Category Archives: Family

Crappy Kennedy Reminder

Democrats, Family, Justice, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Morality

Yesterday, on the phone to my father in South Africa, he reminded me of who Ted Kennedy REALLY was:

“A man who left a young girl to drown”:

“On the evening of July 19, 1969, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts drove his Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, drowning his passenger, a young campaign worker named Mary Jo Kopechne. The senator left the scene of the accident, did not report it to the police for many hours, and according to some accounts considered concocting an alibi for himself in the interim. … At the time, Kennedy managed to escape severe legal and political consequences for his actions thanks to his family’s connections…”

Amidst the latest genuflection to TK, Americans and the mindless media would do well to reflect on this man’s defining act. Dad thinks the Kennedy clan is rotten to the core.

My father has been a big influence; he’d always remind that justice was the most frequently occurring word in the Hebrew Bible. When Waco happened, dad was outraged. “They—the government—murdered those people in cold blood,” he fumed. It’s an immutably true insight that has eludes too many Americans. Needless to say that we did not debate, but only touched on, the kidnapping by Texas authorities of 450 FLDS kids—it was implicit and obvious dad would be appalled by that act of tyranny. And he was.

What’s more remarkable is that dad has always been left-leaning. Although I would not call him a left-liberal, he’s certainly not quite the classical liberal, as he seems to believe state interventions outside the remits of classical liberalism can be a good thing.

Still, my father’s sense of justice is really quite extraordinary, always has been. It doesn’t matter who commits injustice, he will speak truth to power, a trait that has been as helpful to his career as it has to mine.

Always an original thinker, Dad had this to say about the banal Obama: “He reminds me of a community organizer.”

Another of his funny lines that stuck with me from last night’s call: In the wake of these assaults, “a few thousand people had fled South Africa to the safe haven of Zimbabwe.”

Update 3: State Had No Right To Seize FLDS Children!

Criminal Injustice, Family, Justice, Law, The State

I said so in my April 15 column, “They’re Coming For Your Kids.” At the same time, my good friend and colleague, the heroic attorney and broadcaster Jerri Ward, rushed to defend an FLDS father pro bono. Now the Third Court of Appeals in Austin agrees.

Did the malpracticing, mindless media that never swims upstream ever interview Jerri or myself when we said what ought to have been plain to any clear-thinking, liberty loving individual? Of course not. Nancy Grace, Bill O’Reilly and the rest were busy fulfilling “their providential purpose” in this case, evangelizing for state overreach.

We will be talking today, at 12:42 Pacific Time, about the case vis-à-vis these new developments. I am a regular, fortnightly commentator on Jerri’s marvelous “I Object!” show. Be sure to follow our schedule here.

Update 3 (May 24): We covered the issues on the blog after the publication of “They’re Coming For Your Kids,” which in itself pretty much said it all. Trace the discussion here. Nothing has been added to the debate since the column, other than a couple of legal technicalities, such as that the Abduction Department treated the compound as one family, instead of investigating individual cases. The assigning of collective guilt–tribal justice–bears no resemblance to the law as the Rights of Englishmen would have it.

This is both sickening and retarded. I covered it; re-read the post. We’re not rehashing the same thing over again, especially in light of the general reluctance, because chronically incurious, among posters to read all background material on the Mother site: Barely A Blog is a companion to the main site, IlanaMercer.com. What has changed is that a month hence, the Court has agreed with us. However, even if the Appeals Court had not agreed with us, we’d still be right. Natural justice is immutably true.

A Gift for Mother’s Day

Family, Ilana Mercer

My beloved daughter writes:

“You know, unconditional love is all good, but love isn’t my big thing these days. What nuggets other than unconditional love could another mother proffer? How many nuggets per year? How many are rehashed from previous years? These are the kinds of silly questions that roll through my head when I read yet another one of your articles or emails to me. Pardon the cheese, but you’re a fountain of knowledge that I can always turn to and inexorably get the truth from. As kind, loving, and sweet as you are, this isn’t what separates you from the other mothers and makes you the best one ever. You ARE the best writer on this continent. Not only that but you are one of the most unique gems EVER in that when you speak from the heart it IS truth and that is just about impossible to find, not just in moms, but in humanity at large.

But let’s hail the love a mo’, just because you do it so much gooder than the rest. Why? Because your love isn’t stupid, simple and declarative. You act. That email you sent me the other day, which took you over an hour to write, moved me so because it was the most loving gesture EVER. I have re-read it at least six times now. Sometimes I can’t believe how far we’ve come and how wonderful our relationship is. I know that you’re looking out for me always and it makes me so calm and happy inside. And a little tearful when I think about it.

So mum, I just adore you. Thank you for everything always.”

***

For once, I’m without words.

(I like the way she pokes gentle fun at mom’s grammatical fetishes with “so much ‘gooder.’” She knows me “good.”)

Updated: Exporting Soft Porn

Aesthetics, America, China, Family, Morality, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

A great deal of carping goes on about the crap China exports to us (by popular demand). Very little is said about the sh-t we ship over there. Here Glenn Beck reports on the little American Lolitas, courtesy of Disney, who help sell sexy underwear to China’s children.

Beck describes (and later shows on screen) a

“White girl, 12 years old, reclining in a matching bra and panties set with Disney’s signature mouse ear design in a particular creepy detail, the pigtailed child is playing with a pair of Mickey Mouse hand puppets. In the left-hand corner is the familiar script of a Disney logo.”

The child sports cleavage which might have been enhanced digitally.

The Chinese should give Americans a hard time over this.

American children appear to be party to a very sexual vibe cultivated in sexually inappropriate family interactions and nurtured at schools. Watch any Hollywood film and you see girls being overtly sexual with their dads and vise versa.

(Why do so many American parents kiss their kids on the mouth? Absolutely inappropriate. Why do so many parents let their daughters walk around looking like “pint-sized tarts”?)

As an example, consider the Vanity Fair Miley Cyrus photo, where the girl, in various states of undress, nestles in the arms of father Billy Ray Cyrus, and looks up at him seductively. Major creep-out.

When I was growing up the instinct was to try and stay a little girl a little longer—especially around dads.

To be honest, a country exporting cheap electronics has a leg up on a country that peddles porn, don’t you think?

In case libertarians get confused, as they are wont to do, between cultural commentary and libertarian legal theory—of course peddling porn, soft and hard, ought to remain legal. The law should stay out of all voluntary exchanges between consenting adults.

Update (May 6): I must admit that, although I’ve never watched the program “Hanna Montana,” the girl Miley strikes me as anything but sweet and innocent. Perhaps my idea of nice is different. The Cyrus girl is loud, overbearing and extremely precocious. For such a twit, she’s also full of herself. The little I’ve seen of the “family” doing its wholesome-values shtick, the more they’ve struck me as shallow and showy, not wholesome. Then again, I’ve not had the chance to plumb the depths of “Hanna Montana” and her handlers.

Whenever the Fox-News folks have oozed over the wholesomeness of this girl is and then cut to actual footage of Cyrus carrying forth—my impression has been the opposite. When I think of wholesome (and as pretty as a picture), I think Martina McBride.

As to the whole blame Dad and Disney thing, I’ve expressed my views before: “The paternalistic depiction of women as passive agents, demeaned by male-driven appetites, is a humbug shared by conservatives and liberals alike.”

Cyrus may be 15, but she’s a single-minded exhibitionist, propelled and driven by the fame thing. In all likelihood, she originated the idea of posing for Vanity Fair and would not stop pestering her pappy until he relented. Anyone who has a teenager and handles her as does the typical American parent—like a demigoddess—knows I’m right.

Those who persist in the poor-teen-is-a-victim routine don’t have children. Or are oblivious to the reversal in parent-child roles that has come to typify the dynamics in the American family.