January 3, 2006
WRTA
 Brown
Shoes Diary
The Devil's Workshop
My fourth grade teacher, Sister Mary Hildagarde, taught me that an
idle mind is the devil's workshop. My mind has been stuck in idle over
the holidays and here is what the devil has been working on.
The Chairman-to-be of the Federal Reserve Bank has said that he is going to
target inflation to average 2% annually. That means the dollar will lose 1/3
of its purchasing power in just 20 years. Since the Fed was created for the
purpose of maintaining the value of the dollar it sounds as if Ben Bernanke
is going to openly and deliberately violate the Fed's charter. He won't
be the first Fed chairman to do so. To give you an idea of how the Fed
has behaved over the years just notice that the value of a dollar today is
equal to about what a nickel was worth in 1913 when the Fed was first
established. It looks as if Bernanke is going to continue the long
standing tradition of the Fed to devalue the currency of the realm. That's
not good.
Speaking of bank fraud, do you know that all banks are fraudulent? They
promise to take our deposits and keep them safe so that we can have access to
100% of our funds at any time. What they actually do is loan out our
money making their promise an empty one. Should we all ask for
our money at one time, we'd all be out of luck. And the politicians of
the world would blame us for making a "run on the bank".
There's a word to describe people who think the government ought to manage
the economy ("protect" manufacturing, restrict imports, and so on)
and limit the freedom of individual Americans to trade with whomever they
please. The word begins with the letter 'F'. (See biographies of
Mussolini or Hitler to learn the other letters in the word.)
Why are the first ten amendments to the Constitution called the Bill of
Rights? They ought to be called the Bill of Restrictions because they
explicitly limit the powers of the national government. Of course, the
belief that our rights derive from the Constitution is one that
socialists have had a ball with.
To understand just how awful our institutions of justice are consider the
case of Jared Klein. He was the 6 year old stabbed to death on
Christmas day in Tyrone. Now let's say the authorities catch the
murderer of this innocent child. Let's say even, for the sake of
argument, that the murder itself is on video tape so there's absolutely no
doubt who the murderer is. And let's say the person who took a knife
and stabbed this 6 year old through the throat is convicted. Then MAYBE
the murdering scum will be executed twenty to thirty years from now.
The old adage "justice delayed is justice denied" comes to mind,
but maybe is the word that exposes the pretense of justice in our
society.
Why does the government say it's putting taxes on cigarettes, beer, imports,
gasoline, etc.? Those things don't pay taxes. The government is
simply putting more taxes on the citizens who buy these items.
I saw the movie Casablanca over the holidays and realized I had
forgotten just how great a movie it was. I think the three movies
considered the greatest ever are Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and Gone With the Wind. (Although
my three favorites are Wizard of Oz, Groundhog Day, and The Man Who Shot
Liberty Valence.) Citizen Kane and Gone With the Wind don't hold
a candle to Casablanca. Casablanca has three truly noble characters, while Citizen
Kane and Gone With the Wind have none. Citizen Kane dwells on the loss
of innocence of a jaded, cynical individual and Gone With the Wind features
as shallow and self-centered a heroine as there is in fiction. There
are many memorable lines from Casablanca and all we get from Citizen Kane is
"Rosebud" and from Gone With the Wind we get
"Fiddle-dee-dee" and "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a
damn." Those don't compare with "Round up the usual
suspects", "I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you, " and
"Louie, I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Casablanca plays out a lovers' triangle on the stage of right
and wrong in the great event of the 20th century. There's nothing close
to the substance of Casablanca in Citizen Kane or Gone With the Wind. Here's looking at you, Casablanca!
Contact John D McGinnis
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