Toronto March for LifeAs opposition to pro-life legislation in North America becomes less and less coherent and increasingly shrill and desperate (the scientific inquiry Motion 312 in Canada, the entirely fictitious Republican “War on Women” in the US), the abortion crowd is falling back on a tried and true strategy: Trot out the celebrity.
I don’t pay much attention to the celebrity culture in general unless one of them decides to say something asinine about politics (which, come to think of it, is pretty regularly), but when the pro-“choice” trolls on our Facebook page posted the exact same YouTube clip to our wall for the hundredth time, I decided to give it a watch.
The video was of standup comedian George Carlin, now deceased, who was apparently famous for saying things that other people didn’t dare say. By this I do not mean that he said things that were courageous and spoke truth to power, but rather that he built a reputation on saying exceptionally crude things loudly and often, and that other people generally didn’t say them because they were too refined or polite. Anyhow, in the particular video being constantly posted, the alleged comedian rants for about ten minutes on how pro-lifers are stupid, inconsistent, and really, who cares about babies before they’re born any way? (Throw in a lot of exceptionally crude words and a few dead baby jokes.) The masochistic crowd goes wild, happily crawling into the gutter to roll in the muck with the estimable Mr. Carlin.
It’s always been rather confusing to me why people think celebrity endorsements and opinions should mean anything at all. Dozens of magazines are dedicated to tracking every sordid moment of their empty lives while hanging on to every bit of advice dripping from their Botox-infused lips, and in spite of this wide availability of information, people still seem to think that their opinions on moral matters should be heeded, even wielded.
Seriously: Since when does a group of people most famous for pathetically short marriages, back-to-back rehab stints, rampant promiscuity, and a disconcerting willingness to get naked for the general public have the expertise (or for that matter, the integrity) to inform us on weighty human rights issues like the rampant killing of pre-born humans in the womb? Did they perhaps bone up on embryology and ethics in between suing for divorce and signing up for the lead role in Nymphomaniacs Part XI?
I’m not going to go through the many abortion-supporting celebrities and their vacuous commentaries, but if you’d like to see the worst of them blogger Kristen Walker has compiled a fairly comprehensive list of shame. But here’s a tip to the abortion crowd who finds the alcohol-soaked babble of Mr. Carlin so humorous: Not even he thought much of his audience. In fact, he finally recognized that he needed to go to rehab after completely falling apart on a Las Vegas stage and ranting to his listeners that “What I’m always getting here is these kind of (expletive) people with very limited intellects.” While I’m not questioning the intelligence of abortion supporters that I debate (at least not all of them), Mr. Carlin apparently had no respect for those who laughed at his jokes.
So perhaps it’s time to stop laughing, and start examining weighty issues like abortion more thoughtfully.
