On Calling Out the Smokey-Eyed Motherfckers

Charlie Pierce:

Think of how things have slid from the days when William Lloyd Garrison published his first issue of The Liberator in Boston in which Garrison wrote what I consider the essential statement of purpose for any country with a First Amendment.

I AM aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as Truth, and as uncompromising as Justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.

Horribly uncivil, that. But vigorous, for sure, and proudly free.