Mistuh Whitey gotta call one day ta see what was happ’in’ in Ole Cambridge Town. An he an two uddah guys gots outta dair cah.
An heauh was Ole Mistuh Jungle Bunny, wit one a his buds was usin’ a crowbah ta done breaks open dah front door a Mistuh Bunny’s house, cause dat dum perfessuh done locked hisself outts his house.
An Mistuh Whitey, he say, “Hey der, youn’se guys. Stop whatcha doin’ cause I tink yer doin' somepin wrong.”
An den Ole Mistuh Jungle Bunny, he say, “Who you’s callin ‘Nigguh,' Whitey?”
An Mistuh Whitey he say, “I's not callin' you nigguh, Suh, I jes wanna fine out what's goin' on heauh.”
But Ole Jungle Bunny, he scream, “Nigguh, nigguh. You’se heauh cause you tinks ah’m a nigguh, and--O, Lawd a Mercy!!-- you’s gonna beat me silly wit' dat big stick a yern, ain't ya?”
“Suh, Suh, dat ain’t so. Don’ carries on so’s. I ain’t callin’ you nuttin’. I's not gonna beats ya. I’s jess tryin’ ta figguh out wat all's goin’ on heauh.”
“Der ya’s goes agin, callin' me an dis fine man agin ‘Nigguh,’ a mighty disparagin' term. An I knows you's prob'ly tinkin’ dat dis ting heauh dat I is a holdin' is a ‘Jim Crowe' bah, ain’t ya? You's a mighty wicked racist nigguh hatuh.”
“Suh, y’all are bein’ mighty unpleasant to sum'mon who jess done risked his life ta help perteck dis heauh pro’pty.”
“Dis MINE pro’pty, stupid Whitey, and you’s abusin’ me mighty!” Ole Jungle Bunny scream.
“An,” he continues, “I wants ya ta know, I is frens wit da Pres’dent, da black boy Obama, an' he's a gonna tells you an' da whol' worl' dat you is mudduh-fuckin’ stupid, cuz he’s our’n boy.”
An' Mistuh Whitey was mighty dist'rbed ta fine out dat he wuz bein' called sumpin' he'd nevuh been called befoe: A nigguh hatuh! Why, he'd ain't nevuh done hated no blacks man, EVUH!, let alone uttered da hateful word "nigguh." But 'parently, times dey'd dun changed in d'Obama times. An Whitey hadn't dun kep' up wit da times.
“Whitey, whitey, whitey!” screamed Ole Mistuh Jungle Bunny, “I knows you'uz callin’ me a nigguh, and you’s gonna’ pay fer dis. Y’all don’ know who’s I am, duz ya? Well, lets me tell you. I am da Supreme Jungle Bunny a Harvard, where dey likes my kine, cuz dey’s so guilty. Ha ha, Mistuh Whitey, you done stepped in it dis time, din ya?”
And den da reportuhs from da mainstream media sez, “Well, Harvard can’t poss'bly be no racist place wit' a racist perfessuh,” and so dey begans t'attack Mistuh Whitey fer bein' insens'tive to Ole Mistuh Jungle Bunny, an ole Bunny he jest grinned an' grinned an' grinned.
An' den Bunny he sez, “Whitey, dis heauh nigguh goin' ta make a fortune frum dis heah shoutin' match, an dat’ll teach you’s all ta call me 'Nigguh.'”
And den Ole Mistuh Bunny he jess laff an' laff un'er his breff--"Dem stupid libr'l whities," he sez t'hisself, "dey falls fer dis ev'ry time." An he laff some more. An' he dranks some beer wit da Pres'dent.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Slip of Fools
Years ago, Solomon read a fascinating short story, the name of which eludes me, I’m sorry to say, about a happily married woman whose husband, who loves her dearly, becomes aware that she smells awful. He is totally embarrassed and ashamed by this, but he can’t escape the knowledge that his wife reeks. The wife is, of course, devastated, but soon, the husband can’t smell his wife anymore. It’s not that she no longer stinks; it is that she has absolutely no smell.
The same situation happens with the sound of her voice and the feel of her skin—they become repulsive and then—nothing. Now, the ending of the story reveals what is going on. The wife is a monster who wants to live among regular human beings but can only do so by using the monsters’ supernatural power of distorting the senses of human beings so that reagular people don’t see, hear, smell, feel, or taste what is really there.
This reality-blocking by the monsters works on a short-term basis, but the wife finds out that keeping the illusion going all the time ceases to be possible, so that the husband’s senses have to be destroyed. So, in trying to keep the husband’s love, she becomes totally lost to him, for he cannot love that which she actually is and she can no longer sustain her illusions that she has imposed on his senses.
Now, I’ll bet you are wondering where this is going. Telling the plot of a story that doesn’t make some point is akin to recounting the story of a dream you’ve had—it’s a practice not to be endured.
Well, Solomon does have a reason for recounting this story, for last night we saw the slipping of the mask string from off President Obama’s prodigious monkey ears. One word slipped out from behind the carefully crafted and guarded illusion that is this strange non-man, and that word reverberated as none before has. The word he said was “stupidly.”
The reference was to his opinion of the behavior of a white policeman toward a black professor—even though Obama said he didn’t know any of the facts of the case! Yet, according to Obama, letting free a deeply suppressed personal truth, the white cop was stupid, racist, and clearly wrong, and the black was clearly innocent and a victim of police brutality and racial profiling.
That one word--stupidly--so powerfully revealed Obama’s racist view of whites that his handlers had to tell the American people through his spokesman Robert Gibbs that what they had heard was not what they had heard. Their contention: He did not say that.
Amazing!
Now you can see the relation between what the President did and the story. We are living with an incredibly vile monster masquerading as one of us, but he can’t keep the illusion of his otherness hidden forever. The mask will slip, and each time it will reveal something uglier and uglier, and so the American people will have to have their senses eliminated by the useful idiots of the sycophantic White House Press Corps, who are committed to maintaining the illusion at all costs—even at the cost of their own careers and reputations.
Obama does not speak for himself. There is a cabal of Jews pulling his strings (the veracity for this assertion comes from no less an authoritative expert on Obama than the Reverend (cough, cough) Jeremiah Wright!) who, literally, dictate every word that comes out of his mouth. These people dare not let the Monkey God speak for himself, for he is unable to couch the hateful ideology in words that sound soft, nonthreatening, and silkily sensible. Obama can't speak as well as the whites can, so they pen his every word. Do you wonder what Obama must feel knowing that his every thought is coming from white guys, Jewish white guys? Think he might be harboring a little . . . I don't know . . .HOSTILITY!!!???
Well, the truth of Obama’s and his fellow travelers' ideology is that it is an abomination, a stinking, rotten assault on liberty and goodness, no less an anathema that Nazism, which it so closely resembles.
But the slick words that roll across the teleprompters’ glass faces belie the speaker’s (and his handlers') true intents and views. Obama is not capable of scripting these words, just reading them. And if the teleprompter goes out, if for a moment the Bamster must speak his own words, the mask he continually must wear slips dramatically, as it did at his fiasco of a health care press conference.
And the full ugly comes out, like what would happen if Medusa adjusts her bathing cap--"Oh My God! What's tha..." Obama--the white-hating racist, the cop-hating community activist, the truth-hating communist--the REAL Obama, came rearing out with a speed and venom that made even the press corps recoil in horror. Is that a "stony" silence I hear?
“Could that really be OUR Bamster who just said that?” they had to be asking themselves. David Axelrod, the Bamster’s Edgar Bergen, must have been behind the screen slapping his vast and increasing forehead while silently screaming, “Dear God, NOOOOoooooooo!”
But there it was for all to see and hear. And the next day, unexpectedly, Democratic leaders said they were--ahem--postponing, delaying any further health care votes. Hmmmm. Do you think they recognized that perhaps their Monkey God had been too obviously, and perhaps irretrievably, revealed as the Manchurian Candidate? Were the rats suddenly taking a few strong frantic backstrokes away from what might be a sinking ship?
The kindly Monkey God suddenly had shown himself to have an ugly appetite for hatred and evil. The stench of rotten teeth and putrefying entrails burst forth and filled the room and could not be disguised.
Humpty Dumpty fooled us all,
By looking stern and standing tall,
And speaking words not his at all.
But Humpty Dumpty squeezed his heart,
And stinkingly, like long-held fart,
Out “Stupidly” he hurled. Not smart.
Obama and his peeps should know that people can’t be made to fall in love twice with the same person. And you cannot forgive those whom you do not love. That slip of the mask is going to cost him, well, I hope, everything.
The same situation happens with the sound of her voice and the feel of her skin—they become repulsive and then—nothing. Now, the ending of the story reveals what is going on. The wife is a monster who wants to live among regular human beings but can only do so by using the monsters’ supernatural power of distorting the senses of human beings so that reagular people don’t see, hear, smell, feel, or taste what is really there.
This reality-blocking by the monsters works on a short-term basis, but the wife finds out that keeping the illusion going all the time ceases to be possible, so that the husband’s senses have to be destroyed. So, in trying to keep the husband’s love, she becomes totally lost to him, for he cannot love that which she actually is and she can no longer sustain her illusions that she has imposed on his senses.
Now, I’ll bet you are wondering where this is going. Telling the plot of a story that doesn’t make some point is akin to recounting the story of a dream you’ve had—it’s a practice not to be endured.
Well, Solomon does have a reason for recounting this story, for last night we saw the slipping of the mask string from off President Obama’s prodigious monkey ears. One word slipped out from behind the carefully crafted and guarded illusion that is this strange non-man, and that word reverberated as none before has. The word he said was “stupidly.”
The reference was to his opinion of the behavior of a white policeman toward a black professor—even though Obama said he didn’t know any of the facts of the case! Yet, according to Obama, letting free a deeply suppressed personal truth, the white cop was stupid, racist, and clearly wrong, and the black was clearly innocent and a victim of police brutality and racial profiling.
That one word--stupidly--so powerfully revealed Obama’s racist view of whites that his handlers had to tell the American people through his spokesman Robert Gibbs that what they had heard was not what they had heard. Their contention: He did not say that.
Amazing!
Now you can see the relation between what the President did and the story. We are living with an incredibly vile monster masquerading as one of us, but he can’t keep the illusion of his otherness hidden forever. The mask will slip, and each time it will reveal something uglier and uglier, and so the American people will have to have their senses eliminated by the useful idiots of the sycophantic White House Press Corps, who are committed to maintaining the illusion at all costs—even at the cost of their own careers and reputations.
Obama does not speak for himself. There is a cabal of Jews pulling his strings (the veracity for this assertion comes from no less an authoritative expert on Obama than the Reverend (cough, cough) Jeremiah Wright!) who, literally, dictate every word that comes out of his mouth. These people dare not let the Monkey God speak for himself, for he is unable to couch the hateful ideology in words that sound soft, nonthreatening, and silkily sensible. Obama can't speak as well as the whites can, so they pen his every word. Do you wonder what Obama must feel knowing that his every thought is coming from white guys, Jewish white guys? Think he might be harboring a little . . . I don't know . . .HOSTILITY!!!???
Well, the truth of Obama’s and his fellow travelers' ideology is that it is an abomination, a stinking, rotten assault on liberty and goodness, no less an anathema that Nazism, which it so closely resembles.
But the slick words that roll across the teleprompters’ glass faces belie the speaker’s (and his handlers') true intents and views. Obama is not capable of scripting these words, just reading them. And if the teleprompter goes out, if for a moment the Bamster must speak his own words, the mask he continually must wear slips dramatically, as it did at his fiasco of a health care press conference.
And the full ugly comes out, like what would happen if Medusa adjusts her bathing cap--"Oh My God! What's tha..." Obama--the white-hating racist, the cop-hating community activist, the truth-hating communist--the REAL Obama, came rearing out with a speed and venom that made even the press corps recoil in horror. Is that a "stony" silence I hear?
“Could that really be OUR Bamster who just said that?” they had to be asking themselves. David Axelrod, the Bamster’s Edgar Bergen, must have been behind the screen slapping his vast and increasing forehead while silently screaming, “Dear God, NOOOOoooooooo!”
But there it was for all to see and hear. And the next day, unexpectedly, Democratic leaders said they were--ahem--postponing, delaying any further health care votes. Hmmmm. Do you think they recognized that perhaps their Monkey God had been too obviously, and perhaps irretrievably, revealed as the Manchurian Candidate? Were the rats suddenly taking a few strong frantic backstrokes away from what might be a sinking ship?
The kindly Monkey God suddenly had shown himself to have an ugly appetite for hatred and evil. The stench of rotten teeth and putrefying entrails burst forth and filled the room and could not be disguised.
Humpty Dumpty fooled us all,
By looking stern and standing tall,
And speaking words not his at all.
But Humpty Dumpty squeezed his heart,
And stinkingly, like long-held fart,
Out “Stupidly” he hurled. Not smart.
Obama and his peeps should know that people can’t be made to fall in love twice with the same person. And you cannot forgive those whom you do not love. That slip of the mask is going to cost him, well, I hope, everything.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Beggars Beware
Charity invariably ends up reinforcing the axiom, “No good deed will go unpunished.”
Charity is doing for others what they should have done for themselves but were too lazy to do so.
Charity is false compassion. Real compassion helps people in need; charity (false compassion) helps people stay in need. Poverty is not a shame—it’s a disgrace. Any man who allows his children to wallow in the indignities of poverty is no man at all. He is a selfish boy with an itch and sperm.
Anyone who gives money to help people who cannot/will not control their lives is contributing to continuing the pain that is caused by this lack of control. True charity means taking the children away from the poor and doing something useful and productive with them. Then, take the people who produced the child and failed to take adequate care of him/her and confine them to hard labor, deprivation, and torment.
Human beings who are starving are a disgrace to reason. There is only one thing that separates us from the lower orders and that is reason. Therefore, human beings who fail to uphold their mandate to be noble need to be disposed of.
They are an affront to all that our Creator meant for us, and our Creator would surely applaud our use of reason to rid the world of those who were a pollution.
Make no mistake—the poor are pollution of the worst kind, unless they are made poor by powers of the reasonable. If the playing field is reasonably level, then poverty is a choice, not an imposition nor an inevitability.
Having less than another is not poverty. Having less than is needed IS poverty. If opportunities abound for one to have enough of what is needed for survival, then poverty is to be punished, not pitied.
Ridding the world of those who refuse to work hard enough and smart enough to keep them and their offspring out of poverty, is incumbent upon those of us who do what is necessary to prevent this slip into the slime.
Reason comes with a price; poverty comes with an excuse.
Quite frankly, the way things are going now must be ended. The poor are not paying the price that their poverty exacts upon society. They, not the rich, should be taxed and beaten into economic oblivion. The poor are a blot upon the Creator’s creation.
If arrogance results from achievement, and that arrogance results in a willful, deliberate state of inflexible social position, then of course reason is to be held in contempt. But, make not mistake, it is the individual who should be held in contempt, not reason itself.
The possession of reason does not preclude the desire for arrogant dominance. As a matter of fact, reason allows us to see that dominance without merit is possible, if force (be it physical or legal) is brought to bear.
Those were the French aristocrats who were summarily executed by the very Age of Reason they propagated. The ironies of the French Revolution are such that the arrogant of our own age should be wary of surviving on and trading on their own arrogance.
Enforced poverty is a condition that excuses violence to overthrow the “haves.” But poverty that exists in a social milieu that allows ascensions and declines by merit is just willful negligence and dereliction by the parties involved.
The poor, in that situation, sould be punished for being poor. Charity merely rewards them for being losers.
So let us not let our reason and our judgment be clouded by our emotions. The truly inferior should be treated with disdain, when the inferior are blessed with reason. This is why animals must be protected by those of us with reason. But we should spit on those with reason who refuse to use it.
Animals, in that regard, are morally superior to human beings who choose to be losers. Human beings who are poor should be eliminated from the human scene, not fed and nourished and allowed to continue.
Compassion must be limited to those who are truly helpless or are truly inferior. I’ve no time for false charity that encourages the able-bodied and able-minded among us.
Important Note: When I say "eliminated" and such, I am NOT advocating killing those people. However, I do not have a problem with rounding them up and restricting their freedoms.
Charity is doing for others what they should have done for themselves but were too lazy to do so.
Charity is false compassion. Real compassion helps people in need; charity (false compassion) helps people stay in need. Poverty is not a shame—it’s a disgrace. Any man who allows his children to wallow in the indignities of poverty is no man at all. He is a selfish boy with an itch and sperm.
Anyone who gives money to help people who cannot/will not control their lives is contributing to continuing the pain that is caused by this lack of control. True charity means taking the children away from the poor and doing something useful and productive with them. Then, take the people who produced the child and failed to take adequate care of him/her and confine them to hard labor, deprivation, and torment.
Human beings who are starving are a disgrace to reason. There is only one thing that separates us from the lower orders and that is reason. Therefore, human beings who fail to uphold their mandate to be noble need to be disposed of.
They are an affront to all that our Creator meant for us, and our Creator would surely applaud our use of reason to rid the world of those who were a pollution.
Make no mistake—the poor are pollution of the worst kind, unless they are made poor by powers of the reasonable. If the playing field is reasonably level, then poverty is a choice, not an imposition nor an inevitability.
Having less than another is not poverty. Having less than is needed IS poverty. If opportunities abound for one to have enough of what is needed for survival, then poverty is to be punished, not pitied.
Ridding the world of those who refuse to work hard enough and smart enough to keep them and their offspring out of poverty, is incumbent upon those of us who do what is necessary to prevent this slip into the slime.
Reason comes with a price; poverty comes with an excuse.
Quite frankly, the way things are going now must be ended. The poor are not paying the price that their poverty exacts upon society. They, not the rich, should be taxed and beaten into economic oblivion. The poor are a blot upon the Creator’s creation.
If arrogance results from achievement, and that arrogance results in a willful, deliberate state of inflexible social position, then of course reason is to be held in contempt. But, make not mistake, it is the individual who should be held in contempt, not reason itself.
The possession of reason does not preclude the desire for arrogant dominance. As a matter of fact, reason allows us to see that dominance without merit is possible, if force (be it physical or legal) is brought to bear.
Those were the French aristocrats who were summarily executed by the very Age of Reason they propagated. The ironies of the French Revolution are such that the arrogant of our own age should be wary of surviving on and trading on their own arrogance.
Enforced poverty is a condition that excuses violence to overthrow the “haves.” But poverty that exists in a social milieu that allows ascensions and declines by merit is just willful negligence and dereliction by the parties involved.
The poor, in that situation, sould be punished for being poor. Charity merely rewards them for being losers.
So let us not let our reason and our judgment be clouded by our emotions. The truly inferior should be treated with disdain, when the inferior are blessed with reason. This is why animals must be protected by those of us with reason. But we should spit on those with reason who refuse to use it.
Animals, in that regard, are morally superior to human beings who choose to be losers. Human beings who are poor should be eliminated from the human scene, not fed and nourished and allowed to continue.
Compassion must be limited to those who are truly helpless or are truly inferior. I’ve no time for false charity that encourages the able-bodied and able-minded among us.
Important Note: When I say "eliminated" and such, I am NOT advocating killing those people. However, I do not have a problem with rounding them up and restricting their freedoms.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Lord Jesus, I Am Comin' Home at Last! And with Big Bucks in My Pocket!
Reparations—that bugaboo that raises its rambunctious head every few years. Political perceptions of blacks by themselves and by non-blacks wax and wane in favor of and against this chimera as the zeitgeist dictates--sometimes it looks like the morally expedient thing to do, then it morphs into something morally repugnant, and soon it is seen as a thing that is morally unconscionable in either the affirmative or the negative, and in a tight election race, it is a thing that is morally incumbent.
Reparations for slavery are filaments of political exhalations that ebb and flow and blow in the wind like wispy grasses. Yet regardless of how these winds blow, reparations are a monster for those who would fight them, for those who would defend them, and for those who would ride them.
Now, as any student of monster literature knows (and monsters have been the mother's milk of literature since before writing appeared), monsters are not easily dispatched and are certainly not put out of commission by being fed and coddled.
Like all frightful monsters, this one must be dealt with in a once-and-for-all manner, or, as any reader of literature and/or watcher of monster movies can readily attest, the villagers will never have peace.
Thus it is with reparations. So Solomon is here neither to condemn nor to embrace reparations but rather to provide a means for everyone to escape the talons of the beast. For ever.
Granting monetary reparations for slavery to people who never were themselves slaves does seem bizarre and unwarranted. Paying monetary reparations does no good to assuage whatever guilt a situation contains if the money is given to people who experienced no wrong. All this would do is to enflame greed on the part of receivers and resentment on the part of payers, who did no wrong either.
Will we all agree that there are no people living who were slaves or who were slave owners? Good. Then all aggrieved parties and all guilty parties have gone to a state where our reparations will neither hurt nor assuage.
My family did not own slaves and were actually against the peculiar institution, so my paying makes no sense, but if I were forced to pay, what's to prevent future generations of blacks to keep coming back to the trough that is my family's income time and again? If I paid current black people, none of whom I have wronged and none of whom were ever wronged personally, the monster, in short, would still exist. Why should blacks at the beginning of the 21st Century be entitled to money when those who came before weren’t and those who come after won’t? Makes no sense. If this whitey pays, then why shouldn't my children, and their children, etc. pay constantly too?
No, one-time payments will never do. Repeated payments will never do. Unless…
Yes, there must be a condition that ends everything. And here it is: Every black American who can prove that his ancestors were slaves in America before 1865 is entitled to one reparation payment—with condition. The payment would be $100,000; the threefold condition is that he or she will board a plane, with a one-way ticket, for Africa; that his/her American citizenship be irrevocably surrendered; and that he or she be forbidden to return--ever--to American soil.
Any black who refuses to accept this condition forfeits the chance to ever get reparations ever again for himself or any of his descendants. Future generations who are resentful that they are still living in America because some ancestor chose not to take the deal are out of luck. I guess they are cursed to be Americans for the rest of their lives, or at least without any financial incentive to give up that onerous burden.
Every black American living as of a particular date (to be determined) who can prove that his ancestors were indeed enslaved will have a one-week window to make the final decision. Those eighteen and older will decide for themselves. Those under eighteen, alas, must abide by their fathers’ decision. If no father can be found for a black child (most unlikely, of course), then the default position will be that the child would want to get the money and go back to Africa and will be sent to Africa with a US check for 100k, making his/her adoption extremely likely.
So there it is, a take-it-or-leave-it deal that compensates all aggrieved black parties if they so choose and that will be a stake in the heart of the Reparations Monster for all time for those who must pay. Everyone should be, if not jubilantly happy, somewhat mollified. Slave descendants can start a new and, one hopes, prosperous life in the continent from which their ancestors were ripped, and slave descendants who choose to stay will be announcing that they are committed to being Americans without any grievance against white people that must be remunerated. Harmony will prevail in all corners of the world! Praise Jesus!
Except, Solomon suspects, there will probably be those who take the deal and find out that there are worse places than America in which to live. Oh, how full of rue are those who choose to sell themselves for transient indulgence.
The story of Africa, I believe.
Reparations for slavery are filaments of political exhalations that ebb and flow and blow in the wind like wispy grasses. Yet regardless of how these winds blow, reparations are a monster for those who would fight them, for those who would defend them, and for those who would ride them.
Now, as any student of monster literature knows (and monsters have been the mother's milk of literature since before writing appeared), monsters are not easily dispatched and are certainly not put out of commission by being fed and coddled.
Like all frightful monsters, this one must be dealt with in a once-and-for-all manner, or, as any reader of literature and/or watcher of monster movies can readily attest, the villagers will never have peace.
Thus it is with reparations. So Solomon is here neither to condemn nor to embrace reparations but rather to provide a means for everyone to escape the talons of the beast. For ever.
Granting monetary reparations for slavery to people who never were themselves slaves does seem bizarre and unwarranted. Paying monetary reparations does no good to assuage whatever guilt a situation contains if the money is given to people who experienced no wrong. All this would do is to enflame greed on the part of receivers and resentment on the part of payers, who did no wrong either.
Will we all agree that there are no people living who were slaves or who were slave owners? Good. Then all aggrieved parties and all guilty parties have gone to a state where our reparations will neither hurt nor assuage.
My family did not own slaves and were actually against the peculiar institution, so my paying makes no sense, but if I were forced to pay, what's to prevent future generations of blacks to keep coming back to the trough that is my family's income time and again? If I paid current black people, none of whom I have wronged and none of whom were ever wronged personally, the monster, in short, would still exist. Why should blacks at the beginning of the 21st Century be entitled to money when those who came before weren’t and those who come after won’t? Makes no sense. If this whitey pays, then why shouldn't my children, and their children, etc. pay constantly too?
No, one-time payments will never do. Repeated payments will never do. Unless…
Yes, there must be a condition that ends everything. And here it is: Every black American who can prove that his ancestors were slaves in America before 1865 is entitled to one reparation payment—with condition. The payment would be $100,000; the threefold condition is that he or she will board a plane, with a one-way ticket, for Africa; that his/her American citizenship be irrevocably surrendered; and that he or she be forbidden to return--ever--to American soil.
Any black who refuses to accept this condition forfeits the chance to ever get reparations ever again for himself or any of his descendants. Future generations who are resentful that they are still living in America because some ancestor chose not to take the deal are out of luck. I guess they are cursed to be Americans for the rest of their lives, or at least without any financial incentive to give up that onerous burden.
Every black American living as of a particular date (to be determined) who can prove that his ancestors were indeed enslaved will have a one-week window to make the final decision. Those eighteen and older will decide for themselves. Those under eighteen, alas, must abide by their fathers’ decision. If no father can be found for a black child (most unlikely, of course), then the default position will be that the child would want to get the money and go back to Africa and will be sent to Africa with a US check for 100k, making his/her adoption extremely likely.
So there it is, a take-it-or-leave-it deal that compensates all aggrieved black parties if they so choose and that will be a stake in the heart of the Reparations Monster for all time for those who must pay. Everyone should be, if not jubilantly happy, somewhat mollified. Slave descendants can start a new and, one hopes, prosperous life in the continent from which their ancestors were ripped, and slave descendants who choose to stay will be announcing that they are committed to being Americans without any grievance against white people that must be remunerated. Harmony will prevail in all corners of the world! Praise Jesus!
Except, Solomon suspects, there will probably be those who take the deal and find out that there are worse places than America in which to live. Oh, how full of rue are those who choose to sell themselves for transient indulgence.
The story of Africa, I believe.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The Secret Service of San Bernardino
We recently had a senseless murder in the park up the street from me where I take my dogs every day to run. When it happened, fifteen city police cars showed up, all frantic to lock the barn door now that the horse had run away. Note I say "cars" showed up, not policemen. For "cars" is all we know of our police here, and I think many of you probably have a similar situation in your communities.
Well, Solomon got his dander up and began a letter to his Councilman with a lengthy run-down of the problem and a common-sense approach to making things better. Now, Solomon realizes that changing the direction and nature of a government entity is tantamount to changing the course of a glacier with a hair dryer, so he has little hope that anything other than a fire bombing of my home by the union will occur. However, I strongly believe that the police as currently constituted in most places in this country are really rotten and despicable.
So, friends, please feel free to use this tome in your own approach to your own police department. Friendly plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery for a blogger.
Dear Councilman—At our Fourth of July picnic, the subject came up of the San Bernardino Police Force, and the resulting conversation gave a very unflattering (and unanimous) view of this organization. When so many respectable people have such a negative perception of such an important civic branch, I think the powers that be must sit up and pay close attention. Not only should the police be informed of the low esteem in which they’re held; they should be required to demonstrably make changes in the way they do business.
The perception of the SBPD is that they are an arrogant, anonymous, invisible, and ineffective (possibly corrupt) cadre of men and women who only pay lip service to their commitment to the safety of San Bernardino. Their only real commitment seems to be ensuring that they can retire early with a full pension and receive an additional disability benefit. Their union’s constant whining about contract issues and the union’s infantile response to every demand put on them show that this group of men and women has no allegiance to this city. Every time the union gets its feelings hurt, policemen begin sending out flurries of applications for new jobs. One has only to recall that airplane banner being flaunted over the Route 66 festivities last fall to get the real picture of SBPD. It’s all about THEM.
Councilman, I want you to know that I fully share in this negative view of the SBPD, and I am not some drug-dealing malcontent who’s got a bone to pick over some perceived slight. The police have never “picked” on me, stopped me, ticketed me, or in any way personally offended me. However, I feel the police in this city are particularly ineffective in those areas that are most important (explained below) and are, by their present operating methods, actually encouraging a lawless, out-of-control city.
First, let’s address the issue of “anonymity.” The fact that I have never, in my twenty-two year residency here, known a single policeman galls me. At the party, I found out that I am not alone in not knowing the name of a single policeman. No one at our party knew one policeman. Further, if the police were questioned about me, not one of them could say who I was or would know anything about me. Why, the SBPD might as well be Secret Service operatives the way they keep from having anyone know them.
Now, when a person goes to a school, medical office, restaurant, auto dealer/repair, bar, veterinarian office, post office, barbershop, etc,--in other words, when we interact with any place that provides us services large and small—we want to be recognized. Recognition is a sign of respect on the part of the service provider. Nonrecognition is a sign of arrogant disrespect or, at best, lack of concern.
The police are removed from those they serve, and they do everything to keep it that way. They are NEVER out of their precious cars; when they drive by (always at high speeds), the windows are always up; when they have occasion to get out of their cars, they talk only to each other and only the necessary witnesses, but they never go beyond themselves or just the job. In short, they avoid the law-abiding citizens at all costs. And this is because their whole mind-set is to chase perpetrators, not to patrol streets to make a presence that prevents crime.
Areas that are patrolled regularly by police are almost entirely crime free, so failing to patrol regularly is a statement to the public that the police care more about actually having crime than in having a peaceful city. Crime is their adrenaline rush; peace is boring and routine. Well, we want to live in a peaceful city that operates in a routine and perhaps boring way. But that’s not what we have.
To solve this really bad situation, the police need to stop spouting “community policing” and actually start policing the community. They can do this by actually patrolling every area of the city regularly and religiously. The city should be divided into ten precincts with six officers assigned for three years to a particular precinct. No able-bodied officer will be sitting in the office. They’ll be on the streets, getting out of their cars, talking amiably to people in their areas, driving slowly with windows down, getting to know who’s who and what’s what.
It is no laughing matter that ice cream vendors know more about areas and people of San Bernardino than do the police! That there is never a presence in areas until a crime is committed (think about the recent murder in Blair Park, for example) actually encourages crimes to occur! Do you think that the Blair Park murder would have happened as it did if everybody involved knew that the police came by periodically?
But they don’t come by anywhere periodically. The only time they come by is when they’re headed to something that interests them more than the lives of ordinary San Bernardino residents.
Now, if the police don’t like being part of full-time patrol and want more excitement, by all means let them leave and let’s not plead with them to stay. There are too many qualified men and women who can do this kind of police work whom we can hire. We don’t need any policeman who fancies himself some elite member of a band-of-brothers, thinks of himself as a hot-shot, or sees himself as Dirty Harry-in-Berdoo.
Second, to end the anonymity of police, the officers assigned to an area should be well known to the citizenry by means of periodic fliers with their pictures, access numbers, and bios. These fliers should be delivered door-to-door, by the actual police, every six months to every residence and business within their purview.
Third, having police who are associated with and connected to particular areas will act as a crime deterrent by allowing and encouraging the police to use their competitive spirit to see that their particular areas is the most peaceful. People who go into law enforcement are, by their very natures, highly competitive individuals—but their most satisfying glory should not come from using guns and force and high-risk chases but rather in how few crimes are actually committed on their watch.
I’m afraid that the police will give every excuse they can conjure to avoid going this route [“We know more about crime that you citizens do.” “You don’t understand the nature of the jobs we do.” “We’re required to do paper work.” “We have to respond to emergencies.” “This isn’t the way it’s been done in this city. It won’t work in San Bernardino.” “You people don’t appreciate what we do for you.” “We lay our lives on the line every day for this city.” The excuses will be impassioned and legion, but they will be just that—excuses. Certainly, we do appreciate it that they catch criminals when they have to and we do appreciate the bravery they must exhibit in the face of dangerous situations, but these things don’t have anything to do with 95% of the citizens of San Bernardino.]
What they are doing isn’t working well in preventing crime, and what they’re doing certainly isn’t going down well with the majority of the respectable people in this community. No one knows or likes the police, and isn’t that a terrible situation?! Perhaps they are doing a respectable job after crimes have been committed (and there is some doubt here, as well), but the SBPD have a terrible PR problem.
Now, Councilman, I think it’s the city’s elected leaders that must force change upon the police department and make them start answering some hard questions. I believe a place to get started is to have a survey given to the people concerning attitudes toward their police. I believe that the results will startle everyone into a rude awakening.
Then, I believe a citizens’ commission should be formed and empowered to force changes upon the police to provide a more responsive and a more effective organization and to provide a safer city—but that does not mean having the police go on more crime pursuits. It means having them become a quotidian presence in everyone’s lives. One can go days, weeks, without ever seeing a policeman (actually, a police car); this should change to the point that everyone should see a policeman every day, perhaps several times a day, near his/her home/business.
The police and the people of the city must share the same vision of the mission of the police department, but as it is now, the police have one view (catching wrong-doers) and the public another (feeling secure in their daily lives). It seems as if the police believe that fear of policemen will stop crime, but I’m afraid it is a contemptuous fear, engendered and inflamed by such things as seeing police sitting at the Sons of the Golden West Parlor to play “gotcha” with people making right turns on red, not promoting safety but helping the city extort money from its citizens. When a policeman goes up to talk to a group of young people, you can bet they feel (probably correctly) that they’re about to be hassled and suspected of plotting wrong-doing.
The teachers with the best-controlled classes are not those who are the most intimidating, not the loudest, not the most threatening. They are ones who are calm, consistent, and constantly in contact with their students. Friendly, approachable, but ultimately in perfect control. That’s what police can and should be.
Common Sense: We treat strangers much worse than we treat acquaintances. Our police force are strangers to us all, as are we to them. This situation can and should be changed.
Sincerely,
Solomon Slade
Well, Solomon got his dander up and began a letter to his Councilman with a lengthy run-down of the problem and a common-sense approach to making things better. Now, Solomon realizes that changing the direction and nature of a government entity is tantamount to changing the course of a glacier with a hair dryer, so he has little hope that anything other than a fire bombing of my home by the union will occur. However, I strongly believe that the police as currently constituted in most places in this country are really rotten and despicable.
So, friends, please feel free to use this tome in your own approach to your own police department. Friendly plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery for a blogger.
Dear Councilman—At our Fourth of July picnic, the subject came up of the San Bernardino Police Force, and the resulting conversation gave a very unflattering (and unanimous) view of this organization. When so many respectable people have such a negative perception of such an important civic branch, I think the powers that be must sit up and pay close attention. Not only should the police be informed of the low esteem in which they’re held; they should be required to demonstrably make changes in the way they do business.
The perception of the SBPD is that they are an arrogant, anonymous, invisible, and ineffective (possibly corrupt) cadre of men and women who only pay lip service to their commitment to the safety of San Bernardino. Their only real commitment seems to be ensuring that they can retire early with a full pension and receive an additional disability benefit. Their union’s constant whining about contract issues and the union’s infantile response to every demand put on them show that this group of men and women has no allegiance to this city. Every time the union gets its feelings hurt, policemen begin sending out flurries of applications for new jobs. One has only to recall that airplane banner being flaunted over the Route 66 festivities last fall to get the real picture of SBPD. It’s all about THEM.
Councilman, I want you to know that I fully share in this negative view of the SBPD, and I am not some drug-dealing malcontent who’s got a bone to pick over some perceived slight. The police have never “picked” on me, stopped me, ticketed me, or in any way personally offended me. However, I feel the police in this city are particularly ineffective in those areas that are most important (explained below) and are, by their present operating methods, actually encouraging a lawless, out-of-control city.
First, let’s address the issue of “anonymity.” The fact that I have never, in my twenty-two year residency here, known a single policeman galls me. At the party, I found out that I am not alone in not knowing the name of a single policeman. No one at our party knew one policeman. Further, if the police were questioned about me, not one of them could say who I was or would know anything about me. Why, the SBPD might as well be Secret Service operatives the way they keep from having anyone know them.
Now, when a person goes to a school, medical office, restaurant, auto dealer/repair, bar, veterinarian office, post office, barbershop, etc,--in other words, when we interact with any place that provides us services large and small—we want to be recognized. Recognition is a sign of respect on the part of the service provider. Nonrecognition is a sign of arrogant disrespect or, at best, lack of concern.
The police are removed from those they serve, and they do everything to keep it that way. They are NEVER out of their precious cars; when they drive by (always at high speeds), the windows are always up; when they have occasion to get out of their cars, they talk only to each other and only the necessary witnesses, but they never go beyond themselves or just the job. In short, they avoid the law-abiding citizens at all costs. And this is because their whole mind-set is to chase perpetrators, not to patrol streets to make a presence that prevents crime.
Areas that are patrolled regularly by police are almost entirely crime free, so failing to patrol regularly is a statement to the public that the police care more about actually having crime than in having a peaceful city. Crime is their adrenaline rush; peace is boring and routine. Well, we want to live in a peaceful city that operates in a routine and perhaps boring way. But that’s not what we have.
To solve this really bad situation, the police need to stop spouting “community policing” and actually start policing the community. They can do this by actually patrolling every area of the city regularly and religiously. The city should be divided into ten precincts with six officers assigned for three years to a particular precinct. No able-bodied officer will be sitting in the office. They’ll be on the streets, getting out of their cars, talking amiably to people in their areas, driving slowly with windows down, getting to know who’s who and what’s what.
It is no laughing matter that ice cream vendors know more about areas and people of San Bernardino than do the police! That there is never a presence in areas until a crime is committed (think about the recent murder in Blair Park, for example) actually encourages crimes to occur! Do you think that the Blair Park murder would have happened as it did if everybody involved knew that the police came by periodically?
But they don’t come by anywhere periodically. The only time they come by is when they’re headed to something that interests them more than the lives of ordinary San Bernardino residents.
Now, if the police don’t like being part of full-time patrol and want more excitement, by all means let them leave and let’s not plead with them to stay. There are too many qualified men and women who can do this kind of police work whom we can hire. We don’t need any policeman who fancies himself some elite member of a band-of-brothers, thinks of himself as a hot-shot, or sees himself as Dirty Harry-in-Berdoo.
Second, to end the anonymity of police, the officers assigned to an area should be well known to the citizenry by means of periodic fliers with their pictures, access numbers, and bios. These fliers should be delivered door-to-door, by the actual police, every six months to every residence and business within their purview.
Third, having police who are associated with and connected to particular areas will act as a crime deterrent by allowing and encouraging the police to use their competitive spirit to see that their particular areas is the most peaceful. People who go into law enforcement are, by their very natures, highly competitive individuals—but their most satisfying glory should not come from using guns and force and high-risk chases but rather in how few crimes are actually committed on their watch.
I’m afraid that the police will give every excuse they can conjure to avoid going this route [“We know more about crime that you citizens do.” “You don’t understand the nature of the jobs we do.” “We’re required to do paper work.” “We have to respond to emergencies.” “This isn’t the way it’s been done in this city. It won’t work in San Bernardino.” “You people don’t appreciate what we do for you.” “We lay our lives on the line every day for this city.” The excuses will be impassioned and legion, but they will be just that—excuses. Certainly, we do appreciate it that they catch criminals when they have to and we do appreciate the bravery they must exhibit in the face of dangerous situations, but these things don’t have anything to do with 95% of the citizens of San Bernardino.]
What they are doing isn’t working well in preventing crime, and what they’re doing certainly isn’t going down well with the majority of the respectable people in this community. No one knows or likes the police, and isn’t that a terrible situation?! Perhaps they are doing a respectable job after crimes have been committed (and there is some doubt here, as well), but the SBPD have a terrible PR problem.
Now, Councilman, I think it’s the city’s elected leaders that must force change upon the police department and make them start answering some hard questions. I believe a place to get started is to have a survey given to the people concerning attitudes toward their police. I believe that the results will startle everyone into a rude awakening.
Then, I believe a citizens’ commission should be formed and empowered to force changes upon the police to provide a more responsive and a more effective organization and to provide a safer city—but that does not mean having the police go on more crime pursuits. It means having them become a quotidian presence in everyone’s lives. One can go days, weeks, without ever seeing a policeman (actually, a police car); this should change to the point that everyone should see a policeman every day, perhaps several times a day, near his/her home/business.
The police and the people of the city must share the same vision of the mission of the police department, but as it is now, the police have one view (catching wrong-doers) and the public another (feeling secure in their daily lives). It seems as if the police believe that fear of policemen will stop crime, but I’m afraid it is a contemptuous fear, engendered and inflamed by such things as seeing police sitting at the Sons of the Golden West Parlor to play “gotcha” with people making right turns on red, not promoting safety but helping the city extort money from its citizens. When a policeman goes up to talk to a group of young people, you can bet they feel (probably correctly) that they’re about to be hassled and suspected of plotting wrong-doing.
The teachers with the best-controlled classes are not those who are the most intimidating, not the loudest, not the most threatening. They are ones who are calm, consistent, and constantly in contact with their students. Friendly, approachable, but ultimately in perfect control. That’s what police can and should be.
Common Sense: We treat strangers much worse than we treat acquaintances. Our police force are strangers to us all, as are we to them. This situation can and should be changed.
Sincerely,
Solomon Slade
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