So this is what happens when Black politicians get off the Democratic plantation.
Rick Perry picked a good night to give an eyebrow-raising speech. Accusations that he was silly, goofy, tipsy, high on pain-killers or flat-out drunk barely got any play in the media, because the salivating and salacious press was so pre-occupied with vague allegations of sexual harassment directed at Herman Cain. Given the choice of sensationalizing non-stories to create caricatures, they chose the oversexed Uncle Tom over the hard-drinking Texas cowboy. Someone must have done a focus group and determined that “belly up to the bar, boys,” resonated less with independents than “lock up the women folk!”
It’s all a big yawn, except that it does give some clarification about a central conflict within our society, that between the industrious and the opportunistic, between the productive and the litigious, between the larger-than-life and the petty. The racial and regional stereotypes that lurk in the background, and in the backs of the minds of every liberal hoping to undermine both Cain and Perry, are nowhere near as significant as the every widening divide between citizens who believe in self-reliance, thrift and hard-work, and those parasites in search of a lottery-style payout.
Let’s start with Perry. I’ve met Rick Perry, I’ve seen him work a room and deliver a rousing speech. He’s an entertainer. He feeds off his audience. He’s got a gift for that kind of goofy, affable, ironic delivery that puts an audience at ease. He’s not the stiff who showed up for the first few Republican debates. Was he tired, uninhibited, even slightly lubricated? All of the above? Maybe. At this point I’m more interested in his ideas.
Rick Perry: Tipsy Speech, or just Happy to Air His Ideas?
As for Cain, Lord knows that thirty years or more ago women faced difficulties in the workforce, and additional protections were warranted. But just like racism, sexism has gone from being institutionalized to being covert to being every bit as eradicated as smallpox. Sure, it’s kept alive in isolated laboratories, (most notably liberal bastions like Hollywood) but it simply doesn’t circulate in the population at large. What circulates is a hyper-sensitivity both on the part of the ism-baters who fear irrelevance in a superficialities-don’t-matter society and nice, normal Americans who have been conditioned to believe a malignancy dwells at the bottom of their souls, and they must forever do penance for the sins of Henry VIII and Simon Legree.
Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Herman Cain Speak Volumes About Our Broken System
What exists today is not a legal process for redress or injunction, but a chance to shoot the moon. Simply by verbalizing a sexual harassment claim, a weak woman can hurt a strong man worse than a knee in the groin. Any petty, vindictive woman who chooses can libel a male boss out of mere jealousy and walk away with a severance package. This is the liberal utopia where truth matters not a whit. All that matters is an imbalance of power, which the courts will correct, not by leveling, but by reversing. And since any shyster can bring a suit on a contingency basis without fear of repercussions, “settlements” are paid out simply as a cost of doing business. Our courts have become accessories to extortion.
An historical perspective is instructive. No, I don’t mean to discuss Bill Clinton’s dalliances, nor Kenndy’s, nor LBJ’s. Let’s go all the way back to 1912, when Teddy Roosevelt was running as a third party candidate to re-take the White House from William Howard Taft. It was the midst of the Progressive Movement, with reformers gaining momentum. States were battlegrounds where the Dries seemed to be overwhelming the Wets. Of course, this was an illusion. Though a minority, the Dries were willing to take to the streets for their cause. The majority Wets weren’t going to march against their pastors for the right to get drunk.
Teddy Roosevelt, too, Was Accused of Speaking While Drunk
Against this backdrop, rumors of TR’s drinking which had long existed (notably raised in a New York World article entitled, “Rum, Rumor and Roosevelt,” by Frederic Sturdevan) no doubt damaged his already slim chances. Roosevelt, stung badly by his defeat in November of 1912, looked to punch back. He filed a libel suit against a newspaper called The Iron Ore in Marquette, Michigan, which had alleged Mr. Roosevelt “gets drunk not infrequently.”
Roosevelt prevailed in his suit, opting to accept the minimum statutory recovery of 6 cents, twice the cost of a copy of The Iron Ore. My point here is not that Roosevelt’s drinking should have been off-limits to the press, or even that Roosevelt proved he wasn’t a drunk. But he did get to face his accuser, which is an opportunity not being afforded Herman Cain.
No, our present society is so obsessed with empowering victims, that we allow them to lob anonymous grenades, hide behind lawyers and violate confidentiality agreements while claiming to be bound by them. Where once we were a nation of doers, in which a man of Herman Cain’s achievement would have been admired and emulated, we are now a nation of whiners, in which those who have made something of themselves are vilified, because they remind the whiners of their own inadequacy.
Have Lawsuits Made Us a Nation of Whiners?
I don’t want to defend anyone’s bad behavior. If Herman Cain crossed the line, his behavior should have been corrected. A sit-down with the offended lady would have been in order, and they probably both would have come out of it a little better for the exchange. But the opportunity for resolution is always undermined by the opportunity for a jackpot. Given the choice between the hard work of airing her grievances before her boss, and the easy ticket out, who wouldn’t hand off the case to a lawyer and let him run with it? Moreover, when laws are written vaguely, because “Congress has to do something,” but no member wants to be held accountable for what he has done, we get a mess left for the courts to sort out and a recipe for disaster. The lack of clarity in the courts encourages companies to start making cash payouts, which beget more complaints from frauds looking for a piece of the pie. This undermines management, causes dissent in the workforce, and steals resources from the organization that is supposed to be delivering value to its shareholders. Now we’re saddled with a system that does nothing to redress a problem, (which has pretty much disappeared anyway due to women’s competence in the workplace, rather than Congress’ skill at social engineering) but continues to fester, encouraging the worst kind extortion, fraud, waste, libel and slander.
We have a decision to make in this upcoming election about the direction we want this country to go. Do we want to be a nation that erects statues to heroes, or feeds the pigeons that crap on them?
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