"Odds and Bits"
By Fred Reed
"Freedom of expression, as distinct from speech. Fred, Grand Klarified Klingle of Los Cucu Clan, with severe visual problems, but still dangerous. Regalia by Violeta, of used typing paper. Probably a fire hazard. Obsidian knife shows ethnic sensitivity. Today we will have luminous insights in small dollops. They will doubtless spur the formation of new university departments and restructuring of governments, preferably by the salutary application of a guillotine.
Why we should scrap the Constitution. Or admit that we already have. The Constitution says nothing about freedom of expression. It says freedom of speech. Freedom of speech means that I can say that Biden is a horse’s ass. Freedom of expression means that I can march in KKK robes with thirty of the like-minded through black or Jewish neighborhoods or, at least in San Francisco, defecate on the American flag. In practice of course speech is tightly controlled by the press and social media which in practice are organs of the government.
The Constitution says nothing about separation of church and state. It says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Understanding this requires a grasp of history which the schools make sure that few have. The Founding Fathers most assuredly did not intend the Constitution to forbid a nativity scene on a town square in Alabama, and for two centuries it never occurred to anyone that it might.
The Constitution says we have trial by jury. We do not. The United States has become such a fetid, bubbling swamp of moral putrescence and rampant crime that jury trials would require the population of China just to fill jury boxes. Jury trials are for the rich and for important show trials. If we had trial by straightforward bribery the effects would be the same and we wouldn’t need so many damn lawyers.
The Constitution says we have the right to a speedy trial. We do not. Check how long those daffy yoyos who invaded the capitol awaited trial.
Nor do we have a Supreme Court. Instead we have a microlegislature of last resort consisting of ideologues appointed by Presidents for the predictability of their votes and likely longevity. Some seem actually ignorant of the law, which makes no difference as this has nothing to do with their function. They could be done in software at much less cost.
Some advice: How to Watch Television: When you are watching the lobotomy box, and you see someone standing in front of the flag, change the channel. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, said Doctor Johnson. Anyone using the flag as a backdrop thinks you are a boob, or is at least playing the odds, knowing that most people are boobs. If there are three flags, the assumption of your marginally human intelligence increases as the cube.
When an official in Washington says “national security,” hold your wallet firmly in one hand and a pistol in the other. You are about to be pillaged. Do you want another goddam semi-functional aircraft carrier or pricey trinket of a fighter plane that can barely fly. You would be better off with a new lawnmower.
Whenever some wretched pickpocket of a pol starts talking about the fight against climate change, you should ignore him, unless you are in range and happen to have a baseball bat. He doesn’t care about global warming any more than he does about trash pick-up in another galaxy. Anyway, as Republicans say, there is no such thing as global warming. It’s just that the world gets hotter every year, which makes it look like global warming.
I am not entirely sure what to do when someone in office starts talking about human rights, though at close range bird shot is said to work. Rock salt can be used in a pinch. The United States values human rights intensely. Just now it promotes them in the Ukraine by poisoning the place for generations with depleted uranium and spreading cluster bombs around to blow the legs off their children. This is so they will have freedom and democracy. But not legs.
Now, voting. Don’t do it. It is like admitting you made four hundred’ on your SATs or can’t dress yourself. Anyway, it doesn’t matter which wing of the Bicephalous Uniparty you vote for since both will be in favor of democracy in some country and kill everybody there. Besides, anything with two heads and wings is probably unpleasant.
Liberals and conservatives: These are like having to choose between incurable dysentery and infected hemorrhoids. Instead of arguing about these twin plagues it would probably be better to go to a good dirt bar, maybe one with a pole dancer, and get drunk while telling dirty jokes. That’s what I would do, anyway.
Remember that, at their purest, conservatives are heartless and liberals, goofy. Typically the two work together in bipartisan efficiency. Traditionally conservatives have wrecked foreign policy while liberals have botched things at home. As many may know, the thing that most gnaws at the conservative’s heart, that makes him wake at three a.m. in a cold sweat, shuddering with the night horrors, is the thought of paying for anything for somebody else. Thus he balks at the government’s paying university for a brilliant kid who would probably invent antigravity or something.
Liberals insist that there is no such thing as intelligence, being themselves the best evidence for this proposition, except in heartwarming minorities, who have as much of it as everybody else even if there isn't any. The said liberals won’t let you have a test to find bright kids, who don’t exist anyway because they are social constructs and, besides, learning anything is structural racism or something.
We are doomed. And probably deserve it. Why are we doomed? Because decent people, honest, well-intentioned, content with a good life cannot, no matter how smart, compete with the selfish, avaricious, kleptomaniacal, amoral, and ambitious. The ideal for rising to high position is the matinee-idol psychopath. Sometimes just grubby and unprincipled will do the trick.
Note that in the White House we have Baffled Joe, who finished seventy-sixth in a class of eighty-five in a second-rate law school after being caught cheating, a Napoleonic draft-dodger, neck deep in corruption in the Ukraine and with an equally corrupt, meth-head of a felonious son. Then we have Kamala with the brains of a water hyacinth and, waiting in the wings, Trump, mean, vindictive, and crooked as kite string in a ceiling fan.
In Congress we have as our rulers provincial lawyers chosen in popularity contests. Having worked their way up in the politics of Nebraska or Idaho, having learned on the way the arts of talking out of three sides of their mouths and soliciting bribes however disguised without seeming to, they now govern a vast world empire about which they know nothing. Oh, happiness.
You may think this harsh. It isn’t. A friend, very much in a position to know, estimates that ninety percent of the Senate doesn’t know where Myanmar is. All of Washington colludes in hiding the ignorance of elected officials. A reporter doesn’t ask, “Senator, where is Catarrh?” but, “Senator, what do you think of our Catarrh policy?” “Well, I think we need to take into account all factors, such as human rights and democracy, and of course global warming.” No mention of nasal spray. I need a drink."
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