Tag: Cosplay Fascism

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Free Speech and Cosplay Fascism

Charlie Kirk was assassinated on Wednesday, September 10. Shortly thereafter, J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller began to implement what looks like a preplanned program to find some pretext to destroy free speech. 

Jimmy Kimmel supplied the pretext on Monday night, September 15, when he (1) unwisely assumed that political assassination was a good topic for comedy and (2) stated—apparently incorrectly—that one of the “MAGA gang” was the actual assassin. Shortly thereafter, beginning on September 17, President Snowflake and his minion Brendon Carr, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, began calling for the revocation of ABC’s license and those of its local TV affiliates. 

Kimmel’s bosses at ABC hit the panic button and—on that same day, Wednesday, September 17—said they would “indefinitely suspend” Kimmel from the airwaves. 

Large chunks of shit began to hit the fan. As the hours and days went on, chunks of shit kept on hitting the proverbial ventilator.

Actors by the hundreds and others by the thousands began to protest and to initiate boycotts. The unspeakable Ted Cruz found that, after all, he could speak out against the planned death of the free speech.

The tide quickly began to turn. When we bought groceries on Saturday, Kroger still had its flag at half staff in loving memory of St. Charly Kirk, the martyr. But the next day, Brendon Carr was on TV trying to walk back his threat to start killing TV licenses. 

Over in England, the indispensable March Family began to write a very nice song about the American First Amendment. They wrote the song, recorded it, and put it on YouTube very quickly—but not quickly enough to get ahead of ABC’s cowardly decision to reverse their own cowardice, and to get our friend Jimmy Kimmel back on the air as of tonight. 

The “indefinite suspension” ultimately lasted less than one week. 

Walks Like Cosplay Fascism, Talks Like Cosplay Fascism

I have no quarrel with those who, beginning on September 17, have been wailing, gnashing their teeth, and rending their garments about the death of freedom in the United States. But my instincts told me that the public was not going to react well to Vance and Miller goosestepping all over Washington, and that insight seems to have been correct. 

Why? Well, I have to begin by admitting that recent events have tended to confirm H.L. Mencken’s claim that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. “Don’t know much about history/Don’t know much geography/Don’t know much about a science book/Don’t know much about the French I took.”

And yet … shockingly ill-informed as so many of us are, we do seem to have the sense to realize that government censorship is not a good thing. 

And so, as of this writing, midday, Tuesday, September 23, Trump and Vance and Miller don’t look like Nazis. Instead, they look like clownish, comic, cosplay Nazis as they strut about on the national stage. 

Right now, it looks as if the great plan to use the Kirk assassination as a pretext to destroy freedom has backfired. Bigly. 

But the Fat Lady Hasn’t Yet Delivered Her Aria

I think the cosplay Fascists have two alternatives. 

Here’s the first one: when your evil plot comes crashing down, what you should do is minimize your losses, change the subject, and then go on a retreat to see whether you can find a more intelligent way to work your evil plan and to establish authoritarianism in the United States. 

Here’s the other alternative: when your evil plot comes crashing down, respond by lashing out blindly in all directions, form a circular firing squad, and do everything you can to make yourselves look even more idiotic. 

Wanna bet on which choice they make?

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Judge Dugan’s Arrest, Civil Disobedience, the Authoritarian Playbook, Cosplay Fascism, and the Utility of Analytical Thinking

Please read these remarks in light of my comments, right below, on the character of judges.

By now, we have all read a lot about the authoritarian playbook. If, by and large, judges can’t be intimidated, can’t be bought, and can’t be fooled, then, presumably, the next step in the authoritarian playbook would be to start arresting them. 

We are now conditioned to look for that sort of thing to start happening. We hear that, a couple of days ago, the FBI arrested a state judge out in Milwaukee for something having to do with immigration. Our confirmation bias kicks in, and the chorus all proclaim in unison, “Well, the fascism is now beginning in earnest!”

To add to the circus atmosphere, Attorney General Blondi goes out in public to do her cosplay fascist act—encouraging us to fear that federal judges who follow the constitution and demand due process might risk arrest, too. See Aaron Blake (Washington Post), Pam Bondi’s striking comments on arresting judges.

As a side observation: most humans, myself included, try to make ourselves look morally better than we really are. But that seems to be going out of fashion. Now the Attorney General of the United States wants everyone to think she is Ilsa, the She Wolf of the SS. 

A sign of the times, I suppose.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program. 

Back in Milwaukee, Judge Dugan, learning that ICE was about to snatch one Eduardo Flores-Ruiz—a misdemeanor criminal defendant in a case before her— allegedly showed Señor Flores-Ruiz how to get out the side door, thereby delaying his capture by ICE by a few minutes.

I don’t know how many people witnessed this incident. I don’t know whether they all remember it the same way. I don’t know what Judge Dugan’s account is; I don’t know what she says she did or didn’t do, and I don’t know what she says about her her intent. Accordingly, I have no rational basis to reach a conclusion as to what actually went down.

I don’t know—because I haven’t researched the matter, and I don’t intend to do so—what are the words of the statutes that Judge Dugan is supposed to have violated. Nor do I know how these words have been interpreted in judicial decisions (“case law,” as we call it). I don’t know whether Judge Dugan’s conduct clearly violated the law, clearly did not violate the law, or fell into an ambiguous gray area. I don’t know whether she will claim to have consciously run a legal risk to herself in order to advance a higher moral principle. If she does make such a claim, I don’t how whether the evidence will back up her claim.

But here is something I do know. I do know that it would be unwise for our side to be tricked into arguing that “lawless behavior by our guys is OK, while lawless behavior by your guys is not OK.” 

Instead, we should just reserve judgment on the facts and the law in this case, agree that everybody who breaks the law should be punished—and that, sometimes, people who decide to break the law to promote righteousness should suffer legal punishment. And then we should erect a statue in their honor.