Posted on 03/15/2021 8:00:51 AM PDT by Red Badger
A poem defending Dr. Seuss was posted on Facebook recently. I expect it to be banned soon, so I’ll re-post it here:
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Alas they’ve come for Dr. SEUSS, they wish to hang him with a noose.
They claim his tales were racist bent, they judged him fast, missed what he meant.
But if we look inside his tales, you’ll find the balance of the scales.
Remember when Horton heard a Who, and we heard the wisdom of the Lorax too.
The lesson behind Green Eggs and Ham, that changed the mind of Sam I am.
Remember too the rotten Grinch, who once would never give an inch.
He taught us lessons, one and all, boys and girls, big and small.
So if you’ve judged his works as poor, you should re- read them, I implore.
The man we know as Dr. SEUSS, turned our imaginations loose.
His impact was beyond compare, he taught us it was good to care.
To accept the red, the blue, the green, and on each other we can lean.
So if you still won’t give an inch, your heart has hardened like the Grinch.
Release the grudge, the hate, the rue, and embrace the hope of Cindy Lou.
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Arguing the merits or demerits of Dr. Seuss, Pepe Le Pew or Mr. Potato Head is not just ridiculous. It also helps champions of censorship to trap you into conceding that it’s somehow okay to ban something if somebody somewhere finds it offensive. Actually, it’s okay only if the right “somebodies” find it offensive.
Is there only one opinion about that and increasingly, about everything else? When was it decided and by whom that we must have collective agreement about what is and isn’t offensive? -and whose opinion is required to prevail? Probably not yours.
I find the twisted values and anti-American sentiments of the radical Left in this country to be deeply offensive and even dangerous, but I would never think of trying to force others to agree with me. Funny how that quintessentially American value is among those that socialists and communists hate most.
If I advocated for the persecution or prosecution of America-haters I’d be a raging hypocrite. Remember that archaic idea of hypocrisy? That intellectual honesty requires that one should hold oneself to the same standard to which he seeks to hold everyone else.
It doesn’t matter whether a growing number of self-appointed dictators suddenly think Dr. Seuss is a racist. They simply don’t get to choose for everyone else.
Remember that favorite Leftist bumper sticker? “If you don’t approve of abortion don’t have one.” The Left only understands freedom only when it comes having an abortion. They are oddly incapable of applying their rhetoric on that issue to any other body part or aspect of our lives.
In their world you absolutely must have the freedom to kill a baby but you’d better not read him Horton Hears a Who if he’s fortunate enough to be born. If Broadway ever emerges from the Covid lockdowns what will they do about Seussical?
From forced masking and shutting down the businesses and lives of private citizens, banning cartoons, singling out and censoring conservatives, and the obvious step of forced vaccinations, the issue is Liberty. (Look for another new piece about popularizing yet another discarded relic of liberalism: ‘Conscientious Objectors.’) The bad news is that there is always more. Authoritarians are never satisfied, ever.
Without freedom of expression, individual choice and personal responsibility among other fundamental principles all currently under assault, America cannot survive. It is difficult even now for some to comprehend that the party in power is working aggressively to achieve exactly that.
Dr. Seuss is only the current excuse. Oh no! That’s a Seussian rhyme! Should I be burned at the stake?
Hurling the invective of Racist! Racist! is another excuse for the same thing. When it is necessary to manufacture racism because there’s not enough to create the proper cause celebre, you know they are married to the means because it will accomplish their end.
The government does not have the power to control thought or speech in the United States of America, but that’s what socialists and communists are doing before our very eyes. So far, they are getting away with it.
The Colorado legislature is running a bill to institute a “Ministry of Truth.” Could our parents ever have imagined the chutzpah to even introduce such a bill let alone pass it?
The best way to protect our own freedom of speech is to protect speech we don’t like and to utilize our freedom to speak out where and how we wish. Once upon a time, Liberals and Leftists knew that. In fact, it was one of their signature issues.
Now they are the book burners. Take a look at a scene from the 1989 film, Field of Dreams. Ray Kinsella’s very liberal wife Annie stands up at a school board meeting to decry censorship. Watch how proud she is for standing against book burning and for the First Amendment.
Where have those “good liberals” gone? They are all hiding behind masks and rushing to see who can be most obedient to the all-powerful State.
It’s time to argue all of it on the grounds of Liberty.
We have the right to say yes to Dr. Seuss and no to masking, muzzling, and forced vaccinations.
We have the right to think, feel and act differently from the hoardes and to fight “institutionalized” discrimination of those who choose to do so.
We have the right to exercise our free will and to welcome the personal responsibility that comes with it.
Liberty for All is what is under attack. Today it’s Dr. Seuss. Tomorrow, it’ll be the color of your underwear or whether, depending on your level of obedience you are allowed to wear it at all.
It’s not essential, but I think Dr. Seuss would agree.
Liberals and Leftists were all for freedom of speech and the press, as long as they controlled 99% of the Media.
At the first sign of alternate media which could reach a significant percentage of the American population, such as Fox news or Rush Limbaugh, or popular Internet sites... The left went all censorship, all the time.
I never could stand the Dr. Seuss books although banning them is a bad thing for free speech. Actually with all that’s happening with the Covid crap and these commie moves there are some bright spots to take advantage of. Such as not having your kids going to these Marxist indoctrination schools and other things that at the moment I can’t remember. Too little time and the old brain cells getting tired from all this garbage onslaught.
>> It’s not essential, but I think Dr. Seuss would agree.
If by Dr. Seuss you mean Theodore Geisel, he would have been all on board about withholding his early works.
The lefts logic is like saying Blacks cause racism because their Black Asians cause racism because their Asian..................................................
That was then,
This is now,
If you’re white,
They’ll have a cow,
Social Justice they do cry,
But it’s slavery by and by,
Color blind is not the goal,
Look at skin and not the soul,
If you think this poem stinks,
Just try to come up with a rhyme for Critical Race Theory ...
... I mean, seriously, just try. No wonder these goobers hate Seuss ...
With the company I hang with, there is no conversation on defending anything related to woke, cancel culture, socialism, democrats, liberals, gender identity (except the only two there are male/female), racism, bLM, antifa and anything else related to that psychiatric disease.
I don’t know how much you or others here know about the early Dr. Suess, but he was in advertising. Possibly the first thing that put him on the national radar (or would have, if radar had been invented yet) was an enormously succesful campaign for the “Flit” gun, which sprayed insecticide. It’s what Uncle Sam is holding in the cartoon.
The tag line was “Quick, Henry, the Flit”.
There was even a Marx Brothers movie where a Flit gun appeared.
Well played sir!
Common in cartoons too.
Before product placement swag they charge today.
Funny the article is all about having the wrong argument, and is itself having the wrong argument. The owners of the Suess legacy have decided not to publish those books anymore. Which is their prerogative. Because they own it. Every case he makes actually winds up supporting them. It’s their property, they don’t have to publish it.
I am offended by talk of global warming. Can we ban it as well?
He didn’t discriminate against red fish or blue fish.
Just try to come up with a rhyme for Critical Race Theory ...
... I mean, seriously, just try. No wonder these goobers hate Seuss ...
Challenge accepted. As a Seussian fan, I took the liberty of finishing it for you.
That was then,
This is now,
If you’re white,
They’ll have a cow,
Social Justice they do cry,
But it’s slavery by and by,
Color blind is not the goal,
Look at skin and not the soul,
If you think this poem stinks,
Just sit back and take a think
For government fear is a political based query
On how to change hate into Critical Race Theory
Or freedom of speech into cancellation
To turn the Constitution into our own damnation
Why won’t we defend rights so many have died
On beaches and plains to see it survived.
Because to take a stand is so very tough
We have met the enemy and he is us!
It is also eBay's prerogative to ban all sales of existing copies of the books.
It is my prerogative to complain about censorship and book banning by woke corporations catering to the far left.
Nice.
Also, are you familiar with The Private Eyes, a 1980 film with Don Knotts and Tim Conway?
A much loved by me trope from that movie is the poet who just can’t quite finish a poem ... except of course for the one about Hilga, as follows...
Hilga is dead and this you must note:
You can’t bury her at sea because her bosoms will float.
The only thing Dr. Seuss I know iis the tv grinch, who is fictional, anyway.
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