Incomprehensibility

As Will Rogers once said, we shouldn’t complain about what our government costs – that level of entertainment doesn’t come cheap. Federal and state representatives often provided Rogers with some of his best material, and they’ve become some of my favorite sources, also.

Hank Johnson, for example, still makes me smile every time I think about the statement he made over his concern that too many people would make the island of Guam capsize. And Sheila Jackson Lee, bless her heart, has been an unspiration (opposite of inspiration) for some time. She once said, “I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together.” She also said, “You don’t understand. I am a queen, and I demand to be treated like a queen.”

Ms. Lee, bless her heart, wants to make it clear to us who is to blame for gun violence. Speaking on the House floor in 2013, she said, “Don’t condemn the gangbangers. They’ve got guns that are trafficked, that are not enforced, that are straw purchased and they come into places even that have strong gun laws. Why? Because we don’t have sensible gun legislation.” Obviously, the gangbangers don’t have any choice. They have to commit crimes because they’ve got all these illegal guns lying around. It’s not their fault congress won’t do something.

Unfortunately, I could go on and on, just with material provided by these two democrats. What I’d really like to do is sit down with both of them and interview them, but I doubt I’d be able to keep a straight face. The level of ignorance the two of them exhibit must be quite difficult to maintain on a daily basis, but they rise impressively to the occasion. When we consider the rest of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, it’s no wonder Rogers was able to make a living almost entirely by repeating what our elected representatives said. Sad, but no surprise.

But Congress doesn’t have a corner on the stupid market. No. The private sector is rife with people who wax eloquent on subjects they have evidently only just learned are subjects, judging by their incredible lack of facts. The fourth estate, particularly, must find it difficult to eat, considering the astounding amount of time it must spend with its collective feet in its collective mouth.

Take the Huffington Post, for instance. Years of embarrassment must have finally caused all but the most clueless of liberal ‘writers’ to avoid any association with the rag. What they have left in the journalism pool is pathetic, if Justin Curmi is any indication.

Justin recently wrote a short piece for HuffPost called ‘A Revision on the Bill of Rights, Part III.’ To be fair, Justin is a blogger, not a reporter. Which doesn’t excuse HuffPost for printing Justin’s drivel, but it probably excused them from paying him for it. I guess if you’re going to print information that’s wrong, you might as well get it for free.

Justin is almost incoherent at times, and incredibly obtuse at others. At one point he claims, “The belief that a gun is a useful tool to protect one is counterintuitive because guns get into the hands of people who use them for horrible reasons.”

OK. So if we extend that reasoning, calling a police officer when there is a crime is counterintuitive, since there have been some police officers who have committed crimes. Driving to work is counterintuitive because people have used cars to run over others. Drinking water when you’re thirsty is counterintuitive because sometimes people drown in it. And, I guess, reading the newspaper to learn about current events is counterintuitive, since often the information in the papers is inaccurate.

Honestly, I can’t imagine how anyone can come up with such a ridiculous statement, and present it seriously. It’s amazing, that level of wrongness.

But that’s just one example of Justin’s counter intuitiveness, and not even my favorite one. My favorite is where he says, “Using a firearm to defend oneself is not legal because if the attacker is killed, he or she is devoid of his or her rights.” I guess victims have no rights to begin with. So if you’re attacked, you should definitely not fight back. It’s better to be dead than break a law. Or something.

Justin obviously doesn’t have a handle on the concept of self defense. Given the opportunity, I’d ask him if he understands that having a paid police force is nothing more than an extension of our right to defend ourselves. If we have no right to defend ourselves, then we also have no right to pay someone else to do it for us. And if I call a cop, who then shoots my attacker, I am, in fact, guilty of shooting that attacker. All I did was hire someone else to pull the trigger in order to assuage my guilt. That would probably overload the poor fellow’s circuits. Bless his heart.

More and more I agree with Bill Murray, who said, “It’s hard to win an argument with a smart person, but it’s almost impossible to win an argument with a stupid person . . .”

Kendal Hemphill is an outdoor humor columnist and public speaker who never argues with people smarter than himself. Write to him at [email protected]