Smarter Than Thou!

THE STRAWBERRY MULATTO

   THERE is a great movie called “The Strawberry Blonde.”  It stars James Cagney.  He is a dentist who is framed by a crooked friend, and sent to prison.  The friend, indirectly, also caused the death of Cagney’s father.  Not only that, but the friend married the girl whom he loved (the Blonde of the title, Rita Haywood).  He does marry someone else, and, after being released, lives a satisfactory life.  Then one day the former friend and Rita come to him, because he needs immediate relief from a terrible toothache.  James, seeing a chance for revenge, contemplates using too much gas, thus “accidentally” killing him. 

    However, when he arrives James discovers that the former friend’s life is now miserable.  The Blonde has become an unhappy nag.  Cagney now realizes that, despite all his setbacks, he has a great life---much better than that of the ex friend.  And he really does love his wonderful wife.  The movie is touching, fun and has this wonderful ending. 

    I do not like the current president.  I dislike, as far as I know, everything about him.  I consider him to be a committed enemy of the USA.  However, I see a Strawberry Blonde type scenario about him.  I have no inside information regarding what I shall propose.  However, I suppose that stranger things have happened.  Let us imagine Bambam being advised that, unless he “does something” in Libya, the US will look weak, lose prestige and influence, etc. 

    Bambam then says “Great!  This is exactly what I want.”  His advisors then look at him as if he is not serious.  They do not (totally) share his views.  When he chose a cabinet and advisors he could not tell them that a sine qua non was being a traitor.  So he had to assume that they shared his views, which, of course, he could never say aloud.  And now he discovers that they do not hate America quite as much as he does, and they do not want to be seen as incompetent. 

    The advisors also advise him that failure to act would imperil his reelection.  He is trapped.  He got what he wanted, namely supreme political power, and now he can not use it.  He is in the dentist chair and the dentist is Uncle Sam.  In the movie Cagney does pull the tooth, without any gas.  The pain he inflicts on the villain is dramatically satisfying.    

    It may be possible that Bambam has a troublesome tooth.  And he is likely to have more.  Sometimes, as Oscar Wilde said, in a so wise and witty way, “Life tends to imitate art.” 

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PRECEDENTS AND POSTCEDENTS

  AS I write this, the USA is taking some limited military action against Libya.  The more conservative pundits have attacked the President for doing so.  As they like military action, their criticism goes like this, and it is personal, rather than rational.  His action should follow a precedent that has already been established as a policy principle.  What is unprecedented is, somehow, not quite valid.  This is not the only objection, but it is a major one. 

    The concept of a principled precedent is interesting.  Philosophically it holds that if a mistake has been made then it is better to repeat it then to correct it.  It seems to be based upon the legal principle that people should know what courts have already decided with regard to law.  However, the history of court decisions shows that courts do not follow precedents when the judges do not will it.  For nearly two centuries abortion was illegal.  Then, without precedent, the Supreme Court “discovered” a hidden right.  When the auto industry needed Federal bailouts the holders of corporate bonds sued in court.  The bond, by legal precedent, was, literally, the supreme liability of a company.  Without precedent, and without legal justification, the Supreme Court, by refusing these claims, destroyed very nature of a contract.  There were no precedents for either.  However, the ruling culture decided that new principles were needed to meet new realities.    

    I do not know if the Libyan action will ultimately yield good or bad results.  I suppose that the killing of Mohammedan young men, no matter whose flag they march under, is a good thing.  I am not certain if this is better achieved by letting them kill each other, or by killing one side.  However, the advocacy of precedent as a guide to policy is nonsense. 

    To hold that the past validates future actions requires validation of a self-contradictory “principle.”  The new, and/or the improvised, is to be rejected in favor of the old.  However, at one point in human history, the precedent producing action itself had to be new.  In order to establish a precedent there has to be a first time.  That is the precedent had to be in se unprecedented.  Rational people evaluate issues and make decisions based upon contemporary (even temporary) circumstances. 

    What has worked in the past may not work in the future.  History does not repeat itself and opportunities are not the same.  Cost and effectiveness criteria change.  The benefits to a country are not decided by abstract principles, but by tangible gains.  This is the way states should act

    To those critics who do not know how to criticize the president, I offer the flowing.  If he is wrong, then you will not have to invent “facts” with which to attack him.  Consider this to be a precedent for such matters. 

 

 

AS CONFUSED AS THOU

   The title of this serial commentary is “smarter than thou.”  I write it because I claim to see, and understand issues, as others do not.  This time I admit complete failure.  I shall present a question, but offer no answers.  It is simply something that, in the abstract, puzzles me.  It also involves me personally. 

    Recently I watched a TV quasi-documentary on “odd” animals, including “Champ.”  This is the name given to the giant lizard like creature that lives, or does not live, in Lake Champlain, New York.  Apparently he is something like the Loch Ness monster.  On the show an advocate of Champ’s existence showed a photo.  It was exceptionally unclear.  That is they are fuzzy, grainy, blurry, etc.  These photos always are.  I could make out nothing but some disturbed water. 

    And this raises my question:  namely “Why are these photos, and films, always of such poor quality?”  The recent disaster in Japan gave us many images---very clear ones---of what happened.  This is because thousands of people carry with them devices that can take clear pictures and videos.  Although not every image was perfect, many of them were.  Yet the images of the legendary animals, like “Bigfoot,” are always of poor quality.  Why is it that no one offers a good representation of these things?  I include UFO’s.  Apparently thousands see them, and I have yet to see a convincing photo or film.  As I wrote above, I have no answer. 

    In fact I offer even more confession.  I have seen UFO’s, and a really “strange” animal.  One of these UFO’s looked like the standard Hollywood image of flying saucer.  It was low, rotating, and sending a beam of light towards the ground.  And I had a camera with me!  Yet I did not take a picture.  I have no explanation.  I did not take any photo of another UFO, a huge and silent one.  There was a TV documentary on it.  In the area where I live, it flew pretty much every Thursday night for years.  I never bothered to film it.  Maybe I still could.  I should add that I do not live far from an Air Force base.  I am NOT saying that these things were extra-terrestrial.  I am simply saying that I did not recognize them as ordinary aircraft. 

    The creature was unlike anything I have ever seen, except in fantasy movies.  All I shall say is that it was all white and about 15 long.  I was within several feet of it.  Its presence severely bothered both my dog and me.  I was not far from home, and could have gotten my camcorder.  But to my regret, I did not.  

    I offer neither excuse nor explanation.  I simply wonder why everyone else seems to behave the same way.       

 

A MODEST PROPOSAL

(For those of you who do not recognize the title, I shall explain why I stole it.  A guy named Jonathan Swift, who was famous for writing the 17^th Century classic The Catcher in the Rye, wrote an essay.  The subject was the “problem with the Irish,” namely their over population.  He suggested, , in an essay called “A Modest Proposal,” that the English eat the Irish children.  Apparently he was not serious.)

    DURING the Viet-Nam war American soldiers who worked with the Viet-Namese leaders noticed something.  Many of them were from the North.  When the Republic of Viet-Nam was divided, in the 1950’s, the Communists sized the north.  Approximately one million people fled to the free South Viet-Nam.  Within a generation they seemed to be running the place.  Some soldiers “joked” that the North had already won the war.  This observation is relevant to my proposal. 

    My official topic, this time, is the problem of illegal immigration.  There have been many proposals for a solution.  How do we stop all these people, mostly Mexicans, from “invading” the US (and us)?  Illegal entry may be dangerous in many ways.  The newcomers confront many disadvantages in re-establishing themselves, illegally, in a foreign country, where the second language is English, and the secondary culture is American. 

    I ask: what kind of people are willing, and able, to overcome these impediments, and to try to make a new life?  The answer is:  the more confident, the more industrious, the more imaginative, etc.  Like those North Viet-Namese refugees, they will need to work harder, to be braver, to be more dedicated, to be more inclined towards risk and towards becoming more becoming successful students and entrepreneurs.  The Cubans do this in Florida.  

    Now I ask another question: is this not exactly the type of people we want to replace the millions killed by legal mass murder (i.e. abortion)?  Those kids would have taken about 25 years of expensive care to become productive.  The Mexicans sneaking over the border are already fully grown consumers and producers.  In fact, some other country has already paid all their “growing up” costs.  This is a problem?

    And if we do not like them, then we ccan always eat their children.  

    It seems to me that the best policy is therefore the current one.  This means that the USA continues to pretend that we are interested in making the borders more than imaginary lines.  We pretend that we do not want these official criminals.  This is done purely to deter the weak willed ones.  The nation was founded upon a vast criminal conspiracy.  This is part of our sacred heritage.  The Founding Fathers, when they committed serial treason, pretended that it was legal, because it was in their economic interests to do so.  They simply invented a new government in which treason was redefined as patriotism. They would have welcomed the new immigrants.  They would have enslaved them, too.  

    The best policy is continued pure hypocrisy.  Or am I missing something?    

    And you are missing something if you are not subscribing to the “A&E.”  Stop it.  Don’t fail to stop missing it. 

 

 

SOME EQUAL JOBS ARE LESS EQUAL THAN OTHERS

   AS of this writing, the “crisis” In Wisconsin continues.  That is, several Democratic legislators remain in exile, out of state, so that they cannot be forced to vote on proposed state budget cuts, etc.  Demonstrators continue to demonstrate (which is what they do) in the state capitol.  Union members continue not to work, which is what they (too often) do.

    However, there is one point that interests me, even if it is minor.  Commentators, mostly on Fox News Channel, have repeatedly pointed out that the state/public employees are actually “paid more” than private employees.  Any such statement requires a certain equality so that a comparison can be made.  This is not a case of comparing apples and oranges, as these should be compared, as both are fruits.  However, comparing most public employment positions with private ones is silly at best, and (perhaps intentionally) misleading.

    Although some private firms do some quasi-police tasks, the role of the police and the courts is still a government monopoly.  In general, professional firemen are not equal to anyone employed in the private sphere.  Heads of the transportation department or parks have no equivalent in the private sector.  Workers at the Department of Motor Vehicles do not do the same work as do workers in private for-profit companies. 

    Again, a few companies may have some roughly equal functions.  For example, cooks in prisons do roughly the same work at cooks in public cafeterias.  However, even in this case the equivalence is not complete.  The prison cook works in a potentially dangerous location.  He has extra responsibilities, such as preventing the inmates from stealing knives.  There clearly are other differences. 

    My point is that before we declare that someone is paid more for the same job we need to determine if the job really is the same.  In many ways civil service jobs are better, less burdensome and more secure.  Arguing that they should pay less can be made in many different ways.  However, arguing that they are same as private jobs is not one of them.