Category Archives: Politics

Another 9/11 conspiracy?

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There appears to be a booming market in 9/11 conspiracy theories, especially among academics nestled into their home-made Skinner boxes, toggling their BDS* gratification buttons. Meanwhile a much more brazen attack on free-speech is carried out by Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Byron Dorgan and Dick Durbin (leaders of the Party-Not-In-Power) who not only threatened the broadcasting license of Disney (parent company of ABC) if it didn’t cancel or alter its broadcast of “The Road to 9-11”, but were even willing to put it in writing. ABC, btw, has complied. I’m waiting for Tim “There’s a Chill Wind Blowing Through Our Nation” Robbins to jump up and say, “See! I told you so!” (HT: Hugh Hewitt)

Something else that caught my attention earlier this week, however, is the decision by certain CBS affiliates not to rebroadcast the “9/11” documentary because they’re supposedly afraid the coarse language will cause them to be fined by the FCC. This is the award-winning documentary by the two French brothers who were making a film about the experiences of a rookie New York City firefighter and in the process ended up in the front lines of the action that horrible day. As such, the film captured the blunt and passionate responses and language of the firefighters on the scene, as well as the sounds of bodies hitting the roof of the plaza outside the lobby of Tower One where the firefighters had set up a command post. CBS has already broadcast this at least twice (that I’m aware of) in the past without controversy. Those broadcasts were before the 2004 Janet Jackson Super Bowl scandal, which led the FCC to increase fines for broadcasters that allow offensive content to go out over the air.

Several dozen CBS affiliates have decided to either replace the documentary or delay its broadcast until after 10 p.m., when the Federal Communications Commission loosens restrictions — even though the film has already aired twice with little controversy.

“This is example No. 1” of the chilling effect over concerns about profanity, said Martin Franks, executive vice president of CBS Corp.

Hey — there’s that “chilling” word again! Apparently Mr. Franks wouldn’t dream of bleeping out or aurally pixillating the bad words. I’m very familiar with this documentary having watched its original broadcast and taping the replay a year later. I recently viewed it again when I showed it to the group of young men in my “Fundamentals in Film” class. This close to the fall elections I think CBS – the network of Dan Rather, Mary Mapes and “fake but accurate” standards — is really more concerned about stirring the passions of the public than with offending its morals. I also think the network can’t resist the opportunity to gig the FCC and the current administration over the heavy-handed federal sanctions.

I think the language CBS is most concerned about is the part at the end when young Tony, the rookie firefighter, tells the camera, “I’d much rather save lives than take lives, but after this, if my country wants to send me to fight then I’ll go.”

* Bush Derangement Syndrome

Perhaps they’ll stay at a Holiday Inn Express

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Laura Lee at the Wide Awake Cafe has some thoughts about how former president Jimmy Carter might entertain former Iranian President Khatami when they get together to commiserate over their failed administrations (I commented with some ideas of my own). I don’t know what Carter gets out of this except for another chance to sanctimoniously crap on the administration while trying to push kitty litter over his own performance.

The appeal for Khamani is obvious, however. If you’d like to ruin the U.S. economy, decimate America’s defense capability and globally humiliate a country then it makes sense to talk to someone who’s already done it.

Oz comes to Never-Never land

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Amanda Lee Donoho at The Wide Awake Cafe reacts to John Kerry’s statement that the Israeli-Lebanon (actually Israeli-Hezbollah/Syria/Iran) conflict would never have occurred if ““I were president.”. Her post, If Kerry Were King of the Forest features a photo of Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion and speculates on what else surely wouldn’t have happened if Kerry were president. Check it out.

Unlike the Cowardly Lion, however, you’d have to say Kerry has some nerve.

Life is sad, believe me Missy,
When you’re born to be a sissy
Without the vim and verve.

But I could change my habits,
Nevermore be scared of rabbits
If I only had the nerve.

I’m afraid there’s no denyin’
I’m just a dandylion
A fate I don’t deserve.

But I could show my prowess,
Be a lion not a mowess
If I only had the nerve.

Oh, I’d be in my stride, a king down to the core
Oh, I’d roar the way I never roared before
And then I’d rrrwoof
And roar some more.

I would show the dinosaurus
Who’s king around the fores’
A king they’d better serve.

Why with my regal beezer,
I could be another Caesar
If I only had the nerve.

Still, what it reminds me of is another famous song from “The Wizard of Oz”, sung to the same tune:

“If I Only Had a Brain.”

The fire which time

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I’ve been following the story about the fire that’s burning through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in northern Minnesota. It’s not like it was a big surprise or anything, the situation has been inevitable since a huge windstorm resulted in a massive blow-down of 400,000 acres of trees in 1999. Afterwards any cleanup was stymied by policies and politics. Necrophiliac tree-huggers strongly objected to letting logging companies clean out the deadfall and to the thought of second-hand exhaust from vehicles and chain saws (motors have long been banned from the BWCA) violating the pristine area. Meanwhile the Forest Service pretty much took the position that “Nature created the mess, let her clean it up.”

We were all just waiting for the unavoidable spark, conditioned by years of warnings from Smokey the Bear to dread forest fires and hoping that the inevitable wouldn’t result in a flaming holocaust. Now that it’s here, though, it’s looking as if it won’t be as catastrophic an event as some might have feared (unless you’re a species of endangered wood tick or similar trapped in the thousands of acres burned so far). While the sky in the area may not be as pristine as it was, it is generally acknowledged that an occasional fire is a good and necessary thing for the ecosystem. Or, as Kenneth Mars might have said in Young Frankenstein, “A riot (fire) is a terrible thing. Und I think it is high time ve had one!”

In reading the news, however, I think I’ve seen some similarities between what’s going on in the Boundary Waters and events in the few-boundaries Middle East. Certainly there’s been all kinds of kindling piled up for years in the area and politics and policies have prevented any serious effort to get in there and clean out the fuel. In fact, “controlled burns” of aggressions immediately followed by half-measure mediations have only increased the pressures. Conditioned by years of fears that a fight such as what is happening in Lebanon would lead to World War III, we all held our collective breath at first, but now it is looking as if the result may be clarity instead of calamity. And maybe just what the region needs.

What is interesting (and the reason it hasn’t blown up – yet) is that countries such as Eygpt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have, for the time being, apparently signed up for the International Don’t Call list and Hezbollah and Hamas are therefore having a hard time getting the “Arab street” to return their calls. Those three countries, and others in the region, have their own reasons for not being too concerned if the Shiites hit the fan if it serves to crimp Iran’s ambitions in the region. Instead, whatever adventurism on the parts of Hamas and Hezbollah may sparked this conflagration, it has literally blown up in their faces.

The problem for a guerilla operation is that it is in trouble when it gets entrenched. Once you, say, actually have a headquarters with a mailing address you can’t assume the old advantages still apply to you. Once your opponent musters the will they’ll be ringing your doorbell like Jehovah Witnesses and you’re going to get ALL the literature whether you like it or not. Similarly, I don’t think the old bail-out tactics are going to work. As long as Israel maintains the momentum and focuses only on southern Lebanon there likely won’t be much in the way of “World Opinion” cavalry to ride in to the rescue. I think the usual players are content to sit back and watch Iran and Syria’s proxies get slapped around a bit, knowing that when’s it all over they, too, will be free of a nuisance and will still have plenty of time to denounce Israel’s aggression.

Collateral damage is inevitable and unfortunate, but the real endangered species is the parasites that have lived off of the blood (and money) of others and used their neighbors as human shields. Still thinking they were playing by the old rules, Hezbollah has said that the only way they’ll lay down their weapons is if you pry them from their cold, dead fingers. Only this time the Israeli response was, “finally, a peace proposal we can support!”

In who’s words?

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Amy Ridenour is among those wondering why Joe Biden is not experiencing the uproar and outrage over his demeaning remark about Indian-Americans that, say, a conservative radio broadcaster would receive in similar circumstances.

As Biden recently said:

In Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7/11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.

I think the reason is obvious. Okay, two reasons. The second one being that given Biden’s record, everybody just assumes he stole the line from someone else; perhaps Archie Bunker.

I must protest (though you probably won’t hear about it)

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Oppressed by your corrupt, immoral, lying government? Angered by intolerance, prejudice and hostile legislators? Then take it to the streets where your passion and cause can be covered by the media for all the world to see!

As long as it’s the right (or left) passion and cause, of course.

In the days where people riot in France to protest work rules for jobs they can’t get in the first place and illegal aliens in the U.S. rally to be treated like the citizens they aren’t, others are left to suffer and protest in relative silence. As MacStansbury points out:

While you were at the rally for illegals, here’s some other things you missed out on, some other stuff you could be protesting:

There was a pro-freedom of expression rally in London. In a country with a constantly growing Islamic population, this was a demonstration of a disparate group of people who were united in the idea that a cartoon is no reason to set a city on fire.

Speaking of cities on fire, “Protesters confront police at Belarus rally.” A line stolen from Gateway Pundit: I believe they are talking about these protesters here. Publius Pundit has the full story of the people resisting a hardline government, and being attacked, physically, for it.

Speaking of getting the full story, see that picture over there? Freedom Folks was the first to point out the Minutemen who were attacked at an Indiana protest. I can understand how you would miss this one, since it was a mutual fight. Right?

Not according to the pictures. More rant-y goodness from our in-house ranter.

While the big money coverage was in LA, somehow everybody glossed over another rally of 25,000 Christian youth in San Francisco. Maybe you missed it because, in the words of Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), “they’re loud, they’re obnoxious, they’re disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco.”

And, finally, you probably never head about Guillermo Fariñas Hernandez. No, you haven’t heard about him. It’s too painful to hear. He is a man, starving himself for freedom.

Where he protesting the Evil Capitalist Bush Adminstration™, he’d be on the cover of every magazine, every newscast. But he isn’t calling for the troops out of Iraq. No, he is voluntarily starving himself for freedom…in Cuba.

If Mark Leno were a conservative politician in a major city in a red state and his “they’re loud, they’re obnoxious, they’re disgusting, and they should get out of San Francisco” statement had been about illegal aliens instead of about a Christian group (Ron Luce’s “Battle Cry for a Generation”) the story would lead the news for days and probably lead to further protests.
Or not. Perhaps Leno, if he was a conservative, would merely be dismissed as a harmless, lone flake? (And wouldn’t it be fun to hear a group take up a chant such as, “We’re Loud. We’re Obnoxious! We’re in your Face!”) Oh, but wait a minute, Leno is an official in San Francisco, the same city where the city’s Board of Supervisors offered an official resolution condeming the Christian rally, describing it as an “act of provocation,” intended to “negatively influence the politics of America’s most tolerant and progressive city.”

Where is the outrage? Where are the two-minute TV news segments from the sober-faced blow-dry-flies on “The New Intolerance”? Instead, you heard nearly nothing outside of a pretty even-handed article in the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s an illuminating read, with photos that portray an interesting contrast between the “Battle Cry” protesters and counter-protesters.

The right to remain silent is greatly underutilized

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Laura Billings’ column in today’s St. Paul Pioneer Press suggests that she has as much trouble hearing the truth as Dean Johnson has in telling it — and that trying to hold public officials and employees accountable for statements they make while engaged in public business somehow violates their privacy. An excerpt:

Consider the pastor from Willmar who clipped a tape recorder to his backpack at a ministerial meeting with Senate majority leader Dean Johnson about the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

The intent, the pastor told the Star Tribune, “was a matter of me wanting to be able to, if I needed to, quote Sen. Johnson – accurately and in context.” He never told Johnson about the recording device. He then handed the tape over to an advocacy group in favor of the ban.

Sen. Johnson’s assertion that he had Minnesota justices’ assurances they wouldn’t touch existing defense-of-marriage legislation was truly dumb. It was the sort of sin of pride we’ve seen before from politicians, over-promising to his constituent base and making himself seem more almighty than he really is. His remarks deserved censure, and got them.

Billings appears to have a desire, like Johnson, to deny what we’ve heard with our own ears in Johnson’s and, later in her column, in Jay Bennish’s cases. Johnson’s intent wasn’t to make himself appear better to his friends; he was lying to advance his political strategy and that of his party. Similarly, Jay Bennish wasn’t playing Devil’s advocate, his statements followed his established pattern and weren’t just a provocative sampling taken out of context. The tapes in both cases — despite Billings’ hopes and claims or Johnson’s mealy-mouthed illuminations — prove it. In fact, for both Johnson and Bennish, their past behavior is what caused people to decide that somebody ought to try to get their statements on record.

Now if the people who went to all the effort and risked ridicule to bring these things to light had been courageous New York Times journalists then I’m sure Billings would be celebrating their commitment to truth. Instead:

Yet we’ve seen little reproof for the pastor, who has looked into his own heart and found himself to be without sin. “In everybody’s life there is a moment when you have to choose,” he told the Strib. “You count the cost and then you step out. For me, that was this time.”

I guess I missed the part of the Bible where God says it’s cool to secretly record fellow Christians. Like most things we argue about nowadays, it’s probably in Leviticus.

Lawmakers now should be on notice that everything they say, even to a roomful of ministers, can and will be used against them. Teachers and professors have been learning the same lesson.

Why should a roomful of ministers be expected to keep quiet about a discussion of public policy? They weren’t there to hear confession or to provide private spiritual counsel. In fact, if there was any group I’d expect to call attention to unethical behavior I’d hope it would be ministers. And is Billings ultimately suggesting that the public that pays the salaries of its representatives and teachers now has to read these people their rights before any public business is conducted, warning them that the things they say may be held against them in the court of public opinion?

You know, I couldn’t find anything in Leviticus about not taping others, but chapter 19, verse 11 does say “Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.” Whatever sin Billings may think that pastor is guilty of, it certainly isn’t bearing false witness. Or perhaps the pastor was simply following the instructions of Jesus in Matthew 10:27 when he said, “What I tell you now in the darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in your ears, shout from the housetops for all to hear!” He certainly has the right to say to Johnson and Billings the words from Job 15:6, “Your own mouth condemns you, and not I; yes, your own lips testify against you.”

I was certainly reminded of the references in Job 12:22 and Daniel 2:22 about things that are done in darkness being brought to light. As for Dean Johnson, I know there’s one scripture he’s for sure going to remember from all of this and that is James 3:5:

“Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles!”

An “embellishment” gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

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My, this is awkward. Minnesota Senate Majority Leader and DFLer Dean Johnson was heard on tape talking to fellow clergy (he’s also an ordained minister) and saying he’d received assurances from three Minnesota Supreme Court justices that they would not overturn Minnesota’s law preventing same sex marriages. Johnson presumably made this statement to convince the clergy that a constitutional amendment preserving the law isn’t necessary and as an attempt to keep these religious leaders from exhorting their flocks to back the amendment. The problem, of course, is that getting prior commitments from judges on how they’ll rule in advance on a prospective case is considered a big no-no. (Another presumption: the Reverend Senator Johnson has watched the Senate confirmation hearings for justices Roberts and Alito).

Oopsie. This leaves the majority leader with precious little wiggle room between either impugning himself or the State Supreme Court. Into that little space he therefore injected a big word:

Knee-deep in a controversy of his own making, Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson admitted Thursday that he “embellished” a conversation he had with a state Supreme Court justice on whether the court would consider overturning Minnesota law to allow same-sex marriages.

Wow. Eleven letters and three syllables to replace a simple, one-syllable, three-letter word. I always thought shorter words are better; they seem to trip off the tongue more easily and have a better ring to them, but that might just be a false assumption on my part. Let’s test this theory by inserting “embellish” in place of some well-known phrases:

“Father, I cannot tell an embellishment; it was I who cut down the cherry tree.”
— George Washington

“An embellishment gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
— Sir Winston Churchill

“There are three kinds of embellishments: embellishments, damned embellishments, and statistics.”
— Benjamin Disraeli

“The great masses of the people… will more easily fall victims to a big embellishment than to a small one.”
— Adolf Hitler

“In our country the embellishment has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.”
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“You told an embellishment, an odious, damned embellishment;
Upon my soul, an embellishment, a wicked embellishment.”
— Shakespeare (Othello to Iago)

“We embellish loudest when we embellish to ourselves.”
— Eric Hoffer

“It is better to be defeated on principle than to win on embellishments.”
— Arthur Calwell

“Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither embellish one to another.”
— Leviticus 19:11

“A faithful witness will not embellish: but a false witness will utter embellishments.”
— Proverbs 14:5

“The photo is a horrible, filthy embellishment…”
— Uncle Ben

You know, I think the originals were more accurate. But how’s this for an update on a classic: “Bush embellished, Democrats relished.”

Update:

Check out David’s post on the matter over at Our House.

South Dakota slapfight

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I got into a bit of a slapfight over the weekend in the Comments string on Jay Reding’s post on South Dakota’s efforts to ban abortion. I say “slapfight” not in the mocking “girlie-man” sense but as in describing something that generates a flurry of blows doing little damage — in this case damage to either opponent’s beliefs.

Jay, a conservative and one of my favorite blogs, thinks the move by the SD legislature (crafted as much to force a hearing by the SCOTUS as it is on abortion itself) is unwise and focused on the wrong venue, stating “The real battlefield on this issue should be the hearts and minds of the American people, not the courtroom.”

I agreed with him on that, but stated that in my opinion SD’s initiative was ultimately aimed at doing just that: returning the matter to the states to decide instead of leaving it to nine (or just five) people to decide for the nation as a whole and even giving the people the option to change their minds over time. (It has also occurred to me that having the issue contested in as many as 50 venues instead of just one could have an interesting impact on the way money is poured into the issue on both sides).

Predictably I took some shots from other commenters, one who suggested that SD would be overrun with unwanted children overtaxing the state’s resources. Since abortion is already restricted to one clinic in the state I didn’t think a surge was likely. Others used somewhat extreme examples to try and demonstrate the iniquity of SD’s actions. Extreme arguments are not to be discounted, as Kevin noted with this John Stuart Mill quote last week, “Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being ‘pushed to an extreme’; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case.” One person used the example of a pregnant rape victim being forced to carry the baby to term. (My response: “Ah, so that’s where the idea that two wrongs make a ‘right’ comes from.” Incoming!) Another indicated that abortion should remain available because sometimes birth control fails, or you want a baby and then decide that you don’t, or you make a mistake, or sometimes you don’t want to be pregnant.

Does a ban on abortion make sense in extreme cases? My reaction is let’s take it to the extreme in the other direction as well. Of all the examples – rape, health, changed circumstances, fear, inconvenience, whatever – which of these is the fault of the baby and which justifies that the baby die? From what I’ve experienced in my own life and as a result of the neonatal and perinatal developments I’ve seen in my day job, I can come to no other conclusion but that this is human life we’re talking about no matter how abstract you try to make it. I’ve seen the pictures that today’s 4D imaging technology provide of embryos and through the different stages of development. I know the first-hand accounts of how hard severely premature and/or handicapped babies fight to live after they’re born. Is there really a fate worse than death?

I know we live in an imperfect world that offers imperfect solutions. In complex issues where I might even have conflicting opinions about different aspects of the argument I try to get to what the fundamental issue and irrevocable action are and choose accordingly. There are arguments on both sides that are of varying logical quality and appeal and the “discussion” often degenerates into gross caricatures and generalizations.

I hope I’m not that “slap-happy”. Perhaps the timing is wrong in South Dakota, but maybe things happen in the right time and season no matter what it looks like. I just know that I’m rooting for the future voters – whether they’re already alive or yet to be born.

Update:

An update on Charlotte Wyatt … and the state of socialized medicine

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Last April I posted on the story of Charlotte Wyatt, the British infant whose doctors had gone to court to get a “Do Not Resuscitate” order — over the objections of her parents. The doctors’ petition was granted, and to me it as an example of a socialist state demonstrating that it does indeed believe that it owns the children and is also the final arbiter of what constitutes “quality of life.” There is now more to report on this story and on some interesting developments closer to home.

In Charlotte’s case she is now nearly two and a half years old, despite her doctors’ original opinion that she wouldn’t live but a few months, and their later predictions that she wouldn’t survive each of the many challenges she encountered. (She was born at 26 weeks gestation and today her parents readily acknowledge that she has significant developmental issues; their issue all along is that their daughter has the same right to life as a healthier baby.) The judge’s order was never overturned, but it was lifted by the judge last fall when Charlotte’s improving health made it unnecessary. Charlotte’s parents were able to bring her home for an unsupervised visit last Christmas, and earlier this month the hospital indicated that she might soon be released for good. Now, however, she has caught a cold or picked up an infection in the hospital that has become serious and again the judge has instituted the DNR order.

But little ones cannot keep off infections forever, especially in a hospital and in wintertime, and she caught a cold which quickly began to hamper her breathing. In a normal case when your baby is ill the hospital will step up efforts to help. But Charlotte is special, and instead doctors submitted an emergency application to the judge to get permission not to treat her. Yesturday Justice Hedley concurred with them, reversing his previous order. Apparently the baby was on a “downward rather than an upward trend” and therefore not worth saving.

Never mind the vast improvements she had made, the way she had always made stunning recoveries after each of her illnesses, how she had proven the doctors wrong each time. Never mind that she had shown herself a fighter, and with all the strength in her little body was battling for her chance at life.

After all, she was Charlotte, and Charlotte… Charlotte might always be a disabled child. She might never be quite normal, and her joys might never be quite the same as ours. Disabled people aren’t like the rest of us, and when they are sick…they have to be allowed to die.

What has our grand world come to when we can do this, and still walk the streets without shame? How can we pretend we are innocent of a great crime? –for are indeed guilty to if we do not protest. And the measure of a society is in how it treats her most defenseless.

Or if you are a child with special needs, is it only if you can manage to never be ill, never show weakness, always be impoving that you will be considered worth having around? When it comes to the difficult times, will your life never be worth fighting for?

As in April, from this distance I can offer no perspective on Charlotte’s overall health, medical prospects or quality of life. I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her parents, however, in saying that her level of care should be up to them and not to the state.

The state’s argument, of course, is that it’s paying the bills and therefore has the right to decide how and when care is appropriated. This position is coincidentally highlighted by this story from the New York Times reporting that an average of one private (and therefore illegal) health clinic per week is opening in our socialized neighbor to the north, Canada. The clinics are opening in response to demand from citizens willing to pay out of their own pockets to get needed surgery to improve the quality of their lives. As the head of one of these new clinics stated, “This is a country where a dog can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which a human can wait two or three years.”

The article also notes that Canada is the only industrialized nation to outlaw privately purchased medical care. The new clinics are encouraged, however, by a Canadian Supreme Court ruling last year that a Quebec provincial ban on private health insurance was unconstitutional when people are suffering and even dying on waiting lists. I suppose if you’re one of those people on a list it’s probably a good thing for you that drugs are so cheap.

But that’s still not the whole story as far as this post is concerned. As Amy Ridenour notes, here’s what one of the leading lights of our own “reality-based community”, Sen. Ted Kennedy, had to say in a speech last year:

…I propose that, as a 40th birthday [of Medicare] gift to the American people, we expand Medicare over the next decade to cover every citizen from birth to the end of life …

… I call this approach Medicare for all, because it will free all Americans from the fear of crippling medical expenses and enable them to seek the best possible care when illness strikes …

… Right-wing forces will unleash false attack ads, ranting against socialized medicine and government-run health care … Today we are immunized against such attacks by the obvious success of Medicare. It is long past time to extend that success to all…

(You can read Kennedy’s entire speech here, but doing so will make you glad you can still buy aspirin over the counter.)

Amy goes on to note that this “successful” plan is currently underfunded for future obligations by $29.7 trillion — more than seven times that of Social Security, and that the system as currently constructed will go broke in 2020, 21 years ahead of Social Security.

We’ve seen what this system leads to in the UK and in Canada, and what is already happening here. And if mental capacity should become a standard for determining whether someone should be resuscitated or not then Sen. Kennedy should look at Charlotte Wyatt and feel humbled … and very, very concerned.

See also, 21st Century British Healthcare.