w-j-s

I will not do some fireworks, btw, but nevertheless, this silly debate could make me physically sick, so I think it is time for a little political uncorrect provocation. Just a guilty pleasure, I admit. Caution: The following might be disturbing. Friends, Followers, X Users, lend me your ears! I come not as an orator, nor as a preacher, but as a plain and blunt man. And yet, for many years I have stood among the more than eighty percent of this land who light no private fireworks at all - for the polls tell us that scarcely sixteen percent intend to buy crackers or rockets. And still: the oftener I read your earnest little homilies, the more tempting the idea becomes: tomorrow morning, I shall buy them. Not for tradition’s sake, but out of a perverse but perfectly human delight in rebellion against your unceasing scolding. For I am of that rather large, if unfashionable, number for whom fireworks belong to the turning of the year. And in other matters too, no doubt, I am an unrepentant sinner. I am a carnivore. I admit it freely, and sleep perfectly well because of it. I eat fish and flesh knowingly and with pleasure - though between meals I am wholly vegan, almost vegan-fluid, if that brings comfort. My vinegar, however, is free of moraline. From 2009 until 2021 I did not fly at all. Since then I have flown several times a year and even take pleasure in cruising the seas. Nor am I especially keen on being lectured by those who in the sauna profess a touching uncertainty about biological basics, yet suddenly enlist in “Team Science” when climate and prohibitions are at stake. One cannot credibly invoke the natural sciences when they serve one’s purpose, and deny them again when their findings prove inconvenient. No - you and your postmodern creed are Team Voodoo - heavy on ritual, light on reason: a fellowship of panic rituals, sacrificial demands, and climate incantations. Your so-called “climate icons” have gravely discredited themselves through one-sided, at times antisemitically tainted, pro-Palestinian positions and appearances at such demonstrations - accusations raised by Jewish organisations and even by the Federal Commissioner for Combating Antisemitism. And the pampered, privileged brats of the Fridays-for-Future milieu dream of bans, re-education, and a curiously joyless utopia, while bathing in affluence themselves and jetting around the globe. One grows rather tired of this woke whining from the banning and browbeating faction - this endless chant of “we must,” “our planet,” “our responsibility.” This lofty self-righteousness, so often issuing from the safe harbours of public employ, where women, but also men, preach of risks they themselves never bear - and never will. And then this towering hubris: “We must save the world!” As though a country sliding into global insignificance could single-handedly redeem the climate of the earth. Were one not personally entangled in it, by living here, one might laugh freely at such boundless self-overestimation - for it bears an uncanny resemblance to earlier German doctrines of salvation - a temptation no nation ever quite resists. This time, to be sure, finally with the “good” motive. In this spirit, I wish you a fair turning of the year. And at the least, drink champagne with your bread. It may not go bang, but it does at least pop. Small mercies.

Et in Latina? Cicero ut hoc audiret in sepulcrum rotaretur? Non accendam pyrotechnica quaedam interea; sed nihilo minus haec stulta disputatio me ad nauseam usque perducere potest. Quare tempus esse censeo parvae provocationis politice incorrectae, ut aiunt. Voluptas culpabilis tantum, fateor – o quam dulcis! Cavete: quod sequitur fortasse animos vestros perturbabit. Amici, sectatores, usores X, praebete mihi aures vestras, quaeso! Non venio oratoris more nec praedicatoris, sed ut homo simplex et apertus, plane ac sine fuco. At tamen per multos annos inter plus quam octoginta centesimas huius patriae steti, qui nullos ignes artificiosos privatos omnino accendunt; nam inquisitiones publicae nobis nuntiant vix sedecim centesimas in animo habere emere petardas vel missilia pyrotechnica. Scilicet! Et tamen quo saepius lego vestras graves homilias parvulas, eo magis temptans fit cogitatio: cras mane ea emam. Non traditionis causa, sed ex perversa tamen perfecte humana voluptate rebellandi contra vestram incessabilem castigationem – o iucunda rebellio! Nam sum ex eo numero satis magno, etsi non populari, quibus pyrotechnica ad conversionem anni pertinent. Et in aliis rebus quoque, sine dubio, peccator sum impaenitens – en quale monstrum! Carnivorus sum. Id libere confiteor, et propterea optime dormio. Pisces et carnem scienter atque cum voluptate comedo – quamquam inter prandia omnino veganus sum, fere veganus fluidus, si id solatium affert. Acetum meum tamen moralina caret – nulla enim virtus in aceto. Ab anno bis millesimo nono usque ad bis millesimum vicesimum primum nullo modo volavi. Ex eo tempore pluries per annum volavi atque etiam gaudium capio in mari navigando – o tempora, o mores! Nec valde cupio moneri ab illis qui in thermis saunisque profitentur tactilem incertitudinem de principiis biologicis fundamentalibus, sed subito se adscribunt factioni scientiae, cum de rebus climaticis et prohibitionibus agitur. Non potest enim quis scientias naturales credibiliter invocare, cum ei inserviunt, easdemque rursus negare, cum earum inventa incommoda fiunt – videlicet! Non – vos et vestra credentia postmoderna estis factio vudui: graves ritibus, leves ratione, sodalitas rituum panicorum, exactionum sacrificialium et incantationum climaticarum. O praeclara sapientia! Vestri sic dicti icones climatis se graviter dehonestaverunt per positiones unilaterales, interdum antisemitismo tinctas, pro-Palestinas atque per apparentias in talibus demonstrationibus – accusationibus motis ab organizationibus Iudaicis et etiam a Commissario Foederali ad Antisemitismum Comprimendum. Mira res! Et delicati illi ac privilegiati iuvenes ex circulo Veneris pro Futuro somniant de interdictis, reformatione mentium et utopia quadam curiose sine gaudio, dum ipsi in affluentia se lavant et per orbem terrarum volitant – o beatam paupertatem! Taedet aliquem huius querelae vigilum e factione interdicendi atque opprimendi – huius cantus interminabilis: “debemus”, “nostra planeta”, “nostra responsabilitas”. Quam nobilis cantilena! Haec alta iustitia sui, tam saepe prodiens ex portubus tutis muneris publici, ubi feminae sed etiam viri praedicant de periculis quae ipsi numquam ferunt – et numquam ferent. O virtus securissima! Et tum haec superba arrogantia: “Debemus mundum salvare!” Quasi patria in globalem insignificantiam labens sola manu climatem terrae redimere possit. Si quis non personaliter implicatus esset, hic vivendo, libere rideret de tali infinita sui aestimatione; nam similitudinem miram gerit cum prioribus doctrinis Germanicis salutis, tentatione quam nulla natio umquam plane resistit. Hoc tempore quidem, denique cum motivo “bono”. O sancta simplicitas! In hoc spiritu vobis opto pulchram conversionem anni – et multum gaudii in rebellione parva. Et ad minimum bibite vinum Campanicum cum pane vestro. Non tonet fortasse, sed saltem sonabit: pop. Parvae misericordiae – o quam magnae!