Minorites Against the Majority?

Government, Homeland Security, Racism, Terrorism, The State

It’s impossible to prove—more so because there is no will to prove it—but it’s hard not to view this sort of TSA pat-down, in this case, of a toddler in a cast (via LRC.COM), as devoid of the racial aspect. Racial profiling.

As was observed in “Congress: Call Off Your TSA Attack Dogs!”, “The TSA workforce manning crucial sections of the air terminals reflects the federal government’s legislated preference for minorities. Each one of these workers seems singularly intent on exacting revenge upon his or her perceived oppressors.”

In the TSA grope-a-thone, a preponderance of manifestly angry minorities face off against the submissive majority.

Can anybody find footage of TSA agents frisking black tots, or elderly and crippled black old ladies?

Who’s Killing Whose People Again?

Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, Propaganda, War

Judging from America’s angels and demons foreign policy production, starring “the prototypical evil dictator who was killing his noble people,” one would never have predicted (NOT) this following development, in Syria, documented by Human Rights Watch:

“Armed opposition groups in Syria are committing atrocities. Abuses include kidnapping, detention, and torture of security force members, government supporters, and people identified as members of pro-government militias, called shabeeha. Human Rights Watch has also received reports of executions by armed opposition groups of security force members and civilians.”

Remind me who is killing whose people again?

“Saying ‘I’m a Socialist’ = Saying ‘I’m a Massive idiot'”

Britain, Capitalism, Celebrity, Fascism, Hollywood, Socialism

“About the only people who haven’t figured out that saying ‘I’m a socialist’ is the same as saying ‘I’m a massive idiot’ are Western academics and zillionaire celebrities.”

Nice, pithy blog post at ProfessorBainbridge.com, as to why “aging ex-supermodel Elle MacPherson,” who professes socialism, is known as “the Body” and not “the Brain.”

I disagree that the US and UK continue to enjoy capitalist economies, as Professor Bainbridge cheerily asserts, but his point about the stupidity of a well-rewarded celebrity class is well-taken (and well-made).

What MacPherson desperately needs is for the proto-angel from It’s a Wonderful Life to take her on a tour of what MacPherson’s life would have been like if she had been born in, say, East Germany or the Soviet Union in, say, 1955. Maybe they’d have time for a quick visit to the Gulag Archipelago. Or the angel could show her what her life would have been like if she had lived in Cambodia in the late 1970s.

Besides, we hear a lot about undue corporate influence on politics, but precious little of Hollywood’s access to the Idiocoracy in DC.

In a Perverse Way, Afghan Justice Is Less Perverse

Christianity, Crime, Justice, Law, Middle East, Military, Morality, Natural Law

“As a Christian,” reasons Thomas Fleming, in his highly recommended Mail-Online blog, “I can say plainly that Afghans have a truer sense of justice than the catechisms of most Christian churches today. As post-Christian savages without a sense of justice, we were quite wrong to conquer this primitive people.”

“The Afghans do not pretend to see beyond the end of their nose or outside the limits of their settlement. Their simple and wholesome ethic is: You kill my people, I kill you. They are demanding nothing less than the transfer of the killer to Afghan jurisdiction. After a speedy trial and conviction, he will be turned over to the relatives of the victims to kill in whatever way they see fit.”

“Americans may pretend to understand this demand as a temporary outburst of grief and rage, but, when they do not relent, in a few weeks we can expect to hear condemnations of the primitive Afghan understanding of justice. We shall be reminded of the Talibans’ mass executions in sports stadiums. ‘They don’t want justice,’ we shall cry, ‘only vengeance,’ and no one will spend half a minute explaining what the difference is.”

“Here in the enlightened West,

we know that the purpose of a criminal justice system is two-fold: to rehabilitate the criminal and protect the public. It was not always so. The ancients believed that a criminal act–murder, assault, robbery, rape–put the universe out of joint. The purpose of punishment was to put it right again. Killers are killed, robbers robbed, beaters beaten.
It was not always so simple as “an eye for an eye,” and Roman and Christian law made allowances for motives, circumstances, and appropriateness of punishment, but they never forgot the primary purpose of punishment was retribution or, to use a simpler word, vengeance.
Leftist Christians will howl in protest, citing, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” little understanding that the same Lord, according to St. Paul, delegates the power to punish evil to the rulers of the world. Not in vain, Paul declared in an authoritative chapter of Romans, does the ruler hold the sword, nor is it a terror to the good but only to the wicked. It follows that a ruler who casts away the sword on a humanitarian whim is no longer a legitimate ruler. The Church always begged for mercy in specific cases, but never disputed the right and duty of kings and parliaments to execute criminals.
Even Imanuel Kant, who got most things wrong, saw through the lies of all the liberal theories of punishment:
“Judicial punishment can never be used solely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for society, but instead must in all cases be imposed on a person solely on the ground that he has committed a crime….woe to him who rummages around in the winding paths of a theory of happiness looking for some advantage to be gained by releasing the criminal from punishment or by reducing the amount of it….

MORE.