Category Archives: Media Criticism

The Constitution

The Left is now quite open in its contempt for it, and the law.

Thomas More would have been appalled:

…And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you–where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast–man’s laws, not God’s–and if you cut them down…d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

Laws are for the little people.

David Gregory

…and his legal jeopardy:

Chief Lanier is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If she does not charge Mr. Gregory with the felony, she sends a message to the crime-ridden city that the laws don’t apply to the rich and powerful. However, if she books him on breaking the city’s onerous firearms law, it will further illuminate how ridiculous the laws are for law-abiding people to follow.

A real journalist would be challenging the DC authorities to charge him, to point out just how ludicrous and unfair these laws are. But NBC doesn’t have any of those.

The Bitter Wastes

of politicized America:

Beyond its crass offensiveness, Hoyer’s rhetoric is remarkably blinkered. By definition, all political arrangements in our representative republic involve a process of demand and compromise. Hoyer’s Democrats are every bit as guilty of taking “hostages,” or displaying stubborn intransigence, as their political opponents. When the stakes are high, the struggle turns bitter. Come to think of it, things can get pretty nasty in Washington when the stakes are low, too.

The rest of us should consider the contemptible behavior of people like Hoyer as we watch the expansion of politics into every area of our lives. The government grows; the private sector diminishes; everything becomes a political act. Soon you will see the phrase “none of your business” become an antique aphorism, as quaint as telling someone to “dial” a telephone number. Everything is everyone’s business now. That’s what Big Government means.

That’s what America signed up for by re-electing Barack Obama, who is more dedicated to the contraction of the private sphere than any predecessor in living memory. He appears to sincerely believe that government control is necessary to achieve virtue. But the conduct of our political leadership doesn’t seem terribly virtuous, does it? It’s not even very polite.

Or even competent at anything except looting.

Les Miz

I agree with Roger Simon:

…it’s always been a mystery to me how this tuneless musical was a success in the first place…

Yes. Patricia took me to see it at the Pantages about twenty years ago for my birthday, and my reaction was “Meh.” I read the book when I was young, and it’s a great story, but I think it is a failure as a musical, though I know this is heresy to many. For one thing, it’s not a musical — it’s an opera, and I’ve never been an opera fan (Phantom had good enough melodies that I got past that). And there is very little in the way of memorable songs in it. It’s just continuous singing. Even a mediocre Rodgers and Hammerstein song is superior to the most famous song of Les Miz, “I Dreamed A Dream.” Plus, I thought it overglorified the June Revolution which, like all French revolutions, was the antithesis of one promoting actual human freedom, all of them, from the Terror on, being led by the intellectual offspring of Rousseau.

So no, I have no plans to see the movie.