Garbanzo Toons

Things I had to Respond to

There were a few articles in today's Free Press that commanded my attention. Usually it's the ridiculous that draws me in and makes the bile rise, but there were some good things too.

First the dumb stuff:

Why is Congress still out to apologize for slavery?

Lawmakers are learning the hard way that trying to apologize for historic injustices isn't as easy as saying sorry.
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Two weeks ago, the Senate passed a resolution calling on the country to apologize formally for more than three centuries of enslavement and segregation of African Americans. Senators thought they had done the right thing.

The feel-good moment was short-lived, however, after several members of the Congressional Black Caucus vowed to fight the measure when it reached the House of Representatives.

They object because it contains a disclaimer saying that the resolution can't be used to support legal claims against the United States by those seeking reparations or cash compensation for the suffering endured by black people.

No apology will ever be enough for some. They will always demand more. We know that. The smartest course in this case is to give them nothing. Encourage them to shut up already. At one time slavery was universal in human society. It was western civilization that fought to end it. The United States fought a war against slavery.

"It opens up a discussion, an opportunity for Americans to start a healing process,"

No it doesn't, it wastes time and energy. It creates demands for something that nobody living today is entitled to. I teach elementary school. Most of my students are black. Until they get to my class and I fill them in on the facts of the history of world-wide slavery, they think that slavery was a uniquely American institution. If our nation hasn't been healed yet, it's due to dopes who insist on continuing the focus on American slavery and its alleged continuing effect on Black Americans. If you read Thomas Sowell though, you can better understand that the current pathologies in the Black community have little to do with the legacy of slavery and everything to do with the breakdown of the family and the insistence on living a self-destructive culture. And why should I pay reparations? While blacks in the south were being used as slaves, my ancestors were being raped and murdered by Cossacks. Obviously, I never met these people, but still - can I have reparations? Since my ancestors suffered, don't I deserve them?

When it comes to political art, it always seems to me to be more politics than art. And the politics expressed are predictably on the left side of the aisle. If that's where your sympathies lie, you can introduce your article with sentences like,

Knit one, purl two. Fight the power.

Lisa Anne Auerbach knits charged political works stitched with slyly provocative slogans. They can be amusing, angry, quirky. One sweater says "My Jewish Grandma is Voting for Obama. Is Yours?" The back says "Chosen People Choose Obama." Another sweater says "When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire." Her "Body Count Mittens" are adorned with casualty figures from Iraq.

Oy vey, another liberal Jew, who, if she were as politically astute as she thinks she is, would never have voted for or supported Obama. And since Obama is the president, what power is she fighting?

For a much better understanding of Obama, Jews, and Israel, read this important piece by Melanie Phillips. (I found it at American Digest.) She gets it. I thought Dershowitz did. It's sad how politics can blind one to reality.

Here is an interesting letter to the Free Press clearly and simply demonstrating the unbreakable (especially when it comes to political solutions) Law of Unintended Consequences:

News of the cash-for-clunkers program is greatly distressing. I am a low-income, single mother with two teenage daughters. One is 17 and is saving up for her first vehicle. She will not be permitted to get her license until she can afford the car. The other is 15 and chomping at the bit already, eager for the independence she will achieve with her own ride.

More than once I have purchased what is being called a "clunker" because it is in the price range I can afford -- both the purchase price and the insurance costs without collision coverage. Several times I have purchased cars whose owners have told me they were asking the price because it was what they could get on a trade-in. What am I to do now that the incentive will be $4,500 for a trade-in on a car that may have been traded in for $1,000 in the past? I can't afford $4,500 for a vehicle.

What you might consider a clunker, I consider affordable transportation.

How many millions of other working poor will be financially slammed by our current one party ruling bodies?

Finally, here is a test. How much do you know about the founding principles of our nation? Just for the record, I scored 8 out of 10.

Labels: American Digest, art, Cash for Clunkers, Detroit Free Press, Jews, Obama, reparations, Thomas Sowell, United States

posted by Harry @ 3:46 PM 5 comments

Reparations? I Want Mine.

Some folks think reparations for slavery are a grand idea. I think it's silly for a number of reasons. William Tucker at The American Enterprise Online has an interesting take on the reparations issue here.

Members of the City Council, I stand before you today to offer you my congratulations for your diligent efforts in ferreting out the past support of slavery by the Wachovia Corporation, the Aetna Insurance Company, and other financial institutions. It is a grim irony that, even today, such corporate entities should still be reaping the benefits from what is without doubt the sorriest chapter of our nation’s history. Not only do your efforts help in setting the historical record straight. They also offer the possibility – through the concept of joint-and-several liability and many other doctrines developed by our nation’s great trial lawyers – that these institutions will at long last be made to pay monetary damages for their past acts.



I would like to direct your attention, however, to an institution with far greater financial resources whose historical role in abetting slavery and resisting its abolition is manifestly clear, yet which, even today, continues to reap benefits from this nefarious record. I speak, of course, of the Democratic Party.



The Democratic Party was, throughout the 19th century, the party of the South and, ipso facto, the Party of Slavery.

Read the whole thing and see how silly the whole idea is.

Of course if this reparations thing catches on, as a Jew, I not only want reparations from Germany (who would have guessed that?), but also Russia and Poland where my ancestors were abused, demeaned, raped, and murdered for their religious beliefs. I also want money from Mongolia. Russia was ruled by the Mongols for about 300 years and we know they raped and pillaged as all barbarian armies do. Looking at old pictures of great grandparents and their families you can see, even after all these generations, the remaining hints of oriental features. In fact, I dare say they show up in my sister.

In order to avenge the indignities for these and other outrages commited against my ancestors over hundreds of years I demand monetary damages. Only then will my family be able to live in peace with Germans, Russians, Poles, and Mongols, and who knows, we may find others who owe me - uh, I mean - us.

Labels: American Enterprise Online, Jews, reparations, William Tucker

posted by Harry @ 8:54 PM 0 comments