Then They Came For Me....

The Chicago Tribune seems to think it would be a good idea if the 2nd Amendment were repealed, in light of the Supreme Court's decision this week upholding the right of individuals to own firearms, and striking down D.C.'s infamous handgun ban. Now Duke Daley of the Principality of the County of Cook in Illinois is huffing about it. Of course, this guy stands for the law, controling as he does what is probably the most overwhelmingly corrupt county in the United States.

If "people" in any of the first 10 Amendments means "us," actual flesh & blood people, and not some abstract legalistic nonsense, then all those Amendments are valid. We have the right to keep & bear arms, speech, religion, press, assembly, petition, freedom from unreasonable search & seizure, all the rest of it. If one goes, "people" goes in all of them, according to the rule of precedent, so goes the Bill of Rights.......and the Chicago Tribune. Some poetic justice there, but I doubt I'll appreciate it.

And The Beat Goes On....

Just too much goodness to pass up out there today. Now we have families investigated for child abuse because a psychic had a vision.

Time to trot out the W.H. Auden; can't get too much of the classics:

“One doesn’t have to be a prophet to predict the consequences...

“Reason will be replaced by Revelation…Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions— feelings in the solar plexus induced by undernourishment, angelic images generated by fever or drugs, dream warnings inspired by the sound of falling water. Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of schoolchildren ranked above the greatest masterpieces…

“Idealism will be replaced by Materialism…Diverted from its normal outlet in patriotism and civic or family pride, the need of the masses for some visible Idol to worship will be driven into totally unsociable channels where no education can reach it. Divine honours will be paid to shallow depressions in the earth, domestic pets, ruined windmills, or malignant tumours.

“Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish. Every corner-boy will congratulate himself: ‘I’m such a sinner that God has come down in person to save me.’ Every crook will argue: ‘I like committing crimes. God likes forgiving them. Really the world is admirably arranged.’ The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums, and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Tragedy, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.”

— Herod, in For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
W. H. Auden, 1940

If it's taught, it must be true....

This is a pretty good followup to my last post, and definitely deserves the 'wish-bringing' label. It seems a few decades ago, certain professors (most notably, one Leonard Jefferies) at several putatively reputable universities began taking Afrocentrism (a theory based on, to put it charitably, the most dubious antecedents) out a whole new door.

Nowadays, it is taught in certain quarters that the roots of all that is profound, and good, and noble in Western Civilization actually rests with persons who were masquerading as Caucasians such as Plato, Aristotle, and Isaac Newton, but were, in reality- black.

This book, by Professor Mary Lefkowitz of Wellesley College, gives the details of this particular disease. But you can avoid spending $17 by imagining a world where there are no facts, merely intention, commitment in a certain direction and toward certain goals. The "facts" will then reveal themselves, as in a glass, darkly. These then become the received history of an individual, or group, or perhaps an entire society where conformity to that which never was can bring ease and peace of mind.

We live in a country where some universities shovel the truly great into the great hopper of their political mind-machine. It then remains to deliberately sift out the most obscure and marginal thinkers, who are then lionized as some cultural undiscovered country.

It's not inconceivable that our society could move full circle, from what may have been a lie, but truly one of those rare "good lies" as outlined by Plato in The Republic, to nothing but a set of murky supersitions well suited to a new dark age.

If Only Wishing.....

I have a bad feeling that when the national campaign gets into full swing, we will proceed from generalities and pontifications relating to "change" to this sort of thing:

Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two--
Something noble and wise and good,
Done by merely wishing we could.
We've forgotten, but--never mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!

- Rudyard Kipling, "The Road Song of the Bandar-Log" from The Jungle Book

Horrifying x 10^23

This morning's Fox News featured a pic of a car hitting cyclists in a bike race in Mexico. According to the news reader, it was "-horrifying, horrifying, horrifying, horrifying." Four. I counted them. Now that we've bankrupted all the extreme adjectives and adverbs in English on a daily or even hourly basis, the only thing to do is repeat them for emphasis.

As to why this is so much more horrifying than other people smashed to jelly by motor vehicles, I imagine it's the usual- "-we got good video."

This reminds me of something......

Evidently the Democratic Party has decided to seat half the delegates from the Florida and Michigan primaries. When the United States Constitution was ratified in 1789, it contained a provision where slaves counted 3/5 for purposes of taxation, and 3/5 for purposes of representation. I knew this reminded me of something.....