Saturday, February 05, 2011

Editorial Explanations: February 5, 2010

Just one today, since most editorial cartoonists take the weekend off, but it's a doozy. I'm not sure if I have adequately explained it; please comment if you have a better idea.

Ann Cleaves, 2/5/11:
The USA is made up of two entirely separate and equal nations: on the one side is the brutal totalitarian dictatorship of the TSA, where nail clippers are outlawed and Orthodox Jews are thrown off planes for praying in an unfamiliar way. On the other is Real America, the land of peace and prosperity, where personal use of high-powered firearms is not only allowed, but mandatory.

1 comment:

Kaz Augustin said...

Andrew, first I must thank you for your previous post on a cross-section of American editorial cartoons. They were illuminating and, um, flabbergasting.

Moving on, this is my take on the one you've posted: You, as an American, can take one of two tacks. You can either take the entire Constitution as a model, with the extreme choice of the Second Amendment being mandatory (as the most controversial of all the amendments). Oooorrrrrrr, you can happily submit to TSA genital fondling. So, imo, Ann Cleaves is trying to sway the "liberals" (ha!) by saying that, if you don't believe that gun ownership should be mandatory (like all those crazy nutso Tea Baggers), then you MUST, ipso facto, accept junk searches. Assert your rights and you are, by her definition, a gun-toting, racist ::cue banjo playing:: die-hard Republican! Middle ground? We don't need no middle ground, we're Americans!

As Arte Johnson used to say, "Very interesting, but...."

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