James Lewis, with whom we last fraternized here, is -- or perhaps was; a bio no longer accompanies his posts on American Thinker -- “a scientist by trade, and carps as a hobby about the passing parade of human fraud and folly." So perhaps it's only fitting that (Doctor? Professor? Baron von?) Lewis has developed a scientific test to determine which of the two Presidential candidates -- Mitt Romney or Barack Obama -- is secretly an evangelical Christian of the Southern Baptist school. I presume he'll be testing their hair for height, volume, and traces of laundry bluing, since that's usually the quickest way to identify a fundamentalist preacher.
Obama vs. Romney: The Kitty Genovese Test
So a Mormon and a leftist are walking on a street in New York, and they hear screams.Oh, I've heard this one...
It's Kitty Genovese being stabbed to deathWow, that's a pretty powerful echo they've got in Kew Gardens. And I thought the Grand Canyon had impressive acoustics.
...and it becomes a huge preachy New York Times guilt-tripping campaign, because Kitty's neighbors heard her screams and did nothing.This joke isn't as funny as I remember.
The liberal media smelled a preaching opportunity too good to pass up. Today Kitty Genovese is still a lib-media symbol for America.Yeah, I can tolerate the dorms full of Che Guevara posters, but the way those Kitty Genovese t-shirts are infesting every college campus is getting out of hand.
Well, what would Mitt do? Or Barry?I don't know how Obama would react to the sound of Kitty Genovese being stabbed to death, but I suspect Mitt would get super competitive and try to out-scream her.
We don't know, but we know what their lifelong beliefs say they should do.
The left says: The murder of Kitty Genovese is the fault of society. Create a revolution, put the most "progressive" intellectuals in total control, change society -- how is never explained --This seems a bit odd, since the last time we visited with James, he confessed that "Personally I like [Sarah] Palin for her ideas, but then I’m a policy wonk," so you'd figure he might have read one or two of the many plans for social change produced by progressive intellectuals since, oh, say, the Progressive Era. But maybe he just figures that any White Paper produced by Obama is either false advertising or cruel irony.
Just like Chicago, or the Soviet Union, or China, where murder became a government monopoly. Or North Korea today.The Invisible Hand of the Market must be free to strangle people!
It's not a good record. And yet, the left keeps falling back into the same utopian dream, because dreams beat facts.Shakespeare felt the same way, which is why he decided against using the title, A Midsummer Night's Facts. Even Obama agrees with James' wisdom, which is probably why he didn't call his memoir, Facts From My Father. Also because it sounds a little like Shit My Dad Says, but more tedious.
Capitalism must be responsible for crime because it's responsible for all the bad things in the world, and none of the good ones. Everything must be changed, by force if necessary.I didn't realize Kitty Genovese was murdered for being a capitalist. Is there any way we can dig up Sacco and Vanzetti and re-electrocute them?
That is why the left is against the death penalty even for the worst murderers, who are never held responsible for their actions.Something the worst murderers have in common with the management of Goldman Sachs, so if they ever wind up at the same cocktail party, they'll have plenty to chat about.
It's all society's fault. Today Obama is probably still against the death penaltyI mean, I guess we could Google it or something -- nope, he's actually for it, and always has been, but doesn't want to expand executions to alternate side of the street parking violations -- but that would take valuable seconds away from our joke about a murder victim.
I've asked leftist friends and acquaintances about the dreadful record of this administration in the Muslim world, in terms of sheer, simple morality, and the answer is always some dumb excuse.The dog ate my ability to stem a popular uprising in Libya.
They don't care that the bloody Arab Spring has killed tens of thousands of Arabs and brought the most reactionary, anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-modern brutes to power everywhere.Everywhere! Thanks to Obama, there are anti-modern brutes in my pants! Also in Lidsville, Narnia, Westeros, and other mythical lands where magic and mysticism allow flutes to talk, quadrupeds to exercise supreme executive authority, and James to cultivate "leftist friends."
They don't care that terrorist nations will soon have nuclear weapons. They don't care that Obama openly allowed Green Revolution kids in Tehran to be mowed down by police vehicles driven by Basiji thugs -- just so Obama could curry favor with the mullahs, who feel nothing but contempt for Obama today.It doesn't bother me that Obama allowed events to occur 6,338 miles away in a hostile country with which we have no official relations and little diplomatic leverage, it's that he openly allowed it to happen. When I voted for him in 2008, I did so with the express understanding that he would use Hellfire missiles fired from Predator drones to take out hundreds of Basiji motorcycles as they waded through throngs of innocent protestors, because I've never heard of "collateral damage," but I'm pretty sure it's that thing you need to get a car loan.
The left has a cult mindset, like with Scientology. Black unemployment is now 14.4 percent, and more than 8% of the population is on disability and not counted in unemployment figures. The left doesn't care.Whereas conservatives are so obsessed with the problem of Black unemployment that all they can think about is bombing Teheran, since indiscriminately killing Persians has been scientifically proven to increase the page views on Monster.com.
Well, what about Mitt Romney?
What are his beliefs?He believes his underwear is bulletproof.
I'm no expert on the Latter-Day Saints, but fortunately there was a Book of Mormon in my hotel room recently, with big capital letters under the title: ANOTHER TESTAMENT OF JESUS CHRIST.
Whether you agree with that or not, the meaning is clear enough.You can judge a book by its cover. Also, sequels generally suck.
Mormons want the world to know what they believe: that there is one continuous scriptural tradition beginning with Genesis, going on for centuries, preached by Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels, and culminating in the Book of Mormon. Muslims believe the same thing, except that their version ends with Mohammed.In Obama's favor, Reverend Wright didn't spend a lot of that time baptizing Hitler and Anne Frank.
Romney has a lifelong investment in that belief, while Obama has 20 years of sitting at the feet of Jeremiah Wright.
What would Mitt Romney do if he heard Kitty Genovese screaming?Take the opportunity to outsource her job, since she'd be less likely to turn up later and bitch about it in a political ad?
In the Judeo-Christian scriptures, defending the weak and helpless is a core value, not in just one passage, but in many. It's not that defending a widow or orphan will bring about Utopia on earth. It is just the right and moral thing to do.And while it may be necessary to send a widow's job overseas, you can still defend her by putting her and her orphan to work digging the shaft for the car elevator in your new beachfront mansion.
The Golden Rule doesn't show up in Marxism, because individuals count for little when all you want is to change the world. Those 100 million people killed by Marxist regimes in the 20th century are incidental breakage. It's too bad, but we've got to forge onward. Anyway, there are too many people already. I keep hearing those sociopathic ideas from liberals. They mean them.Fortunately we don't get much of that here in the third dimension, but if I lived in a place infested with sociopathic liberals who want to kill a 100 million people with health care, then I'd march right down to the office of Mayor H.R. Pufnstuf and lodge a formal complaint.
That is also why the left is now allied with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Libya, and with their equivalents in Iran and Turkey. They don't care about those hundreds of millions of Muslim women living in slavery and fear of death if they walk out of the family jail. They don't care that Lara Logan was gang-raped near Tahrir Square by the celebrated democracy demonstrators. They can't see facts, and they can't think from A to B. Lara Logan is just Kitty Genovese for 2012, and the media turn their eyes away and pass on.I also wish progressive women cared about rape, but they're too busy ignoring women getting murdered.
The left will say that ObamaCare shows how much they love the Kitty Genoveses of the world, but of course it shows no such thing, and for a very good reason: O'Care is another centralized power-grab. There is no evidence that socialized medicine will improve American medical care. On the contrary. The reason for O'Care is simply to "tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect," as FDR's political sidekick Harry Hopkins said during the New Deal.There's also no evidence Hopkins ever said that, but the important thing is, enjoying medical coverage despite a pre-existing condition is the equivalent of getting stabbed twice in the back by a serial killer.
We now have 13,000 pages of new tax laws, and nobody has the slightest idea of how they will work. You couldn't write a coherent computer program to predict what those 13,000 pages will do. As for your and my medical care... nobody knows at all. We've traded in the best medical economy in the world for a pig in a poke.Best, worst -- what's the difference? The point is, I think we would all gladly trade the ability to get an MRI if we needed it, or have a possibly malignant lump removed, in exchange for the crystal transparency that characterized our tax code prior to the enactment of Obamacare.
The left always falls back on delusions of control -- on par with the Soviet Five Year Plans, which promised food for all but which never worked over seven long decades. In the USSR, the elites believed their own propaganda, just like in the United States today. The only people who believe the liberal media are liberal suckers. They mouth the clichés, but they've never shown that they can think for themselves. Mouthing the catechism just makes them feel better about themselves.According to the lawsuit, "mouthing the catechism" was what Father Donnelly asked the altar boys to do after vespers.
Obama's openly proclaimed solution for the next four years is to repeat the suicidal policies of the last four. That will not hurt a single billionaire in America, because they have a hundred different loopholes. It will hurt you and your children.So if you're poor, or a part of the struggling middle class, vote for Mitt Romney. Unlike Obama, he'll stand billionaires up in front of a firing squad, thereby allowing multimillionaires to take over their choice real estate, and finally have enough acreage to expand the dressage stables, and build that horse elevator.
In the last election, American voters were suckered bad. Obama's election was the worst example of America's profound civic failures since the Baby Boomers -- the failure of ordinary voters to educate themselves. In an electoral system, no matter how flawed, the voters have a say.I gather that's the flaw in our system.
In 2008, they flunked the test of common sense. They fell for the slick talk of a used car salesman because he was black, or half-black, but enough black to make them keel over.If only they'd educated themselves on his true degree of blackness. Hopefully this year they'll follow James' advice and take a color wheel and a set of swatches into the voting booth.
14 comments:
Wait...LIBERALS were the ones moaning about Kitty Genovese?
Interesting, because my recollection...and admittedly I was pretty young then...was that it was the "law and order" contingent that was screaming blue hell about neighbors who wouldn't lift a finger to help and how *those people* were ruining the city.
Perfesser Lewis ought to try interviewing real Noo Yawkahs before getting up in our faces. Cuz, you know, we don't take too kindly to being talked about behind our backs to our faces.
I've asked leftist friends and acquaintances
"All of whom live in my head and occasionally tell me to send pictures of my junk to Democratic senators. By the way, I think Senator Feinstein is finally starting to notice me."
They don't care that Lara Logan was gang-raped near Tahrir Square by the celebrated democracy demonstrators.
I'm goin' out on a limb here, but I seem to recall female liberal bloggers were in the majority of those who cared. The Redstaters were too busy bitching about her looks and how hard it was to wank it to the news stories of the savage attack because there was no accompanying video.
The "it's too bad idiots can vote" meme seems to be all over the place lately:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-hamptons-fundraiser-20120708,0,4909639.story
It's pretty concerning that so many people can convince themselves that educated people are "elites" while the rich people who sniff that "the nails ladies" can vote for whoever they want despite being so obviously stupid AREN'T.
"Mouthing the catechism." Somebody owes me a new keyboard.
James Lewis srites: The Golden Rule doesn't show up in Marxism, because individuals count for little when all you want is to change the world.
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
-Karl Marx
"I suspect Mitt would get super competitive and try to out-scream her."
Absolute nonsense. Mitt would have the Koch brothers hire someone else to do the screaming for him. Probably several dozen screamers, just to make sure his point got made.
Wait...LIBERALS were the ones moaning about Kitty Genovese?
IF only more cats were armed with AK47s...
~
Hey, Chris V: whaddareyou, a Communist?
I was in my late teens when Kitty Genovese was killed, and going to school in NYC. Honestly I do not recall a left/right dichotomy in the response at the time.
The NY Times, which at that time was a newspaper, gave the murder a gut-wrenching front page treatment which I well remember reading. Its factual basis, which claimed that 38 people in the neighborhood witnessed the attack and did nothing, has since been re-visited and strongly criticized as inaccurate. But the reporting of the case rang a very powerful bell in many sectors of American life, sparking several strains of psychological and sociological research and having an effect on teaching and textbooks in those fields that continues today. The murder prompted many responses among writers, screenwriters, etc. Anyone interested in any or all of these aspects of the case can read the excellent Wikipedia article.
The Times article had the effect of horrifying people about urban anomie, unwillingness to help, failure of community, and that kind of thing, as well as about concrete stuff like the then-current NYPD crime-reporting system, which was overhauled and revamped as a result. I don't remember any liberal vs. conservative dynamic.
The rightwing anti-hippie, anti-protestor, anti-minority "law-and-order" theme developed by Richard Nixon came some years later than this murder, which happened in early 1964, barely a month after the Beatles first arrived in the US, at Kennedy Airport. Kennedy had been shot just 4 months earlier, November '63. So the Genovese murder was pre-hippies, and mostly pre-anti-war activism.
Lots of stuff changed very fast, and often simultaneously, back then, but the developmental sequence is historically significant. The Sixties deserve their cap "S".
Of course that's what the old codgers used to say about the Civil War, too, back in that day...
'examining their hair for height, volume and traces of laundry bluing, since that's usually the quickest way to identify a fundamentalist preacher'
For girls, yes. For boys it's 'whether or not they've got your dick in their mouth.'
They don't care that the bloody Arab Spring has killed tens of thousands of Arabs and brought the most reactionary, anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-modern brutes to power everywhere.
They don't care that Obama openly allowed Green Revolution kids in Tehran to be mowed down by police vehicles driven by Basiji thugs...
Talk about having it both ways. So you support popular uprisings in the Middle East when they fail, but when they succeed, they are Very Very Bad, and it's all Obama's fault. How convenient for you.
Was Obama about 3 when Kitty Genovese was killed? This whole thing seems to be some wingnut stream of consciousness "blah blah Roarsach, blah blah, Marxism, blah blah, Negros...
It's not a good record.
Well, you can't dance to it. I'll give him that much.
I went back to one of the old columns that you referred to: I think Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and the other conservative candidates are the Ronald Reagans of our time.
I would so dearly like to meet this fucktard.
They don't care that the bloody Arab Spring has killed tens of thousands of Arabs and brought the most reactionary, anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-modern brutes to power everywhere.
Never mind the bloody Arab spring, the TeaBaggers are leading the way on putting violent, reactionary anti-women, anti-gay etc. etc. and so forth in congress. If enough voting machines are hacked, they'll get RMoney, who is all those things, and more! into the White House.
"The Golden Rule ... when all you want is to change the world."
So this snide Gooper tries to flog the Golden Rule when all he and his ilk can muster on a good day is the ole Conster Golden Shower.
He can keep his piddle for the heretics.
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