Fire season is coming, but more-immediate problems presented.
First, social distancing. It seems Montana’s initial good fortune regarding the virus is running out. Traffic levels are busy again, out-of-state plates seem seasonally plentiful, so it’s not “just us” any more. Coronavirus is coming to Montana, hard and fast.
We need to be ready. Instead, I’m being crowded in checkout lines, seeing people linger rather than clear a pinch point, paw merchandise, then touch their face (or vice versa), et cetera, ad nauseam.
Ignorance should be corrected through education, but after months of nonstop education, what I’m experiencing now is pure stupidity. So, gimme my six feet. I don’t want to have to fix your stupid.
Second, there’s Black Lives Matter. Racism certainly exists – that’s a hard stupid to fix. But I’m smart enough to notice gigantic differences between Al Sharpton and Allen West, between Condoleeza Rice and Susan Rice. Listen to them, read their writing, and skin color loses its relevance pretty darn quick.
BLM’s narrative of “systemic racism” pervading all facets of American society is grossly overstated. As for the associated fad for “canceling” anything, or anyone, painted with BLM’s ridiculously broad “racist” brush, I find that insane.
Why? As philosopher George Santayana put it, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Are we condemned? No, but I’m getting a real sense of déjà vu. I really feel sorry for those who think this is all new, who either don’t remember, were never taught, or never studied how much the murderous Soviets loved to edit disfavored comrades out of history, after they’d been first killed in purges or after show trials.
They’re unaware China’s dear Chairman Mao took the Soviet example even further during the Cultural Revolution. Clutching their “Little Red Books,” for 10 years state-sanctioned mobs of eager “students” purged China of its brains, while tossing giant chunks of an incredibly rich, four-thousand-year cultural and intellectual history into bonfires of ignorance.
Because I pay attention to history, when it first became cool to tear down Confederate memorials, I could understand why. After all, history is written by the winners of the fights that make history – it’s great to be on the winning side of history versus the losing side – but it is through understanding both the winners and losers of history that wisdom is best gained – and best applied.
But why would Father Junipero Serra be ripped down in San Francisco? Oh, that’s right, he was a Catholic who set up a bunch of missions in California, at least in part to convert the Indians to Christianity. Bad man. Hey, the Flathead Ten Commandments was ripped down the other day, why not go ahead and raze the church in Saint Ignatius?
Then there’s the effort to rename John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. Wayne’s crime? Forty-nine years ago, John Wayne dared to utter, as the Los Angeles Times cries, a “gay slur” in a 1971 Playboy interview. Hint – Brits call their cigarettes the same thing.
Something else John said then: “Why are we allowing ourselves to become a mobocracy instead of a democracy? When you allow unlawful acts to go unpunished, you’re moving toward a government of men rather than a government of law; you’re moving toward anarchy.”
What else to call it when boneheaded leftist mobs knock down the Christopher Columbus monument in Denver?
In Portland, Oregon, down goes George Washington, father of our country. Thomas Jefferson, who just happened to grab the Louisiana Purchase (and most of Montana) from the French? Teddy Roosevelt? If Abe Lincoln is pulled down for not being a great enough emancipator, then what? Mount Rushmore? Sure! The guy who carved Rushmore also carved Stonewall Jackson into a cliff! Knock it all down!
Why? Well, some of us grown-ups realize that Black Lives Matter is following historical precedent, using Soviet-style misinformation techniques on already-broken little minds.
That might seem like an especially hard stupid to fix, but history shows that statues don’t go down for good until after the losers have surrendered.