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unidentified
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Halloween is next week, meaning it's time for a slew of virtue signaling articles | ||
and think pieces on why every costume you wanna wear is racist, bigoted, | ||
or some evil form of cultural appropriation. | ||
Allow me to spare you the mental exhaustion and propose something truly radical right now. | ||
Wear whatever the heck it is you want to wear this Halloween. | ||
For me, it's going to be the same old Obi-Wan Kenobi costume I've worn for about the past 10 years, though this year I do think it'll look particularly sharp with my newfound beard. | ||
Forgetting the specifics of who's offended by what today, the real issue here I'd like to address is how the set of people who find offense everywhere are actually doing something much more offensive than any costume could ever accomplish. | ||
This endlessly outraged crowd are trying to suck the joy out of every facet of life from comedy to Halloween. | ||
It's just one of the many techniques these control freaks, masked as the good guys, use to whittle down your own sense of what's right and wrong until you bow to their demand of total conformity. | ||
Once they can get you to stop joking, stop wearing costumes you want to wear, and most importantly, stop thinking for yourself, it's very easy to manipulate you socially, politically, or otherwise. | ||
It's also one of the reasons we've seen so many thoughtful, decent people purged by this hysterical, shrieking movement over the past few years, such as some of my former guests like Brett Weinstein and Laura Kipnis. | ||
When conformity of thought is your number one goal, then diversity of thought is your number one enemy. | ||
This leaves little room for conversation, comedy, or costumes. | ||
It's precisely why comedy seems largely dead right now. | ||
Who turns on late night TV to watch a comedian lecture you about politics? | ||
Come to think of it, who turns on late night comedy at all anymore? | ||
What I wouldn't give for Johnny Carson to be resurrected from the dead to actually show these guys a thing or two. | ||
Once conversation and honest debate is taken away, all that is left is yelling. | ||
Once comedy is taken away, all that's left is lecturing. | ||
Once costumes are taken away, all that's left is conformity. | ||
None of this adds up to how a healthy society should operate. | ||
Does this mean that some conversations are hard to have? | ||
Yes. | ||
Does it mean that some jokes are offensive? | ||
Indeed. | ||
And does it mean that some costumes might trigger someone? | ||
Absolutely. | ||
But we shouldn't trade in the distinctly human trait of using our minds to talk, to joke, or to express ourselves through dressing how we please just because it might offend somebody. | ||
Of course, with all that in mind, it's up to you where that line from edginess to offense is. | ||
This is what great satirists and comics and writers have had to deal with for all time. | ||
If you get close to the line, you might just trip over it, and rightly or wrongly, there probably will be consequences for your misstep. | ||
One year in high school, I dressed up as an Amish guy, one of my buddies dressed up as an Orthodox Jew, and another dressed up as a Catholic priest. | ||
We didn't do it to offend anyone, we did it because it was different, and in some ways that's what Halloween is all about. | ||
We also egged a bunch of houses and stole candy, but fortunately that was before Twitter. | ||
As for me, I have no desire to go out of my way to offend anyone, but I understand why it's important to live in a society that allows us to do just that. |