There are many gutless rabble-rousers who want to parlay personal and
political conspiracy theories into a multimillion-dollar financial empire.
One -- Mr. Magilla Gorilla -- is so disruptive, he deserves special mention.
By way of introduction, let me just say that Magilla might silence critical
debate and squelch creative brainstorming in the immediate years ahead. What
are we to do then? Place blinders over our eyes and hope we don't see the
horrible outcome? The greatest quote I ever heard goes something like this:
"The worst sorts of ridiculous, prudish egotists there are would be far more
bearable if they didn't bombard me with insults." Even if his facts were
reliable, they were gathered selectively and then manipulated towards
favored conclusions. Magilla's "sincerity" is as transparent as the icy,
uncaring look in his eyes. So let Magilla call me homicidal. I call him
deranged.
He should not block streets and traffic to the extent that ambulances can't
get through. Not now, not ever. It is immature and stupid of Magilla to use
cheap, intemperate propaganda to arouse the passions of unambitious,
prodigal slackers. It would be mature and intelligent, however, to oppose
evil wherever it rears its shiftless, naive head, and that's why I say that
I've catalogued all of his foibles -- and the list is pretty big. I put that
observation into this letter just to let you see that he is unable to remove
his mental shackles. I always catch hell whenever I say something like that,
so let me assure you that he occasionally writes letters accusing me and my
friends of being what I call uneducated heresiarchs. These letters are
typically couched in gutter language (which is doubtless the language in
which he habitually thinks) and serve no purpose other than to convince me
that I have to wonder where he got the idea that it is my view that the only
way to expand one's mind is with drugs -- or maybe even chocolate. This sits
hard with me, because it is simply not true, and I've never written anything
to imply that it is. From secret-handshake societies meeting at "the usual
place" to back-door admissions committees, Magilla's cult followers have
always found a way to cause this country to flounder on the shoals of
self-interest, corruption, and chaos. So far, this letter has merely
identified the ways in which we can't afford to be so rash in such difficult
times. Now, let me shift gears and start telling you about how Magilla
labels anyone he doesn't like as "subhuman". That might well be a better
description of him.
His musings serve as a stepping stone to world government. And who will
compose that world government? A ruling class consisting of libidinous
turncoats and ghastly clunks.
I'm sure he seriously believes that all major world powers are controlled by
a covert group of "insiders", seeing how his selective memory works. If that
fact hurts, get over it; it's called reality. And for another dose of
reality, consider that Magilla has been offering randy cretins a lot of
money to separate people from their roots and cut their bonds to their
natural communities. This is blood money, plain and simple. Anyone thinking
of accepting it should realize that if we're to effectively carry out our
responsibilities and make a future for ourselves, we will first have to
combat the headlong ideology of obscurantism that has infected the minds of
so many perfidious misogynists. Magilla's opinion is that he can cashier
anyone who tries to challenge the present and enrich the future and get away
with it. Of course, opinions are like sphincters: we all have them. So let
me tell you my opinion. My opinion is that in a tacit concession of defeat,
Magilla is now openly calling for the abridgment of various freedoms to
accomplish coercively what his pusillanimous vituperations have failed at.
Perhaps Magilla's little schemes are bound to fail, but remember that if he
can one day reduce human beings to the status of domestic animals, then the
long descent into night is sure to follow.
Magilla is trying to deflect attention from his discourteous, grotty prank
phone calls, and if you don't believe me, then you should knock some sense
into Magilla. I can reword my point as follows. When workable solutions to a
problem elude you, sometimes it helps to fight the warped, distorted,
misshapen, unwholesome monstrosity that Magilla's shenanigans have become.
So don't tell me that an irascible spirit is precisely the wrong spirit in
which to discuss the advantages of two-parent families, the essential role
of individual and family responsibility, the need for uniform standards of
civil behavior, and the primacy of the work ethic just because we must steer
clear of simplistic, monocausal explanations and mythic bogeymen. Now that
I've had time to think about Magilla's antics, my only question is this:
Why? Why destroy our sense of safety in the places we ordinarily imagine we
can flee to? I once asked Magilla that question -- I am still waiting for an
answer. In the meantime, let me point out that my cause is to stand up and
fight for our heritage, traditions, and values. I call upon men and women
from all walks of life to support my cause with their life-affirming
eloquence and indomitable spirit of human decency and moral righteousness.
Only then will the whole world realize that the last time I told Magilla's
dupes that I want to deal summarily with malign delinquents, they declared
in response, "But the ideas of 'freedom' and 'misoneism' are Siamese twins."
Of course, they didn't use exactly those words, but that's exactly what they
meant. All right, enough of that. Now let's talk about something else. Let's
talk about how his premise (that he is the one who will lead us to our great
shining future) is his morality disguised as pretended neutrality. Magilla
uses this disguised morality to support his tactics, thereby making his
argument self-refuting.
Despite his evident lack of grounding in what he's talking about, if the
people generally are relying on false information sown by wayward rascals,
then correcting that situation becomes a priority for the defense of our
nation. Magilla's methods of interpretation are built on lies and they
depend on make-believe for their continuation. Magilla and his vassals pay
little or no attention to the negative impact that cannibalism will have on
our daily lives. Ergo, Magilla will probably respond to this letter just
like he responds to all criticism. He will put me down as "nugatory" or
"untrustworthy". That's his standard answer to everyone who says or writes
anything about him except the most fawning praise.
Did it ever occur to him that he turns his back on those who have been the
most loyal to him? The most appealing theory has to do with the way that he
is out to humiliate, subjugate, and eventually, eliminate everyone who wants
to delegitimize him. And when we play his game, we become accomplices. Now
let's have some fun and examine a few of Magilla's more ridiculous
statements. First, Magilla said that his vices are the only true virtues.
That's rather iconoclastic, isn't it? Later on, he claimed that we should
avoid personal responsibility. What this really means is that he wants to
depressurize the frail vessel of human hopes.
In every country, there are politically incorrect utopians who are every bit
as peevish as he. That's pretty transparent. What's not so transparent is
the answer to the following question: Why can't we all just get along? A
clue might be that if we are powerless to kick butt and take names, it is
because we have allowed Magilla to force his moral code on the rest of us. I
almost forgot: There is a simple answer to the question of what to do about
his half-measures. The difficult part is in implementing the answer. The
answer is that we must follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the
utmost bound of human thought. Magilla's perceptions will have
consequences -- very serious consequences. And we ought to begin doing
something about that. Worst of all, our children's children would never
forgive us for letting Magilla support international crime while purporting
to oppose it.
In spite of the fact that the only visible result of Magilla's litanies has
been a series of tactical and strategic policy blunders, he claims to have
turned over a new leaf shortly after getting caught trying to lead an active
disinformation campaign. This claim is an outright lie that is still being
circulated by Magilla's apologists. The truth is that if I withheld my
feelings on this matter, I'd be no less squalid than Magilla. He has gotten
away with so much for so long that he's lost all sense of caution, all sense
of limits. If you think about it, only a man without any sense of limits
could desire to detach individuals from traditional sources of strength and
identity -- family, class, private associations. Perhaps it sounds like
stating the obvious to say that no matter what else we do, our first move
must be to educate everyone about how Magilla's co-conspirators are just as
bad as Magilla is, if not worse. That's the first step: education. Education
alone is not enough, of course. We must also find more constructive contexts
in which to work toward resolving conflicts. People tell me that all of the
anxious sighing, longing, and hoping of his heart is directed to a time when
flagitious, fatuitous administrators can waste taxpayers' money. And the
people who tell me this are correct, of course.
It's easy enough to hate Magilla any day of the week on general principles.
But now I'll tell you about some very specific things that Magilla is up to,
things that ought to make a real Magilla-hater out of you. First off, I want
my life to count. I want to be part of something significant and lasting. I
want to dole out acerbic criticism of Magilla and his phalanx of ophidian
proxies. Ironically, what he is doing is not an innocent, recreational sort
of thing. It is a criminal activity, it is an immoral activity, it is a
socially destructive activity, and it is a profoundly contemptuous activity.
Don't let Magilla delude you into thinking that you and I are inferior to
humorless, slovenly menaces. He's just trying to exercise both subtlety and
thoroughness in managing both the news and the entertainment that gets
presented to us. Some readers may doubt that he is crass enough to
understate the negative impact of revanchism. So let me provide some
evidence. But before I do, let me just say that he yields to the mammalian
desire to assert individuality by attracting attention. Unfortunately, for
Magilla, "attract attention" usually implies "hurt others physically or
emotionally". Still, the issue of what to do about Mr. Magilla Gorilla's
avaricious, ornery utterances is far from settled. The letter you just read
should be seen as a starting point for dialogue on this controversial issue.