As IF Times

link Janeane Garofalo: Racist Republicans Support Herman Cain | RealClearPolitics.

The perpetuation of drivel from entertainment personalities continues.  At this time of year, while most people are critically assessing the new crop of TV shows for the fall season, the best reality show going on is the battle for the public’s mind concerning the upcoming 2012 presidential elections.

For the average person, it’s a big snooze-fest, as exciting as watching infomercials on late night TV.  For those with an interest in human nature and a stake in the future of the country, it’s enormously entertaining.  Just as TV has descended from  programming offering compelling dramas and witty comedy to now showcasing contrived cartoons and base humor, political discourse has also pushed to new levels of coarseness.  Despite characterizations to the contrary by most media outlets, it is the ongoing opinions of the left that are the most amusing and wildly entertaining if not for the seriousness of the topics.

For most people, determining who is sane and who isn’t sane is relatively easy.  You observe what they say and compare it to reality.  If there’s a significant and consistent divergence, then questioning sanity is valid.  Good examples of the latter would be Keith Olbermann, Michael Moore and as evidenced by the linked article, Janeane Garofalo.  An interesting give-away of insanity is the apportment of the hipster horn-rimmed glasses in which they are often photographed.  Rather than create an image of intelligence however, it instead conveys a look of crazed fanaticism with the only missing element being foam at the mouth.  Some may notice that from time to time, in an effort to look intelligent, Rachel Maddow and Matt Damon also wear these types of frames. 

The opinions of acting and entertainment personalities are frequently employed in the media to push a particular point of view, typically the so-called liberal or progressive perspective.  We assume this is done, not to just display the obvious nuttiness of the messenger, but to curry influence with the target audience of the TV network or newspaper.  After all, these people are paid entertainers who ACT for a living; in essence, they are  like hand puppets , tools used to convey a message.  For that vast number of people who don’t have their own formed opinions, this tactic will work.  For most people over the age of 12 with a modest exposure to real life, it won’t or shouldn’t. 

In the recent bleat by Garofalo, obviously important enough to be publicized by media outlets, she joins another actor, Morgan Freeman of assigning racism as the root of the troubles that befall Americans today.  Freeman recently opined that the troubles of Obama center on his race and not the record of ineptitude that has marked his time in office.  For Garofalo’ s part, she thinks that a Republican presidential contender, Herman Cain, is merely a ruse and a cover for the racist base of the Tea Party movement.   Cain is about as wholesome and apple pie as you can get, but this is moot.  In other words, it doesn’t matter how valid a person is, if they are playing for the other team, they are dismissed as being irrelevant.  No racism there. 

It’s impossible to satisfy their ideological biases.   They are unwilling to accept that in a free society, people can have opinions that differ from theirs.  Global warming is a fact, if you don’t believe it, you are a denier of truth.  When someone has a cup of coffee from Starbucks, they are contributing to the massive “military, industrial complex enslaving indigenous people and depleting resources”.  Or, they may just be having a cup of coffee.  If current political policies are not working well, it may not be because of racism.  It may be just that they’re stupid.

It’s great to watch the ongoing melodrama of political sparring,  it makes for great TV.   I only wish the dialogue from the left gets better…or they get credible actors.

link World shocked by U.S. execution of Troy Davis – CNN.com.

No they’re not, not unless 24 people constitutes the world.   This is the default spin of outlets such as CNN, supposedly the balanced network.   While it is a  mystery to me why Pope Benedict would care about a cop killer, it’s not a mystery as to why the other luminaries are flapping their gums.  Jimmy Carter is hardly the voice of reason on any topic, but they still trumpet his utterances as if he were some sage wise man.   Let’s look at some of the other outraged parties.

Hmm, the French foreign ministry, they of the ‘let’s bomb Libya’ brigade.  The Guardian newspaper, a notorious lefty publication also chimed in with their tsk tsks.  Apparently the severe financial crisis gripping Europe which threatens to topple governments as well as banks is not as pressing as the fate of cop killer Troy Davis according to a spokesman for the EU.  Perhaps it’s true, the Europeans are more sensitive.

Coincidentally, there was another execution at the same time of another killer, who happened to be non black , which for some reason didn’t arouse the collective attention of the world’s bleeding hearts.   I’m sure that guy felt a bit slighted at the lack of support for his plight.  It’s not clear to me why the sovereign laws of the U.S. are any of the business of other countries which are barely hanging on as nation states.

As a matter of fact, when one does some research, we find that the amount of executions carried out in the U.S. falls far behind the stats yielded by some other well known countries.  According to The International Business Times, Iran and Saudi Arabia execute more of their criminals on any given year than does the U.S.   China outnumbers everyone combined although no firm numbers are offered.  The belief is that they number in the thousands.  On the other hand, executions in those nation states can be for ‘crimes’ which we in the west would consider only iffy social behavior at worst.  For instance, sorcery is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.  Not only that, but if you’re a woman, they’ll flog you for the heinous crime of driving a car.  Teenagers are not immune to execution.  In China, you can be executed for incompetence or corruption.  !!!  Hmm.  But here in the U.S., even with 30 witnesses, people are still squeamish about executing a cop killer.

Domestically, there are headlines proclaiming that Mr. Davis’s execution was a ‘clear wake up call’ to abolish the death penalty.  Perhaps in the minds of those few who feel that no crime can be heinous enough to warrant any punishment other than strong scolding.  The fact is, capital punishment has always been the penalty for a capital crime, especially when the murder of a law officer is involved.  If not for this, there would be open season on police officers nationwide.   Who would risk their lives to protect others when their own lives are not valued and in some way protected?   In this particular case, over 30 eye witnesses testified that Mr. Davis not only shot the officer, but stood over him and shot him again while he lay helpless.  This is not an O.J. Simpson or Casey Anthony case where the evidence is mainly  “he said, she said” stuff.  These were living eye witnesses. They saw the crime being committed and they pointed him out in open court.

So in determining that the conviction may have been tainted and an innocent man executed because of questionable evidence implies that not only are the laws in error, it means that the 30 plus witnesses, many of whom were black, were also idiots and not credible.  If 30 eye witnesses finger a perp and the result is then seen as questionable, then there’s no point in proceeding with the whole charade of judicial justice as we know it.  They may as well put perps on stage and have them voted guilty or not guilty as in American Idol.

Justice should not only be blind.  These days it should also be deaf.