As IF Times

Source: Nude models gather in NYC to protest Facebook and Instagram’s female nipple ban | Fox News

Protests have been an essential part of the fabric of any society for as long as there have been societies.  They arise because of a grievance that a subset of the population bears at the hands of the greater society.  There have been all kinds of manifestations to exhibit disgruntlement.  In the very extreme cases, people have inflicted self harm by setting themselves on fire as happened recently in front of the Whitehouse and in previous times by Buddhist monks unhappy with political regimes.  The standard form of protest is the wielding of signs and marching and chanting.  Nowadays, most of these signs have spelling errors and the chants are a real stretch, artistically speaking.

One form of protest has been around for hundreds of years and perhaps had its root with the nude horseback ride of the famous Lady Godiva in the 11th century of England.  Lady Godiva was actually a noblewoman who sympathized with the plight of her people that suffered under an oppressive tax regime imposed by her husband, the Earl of Coventry.  The legend goes that the Earl agreed to reduce the taxes if Godiva would ride through the town naked on horseback.  She did so and accordingly, the Earl kept his word. Based on the apparent effectiveness of that nude protest, that tactic has survived to this day as a form of civil protest.

But times have changed, to say the least.  Whereas in the 11th century, when an exposed ankle was scandalous, public nudity certainly held an element of shock.  In today’s ribald world,  nudity has hardly any shock value at all. When nudity of all kinds can be accessed literally by a few flicks of the finger on electronic devices, are there still people out there who are titillated by a nude body?  I’m unsure of how public opinion can be swayed by virtue of having to view a bunch of naked women.  It’s an odd expression of protest since there is no consequence if no behaviors are changed.  Burning of cars and buildings, sure, but mass nudity? Seems iffy to me.  It’s kind of the adult version of holding your breath as a kid until you got your way.

We live in a time when overt exhibitionism is on display everywhere you look.  From various extreme hair colors not found on any natural species on earth; to piercings of body parts that would be considered horrific torture in most societies; to gargantuan facial and body tattoos, the bar level of shock value of the human condition is pretty high.  Simple nudity doesn’t budge the needle at all.  That is not to say that some things aren’t worth fighting for.  If Kate Upton were to ‘protest’ the consumption of red meat for example, people  might be persuaded to hear her out.  But I’m guessing it may take a long time to convince most men.

It’s hard to believe that we’re embarking upon yet another bruising election season soon…although you’d be forgiven if you thought the last one was still going on.  The whining and bleating about the results of the last Presidential election held almost 3 years ago still echoes like the screech of vultures circling above picked over carrion.

As shown in the attached graphic,  venerable news outlet CNN just displayed the results of theoretical matchups between the declared Democratic candidates and the presumed opponent Donald Trump. Even hardcore leftists would take this graphic with a barrel of salt…I mean come on, it’s CNN.  In the meantime, many more presidential aspirants are popping up like mushrooms after a rainfall in a swampy forest including the biggest loon bag of all, Bill De Blasio.  At present, there are over 20 declared candidates who genuinely think that there are enough non institutionalized people out there that would subscribe to their version of reality.

The vast majority of the declared candidates are from the states that normally lean heavily Democratic and that’s not really a surprise.  California, New York, Massachusetts are known to be the fonts of unhinged logic and hence the preponderance of spiral eyed politicos emanate from those states. The majority of them are lawyers who have done nothing in their lives but pander to their constituencies with increasingly extreme rhetoric.  None have built a business or endured the hardships of running one.  The one contender that has, Howard Shultz, is shunned by the mainstream Democrats as being a spoiler since he chooses to run as an Independant.

You would think that mass delusion has taken hold of these candidates because there is not the remotest of chances that they would be embraced by any outside of their protected enclaves. To the degree that they’ve even articulated a view for America, those views are as appealing to the values of Americans as a skunk at a picnic.  Unfortunately, that is the source of their genius.  They don’t have to appeal to the majority of Americans.  They need only to corral the votes of those in their populous constituencies, since there may be enough seats there to tip the balance of the houses.  So it’s a about strategy and tactics not about ideology.

Some like De Blasio and Eric Swalwell don’t even try to hide their mental condition since their constituents are like minded as proven by their being voted into office.  Some like Biden have a long history of being useless, but apparently also not a disqualifier. Fortunately as time goes on, the various faults of the candidates will become glaringly obvious under the harsh light of policy revelations…especially since, like the infamous John Kerry,  many of them were for policy ‘X’ before they were against it. As noted, many (and most) aspirants to political office are lawyers.   By definition, lawyers are not beholden to principles since their education and vocation are to argue for their version of truth.  Clearly their value system is not rooted in absolutes but in relativity.

In the dawning years of America, such a notion had been considered when drawing up the basic structure of public governance.  David Dodge, an archival research expert,  discusses this in his research on the missing 13th amendment.  Essentially, the gist of it was that lawyers were to be prohibited from holding public office.  This may have been prescient on the part of the founders way back when, but it seems especially apt today when it appears that a law degree is common as cold sores at a frat party…and as easy to get.