The saga of Glyburn Grundy

There's this old guy out west, call him Glyburn Grundy. He got into a land dispute with the gummint. Something about cows and grazing -- I'm kind of hazy on the details. Not my thing, really.

Anyways, Fox News latched onto Glyburn as a cause celebre, because Glyburn said that he does not recognize the existence of the United States Gummint. Hey, there's not much that can go wrong when you give lots of publicity to a guy who says stuff like that, right?

Or so you'd think.

But then someone found an email that ol' Glyburn wrote last year -- a "Manifesto" which he sent to his friends and associates in the "U.S. Gummint Does Not Exist" movement. It was a pretty shocking document...

MY MANIFESTO

by Glyburn Grundy

Why does everyone have a hard time with the word nigger? I grew up saying it and I never thought there was anything racist about it. You could have knocked me over with a feather the first time someone told me that the word "nigger" was considered some sort of insult. How did that happen?

The best way to repair the situation is to say the word over and over, so we all just kinda get used to it. Nigger! Nigger! Nigger! See how easy it is? Besides, if those people don't want the word to be used, the dumb fuckers shouldn't use it themselves.

Second, let's talk "cunt." For my money, this is the best way to refer to women. Just one syllable. Good old-fashioned English word. Look it up -- this word goes way, way back. Maybe if we all called 'em by the right word, they'd stop blabbering so much. Because whoever heard of a talking cunt?

Now, let's talk Mezkins. I love Mezkins. Especially Mezkin food. My sister (I forget her name -- just call her Cunt) came up with a great recipe for Mezkin stew: Three chopped onions, one radish, two stalks of celery, one can of beans, two chopped potatoes, and three pounds of dead Mezkin. Top it with a light Béchamel sauce. Good eats!

The Manifesto goes on and on like that for another three pages. In order not to offend those of a delicate sensibility, I shall skip past the part where he recommends showing Cannibal Ferox and Salo to three-year-olds "to toughen 'em up." The text ends with these words:

Just saw The Avengers. Worst comic book movie ever! Why don't they let Joel Schumacher make these things anymore? He knew how to do 'em right! He's the guy who made that Batman movie, the really good one with Arnold. I hear people talk like his movie was all faggy and shit, but frankly, I just don't see it.

Naturally, once word of this manifesto got out, the world was shocked and disgusted. The folks at Fox News all had that "exploding cigar" look on their faces. A spokesman for the cable news giant denounced Glyburn Grundy in no uncertain terms:

"We were taken by surprise. The fact that he refused to recognize the existence of the U.S. government gave us no hint that he might be a strange person with potentially obnoxious opinions."

But in the midst of the uproar, I had one small question: What does any of this have to do with a dispute over grazing rights?

Sure, the Manifesto was filled with hatred and stupidity. But what does that have to do with a dispute over grazing rights? A legal disagreement is a legal disagreement. It has nothing to so with character. The law should apply equally to saints, monsters and fools.

Maybe you are now chomping at the bit to tell me that Grundy's argument, vis-a-vis his dispute over the cattle thing, is based on nonsense. I concede your point before you even make it. But so what? I still must ask: Why do people act as though this man's Manifesto -- or anything else he has ever said or done -- has any bearing on a legal case? What does one have to do with the other?