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Let Us Now Ban 10 Things
Tell me what you would like to ban, and I will tell you who you are. It occurred to me that a book of the ten things that a hundred intellectuals would like to ban would be very revealing. — Theodore Dalrymple
I’m uncertain if I qualify as an intellectual, but since Dalrymple has tossed down a gauntlet that few people will pick up, I’ll propose some bans. For the record, if I were suddenly made Philosopher-King of the world, I wouldn’t ban these things. Neither would I vote to ban them, should some deranged polity vote me in as their representative. These are less public policy proposals than pure personal dislike. Please, jump in with the same spirit.
1) Reality TV. I realize that it’s popular to watch people strip-mine their own lives, but it tends to bring out the worst in the stars and their fans.
2) Twitter. It can indeed do some good in breaking news, but more people use it to organize angry mobs. It generates more heat than light.
3) Cliche-ridden prose. Whenever someone says they want government out of the bedroom, ask if it’s okay for a man to beat a woman, provided it’s in a bedroom. Say what you actually mean, not what approximates what you sort of think you mean.
4) Satirical Websites that try to pass for real news. There’s way too much craziness in the world without people getting riled-up over jokes. The human capacity for outrage is limited, and every drop of anger wasted on a fake news story is a drop that can’t be channeled towards a legitimate outrage.
5) Vodka. If you’re going to get drunk, then you need to taste something. Besides, vodka is commie juice and we beat them. Go bourbon.
6) Drive-thru fast food. I totally get being too lazy to cook. But at least get out of the car. Park it, and then walk ten yards to get your supersized McHeartattack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJye229QbVs
7) Crummy RSS feeds. I’m a fan of my Really Simple Syndication reader: I can keep up with everything authors write. But some websites (*cough*) National Review and Patheos (*cough*) tweak their feeds so you need to click through to the site to read the whole article. I’m still subscribe to NR Digital, but if you’re going to jerk around someone who wants to read everything you write, then I ain’t donating.
8) Economists. I’m pretty sure that economics is roughly on par with astrology: they both use math, and they both claim to predict the future, but it’s mostly all guesswork. Left-of-center economists were glaringly wrong when they predicted that the Obama stimulus would drop unemployment down to normal levels quickly. Right-of-center economists were glaringly wrong when they predicted that the aforementioned stimulus would cause mass inflation. It’s all hogwash. Microeconomics might be a science, but macroeconomics is theology.
9) The Oscars. They’re too skewed to the present. We shouldn’t give a movie an award till it’s at least ten years old.
10) Listicles. They encourage bad writing. A good article ought to be carefully crafted, with a beginning, middle, and end. Listicles ruin it. They’re easy on the reader and too easy on the writer.
Okay, Ricochetti, what would you ban?
Published in General
You must be a blast at parties.
You are not a teacher. You are the mustangman.
I vote for banning hair farmers. Exhibit A:
What do you have against James Bond movies? Cubby Broccoli was great, and his daughter, Barbara, is doing a good job carrying the torch of vodka martinis, violence and sex into the 21st century. I, for one, am looking forward to Ralph Fiennes replacing Judi Dench in the upcoming Spectre.
So it’s really “10 things you’d like to purge” rather than “10 things you’d like to ban”.
Purge opens up a whole new set of rhymes.
Good work, Mis.
Whiny, wilted-flower college students.
Ten days after his 20th birthday, my father’s right arm and shoulder were shattered by an actual German artillery shell that destroyed dad’s tank, killed one of his comrades, and wounded another solider far worse than my father (his leg was taken off at the knee). Dad spent the rest of his life with a badly disabled arm, and never once complained about it.
Now we have college students who need a safe room when Christina Hoff Sommers comes to campus and, horror of horrors, challenges campus rape statistics.
A lot has happened to American resilience between 1944 and 2015, most of it bad.
P.S. I know we can’t rid ourselves of whiny college kids. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call them out (in addition to making fun of them) when they act like spoiled brats.
I’m more for making fun of things rather than banning them, but kale and male body spray bring out the inner banner in me. And the Kardashians, Lord help us.
How about banning threads that allow, even encourage, Casey, Ten Cents, and others to keep punning and punning and punning.
Should the first amendment cover bad puns? A question worth thinking deeply about.
I’m a pretty easy going person and wouldn’t ban too much, so I wouldn’t ban Priuses, but I would ban Prius drivers.
I saw the post title and within 8 seconds I had at least 117 things that should absolutely be banned forever!
Banning stuff is bad though so I’d rather complain about stuff than ban it.
However…… I could definitely live without mobile phone companies giving free “talk time” to teenagers who just love to impose their vapid relentless mindless drivel as loudly as possible on everyone around them….
In all seriousness, if given this power I would probably use it for something more fun. Like making life unnecessarily difficult just to watch people squirm.
I’ll ban:
Round wheels
Forks
Zippers
Handles
Lids
Salt
Switches
Eyeglasses
Drawers
and those little plastic bits at the end of your shoelaces
Picture Mr Magoo trying to lace up his square wheel roller skates after eating his bland fried egg breakfast with chopsticks.
That’s the kind of world I want to live in.
TV show cop shows – drama and reality. It might force evolution of the medium.
I would ban the music that they play when you are on hold – the stuff that gives the lie to “your call is important to us.”
You know – Mantovani Does the Grateful Dead and the like.
I would also ban the Soprano Sax, or as it is commonly called, the weasel flute.
NO!! We need our underwear. Think of the chafing problems this will create. I’m assuming you’re the national distributor of some kind of soothing skin cream. Crony capitalist!!
Q: What is the range on a soprano sax?
A: 15 yards overhand, 7 1/2 underhand.
Yes, we should definitely punder that.
TR, we’ve all seen that picture with you and Madeleine Albright. You’re not fooling anyone.
Not a list, but I’ve always wanted to ban drivers from playing thumping music at a pulse-altering volume. Especially when you’re next to then at a stoplight.
In the People’s Democratic Republic of Ontariostan, many universities offer free, or deeply discounted, tuition for people over a certain age, usually the age of 60. Admission is normally guaranteed on a non-degree basis for anybody over 65.
This policy can have the effect of dampening student, and even professorial, arrogance and/or whininess.
In one of my history classes, for example, the professor allowed a Master’s student to deliver the lecture on the Dieppe Raid.
At one point in the lecture, the lecturer stopped to acknowledge a student at the back of the class:
“Pardon me, sir, but that last bit you said isn’t quite true. You see, I was there. What really happened was…”
The lecturer had no reply.
“I’ve got the urge. The urge … to purge!”
I would ban top ten list.
“He probably means drinking deeply.”
“That’s what I assumed.”
It depends. I find that Prius drivers can be divided into two camps.
The first camp is all about the environment. They can safely be purged.
The second camp, however, are more likely to rave about all the neat-o technology in the Prius, pointing out in detail how the onboard computer works, etc.
This second camp is no more insufferable than the run-of-the-mill car guy who prattles on about cubic inches, valve numbers, the independence of one’s suspension, or equinocracy. No less insufferable either, of course…
Simply respond by cranking up some AC/DC. Highway to Hell usually does the trick.
TR, you got to cut down on your caffeine, you are starting to get sober.
No, it’s the 8th amendment that addresses punishments.
POW! Nice Punjab!
This would only serve to increase the number of top nine lists.
C’mon man! Unintended consequences!!!