You’ve got to hand it to the Republican Party: in Herbert Cain it managed to find an African American who is even whiter than Clarence Thomas! Cain’s recent lampoon of the Wall Street occupiers as a bunch of unemployed people trying to take money from those who earned it is straight out of 19th century Social Darwinism in its callousness. He also missed the point. They are unemployed, you damn fool—that’s the entire point of the occupation.
Speaking of Clarence Thomas, expect to hear him complain again of being “lynched” by the left. (Only someone craven would use the term as cavalierly as he.) It seems that the press is finally getting around to raising a question or two—albeit with kid gloves—about the seed money the Supreme Court Justice provided his wife to form a Tea Party group. Justices are, in theory, banned from engaging in partisan politics as they are expected to be impartial (yeah, right!) when cases appear before them. Thomas is now disingenuously saying that he knows little of his wife’s political activities or the $1.6 million he helped raise for Tea Party causes. What he has done isn’t impeachable (or believable), but if he has a scrap of decency he’ll recuse himself from future cases with even a hint of ideology attached to them. Don’t hold your breath, though; Thomas is a disgrace to robes once worn by Thurgood Marshall.
In an older blog I suggested that shock jock Michael Graham wasn’t very funny in making dwarf jokes. I’m ready to declare Graham a saint in comparison to Florida Representative Ritch Workman, who has actually argued that Florida should repeal its law on dwarf-tossing. This mean-spirited jackass actually had the moxie to suggest that a repeal would create opportunities for unemployed dwarves, who could get jobs in bars servicing patrons who get their jollies from hurling small folks around the joint. I’ve got a better idea—one that could go a long way toward alleviating the national debt. How about a bill that allows citizens to fling dung on legislators? How much would you pay for that privilege?
A last rant, this one directed at liberals. I’ve been approached by numerous people to sign petitions asking that the government halt the deportation of illegal immigrants and that it launch legal challenges to draconian laws such as that of Arizona and Georgia. Sorry, folks, but I won’t put energy or money into a lost cause. We need a debate over immigration law, but it’s not going to happen in this Congress and it has zero chance of occurring until 2013 at the earliest. I must also say that the United States is about the only nation in the world where a debate over illegal immigration would even take place. I know that there have been heartbreaking cases of families torn asunder, but this is truly a case in which risk assessment is part of the equation. I have personally known illegals—mostly from Ireland and Scotland—and each was well aware of the consequences of being apprehended. As I said, I’m all for a revamp of immigration laws–legal immigration laws. But kneejerk defenses of illegal immigration strikes me as muddled liberalism that’s out of touch with current law, prevailing politics, public opinion, and common sense. It is, simply, a cause with no future.
2 comments:
Apparently you are missing the point of this legislation. It's not so people can grab a little person and toss them at will. This is about our government taking our Civil Liberties away from us. Who is the government to say what a person, (of any size) can or can not do with their own body. Blame the Little People that accepted that ridiculous name for the Bill. The name gets a laugh, but the liberty it takes away is worse.
Can't agree with you Anonymous. One of government's primary roles is to create a "civil" society and this does not include the right to do any damn thing you please. Besides, isn't the GOP the party that wants to tell women they *can't* make decisions about their bodies? I agree that one has to be careful about *civil* liberties, but what's "civil" about this? This is potentially harmful behavior that caters to cravenness, perversity, and objectification of an entire group of individuals. Its sole purpose is for sickos to get their jollies by abusing others.
I've never bought the argument that freedom equates with absolute liberty. Some people would sell a kidney on the open market, but is this the kind of society we want? A good society sometimes has to deter people from their own worst impulses. "Society" must be based on common freedoms and common restraints--a collection of atomized individuals is not a society.--Lars
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