Reflections  

Jax v. LAX — On April 17th, Jesse Jackson was interviewed on CNN about the Duke lacrosse rape case. He claimed the case demonstrated the classic white male fantasy of having a black woman in sexual servitude, a fantasy that brings back the worst aspects of chattel slavery.

When informed no individual on the lacrosse team specifically requested a black stripper, Jackson nonetheless maintained, “that is what they got.”

It seems to avoid Jackson’s claim, the team would have had to specifically request a white stripper. I wonder what Jackson’s response would have been to that? — Ross Levatter

Drunknesse oblige — Patrick Kennedy drove his Ford Mustang into a White House barricade, creating a big media stir which lasted about a week. The strangest part of the story was that he was given a ride home and tucked into bed. A commoner would have been given a breath test and taken to a darkened basement at an undisclosed location for questioning by Homeland Security.

Kennedy’s claim when he staggered out of the car was that he was rushing to a vote in the House of Representatives. At 2:45 in the morning. While most people think this is a humorous example of drunken disorientation, the truth is it is an indication that despite his drunkenness, he had the presence of mind to whip out his congressional “get out of jail free” card. Since congressmen “shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same,” I would suggest that the “on my way to a vote” immunity is second only to franking in the category of often abused congressional privileges. I’m certain that the same line has been repeated for decades by drunk-driving congressmen coast to coast.

I wonder why people think that a family that has such a long record of crashing cars, crashing planes, and skiing into trees, is full of natural-born leaders. Perhaps that’s why Kennedys tend towards a philosophy of government that takes personal decisions away from the individual. — Tim Slagle

Where the wild things are secretly reintroduced — Before they got religiously green, the Western Europeans killed almost all their wolves and bears. What’s left of their wildlife is pretty timid. In America, we have big, wild country and a population of mostly greenish city slickers. That is the deadly combination that makes for animal attacks. The protected critters get bold, and people in any leafy area less urban than Central Park sometimes get et.

When I lived in France in the early 1990s, I began collecting news stories of animal attacks in America. Some of my French friends loved to hear these stories, because they flattered European notions of America as a wild place.

Not to be outdone, the French have now decided to release Slovenian bears in the Pyrenees. Two or three shepherds opposed and disrupted the first release. So the government released the second bear (named “Franska,” or “Frenchy” in Slovenian) at a secret time and place. So, if all goes well, we will have stories from Europe of animal attacks within a few ursine generations. (It takes that long for animals to realize that we got religion and are no longer a threat to them.) — Michael Christian

I’m sorry to interrupt you . . . — To all bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, country-club conservatives, Democratic Party activists, and libertarian political fundamentalists:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I’m sorry to interrupt the celebration you’re having for open borders and free immigration. I know that for the first time in history, you’re really enjoying one another’s company. I hate to distract you from the food and drink and the big hugs all around, but I’d like to ask you a few short questions. I hope you will try to answer them without reminding me that we are all immigrants, calling me a racist or a xenophobe, or reciting Emma Lazarus’ poem about the Statue of Liberty.

Do you believe there are any limits to the number of immigrants that America should accept? If so, what are they? Or should anyone who can travel to America be allowed to live here permanently?

Do you believe there are any limits to “immigrants’ rights” — including, as many of you insist, the right to government-provided education, government-provided welfare, government-provided health care, government-provided hiring and advancement quotas, and government-provided pensions, as well as the right to elect the government? Do immigrants gain these “rights” simply by existing here? If so, how long should they be required to do that? Ten years? One year? One month? One minute?

Are you making the same demands for open borders on Canada, Mexico, England, and Italy that you are on the United States?

I know you believe that the American economy derives untold benefits from the existence of a multitude of unskilled laborers in this country. If the economy benefits so much from, say, 10 million unskilled laborers, would it benefit still more from 50 million? 100 million? 500 million? Because I’m sure you could find that many people who would be willing to come here.

If you believed that a preponderance of immigrants from Canada, Mexico, Russia, Afghanistan, or any other country adhered to political or religious ideas that were inimical to the rights that American citizens now enjoy, would you seek to limit immigration from that country?

Here’s a final question, just for the libertarians among you:

If you doubted that there was any realistic prospect that you could dismantle government schools, government welfare, government health care, government hiring and advancement quotas, government pensions, and the rest of this country’s social-democratic political system before you proceeded to dismantle controls on immigration, would you still be in favor of dismantling those controls?

I’m not sure that I know the answers to all these questions. But tell me please: do you? And if you don’t, are you willing to say that you don’t? I’ll be interested to see whether anyone replies. — Stephen Cox

The message is the medium As the American government has swelled, it has become increasingly difficult for the men at the top to make sure their underlings are staying “on message.” First, there are simply way too many underlings to keep track of, and they’re overseeing all sorts of things that are at best tangential to the major missions the government is undertaking. Second, the speed of modern communication means that any single unguarded, unscripted comment an underling makes will be on everyone’s lips within an hour (and faster if it’s particularly foolish or vicious). Obviously, there is only one solution to such a quandary: micromanagement. The prudent executive will thus dictate everything his underlings say, and use a stick-and-carrot approach to guarantee their dedication to the message. Take, for instance, the Bush administration. The primary message it wishes to convey is that “President Bush has a clear strategy for victory in Iraq structured along three tracks — political, economic and security — to assist Iraqis in establishing a government that provides for and is accountable to its people.” By micromanaging effectively, Bush can ensure that any one of his underlings includes this core message even when speaking to an audience, such as a group of farmers in Kansas, or a crowd of food stamp recipients in New Orleans, that might not think much about Iraq in an average day. Here’s an excerpt from a Department of Agriculture memo, showing an example of the strategy in action: I’m looking forward to walking through the exhibit hall after our breakfast this morning, and seeing all of your agricultural products and services displayed in such abundance. American agriculture had a great year in 2005, as events like this demonstrate. But before I begin discussing the productivity of American agriculture, I’d like to take a moment to talk about a nation that is just now beginning to rebuild its own agricultural production. Iraq is part of the ‘fertile crescent’ of Mesopotamia. It is there, in around 8,500 to 8,000 BC, that mankind first domesticated wheat, there that agriculture was born. See how easy that was? Half the globe and 10,000 years, bridged over so quickly that the farmers can’t help but follow. Let’s see another: I’m here to talk about civil rights, which is one of the fundamental tenets of a democracy. In the United States, a democracy that has been evolving for 230 years, we are still conscious of our shortcomings, and still working to become a more perfect union, with true equality for all of our citizens. So before I begin talking about the civil rights climate at USDA, I’d like to address the situation in another nation that is just now forging the path to democracy. The citizens of Iraq have a long road ahead. . . . Now, sometimes an underling might be faced with an audience that tries to drive him off message with a series of irrelevant questions. For these annoying situations, the memo allows for a more direct approach: Several topics I’d like to talk about today — Farm Bill, trade with Japan, WTO, avian flu, animal ID — but before I do, let me touch on a subject people always ask about: progress in Iraq. Yes, the message is clear: “President Bush has a clear strategy for victory in Iraq structured along three tracks — political, economic and security. . . .” What’s that? A question in the back, asking what this has to do with crops? Well, you see, the Iraqis have also discussed specific products, like tomatoes, which they are anxious to export into the world community. And President Bush has a clear strategy . . . — Andrew Ferguson

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