A big part of radical politics is the public display of piety. Members of the Left have a habit of displaying their piety in the same way women display charms on a bracelet. They make a big deal of letting everyone know they have a gay friend or a black friend. They don’t think of these people as people, of course. They are props, charms to hang on their bracelet that they rattle in public to signal to everyone they are a pious person.
Way back in the Bush years, liberals all claimed to know a moderate Muslim, who was like a suburban white guy, just a Muslim. It was hilarious how these otherwise irreligious people suddenly turned into Muslim scholars. They still hated Christians, but they were now experts on the Koran. They just knew that Islam was great. Proof was their imaginary Muslim friends and co-workers.
They never read the Koran and most likely had no Muslim acquaintances. It was just a public act of piety. They needed that charm on their bracelet. The funny part is they all repeated the same claims, as if they were reading from a script. Since these people read the same narrow set of website and watch the same news programs, it is no surprise they make the same arguments, sing the same songs and read the same lines from the catechism.
In the homosexual marriage debate, every liberal friends suddenly sprouted homosexual friends. The fact that the supply of homosexuals was far outstripped by the claims never came up. Unsurprisingly, there was no talk about the Muslim friends who just a few years ago were allegedly confirming all of the claims of the Left. The prominent charms on the piety bracelet were all gay all day.
Now we are seeing Ukrainians turn up in conversation. On the one hand, many leftists are Jewish and have family roots in this part of the world leads to an obsession with Russia and the old Pale of Settlement. On the other hand, the gentiles now need to feel like experts on this new thing. More important, they need to personalize it, so all of a suddenly their gay friend is out and their Ukrainian friend is in.
Related, I think: Recently, my wife needed to get Skype up & running so she could do a live interview. A couple of our friends (oddly, ones who had displayed the symptoms above, and now have Ukrainian friends)piped up to tell her how easy and wonderful Skype was, they’ve been using it for years, yata yata. Well, in the event, installation was not a snap, and days before the crucial event, she called the expert Skype users to try to set up a test session, and guess what; due to one reason or another, no one actually had Skype up&running… Read more »
Piety bracelets?
They’re called bumper stickers.ALSO “for sale” at about $1.00-$5.00 dollars.
They’re letters to the editor, usually AFTER
the main event, demanding other peoples time and money. They’re the “protest” posters on a stick, found dumped on the ground at the first sign of rain, waiting for “someone else” to responsibly dispose of them.
*sigh* I shoulda’ gone into the “one off”, novelty printing business.