Commentary

alloween is the last traditional American holiday that hasn't been ruined by political correctness. Not that people haven't tried, but because it's a combination of fear and satire, it's relatively immune.

Well, Halloween has been over for almost a week, so it's safe to reveal my deepest Halloween fantasy.

Don't tell anybody, but one time many years ago I planned to go trick-or-treating disguised as World War I. My idea was to go around shooting blanks with my Lee-Enfield, tossing green smoke bombs everywhere, and yelling “Gas!!!” I would probably have to leave my coil of concertina wire behind, I reasoned, as it would get snagged in the neighbors' petunias. I would limp to show I had trench foot.

I imagined it would be highly amusing, though upon reflection I realized that I'd probably discover a surprising number of people would not be at home on Halloween. Most people might not even open their door, though I might hear sounds of commotion inside, so I wouldn't have gotten very much candy.

But I might have gotten a free ride home from a nice couple of guys wearing blue windbreakers who'd like my costume so much they'd insist that we make a brief stop in their office so they could take a picture of me and take my fingerprints, just for safety purposes.

Of course I chickened out. I didn't really dress up as the Great War and I didn't really get arrested. It was all a thought experiment.

But my history-oriented fantasy had a point. These days we have the offensiveness brigades telling us we're bigoted racists if we let our kids wear an Indian costume. We have feminists telling us it's sexist to send them as prostitutes. Animal rights nuts tell us it's cruel to send them out as squirrels or Cecil the lion. In fact, anything that depicts any living thing higher than a bacterium is offensive to somebody. About the only thing left is the Big Bang, Continental Drift, or some inanimate object like a purse.

These days, even kids are political. One day some kid will hang out in front of a Home Depot and get some tips on how Mexicans speak and act. Or maybe they'll dress up as a SJW, clutching their teddy bear and pretending to be offended by everything that everyone says. Scary, indeed, but they'll get away with it because they're just kids and even the SJWs can't yet get away with calling a little kid a racist.

There is only one solution: if your kid is a girl give her a computer keyboard with a Delete key and call her Hillary Clinton. You can pick her up at the local FBI office afterward. Vladimir Putin would be good for a boy, but I wouldn't send a kid out these days as the president of the United States any more than I'd send them out disguised as a deer during hunting season, which, judging from the gunfire, is year round in these parts.

It's more than silliness. From Halloween we learn what really frightens us. A Hillary costume is okay because Hillary's old-fashioned corruption and (erm, allegedly) criminal dishonesty is a comforting return to a happier, safer Tammany Hall era. The more Western civilization seems to teeter on collapse, the greater Hillary's chances as a candidate.

But nobody would dare dress up their kid as a Syrian ‘refugee’, Jesse Jackson, or Obama. Besides being too risky, it's too close to home. And nobody would dress their little girl up as Lena Dunham—you never know who or what she might tramp home with.