Scragged

What To Iran Is the Fourth of July?

Petrarch — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:35:00 GMT

A few weeks back, Mr. Obama invited Iranian diplomats to join their American counterparts at U.S. embassies all over the world for our annual Independence Day celebrations. This outstretched hand of friendship to a totalitarian theocracy could hardly have been more ill-timed: shortly thereafter, the reigning Ayatollah Khamenei blatantly stole an election for his puppet, the odious anti-Semite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Since then, we've seen mass protests in the streets of Iran, followed by brutal repression and slaughter.

Our government was no doubt relieved that not a single Iranian diplomat found the prospect of attending our weenie roast appealing; they all declined. For the State Department to withdraw invitations that had already been rejected cost nothing and looked good. It took Mr. Obama a strangely long time even to condemn Iran's oppression; it would have been jarring to see Iranian bigwigs grilling hamburgers on American turf while their stooges back home shot down freedom-loving students.

The Fourth of July is a time to celebrate our American freedoms, for sure. Equally, it is a time to remember that not everyone can enjoy those freedoms. We must also remember that freedom is not just a gift from Heaven: it must be bought at a very steep price.

Freedom Isn't Free

In 1852, escaped slave Frederick Douglass was invited to address an antislavery assembly celebrating the Fourth of July, although the actual celebration was held on the 5th. Back then, there were still some alive who remembered the trials and tribulations of the Revolution and the debate surrounding the adoption of the Constitution; the cost of freedom had not yet been forgotten, so the celebrations were even more exuberant and all-encompassing than we have today. Not just an opportunity for a long weekend, was a nineteenth-century Fourth!

Into this time of joy and revelry, Mr. Douglass threw a rotting skunk.

I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day?

His white audience celebrated freedom in safety and security; Mr. Douglass threw in their faces the fact that his brethren suffered under slavery's lash, and thanks to the recent Fugitive Slave Act, he himself was liable to summary arrest and return to enslavement at any time. There was no freedom for him; he had nothing to celebrate yet. An occasion for rejoicing to a free man was nothing more than a bitter taste to the unfree. What to the slave was the Fourth of July? The opposite of what it is to the free man.

What to Iran Will Become the 4th of July?

So it is with Iran. The people of Iran may not exactly be slaves in the way American blacks were, but they certainly are liable to be thrown chained into a dungeon at any time they are thought to be about to cross the ruling mullahs.

In another parallel with American slaves, Iran's young have found a powerfully subversive voice in religion. The sounds of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" once flowed over darkened slave huts, sending two completely different messages to listeners of two colors: to the white master comfort that his slaves were following the Christian faith instead of African idolatry, but to the slaves a reminder that an all-powerful God would one day free them from their bondage, in death if not in life.

In Iran, the protesters have seized the call of "Allahu akbar", "God is great!" - a slogan familiar to every Muslim and which no mullah would dare oppose - and harnessed it to their movement. When cries of "Allahu akbar" echo over Tehran at midnight, members of the resistance know that they are not alone - and they also know that they can't easily be arrested for saying so. After all, how can you be punished for saying "God is great," a doctrine and commandment of the Holy Koran that every mullah from the Ayatollah on down says every day?

America's slaves were not freed until Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionist movement were prepared to enforce blacks' human rights by force of arms; then, when given the opportunity, blacks took up arms themselves to fight for their own liberty. We are in no position to directly help the Iranian protesters militarily; history shows that it's best for nations to free themselves from inside if at all possible.

Nevertheless, there is something we can do. Just as the abolitionists showed solidarity with black slaves even before the Civil War in calling for their freedom, we can give Iran's youth whatever rhetorical and diplomatic "aid and comfort" we can. President Reagan boldly did this for the East Europeans and the world saw a great triumph of liberty.

Iran's youth has been watering the tree of liberty with their own blood. More blood must be shed before their land is free. We may not be able to help with this; but on this Fourth of July, let us wish them every success. Let us also pray that on some future Fourth of July, the diplomats of Iran will be right at home celebrating freedom around an American embassy grill, as representatives of a free and equal democracy.

Hot dogs, anyone? But hold the ketchup, please, until Iran is free.

Michael Jackson: Requiem for an Artist of Unity

Hobbes — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:42:00 GMT

So, the King of Pop is dead.

On the one hand, 50 is not very old, especially for someone who can afford the very best medical treatment money can buy. On the other hand, we have become accustomed to celebrities dying early deaths; for every centenarian Bob Hope, there are a half-dozen Marilyn Monroes or James Deans, to say nothing of Princess Dianas.

We have become used to the Whole World Stopping for a global paroxysm of mourning - or, at least, those parts of the world that regularly appear on TV. From the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, you'd think Mr. Jackson had been Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa, perhaps both.

Others have written of this strange imbalance between fame and accomplishment and what it says about our society. Our question, alas, is far sadder. Let's consider what actor Jamie Foxx had to say about the legacy of Michael Jackson:

We want to celebrate this black man - he belongs to us - and we shared him with everybody else. [emphasis added]

What?! Michael Jackson was no man's property. He belonged to himself. He did as he pleased, perhaps a little too much so. His music, on the other hand, belonged to the world - his recordings have been loved by people of all colors, nations, and languages for decades - even fighting to enjoy his music without paying financial homage to the recording industry moguls who own the copyrights.

Imagine the reaction if, in an Elvis tribute, Brad Pitt were to say that we wanted to celebrate this white man who belonged to white people everywhere, and which we generously shared with the world. Or said that about the Beatles. Or Beethoven. Having a hard time imagining such a thing? Point made.

Music is colorless; it belongs to every performer, and every listener, without regard to race, creed, color, tongue, religion, or national origin. You may love Mr. Jackson's art or you may hate it; that is entirely your choice. His race has nothing to do with it.

When Mr. Foxx brought up the subject of Mr. Jackson's race for no good reason, he denied something that's as plain as the nose on Mr. Jackson's face once was: if there was one thing Michael did not want to be, it was a black man. His rumored fourteen plastic surgeries turned him from a clearly black teenager, complete with Afro, into a caricature of an androgynous white person. Nobody held his head under bleach; nobody tied him to the operating table. He had himself changed of his own free will.

The same is true of his personal relationships. Both of his wives were white women, and his children, insofar as anyone has ever seen them, are what you'd expect from such unions: namely, not black.

There is nothing wrong with any of these choices; Mr. Jackson had a perfect right to do as he pleased with his own body, to marry whomever he pleased, to have children with whomever would agree to bear his children. If ever a young boy had a bizarre childhood certain to cause permanent psychological scarring, it was he; who knows what demons haunted his life? Perhaps he was, in the accusation of the old Black Power movement, a self-hater; we all have our hang-ups and neuroses.

Does it honor his memory to revel in the blackness he spent his life running from? For all his faults and questionable choices, Michael Jackson never hated anyone. The man who sang "It don't matter if you're black or white" was all about love and unity, not revenge, race, Balkanization, or even grammar. "A black man" is positively the last thing he would have wanted to be remembered as:

I'm not going to spend my life being a color.

It's a great shame that a man who spent his life trying to bring the world closer together has been revoltingly misused by the usual mob of politically-correct race-baiters to try to tear our nation further apart. On some level, even Mr. Foxx realized this:

It don't matter what he looked like ... what his nose looked like ... it was what he sounded like.

Precisely. Show some respect. The racial identity circus should listen to the words of their stolen idol and do as he said:

I'm starting with the man in the mirror, I'm asking him to change his ways. [emphasis added]

Clothes, The Next "Green" Sacrifice

Kermit Frosch — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:01:00 GMT

Throughout human history, all religions have required personal sacrifices which are valued primarily for their symbolic value. Catholic priests must remain celibate for no particular practical reason; recent history highlights the unfortunate fact that a great many of them have a hard time following this rule. Traditional Catholic laymen were expected to abstain from meat on Friday and from various luxuries during Lent; Muslims practice a daytime fast during the entire month of Ramadan; and many Baptists believe that drinking alcohol or playing with cards is a sin to be avoided at all cost.

The modern pagan religion of environmentalism is no different. We've been called upon to sacrifice the modern comforts of indoor climate control, affordable food, safe cars, flush toilets, the personal liberty of international air travel, our economy, and even our use of electricity. Now comes the New York Times, naturally enough, suggesting the unkindest cut of all: To save the planet, we need to give up our clothes.

With summer upon us, how many green vacationers’ fancies will turn to thoughts of nudism? Going without clothes on beaches and other vacation spots is commonly called naturism — a description that implies helping the planet, as some practitioners claim to be doing. Spending more time with nothing on stems waste and pollution in all sorts of ways...

Well. If one is on the beach in Rio or Malibu, this sounds an appealing idea. Alas, not all beaches are as pulchritudinously endowed as one might surmise from TV shows. Maybe I go to the wrong places, but most spots I find myself would be positively improved by a few burkhas - or a secondhand tent; nudity might lower the air pollution, but it would send visual pollution through the roof.

There's a reason clothes were invented, and until Mr. Obama's universal health care plan provides free plastic surgery, depilation, and liposuction for all, the last thing 99% of Americans need to do is doff their duds.

"Oh, yes, they call me the Streak. Whee!
I like to show off my physique."

Make sure you have a physique first, please.

Then there's the question of time and place. Going au naturel on a nice soft sandy beach is one thing. Trying it while, say, hiking or rock climbing is quite another - though, it would appear, there are those that do. Time to call my broker to buy more shares of Johnson & Johnson, purveyors of Band-Aids! Or do those count as clothes? Guess it depends on where you need to put them.

Nevertheless, our nation's Newspaper of Record not only exposes this idea to the public - God forbid that it should plant a germ of an idea in the mind of our ruling nanny-state - but it reveals what we did not want to know: that there are already organizations dedicated to its promotion.

Will we shortly be regaled with the sight of Al Gore on a billboard saying "I'd rather go naked than increase global warming?" One shudders to imagine future Congressional hearings on the subject, though from a walk down K Street, this particular movement might have a difficult time recruiting effective and willing lobbyists. Let's just say it probably won't be Ted Kennedy's retirement gig, though he might be helpful in suggesting others better equipped for the task.

Mr. Obama promised transparency in his administration. He's delivered none thus far; here's hoping he doesn't latch onto this scheme as a way to "fulfill" that abandoned promise.

Mining Jane Austen

Petrarch — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:52:00 GMT

I enjoy watching costume dramas. I also enjoy the fine art of parody. Thus it was that Netflix brought me the British miniseries Lost in Austen, which tells the story of a modern young London woman who has adored the world of author Jane Austen since childhood. After a particularly trying day at a stressful modern job, commuting troubles, and boyfriend frustrations, Amanda Price is suddenly visited by Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. Miss Bennet had found a secret door in her home's attic that opens onto Amanda's bathroom; Amanda can't help but leave Miss Bennet standing in the loo and venture through the door herself, ending up in Regency England at the very beginning of the novel. The door closes and locks behind her, and she's stuck.

Somewhat like Austin Powers, Pleasantville, and Blast from the Past, this is a fish-out-of-water story with a protagonist who blatantly doesn't belong where she finds herself. The story works only because Jane Austen's novels are so famous that most everybody generally knows what they're about, just as we all have a vague familiarity with the world of the 50s and 60s which may not bear much resemblance to actual reality but is strongly imprinted in the national psyche all the same.

Amanda's egregious social faux pas wind up totally discombobulating Jane Austen's story, with all the Bennet girls ending up coupled with the "wrong" men; Lizzie find herself quite happy in the 21st century and stays on there. As Amanda remarks when the smoldering Mr. Darcy falls in love with her instead of Lizzie as originally written, “Hear that, George? Drrrrrrr. That’s the sound of Jane Austen spinning in her grave like a cat in a tumble-dryer.” No doubt.

Jane Austen is dead and buried lo these two hundred years. Her copyrights have expired so neither she nor her heirs have anything to say in the matter of her story being recycled as parody. What's more, Lost in Austen, whether you find it funny or sacrilegious, is most definitely a unique and original work. It derives from Jane Austen, yes, but it goes beyond her work into a new and unique story. Don't most detective stores derive from Sherlock Holmes in one way or another, as West Side Story was derived from Romeo and Juliet?

The Death of Derivation

Some while back, I spent a hilarious evening with my cousin scoping out another potential parody movie, The Muppets' Harry Potter, with Kermit as Harry, Miss Piggy as Hermione, Uncle Deadly as Voldemort, and so on. We were rolling on the floor; if the Muppets can produce classic and memorable, if somewhat irreverent, renditions of Treasure Island, A Christmas Carol, and The Wizard of Oz, why not the Wizard of Hogwarts?

Alas, the world will never see our creation and we all know the reason why: the only question would be whether the lawyers of J.K. Rowling or of Disney, the Muppets' new owner, would beat down my door first the moment they got wind of the project. But isn't my idea a unique and original work?

OK, I admit, this may not be exactly what our Founders had in mind when Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution granted Congress the power

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. [emphasis added]

The point remains the same. The Muppets' Harry Potter may be a trivial confection, but literature, art, and science are filled with more worthy innovations that, though new in some sense, nevertheless depend on prior works. That's exactly why the Founders specified that patent and copyright protections must be for limited times: as Sir Isaac Newton realized,

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

If Sir Ike himself couldn't have made his discoveries without building on the prior work of others, what hope have we?

Current copyright law locks down creations for a long, long, long time. Mickey Mouse was invented by Walt Disney in 1928; thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, his image will not enter the public domain for a century. Who knows what other imaginative works he might have spawned? As it is, Disney owns him lock, stock, barrel, and derivations.

As the Founders realized, it's necessary for creative types to be compensated for their inventions. Copyrights and patents are essential for modern progress, otherwise far fewer people would bother to create new things only to see them immediately stolen and copied. However, limits on those monopoly rights are every bit as important, to allow even newer things based on yesterday's new gadget. The patent office has the right idea: 20 years or less, plus extensions in case of bureaucratic delay, but certainly no more than a quarter-century.

Why is it that 20 years is good enough for Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, and IBM, but not enough for Walt Disney and J.K. Rowling? It's difficult to imagine an author sitting down to write the Great American Novel, thinking "Oh dear, my copyrights will extend only 25 years instead of 100, it's just not worth the bother," and turning on "American Idol" instead.

In a landmark 2003 ruling, the Supreme Court found that ages-long copyright terms weren't automatically unconstitutional because the Constitution never set a specific term or term limit. They were right, legally, but that doesn't make ridiculously long terms right. Shorter copyright terms would lead to a new burst of innovation in literature and the arts, as today's imaginative youth are freed from having to dig into the 19th century to mine old ideas in the public domain.

Then we might get to see Kermit the Frog with glasses, a wand, and a scar. Inspiring!

Iran's Protests and the Value of Human Life

Will Offensicht — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:32:00 GMT

As politically incorrect as it may be to point it out, our society explicitly places different values on the lives of different people. For example, our leaders have set up an extremely generous health plan which is open to legislators and federal employees. It's significant that none of the politicians who are participating in the ongoing health care debate has suggested that we open up the federal plan to all citizens. Why not?

The plain truth is that our government values the lives of government officials and employees far more than it values less exalted citizens' lives. Too bad, but not particularly surprising.

Other Valuation Scales

The recent rioting in Iran over a stolen election gives us an opportunity to compare American theories about the value of human lives with the way other cultures look at the subject. There seems to be a rough correlation between how empty a country seems and how lives are valued. That is, if a country is not very crowded, the culture values individual lives, whereas the more crowded a country is, the less an individual human life is worth.

For example, China has always been extremely crowded by American standards and individual human lives have very little value. Charles Woodruff, who wrote the book "Expansion of races," (Rebman company, 1909) put it thus on p 46:

We often wonder why the killing of Chinese soldiers was so quickly forgotten - it made no impression. A million Chinese could be killed and the loss would not be felt in that sodden, gelatinous, inelastic mass - indeed the Empire would be benefited.

For thousands of years, the biggest issue in China was finding enough to eat. If people were killed, their deaths made more food available for the rest. Even today, the Chinese Olympic facilities ran up a casualty rate that would never be acceptable in America.

A country doesn't have to be crowded for people to place a low value on human life. My wife, her sister, and I pulled into Kabul, Afghanistan in July 1973 just after the revolution which deposed Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last King of Afghanistan. We saw a few tanks here and there in the streets and the odd bullet hole in the walls of the Post Office. We had planned to spend a few days exploring the city, but that didn't seem to be a good idea just then; we found refuge in a small hotel in the outskirts.

The hotel owner's son knew some English; he regaled us with tales of watching the fighting. "Weren't you worried that you might get killed?" my wife asked.

"No problem," he said, "one less mouth to feed." He seemed to mean it, so my wife pressed a little. "You're a big help to your dad in keeping the hotel."

"That's true, but I'm just a poor hotel keeper's son and I have lots of brothers and sisters. If I were killed, my next brother would take over and everything would be OK."

We realized that he and we were simply not on the same page with respect to the value of human life. We thought his life had intrinsic value for its own sake; he thought his life had no value because he was of such low status and had no real hope of advancement.

I value my life enough that I've not been back to Afghanistan since, so I have no idea happened to that young man; most likely, he died decades ago, while I'm still here to write about him.

Protest, Martyrdom, and Suicide Bombing

Americans have always reacted negatively to enemies who use suicide bombing against them. The Japanese "kamikaze" (divine wind) pilots who crashed their airplanes into our ships caused serious morale problems. Our military personnel didn't seem to mind risking their lives fighting against an enemy who was as afraid of death as they were, but it was unnerving to fight someone who not only wasn't worried about death, the person had sworn to die. Kamikaze pilots weren't given enough gas to get home and their planes left the landing gear behind on the runway for the next plane to use; once they took off, they were going to die one way or another, either by crashing into a US ship or by drowning when their fuel ran out.

The Iranians protesting their nation's fraudulent election do not seem to be as concerned about their lives as Americans might be. They're willing to go up against armed secret police. Is this reflective of a Muslim ethos that dying for a cause you believe in validates its merit? It certainly seems to inspire others' support - as Osama bin Laden has taken advantage of to everyone's harm, so the Iranian students may turn to their benefit.

The Time article "In Iran, One Woman's Death May Have Many Consequences" reports:

A gruesomely captivating video of a young woman - laid out on a Tehran street after apparently being shot, blood pouring from her mouth and then across her face - swept Twitter, Facebook and other websites this weekend.

For the cycles of mourning in Shiite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat - a way to generate or revive momentum. Shiite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles.

"Neda" is already being hailed as a martyr, a second important concept in Shiism. With the reported deaths of 19 people Saturday, martyrdom also provides a potent force that could further deepen public anger at Iran's regime.

The first Shiite martyr was Hussein, the prophet Mohammed's grandson. He believed it was better to die fighting injustice than to live with injustice under what he believed was illegitimate rule.

Americans have voiced similar sentiments in the past - "Give me liberty or give me death" comes to mind - but would modern young Americans riot over a stolen election? Judging from the underwhelming response to past election irregularities, we somehow doubt it. Our traditional view of the relative values of life as compared to freedom is captured in the song America, which describes what used to be expected of Americans: “Who more than self their country loved, and duty more than life.” As a free people, Americans meant it when they sang that. America's warriors believe it to this day, but the warrior ethos fills the veins of a smaller and smaller percentage of Americans these days.

Jefferson's call for the tree of liberty to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants may not have much resonance in his own land anymore, but in Iran, the patriots appeared to be willing to providing the necessary fertilizer to grow their very own tree of liberty - at least for a while; more recent reports indicate that the violent repression is taking a toll. The rebellion is tapering off and may come to a stop. Supposedly, it was fueled by young people who have imbibed a desire for personal freedom; will it fail because they've also absorbed a modern Western sense of self-worth?

If enough Iranians truly value liberty more than they value their lives, however, the regime has a problem. No tyrant gives up power voluntarily. Getting rid of tyranny in favor of liberty requires a sufficient dose of tyrant's blood along with the blood of rebels. Will, eventually, the Iranian tyrants supply their share of the required blood? One can but hope for change in Iran.

Sanford, Sex, and Slick Willie's Last Laugh

Petrarch — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:07:00 GMT

Once again, our media potentates get to enjoy their favorite entertainment: crucifying a Republican caught with his pants down. Thanks to South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's inability to exercise personal discipline or self-control, his career is over, his family is destroyed, and the cause of fiscal conservatism - his signature issue - takes yet another hole below the waterline. And for what? The mysterious Maria from Argentina is reportedly beautiful, intelligent, talented, and desirable in every way. Well, she'd better be, in order to be worth giving up your entire life for. As Fox News says,

Like star-crossed lovers, the two wrote of their "impossible love," and while the mistress's English was at times imperfect, the two expressed deep feelings for each other using language that was more poetic than lurid.

Ick.

Why is it that Republicans have this problem? As the Left is gleefully asking, are there any conservatives who are faithful to their wives? Dalliances by Sen. John Ensign (R, NV), Sen. David Vitter (R, LA) - let's not even mention Mark Foley or Larry Craig - barely scratch the surface. Newt Gingrich and John McCain famously ditched their crippled first wives for younger, wealthier new models. No hint of unfaithfulness has ever approached Mitt Romney, but he is a member of a religion more famous for its erstwhile doctrine of polygamy than anything else.

Sex and the Busy Bigshot

Powerful people have always had mistresses - it comes with the territory. JFK famously bedded everyone from Marilyn Monroe to a teenaged intern. President Warren Harding got in so deep with a German-loving mistress - during the First World War - that the Republican National Committee had to save his bacon with a large bribe. Grover Cleveland's affair with a store clerk was so well known and fruitful that it resulted in an opposition campaign ditty - "Ma, ma, where's my pa? Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!" FDR and Ike Eisenhower had mistresses of long standing; whether Thomas Jefferson sired an alternative family with his slave Sally Hemings is debated to this day.

As this brief list shows, infidelity is a staunchly bipartisan vice. There's also no shortage of currently sitting - or should we say, reclining - politicians on the other side of the aisle. Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd's escapades at the La Brasserie restaurant are the stuff of legend. Barney Frank at least did not prey on others' wives or unsuspecting waitresses; he conveniently lived with the operator of a homosexual prostitution ring at a time when homosexuality was a crime. Presumably he got a discount rate, unlike Governor Spitzer who seems to have paid a bit above list price.

Why is it that Republicans pay such a terrible toll for adventures that Democrats mostly brush off with impunity? Articles about Sanford, Ensign, and Vitter invariable bring up the impeachment of Bill Clinton, when those Republicans condemned Slick Willie for the same vice that, some years later, they themselves fell prey to. We all love schaudenfreude and hate hypocrites; down with the frauds!

Yes, Bill Clinton's impeachment trial set the state for today's constant Republican bimbo eruptions and subsequent hara-kiri, but not in the way the media likes to portray it. For as much as the news of that time liked to portray the impeachment as all about sex, it was not. Illicit sex is a moral failure, yes, and moral failures in an elected official are worthy of reporting; as Sam Adams wrote, "The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men." But adultery is not an impeachable offense.

The crimes Bill Clinton committed which, by rights, should have resulted in his removal from office were 1) taking sexual advantage of a subordinate government employee, which if done by anyone else would land them in jail, and 2) committing perjury when he swore before a judge that "I did not have sex with that woman," another crime that would put you behind bars if you tried it. How can the chief law enforcement officer of the United States break the law himself, and then lie to a judge about it? When President Nixon (R) did that, he was rightly hounded from office. Why not President Clinton (D)?

Clinton's Revenge

Because in a strange way, Clinton hid behind his sexual hound-dogging. The country was so captivated by lurid tales of blue dresses and cigars that the very real underlying legal issues were almost entirely obscured. As so often, the Republican leadership utterly failed to get their message across; maybe they didn't even properly understand the distinction themselves.

Clinton's impeachment, though unsuccessful, destroyed the remainder of his presidency, but the way it was portrayed has destroyed the Republican party. America now thoroughly believes that Republicans are 100% opposed to all forms of extramarital sex and that any true Republican who commits such an offense is a traitor to his beliefs who must immediately resign. Democrats, on the other hand, don't see anything wrong with sex - so they can do as they please, and as long as it's not illegal, they pay no price.

This is wrong. It's unfair. It's untrue. It's not even possible - even the most religious understand that mankind is fallen and commits sins by definition. A Republican party composed entirely of perfect angels would be a very small one indeed - in fact, just about the size that the Democrats and the media would like it to be, and nevertheless prone to explosively destructive scandal at any time.

Unfortunately, that's precisely the corner that the Republican leadership of ten years ago has painted today's Republicans into. In their zeal to hang Bill Clinton by any rope to hand, they not only let him escape, but put a permanent noose around their own necks - and all their successors, forever, as long as men - or Republicans, at least - still look upon a woman to lust after her.

Making a Monkey of Michelle Obama?

Hobbes — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:18:00 GMT

One of the more unique aspects of the 2008 election was how, whenever anyone sidled close to making a damaging charge against Barack Obama, they were instantly accused of racism no matter what they were talking about. Republicans suffered most from this tactic, but then that's par for the course; more startling, especially to himself, were the racism charges leveled at Bill Clinton who's more used to being lauded as our "first black president." He doesn't seem to have really recovered or forgiven to this day.

After the election, nothing changed. Stand-up comics have been having a hard slog of it: their most usual source of comedy, the Presidential administration, is off-limits for fear of finding themselves tarred with the infinitely flexible racist brush. Editorial cartoonists, too, are walking on eggshells. The New York Post made the politically incorrect blunder of including an image of a monkey in a cartoon about the trillion-dollar stimulus bill written by Congress; though it neither mentioned nor even alluded to Mr. Obama or his administration, the cartoonist and his editors were pilloried as KKK-wannabes.

Now comes an interesting report from Greenville, SC, so routinely stereotyped as a den of racist rednecks.

The state NAACP is demanding an apology from a former South Carolina official whose Internet posting suggested a gorilla that escaped from the Columbia zoo was an ancestor of first lady Michelle Obama... Minutes after the gorilla's escape was reported, DePass posted: "I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors — probably harmless."

The unfortunate Mr. DePass, who contrary to many reports is not a GOP official of any kind, has spent every waking moment from then 'til now apologizing to everyone who will lend him an ear. To no avail: he has lost his (politically unrelated) job, and his apologies have been spurned by all and sundry. Even Don Imus was treated more generously following his far harsher insult against young girls who were private citizens unused to the public spotlight, unlike Mrs. Obama.

And for what? Mr. DePass' connection of Obama ancestry with the great apes is nothing more than what modern science tells us to be true. In fact, virtually without exception, every one of the politicians and media demagogues now calling for Mr. DePass' immolation hold man's descent from monkeys as an article of faith. In other words, they agree with Mr. DePass and ridicule anyone who thinks otherwise! Could it be that Southern Democrats are in fact closet creationists?

Have we not all been taught since elementary school that mankind evolved from, yes, monkeys? As well as lizards, fish, and amoebae to be sure, but the primates are our "closest relatives." Not just Michelle Obama, but George Washington, Albert Einstein, and Keith Olbermann equally well have Magilla Gorilla in their family tree.

In fact, the only people who don't believe that the Obamas and everybody else evolved from monkeys, are... fundamentalist Christians, who instead believe in the special and unique creation of mankind by God. In literal-biblicist parlance, the resemblance of apes to mankind is only because of God's efficient recycling of engineering designs for bipedal quadrupeds, not from any genetic or hereditary relationship.

By the stated standards of the NAACP and the South Carolina Democratic party, only fundamentalist Christians are not racists. Who's the monkey now?

Obama's Revealing Iran Delay

Petrarch — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:28:00 GMT

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity.

- President George W. Bush

The people of Iran, at least a good portion of them, have decided to claim their human right to freedom this week. There are few countries left on earth that don't have elections - even Saddam Hussein sponsored an "election" that he won down to the very last vote - but, while not being quite as blatantly bogus as Hussein's insult to world intelligence, the Iranian election was nevertheless a farce.

The handling of blank ballots and the counting of marked ballots were loaded with irregularities, including 50 cities in which the number of votes cast exceeded the number of voters. The real fraud took place weeks before, when the regime's Council of Guardians bounced 467 of 471 would-be candidates for president, leaving only the four considered most reactionary, antediluvian, and loyal to the mullahcracy. The choice between Himmler, Goering, or Hitler himself on a ballot is not a very compelling one.

That, plus the President...
makes one.

Yet, as ludicrous as the candidates were, there's something about an election that brings out the competitive spirit. A month ago, nobody would ever have confused Mir Hossein Mousavi with George Washington or even Mikhail Gorbachev. His career includes such theocratic highlights as political secretary of the ruling Islamic Republican party, foreign secretary, and prime minister - that last during the Iran-Iraq war, a time not noted for humanitarian governance or tolerance of dissent. Despite his establishment background, today finds Mousavi calling for continued protests against government "lies and fraud," even though Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei demanded in no uncertain terms that all protests cease immediately if not sooner, or else.

What should America do? Well, what has America done in the past? For good or ill, America has generally tried to side with the people against oppressive governments. Sometimes this has led to historic victories for freedom as in 1989 at the Berlin Wall. Other times, American support has been tepid with our nation standing by as protesters were massacred in Hungary (1956), Iraqi Kurdistan (1991), and Tiananmen Square (1989). With no help from the world's great beacon of liberty, movements that could have led to change for millions instead ended in murderous crackdowns.

The Silence That Speaks Volumes

For nearly a week, President Obama not only did nothing, he said nothing. He offered no support for the protesters, even if only in his rhetoric. In fact, his first statement endorsed the theocratic, totalitarian nature of Iran's regime by referring to it using the mullah's preferred title of "Islamic Republic," and granted the Ayatollah Khamenei the unelected, self-bestowed title of "Supreme Leader." More recently, he has come out with what has become his standard formulation calling for an end to violence - no different from the hundreds if not thousands of calls issued to end violence all over the world, from Palestine to Sudan to Georgia to North Korea, and with good effects most noticeable by their absence. Whatever happened to "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"?

America cannot be seen to be too involved, we are told, because we don't want to give the oppressors any excuse to tar the protesters as being tools of the Great Satan. Does anyone believe that the truth is a defense against Iran's Basiji thug militia, or that innocence will prevent propagandistic imams from throwing mud at the White House whenever they want to distract their people?

Iran has suffered under the heel of a brutal religious dictatorship for thirty years. For all that time, the regime has claimed an American invasion is just around the corner; Cuba's Castro has spouted the same tired codswallop for twice as long. It never gets old no matter how hands-off the United States might actually be. Claiming to not care about freedom movements simply makes us look laughable.

A word from the President of the United States can make all the difference in the world. Listen to Lech Walesa, the Polish leader of Solidarity shipworkers union who eventually overthrew communism there and became president:

When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989.

Poles fought for their freedom for so many years that they hold in special esteem those who backed them in their struggle. Support was the test of friendship. President Reagan was such a friend. His policy of aiding democratic movements in Central and Eastern Europe in the dark days of the Cold War meant a lot to us. We knew he believed in a few simple principles such as human rights, democracy and civil society. He was someone who was convinced that the citizen is not for the state, but vice-versa, and that freedom is an innate right.

Reagan never sent American tanks into Poland; the CIA didn't assassinate Communist leader Wojciech Jaruzelski. The only support America ever gave were Reagan's words - but oh, what words! At the very moment when the struggle seemed lost, the words of the Leader of the Free World inspired a shipbuilding electrician to carry on through to victory.

Paths to Power

Does Mr. Obama truly not care about the Iranian election? Yes, Mir Hossein Mousavi is no prizewinner; that's not the point. The mere act of the people expressing their will is an expression of freedom, and an addictive one. If Mousavi prevails, he will never be the Supreme Leader in the sense of Khamenei and Khomeini before him; he will have been raised to office by the will of the people, and what can be raised up by the will of the people can also be brought down in the same way.

You learn the most about a man by observing his reaction when caught by surprise; Mr. Obama's record of the past week tells us something we need to know but don't want to see.

Nobody expected Russia's invasion of Georgia last summer; Mr. Obama's first reaction was a limp-wristed call for both the tiny free country and the autocracy 100 times its size to stop beating on each other, whereas McCain instinctively knew what was what and demanded Russia's immediate withdrawal.

Nobody expected Iran's youth to take to the streets over a disagreement between two aged, deeply illiberal clerical puppets; but they did, and Mr. Obama's reaction reveals how disposable he views elections to be. He didn't know which cleric he wanted to win; he didn't really care; so, the election didn't really matter. Maybe he sees a kindred spirit under the turban: after all, if Iran's leaders had studied the electoral techniques of ACORN and its ability to magically unearth just enough votes to turn an unwanted tide, Ahmadinejad wouldn't be under such threat, and Mr. Obama could carry merrily on "negotiating" with him right up until the day Tel Aviv disappears in a mushroom cloud.

In both cases, Mr. Obama eventually came out with a slightly more stomachable response - no doubt after a panicked intervention by his advisers. It's the first, instinctive reaction that's most revealing, forcing us to ask: Whose side is he on?

We shouldn't have to ask; our useless media don't even dare ask.

Our First Thin-Skinned President

Will Offensicht — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:37:00 GMT

We've often praised the "dead white males" who wrote our Constitution; we're daily reminded of how intelligent and far-sighted they were. Back when they gave us a divided government, they wisely realized that the various branches of government could conspire to cheat the citizens. This has indeed occurred - the executive branch rolls over for earmarks which benefit the legislators and the legislative branch doesn't look too closely at all the funny procurement contracts executed by the executive branch.

One of the reasons the Founders wrote freedom of the speech into the Constitution was because they considered suppressing opposing views to be tyranny, but there was another reason - they wanted evil deeds of government officials to come to light. Although it was left to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis to say "Sunlight is the best disinfectant," the benefits of transparency in government were evident enough to the Founders that they praised the institution of a free press.

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. [emphasis added]

Since early in our history, Americans have relied on newspapers to keep us informed of the sins of our leaders so that we can vote them out of office. As Mr. Jefferson said, that's the only security we have. It's even more important to be informed of the realities of new candidates for office so that we can avoid electing inappropriate leaders.

The Silent Media

One of the striking points about the recent Presidential election is how little hard news was given us about Mr. Obama's history, beliefs, actions, opinions, or even his origin. After the election, people observed that we'd elected a man we knew nothing about. Why was this? Because our media, our newspapers, our TV stations went into "never was heard a discouraging word" mode with respect to their coverage of Candidate Obama.

Unfortunately for the President, a politician becomes accustomed to favorable press and finds it hard to deal with criticism of any kind. Those Americans who cared to pay attention got to see how an unscripted question from Joe the Plumber threw Mr. Obama off stride. Unfortunately for us, we find that he's no better at dealing with criticism as President than as a candidate.

In an article "Public Wary of Deficit, Economic Intervention," the Wall Street Journal reports:

After a fairly smooth opening, President Barack Obama faces new concerns among the American public about the budget deficit and government intervention in the economy as he works to enact ambitious health and energy legislation, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds. [emphasis added]

The Journal explained why Mr. Obama's approval ratings are slipping:

The results come after weeks of Republican hammering of Mr. Obama for spending too much and taking on too many issues, arguments that appear to be resonating with some voters.

As one would expect, Mr. Obama had something to say about the mounting criticism:

"If you have an argument made frequently enough -- whether it's true or not -- it has some impact," he said Tuesday. "If you want to attack a Democratic president, how are you going to attack him? Well, you're going to talk about how he wants more government and he wants to socialize medicine and he's going to be oppressive towards business. I mean, that's pretty standard fare." [emphasis added]

We've updated our favorite "deficit graph" with this newer version which looks a little further into the future. However much we may disagree with Mr. Obama, we have to admire his chutzpah in saying "whether it's true or not" about Republican charges that he's spending too much money.

How can he say "whether it's true or not" when he's brought about the biggest deficits in our history? It's clear that Mr. Obama is not accustomed to criticism. We at Scragged hope that enough of the media wake up and start fulfilling their constitutional duty to view with alarm. He needs a lot more practice to learn how to handle criticism without telling such whoppers. "Whether it's true or not" indeed. Feh! May he drown in his red ink along with the rest of us.

Sorry for Slavery? Ask the Man Who Owned One

Petrarch — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:07:00 GMT

The Washington Post reports:

The Senate unanimously passed a resolution yesterday apologizing for slavery, making way for a joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt by the federal government to take responsibility for 2 1/2 centuries of slavery.

Now this is an interesting development. One might suppose that 600,000 dead Civil War soldiers would go some way towards redeeming America's "original sin." Was slavery wrong? Of course it was, and we paid a heavy, heavy price to set it right.

This apology, we are told, isn't about setting things right; it's about taking responsibility. There's grounds for confusion on this point. The U.S. Senate is famously America's most exclusive old-age home, but surely there aren't any Senators so old that they actually owned slaves themselves, are there? Admittedly, the decrepit Senator Robert Byrd (D, WV), as an ex-KKK official, might have wanted to, but even he does not predate the 13th Amendment and its ban on slavery and/or involuntary servitude.

“I am not sorry for my role in slavery - I never owned a slave, not even one.”

Yet he, and the other Senators, wish to apologize for slavery on your behalf. Do they represent you in this? Are you sorry for your vile actions while you personally collaborated in this evil crime? I'm not!

Responsibility for What?

Those of us who have children can recall countless times where Child A hit Child B, and as parents, we enforced an apology. "Tell your little brother you're sorry!" "What was that? I can't hear you!" Obviously, these are somewhat grudging expressions of contrition, not exactly heartfelt, but such apologies make parents feel better.

Then there are times when Child A protests, "I did not hit him! How can I say 'sorry' when I didn't do it?" Even a young child has more wisdom than our leaders: you can't apologize for something you did not do.

I am not sorry for owning slaves - I never did.

I am not sorry for my role in slavery - I never owned a slave, not even one.

I am sorry that slavery took place. I'm also sorry about the Rape of Nanking, the Holocaust, the sacking of Rome, the Jonestown massacre, the burning of the Library of Alexandria, and Cain's murder of his brother Abel. I'm not about to apologize for any of those, though, as I didn't do them.

Mr. Obama has spent much of his presidency apologizing all 'round the world to anyone who will lend him an ear. Supposedly, he is taking responsibility for all the evil things America is thought to have done. In actuality, he is picking off old scabs and reopening old wounds by reminding the world of all the crimes our land is said to have committed.

Everyone makes mistakes and every nation contains evil people. Sometimes generally good people do evil things. When that happens, it's appropriate to make amends, administering punishment and restitution wherever possible. After all those involved are dead and gone, though, it's not possible to deliver justice; rehashing a musty conflict revives it for a new generation.

The True Goal

Which, of course, is exactly the goal here, as the Post reveals. First, there's the usual leftist political goal of driving conservatism in general and Republicans in particular from the public arena entirely:

Carol M. Swain, a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University who had pushed for the Bush administration to issue an apology, called the Democratic-controlled Senate's resolution "meaningless" since the party and federal government are led by a black president and black voters are closely aligned with the Democratic party.

"The Republican Party needed to do it," Swain said. "It would have shed that racist scab on the party."

What racist scab, precisely, would that be? It was a Republican who issued the Emancipation Proclamation and it was a Democratic Congress and President who stripped underprivileged black D.C. students of their ability to attend decent schools. There is no historical reflection found here; it's simply a modern and all-too-current slander for naked partisan political gain.

And financial gain too.

Randall Robinson, author of "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks," said he sees the Senate's apology as a "confession" that should lead to a next step of reparations. "Much is owed, and it is very quantifiable," he said. "It is owed as one would owe for any labor that one has not paid for, and until steps are taken in that direction we haven't accomplished anything."

It could well be argued that the freed slaves should have received compensation. Actually, for a time during Reconstruction, the federal government attempted something of that sort by providing ex-slaves with farm equipment and education. Unfortunately, that system broke down and the less oppressive but still evil Jim Crow regime came into effect.

Thankfully, both slavery and Jim Crow have been consigned to the dustbin of history where they belong and where they ought to stay. No American alive today has ever been a slave. On what basis would one award compensation? Ancestry? We know white people whose ancestors were brought here as indentured servants before the Revolutionary War. Their ancestors were undeniably subject to involuntary servitude, should they be compensated?

If we're going to compensate people whose ancestors suffered, what about such white folks? And what about the many, many black people - like Barack Obama himself - who has no ancestors that were ever enslaved by Americans? How will we figure out who gets what, subpoena the Mormon Church's extensive genealogical records?

More importantly, how does this sort of racial gerrymandering and demagoguery assist our nation to become "Out Of Many, One"? "Divide and Conquer" is more like it.

We should be aware of our history so we don't repeat the blunders of the past, but that's not the same thing as being sorry for everything bad that your ancestors or fellow-citizens of the past ever did to anyone else. Unless our leaders want the national costume to be sackcloth and ashes, it's long past time for historical "apologies" to cease.

Instead, our leaders should concentrate on addressing our economic problems so we don't wind up wearing sackcloth because it's all we can afford.