Ridicule As A Weapon Against Tyrants

by Will Grigg
Feb. 11, 2014

The one thing tyrants can’t stand is ridicule. They thrive on flattery, they pretend to indulge principled criticism, they feel a sense of perverse satisfaction when made the targets of hatred – but they are infuriated by displays of defiant wit that puncture their pretensions of omnipotence.

The Gibson Guitar company has created a special line of Les Paul guitars intended to mock the bureaucrats who staged an armed raid on their factories in Tennessee two years ago. A troupe of armed thugs descended on the plants, stole a half-million dollars’ worth of property, and shut down operations. All of this was supposedly justified by technical violations of an obscure trade act. However, the company was neither cited nor charged with an offense – nor was it ever compensated for the crimes committed by the raiders who invaded their facilities.

The Feds did return the rosewood they had seized during the raids, and Gibson has incorporated it into the fretboards of its new “Government Series II” Les Paul guitars.

Appropriately, this new guitar comes in only one color – the same shade of khaki tan that is common in the attire of the jack-booted cretins who enforce bureaucratic decrees.