Sometimes a Knot is Just a Knot
We have effectively moved from the Kafka portion of the program where people are charged with unidentifiable crimes to the Stalinist purge portion where any variance from the currently accepted standards (which change every day) is treason.
I saw where NASCAR is mandating training about "unconscious bias". This is lunacy - but it is a long standing lunacy. Rather than "training" an entire population not to be "unconsciously biased" (which is a stupid, meaningless term), maybe those who see racism everywhere should be treated to manage their hallucinatory states.
I learned to tie a hangman's noose when I was a kid. In Mississippi. During the 60's.
But it had nothing to do with lynching black people. As a kid, I watched western serials on Saturday afternoon and that's what they did to cattle rustlers. It is a knot. Knots don't have cultural or symbolic meaning unless somebody imparts such.
This hysteria over statues and ropes is all too Freudian.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Sometimes a knot in a rope is just a knot in a rope with no other meaning than someone randomly tied it.
I have noted this about free speech - and it applies to all symbolism - I can only be responsible for what I say and mean and in the context which it is offered, I cannot be responsible for what you hear. If you choose to believe I said what I did not say or in a context that never existed, that's not my fault. If I must be made to be accountable for what you interpret, free speech is dead - and banning all things begins.
Yes, we are witnessing a Marxist temper tantrum, but we are also witnessing a mental breakdown of a large segment of our society. The mini-Marxists are so few, there is no way they would have the power to destroy statuary or create "autonomous free zones" without the active passivity (sounds like an oxymoron - but when people actively make a conscious decision to do nothing, it isn't) of a segment of society.
When government officials ignore mobs destroying public property and then claim that people voluntarily protecting said property are the "terrorists", when peaceful protesters legally carrying their weapons are alleged to be violent while rioters who burn buildings and cars and looters who raid stores are deemed "peaceful protesters", you know we have just followed Alice down the rabbit hole.