The end of art: "We have so many mentally deranged people out there. We do not want a movie that will give them any ideas."

I respectully disagree. We have so many mentally deranged people out there. We do not want a movie that will give them any ideas. I'm happy that they decided to pull it. If that makes me stupid....so be it.

— Trudy (@trudy_lecein) August 10, 2019

I'm objecting to the big proposition: There are so many mentally deranged people out there, so let's censor anything that will give them any ideas.

I wish people would listen to what they are saying.

Now, maybe there's a nuanced smaller proposition that isn't the antithesis of freedom of speech. Is there a very particular sort of person (as opposed to the "mentally deranged people," which could be millions of us) and a very particular sort of graphic presentation (as opposed to whatever gives "any ideas")?

This reminds me of the anti-pornography movement of the late 80s and early 90s. The assertion was: Ban all graphic depiction of sex because it is causally connected to rape:

Robin Morgan summarizes this idea with her often-quoted statement, "Pornography is the theory, and rape is the practice."

Anti-pornography feminists charge that pornography eroticizes the domination, humiliation, and coercion of women, and reinforces sexual and cultural attitudes that are complicit in rape and sexual harassment. [Catharine] MacKinnon argued that pornography leads to an increase in sexual violence against women through fostering rape myths. Such rape myths include the belief that women really want to be raped and that they mean yes when they say no. Additionally, according to MacKinnon, pornography desensitizes viewers to violence against women, and this leads to a progressive need to see more violence in order to become sexually aroused, an effect she claims is well documented.

There's very little enthusiasm today about banning pornography, even with a heightened awareness and activism about rape. Why? I'd guess it's because pornography is so important to the people who consume it, because it's so widely and easily available that it can't be stopped, and because real-life experience doesn't seem to bear out the the causal connection. But it's possible that we actually care about freedom of speech.

These days, the issue is violence, specifically gun violence, and the would-be censors are talking about movies and video games. But they haven't been talking about government regulation. They're just using speech against speech. And that's how free-speech works. There's outrage expressed in social media, and the big corporation voluntarily withdraws the film: "Universal Scraps 'The Hunt' Release Following Gun Violence Uproar."

The studio's decision came a day after President Trump took aim at the film, saying it was "made to inflame and cause chaos." The story follows a group of elites hunting "deplorables" for sport.

The studio's Saturday announcement came a day after President Donald Trump took aim at the film — though he didn't name its title — and Hollywood, saying on Twitter, "Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level, and with great Anger and Hate! They like to call themselves “Elite,” but they are not Elite. In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the Elite. The movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country!"

Now, many people speak against Trump's speech, and they argue a causal connection to violence. They would like him to voluntarily shut up. But he won't.

To state the obvious: The speech we hear is the speech of those who speak. Silence only creates better conditions for the speech of those who speak to be heard.

Just last night, Meade and I were talking about the old adage, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything." You don't hear that one too much anymore, perhaps because all the people who live by that rule are invisible.

IN THE COMMENTS: John Henry quotes something that I brought up in the conversation Meade and I had last night — the famous counter-aphorism attributed to Alice Roosevelt Longworth, "If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit next to me." I said it was something she had emblazoned on a throw pillow. So let's read what Quote Investigator has to say about it:

Is this a racial joke (about a little girl's dog)?

I think these folks are taking this White House thing a little too literally. https://t.co/2HRPEYhoQz

— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) July 21, 2019

Neal Katyal was Acting Solicitor General of United States under Barack Obama.

In the conversation at Twitter, somebody writes: "They are so white on the outside, even Arabella s dog is white. Yet they are so dark inside so dark."

That sounds tantalizingly close to the old joke, "Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read" (attributed to Groucho Marx).

Jokes have changed!

IN THE COMMENTS: gilbar asks: "I wonder what they would have complained about, if they'd gotten a black lab?"

The jokes write themselves, don't they? A black dog is the only black creature that will go anywhere near them. What did they name him, Token? Etc.

AND: I wouldn't rule out the possibility that somewhere in the process of choosing that white dog, the Kushners realized their antagonists would make racial jokes and decided that would be a plus. What kind of jerks say racial things about a little girl's dog?

And look, there's Neal Katyal, scampering right into the trap! And there's Ann Althouse, kicking him around for being so rash and out of control.

ALSO: Isn't it time we stopped calling the White House the White House? The place was called the "Executive Mansion" until the racist Theodore Roosevelt took the trouble to change the official name to "The White House." There should be a movement to change the name back to "Executive Mansion." Repaint it too — not white and not any monochrome either. I recommend earth tones.

"How Much Political Experience Does It Take to Be Elected President?"

A nice graphic presentation in the NYT:



What can we infer about who Democrats should want as their candidate? Trump's winning with no political experience might seem to say anything could happen, so go ahead and try, mayors, even though it's never worked yet. The last thing that worked was something that hadn't happened yet, so maybe the most likely thing is the least like thing. In Crazyworld.

Ah! I do have a tag for this: "if Trump could do it."

IN THE COMMENTS: Gilbar observes that the VP most recently elected — George H.W. Bush in 1988 — was elected when he was the sitting VP. He wasn't a former VP. The NYT says:

While the vice presidency might seem the most obvious launching pad for the presidency, only five people have done what Joseph R. Biden Jr. is trying to do now: get elected after completing his vice presidency.

Boldface added. That looks like the NYT is acknowledging the difficulty of running as a former VP, but I think the NYT is including candidates who were VP when they ran and began serving after they completed their term. I believe there is only one person who ran as a former VP and won — Richard Nixon. The Times was trying to exclude the VPs who became President when the President died and then won an election. Obviously, those men didn't win as VP. They won as President.

AND: When Nixon won, in 1968, he was opposed by another VP, Hubert Humphrey. So 1968 is more of a testimony to the ability of VPs to get nominated, not elected. When Nixon ran as VP in 1960 and was not opposed by another VP, he lost. The George H.W. Bush win (against a governor) is really an outlier. The other recent VP nominees all lost — Al Gore in 2000, Mondale in 1984.

SNL's "Lindsey Graham" says: "Let's keep this horny male energy going 'til the midterms!"

The cold open shows GOP Senators celebrating their Kavanaugh victory in sports-locker-room style and "Chuck Schumer" weakly whining over the Democrats defeat and then getting punched in the balls by "Joe Manchin":





You can watch the whole sketch if you scroll back to the beginning, but I'm setting it to start at the depiction of Susan Collins, who, of course, can't be shown as a strong, principled woman who gave the best speech anyone can remember a Senator giving. No, she's a witless patsy, just vaguely realizing she's been had:



If it were funnier, I'd make a new tag, Kavanomedy. But it isn't funny. The main idea is that the American people were overwhelmingly opposed to Kavanaugh and are ferociously angry now and will let the clueless Senators feel their wrath in the midterm elections. If the Kavanaugh-haters who watch the show could really believe that, maybe they'd laugh, but there's no evidence that's what's happening out there in the real world. Oh, what am I saying? Who needs evidence?! Live within the fantasy for as long as you can, and "SNL" wants to be inside your bubble. Not much comic potential there, but who cares? It's the Era of That's Not Funny.

IN THE COMMENTS: gilbar — quoting my "SNL" wants to be inside your bubble — links to the "SNL" sketch that acknowledged the bubble within which it pictures its audience: