Something Wicked: The New American Era of Veiled Speech

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. – Bill Shakespeare, 2nd witch, Macbeth, Act 4.

The Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution has always been, seemingly, for the benefit of leftists.  They were the ones who made the greatest use of it, and fought the hardest to protect it for their benefit.  For that, I suppose they could be admired.  Of course, they’d be even more admirable if they ever lifted a finger to preserve it for anyone else, but I suppose that’s really our problem; not theirs.

At any rate, as of last week, we have entered a new era in America where the right to free speech and the freedom from fear of reprisal no longer exists, at all, for conservatives.  It was de facto void before, anyway, but at least we pretended that we could speak our minds, even though we rarely dared to.  Now it’s entirely over.  No, I’m not just talking about the silly punitive threats, like the one put forth by these neo-stalinists.  I’m talking about the very real and occurring-right-now threats of people being put on no-fly lists and getting visited by DHS agents and getting politically-directed IRS audits and being arrested for “hate-thoughts,” or at least being given the privilege of full-scale, no-knock SWAT raids instead of courtesy calls because they have expressed “pro-Constitution” views.  But the worst is right around the corner.  If, for years, Canadians have been dragged before hate-speech tribunals and been incarcerated for doing nothing but thinking wrongly, does anyone doubt that such things are imminent in the era of Lord Obama?

But the purpose of this little post is not simply to lament the obvious.  I think it will be useful for all of us conservatives to “get with the times” and learn to start properly reading between the lines in all our conversations.  Since none of us is free to really speak openly about our views or our plans, it will become necessary for us to start paying attention to what is half-said, or more often what is conspicuously not said at all, in order to make sense of things.  The good news is that we don’t have to figure it out by ourselves.  We have some expert trail-blazers from the French revolution and almost an entire century of Russians who have been saying things without actually saying them, and thus protecting their lives and their loved ones with real finesse.  We just need to learn that skill.  One helpful source is already in place and ready to serve.  At the People’s Cube, Red Square(Oleg A.) has been writing lately about how his favorite old Soviet jokes that didn’t used to make sense to Americans suddenly have a brilliant new cache.  He also laments that when he first came to America, he was thrilled to learn that he “no longer needed to read between the lines to know what was happening.”  Hah!  That didn’t last long.  Sorry, Oleg!

But back to business.  Let’s start our lesson with Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert’s recent refusal to back Speaker Boehner’s re-election.  It wasn’t very effective, and he’s going to get totally screwed over by his leadership for his insubordination, but his attempt to send a message about the total failure of Speaker Boehner’s tenure by calling him a “nice man” while nominating someone else who isn’t even serving in Congress provides some good comedy material for us.  Louie, you rock.

Next case is a tougher analysis of Bill Whittle’s apparent amnesia about what he said in his last Firewall video before the election.

This passionate appeal to voters ends with a particular statement at the 5:40 mark about how he is utterly convinced that there will be no more chances after this election.  He states passionately and unequivocally that the corruption of the Obama administration will preclude there ever being a free and fair election again, even if this one turns out to be fair, which is a matter of open debate even now.  Did you get that?  He states that if Obama wins this election, it’s over.  Forever.  Done.  No more elections.  No more freedom.  No more hope.  I happen to think he was right.  Oops!  Did I say that out loud?  Ha ha!  Silly me.  Even Bill no longer admits openly that he said that.  Watch his post-election video and learn.

Did you see anything in this bitter-but-accurate review of the post-election landscape that contradicted what he said in the pre-election video?  Nope.  Sure didn’t.  If anything, it affirmed it.  But wait, at the end, where’s the part where he washes his hands of the political process, which he’s clearly stated is now hopeless?  Not just hopeless, but forever hopeless, because as he’s previously stated, Obama is a corrupt dictator, and dictators never willingly or peacefully give up power.  Bill does say, regarding him and Scott Ott, that: “We’re in it for the duration… for the rest of our lives.”  But what is the “it” that they are “in,” exactly, if there is no hope, politically?  Bill doesn’t say.  He only refers to “this war” and “this fight” without any specifics like “party” or “constitution” or “country” and hints that he will probably fail; and he says he will be proud to fail, if that’s what happens.  Has Bill just “not said” that he intends to fight as part of an underground resistance to  bring freedom back to this country?  Violent or non-violent?  Hard to say.  But then, that’s really the whole point of “not saying,” right?  Don’t worry.  We’ll get used to it.