Time and time again, American progressives point to Europe as if it’s the shining beacon of light on the hill. They want to turn the United States into a North American Europe and don’t seem to care that Canada already has that title.
We’ve been told that Europe is basically better than us in every single way.
Meanwhile, as if she was actually trying to make American progressives look like complete idiots, a French lawmaker announced this bill which she and a handful of other lawmakers intend to introduce.
A French member of parliament has proposed that mockery of accents be outlawed, after an irate politician derided a journalist’s southwestern pronunciation before asking if anyone had a question in “understandable French”.
Laetitia Avia of President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party said she was proposing a bill that would classify such mockery with other forms of prohibited discrimination such as on grounds of sex or race.
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The law Avia proposes would proscribe discrimination based on pronunciation, whether standardized or from a specific region of France, or from one of the countries of origin of the many people of African descent in France.
Now, the politician’s comment may well have been in poor taste. It was definitely mocking and probably not particularly profession, but you know what? Who cares?
The idea that an accent can’t be mocked is absolutely ridiculous.
As a calm, mature, rational adult, I did the only thing I could possible do upon reading about Avia’s proposal. I promptly started mocking the French accent in general, because why not?
Avia’s proposal comes on the heels of an EU effort to ostensibly protect copyrights but which may also effectively ban memes. Now, an EU member state is looking to ban accent mockery. In other words, the only jokes that will be left in Europe is the pretense they’re a free society.
Honestly, can we stop pretending Europe has anything to offer the United States anymore? Yes, we’re all generally Western nations, but to say we share a culture and values is becoming less and less true. Avia’s interest in banning mockery and classifying it as hate speech illustrates that we no longer have any similarities with Europe other than some superficial appearances.
I mean, if this proposal goes through, Monty Python had better keep on their side of the English Channel. After all, their mockery of the French in “Search for the Holy Grail” is one of my favorite moments in comedic film. I’d hate to see them arrested for hate speech because of it.
It’s really time to look to Europe and understand that it represents the future that American progressives want. They’re willing to create laws to hammer opponents for saying unkind things while still pretending actual violence from specific groups isn’t really an issue.
At this point, I’m ready to declare that it’s time to stop pretending that France is even a real country. It’s more like a comedy skit written by people who want to be edgy and progressive but don’t actually understand that their performance art will hurt real people over absurd things--kind of like the American brand of progressive, if you think about it.
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