“Madness”

Mr. Herbert’s most recent contribution to misinformation “A Threat We Can’t Ignore” argues that several recent and unrelated murders by “right-wing hate mongering, hate driven, gun craze wackos” is merely the opening volley in an uncoordinated but thematically unified campaign of violence.
The NRA, a morally complicitous co-conspirator, is named by Mr. Herbert as knowingly inflamming the intellectually enfeebled by fueling their paranoia.
These people (potential terrorists all) are dangerously deluded in believing the Second Amendment was drafted to protect their rights, not permit their recreational shooting. This bit of “madness”, Herbert’s term, is being exacerbated and exploited by the NRA.

A signature specimen of Herbert’s hyperbole.

Not to further alarm Mr. Herbert but there are tens of millions of Americans who share that view. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with the logic of liberty responsibly exercised.

Government is force (as Washington observed) and force hasn’t a conscience. Why would a free people forsake the means by which their freedom was won and may yet be preserved? (parchment barriers are so seldom respected by aspiring tyrants or social engineers with a messiah complex)

It pays to advertise

For those who have seen the huge billboard on the  side of a building in lower Manhattan or the story (Risque Business) and photo in the NY Daily News, a reasonable question might be what are they advertising?

The easy and incorrect answer would be Calvin Klein Jeans.

The topless young woman in the ad appears to be enjoying a digital exam, lumbar adjustment and tonsilectomy simultaneously administered by two shirtless young men. The three are in something of a pile on a couch. Another young man, shirt and pants undone, is lying on the floor in a sexually induced stupor.

Though none of them looks old enough to attend an R rated movie without parent or guardian, they are very much a part of an R rated culture, which is precisely what the ad is selling.

A failing grade

The non-racist, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is also non-ideological, so argues a recent White House memo. She “voted with the GOP appointees on the District Court of Appeals 95% of the time”. Impressive!

Yet, decisively inconsequential, according to no less an authority than our non-ideological President Obama.

In a 2005 floor statement the then Senator Obama explained his opposition to Judge Roberts confirmation. Although conceding the nominee fit to serve on the highest court in the land by virtue of intellect, scholarship, experience and temperament then Judge Roberts lacked the correct values, appropriate concerns, necessary world view and capaciousness of empathy.

In other words a Justice Roberts was unlikely to agree with Senator Obama on those 5% of cases (the difficult ones) that really matter.

The Bama’s on Broadway

If size doesn’t matter, a rumor perpetrated by the anatomically challenged, small things can have large implications.

The Obama’s stimulated the economy last night by attending a Broadway show after dining in the Village. It is in the nature of presidential perks and perhaps not worth mentioning.

I’m confident the commentating class would have been equally understanding if george and laura engaged in a comparable bit of subsidized self-indulgence under comparable circumstances (the collapse of the auto industry, unemployment, debt, massive entitlement spending, a burgeoning bureaucracy and probable if not pending stagflation …)

Not being a practiced bean counter I can only guess at the evening’s cost. I suspect transportation, parking for planes, helicopters and limos, security and all the concomitant niceties and (tax excluded benefits) that accrue to the leader of the free world would suffice to keep several or several dozen people in their soon to be foreclosed homes (an equally inappropriate expenditure of other people’s money).

President Obama being nothing if not politically astute surely realized there maybe something wrong with this picture but obviously thought himself and his bride deserving.

A curious calculation for a self portrayed common man. Perhaps the egalitarian is truly an elitist with an overactive sense of entitlement.

“A Letter from the Editor”

The following was submitted to the New York Sun on September 3rd:

“As if I didn’t have enough to distract and depress me. A newly energized and enabled Russia, back to its murderously mischievous ways. A faith based fascism that slaughters with divine sanction. Global warming and pendemic obesity (which may be the cause of global warming). And a swarming lot of miscreants, malefactors and mediocrities otherwise known as Congress. I won’t start sitting shiva yet but the loss of the New York Sun would be a loss to those who still value ideas and ideals. The Bolsheviks and bedwetters at the Times can hardly be expected to fill the void, they are the void.”

That a newspaper many (though not enough) of us have come to regard as essential can’t survive suggests a culture and intellectual climate in decline.

Who you gonna call?

Having a simplistic understanding of a simpler age, some residents of New Orleans imagined they’d have the need and the right to defend themselves and their property in the wake of Hurricane Gustav, and the effective absence of civil authority.

It’s one of those NRA inspired urban myths, and a gross misreading of the notion of unalienable rights, among these, life ….

I suppose if you were splitting hairs that might entail possessing the means (firearms) to make survival at least a plausible probability.

Recent history, sometimes referred to as experience, teaches us that self-reliance can also be a civic virtue. When we defend ourselves we defend society against the chaos and collapse that capitulation invites.

What A Surprise

As if ten days abroad wasn’t sufficient foreign policy experience for our would be world leader, Senator Obama chose a running mate of self acclaimed authority and expertise in the affairs of nations, Senator Joseph Biden. The Senator’s first exercise in vice presidential candidacy didn’t disappoint . He relieved himself of a weeks worth of rhetorical bloat and bombast. Specifically it was loud, repetitive, hackneyed, vague and factually challenged. Its leit motif was that John McCain and George Bush share the same ideological bar code. Throw in a few snide remarks, expressions of gratitude and a quasi religious tone when describing Mr. Obama and there you have it . Boiler plate by Biden, for a change.

For The Record

The question should be asked would Michael Phelps achievement be even more impressive if he was wearing an off the rack swimsuit from Sears, rather than a whiz bang, high tech creation from Speedo.

Perhaps the downside of innovation is that it becomes an intrusion on a less complicated and qualified notion of excellence.

Early Onset Middle Age

Hundreds of thousands of children are taking medication for ills once associated with aging or the aged.

Elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, even acid reflux, are being driven and driven up by obesity.

So what’s driving obesity?

An unholy alliance between the fast food and pharmaceutical industries.

Perhaps global warming (people are eating more ice cream to cool off).

A systemic socio-economic inequity.

Regrettably for conspiracists and those with social service agendas, none of the above.

Obviously gluttony and sloth , those ancient and ageless temptations are directly responsible for a generation of portly prepubescents.

What is less obvious is why we are less able, or inclined, to defend and instruct our children. And the medical profession seems to have capitulated as well, prescribing medication when moderation is clearly the best medicine.

Allowing for the fifteen percent of the population that requires some form of custodial care, the rest of us, presumably, remain capable of responsible behaviour. I realize such talk is alarming to progressive social theorists.
Yet the morbidly obese child, now being medicated, is not simply the result of his own indulgences but of his having been indulged. Now parents will have to do better if they are to do what´s best.   Ease is not an entitlement and expedience is seldom without moral hazard.

Cutting Edge

I suspect the Brits are suffering pangs of nostalgia for the good old days of gun-control.

So much easier to implement than the civilizational work of self-control.

Knife violence in Britain is edging out terrorism as law enforcements top priority. Headlines and hospitals are crowded with blood soaked youth. Savagery appears to be in season.

Among the proposals to combat this reversion to the feral the Prime Minister will launch an advertising campaign to “discourage” young people from stabbing one another as a form of conflict resolution. And for those of limited imagination a program acquainting perpetrators with the effects of their handiwork on the human anatomy. There´ll be interventions (an ominously vague term) with families whose children are at “risk”. Those families that refuse help will be “threatened with eviction” from their public housing, we may have to rethink that. Perhaps we could start with smashing their pets skulls on a rock.

In addition to these innovations we may consider providing a somewhat traditional moral education. Assuming we can agree on the difference between right and wrong.