This just in: Hitler makes a shitty mascot.
So “Nazis are people too” is a thing now, or something.
Used to be there was one group you could reliably make fun of without offending anyone. What happened, #Nazis? You guys used to be solid.
But no. Now Nazis are people too. Which is bad news for comedians. Now the only group they can reliably make fun of without offending anyone is Canadians, who are too nice, which is the only thing you can make fun of about them. Which just doesn’t feel as satisfying as taking the micky out of Nazis.
Now, I even need to be sensitive toward Nazis, because they are just “exercising free speech.”
Which, you know, okay, cool. But isn’t the big question these days what’s the difference between exercising free speech and being a dick? I mean, these days, you can’t just call anyone a dick, without qualifying it in some way. Everyone’s got some mitigating circumstance or psychological issue or some issue with their mother or something. No one is just a dick anymore. They’re all a “diet dicks” these days.
It’s gotten to the point where there’s pretty much only one test to determine who’s just a straight up, unmitigated dick. The test goes, “Are they Adolph Hitler?” If the answer is yes, and there’s no but not the one you’re thinking of attached, then, basically, you’re a dick. That’s pretty much the only test of unrequited dickishness.
I can see my way to admitting that’s a hard distinction to make.
See what I did there? Hard distinction, because of the word “dick”?… Okay. It isn’t clever.
It is confusing, though, since I, at least, feel inclined to label anyone who disagrees with me as obviously touched in the head.
But no. I have been informed that disagreeing with me is NOT your actual evidence of insanity.
Apparently, disagreeing with me is just “free speech.” Doesn’t matter that obviously, one of us is wrong, and it isn’t me. As it turns out, a “difference” of “opinion” is just “free speech,” not a barometer of how much you are wrong and I am right.
Which means that I can no longer make fun of Nazis with reckless abandon. The bastards. Because of “free speech.”
Because everyone has a right, in this country anyway, to be the sort of person who complains that the Wolfenstein video games misrepresents them.
Google it. “Nazi outrage over Wolfenstein video game series.” I’ll wait.
That is the world we live in.
Now, I would never actually say a word against free speech. I am abusing my right to free speech here. I abuse my right to free speech daily, and to the eternal regret of my friends and family. Abusing my right to free speech is my main pastime.
I will never try to disabuse anyone else of their free speech, so long as I am allowed to continue to have mine. I will never say that a Nazi who complains about the portrayal of Nazis in video games should have their voices silenced.
Not per se. Not in my America. In my America, so long as you’re willing to have reasonable dialog, we can talk. Say whatever you think you believe.
What I’m saying is that if you feel in your heart that what you need is to protect your values, choose a better mascot than Hitler.
That’s all I’m saying. Hitler is the shittest mascot ever came out of Central Europe.
Because the real fact of the matter is that Nazism is probably completely dickish, in and of itself, considered as a set of principles and ideals.
That said, it is unfair to consider a set of principles and ideals and ignore the people claiming to adhere to them. Because as far as I know, it is possible that some individuals who join the Nazi party nowadays thought that a) it was ironic, and b) they meant party. And they’re actually surprised about all the fascism.
I expect that some people who claim to be Nazis, if you talked to them over tea and cookies, would probably tell you that, “Well, my spouse got really into it, and it gives us something to do of a Tuesday evening. But, to be honest, I’m not sure about all that stuff about Atlantis. It just seems a little too Númenórean for my taste. Mostly, I go for family time, and because they always appreciate a good pan of brownies.”
Some “Nazis” may be okay humans. Because some “Nazis” probably don’t actually understand what it means to be a Nazi, which is a different mistake than being a fascist dickhead.
Not all of them. Obviously a whole mess of them are completely headcases.
But enough of them are people too. Enough Nazis are people too that, now, I need to be sensitive toward Nazis.
I guess I’ve talked myself around to it. As much as it confuses me to let it come out of my face that’s all twisted with the attempt to understand the sentence, I guess Nazis are, in fact, people too.
What I think we have here is a marketing issue. Because of the whole…Nazi issue.
I think you know what I mean by that.
My thought is this.
If you want people not to throw bricks at you when they see you, don’t begin by associating yourself with a genocidal dickwit.
The moral of the story: Hitler is a shit mascot.
I can still make fun of Hitler, right?
