Joy-Ann Reid The Miami Herald

February 3, 2011

Joy-Ann Reid
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, FL 33132-1693

RE: “Experiments in Democracy” – What the world looks like when your telescope is perched on Pluto

Ms. Reid,

I looooove movie lines. Don’t you?

I put up 2 pictures of you in my man cave. That way I can stand in the middle and say “Morons! I’m surrounded by morons!”

My wife made me take them down. She said they were scaring the cat.

First, a style point.

The New Yorker used to send up a warning flare whenever they saw one dripping with wretched excess.

BLOCK THAT METAPHOR!

“Vouchers, apparently, are the feathers in the pillow of Democracy.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You

If we parse that a bit some problems appear.

If the feathers are from geese or ducks then we have a PETA problem. I am sure you’re aware that most down feathers come from China. How is that “experiment in democracy” working out? It was passing strange that Lord Barack, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from 2 years ago hosted Uncle Wong, his Chinese banker, at a big White House dinner. Meanwhile last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner is locked up in China. The rumor that he is being forced to eat Jewish food can’t be confirmed.

If the feathers are polyester the carbon footprint problem is Herculean. Petro chemicals, fossil fuels, pollution in the Gulf, green house gases, drowning polar bears. How easy is it to connect the dots?


There are no easy answers for modern American Liberals. Try substituting a cinder block for a pillow. Your neck will hurt but you’ll feel really good about yourself. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it.

My suggestion is that you keep a large blue marker handy. Surely someone at the Herald remembers grammar and composition. Find him. Give him carte-blanche.

You congratulate Egypt “on their pending democracy”. I saw a man on a camel shouting Hi Ho Silver while he whipped the peasants. The main whipper looked like Omar Sharif, coincidentally, an Egyptian. Could T.E. Lawrence, one the 20th century’s great whippees, be far behind?

Speaking of “democracy” will Egypt use the hugely successful paradigmatic template created by Zimbabwe? It may be time to bring back the wonders worked by Idi Amin in Uganda. I can see a reprise of the Tutsi-Hutu dustup as a reality show shot by the Aswan Dam. It would be a marvelous tourist attraction.

You mention slavery and the failure of the Founding Fathers to end it in 1787. By 1865 there were graves holding the remains of more than 600,000 Americans. Thus was the Dred Scott decision overturned.

Speaking of slavery, would think me a cad or a bounder if I were to point out that at least 5 African countries – Nigeria, Sudan, Mali, Chad, and Mauretania – acquiesce in allowing slavery to flourish in their countries. Would it be impolitic of me to ask how did all those people get from the middle of Africa to the coast? Is it possible that Whites weren’t the only ones to profit from this “peculiar institution”?

As far as I can tell the only White people in those countries are the bag men from the UN bringing sacks of swag to the Big Boss Man du jour.

Your column has so many gems I will have to place a daily limit on myself.

You say that the “American right wing…favors the election of Egypt’s right wing”. Does that mean that Egypt’s left wing only allows fingers to be amputated rather than hands? How about flogging women who are “too quick to blush”? Does the left wing favor sensitivity training for Fatimas who step out on cuckolded Farouks, the alternative being stoning?

You say that the irenic Egyptians “achieved regime change without being invaded by the United States or Great Britain”.

It’s not that you are wrong. As the great Reagan used to say, “There is just so much that you don’t know”

Clio, the guardian of History, can be a cruel mistress. It may be an inconvenient truth but if you had to be “invaded” your best hope would be to have Great Britain do it. Those “invaded” countries – America, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa – are success stories without equal in the world.

It is owed to the ledger that we include Germany and Japan as countries that were “invaded” by the United States and Great Britain. Are you saying that we shouldn’t have done so?

On the question of democracy, however it is defined, shall we list the democracies in Africa? How many countries have had one man, one vote, one time? When was the last time Qadafi stood for election? How about Omar Bongo? Why should Egypt be different? Absent the collective memory of the agora, of the Roman Senate, of Runnymede, of 1688, of 1776 and 1787, of the Rule of Law, of the peaceful transfer of power after an election, of the unfettered transfer of property guaranteed by the government, of the codification of Natural Law, “gifts from beyond the stars” that are ours at birth and are not given to us by any government, in a written document why should Egypt be different?

Speaking of Egypt, do you know where and how WOG came about?

Meanwhile, after I finish my morning reading of the Federalist Papers, I must clean my BAR.

You can’t be too prepared for the upcoming voucher campaign.




Kevin Smith