Old World Swine

Glenn Beck - Wrong on Rights

I don't watch a lot of television, and I no longer have the stomach for political shows, but I caught a few minutes of Glenn Beck yesterday, and I have to say something; it's true... he really is full of crap.

At least where human rights and the Constitution are concerned. Beck - and a bunch of other people, apparently - hold the crazy opinion that the rights we enjoy as citizens of this country are granted by the Constitution.

No, no, a thousand times no!

See, Beck was talking about the Times Square bomber and very generously decided that the bomber should not have his privates wired to a car battery in order to obtain information because after all, he is a U.S. citizen and U.S. citizens have this extra special happy right ('cuz of the Constitution) not to be tortured (the lucky bastard!).

Let me say this plainly - our rights as Americans DO NOT come from the Constitution. The Constitution - via the Bill of Rights - only recognizes rights we are understood to already have, by virtue of our being, ya know... human beings created by God. The ninth amendment explicitly states that "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people".

In other words, our human rights exist prior to and independent of whether or not they are written on a piece of paper and ratified by our political leaders (for what Caesar gives, Caesar may take away).

The foundation for the Constitution can be found in that other founding document, the Declaration of Independence, which states;

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Our fundamental rights - like the right of assembly, freedom of religion, free speech, the right to bear arms - and the right not to be tortured - are self-evident truths, endowed by our creator, not special goodies reserved for card-carrying Yanks.

The founding Fathers only recognized that these were the rightful freedoms of all human beings, and that governments exist only to ensure these rights. The government cannot claim to grant these rights as if they were handing out candy.

So, to be clear: Faisal whats-his-name has a right not to be tortured because he is a human being, not because he is a U.S. Citizen.

All that said, he should never again see anything but the inside of a U.S. prison.

Jerks Have Free Speech, Too

I have never seen a whole episode of South Park. Don't plan to. I hear its funny enough, but there's no shortage of funny stuff out there, probably a mere fraction of which would be enough to keep me chuckling right into the grave, even without, you know, making a special effort to crap all over the religion that me and my family and friends profess and hold dear.

Same with Family Guy. Funny stuff, and often filthy and/or blasphemous. Thank you, no. They are free to do as they like, and I am free to take a pass.

Now I read a headline (I happily admit to knowing nothing more about it) which notes that South Park is receiving death threats from Muslims because the show's writers have worked up the bile to blaspheme Mohammed.

Meh.

I didn't appreciate it when South Park went out of their way to rub my face in the dirt, I don't expect that your ordinary Muslim likes the experience any better. South Park are a bunch of jerks, in other words, and the fact that they are taking a break from being jerks toward me in order to be jerks toward someone else doesn't change my opinion of them at all.

At the same time, I don't remember hearing about the show receiving death threats from angry Presbyterians or the Knights of Columbus after making fun of Jesus. There's something in that, too.

We do have free speech, here, and that includes jerks.

As I say... meh. Christianity - and I dare say Islam - will be here long after South Park is not even the hazy memory of a memory.

Craig Ferguson - The Deification of Youth

Who said comedy had to be dumb?

Hat tip to the guys at What's Wrong With The World?

Sorry about the formatting of the video. I don't know how to correct it, and, well... I'm just too lazy to find out. By the way, if you have time, check out the linked video "Craig Ferguson Speaks From The Heart"... guy's a class act.

Guilty TV Pleasure

Kris Allen - AP Photo

Okay, it's a little embarrassing to admit that I even watch the show, but American Idol is one of those things my family and I can sit and watch together that almost everyone enjoys, to some extent. That and King of the Hill.

I find myself pretty well aligned with Simon Cowell on most of the performances, though not all.

Last night, the likeable,talented and (most importantly) non-scary Arkansas boy (Woo, pig! SOOO-ie!!!) Kris Allen beat out Emo Stepford Ken doll Adam Lambert, though Lambert clearly has a better set of pipes.

Lambert was just that much too far outside the mainstream to get the Boomer/Soccer Mom vote, IMO. He was sacry good, vocally, but otherwise... just a bit scary. As the brief final number with Brian May and Queen demonstrated, Lambert was the only one, of all the contestants, who could possibly hope to fill the shoes of Freddie Mercury. And that's all I have to say about that.

Kris Allen improved throughout the contest, and is actually extremely talented (a fact that I really hope is not overshadowed by Lambert's eerie, alien vocal gymnastics and showmanship, and the perception that HE, therefore, "should have won"). Kris Allen deserved to win. He has very broad appeal, can really sing, and demonstrates a remarkable nascent musical maturity and earthy soulfullness that eludes Lambert. Lambert is astonishingly gifted, but comes across as artificial, like a Vegas lounge singer. Allen is tremendously talented and somes across as just himself... the real deal. He is from The Natural State, after all.

The consolation, for Adam Lambert fans, is in knowing that Lambert will go on and do what he does just as if he had won. He is instantly recognizaeble, already a brand unto himself. The top spot matters not at all to his career.

Kris Allen, on the other hand, with a couple of bad choices or a lackluster debut album, could find himself the subject of a "Where Are They Now?" segment in a few years. He has great instincts, though, so I hope he can focus on making his career all about the music (like, say, James Taylor or Alison Krauss) rather than making it all about him and his image (like so many others).

Simon Cowell is gone next year, and I find the remaining judges so dull that, for the life of me, I can't imagine watching the show without him. In my view, if Cowell is out, they are better off going for a whole new set of judges with their own chemistry, rather than trying to play mix-and-match with the current set. I think they're done. Time to re-boot.

The Tripods are Coming

Kewl! The Tripods, the science fiction trilogy by John Christopher (real name Samuel Youd), is one of the stories well known and oft quoted in our household. My son even named his cat Ozzy, after the character Ozymandias. We read the books and watched the BBC TV series until the venerable VHS tape finally gave up the ghost a few years ago. We hadn't given it much thought for a while, until my son found some video clips on YouTube. It was fun rediscovering the series and covering old, familiar ground. I'll have to look around and see if the series may be found on DVD.

It occurred to me, after reading some comments on YouTube (always an intellectual treat) that the themes of the book could be interpreted as a slam at religion. I'd considered the idea before, but dismissed it, however... that was before Hitchens, Dawkins and Pullman labored to make the world safe for anti-religious bigotry, dragged it out of the closet and onto the New York Times Bestseller list.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the world has been conquered completely by aliens who travel around in gigantic tripods (okay, not terribly original, but consider it flattery to H.G. Wells) and the population are kept in line through the use of an electronic wire mesh "cap" that is stamped onto their cranium around the age of 16 (when young folk typically begin having serious rebellious thoughts) and that makes them content, docile and obedient to the tripods. The cap keeps them from thinking in certain ways, eliminates violent and deceitful thoughts, but also wonder and inventiveness. Human kind is restricted to about an 18th century level of technology. The heroes run away as their "capping day" draws near, in search of a secret enclave of human resistance,  based on nothing but a rumor and a map picked up from a "vagrant" (a human whose capping has gone wrong, they are considered insane).

I never interpreted the story as anti-religious, and in fact saw the cap in much broader terms as the common tendency for the Spirit of the Age (any age) to become tyrannical and oppressive, or the readiness of people to give up thinking for themselves in exchange for the promise of peace and safety. These are human themes into which religion of one kind or another might figure... or not.

If the story was meant as a veiled anti-religious screed, it's odd that an unabashed religionist like myself would find so much in the story to relate to and delight in. To me, the Map could just as well represent Holy Scripture, the Resistance the Church, and the Cap atheistic materialism. I always assumed that once a person was capped, religious impulses would be the first thing to go.

I Googled around a bit  and couldn't find any blatantly anti-religious sentiments attributable to to Mr. Youd (aka John Christopher), but I'd be interested to hear from someone who may know more.