Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll finds the THE RIGHT TO BE SEEN in the penumbras formed by emanations. She writes:

I am not a constitutional expert. But my husband, the famous novelist Max Cossack, is. So argue with him at your own peril. And it’ s been a long time since 9th grade Civics Class when we studied the Bill of Rights, among many other things.

What I mostly remember about 9th grade Civics Class was the time Mr. S threw a book at me from HIS desk all the way to MY desk way in the back of the room. Missed me by THAT much! Mr. S was a very large and intimidating Marine veteran who brooked no nonsense and I was more or less Nonsense, Incorporated at that time.

Even more memorable and important about 9th grade Civics was, thanks to Alphabetical Order – one of my favorite Orders along with Chronological — I was seated right in front of another “B” Girl who was the twin sister of the young woman who would become my lifelong best friend. And she herself was a very close second. It was a life-changing event!

Nevertheless, some of those long-ago lessons stuck. My fading memory recalls several of our God-given rights, some of the more bandied about being the Right to Freedom of Speech, the Right to Assemble, the Right to Bear Arms, the Right to a Free Press and Freedom of Religion. (I’d love to see one of those “Prove You’re Not A Robot” puzzles where you have to pick out all squares featuring the “freedoms” that were violated or abolished during the COVID years. But that is not our topic for today.)

Those rights are so yesterday. Freedom of Speech, for example, disappeared with the invention of Hate Speech, meaning “speech the people more important than YOU will hate.” Try being Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson on any campus. Eventually it metastasized into The Right To Censor Disinformation. And the government and corporate DEI Drones competed to see who could spot disinformation from the greatest distance — style points for doing it without ever even READING the allegedly offensive material. If more than one person felt that disinformation seemed pretty credible, it became a “conspiracy theory” and the believers could first just be dismissed and kooks and then could be censored, fired, and bankrupted as an example to others.

After a couple of generations of ignorant, malignant narcissists, the primary Right recently discovered is: THE RIGHT TO BE SEEN. No joke, man.

And I say: ‘IT’S ABOUT TIME!!! Since I am 4’11.8”, in any crowd of even well-fed fourth-graders, I cannot be seen at all! Like all the shrieking hysterics who yell “Genocide!” at the drop of a hat, I have had many the “existential” and claustrophobic melt-down in the midst of a crowd of pointlessly tall Minnesotans leaving a Twins Game or the Guthrie Theatre.

The Founding Fathers probably missed this important Right because a) many of them were tall and had no trouble being seen, especially General Washington, who was 6’2”. And b) in those primitive times, there was no radio, television, Podcasts, Oprah, or even Facebook where you could photograph your food if your buffalo hunt went especially well. Here’s how bad the Being Seen Deficit was: to be seen at all, you had to leave home and force people to look at you! Although your chances were better if you owned a bizarre powdered wig.

One good way back then was to mess up bad enough to be put in “stocks.” Then, Boy Howdy, you were SEEN. I have the feeling I would have spent many of my teenage years there. And if things continue down the path they’re on, I could get the opportunity for another bite at that apple. At least I’ll have lots of company. Building stocks could become a real cottage industry and economic stimulus. Of course, the Stock Company – Stik Stok? – being awarded the government contract would have to figure in 10 percent for The Big Guy, even if by then he has been stuffed and mounted in the Pathological Liars’ Hall of Fame.

We have been told, in fact — and I am not making this up, sadly — that the Right To Be Seen includes, but is not limited to, the Right To Kill. Transgender spree killer Audrey (Aiden) Hale killed three children and three adults at a Nashville Christian School. When the bodies were barely cold, she was “excused” in the most grotesque fashion by a semi-literate pile of gibberish put out by the Trans Resistance Network on 3/27/23.

To wit: “Aiden had no other effective way to be SEEN than to lash out by taking the [sic, also sick] “life” of others and by consequence, himself.” Works for me.

Oh wait…let’s just spitball for a minute and think of what other possible ways she could have been “seen”? Studying like crazy and curing cancer? Nah. Feeding the homeless or counseling suicidal teens and winning an award? Sounds like a lot of trouble. Just living her life, marrying somebody (it’s legal to marry ANYbody, you know…even yourself if Dennis Rodman is any example), paying taxes, going to work for 40-50 years like the rest of us, and retiring in Palm Springs?

Pick any of those options, and seven people are still alive, including her. In fact, maybe one of the children she murdered in cold blood would have cured cancer. And just by the by, where IS that famous manifesto she wrote? Humanity’s experience with manifestoes from the “Communist” to the “Kaczynski” has not been without a hiccup or two. We’ll see if the FBI’s is better. Lord knows they’ve had long enough to work on it.

The obscene talking point that it’s vital for everybody to be “seen” is right up there with the newish and meaningless adjective “marginalized.” There are 8 billion people in this world. How many of them – how many of US — are NOT “in the margins”? How many are ever “seen”?

For HUNDREDS of millions of people from the beginning of time until today, the sojourn on Earth was as Worker Bees who were only “seen” by a few other tribal or clan members and family members in their entire “nasty, brutish and short” lives. For several millennia their greatest accomplishment was being able to reproduce before they died at 30. Pronouns were the 578th thing they worried about, far down the line after being trampled by a Mastodon, dying from an infected tooth, freezing in a blizzard, or starving to death. (Fear not! If the Climatistas get their way, we can experience all those things again except, maybe, the Mastodon.)

As recently as the last few centuries, the UnSeen buzzed around anonymously, fighting the wars, farming, removing the garbage, mining, working in steel mills, emptying bedpans, waiting on tables, slingin’ hash, writing code, changing diapers of the young and old while a microscopic handful of Very Special People — disgraced royals, Kardashians, has-been actors, political grifters, talk show hosts, felonious athletes — got to be SEEN.

Even those who have had long lives in the limelight are pushed back to the margins in due time. Beauty fades, actors get old, athletes’ bodies wear out. Fashions change in music and art. Women who once played ingenues now compete to play the latest ingenue’s grandmother. Even in the self-congratulatory world of Hollywood there is the concept of an “A List” (Those NOTICED even by the SEEN) and on down through the alphabet.

Politicians get senile, though lately that is a selling point, not any kind of liability. How many times when the Oscar Awards program held its annual salute to the recently departed was YOUR first response: “SHE was still ALIVE?” Sometimes old retired comediennes even have to put on conferences in order to perform their acts again! (No, really, I have heard of that…why, except for the mass killing part, it’s exactly like genocide!)

When Civilization takes its last breath, celebrating the right to kill babies at full term and the right to invade any borderless country in search of “lifetime support in exchange for a reliable vote” will be two of the Rights most responsible for the End of The World As We Know It. But the Right To Be Seen will be right up there for sure.