Shot in the Dark

Decoy

SCENE: Mitch BERG is waiting at a local bar for a small debate society. He’s reading the menu, and doesn’t notice Avery LIBRELLE has entered the bar, carrying a protest sign reading “Debate Is White Supremacy”. BERG doesn’t notice LIBRELLE – but LIBRELLE notices him.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Ah, sssshhhhiiut the front door, it’s Ave…

LIBRELLE: Shut up. The verdict against Hunter Biden shows that we do not have a two-tiered justice system! Nobody is above the law!

BERG: Sure.

LIBRELLE: Hah. I thought you’d say…(stops) Er, what?

BERG: If you ignore the fact that the Department of Justice made a concerted effort to slow-walk the tax evasion and corruption allegations so that the statutes of limitations expired, especially on the allegations that could have led investigators to “the Big Guy”? Yeah. Perfectly just.

LIBRELLE: (Uneasily) Er…right. Right?

BERG: As far as you know, yes.

LIBRELLE: Whew. I thought so. (Walks away, waving sign and trying to disrupt the debate)

And SCENE

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7 responses to “Decoy”

  1. John "Bigman" Jones Avatar
    John “Bigman” Jones

    Trump convicted hunter convicted so that’s equal

    Now let’s see how they are sentenced and who gets pardoned to see if they remain equal

    Or if this is just a political stunt where hunter takes one for the team and his friends buy a whole s*** load of paintings

  2. In The Mailbox: 06.12.24 (Evening Edition) : The Other McCain

    […] Says Biden’s Cognitive State “Not A Good Look For The Country” Shot In The Dark: Decoy, Decay, and Contest Time STUMP: Hochul’s Congestion Pricing Hokey-Pokey – More […]

  3. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    Bigman:
    Except Biden committed an ACTUAL felony.

  4. SmithStCrx Avatar
    SmithStCrx

    I first saw that assertion from a liberal former coworker earlier this week. I considered explaining to him why it was the dumbest thing I’ve seen on the Internet in quite some time. I figured that he wouldn’t understand any of the words that had 5 letters or more.

  5. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    The mood I sense from the left is to argue, really, that since Biden got convicted, that all of the previous things, like the proposed plea agreement that the judge shot down, don’t matter. And he still hasn’t faced charges on the influence buying that would seem most serious.

  6. John "Bigman" Jones Avatar
    John “Bigman” Jones

    I’m loathe to admit it, but Avery might have a point. Debate = hate. Quoting from “Eden Will Be Destroyed” by H. Narcissus Petit:

    “The Junior Helm Control Offitrix was young, maybe 25 stellars of age, newly promoted to the bridge crew. Xe had briefly achieved notoriety on the holo nets while at university, in response to xyr term paper entitled “Heteronormative Oppression Through Mathematics” in which xe argued that math caused discrimination and should be banned. The proposal was highly regarded by the Social Science faculty because, as Professor Tigglypuff explained, “Math is Hate.” The proposal was opposed by STEM faculty because, as one engineering professor scoffed, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

    The proposal itself wasn’t much as controversies go, but it had spun off a holo net debate on what Social Value ranking “ability-deficient” members of society should receive. Social Value Theory was a relatively new concept that originated with the university debate team. In the past, debates had been won by the side with the most persuasive arguments based on facts, logic and rhetoric. Social Value Theory proponents argued those factors were themselves tools of oppression that perpetuated injustice. Instead, they argued, the validity of a proposition depended on the Social Value of the person advancing it. The rejoinder that this was simply Ad Hominem layered with Appeal to Authority was dismissed as too complicated to understand.

    The appeal of Social Value Theory lay in the universal longing to root for the underdog coupled with a desire for fair play. For example, at some point in the distant past, White people had owned Black people as slaves and forced them to pick cotton; therefore, to make up for it, Black people had more Social Value than White people. The fact that any one particular White man was a drop-out and hillbilly who had never owned shoes, much less a slave; while any one particular Black woman had been fast-tracked through elite education into a corporate Vice-Presidency and the only cotton she had ever picked was her new Capri pants; was completely irrelevant.

    Social Value theory replaced individual responsibility with collective guilt. Even in the sciences, a Low Social Value scientist might be the greatest subject matter expert on the planet while a High Social Value holo entertainer might not even know what the words meant, but their respective Social Values determined whose opinion mattered. That and what shirt the scientist was wearing when xe made Eden-shaking discoveries; tastelessness was still a crime against decency.

    Practical application of Social Value Theory to everyday situations rested on a complex and ever-shifting matrix of the hierarchy of victimhood. Some decisions were easy – black over white, cis-women over cis-men, GLBTQIA+ over any cultist who believed in The Supreme Being That Doesn’t Officially Exist – but what about trans-woman versus physically handicapped? And now, where did the ability-challenged fit in? Should a math-capable First Nations lesbian be preferred over a math-deficient left-handed Black trans-woman raised in poverty, or the other way around?

    The rankings were not complete and never would be, because Propriety Monitors at the holo net provider de-platformed posts that failed to meet “community guidelines” which, in practice, meant that only one side was allowed to express an opinion. Keyboard warriors eventually lost interest and moved on to the latest holo outrage-of-the-day.

    The fact that the student who started the controversy was attractive as well as smart may have explained why the question of whether xe had earned early promotion to the bridge crew by xyr academic work, xyr holo net celebrity status, or by the reprehensible “casting couch” method (and if so, with whom), was the subject of much catty gossip in the restroom marked with the blown-skirt sign for Persons Who Identify As Female.”

  7. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    ^ Brilliant. In both the English and American meanings.

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