When Mazie Hirono Met Inigo Montoya

From our correspondent Esteban, as always:

In The Princess Bride Inigo Montoya’s second most famous line is: “You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means”.

Mazie Hirono is a Senator from Hawaii. While questioning Amy Coney Barrett pursuant to her impending appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, Mazie took the Notorious ACB to task for prior usage of the term “sexual preference”. According to Mazie this is problematic, some people find this term offensive and the appropriate term is “sexual orientation”. Something to do with “preference” implying that one’s sexual proclivity is a choice as opposed to ingrained.

Well, there are a few curious things about Mazie’s claim. The first is the suggestion that “preference” implies choice. It does not. If you prefer chocolate to vanilla that isn’t a choice. If you prefer sex with men over sex with women that isn’t a choice either. I won’t bother quoting them here, but there is nothing in the definitions of the two words that makes sense of this BS. In fact, if anything, orientation would be more easily construed as a matter of choice. I can literally choose my orientation in most circumstances (facing North right now, wait a second, now South). So, curious thing number one is that this is an unusually stupid word fight for the Left to pick.

The next thing that struck me is that according to Mazie “some people” find it offensive, therefore it is off limits and if you don’t follow this rule (or didn’t follow it in the past, even though no one had heard it until, like now) you’re a very bad person and perhaps shouldn’t be a judge. I’m always curious about the “some people offended” rule – is there anything that doesn’t offend some people? I’m pretty sure some people are offended every freaking time Mazie opens her pie hole, why doesn’t their offendedness trigger the SMO rule? As Jordan Peterson pointed out to that unfortunate TV woman, if no one can say anything that might offend someone else we can’t actually talk about damned near anything important.

And of course, the SMO in this case are the alphabet people (the LGBTQ “community”), therefore something or other. But can someone tell me who gets to decide on behalf of the entire “community” which words and phrases are worth fighting over? Was there a vote, do they have a separate gov’t? Are we sure that there is no one in this “community” who doesn’t prefer “preference” to “orientation”? What about the alphabet people who are offended by “orientation”, shouldn’t Mazie go off quietly and punish herself?

And, of course, since this rule was unknown until, like now, there are a helluva lot of fun video clips of Progressives using, you guessed it, “sexual preference”. Joe Biden for starters. I’ll bet we can find Mazie herself doing it a few times. Self-immolation time?

On some level this is really just about having power over other people and especially keeping them frightened. One poor choice of words and your career is in jeopardy. And the game is much, much more fun if the rules change frequently and there isn’t any warning. Ooh, you bowed when the Czar entered the room, but that was the practice last week, off to the dungeons with you!

I do wonder (and hope) that this type of BS is going to help President Trump win reelection by a wider margin. A lot of decent people are very, very uneasy about the idea that their career could be hanging by a thread because they hung up on the Zoom call before a black colleague or they didn’t smile big enough when the new department head was introduced or they had a Halloween costume 10 years ago that isn’t acceptable any more.

Last thought – as has been pointed out in a few other areas, if the alphabet people have time to bitch about this, it’s time to call off the dogs. If you’re fighting over the difference in terms “preference” or “orientation” time to call it a day, there aren’t any real problems left to worry about viz a viz the “LGBTQ Community”.