Cultural appropriation: a different view

I think this is so sad and stupid. A group of freakishly politically correct people on the left are accusing others in every walk of life of cultural appropriation. That is, if you do not come from a particular ethnic group, you have no business depicting in any way the attributes of another ethnic group. For example, if you are a white American of European descent, you have no business owning a Mexican restaurant. This insipid reasoning has condemned artists for depicting lynchings in the south and other subject matter that depicts the oppression suffered by black people in America—even though those artists were sympathetic to the plight of black America. The cultural appropriation groupies have also forced Kooks Burritos in Portland to shut down because it was owned by two white women.
Let's look a bit at history to see a few more examples of cultural appropriation and what should be done about it.
Exhibit A: The Beatles. In the sixties, the Beatles made a trip to India to visit with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They began around that time to experiment with Indian instruments and recorded several songs, written largely by George Harrison. Those songs include Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, I Am the Walrus, and Norwegian Wood. They made a lot of money off those songs. Later Elton John did a cover version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Both the Beatles and Elton (by default) are guilty of cultural misappropriation. They need to stop profiting off the backs of the peasants of India. They also borrowed from black performers, like Chuck Berry. All of those songs, need to be stricken from the record.
Exhibit B: Harper Lee. Lee, a white woman, of course wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the most important books of the civil rights era. Of course, she had no business writing this book, not being black. It should be torn out of every library and erased from every Kindle.
Exhibit C: Soccer. Soccer or football was invented in England some say, others say in China. It's pretty clear that soccer as we know it had it's beginnings in Scotland. Sorry, Brazil. You have culturally appropriated soccer. Time to stop playing it and go back to whatever traditional sports are played there.
Exhibit D: Omar Sharif. Sharif was an Egyptian, but in his most famous role he played a Russian. Why couldn't they have gotten a real Russian to play that role? Doctor Zhivago needs to be relegated to the trash heap of history.
As you can see, the politically correct cultural appropriation crowd are blatantly ridiculous. Cafe Rio, though not started by Mexicans, employs thousands of people, many of them Latinos. Should such a place be closed down because they culturally appropriated recipes? There are thousands more examples of businesses that borrowed thoughts and ideas from some another culture. Should these all be closed down in an effort to ensure cultural purity? If so, it sounds vaguely familiar. I think there was another culture, prominent in the 20th century that advocated cultural purity. Do we really want to go down that road?

Contradictions in liberal thinking

Just contemplating today that liberals rarely make sense. One liberal point of view is that there should be light-rail trains and high speed trains everywhere in America, replacing cars, trucks, motorcycles and the like. But this idea would never work. The reason why? Other liberals would stop it. Yes, liberal environmentalists would find a gopher burrow, or a rare aphid colony--years of study would need to be done to figure out the environmental impact, new routes would need to be changed, involving more studies of the impact on the newly proposed routes, on and on and on. But wait a minute...it just might work. I nearly forgot that the environment can be overlooked as long as the liberal agenda is pushed forward. Just look at how many windmills around the country went up without a thought in the world about the displacement of kangaroo rats, jackrabbits, or horned toads.

Kind of like...

Liberals are in favor of equality. Take from the rich, redistribute to the poor. In favor of equalizing the money supply. In favor of taking from the haves and giving it to the have-nots. Yep, in favor of equality. So in order to get it, they'd like the rich to pay 30 percent or more of their income in taxes, and the less fortunate to pay next to nothing. How is that equal treatment under the law? So, as long as equality means what they define it to mean, then they believe in it.

Another thing is...

Work. Many liberals believe that traditionally low-income jobs, such as dishwashers, or parking lot attendants, should be getting paid a lot more, like twenty dollars an hour. I heard that from one of the Occupy Wall Streeters. And NBA players should be getting a lot less. The liberals want to take from the NBA players, and Oprah (wait a minute, Oprah is one of the rich that they don't want to take anything from because she agrees with them), and give that money to those on the low end of the financial scale. Sound like a nice concept, only can't we ask the wealthy to help the poor voluntarily? But it's not only that. Liberals would like those who refuse to work to be subsidized  in their efforts by those who do the work. That's you and me. As Dennis Miller says, "I'm fine with helping the helpless. I just don't want to help the clueless." Equal work for equal pay, how about that? If you can play a sport well enough to draw thousands to watch you, employing hundreds if not thousands of other employees to sell snacks and beverages, show you to your seats, provide security--well if the job you are doing provides so many jobs for so many other people, maybe you might be worth a little more on the job market than the guy who stocks shelves at Wal-mart for a living.