Republicans vote on Tuesday, Democrats vote on Wednesday, is this a crime now?
There’s a reason the Soviet Union, East Germany, China and North Korea never produced a Jerry Seinfeld – much less a Lenny Bruce or Sam Kinison.
Humor was a crime in those places.
America is becoming such a place – because the Left doesn’t think it’s funny to mock anything the Left considers serious – and intends to make sure that message gets out.
As in the case of Douglass Mackey – a wise-acre who faces ten years in federal prison for posting unfunny (to the feds, now the sic ‘em troops of the Left) memes designed to annoy Leftists, including supporters of Hillary Clinton.
Mackey created an African Americans for Hillary mock-up that encouraged people to “avoid the line” and “vote from home” by texting “Hillary” to “599925.” When they did, they got a reply from the actual Clinton campaign hipping them to the fact that they’d been punked.
Whether this is funny or obnoxious depends on your sense of humor; but is it criminal? Deserving of a decade behind bars?
The Feds say yes.
Mackey has been charged with serious felonies, as in conspiring to “injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate persons in the free exercise of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution” – notwithstanding the obvious fact that no threat was leveled at anyone, nor was anyone oppressed – except perhaps according to the Leftist definition of “oppression,” which amounts to having their feelings hurt.
This is becoming an actionable offense in Joe Biden’s Woke America.
“The defendant exploited a social media platform to infringe one of the most basic and sacred rights guaranteed by the Constitution: the right to vote,” said Nicholas L. McQuaid, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
Except he did no such thing. He made and published a visual. No one was prevented from voting or threatened if they did.
Mackey’s memes – he made several others – are the Internet era’s equivalent of the prank phone call, perhaps. Good thing the Jerky Boys are retired.
It’s the filling out of magazine subscription cards and the ordering of a dozen pizzas or late-night taxis, sent to the home of a person who didn’t order them, as a gag.
Actually, they are not even that as no one got the bill for anything – or got something they didn’t want delivered to their home.
They saw a meme on their Twitter or Facebook feed.
This constitutes “depriving individuals of their constitutional right to vote”?
So says the indictment.
One could make a stronger case that weaponized hysteria over “the virus” did more to actually deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote” – by terrorizing them to not vote, something Mackey never did.
But don’t expect Fauci or the Scarf Lady to be indicted.
Once upon a time, humor was not only funny – it made you think. George Carlin, for instance. His most famous rant had to do with who owns you – and what these owners want, which is – as Carlin put it – obedient workers. People who don’t question and who are kept from asking questions about their owners by being kept ignorant and busy working constantly to just barely keep their heads above water.
This sort of comedic analysis resonated with the Left, once upon a time – when the Left at least pretended to be concerned about the plight of the working man.
As opposed to the endlessly offended feelings of the woking man.
If it’s okay to say man.
Comedians like Sam Kinison were famous for saying it – part of Sam’s iconic stand-up act. One of his most unwoke routines revolved around starvation in Africa and the Left’s efforts to ameliorate it by sending food. Sam would pace the stage and then scream: “It’s a desert! Nothing grows there!! Just sand! Move to where the food is!”
It was as hilarious as it is unspeakable . . . today.
Lenny Bruce – who was considered a liberal in his day – would be prosecuted by the Left today.
Bruce actually was prosecuted – for “obscenity” – and was defended by the Left. But that was 1964 and the Left defended free speech back then. Today, free speech, including speech that makes you laugh, is actionable, if the punchline involves gays or women or men who “identify” as women; anything the Left decides isn’t funny.
If the punchline is Donald Trump – or the meme his severed head, a la Kathy Griffin – then it’s hilarious.
Which isn’t very funny.
Which brings up Seinfeld, who is – very.
Or rather, was. Jerry no longer does stand-up because the crowds are too Woke. They can’t take a joke and – worse – can’t laugh at themselves anymore.
And Jerry – like Lenny – is a liberal.
It echoes of the old Soviet Union, which America is on the cusp of resurrecting under the rheumy gaze of Brezhnev revisited – in the form of Uncle Joe, his unsteady hand slowly waving as he totters to Lenin’s mausoleum, smiling vacantly at a joke that’s on us.
A.J. Rice is CEO of Publius PR, a premier communications firm in Washington D.C. Rice is a brand manager, star-whisperer and auteur media influencer, who has produced or promoted Laura Ingraham, Donald Trump Jr., Judge Jeanine Pirro, Newt Gingrich, Monica Crowley, Charles Krauthammer, Alan Dershowitz, Pete Hegseth, Steve Hilton, Victor Davis Hanson, and many others. Find out more at publiuspr.com.
