Everyone else has something to say about
the Gonzalez lad, so I might as well join the crowd.
After listening to just about everything that has been
said about this affair, the one thing that strikes me is
that nobody is talking about this in terms of the law.
After having just finished Thomas Sowell’s "Cosmic
Justice", I feel loaded for bear. Justice in this
situation does not depend on whether the little tyke
stays in Florida or goes back to Cuba. It is not
dependent on whether or not the "best interests of
the child" are served. Justice depends only on
whether or not the law as is actually exists is followed.
If the law is followed and due process observed, then
whatever the outcome justice will have been served. A
Just outcome is not necessarily a desirable outcome, but
if the past thirty years should have taught us anything,
it is that the subjugation of impartial process to
ideological goals is capable of wreaking havoc on society.
This is just as true when the desired outcome is freedom
for a little boy as when it is "social justice".
George W. continues to disappoint. When
asked in one of the interminable series of debates
whether he agreed with the sentencing of John Rocker to
psychological "counseling", he said Yes. Now,
it is possible that John Rocker has a few nuts loose. It
is indisputable that he is a redneck. But it boggles the
mind how any "conservative" candidate could
roll over and meekly accept the definition of politically
unfashionable speech as not just classless but "crazy".
More proof that George W has no guiding political
philosophy.
Speaking of politically unfashionable, I
am getting really tired of the hubbub over South Carolina’s
continued display of the Confederate flag. As an Irish-Catholic
Massachusen I am not sure I have a whole lot of standing
in the debate. Part of me wants to tells the rebs to wake
up and smell the coffee: they lost the argument 135 years
ago. But the argument that the stars & bars is a
symbol of hatred and oppression is just plain goofy.
Slavery was an important part of the ante-bellum south,
but it was not the only part. That flag stands for many
good and noble things and people as well as venal and
corrupt things and people. To declare that it should be
banished because one of the things it stood for was a
slave-based agricultural society is like saying that we
should define the Civil Rights movement on the basis of
the hate filled rhetoric of Louis Farrakhan.
Lastly, I return to Thomas Sowell. I would
encourage everybody who reads this to go find any book by
Sowell and read it. Then find another one and read it. If
you are a conservative, he will provide you with facts,
views and logical tools with which to fight the blather
of our age. If you are a liberal who actually cares to
intellectually defend your positions (I hear they exist)
he will be your greatest challenge. For example, just the
simple concept of looking at the income group differences
as a result of age (which, in our country, it
overwhelmingly is) rather than "class" shines
an entirely different light on discussion of poverty and
income redistribution. Is most of the "poor"
and the "rich" are in fact the same people at
different stages of their life, socialist
redistributionist rhetoric becomes utterly indefensible.
Sowell insists on starting from what is rather
than what he wants, and the resulting thought will
place him in the history books as one of the most
influential social critics of the late 20th
Century.
