Satire: not quite dead yet

Earlier, irritated by the hoopla surrounding that fucking New Yorker cover, I wrote about the death of satire. I bemoaned the fact that even such an obvious, clumsy, heavy-handed work of parody could inspire the screeching multitudes to frothing tirades of righteous indignation.

Reports of satire’s death have been slightly exaggerated.

• Bastiatian Wisdom (Cafe Hayek)

The document of interest is a letter to the Montreal Gazette by Mr. David Descôteaux. I’ll reproduce it here:

I have a project: to publish a book. I have talent and I’m certain it will be a success. I ask each of Bombardier’s 70,000 employees to lend me $25. I will repay the entire amount ($1.7 million) in 10 years. Of course, it will be a zero-interest loan. And I will pay you back only if I sell my books. If I sell nothing, you get nothing.

You refuse? But my project will create economic wealth. The publisher will earn a profit, I’ll buy writing software, hire a research staff, buy paper, eat at restaurants near my house, hire a contractor to build me a decent office. Add the income tax of all these workers to the taxes generated by the sale of the books, and the government will make a fortune.

Besides, our book industry must be competitive. I heard that a French author, who writes on the same subject as me, receives subsidies from his government. It would be unjust and suicidal for our industry not to subsidize me, too.

You still refuse? You prefer to put your $25 in a safe investment, earning an eight-per-cent compounded annual return that will add up to $54 in 10 years, instead of the uncertain $25 I’m offering you? You say it’s more important for you to keep this money for your daughter’s college tuition than to use it to make planes? I don’t get it.

But it doesn’t matter what you think. You have no choice. My good friend the politician will make you lend me the money. If you refuse, he’ll send you to jail. He thinks it’s a good project. After all, who are you to know what to do with your money?

The man to which Boudreaux refers in his title is Frédéric Bastiat, also quite a witty man.  His Petition of the Candlemakers is as brilliantly (heh!) sarcastic as anything penned by Voltaire.  Here’s the kernel of Bastiat’s piece:

We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a foreign rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly that we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us.

We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull’s-eyes, deadlights, and blinds—in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which, we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat.

I’d better stop there, or I’ll end up quoting the whole thing.

Mid-week misanthropy, vol. 11

(Insert Spinal Tap joke here.)

—-

Perhaps the most valuable asset that any man can have in this world is a naturally superior air, a talent for sniffishness and reserve.  The generality of men are always greatly impressed by it, and accept it freely as proof of genuine merit.  One need but disdain them to gain their respect.  Their congenital stupidity and timorousness makes them turn to any leader who offers, and the sign of leadership that they recognize most readily is that which shows itself in external manner.  This is the true explanation of the survival of monarchism, which always lives through its perennial deaths.

– H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 13

That, friends, is satire.  Mencken’s writings rank as some of the most viciously funny carnassial wit ever inked on paper, alongside other greats like Ambrose Bierce, Dorothy Parker, Voltaire, Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Clemens.  Their works are as subtle and clever as they are devastating and violent.

That kind of satire is dead.  If Swift were to write A Modest Proposal today, he’d be pilloried as brutish and insensitive by legions of self-righteous buffoons as shallow as sliced skidmarks.  He’d be taken all too seriously.  What passes for satire these days is about as subtle as, well, a blunt object.  We’re reduced to lightbulb jokes:

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: That’s not funny!

and magazine covers:

That’s about as nuanced as a sledgehammer across the face, and yet people still don’t get it.

• Why the Obama reaction to The New Yorker bothered me (Donklephant)

(Alan Steward Carl, by the way, definitely does get it.  His perpetual refusal to drink either colour of kool-aid is also most refreshing.)

Barack Obama just missed an excellent opportunity to get me to take one more step towards supporting him. When presented with the most recent and now famed cover of The New Yorker, all Obama needed to say was:

“I think most Americans will understand it’s satire.”

How refreshing it would have been to hear a would-be leader respecting the intelligence of Americans. After 7.5 years of the Bush Administration talking down to us, force-feeding us deceptions and generally treating us like idiots, I’d like to believe we have a chance to escape that condescending mindset with our next president. But Obama and particularly his staff and legions of his supporters have left me a little cold.

And oh, those supporters.

• “Americans are too stupid to understand the New Yorker cover” (Donklephant; title edited)

mw quotes Jonathon Alter:

“… the New Yorker cover, now being displayed endlessly on cable TV, speaks louder than any efforts by Obama supporters to stop the smears… negative images burn their way into the consciousness of voters in ways that cannot be erased by facts. With one visual move, the magazine undid months of pro-Obama coverage in its pages.”

and paraphrases Alter and Rachel Maddow:

MADDOW: Jonathon, Isn’t the real problem here that way too many Americans are too stupid to get the joke?
ALTER: Yes, Rachel, 13% of Americans are so stupid that they tell pollsters that they believe these lies, so there are consequences from an image like this and the New Yorker should have considered the consequences of stupid Americans seeing this image.
MADDOW: In that context do responsible journalists and commentators like us have a responsibility to explain to stupid Americans that Obama is not a Muslim every time this comes up?
ALTER: Yes Rachel, this is part of our responsibility – to take the time to refute these lies for all those low information (stupid) voters out there who are not paying attention. But it is still a problem because these voters are so stupid that they will just look at the picture, not get the joke, and not listen to us.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe this is all one giant sly self-satire, a sweeping send-up of modern liberalism’s perceived humourlessness and reputed demands for all-consuming Orwellian levels of speech control under the guise of “sensitivity”.  Maybe Obama will take the podium at the Democratic National Convention with a devilish grin on his face and a copy of the above New Yorker in his hand, cock an eyebrow, and whisper…

…gotcha!

and I won’t be able to stop chuckling until he’s sworn in.

I doubt it.

At any rate, it’s a perfect opportunity to link to this comic:

• Addressing Congress (Partially Clips)

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Let’s move north of the border for a minute or two.  We have this news from the centroid of Canadian government:

• Ontario cuts spending on food safety, health (Globe and Mail)

TORONTO — Ontario’s Ministry of Agriculture is slashing its budget for food safety, public health and environmental programs while increasing spending on administration.

Figures show the Agriculture Ministry budget for public health and the environment is down 27 per cent this year over last, while spending for bio-products and rural communities is down 18.4 per cent.

However, the ministry’s spending on administration will jump 16.6 per cent this year.

When you give a branch of government money, it’ll spend its new funding on a wish-list of purported panacæas — all of which naturally require a sub-minister or two to run, with offices and staff and computers and other overhead.  If you then cut that branch’s budget, its management will find ways to keep the high-ranking desk-drivers on the payroll; this is usually accomplished by cutting services which are important to the voters (and voters aren’t at all important to government agencies except as sources of tax revenue — if the agency irrevocably pisses off the voters, some elected official will take the fall).

Needless to say, PR flacks are rarely among the casualties:

Agriculture officials insist the $5.3-million increase in administration costs is not an actual increase in spending, but a reallocation of staff and resources.

So… you guys need more administrators to administer fewer programmes?  Brilliant.

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By now I imagine that my readers are familiar with the dubious reassurance that “when seconds count, government help is only minutes away”.  Well, that’s a bit too optimistic for modern Britain:

• 3 hour targets set for police response to 999 calls (The Sun)

That’s for emergency calls, mind you; the plods get up to three days to respond to less urgent complaints.

The targets were in a leaked draft copy of the Government’s new Green Paper on Policing.

Under a section on national standards, it says the police must “respond appropriately” to incidents. This includes telling crime victims when an officer will turn up.

The document says the target should be “within three hours if it requires policing intervention, or three days if there is less immediate need for a police presence”.

I’d imagine they’d get there much sooner if you did something anti-social, like boarding an airliner wearing a Transformers tee-shirt or chalking up the sidewalk to play hopscotch.  Better luck next election, chaps.

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Meanwhile, Harry Reid’s doing what he does best: blaming Dubya for his own lack of intestinal fortitude.

• Reid: Congress’s low approval numbers are Bush’s fault (The New Editor)

In his words:

“Any time, I repeat, any time you have a president that is down so, so far in poll numbers, it drags down a city council member,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “It drags down any elected official, including us, and we recognize that.”

Unpopular Presidents drag down city council members? You’re gonna have to cite that one before I’ll believe it, Harry.  I’m tempted to believe that it was your party’s meek acquiescence to Dubya over things like FISA and its continued willingness to fund the war in Iraq — you know, those 2006 election promises all y’all broke — that drag you down.

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We close with the disquieting notion that Senator Clinton hasn’t done enough damage to the Democratic party yet:

• Hillary Clinton hints at another tilt at the White House (Telegraph)

If you guessed that this was all about the money, give yourself a pat on the back.

The former First Lady has written to donors asking them to roll over £1,150 contributions made this year in expectation that she would become the nominee.

According to the New York Observer, she has asked contributors to let the money, totalling £11.85 million, be used for her senate re-election campaign 2012, or for the 2012 general – presidential – election.

The New York senator finished the Democratic primary campaign with £11 million in debt.

Nearly £6 million of her debt was a personal loan, taken from the £54 million shared fortune with her husband, former president Bill Clinton.

So… rich Democratic politician expects taxpayers to pay for a failed venture ending in millions of dollars of debt?  Way to shatter those stereotypes, there.

Of course, the Clinton camp doesn’t just expect her own supporters to clean up the wreckage of her Presidential campaign.

Her supporters have criticized Mr Obama for failing to apply sufficient enthusiasm to his requests to his donors to help Mrs Clinton with her debt.

Why would Obama’s supporters want to help someone who said this about their candidate?

“I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. Sen. John McCain has a lifetime of experience that he’d bring to the White House. And Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.”

I don’t know, either.  Given that both Democratic finalists made noises about pizza-based economics during their campaigns, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Clintons might be willing to relinquish a few pieces of their rather large slice of “the pie” rather than ask others to give up their crumbs.  But that’s not the nature of populist politics: see, Obama (and his supporters) won, so they must be forced to suffer as much as Clinton (and her supporters).  The Principle of Equality of Misery must hold.

This gives me a chance to close with another Mencken quotation.

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.  If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both.

– H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 145.

Hoplophobia

Totalrecoil knocks one out of the park:

• More political stupidity: knife violence in Britain

The scaffold from which TR hangs this particular collection of stupidity is Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s proposal that bringing “youngsters caught with knives face-to-face with the victims of stabbings” is more effective than the Conservatives’ plan of jailing anyone caught with a “bladed weapon”.  There’s plenty of stupid to be seen at this gibbet, but my favourite is the notion that “knife violence” is somehow worse than other sorts.  Quoting TR:

Politicians (and others with their personal agendas) call for mandatory jail time for gun crime and knife crime but what about if the perpetrator beats the guy half to death with a baseball bat. Or puts the boots to his victim’s head? Are these “nicer” crimes of violence?

It seems to me that guns and knives get singled out because they’re easier to imagine as weapons.  Baseball bats, tire irons, sticks, crowbars*, screwdrivers, pencils, feet, hands, knees, elbows, and cricket balls are not, because they aren’t immediately obvious to the fantasist’s imagination as weapons.  And these politicians’ objective is cultivating and exploiting a fear of weapons, not any desire to mitigate violence.

* I suppose we’ll start seeing crowbar-control laws when the first generation of Half-Life-playing politicians gets elected.

How beer saved civilization

• Beer: Is there anything it can’t do? (RealClearPolitics)

That is all.

Reductio ad absurdum

You all know my opinion on surveillance cameras: they don’t do shit to keep people safe, and are only dubiously effective at catching criminals.  With that in mind, I’m gobsmacked by the shocking ineffectuality displayed herein:

• Home invasion video stolen, thief caught on camera (Firstcoastnews.com)

One day after three men robbed a young mother at gunpoint, inside her home – someone stole the surveillance video from detectives. That theft was caught on camera.

Somehow, that last bit doesn’t reassure me.  Oh, and after surveillance cameras twice failed to prevent crime:

[The victim] plans to add cameras to their home and business.

Third time’s the charm, right?

Mid-week misanthropy, vol. 10

Didja miss me?

—-

Powerful people are doing momentous — or at least significant — things these days.  Iran’s test-firing long-range missiles capable of striking Israel; this has some people justifiably upset.  The G8’s leaders are talking about emissions cuts and telling Mugabe what a naughty fellow he’s been lately.  Janjaweed troops in Darfur attacked a UN convoy.  And back here in Canada, we’re having a mature and insightful debate about the ethics of abortion sparked by Dr. Morgentaler’s appointment to the Order of Canada.

Just kidding.  In Canada, we’re up in arms over two cell phone companies charging people for receiving text messages:

• Bell, Telus customers to pay for incoming text messages (CBC.ca)

Cellphone users with Bell and Telus are going to have to fork over a little more to receive incoming text messages under new pricing plans slated to roll out in August.

Under the new plans, customers will be charged 15 cents to receive incoming text messages, including uninvited spam messages. Previously, customers without text plans were only charged for outgoing messages.

Customers with a text messaging rate plan or bundle will not be affected by the new charges.

(Holy shit: there are two sentences in that second paragraph.  CBC must’ve hired someone who passed high-school English.)

As you’d guess, a lot of people think this is an awful idea — something about having to pay for actions outside of one’s own control makes people angry.  I’d bet that if this plan survives the next month, a lot of Bell and Telus customers are going to take their business elsewhere.  That’s what happens in a competitive market: you do something stupid to piss off your customers, and they leave.  It’s not as though these are the only two cell-phone providers in the country.

Wait, wait; back up a second.  Here I go talking about free markets and consumer choice and competition as if this was America (circa 1890) or something.  This is Canada.  We can’t have that.  We need government intervention, dammit!

• Ottawa moves to forestall texting revolt (Globe and Mail)

The Canadian government tried to pre-empt a consumer revolt against two leading phone companies on Wednesday, demanding explanations from the wireless units of BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. on their new pricing policy for text messages.

Both companies announced this week they would begin charging some customers for incoming text messages, which have been free until now.

“I believe this was an ill-thought-out decision,” Industry Minister Jim Prentice said in a statement, adding it is his duty to protect consumer interests.

That’s fine, Prentice.  I also believe it’s an ill-thought-out decision.  Neither one of us has the right to go fucking around in the internal affairs of either Bell or Telus.

It’s as much a waste of time and money for the Canadian government to investigate cell-phone pricing as it is for the American Senate to investigate steroid use in pro sports.  That time and money could be better spent on something that does fall under the federal government’s ægis, like replacing search-and-rescue planes that no longer work properly.  This sort of populist bullshit is counterproductive and ought to be criminal.

—-

While we’re on the subject of government overstepping its authority, let’s visit scenic Victoria, B.C., where property rights and Charter “protections” against illegal search and seizure are quaint relics of the 20th Century:

• Canada Day alcohol searches illegal, civil liberties group says (CBC.ca)

Suppose you’re a polite and considerate Canadian patriot living in Victoria.  You don’t want to be part of any trouble, so you plan a small Canada Day celebration at home with a few close friends rather than an evening of bar-hopping.  And because you care about the planet, you take the bus to and from the liquor store.  It’s all good, right?

Not so much, no.  You may well be “randomly” targeted and searched by the Victoria police, and the unopened bottles of booze you purchased confiscated.  Not because you’re doing anything wrong, mind you, but because those cops think you might intend that booze for “unlawful purposes”.

Police officers in Victoria exceeded their authority last week when they boarded buses and began randomly searching riders and seizing unopened bottles of alcohol from those they believed were heading for Canada Day celebrations, according to the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

[...]

“We acted under the Liquor Control [and] Licensing Act, and basically it allows us to search without warrant any place short of a residence, anywhere where we believe alcohol is possessed for unlawful purposes,” [Const. Derek] Tolmie [of the Victoria Police Department] said.

Fantastic.  This must be one of those “reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” the Charter of Rights and Freedoms mentions, ’cause I could swear that Section 8 of the Charter says that

Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.

So much, then, for the Charter.

—-

There’s plenty of government-powered idiocy south of the 49th, too.  You may recall that in Britain, toddlers who don’t like “foreign” food are considered racist; compare and contrast to Dallas, where a glancing familiarity with cosmology is considered racist:

• Dallas County officials spar over ‘black hole’ comment (Dallas Morning News)

You can see this one coming, right?

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections “has become a black hole” because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud “Excuse me!” He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a “white hole.”

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

What.  The.  Fuck.

If you don’t recognize that a black hole is an astronomical feature so named because it sucks in light rather than reflecting it (Hawking radiation making an interesting counterpoint for more advanced students), you shouldn’t be permitted to hold public office because you’re a fucking imbecile!

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While we’re on the subject of ineffectual idiots in American politics, we notice this milestone:

• Congressional approval falls to single digits for first time ever (Rasmussen)

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.

Surprise, surprise.  I suppose it might have something to do with the fact that this Congress was elected on a pledge to end the war in Iraq, and has failed spectacularly to do so.  Further, while we’re being sold the idea that a messianic President(ial candidate) can somehow make everything all right again with the power of Hope and Change, it’s refreshing to read that people aren’t buying the myth of benevolent government:

Most voters (72%) think most members of Congress are more interested in furthering their own political careers. Just 14% believe members are genuinely interested in helping people.

That is a hopeful sign.

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And finally, it looks like Iran’s middle class has discovered the dubious joys of the caffe latte:

• U.S. exports cigarettes, bras, bull semen to Iran (CNN.com)

(Emphasis added.)

Nice to see that Starbucks has found a growth market somewhere.

And now for something completely asinine

You may have guessed from the title that I’m about to mock a pair of news stories from Britain.

First, we have the apotheosis of the oh-cripes-I’m-frightened state:

• Police say UFO was just the moon (The Beeb)

Control Room: “South Wales Police, what’s your emergency?”

Caller: “It’s not really. I just need to inform you that across the mountain there’s a bright stationary object.”

[...]

Control: “Alpha Zulu 20, this object in the sky, did anyone have a look at it?”

Officer: “Yes, it’s the moon. Over.”

Well, you never know.  Better safe than sorry and all that, right?

Next, we have the apotheosis of the — dare I say it? — politically correct state:

• Toddlers who dislike spicy food racist (Telegraph.co.uk)

The National Children’s Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says “yuk” in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

These people have far too much time and far too much money on their hands.  I can’t credibly imagine a toddler with perfectly cosmopolitan taste in food.  Hell, I’d wager that the vast majority of people — including the sanctimonious meatshits at the National Children’s Bureau — are going to turn their noses up at certain “unfamiliar foreign” dishes: lutefisk, for instance, or perhaps the more pungent varieties of kimchi.  That doesn’t make them racist, it just makes them… individuals.

Heaven forfend.