Witch Hunting 101
The attempted cancellation of Elon Musk and the sacking of Father Calvin Robinson for their alleged 'Nazi' salutes merely demonstrates the utter desperation of an increasingly intolerant left.
30 years ago, deliberately ignoring hyperbole and irony was comedy.
Hyperbole: “ exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
"he vowed revenge with oaths and hyperboles" The Oxford English Dictionary
Irony: “the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.”
Both hyperbole and irony are rhetorical devices, used to make a point during discourse or during a speech. The issue with both is they require that the audience is either intellectually capable of understanding the hyperbole and irony or intellectual honest enough to accept that you are being hyperbolic and ironic.
So let’s look at what has happened in the last week or so with “Roman Salute Gate”.
Last week Elon Musk has been in the headlines because of his ‘give you my heart’ gesture that his opponents have decided was actually a Nazi salute which apparently proves that Elon is actually a secret Nazi, despite that he is demonstrably NOT because nothing in his behaviour or politics could possibly be described as National Socialist in any way other than the absurd universal application of the term to cover anyone who doesn’t share the politics of the hard left.
Yesterday Fr Calvin Robinson was defrocked by his Church The Anglican Catholic Church- one of the several dozen Anglican/Episcopalian churches that exists these days.. I lose track: “People’s Front of Judea … Judean People’s Front”. Calvin was speaking at Pro Life Rally (which some suspect was the real reason he upset the church), and in what was obviously meant to be a humorous allusion to Elon the previous week, he made the same gesture.
His Church, the Judean People’s Front, presumably, released a statement on X, all very impressive with some headed paper and some old geezers in cassocks calling themselves the College of Bishops. Here it is:
Both Elon and Calvin were being hyperbolic. Now the only people who have an excuse for ignoring deliberate hyperbole are:
1- The Autistic
2 - The intellectually challenged
In fact, the ability to detect both hyperbole and irony is used to both diagnose autism and to measure intelligence.
So how come so many commentators in the media and especially on the political left obviously suffer from autism or are cognitively challenged? Because the only other explanation is that they DELIBERATELY ignored the obvious hyperbole. This is such a cheap and ridiculous piece of intellectual dishonesty that it is rarely, ever seen. However, we live in ridiculous times where the media and political classes and private individuals will happily lie, cheat and even break the law to support their ideological position.
Wracking my brains you have to go back to various witch trials, the Soviet Troika Panels and the ACTUAL Nazi’s ‘People’s Courts’ to find examples of where hyperbole, irony and other rhetoric devices are deliberately ignored to ‘condemn by your own words and actions’.
This is such a dishonest technique, it used to be a joke.
From Blackadder Series 1 Episode 5: Witchsmeller Pursuivant
In this Episode, Prince Edmund Blackadder, Lord Percy and Baldrick get themselves caught up in a witch hunt. With the appearance of the Witchsmeller Pursuivant at court, they find themselves accused of witchcraft. Here’s an excerpt from the trial:
(clip
Witchsmeller: Prince Edmund, are you a Christian?
Edmund: Yes, of course I am.
Witchsmeller: Can you say the Lord’s Prayer?
Edmund: Well, yes — I can say it backwards if you like!
Witchsmeller: CONFESSION!
(The crowd cheers)
Witchsmeller: Now, Edmund, I believe you have a pussycat…
Edmund: Yes.
Witchsmeller: Ohh!
(The crowd `Ohh’s)
Witchsmeller: Its name is Bubbles?
Edmund: Right.
Witchsmeller: Yes, or, to give it its full name, Beelzebubbles!!!
(The crowd screams; Woman 1 falls off her seat, to the floor)
Witchsmeller: Do you deny that you were seen, on the Feast of St. Jacob the
Turgid, speaking to this little cat Bubbles?
Edmund: Well, of course I deny it!
Witchsmeller: Ah, but the chambermaid Mary heard you say, and I quote, “Hello,
little Bubbles, would you like some milk?”
Edmund: Well, I might have said *that*!
Witchsmeller: Ah!!!
(The crowd `Ah’s)
Witchsmeller: And what did you mean by it?
Edmund: Well, I meant, would the cat like some milk.
Witchsmeller: Milk? What did you mean by `milk’?
Edmund: I meant *milk*! Bloody *milk*!!!
Witchsmeller: BLOODY MILK!!! It was a mixture of milk and blood!
Edmund: No, no, just milk!
Witchsmeller: Ah, blood was to come later!
Edmund: (pleading) There wasn’t any blood!
Witchsmeller: SO YOU HAD TO MAKE DO WITH MILK!!!
(the crowd screams and cheers; Percy leans back in his chair, defeated)
Anyway, you get the idea. 30 years ago deliberately misinterpreting hyperbole was so ludicrous that it was popular comedy.
There was, of course a backlash to all this, numerous posts were subsequently made demonstrating that Musk is not the only one to have used this gesture with people from Obama and Macron to Pope Francis having done so.
So then a week later Calvin Robinson, at the end of a significant speech about abortion figures around the world, ends the speech with a similar gesture. This was done in a light hearted manner to make a point.
Rev Robinson is of course, not as powerful and influential as Elon Musk but he is still a figure on the political right who has considerable influence so the left went after him. Calvin has clearly been irking his Church with his political commentary - I’m not alone in wondering what planet the Church have been living on given that this is precisely why Calvin left for the USA?
Anyway, the Church decided to ignore the hyperbole and then went on to lecture everyone about how the ‘Holocaust is not a ‘joking matter’’ and ‘nazi salutes’ even in jest are unacceptable in a Priest.
Predictably, The Guardian, couldn’t resist piling in with its own lecture about ‘nazi salutes’ and the ‘Holocaust’ not being a laughing matter. And of course, in doing so demonstrates that it’s perfectly happy to use the Holocaust as a political bat to hit their opponents with.
Meanwhile on ‘tinternet ‘Liberal Streamer’ and darling of the Online Left, Stephen Bonnell II who, without a shadow of irony, calls himself ‘Destiny’ tweeted:
“He knows what it is, and he’s doing it to troll the media, whilst also signalling to far-right people that they’re chill”.
Although I am not sure that ‘Destiny’ is in any position to wag moral fingers at anyone, given he’s currently facing serious allegations concerning his own moral conduct.
I suspect that the Guardian and the online left will be patting itself on the back that the faux outrage has claimed another ‘fash’ scalp. Not only a right wing commentator but at a Pro Life conference to boot. Since the insufferable Bishop Budde’s political rant, I mean .. Sermon.. At the Inauguration Breakfast Prayers last week, the ever-so-athiest left have been peddling the line that Trump and the American right are so insufferable even the ‘conservative’ Church in America disapproves of them. The irony here is that anyone who thinks that American and English Anglicanism is in any way ‘conservative’ is either hasn’t been paying attention or disingenuous.
Never mind for a minute that dark humour is and always has been, a tool for coping with the most horrific acts of barbarity. I don’t see the self appointed ‘Guardians’ of the warped morality of the left calling for the cancellation of Mel Brooks.
Calvin Robinson is a controversial figure, he is openly dissident, he is extremely orthodox in his Christianity, and he’s ‘not everyone’s cup of tea’. But this recent attack on him was more about the frustration of the American left to get any traction on the Trump movement or their bête noir, Elon Musk, than it was about Calvin Robinson and of course, in doing so they have yet again demonstrated their own desperation in being so openly hypocritical, intolerant and intellectually dishonest.
As for Calvin: well this has already backfired. Contrary to being the coup they claim it as, they’ve amplified Calvin’s speech to a far larger audience than it originally had and will have catapulted the career of this ‘recalcitrant Priest’ into the American consciousness. Within hours of his sacking, a fund had already smashed the $30,000 asked for to help support Calvin and his mission.