SCCC Trustees need to explain where they stand on the Bill of Rights

By Rubashov

Remember the attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo?  They published something that, in this case, militant Islamists found offensive.  The militants demanded they get their way and, when they didn’t, they killed 12 people.  The trustees at Charlie Hebdo stood up for free speech and against threats – and 12 people were martyred for it. 

At the very start of our American experiment, Benjamin Franklin said:  “You have a Republic, if you can keep it.”  The battles to preserve our Bill of Rights are fought in the pages of newspapers and on the Internet and on the lips of people, no less than on the battlefields of war.     

As in the case of Charlie Hebdo, some people have demanded that an image they deem “offensive” be removed and the “perpetrator” – in this case, it was merely “re-tweeted” – be punished.  Now they are equating what they call “hate speech” with acts of actual violence.

By the way, when is a crime of violence – any crime of violence – not hateful?

When is a sexual assault not hateful?  When is assault and battery a cheerful crime? When is murder done without malice?  When is the rape and murder of a child not hate?

Officially, the rape and the murder of a child is not an act of hate.  “It is about what was going on in your mind at the time of the crime,” they explain.  In other words, the crime is in the thought, not the act.  So now we have “thought crime”.  The actual rape and murder isn’t the bad part – what makes it really bad, what elevates it to a “hate crime,” is the thought.      

Go to the United States Justice Department’s compendium of “hate crimes” for 2001 and you will find that the attacks on September 11, 2001, are not counted as “hate crimes”.  Yeah, sure, those boys who flew those airliners into the Twin Towers did it out of benign affection for America.

The fact that the official compendium of “hate crimes” for 2001 is short 2,977 victims is a testament as to how deep the rot of political correctness has gone.

In politically correct parlance, hate is what they say it is. 

And who are “they”?  Anyone who sets themselves up as a “victim” or a “victims’ group” or a spokesperson for such.  In short… any old mob.

The Democrats asked Leslie Huhn, a supporter of Governor Phil Murphy and the former Chair of the Sussex County Democrat Committee, to dig up some dirt on Jerry Scanlan, the Chairman of the Sussex County Republicans and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Sussex County Community College (SCCC).  Murphy was concerned that his illegal Sanctuary scheme was getting bad press across the state – with a big part of the pushback coming from Sussex County.

On July 22, 2019, Leslie Huhn started “following” the Twitter page operated by Jerry Scanlan.  Huhn was looking for something to be offended by and she found it.  A mob was organized to storm the SCCC Board of Trustees meeting scheduled for later that same week.  Among its members was an outspoken, self-identified “anarchist”.  Sweet.

Initially, Scanlan drew attention to the timing of the Democrats’ carefully planned oppo-attack (which it clearly was).  Then the Sussex County GOP stepped in and took control of the Twitter account from Scanlan.  Scanlan issued an apology and said that the re-tweets were part of long twitter “trains” which he had not paid close attention to, but took responsibility for in his apology. 

In more “liberal” times, that would have been enough.  But this is not how today’s Left works. 

The way it works today is that a mob is formed, the mob calls for someone’s head, that person is taken out and publicly lynched by his colleagues, the head is ceremoniously removed and thrown to the mob, the mob beats it about and tattoos the forehead with words like the ubiquitous “racist” or the fast-becoming “Islamophobe,” and then, having been sexually satiated, the mob departs… until the next time.

There is no time allowed for rational discussion, legal due process, or civil deliberation.  The mob wants its head and there are always cowards who will give it someone’s head.  The cowards’ wish is only that it not be them.

Instead of succumbing to the mob.  Instead of participating in an act of extra-judicial punishment.  Perhaps this is a teachable moment?  

The mob fears rational discussion.  Maybe it is simply beyond people whose vocabulary is limited to a very few epithets?  But the Board of Trustees of the Sussex County Community College should not place itself at the disposal of a mob.  As an institution of higher learning, it should use this moment to broaden the discussion.  It should use this moment to teach the Bill of Rights, which are our greatest cultural, political, and legal inheritance. 

This is no longer about Jerry Scanlan.  He admitted he was in error and he apologized.  The calls for further punishment (and for physical violence against him) are superfluous.  They will not make him more in error or give further weight to his admission that he was in error. 

Curiously, these calls for further punishment (and violence against his person), come at a time when the Democrat Party is on record as supporting the decriminalization of actual criminal activity, the end of mandatory sentencing for actual crimes of violence, and the extension of rights (such a voting) to actual violent criminals.  The Democrats don’t wish to make anyone safer.  They just want to police your thoughts so that nobody is allowed to oppose what they say.

The Trustees of the SCCC have an opportunity to bring reason and knowledge to the table.  Let the Bill of Rights be their guide.  The SCCC can use this opportunity to teach.  And isn’t that what an institution of learning should do anyway?   

Sussex County’s Charlie Hebdo moment

By Rubashov

Charlie Hebdo (French pronunciation: ​[ʃaʁli ɛbdo]; French for Charlie Weekly) is a French satirical weekly magazine,[3] featuring cartoons,[4] reports, polemics, and jokes. Irreverent and stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication describes itself as above all secular, skeptic,[5] and atheist,[6] far-left-wing,[7][8] and anti-racist[9] publishing articles about the extreme right (especially the French nationalist National Front party),[10] religion (Catholicism, Islam, Judaism), politics and culture.

The magazine has been the target of two terrorist attacks, in 2011 and 2015. Both were presumed to be in response to a number of controversial Muhammad cartoons it published. In the second of these attacks, 12 people were killed, including publishing director Charb and several other prominent cartoonists. (Wikipedia)

Well apparently they don’t get satire in Phil Murphy’s New Jersey either…

As in the case of Charlie Hebdo, a group of cultural terrorists have demanded that an image they deem “offensive” be removed and the “perpetrators” – in this case, it was merely “re-tweeted” – be punished.  On the one hand, we hope the so-called “perpetrators” will stand up for freedom of expression; while on the other, we hope that nobody gets murdered.  There are a lot of crazies out there, and these things do have a way of escalating.

You do remember satire, don’t you?  Yes, it has something to do with comedy…

Satire (noun) the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

On Tuesday night, the Board of Trustees meeting of the Sussex County Community College was invaded by a group of cultural terrorists.  We call them “terrorists” somewhat whimsically, in that (1) they use threats of various kinds to get their way, and (2) they have no sense of humor.  They are the stick-up-the-arse crowd.  And before you enquire why we use “arse” instead of the familiar English term, we feel arse is the more appropriate, owing to its rusticated and unwashed nature.

So the Board of Trustees meeting of the Sussex County Community College was invaded by a troop of unwashed arses – the stick-up… well, you get the picture. 

The sad thing is… a couple of the Trustees themselves elected to join the troop and agree to go unwashed as well.  What these people are doing as Trustees on a Board of higher learning is beyond us.  It is not the place of colleges to ban forms of expression – in this case, satire – but to study and understand.  What would these idiots make of Jonathan Swift?  Would they ban him too, as a cannibal out to eat up all the children of Ireland?

For some people, washed and unwashed, that stick is thrust so firmly up… that nothing can pry it out.  You simply have to start over.  So best be off with them.

Oh… and in an act directly paralleling the Charlie Hebdo case, newspapers were too afraid to print the “offensive” image for fear of an unwashed fatwa. 

Instead, they simply described the “offensive” image, in the prescribed manner, in the language issued to them, as “racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic…

… arachnophobic, ailurophobic, atelophobic, batrachophobic, chiroptophobic, coulrophobic, demonophobic, emetophobic,  globophobic, herpetophobic, ichthyophobic, necrophobic, ophidiophobic, panphobic, porphyrophobic, triskaidekaphobic, venustraphobic xanthophobic – and poo-poo-headed”

One rather bloated knucklehead, identified as an official with the Sussex County Democrat Party, actually said these words:  “Whether or not he posted it himself, he is the person whose name is at the top of that (private Twitter account) page – it is unconscionable that nothing happens going forward based on those (tweets), and I would hope you can see them as offensive as I see them.” 

Wow, Robespierre himself couldn’t have said that any better.  And the speaker of those words would indeed make a most perfect Robespierre… if, of course, Robespierre was shaped like a busted bale of hay.

One wonders where this Robespierre was – or, indeed, the entire Democrat Party was, when the institution of the Sussex County Community College was so corrupt that it was allowing Trustees to vote on vendors from which they derived income?  Not a word from the Sussex County Democrats… nobody ever bothered to show up to a meeting to fight corruption. 

It was a sad moment and a very tragic story for the Sussex County Community College.  We remember it… very, very well.  No Democrats were around when it counted… but they show up for this?

Now we don’t know if we are taking our lives in our hands, but we’ll show you the “offensive” image.  Are you ready?

Behold the “offensive” image that was re-tweeted.

Did the world just end?  Should we be worried about death threats for posting that image?

We think it funny for two reasons.  (1) It is a grotesque and therefore ridiculous.  It achieves as much as it defeats.  Like this famous New Yorker cover…

You remember the New Yorker?  Yes, that haunt of racists, misogynists, and whatever else the unwashed brigades like to call those they disagree with.

Seems like, just yesterday, we had a sense of humor.

Now apparently, satire – like everything else these days – is a form of “racism”.

And (2) because they are politicians.  This so-called “Jihad Squad” is composed of four powerful members of Congress: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib.  A couple of them have made some very obnoxious anti-Semitic statements and none of them much like the Jewish state.  One member of Congress – Ilhan Abdullahi Omar (D-Minnesota) – actually mocks Jewish people by calling them “Benjamins”.  Another, Rashida Harbi Tlaib (D-Michigan), holds rallies under the banners of the PLO – a terrorist group.  They have power over us and it is always good for a chuckle when the powerful are brought down to earth. 

Here in America, we never needed to be afraid of pissing on politicians.  Until now.  It is not a “change” for the better or one that we will thank anybody for come the future.   

And one final note.  If we are going to do this to one citizen member of a public board, let’s make sure we do it to every citizen member of every public board.  Where will it end?  Who hasn’t offended somebody?  Who hasn’t done a thing that someone will think bad?

Robespierre and company spend their days going through your private social media looking for things to offend themselves with.  It is like that great scene from Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio when a puritan spies on a woman privately praying, naked, in her own bedroom.  The puritan doesn’t see his sin, but rather he sees the woman’s nakedness as the sin.  Just wait until these people start using drones…

And now… let’s end with more comedy.  And please don’t be offended… but if you are, too bad.

Suleiman didn’t learn the lesson of Charlie Hebdo?

All public figures must suffer the slings and arrows of humor.  Whether a politician or a celebrity… comedy adds a measure of humility into the lives of those proud souls who consider themselves to be “the great and the good.”

But some folks don’t take too well to humor – especially when it is directed at them or those they feel a kindred nature with.  They seek to restrain or codify free expression, and in doing so they kill the very nature of comedy itself.

 Imagine what would happen if the Federal Elections Commission took comedy seriously and began requiring Saturday Night Live or Jimmy Kimmel to count their comedy routines as corporate-sponsored paid political advertisements?  What would become of the humor once it was codified and restrained in such a way?

Earlier today, a political figure – the top Democrat Party official in Atlantic County – asked a small, local newspaper to take punitive action against a journalist for engaging in the high crime of humor.  In this case, the journalist made a joke at the expense of United States Senator Elizabeth Warren, about something that she choose to focus the world’s attention on… namely, her self-identification as a native American or, in the parlance that she was brought up with, an “American Indian”. 

Yes, yes, we all now have endlessly heard that “American Indian” is somehow “incorrect”, but it is a matter of historical perspective isn’t it?  The same way that “British” somehow became the correct form over “English” and an American is a “Yank” in Britain, even if he’s from Alabama, and someone of Italian-ancestry is an “Englishman” to an Amishman, simply because he doesn’t speak Pennsylvania Dutch.  Understanding takes away the offense (unless one is seeking to be offended). 

So this journalist (and the United States Supreme Court has given wide leave as to who can be called a “journalist”) made a joke aimed at Senator Warren, who earlier had announced her intention to run for President of the United States in 2020.  And this prominent Democrat politician – Michael Suleiman – responded, not with his own joke, but with a call for brutal repression.  How uncool.

We’ve seen this before.  In Europe. 

On February 9, 2006, the French-language humor magazine Charlie Hebdo published an article titled “Muhammad overwhelmed by fundamentalists” in which it added its own cartoons and reprinted twelve cartoons previously published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.  In response, the top politician in France – President Jacques Chirac – condemned the journalists for their “overt provocations”.  The politician argued against Freedom of Expression, saying:  “Anything that can hurt the convictions of someone else, in particular religious convictions, should be avoided.”  It should be noted that Monsieur Le President comes out of the notably authoritarian traditions of bureaucratic France.

The Grand Mosque of Paris, the Muslim World League, and the Union of French Islamic Organizations condemned the humor as “racist”.  It should be noted that Charlie Hebdo (Hebdo is French for “weekly”) is a decidedly Leftist publication and that its humor is more generally aimed at the National Front and Catholicism.  It describes itself as “secular, skeptic, atheist, far-left-wing, and anti-racist.”  But it does believe in comedy and in the right to Free Expression – and, as a result, it got into trouble with the political thought police.

What happened to Charlie Hebdo is an important reminder of what happens when you can’t take a joke and escalate humor into something it’s not.  Some offended parties brought a legal action against the publication, with the publisher memorably stating:  “It is racist to imagine that they can’t understand a joke.”

When the legal action was tossed out, the anti-comedy crowd took it further, they firebombed the offices of Charlie Hebdo and hacked its website.  But Charlie Hebdo, true to its traditions of free expression, refused calls for “self-censorship” and went on its merry way. 

Then… on January 7, 2015… two terrorists who clearly had no sense of humor, two determined repressors of comedy, forced their way into the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo and proceeded to murder journalists, cartoonists, editors, and staff – plus two police officers – twelve dead in all and eleven wounded.  It was an act of terror justified by the offense taken at a joke. 

America today is at a crossroads.  Do we use humor to combat humor… or do we oppress it every time someone is offended?  The latter equals the end of humor, for as all great comedians have recognized, the core of humor is transgressive – somebody is going to be pissed off.   

This is why what this politician – Michael Suleiman – has done is so dangerous.  By asking the newspaper publisher to take punitive action against a journalist for publishing a joke, he has placed himself with those who are at war with comedy and free expression.  If you want to “get back” at a joke you don’t like, undo it with a better joke of your own, don’t seek to harm those engaged in the free expression of humor. 

We hope Democrat Chairman Suleiman will withdraw his silly complaint.