UPDATED: Brothers And Sisters On Top (Meantime, In Lefty La-La Land)

Affirmative Action, Christianity, Government, Homeland Security, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Race, Racism

LAYING OF THE HANDS BY HOMELAND SECURITY. Feel free to come up with other captions to this image, in which a young woman, palms up, endures a TSA head massage. It joins a growing stash of similarly themed Americana, in which minority members—represented in federal agencies in greater numbers than among the larger population—lord it over the maligned and despised majority.

This is no spiritual ministry.

In my case, a large African-American woman had summoned me with a crooked finger for a pat down, during which I thought of the film “Midnight Express.” And in particular, the scene where Billy Hayes’ far-from-delightful Turkish jailer schemes to enjoy some time alone with the young American. My tormentor wore the same sadistic, atavistic expression. Her giant digits were soon upon my chest and between my legs.

In the TSA grope-a-thone, a preponderance of manifestly angry minorities face off against the submissive majority. It’s not easy to prove—more so because there is no will to prove it—but you’d be hard pressed to view this sort of TSA pat-down, in this case, of a toddler in a cast (via LRC.COM), as racially insignificant or innocent.

Catholic nuns are notoriously liberal—having recently been admonished by the Vatican for infidelity to the Church’s teachings. So this nun probably doesn’t much mind having her habit disturbed by a similarly clad TSA handmaiden.

If you find footage of TSA agents frisking black tots, or elderly and crippled black old ladies, please send it along.

UPDATE (April 22): Meantime, In Lefty La-La Land.
A naive, lefty parallel universe RG (in Comments) has going there, in opposition to what is looking like a critical mass of facts and anecdotes. What was the last sentence in this post? “If you find footage of TSA agents [black or white] frisking black tots, or elderly and crippled black old ladies, please send it along.”

UPDATE III: Planet IRS (Police State USA)

English, Europe, Human Accomplishment, Ilana Mercer, IMMIGRATION, Literature, Media, Private Property, Regulation, South-Africa, Taxation

The following is excerpted from my new, weekly column, “Planet IRS”:

“You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!” Those are the chorus lyrics to Hotel California,” the haunting rock classic by the Eagles.

Americans who try “running for the door”—in the evocative words of Glenn Frey, and the Dons Felder and Henley—soon discover that they “are all just prisoners here …”

Prisoners of Uncle Sam’s device.

If he can tolerate TSA assaults as he departs the country, an American who chooses to live and work overseas cannot escape the Internal Revenue Service. The United States is perhaps the only country “to tax its citizens on income earned while they’re living abroad.”

To loss of privacy and property, add the prospect of prison—and you get why, as Reuters has reported, droves of Americans are “renouncing their U.S. citizenship or handing in their Green Cards.”

On pain of criminal charges and “penalties of up to $100,000 or 50 percent of undeclared accounts, whichever is larger,” the expatriate must report his own bank accounts and all conjoint accounts—a spouse, a client, or business partners.

The victims of this shakedown are residents who have foreign bank accounts (the Canadian equivalent of a small USA 401K, in this scribe’s case), in addition to “an estimated 6.3 million U.S. citizens living abroad.” The aims of their pursuers, the IRS, are control and compliance. The rogue agency’s source of revenue, in this context, is derived primarily from penalties for forgetfulness or faulty filing.

All fear bankrupting fines, even imprisonment.” …

Click on the link to read the complete column, “Planet IRS.”

If you’d like to feature this column in or on your publication (paper pr pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

Support this writer’s work by clicking to “Recommend,” “Tweet” and “Share” the “Paleolibertarian Column” on RT and “Return To Reason” on WND.

UPDATE I: On Facebook, Anthony Michael Miceli writes this: “You’re one of the most honest writers that is publicly known. This and a lot of your work SHOULD be carried by major newspapers but when most are controlled by just a handful of corporations the writing and thought pool becomes the same incestuous crap ppl haven been exposed to for years.”

I reply: It takes concerted pressure from readers like yourself, AMM, to sway the editorial gatekeepers across the country. What should irk you is not that opinion such as mine (also yours) is shunned; it’s the mediocrity and piss-poor, unimaginative writing that is embraced instead. Also, to help restore standards, let us separate writers from TV show men and women. Let us restore the division of labor. Only a few people manage to straddle both worlds (Ann Coulter, for instance, who is a Republican through-and-through). Most TV showmen with a large presence, or politicians, ain’t writers.

UPDATE II: I shouldn’t, but I will. I mean, there is a need to say IT, simply because few know better. And, after all, to a contemporary journalism teacher, instructing the aspiring young writer, creativity equals, “Sharing your passion” (“I love myself, and my dog, and me again”), “showing your feelings (“I feel like Obama is trying to feel for us, but like…”). So, you need to hear this from someone who learned the hard way (from tough veterans):

The lead to this column (used to be written “lede”), the Hotel California segue, is bloody good. Just saying.

UPDATE III: An example of the above necessary division of labor: Judge Napolitano. Great orator; poor writer.

Heroism Stripped

Aesthetics, Britain, Feminism, Gender, Human Accomplishment, Pop-Culture, Sex

An anonymous sage said that “expectations tend to be self-fulfilling”: Expect nothing and you’ll get nothing. In the West, if kids so much as dial 911 in an emergency, they are decorated for bravery. So, it’s hardly surprising that evincing narcissism, self-adoration and bad taste has been elevated and recast as heroic, honest and gritty.

Going by the MailOnline’s sensibility, the au naturel uglies below are really “brave mothers and daughters [who] bare all – and reveal their hopes and fears about ageing” [sic]. I give you your new heroines. Scroll down for an eyeful.

Body-Parts Porn Again

Foreign Policy, Just War, Middle East, Military, War

OOPS, GI JOE’S BEEN BAD, AGAIN. Corpse desecration and other crimes against the occupied were said to be the purview of a “few bad apples” in an otherwise stellar American military. For a rarity, the body-parts pornography appears to be quite common. Naturally, every rational individual knows (NOT!) that blame lies with … the L.A. Times for exposing the latest incident of beastly behavior. All the better to deflect from the perps and the King’s comitatus that keeps them in blighted and benighted Afghanistan.

So what exactly are we talking about? Over to the LA Times:

The paratroopers had their assignment: Check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. Try to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification.
The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse’s severed legs. …

As was remarked upon in “To Pee Or Not To Pee is Not the Question,” “…the truth about the people we are pissing on and pissing off in Afghanistan is quite simple. America’s indisputably brave soldiers have been ordered to, at once, woo and war against a primitive Pashtun population. These Pashtuns disdain the central government we desperately want them to obey. So it goes: We help local groups believed to be patriotic, but, at the same time, end up establishing an authoritarian protectorate they despise.”