cold medicine, I have to do what everyone else does: present some sort of picture ID so everyone can make sure I’m actually me. Thankfully, I still have my club card from Teddy Bear Village (“the best place for hugs”), and it still gets me into various places with minimal effort. But I don’t make a fuss about rummaging for the card, even though I know the process is, on the whole, pointless when it’s directed at me. Presenting ID for Mucinex or Sudafed or whatever is based on the fact that a lot of people buy the stuff to make crystal meth—a drug I’ve never tried, but I’ve heard it does wonders for your teeth. Frankly, having to buy tons of over-the-counter remedies to make one under-the-counter drug seems like a lot of work. I stick to simple processes, like lying to my doctor about my unbearable back pain.

But among the many other mundane things in life I’ve learned to do without thinking too much is to always have my ID. To me, it’s like changing my sheets—something I do at least every two weeks. At forty-seven, I still get carded once in a while in bars, mainly because it’s customary for a bouncer to card everyone in order to keep his job, and that includes a middle-aged man in leather cutoffs.

So we live in a world where it’s completely tolerated, and acceptable, that you have photo identification for some Kabuki-style “everyone is the same” crowd control. It’s the post-9/11 world—and it’s the least you can do to offer some peace of mind to everyone else who has to put up with your shifty demeanor and furtive manner in public.

Well, what if you want to do something that’s pretty important,
like vote? Shouldn’t you have an ID? Isn’t that what one would call a reasonable request? You need an ID to buy cigarettes, why not to cast a ballot—which is every bit as important as inhaling a Salem while riding on the back of a lawnmower you’ve nicknamed Squatdevil.

Not if you’re Eric Holder, or the administration he works for. In 2011, the Justice Department determined that the provisions of South Carolina’s Act R54, which would require voters to show photo identification to vote, is unconstitutional—for the state. In Holder’s angry muddled mind, South Carolina has not proven the law will not have “a discriminatory effect on minority voters.” Never mind that in a few other states where IDs are required, voting participation
went up
. That’s not the issue, of course. You are a racist—case closed. Holder has also done the same thing with Texas, again ignoring the fact that voting participation skyrocketed among blacks and Hispanics in Georgia once IDs were made available.

Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations. Does Holder really believe minorities are incapable of getting a voter ID? The underlying notion is insidious, for it says you can’t depend on minorities to get photo identification. You’re just asking too much of them. You get a photo ID from Costco, for chrissake. Not that I really noticed, but thinking about it now, I’m pretty sure I see plenty of minorities in plenty of places where you need an ID.

And while Holder finds the idea of presenting IDs to vote a violation of your rights, he seems okay with the idea when you want to pay him a visit. As Robert Bluey pointed out in a harmless, modest stunt, you need a photo ID to visit the Department of Justice (which he did, without an appointment). He also pointed
out, during this mini-exposé, that the groups supporting the crusade against voter ID laws (Center for American Progress and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law) require IDs to enter the building. At the LCCRUL (great acronym, guys), there’s even a sign, Bluey notes, that reads
ALL VISITORS MUST SHOW ID
.

As always, if the tolerati doesn’t like what you’re doing—even if they’re not sure why—they are convinced it’s got to be racist. And yep, simply by requiring a photo identification so someone might vote means you are prejudiced against nonwhite people. Or even dead people, for that matter, who seem to be emerging as a valuable constituency for the Democratic Party. In fact, it’s gotten nauseating how the left panders to the dead. This special interest stuff has got to stop.

So why does this reasoning only apply to voting and not to any other kind of process that requires flashing an ID? If a liquor store owner asks a Mexican for his ID when he’s buying a beer, is that racist, too? If a Mexican family is going to see a PG-17 film, would requiring the kids to show ID cross the line? What if I just went on Mexican TV and cooked myself naked into a burrito? That makes about the same sense.

One of the primary arguments against IDs is that they cost money, and that’s, in effect, a poll tax. I’m no expert, but I’ve read up on this stuff, and I’ve found that IDs are becoming free, if they’re not free already. What costs money is the stuff you need to do to get the ID—like a copy of a birth certificate, which may set you back 25 bucks (less than half of a monthly cell phone bill, I reckon). The other stuff—your Social Security card and proof of residence—is free. But these are just “untenable burdens” in the long line of “untenable burdens” that the tolerati find unacceptable. ID cards are just like birth control: liberals have no sense
of modulation, so everything is grossly unfair or a hardship. But something tells me if you can’t scrounge up 25 bucks for a copy of your birth certificate, you’re probably two years old and ineligible to vote—or you’re dead. And if you’re dead, again, you can’t vote, unless you’re a Democrat and “live” in a swing state.

This kerfuffle (which sounds like an adorable marsupial baked into a flaky turnover) is actually emblematic of a bigger idea—an idea that says a commonsense concern over strong borders and legal immigration is emblematic of a sinister form of racism. That if you believe everyone should follow the same laws, you are actually singling out a group perceived to be incapable of following those rules. Like illegal immigrants—who, by virtue of being illegal (and to some it is a virtue), do not have an authentic ID. So asking them for an ID is evil, mean-spirited, and intolerant. And it’s a sort of behavior that shall not be tolerated by the tolerant Democrats. Imagine if a flight attendant had to ask you if you were capable of handling the responsibilities that accompany sitting in the emergency exit row, and you couldn’t. Is that the flight attendant’s fault? According to Holder, it would be. And how weird is it that leftists call a law requiring IDs for voting illegal, but then claim you can’t call illegals illegal?

Here’s one irony I enjoy breaking to liberals: Your favorite country, France, enforces its borders like you wouldn’t believe. Ever go through a French border crossing? Dressed as a woman, and you’re late for dinner? It makes the TSA look like the welcome wagon. (Note: What the hell is a welcome wagon, anyway? Has anyone ever actually seen one? Should that be the new name for our immigration policy?) The Gallic socialist paradise is about as interested in taking in undocumented people as it is in scarfing down hot dogs or creating tolerable pop music. But because they
“support their artists” through a rapacious tax rate, the French get a pass and are allowed to have a border. (Strangely, it’s a right they waive as soon as someone shows up with a couple of tanks. I kid the French.) Why is America then the Great Satan? Because we try to make the place just slightly harder to get into than your average Mets–Astros game?

Tolerance is an amazing thing, for it allows all sorts of behavior, except those that seem innocuous. How is presenting a photo ID so evil? No one can actually explain it, which is why they prefer the race card over your basic library card. If someone has an ID, then that means they’re a citizen, and can vote. If you don’t have an ID, you should probably get one. If you don’t want to get one—because you’re a criminal or here illegally—that’s not our problem, that’s yours. You can still rip us off left and right, and we know you probably will. Or you may work your ass off for wages that should be significantly higher. Those are other issues. But either way, tough noogies. You can’t vote. And if you’re scared of getting an ID, then that says something about your motives, and not mine. Although, on the whole, I wish I never had to use an ID. It’s from six years ago, and, in retrospect, the braids I got at Club Med seem like a bad idea.

“YOU SHOULD PROBABLY TAKE THAT DOWN.”

Those were the words of my adorable Realtor, in my bedroom, after I gestured toward a framed newspaper featuring yours truly on the cover. The article inside
The Observer
covered my new, highly improbable career as a talk show host on a network reviled by the basic lefty Manhattanite. The headline was something like “Watch Out, Jon Stewart,” and it featured a delightful drawing of my sweaty face.