As IF Times

Link Mark Cuban: Donald Sterling’s Comments ‘Abhorrent’ « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth.

Somehow, intemperate comments made in private by Donald Sterling has managed to usurp all other issues ailing the world and is the primary focus for all mainstream news.  His ‘abhorrent’ behavior has given news outlets respite from reporting on abstract things such as the Benghazi scandal or war in the Ukraine.  He’s even managed to push the remarkable Kim Kardashian off the front page of America’s news outlets.  What we are witnessing is nothing less than the most public lynching of an individual since Paula Deen.

Sterling’s history of behavior is not exactly the sort that would befit a NAACP achievement award, as that organization embarrassingly found out.  In the aftermath of the accusations, people who were once proudly associated with Sterling (or his money) disappeared with a ping and a swirl of dust, like the Roadrunner in a Wile E Coyote cartoon.

Apparently, the revelation that Sterling may hold some antipathy towards elements of the black community was a shock to people on the looney left but also to those on the newly sanctimonious right.  His comments were not made in a public speech or in an open forum.  They were uttered in private and we don’t even know the circumstances.  Oddly, someone (the offended gal pal) just happened to have a camera rolling. Maybe she was insisting that ebonics was a language.  The resultant firestorm was powerful and it was immediate.  The chorus of tsk tsking from all quarters was like the drone of cicadas on a summer’s evening in the Midwest.   Sterling became an instant pariah.   It’s hard to feel any pity for the guy, since as the old saying goes, if you lie with dogs, you’re going to get fleas.

What we should all feel pity for, if not absolute outrage, is the blatant assault on something infinitely more sacred and which is rapidly disappearing from our society: that is, privacy.  Even fellow NBA team owner Mark Cuban, noted foot in mouth guy,  recognizes that the circumstances that led to the public lynching of Sterling are the beginnings of a very slippery slope for privacy.  When you couple the fact that most everyone has a cellphone capable of recording any conversation and that many topics these days are strictly off limits as determined by the PC police, the opportunities for future extortion and character assassination are now objects of lawyers’ wet dreams.

As it is, every owner of any professional team is now on notice that they too can be brought before the PC kangaroo court and be stripped of their teams and their reputations if an offhand remark offends any of the exhaustive list of aggrieved members of society.  That’s not a small thing.  Imagine that anyone can be stripped of a multi-million dollar enterprise just because somebody doesn’t like what they said…in private.   That’s essentially state sponsored confiscation…or outright theft.  We can bet that this wouldn’t stop with owners of sports teams.  This policy will affect anyone who runs a large entity, holds public office, anyone who can be gainfully extorted.

It’s amusing that for all of the rhetoric about due process and free markets, the fortunes of Sterling’s ball team is not decided by the wallets of the public, but by a kangaroo court of sanctimonious sycophants.  Naturally, ‘appropriate’ buyers are already in the wings willing to take over the successful operation.  This is huge shot across the bow for American society.  The rule of law is giving way to tribal rule.  With these kinds of stakes at risk, you can be sure that an entire wave of rude hand gestures will emerge in place of verbal insults.  If anyone gets called on it, they can always claim they were misunderstood.

link New drone strike in Yemen kills Al Qaeda militants | Fox News.

Rabid and fanatical as they are, you would think that at least some of the Al Qaeda militants might get an epiphany about the future of their chosen profession.

When they consider that if taken prisoner by the Americans, they can be pretty much guaranteed a civil and protected lifestyle even if it is within the confines of a prison.  They are given clean clothes, a floor that is not dirt, indoor plumbing, regular feedings which will likely make them fat during their stay and above all, respect and support by the American media.   Even the threat of being water-boarded has been removed as a tool in the pursuit of answers to skill testing questions, since, well, that’s inhumane.  The worst that can happen is that they pipe Justin Bieber or Beyoncé music into their cells to encourage cooperation.

On the other hand, if they are just standing around in Yemen or some other middle eastern outpost plotting to do unsociable things, they are afforded no such civility.  They just hear a faint and increasingly loud whistling sound, then nothing.  No pearly gates, no 72 virgins; they become desert vapor. They are not afforded the charade of a civil trial, habeas corpus, interviews by CNN and extended incarceration.  Those kinds of niceties are reserved for militants that actually create havoc and murder people and are lucky enough to be taken prisoner for their deeds.  If you are just standing around looking guilty, you’re legitimately a pest to be wiped out as if you were a fly at a picnic.

Not being lawyers, we aren’t clear on why terrorists who are caught red handed and admit to their activities are feted and given celebrity status whereas people who are merely hanging around with undesirables get the working end of a missile.  We are not seeing the outrage which erupted around the ‘rights’ of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the resultant turning of his military trial into a civilian show trial.   This should be a strong hint to all potential terrorist inductees.  The glamour part of their existence is over.  The political currency derived from the kabuki of protecting the rights of terrorists has been spent by this administration.  That political theater is done.  Now they’re all expendable.

In truth and for pragmatic reasons, this is a far more efficient way to rid yourself of enemies than the old fashioned of way of sending in troops, suffering casualties and creating havoc.  The previous administration should have thought of that. We can just take out people that may be threats.  Hmm, seems civilized.  Once they figure out how efficient this really is, we can see them using the same methods domestically and Miranda will just be the name of a country singer.  When that happens, people had better choose who they hang out with wisely.