Fahrenheit 451.
Next to George Orwell's '1984', this single novel has to be the most regularly misquoted,
misinterpreted, misconstrued, propagandized and distorted book in the history of contemporary
science fiction literature.
Mind you, I love the book.
In my opinion, it's Ray Bradbury's crowning achievement.
But - even by Bradbury's own admission - between Michael Moore's dipfucktastic miscommunication
of its narrative motifs via the title of his 2004 documentary, not to mention every fuckwit
college professor misrepresenting it, via slanted curriculum, as 'a totalitarian cautionary
tale'... the only thing more irreparably mangled than its core thematic content is presently
wrapped around a parking meter with Nick Nolte splayed across the fuckin' dashboard.
Fahrenheit 451... is not a novel about a totalitarian government curtailing the liberty of its populace
via socialized censorship.
It isn't.
It's a novel wherein the citizenry - faculties dulled by pulsating, televised imagery and
disposable entertainment - outgrow the need for literature... and the government simply
takes the next logical step.
The people hand over their liberty - willingly - to the government.
Which consequently...
becomes totalitarian.
It's an important distinction to make in a time where many of the very same bleeding
hearts who - in the wake of tragedies such as the Sandy Hook and Aurora, CO shootings,
continue to shriek that the government should regulate our firearms more heavily than our
automobiles - or even sieze them outright...
inexplicably whirl around on their shit-heel and tell the government that they'll get their
video games when they pry them from their cold, dead hands.
(Meh.
In a perfect world) The bastion of bullshittery that is Kotaku,
this past week, took the opportunity to launch a herculean harangue at the National Rifle
Association - whose months-old rhetoric pertaining to the censorship of video games, relative
to people on the left like Joe Biden and our very own President Barack Obama, has been
tame as a motherfucking house cat, by comparison.
Let me make this perfectly clear: The NRA is in the motherfucking wrong in assigning
digital entertainment even fractional blame for Newtown, and given that they released
their very own shitpiece of a PS2 game not but seven buttfuckin' years ago, it also happens
to smack of hypocrisy.
But make no mistake: Where the individual liberty of gamers are concerned...
the NRA are not particularly dangerous.
In fact, we have an enemy in common.
In the citizens of California's ongoing effort to make the rest of America as much of a dystopian,
ass-backward moonscape as their own home state happens to be, California voters, in 2012,
re-elected a mendacious marionette by the name of Dianne Feinstein to the U.S. Senate.
For the fourth motherfucking time.
And, less than a month ago, this bag of shit emptied her contents:
'Video games act as death simulators,' she purported.
But where the rhetoric reached Bradburyan fever pitch was when she hinted, later in
the interview, that 'Congress may be forced to take direct, regulatory (see: censorshiptastic)
action' to curtail the tide of video violence.
Even hinting that they were 'ready to do so'... right fucking now.
Mind you, this isn't one lone, powerless voice or the halfwit chairperson of a special interest
group like the NRA saying this.
This fucking sea hag is the chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee!
Mind you, having this woman chair any proceeding predicated on intelligence is like electing
Charlie Sheen the Baron of the Chastity Foundation, but combined with Barack Obama's formation
of a 'Clean Video Games Task Force' this past January, it's abundantly clear that while
Kotaku froths at the mouth and shrieks about gun nuts... the true enemy is constructing
the gallows atop capitol hill.
The NRA didn't even shoot their toothless mouths off on this issue until January 16th.
A full week and some change after Vice President Joe Biden first began holding McCarthy-esque
hearings to ascertain the violent content of video game media, and exploring the option
of government mandated censorship.And where the fuck was the video game media?!
I mean, we know where Kotaku was.
Those grape-flavored Ramune reviews aren't going to write themselves, after all!
But we expect these motherfuckers to be asleep at the swatch.
Where the fuck were IGN?
GameSpot?
Polygon?
JoyStiq?
Every last fucking one covered the NRA story.
Exactly two covered the Feinstein story.
Listen the fuck up: It is not coincidence that the same people getting grabby with your
guns... and now fondling your fuckin' video games!
Because once they get the one... they're coming for the fuckin' other!
You don't get to hand the government authority beyond their province... in this case outlawing
assault rifles - which, given that the second amendment exists to protect the citizenry,
not from a jewel thief, not from a grizzly bear, but as per Thomas Jefferson, from their
own government - the only model of weapon we should be encouraged to own.
And then cry 'totalitarianism' when the government decides the next stop after it raids your
gun cabinet, is the entertainment center.
That's arguably even more hypocritical than the NRA whining about violent games 7 years
after it made a failed attempt at producing one.
The dystopia of Fahrenheit 451 began with a populace tendering literature - voluntarily
- to the government, for incineration.
They had 'no need' of it, they said. ...and this, rageaholics, is why we don't
have a 'Bill of Needs'.
We have a Bill of RIGHTS.
I'm RazörFist.
God - fucking - SPEED!