Monday, July 15, 2013

Rule by law, not by man

I don't have time for this, but I just want to mention one thing in regard to the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin thing.

Those people who are requesting calm acceptance of the verdict, or peaceful protests for those who must protest, call upon the phrase, "Rule by law, not by man." But what the hell does that mean?

You don't have to look too far to find examples of "rule by man" in the United States. Prime example:

When slavery was legal in the United States, it was based on the notion that slaves weren't quite human, therefore, they didn't have any rights under the law. They couldn't vote, sit on juries, or otherwise partake of the citizen experience. They weren't protected by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights any more than the family dog would have been protected.

So what happened when slaves committed crimes -- or were even accused of committing crimes? I mean, they weren't fully human under the law, had no rights, so the usual constitutional procedures didn't apply to them.

In some cases - really capitol cases, involving serious felonies like murder -- the slaves may or may not be tried, but certainly they were executed. Here's a good case, of Denmark Vesey, a free black man who had a cabinetry business in Charleston, South Carolina, in the late 1700s -- but after the USA had won its independence. He was a free man, had never been a slave as far as I can tell. But he befriended many of the black slaves in the area and eventually planned a slave rebellion. He had gone so far as to recruit a real "army" of slaves from local plantations, and had apparently stored up some number of weapons they could use for the rebellion.

Alas, the night before the attack was to begin, one slave in Vesey's army went wimp and confessed all to his master. The arms, such as they were, and if they did really exist, were discovered. Other slaves who had agreed to take part in the rebellions were either fingered or confessed. So what was the outcome?

Vesey was tried -- he was a free black man, not a slave. He was found guilty and hanged with three or four slaves who had been fingered or confessed to being key leaders in implementing the scheme.

All the other slaves -- and there were hundreds of them -- were given over to their masters, for the masters to figure out what to do with them. To punish them or not, and how to punish them.

Vesey's outcome was "rule by law." He was a free man, after all, though it's pretty doubtful that, at the time, and he being a black man, he was regarded as deserving of all the rights of a white man. He was found guilty of inciting an insurrection and hanged. The outcome here was similar to what a few white people also suffered for "inciting an insurrection" in the slave South. Many Quakers among them, who tried passing out anti-slavery leaflets and even smuggled slaves out of the South. As a matter of fact, years later, South Carolina accused Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party of "inciting an insurrection." But that was the law in South Carolina.

By contrast, "rule by man" is what happened to all the other slaves who had been identified as taking part in the plan to rise up, and who had been returned to their masters. Their masters decided what to do with them. I've never seen any documentation that records what happened to them. The whole thing was regarded as their masters' private business and nobody else's -- though slave owners were fully expected to keep their slaves under control -- very seriously. A few cases exist where white slaves owners suffered some pretty dire consequences from their neighbors if they were too kind to their slaves.

So what were the usual punishments for disobedient and/or "uppity," and/or "criminal," and/or runaway, and/or simply "lazy" slaves? They were subject to a pretty wide variety of punishments, limited only by their master's imagination and willingness to inflict pain (though usually the master himself did not deliver the punishment. Often he got other slaves to do it.) Whippings were pretty common. A few old barns on old plantations in the slave South had "whipping posts," a convenient and customary place to tie up the slave for whipping. Cutting off fingers, ears, hobbling with irons, stockading -- all possibilities that have been used at one or another time or place.

In one horrendous case, recorded among the accounts in the 1930s WPA Writers' Project, a former slave told the story of the overseer on a plantation raping the wife of a slave. When the husband objected to his wife's rape, the overseer nailed the man's ear to a board first, and then cut it off.

A French woman, Martineau, attributed with establishing the study of sociology, toured the USA in the 1850s. While in the South, noted the social attitudes toward slaves and slavery. Interesting reading. One case she mentioned involved a slave who was apparently a notorious thief and rabble-rouser, being burned alive on the main street of one southern town. Martineau didn't state whether this was common or uncommon, but infers that it was a standard punishment used for certain types of behavior -- and apparently in cases where the slave was expendable. And burning alive seems to have been something the KKK also practiced, along with lynching.

All of this is entirely "rule by man." No interference from the legal system at all for the treatment of slaves.

There were few rules that defined unacceptable slave behavior. It was one of those "you know it when you see it," kind of things. Entirely up to the slave owners and his neighbors. Same for the punishments. The master decided. It was all up to him.

So when people take to the streets and riot, protesting the results of a fair trial -- a verdict that they feel is all wrong.... Well, would you prefer "rule by man?" Think about it.

Justice relies on facts. It isn't always a balm to console your emotions. Life doesn't always happen the way we want it to. Individuals are rarely as "good" as we wish they were, or as "bad" as we believe they might be. Justice can only be determined by the facts in evidence.

Grow up.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Land of the free, home of the brave?

In past years, I've tried to include some quotes, speeches, etc., about the USA that would be inspiring, or at least serve as a reminder of what the USA stands for.

But this year, I don't know.

It's just things like various levels and branches of government dictating what you can eat for lunch and how much health insurance you MUST have. How much personal income is "enough" for you. What you "should" study in college, and what you can use for energy and how much of it you "should" consume. It's things like that that make me question -- is this freedom?

Do we have freedom anymore?

I don't think so. I think it's almost beyond recovery, too. This kind of slavery is normal now. It's what we expect. And it's "for our own good."

It's the schemers and manipulators who've suppressed our freedoms. And I'm not talking about welfare cheats or fraudulent government contractors. I'm talking about politicians on every level.

The fact that we have a democratic system gives liars and con artists and psychopathic control freaks a marketing tool; they always say -- and may themselves believe -- that they do all they do for us. For the elderly, the children, the widows and orphans. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.

And how much of the funding they raise for taxation ends up in their own pockets, or in the private accounts of friends and supporters?

Very few politicians are in that business anymore to preserve and protect American ideals and the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. If we consider Pazzo Pelosi, Brain-dead Harry Reid, and anyone in the Executive Branch, you have to wonder if they have even a casual familiarity with the US Constitution. Instead, they go to Washington to "bring home the bacon." And I'm convinced many of them are simply power mad, or afflicted with some kind of Munchausen's Disease, where you cause pain so that later you can rush in and "heroically" rescue the victims -- by exercising more power over them and extracting more money from them. More regulation, less personal freedom.

Crazy.

Sad.

And people vote for this. Edward Gibbon in The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire:
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.

So go eat your hot dogs and apple pie and look at the fireworks. And just forget about everything else. It isn't there anymore, anyway,
 

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

When the going gets tough, Obama takes a vacation

Remember when Ronald Reagan was president? Actually, in the first year or so, I never saw such unemployment. I had quit a job and was looking for another. Employment agencies were standing room only. But then the economy went into an upswing with 4% growth or some ungodly number that we've rarely seen since.

Anyway, at the start, things were tough. The slogan became, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Meaning: Address the problem and fix it. Work harder. Stiffen your resolve.

Now, under the Comrade, the slogan has shifted somewhat. Here are some suggestions:
  • When the going gets tough, find someone else to blame.
  • When the going gets tough, stifle your critics... any way you can.
  • When the going gets tough, pretend it isn't true.
  • When the going gets tough, double down on your happy talk and buzzwords.
  • When the going gets tough, recruit the NFL and NBA to sell your programs.
And the Comrade's favorite:
  • When the going gets tough, take your family on an expensive African vacation.
As anyone who's not brain dead and who has even a slight exposure to the news must be aware, a number of really amazing scandals have erupted over the last couple months. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blowing off events in Benghazi, refusing to defend US interests -- and people -- she deliberately placed in harm's way. The IRS targeting conservative political groups for "special" scrutiny, delaying their ability to present another side in the last campaign -- and generally. The NSA revealed as collecting the records of just about every phone call and possibly email sent anywhere in the world, including those generated by US citizens and residents. The HHS soliciting funds and support from the corporations and organizations it regulates to try to sell socialized medicine.... And I'm sure there's more. Seems to be something vile and nasty under every rock inside the DC Beltway.

Of course, the Comrade had nothing to do with Benghazi -- he was practicing his blackjack game for his trip to Las Vegas and couldn't be bothered. Hillary apparently wasn't overly concerned, either. After all, she'd put a diplomatic outpost in an area that every other civilized nation had abandoned to jihadist terrorists. Probably didn't surprise her that those terrorists took the bait and killed the Americans. But then she fell down, she had a blood clot, she was leaving the State Dept. anyway -- wimp-ass traitor who I wouldn't vote for as dog catcher (I'm against animal cruelty). And what do you want to bet, the dems will nominate her for president in 2016, since they're blind and stupid and, hey, we haven't had a woman president yet. For liberals, political correctness trumps reason and logic every time.

Then regarding the IRS rats' nest, the NSA program, the impending disaster of Obamacare... in his own words, the Comrade has nothing to do with any of this. Hey, he was golfing. You can't expect him to keep track of all this.

Most recently, the Comrade backed himself into a corner with a poseur "red line" about taking action in Syria. After about 100,000 people have been slaughtered in a civil war in Syria, and al-Qaeda has taken up the cudgel against the current, murderously oppressive government -- and after the al-Qaeda faction has executed a Christian priest in Syria -- now the Comrade has agreed to send aid in the form of small arms. What finally pushed him over the edge? The killing of Christians? Good job!

Ed Snowden, who apparently ripped off numerous top secret intelligence stuff and is publishing it through WikiLeaks, finds himself a new and seemingly permanent resident of the Moscow international airport. After feigning attempts to hand over his info to Red China and Russia, he must be a bit disappointed that not a lot of people view him as a hero on the order of that Assange guy. I don't know, do nerdly geeks have to break into secret files to make a name for themselves anymore? Is that was makes them magnets for strippers? What I find most repugnant about Snowden is that he's apparently something of a glory hound, and that a "wolfish appetite for fame" is one of the things that drove him to do whatever's he's done.

But the Comrade isn't overly concerned about Snowden or US security either.

No, the Comrade goes to Goree Island in Senegal for a photo op of himself standing in a tiny cell, his back to the camera, wistfully pondering the unhappy history of slavery.

But the black side of the Comrade's family were never slaves. Never transported to Goree Island and points west. They might have labored under the Brits in colonial Kenya, but they were never worked to death in ore mines in South America or treated like farm animals in the USA. So... is the Comrade just displaying some sort of solidarity with other members of his race? I don't know, but it looks to me like he just wanted to have his picture taken. He just wanted to look "concerned."

Which, plainly, he isn't, given the reality of his circumstances. So much to do in the USA, and he goes to Senegal. Is Senegal a member of NATO? A trade ally? A key regional influence? None of the above. But it has Goree Island.

Then on to South Africa, where the Comrade sought an audience with Nelson Mandela. Mandela is basically a communist. I don't agree with his politics. But the man lived in solitary in a tiny prison cell for decades for standing up to apartheid. He became a focal figure in South African politics and served to drive that nation away from colonialism. He has earned my respect. And he's dying now. Leave him in peace. He doesn't need to be  hounded by a US president seeking a photo op and some sort of redemption for irresponsible half-assedness.

And while the Comrade's in Africa, perhaps he should take a run up to Egypt, where reportedly 17 million people are just now milling in the streets in front of the presidential residence there, trying to dislodge the Muslim Brotherhood's Morsi from office.

Hey, Comrade, why not help them? I mean, why not TRY to do something in the real world?

That would be a "fundamental change," wouldn't it?