Awash In a Sea of Stupid

It’s a weird feeling, watching the globe-wide death of reason and the herdlike behavior of virtue-signaling nincompoops. There’s so much of this it’s hard to know where to begin. This is not intended to be a complete list, which would take too many pages, just an illustration of what I mean.

Standing up for Ukraine in the Art World?

Suddenly, as the preposterous mandates supposedly designed to stop the spread of the Wuhan virus begin to lift, the herd, bereft at the widespread mask-dumping, seems to have latched onto the Russian invasion of Ukraine to prove to us how moral they are. Now, it’s perfectly understandable to be appalled at the destruction. Contributing to relief efforts, for example, is one rational humanitarian response. But the reaction in many quarters is patently absurd. One of the greatest opera stars, Russian Anna Netrebko, has withdrawn her scheduled performances at the Metropolitan Opera after the General Manager announced,” we can no longer engage with artists or institutions that support Putin or are supported by him — not until the invasion and killing has been stopped, order has been restored, and restitutions have been made.” Unless she planned to drive a tank to Kiev or to revise the planned operas to sing the praises of Putin, whatever was the point of this?

The Montreal Symphony Orchestra has cancelled the piano performance of a young genius, Alexander Malofeev, who was outspokenly critical of the invasion and, indeed, has relatives in Ukraine.

“The OSM feels that it would be inappropriate to receive Mr. Malofeev this week,” wrote a spokesperson for the orchestra, Pascale Ouimet, in a statement.

“We continue, however, to believe in the importance of maintaining relationships with artists of all nationalities who embrace messages of peace and hope. We look forward to welcoming this exceptional artist when the context allows it.”

And not to be outdone in fecklessness, the Cardiff Philharmonic has removed works by Tchaikovsky from its scheduled program on the ground that “his music is inappropriate at this time.” Children’s ballet teachers are crossing their fingers in the hope that this will be over by the annual Christmas Nutcracker performances.

The War on Humor — Another Battle

It’s not enough that these institutions are depriving music lovers of great music to show us how moral and wonderful they are, the terminally humor-deprived would deprive us as well of laughs.

The fabulous satire site Babylon Bee has bumped up against the humor-hating dweebs at USA Today. The Bee joked that President Biden was considering giving Alaska back to Russia so we could drill there for more oil, an obvious reference to Biden’s killing the North Slope oil project.

“The deliberate and premeditated invasion of Ukraine by brutal dictator Vladimir Putin has forced the US to reassess the importance of energy independence,” the Bee wrote in its article, published March 7. “With this new resolve, the Biden Administration has taken its first step toward increasing oil production for Americans by selling Alaska back to Russia so we can start drilling for oil there again.”

USA Today fact checked this satire on the satire site and assured the its readers that the satire was satire. (Of course, given the nonsensical policies of the Administration, maybe the Bee accidentally uncovered another Biden genius plan).

John F. Kerry Fights Climate Change

This gassy fop is always a fit target for ridicule, but in recent days he’s outdoing himself. Inflation in the U.S. is at a forty year high. Gas prices, supply chain problems, food shortages (which will only increase as fertilizer shortages and higher transport costs increase the cost of production and shipment), and housing costs are bankrupting whatever is left of a middle class already devastated by the ill-considered COVID lockdowns. He’s still fixated on the ludicrous international griftarama disguised as a means to fight “climate change.”

Kerry took a beating about a week ago on social media for saying he hoped Putin would stay on the climate change bandwagon after invading Ukraine. This week, he told the UN meeting on “Climate Finance for Sustaining Peace and Security” that the U.S. taxpayer would fork over $10 billion dollars a year for a decade to the UN to redistribute our wealth to poorer countries.

Blaming Putin for Higher Gas Costs

Biden’s entire energy policy has been to starve U.S. citizens of the plentiful conventional fuels, including oil and gas, and driving up their cost which began rising soon after he was elected and have not stopped rising. He said that he planned to increase energy costs, and it is the one promise he has certainly been keeping, a promise which seems as certain to tank his party in the midterms as it has been a big factor in his plunging popularity. So, what are the Democrats to do to deflect attention from the fact they are responsible for this? Well, like Elizabeth Warren, a fake Indian but genuine demagogue, they can try to blame the energy producers, but that doesn’t seem to have persuaded enough voters, so — hey… blame Putin! And that’s exactly what they’ve tried. Unfortunately for them, that’s easily proven to be nonsense. Liz Peek writes:

Here’s the reality: We will still be burning oil and gas to heat our homes and generate our electricity for years to come. We can either produce those fuels at home or, like Europe, import them from abroad.

Since Biden became president, he has clearly chosen the latter path; this is a grave mistake. In thrall to well-heeled and noisy climate activists, Biden has set about junking one of America’s greatest geopolitical advantages — abundant, cheap energy — in a reckless quest to drive down carbon emissions.

While we’re on the subject of stupid Biden energy policies, we have to add Senator Chris Murphy to the roster of stupids. John Hinderaker writes:

Has the level of public discourse ever been lower? The Biden administration’s energy policies have been a disaster, as an overwhelming majority of Americans recognize. So the Democrats are flailing wildly, trying to blame exploding energy costs on Vladimir Putin, while suggesting that their own failed policies demonstrate the need to stop pumping oil altogether and shift to wind and solar power, fueling electric vehicles.

This view was expressed by Senator Chris Murphy, who offered the following twisted logic:

“We should learn our lesson here and become energy independent and choose to invest in clean domestic energy, so we never have to choose between one dictator versus another.”

Murphy concluded,

“Renewable energy stays in the United States. When we are producing energy from solar panels or wind turbines — that stays on the American grid, if you really care about keeping American energy in the United States, you should be investing in renewables.”

This is literally one of the dumbest things I have ever read. “Clean domestic energy” means wind and solar. Will wind and solar energy make us “energy independent,” like fossil fuels did until Joe Biden took office? No.

Financing the Enemies of our Allies

A consistent theme of the administration is aiding the enemies of our allies while doing everything possible to weaken our friends and ignore their legitimate defense concerns. This week, it continues along this path with the nomination of Elizabeth Campbell to the Department of State to oversee refugee issues and UN reform. Alana Goodman writes:

Campbell served as Washington, D.C., director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a U.N. agency that runs schools for Palestinian children and has used textbooks that teach anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist views.

Campbell’s appointment puts her in the position of working for the same State Department bureau that provides funding and oversight for the U.N. agency she previously helped run.

It’s par for the course from an administration that’s trying desperately to revive an absurd treaty with Iran, one which threatens Israel and our Arab allies in the region. You know, allies like Saudi Arabia whom Biden just pleaded with unsuccessfully to pump more oil ‘cause we really, really need it (having locked down ours to curry favor with the greens who are certainly getting foreign — largely Russian money — to fund their movement.