A German joke is no laughing matter, quipped a wit once. Yet today no joke is – and some may be sacking or even criminal offences.
William Sitwell, the editor of the Waitrose Food magazine, found himself on the receiving end of this observation, when he was summarily sacked after responding to an e-mail pitch from a vegan hack.
Selene Nelson, food and travel writer of the vegan persuasion, pitched a series of articles on “healthy, eco-friendly meals”, as a result of which the “popularity of the movement is likely to continue to skyrocket”.
Movement, no less. Vegans are present-days suffragists, Luddites or Chartists. They aren’t just isolated oddballs here and there. They’re a political force, albeit still an aspiring one.
Mr Sitwell admirably replied in 10 minutes, which promptness is extremely rare among editors (spoken from personal experience). Moreover, his reply was humorous, which is rarer still:
“Thanks for this. How about a series on killing vegans, one by one? Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat?”
Personally, I would have suggested making them eat one another, but then I have no job from which I could be fired. Mr Sitwell did – and was.
Now neither Mr Sitwell’s joke nor especially my embellishment of it is particularly funny. That’s why I wouldn’t make it in a public medium, but then neither did Mr Sitwell.
His unfunny joke was made in a private missive, recipient’s eyes only. Since it had dire consequences, the self-righteous snitch must have forwarded the e-mail to Mr Sitwell’s employers and demanded action.
The demanded action was taken because today’s publishers are gun-shy. They know that a publication can suffer severe damage as a result of a PCC complaint or especially legal action.
The mere threat of any such thing is sufficient for them to get rid of the putative offender – whatever the face value of the problem (again spoken from personal experience: my offence was against homosexuals, not vegans, but both groups are equally hypersensitive).
In this case the Press Complaints Commission wouldn’t have been interested because the offending remark wasn’t published. I doubt a lawsuit would have been a real danger either, for the same reason.
What the publishers were afraid of must have been the possibility of a hysterical smear campaign, possibly accompanied by riotous rallies outside their offices. Being totally devoid of a sense of humour is an essential qualification for New Age activists.
Now vegetarians and especially vegans, unless they have medical reasons for their dietary quirk, suffer from a hysterical neurosis typically exacerbated by pernicious ideology.
Not being a professional neurologist or psychiatrist, I don’t know if their condition is treatable. However, I do know that most of them would refuse to submit to treatment, and that’s where the ideology comes in.
In their eyes they’re paragons of virtue, courageous, self-sacrificial fighters for the liberation of animalkind. Since as a rule they’re atheists (I’m strictly talking about Westerners here), they are prone to anthropomorphising livestock.
They may know that a legal difference exists between killing a person and slaughtering a cow, but in their eyes there’s no moral one. Both are animals created by Darwin in a flash of inspiration.
The neurotic hysteria part of it is indeed no laughing matter: we shouldn’t have fun at the expense of physical or mental deformity. But the ideological part is fair game, for the sanctimonious self-righteousness of those people isn’t a medical condition but a conscious choice.
Well, they’ve chosen wrong, and that’s a good reason to have a good laugh at their expense. But when they elevate their hysterical adulation of animals to a secular religion of sorts, an awful, hare-brained surrogate of real faith, they’re no longer just mildly amusing.
Like exponents of any other cult, they treat normal people not as the holders of a different view but as heretics and infidels. Hence no holds are barred, not even murder, as those fire-bombing anti-fur fanatics have demonstrated.
And their response to jokes at their expense isn’t a million miles away from the Muslims’ reaction to what they perceive as an affront to their particular cult. People may forgive those who poke fun at their thoughts, but not those who mock their faith.
Exponents of veggie cults become aggressively dangerous in that they try to shoehorn toxic alien additives into our civilisation, putting it at great peril – especially when they join forces with other New Age loudmouths, your tree-huggers, global-warmists, ideologised LGTB perverts, anti-nuke zealots and the like.
Therefore we, Western holdouts, are duty-bound to fight back with every weapon at our disposal, and savage satire has to come out of the quiver first. I myself lampoon those people every chance I get, and I support everyone who does the same – and admire everyone who suffers for doing so.
Such as William Sitwell, who showed that modern martyrdom doesn’t have to be sanguinary. The bastards can get us in all sorts of ways.
Jonathan Swift would be proud of your column today. Satire is a precious thing in the West nowadays. We are the last of the Fun Bunch.
Thank you for this comparison, even though it’s obviously undeserved.
First meat of any sort. Then any sort of dairy product to include eggs. The honey from bees [you are stealing from the bees and their hard work]. Then no wearing of any form of apparel made of leather [to include a belt]. Then any form of apparel made of wool. Etc. You can never please them.
I know some vegetarians who wear leather shoes. But then, as Emerson said, “A foolish consistence is the hobgoblin of little minds.”