#FixEverythingBad!

Mark Steyn on hashtag diplomacy:

Plenty has been written about all the things that this photo…

…says about the United States today.  None of them good.

Steyn notes – as many have quoted – that it’s certainly not going to matter of inveighing Boko Haram (Nigerian for “So Long, Suckers!”) to “give the girls back”.  Someone’s going to have to either engage in some incredibly tough negotiation (the Bokos know they hold the cards), or take them back, if they can be found (and it’s likely they can’t).

But he brought up two other points – both of them tying the Boko Haram kidnappings to a story I wrote about last week, in which a California school issued an assignment asking students to present evidence that the Holocaust never happened.

Being unaware of the background details, I thought it might juuuuuust be possible it was a debate point, asking kids to step outside their comfort zone (waaaaay outside) to debate a point.

It wasn’t, of course (I’ll be adding the odd bit of emphasis) not, and my vestigial faith in the integrity of public school teachers is, as all-too-frequently, wasted:

That’s never a smart idea. The California schools superintendent who wanted his Eighth Graders to turn in essays arguing that the Holocaust didn’t happen is called Mohammad Z Islam. That’s why they got the assignment, not because they wanted to turn themselves into the Oxford Union. As Laura Rosen Cohen pointed out, there are all kinds of lively topics Mr Cooke might propose for our schools: Did Mohammed exist? What’s the deal with his nine-year-old bride? But in the real world even mild questioning of whether Islam is a “religion of peace” is beyond the pale, and across the Continent the Holocaust is disappearing from school curricula.

That’s the problem. There’s no point winning an Oxford debate if the other side win everything else.

And he notes that modern eighth-graders rarely know what the Holocaust is, much less how to have an Oxford Union-style debate on the subject.

And of course…:

In 1984, George Orwell wrote, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

And it’s be hard to argue that the good guys are winning the present.

10 thoughts on “#FixEverythingBad!

  1. My neurologist explained in detail the “progressive” infirmities of ALS. “The good news,” he said, “Is that there is a very small chance of dementia.”

    “Oh,” I replied. “So I’ll be fully aware that I’m being eaten alive.”

    In reading this post I think I already know how that feels.

  2. in a stunning display of intellectual gravitas Mrs Dear Leader spearheads the administration’s “robust” response to Boko Haram.

  3. Funny, many lefties that decried the evil George Bush “incursions” into Iraq and Afghanistan, seem to be fine to the point of encouraging the sending of a seal team or other “law enforcement” types to go get these girls. So far, however, the Nigerian government hasn’t asked for help, so anyone that the Dear Leader II sends there, are technically, invaders.

  4. Boss, I’m thinking the phenomenon was seen during the Clinton administration, too. During a flyover in the 1993 inauguration, one liberal thought it was horrible until another said ‘It’s OK. Those are our planes now.”

    Regarding the travesty in Nigeria, it would be a darned shame if we didn’t have some concrete plans to help these guys assume room temperature. I’ve heard we have some spy satellites that just might be able to spot large chunks of metal on the ground, and I took a look at a satellite view of the area…..suffice it to say that the jungle there is not exactly as dense as that our troops faced in Vietnam. These things can be spotted, I think.

  5. I was listening to Limbaugh today. He wondered how the world would be different if we had Twitter (and leaders as insipid as The Obamas) during The Civil War. Abraham Lincoln could have came up with a hashtag #FreeTheSlaves.

    I’m thinking that Abraham Lincoln would have came up with #PreserveTheUnion

  6. Yet another example of the pretend world our elites live in.
    Back in the 80’s, homelessness was destroying the United States. The Left showed their solidarity with the homeless by knocking the homeless off their favorite steam grate and bitching about Reagan. As a person who worked to resolve the issues of homelessness at the time, I knew all the symbolism wasn’t going to ‘fix’ the issues of homelessness when 85-90% or more of the homeless had severe drug/alcohol issues, mental illness or often both. But it made the elites feel like they “did something” about homelessness, and that’s what matters.
    Then in the 90’s, the elites (of both parties) noted how swell ‘middle class’ people were. “By Jove” they exclaimed, “the middle class own homes and have college degrees!. Let us flood the poor with cheap money to buy (overvalued) homes and (worthless) college degrees.” Fast forward fifteen years and we have a banking crisis due to sub-prime loans and twenty years later we have many college experienced people under or un-employed. But the elites meant well – they just wanted everyone (but themselves) to have the same one-size-fits-all ‘Merican Dream.
    So today we have hashtag diplomacy. One must wonder if the Islamofascist is concerned about what a fool he looks like on Twitter as he is raping/enslaving that 12 year old Christian girl. Probably as concerned as Putin is as he supplies Asaad with another load of chemical weapons and orders his Army to roll the T-72’s right through downtown Kiev.

  7. I’m quite confused by the expression on Mrs. Obama’s face. While it seems quite intentional; most less-than-sincere expressions do, I can’t tell if it’s a frown, a suppressed smile, indigestion or what. Any ideas?

    This #hashtag stuff is the perfect vehicle for those who want to be (or make people think that they are) involved in this week’s issue of the century without going out, having to spend money, or having to actually interact with a bunch of unsightly, needy, and potentially dangerous foreigners.

  8. I believe that the liberal bikebubba referred to at the Clinton inauguration was Ron Silver, the late actor and activist, who after 9/11, left the Democratic party and became a supporter of W, even speaking at the 2004 Republican convention and narrating a documentary response to Michael Moore’s 9/11 movie.

  9. Don, that’s a great “rest of the story”. Even though I originally thought you were calling me a liberal! :^)

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.