Curing Stupid-An Amplified Reading of Federalist 10 (Part 1)

The Genius of Federalist 10

Next to a Monte Cristo No. 2 and the album In Rainbows, by Radiohead, there few pleasures in life more satisfying than a leisurely perusal of The Federalist Papers.  Universally held as America's great contribution to political thought (along with the great oratory of Abraham Lincoln), these essays were written in support of the proposed 1787 Constitution, and constitute the greatest commentary on republican government ever written. Their pertinence in American constitutional law cannot be overstated, and their value as political dogma for our republican government is still beyond measure.
There are those who deny this.  These people are, in short, stupid.  You can't cure stupid...but you can point at it, acknowledge its stupidness to the world and write eloquent refutations of said stupidity.
Hey ho, let's go....Remedial American Government In Basic...my commentary in italics

Federalist 10 by Publius (Jas. Madison)

Published November 22, 1787

AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations. 

[What this means-Faction is, according to Publius, the MOST serious danger to popular government.  Indeed, it is the cause prime cause for the failure of more popular governments than you can shake a stick at. What is faction?  Patience, grasshopper.]  

The valuable improvements made by the American constitutions on the popular models, both ancient and modern, cannot certainly be too much admired; but it would be an unwarrantable partiality, to contend that they have as effectually obviated the danger on this side, as was wished and expected. Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. 

[What this means-Even safeguards throughout history have proved ineffectual at protecting the citizenry from an overzealous majority.]

However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. 

[We can stick out heads in the sands, but the problem WILL persist.]

It will be found, indeed, on a candid review of our situation, that some of the distresses under which we labor have been erroneously charged on the operation of our governments; but it will be found, at the same time, that other causes will not alone account for many of our heaviest misfortunes; and, particularly, for that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights, which are echoed from one end of the continent to the other. These must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations.

[What This Means-We are, it would seem, mistaken on certain “assertions” concerning the operation of government found to be exaggerations, while others are understated.]

Whatever do you mean by “FACTION,” Mr. Publius?

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

[What This Means- A group of people of any size whose interests are opposed to rights of others, or the interests of everybody else.]

This next part is important: PAY ATTENTION!!!

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

[Two, count ‘em-one, two ways to cure faction...1) remove it’s causes 2) control its effects

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; 

[What this means-This is the method chosen by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky when they pondered the political nature of the Soviet government.] 

the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

[What this means-Make everybody want and like the same thing.  Things that Marx ya go, “huh?”]

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

[What this means-Bad idea #1...without liberty, man is less than a man]

The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. 

[What this means-Bad Idea #2-As long as man is fallible and selfish, his wants will differ from the wants of others.]

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

[What this means-The differences in men, or their protection, is the FIRST object of government.  These innate human differences create different divisions and parties]

LISTEN UP, SOCIALISTS/MARXISTS/DEMOCRATS

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. 

[What this means-DIFFERENT ECONOMIC CLASSES CANNOT BE OVERCOME, NO MATTER HOW MUCH OF BILL GATES’S BILLIONS YOU DISTRIBUTE,  LIKE SOME DEMENTED ROBIN HOOD, TO THE MASSES.  THAT DOG JUST WON’T HUNT.]

Please note the publication date of this essay was in November, 1787.  The publication of Marx’s Economic Manuscripts of 1844 was in, well, 1844.  Marx tried to establish something that Publius said couldn’t be done 57 years after the fact.

A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. 

[What this means-For just about any imaginable reason, people will find reason to disagree with other people.]

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. 

[What this means-And they’re willing to fight, too.]

But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

[What this means-Property, the mother of all flies-in-the-ointment, makes people go bat-shit crazy.]

End of Part 1-Stay tuned for Part 2

How Costly Was The Loss Of Camelot?

While surfing the web in an attempt to find ways to waste my time that are not, technically, Facebook. I came across a website called speechnevergiven.org. This organization is seeking to create an artistic rendering of the 2,500 word speech that President Kennedy was on his way to deliver when he was assassinated. 11-22-2013 marks the 50 anniversary of Kennedy's death, and this project is devoted to and uses the citizens of the city of Dallas. This is a short demo of the style being followed that uses the famous "Words alone are not enough" part of the speech. 

It is very inspiring. 

I was born in the summer 1968... Nearly five full years after the fact. I cannot draw on personal recollections of that terrible day in Dallas.  But, as a historian and political theorist, I can draw on the resources available to me.  It is easy to see 2 very painful truths about the death of Camelot. 

But, first let me make a few things clear.

1. I am a conservative, but not necessarily a GOP Republican. I am more of a cross between a libertarian and a Hamiltonian Federalist. My political views necessarily arise from my belief, like Washington, Madison and Lincoln, that the nature of the Union is indivisible and relies on the powers granted through the 1787 Constitution BY THE PEOPLE. 
2. I place firm belief in the moral foundations of the nation-i.e. the principles embodied in the Declaration. 

Now, I admire greatness in great men, but do not necessarily see human failings as a negation if greatness. Men like Lincoln, Jefferson and Madison had personal failings, but it does't invalidate their accomplishments.  To that end, had Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton been able to make any claims to anything remotely admirable, their deplorable conduct in Watergate (for Nixon) and Everything-I-Ever-Did-gate (for Clinton) would have compromised their claim to greatness.  Any assertions about Kennedy's fidelity, drug use or political legerdemain do not negate his mystique or his
Although President Kennedy was technically a Democrat, he was a fiscal conservative and a Catholic. Moreover, he was the American Chief Executive for less than 3 years. His lasting legacy is not defined by his policies, but rather by 2 basic facts. 

One, he was perceived by the American people to be the mythical Arthur of Camelot. His gifts in political oratory and his vision of what he wanted America to be added to this mystique. Whether by accident or design, he was the embodiment of all that was good about the America after WWII. 

Two, the dream of Camelot died with him, not entirely because of his death, but rather because of the man who succeeded him. Camelot and the Great Society were two very different animals. What Camelot might have been is overshadowed by the reality of Lyndon Johnson, his vision for America and his pathological obsession with Vietnam. Many ill conceived ideas were executed with a frightening efficiency. The cycles of poverty and class envy in regards to African Americans came from Great Society social engineering and a failure to  be realistic in his policy towards Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement. After all, it was the GOP who sponsored the Civil Rights Act of 1965.  
But, enough about that.

The second part of this equation lies in the fact that we, as the writers of history, need to open ourselves to the possibility that the assassination of President Kennedy may have been responsible for more damage to our collective spirit than perhaps we have been willing to admit.  These seminal events, like the Civil War, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and the assassination of President Lincoln, leave permanent  scars.  The Kennedy assassination, while mired in theories ranging from the CIA to the US military to the Italian/American Mafia, is of the same ilk as the aforementioned events.  The loss of Camelot, in the final analysis, caused attitudes to change...and not necessarily for the better.  Beyond this simple theory, I can offer nothing more.  I leave only the possibility...nothing more.  It's a possibility that I think needs to be considered or reconsidered.  Pain is a force to be dealt with with both vision and restraint.

Moving stuff from one blog to another

Some Clarity and Conviction...

Despite my the fact that my academic credentials (undergrad & graduate) are overwhelmingly focused on American history, politics, constitutionalism and political theory, I have refrained from being overly verbose on matters of a political nature...especially if it concerned the two great tragedies in American political history...Bill Clinton and Barak Obama. I have reevaluated my prior restraint. While I loathe any engagement with mindless partisans who lack even the most basic understanding of American polity, I am becoming increasingly aware that if I am unwilling to stand up for what I believe in, then I shouldn't bother. The things that have come rushing out of me recently are a result of my firm conviction in the genius of the American republic, and my deep loathing of those who seek to destroy it for their own narrow political ends. I'm not saying I'm going to challenge every Tom, Dick and Harry that I encounter on the opposite end of the political spectrum. There are few things more enjoyable than an earnest discussion with someone of differing political beliefs. It keeps us honest and foster that most elusive political commodity-compromise. We seem to be waaayyyyyy past that. Those who believe not what I believe are not my countrymen, but my enemies...a sin committed by every corner of American political life. I will not stoop to that level. What I am saying is the....believe what you will...this is a free country. But, if you feel the need to (whether by accident or design) malign or impugn the principles on which this country was founded, call those who had the stones to make this nation great "dead white men" or deny that this is one nation, under God...then you may be asked to expatiate your position. As I have said before, never forget that this nation was founded on two principles: equality and freedom-two ideas that cannot logically coexist. If you can't grasp that without pulling out a slide rule, keep your mouth shut.

Morality Redux; A Minor Rethinking of My Earlier Post on Doomsday

Where are we going? Do we really want to know?

For a variety of reasons, I have been thinking about this elastic and ever changing thing we call "morality." After a spirited discussion with a church friend, I decided to elaborate on some things that have been weighing heavily on me.  This was the catalyst that sparked it. 

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I watched a movie called Doomsday(2008).  It takes place in the United Kingdom in both the present and 30 years in the future.  As succinctly as possible, Glasgow and Edinburg are struck with a deadly virus called "Reaper."  Finding no cure and no hope, the British government does the only (inhumane and stupid) thing it can do:  builds a 60' containment wall along the Scottish border (a modern rethinking of Hadrian’s Wall), mines the waters around Scotland and let the virus take its course.  This is where I should have turned it off...a storyline based on such cruelty and idiocy...but, no.  I kept watching.  

Fast forward 30 years into the future- the virus reappears, only this time in London.  The Prime Minister and his cronies approach venerable old policeman, Bob Hoskins with a secret and a task.  They reveal that Scotland is not, as the government has been telling the English people, an unpopulated wasteland.  British satellites started seeing people on the streets of the cities three years earlier.  Ergo, their demented logic concludes, there must be a cure.  “Someone” must lead their crack team of British commandos to find this cure and bring it back to London.  The PM charges him with finding someone to lead the team.  He approaches one of his prodigies...the deadly but beautiful Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra)...who, as revealed earlier in the film,  grew up in Scotland and only barely escaped before Scotland was sealed off.  Think of a futuristic Laura Croft -but no “Lady” title.  She becomes the reluctant leader.

The team goes in...when they reach the Glasgow, they encounter Group of Scottish Crazies #1.  Imagine the punk rock scene in New York circa 1978 (but with less charm) with Sol (Scotland's answer to Sid Vicious)ruling through terror.  These guys make the people from Max Max look like the ladies in Dolly Parton's beauty parlor in "Steel Magnolias."  Most of the team is killed save Eden and the doctor, who are captured, and another two soldiers who escape into the city.  

Insert predictable action, brutal and animalistic violence...and throw in a little cannibalism for good measure.  The doctor become dinner at a ritual that could have come out of “The Walking Dead.”  

Being awesome, Eden escapes after decapitating Sol’s...Nancy.  She and the last two soldiers escape into the country with Sol’s sister to find the pair’s father- Kane-the doctor who tried to (and maybe did?) find a cure for the Reaper virus three decades earlier.  Kane is played by Malcolm McDowell in a truly detestable role.  Since “A Clockwork Orange” in 1972, it’s been pretty much downhill for ole' Malcolm...but I digress.    When they find him, he is the leader of Group of Scottish Crazies #2...who saved themselves from any originality and simply gone back to the Middle Ages.  Holed up in a castle, Kane lords over his subjects with iron fisted cruelty.  The four allow themselves to be captured and brought before Kane.    Eden must, in predictable and violent fashion, dispatch Kane’s massive armored knight-the aptly titled “Executioner.”  

In a totally irrelevant sideline, it turns out that there is no cure for the Reaper virus-some people are just immune to it. 

The remainder of the film is just plain silly and if you want to know what happens, either rent it (which I wouldn’t advise), find it on HBO, or read the synopsis on IMDb.

The movie has little originality, glorifies cruelty and trashes a perfectly good Bentley.  After watching, I found that I was deeply, surprisingly disturbed.  While the premise of the story is stupid, it provided an interesting opportunity.  Take Western society at its modern and civilized best...and remove all political authority, constitutional freedoms and technology, and what do the people do?  How do they survive?  The storyline provided 2 different and equally morbid outcomes.  Both I found very troubling. 

 I understand that there were extenuating circumstances.  They were decimated by an unthinkable biological agent and abandoned by their leaders in the most inhumane manner.  In al reality, such action on behalf of the British government would incur the indignant wrath of the rest of the world.  But, forget that for now.  I think, in the final analysis, this facts is irrelevant.  When they lose literally everything, the survivors embrace the absolute worst aspects of their humanity; unspeakable violence, rank tyranny and cannibalism.  

Consider history.

The Middle Ages were the greatest period of human ingenuity in history. After the fall of Rome, Europe reverted to agrarianism and feudalism cemented together with Christianity.  In their abject poverty, the people of medieval Europe became master craftsmen and created an astonishing variety of inventions to aid the toil and drudgery of medieval life. Following the Middle Ages, the Renaissance embraced a new vision of art and culture. As the Renaissance faded into the Enlightenment, humanity discovered and embraced free will, popular government and the planted the seeds of human restraint that would find expression in the English Civil War and the American Revolution.  Much of these revolutionary ideas came from England and Scotland; men like David Hume, Edmund Burke, John Locke, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham were just a few from the UK.  There were dozens more on the continent.  

So, why don’t the survivors elect leaders, create political associations, plant crops, hunt...do the things that their educations had told them that their earliest ancestors had done?  Were they soooooooo angry at the government that civility was impossible?  Were they just really, really lazy?  Were this the exception (albeit the monumentally ridiculous exception) to this question, that would be one thing.  But this is just another in a long line of worst-case scenarios that literature and film have offered to the public.  

Have we not evolved at all?  

We are so dependent on technology and an environment that is sagging under the weight of questionable sustainability that the collapse of global power grids and the loss of the global political community is not such a fantastical flight of science fiction fantasy.  Moreover, terrorism, biological, chemical and nuclear weapons coupled with the rise of nations who do not embrace popular government creates possible scenarios of global war, pandemics and the threat of nuclear holocaust that are bone chilling, to say the least.  

The Middle Ages were the ultimate example of the vacuum created by the loss of power.  When Rome fell, all order fell with it.  War was supreme and the nobility and the clergy rode the back of a population so oppressed that it is truly staggering.  The one thing common to the west in the Middle Ages was their faith in a benevolent and forgiving God who assured an eternity in Heaven if they kept faith with His church and faith.

Where are we now in regards to a collective faith to bind us beyond the trappings of political associations sure to one day collapse.  Modern society has relegated national faith (with the exception if Islam) to the ash-heap of history.  God is an antiquated relic-a charming monument to a less evolved people.  Our modern gods are global economy, political correctness,  techno-gadgetry en mass, and a belief that there is, ultimately, no real distinction between right and wrong.  Pornography is art and protected speech.  Marriage is forever...until someone gets bored.  Moral ambiguity is the opiate for people who “believe that abortion is wrong, but would never tell someone what to do with her body.”  The sanctity of life is, for the first time in all of human history, no longer our most cherished belief.  

Today, those of us who choose to pray for God’s grace and forgiveness are called bigots and religious radicals. Christianity perpetrated the  Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch trials, and decimated the Native American civilizations in the New World...therefore, Christianity is invalid.  Islam perpetrated 9/11, but only because of American greed and a new colonialism that seeks to gain control of the Middle East for a Zionist agenda.  

We send our children to bastions of social engineering and political correctness called public schools.  We call this building their future and then, when they need it the most, we rip their faith from them like a festering leg is torn from the body on a battlefield.  And, like dunderheads, we allow it to happen...celebrate it...call is progress.  We have become fools in the most titanic sense.  
History proves one thing time and time again...nothing lasts forever. 

If...when...our modern society falls (and it will) under the weight of its own greed, moral cowardice and rank stupidity, will we start again.  But, will our modus operandi be based on moderation, wisdom and a determination to learn from our mistakes.  The God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ has been replaced.  We put our faith in the very worst of our modern selves...greed, greed and more greed.  Is one or both of the scenarios portrayed in “Doomsday” that far fetched?  Can we Westerners, Americans and champions of every ignoble cause and in the absence of all political restraint, be expected to rise above;  to not be reduced to violence, tyranny and cannibalism?

I am utterly terrified to truthfully answer that question.  

The Truth About Benghazi

As Americans, we are steeled to certain political realities.  Of course, by "steeled," I mean, "can ignore with unholy resolve."  The Benghazi crisis is no different.  The death of 4 Americans, including a sitting ambassador is no small affair, and certainly a great loss.  But, the armed forces and consular service serve gladly under the threat of harm.  But, the fault in Benghazi lies not with the President or the opposition in Washington.
First and foremost, the fault lied with the butchers and savages who perpetrated this cowardly and detestable act.  The real effort should be aimed at those who  shot first and asked no questions at all.  They glorify violence and seek anarchy and the destruction of their own nation-yet they vilify the US as aggressors, servants of a Zionist agenda and blasphemers of Allah, Muhammed  and Islam.
Second, the blame for this whole sad and sorry mess must be placed at the feet of those who seek to protect the President from any culpability.  The sheer idiocy of this can be attributed to the following group of select charlatans...

1. The American media.  Their willingness to protect President Obama is nauseating.  There was a time when the press left the President and his family alone.  Mamie Eisenhower's alcoholism and President Kennedy's infidelity were tributes to this grudging restraint.  Watergate changed all that.  The President was now accountable, and every President from Nixon to Carter to Reagan to Clinton to Bush has been compelled to stand in the raw judgement of a media apparatus and know that they are on their own in regards to the American public.  For some lunatic reason, President Obama is exempt from this.  It defies logic.  In Suicide of the West, author James Burnham offered that the dangers inherent in liberalism are fueled by the omnipresence of the most dangerous of human emotions...guilt.  From guilt comes overcompensation-from overcompensation come more inequality, but to a different group.  For more information on this, see Federalist 10, the Declaration of Independence, the works of James Wilson and the Speeches of Abraham Lincoln.  
2. The Presidents party and the political elements that seek to shield him on utterly ridiculous reasoning that several embassy attacks during the Bush presidency were not held under such scrutiny.  Ergo, President Obama is exempt, too.  Seriously?  It would be an unholy sin to pay this stupidity any further lip service.
3. The American public who, for reasons of apathy and disinterest, excuse the President from any culpability.  If the people don't care, why should anyone else?  Painful simplicity....

There was a time when Presidents were statesmen, not politicians.  Men like Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, 2 Roosevelt's, Wilson, Kennedy and Reagan..  It seems that all died...probably with JFK.  Watergate, it seems,  was far more costly than history tells..  In choosing to hold the president accountable, we opened ourselves to the possibility that we could withhold that same judgement.

The ultimate truth about Benghazi is that, no matter how costly it was in lives, those lives will never be worth the price of a Presidency.  

That may seem cynical. But, the decay of the moral fabric in American politics has weakened the foundations of American political and social life.  Are we too far gone?  

Certainly not.  Never underestimate the power and virtue that can be exhibited by the American people.  It is this power that compelled our collective drive to defeat the Nazi's, the Soviets and the Saddam Hussein's of the world.  Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were events that crystalized the public under the banner of a firm reliance in moral rightness...not indignant revenge.  Upon learning of the attack on Pearl Harbor, British Prime Minister Churchill telephoned President Roosevelt and declared that if the US declared war on Japan, a British declaration would follow "within the hour."  The Prime Minister made the following observation in his History of the Second World War; the only work of history to ever win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

“I thought of a remark . . . that the United States is like a 'gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.' Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.” 

The world doesn't see us in that light any longer.  To be sure, that is just as much the world's fault as ours.  But we've lost our way.  Just how morally and politically lost we are will be told by the outcome of Benghazi.  

In my most optimistic smiley face, I can truthfully declare that it doesn't look good

Jay Z and the Revolutionary Marxists; Strange Bedfellows

Confessions of Saint Augustine  

ConfessionsOn the Dance Floor  

 Confessions Of How Much Ignorant People Irritate Me

I don't know how long this internet meme has been around. I saw it for the first time last night.  I'm fairly certain that it isn't a master Photoshop mockup.  If it is, I'm gonna owe Jay Z and apology....It's worth the risk.

I can take Jay Z or leave him. I own 2 versions of Empire State of Mind-His version and the Glee version...both of which I downloaded in a manner that recently earned me a waning call from my ISP. Moreover, to JayZ's credit, he got Beyonce to marry him.  It is interesting that the two women most closely associated with Ja Z are his wife, Beyonce, and his co-preformer in Empire State of Mind, Alicia Keys...2 beautiful women who are vastly more talented that Jay Z.  Oh well...this isn't an indictment or celebration of his music.  This is about that fugly T shirt he's wearing...
...he seems to have had a wardrobe malfunction...

To be sure, there are people who think wearing a t-shirt is a seriously worthy expression of their Free Speech.  They think it's cute and clever and maybe even a little risqué to sport historical and cultural icons from Marx to Plato to John Lennon to Lady Gaga...

That's all well and good.

But, there are always the one who has to be gross or perverted or provocative...the one who takes the fun too far.

The NeoNazi's parading through Jewish neighborhoods is certainly a memorable example.  But there are everyday examples.  However, the ones that reach chaff my sense of propriety are the ones who embrace an icon without the smallest clue as to what that icon really means.  The one that are just SO-STUPID.  I mean, dude!!!!  SERIOUSLY!!!  Jay Z is, if the lyrics of Empire State of Mind tell a true story, is from Brooklyn.  Why he feels the need to publicly embrace a person who...

1. Was from Argentina, though involved in the ousting of the Batista regime and the ushering in of kindly uncle Fidel.
2. Was a T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-T
3. Felt nothing but contempt for the political order that afforded JayZ the freedom to use his talent to earn bucketful's of money making records vastly inferior to those of Eminem.

Why would any sentient being...or Jay Z for that matter...want to wear a grotesquely oversized T-shirt with the visage of a terrorist on it. It boggles the mind...the estimable Mr. Guevara said the following:

"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary … These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution!”

Charming....

Mr.  Z, might I offer you some advice...go to the library (I understand that there's  a pretty good one in New York) check out books...read the books....(here's the hard part)...sit down and THINK about what you have read...let an opinion form on what you have read...(there is an implied assumption that you will avoid those Charlatans who would tell you what to think...they are the primary reason you are sooooo terribly unoriginal). Through the magical process called C-R-I-T-I-C-A-L- T-H-I-N-K-I-N-G, you can form new and exciting opinions and you will cease to be a mindless caricature of American pop culture. You might be surprised by what forms in your mind...and, no matter what it is...it will be yours. Go with it, dude! Say hi to Beyonce for me.