Red Clay Citizen

Protesting the Wrong People?

The NY Times has an article on an activist group protesting outside the homes of Viacom executives (owners of VH1, BET and MTV) over the content of rap videos.

Among other things the protesters want media companies like Viacom to develop “universal creative standards” for video and music, including prohibitions on some language and images. Video vixens and foul-mouthed pimps and thugs are now so widespread, the protesters maintain, that they infect perceptions of ordinary nonwhite people.

Wouldn't they be better served protesting outside the mansions of the rap artists who create these videos?
Blame shifting at its finest.

...And The American Way

While I was walking back from lunch today I overheard a portion of a conversation by two men on the street.  One guy said, "I hate the government, I swear, I hate everyone one of them.  I can't stand our government."  I couldn't help but think of the irony of that statement.  It is because of our government that we are able to stand on the street and proclaim hatred for that very entity.   Would such vitriol be allowed on the streets of Cuba, Venezuela, perhaps Iran?  I think not.  That must mean we have a good government - not perfect - but good.  Sure they spend too much, argue too much, accomplish too little...and if you've tried to get a passport in the last six months, you are probably considering staging a coup..but it's still the best thing going.  Some students down in Jena, Louisiana also understand that.  Today nearly 40,000 of them converged on the small town to request, scratch that, demand justice for a group of local students.  There is no doubt that the students committed a crime.  There is little debate that they should be punished.  But the group of students from all parts of the country have gone down to remind local officials that one thing that makes our government good is equality and justice for all citizens.  Despite the fact that the usual suspects (Sharpton and Jackson) are there, there seems to be an understanding of the need eschew injustice everywhere we can in order to protect justice everywhere we can. 

40 Days for Life

Just an FYI ... on a new nationwide campaign called 40 Days for Life. Slated for September 26 to November 4, the initiative calls for 40 days of constant prayer and fasting in front of abortion clinics across the United States. At the same time, pro-life teams in each community will be conducting outreach and educational efforts. Already, a similar effort in Charlotte brought about 12 saves in one week; in Houston, the campaign helped shut down one abortion provider that had been in business for over 20 years. So far, almost two dozen cities have committed to the campaign. Oh ... and for more information about what the General Assembly did -- and did not do -- this past session to protect the rights of the elderly and the unborn, see this piece. --Jameson Taylor

Do Terrorists Have Rights?

The N&O would like for the SCOTUS to figure out the answer to that question. No need, I can do it right here in a flash of inelegant jurisprudence.

No, they don’t have rights. Left-leaning universalists, while they ignore most economic rights like those to property or to what one honestly earns, would like us to believe that everyone has rights to most everything under the sun. Whether they are arguing for air-conditioning rights for ‘sweatshop’ employees in Guatemala, or habeus corpus for enemy combatants and terrorists, so-called "human rights" become a blunt instrument with which to hammer out every leftist fashion of the day.

Currently it’s about extending rights of “freedom fighters” (read: terrorists). But enemy combatants don’t have Constitutional rights. Rights Americans enjoy are the product of a kind of social contract that one citizen has with every other. Such is the nature of citizenship. The Constitution codifies that for Americans – drawing the line between us and them. Citizen and non-Citizen. Swearing allegiance to the Constitution, as naturalized citizens do, is to become a member of our club—to live under our rules. To suggest non-citizens – much less enemies – have citizenship (and thus Constitutional rights) is not only to make fuzzy what it means to be a citizen at all, but to extend citizenship to the realms of absurdity. (Such Kantian universalism is well described in Robert Kagan’s Of Paradise and Power.)

Whether we’re talking about Martians or the very enemies of our country and Constitution, foreign terrorists don’t have the same rights we do. If they did, everyone in the world would be American. This may sound good in an unreflective, warm-n-fuzzy sort of way. But it’s a utopian fancy that would offer aid and comfort to those who hate us most. Such is not to argue that we treat enemy combatants with no decency; but that standards of treatment should grow largely out of what is required to protect the American people. -MB

One Down, Two to Go

Mike Nifong went down. As he should have. There may be more troubles ahead for him, too. So be it.

But what about the fate of the actual liar?  If justice is to be meted out equally in this case, we can't simply let her get off scott free. Are we to overlook her crime because she was black or a stripper?  Haven't we been told that justice doesn't see skin color or bank statements? (Paris Hilton should have to serve her full sentence for parole violation, right?) But this mendacious ruiner of lives - who pulled the race AND rape card all in one night - gets to strip another day?

Justice managed to win out in this case despite the "speak truth to power" academics who seem to think their agenda justifies their lies. And that's why some of the Duke faculty have comeuppance due. I suppose there is only karmic justice in it for them; though a sound, public thrashing for those petition-signing witchhunters is probably in order.

Sure, it's a mess we'd like all to go away. But not before things have been put right in the world. And that means: one down, two to go.

Inaugural Post

The Duke Lacrosse story is over.  The three accused team-members have been acquitted of all charges. Behind the mendacity of a disgruntled stripper, the political opportunism of an attorney general, and media who licked their chops at a story of race, sex, and privilege, we find three ordinary college kids who must carry on with their lives.

This non-story was a perfect example of how a lie can germinate.  It was an instance of academia's perennial fixation with the white oppressor/male sexual aggressor narrative -- fed, as it was, into the media sausage grinder.  From this one little event-that-never-was, nothing good has been born:  Race relations have gained no ground.  The academic left still believes in its own great weaving of lies. And the media have moved on to something else...

Justice was served, yes. But a bitter sort of justice.