I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.
– C. S. Lewis

Unless you live under a rock, with only occasional interactions with either sunlight and other people thus don’t know what television or social media are, you’ve probably heard someone’s opinion about Michelle Wolf‘s raucous and, some would say, explicit performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Yes, this is another opinion, but one that requires a bit of a preface by way of a short anecdotal story, so I ask that you, dear reader, will please indulge me for a moment.

More than few years ago now, my next door neighbor at the time had three young children (aged 9 to 13), including two boys, who would occasionally come play in my yard. One year, I spray painted some yardage lines in my relatively small yard (next to their yard), and we threw a football around for fun, with the brothers alternating between catching and defending. Being brothers, they naturally got competitive and, as will happen in yard football involving siblings, the older brother accidentally hit his brother right on the ear.

The younger brother immediately clutched his ear and began cried, because, as anyone that’s been hit on the ear with any force knows, it hurt a lot. Being the adult, I checked his ear to make sure he wasn’t injured (he wasn’t), so the only thing left to deal with was his hurt feelings. I tilted his head to the side and peered into his ear then said, “Oh, my God!” Still crying, he whimpered, “What?” I replied, “I can see straight through your head!” He erupted in laughter, and I ruffled his hair and told him he was fine. We went back to throwing the football around until they had to go home for dinner.

What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.
– Sigmund Freud

The moral of this story is, when working with children, responsible adults have a duty to teach kids to understand the difference between a serious foul and an inconsequential one, thus hopefully preparing them to negotiate the inevitable slings and arrows that life throws at everyone. It is now apparent that my presumption of my experience of a constant stream of instruction at home and in school, of both the academic and practical kinds, being fairly normal was itself incorrect, judging solely on the disturbing amount of Michelle Wolf’s many very apparently grievously wounded critics, at least if their incessant howling is any indication of the severity of their injuries.

I’m frankly stunned that people are so energetically bent out of shape over her words. Mind, I don’t contend that what she said wasn’t offensive. Most of the things she said were unquestionably rude, unfit for innocent ears, morally questionable (especially on abortion), and undeniably (perhaps even needlessly) provocative. It was all of those things in spades and more. Not to mention that I would love the opportunity to dismantle her position on abortion with my moral duty argument against it. That, however, isn’t what her critics are whining about.

What they are whining about is that a comedienne, hired specifically to roast as many people as possible, including the president’s staff who had the guts to show up at all, actually roasted as many people as possible, including the president, because, get this, she said mean words that they didn’t like. All I can say to these people is “Oh, my God! I can see straight through your head!” (albeit with a little less irony). Honestly, when an 11 year old boy has more emotional fortitude than full grown adults occupying not insignificant government posts, there is something fantastically wrong in our culture.

OPHELIA: The king rises.
HAMLET: What, frighted with false fire?
GERTRUDE: How fares my lord?
POLONIUS: Give o’er the play.
CLAUDIUS: Give me some light, away!
POLONIUS: Lights, lights, lights!
– Shakespeare, Hamlet Act III Scene 2

When did Americans become a bunch of little, thin skinned, cowardly, cry babies and snowflakes, protesting at inconsequential offense? They were jokes! If the people who were the butt of Michelle Wolf’s jokes actually require other adults to white knight for them, they have no business being in government. And anyone that is triggered that much by the “mean words said by the mean lady” shouldn’t be trusted with a box of crayons, let alone with political franchise.

Grow up, America.

 

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Liberty is For The Win!