Reflections From a Murky Pond

The Obama Regime is nearing the culmination of its push against numerous Swiss banks that have been used by people attempting to shelter their wealth from confiscation by the US federal government.

They’ve already extorted $780 million and the identities of 4,700 account-holders from UBS in 2009. Now they’re close to coercing “cooperation” and reparations from 11 other foreign banks.

You can be assured that, in any other situation, the POTUS and his henchmen in the DOJ forcibly coercing foreign bodies who were operating within the respective laws of their countries to pay the American government 100′s of millions of dollars – probably billions of dollars by the end of this – and divulge confidential information about their clients in violation of the applicable laws of their nations, would be decried by the Liberals and Progressives as examples of “American Imperialism” and the “American Hegemony.”

No such outrage can be reasonably expected from the Leftists when the POTUS and his cabal are ignoring the laws and sovereignty of foreign nations in order to apply American legal jurisdiction in an attempt to seize the assets of alleged tax evaders.

That’s something to remember about America’s domestic enemies; they only get outraged and cry imperialism and/or hegemony when the supposed victims aren’t wealthy and aren’t presumed to be White. It’s all about class warfare and ethnoguiltism with them.

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There’s an old axiom based upon Biblical advice that states that goes, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” It has, along with most forms of parental discipline, fallen out of favor in modern, Western society.

He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.

– Proverbs 13:24, the Bible (KJV)

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Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.

– Proverbs 23: 13-14, the Bible (KJV)

Let’s leave the question of whether or not discipline benefit the child aside for the moment and consider a new proverb, “Spare the rod and raise a douchebag.”

Really! As David Hochman asks and answers, is current indulgent parenting spawning a generation of entitled hipster brats?

Let us begin with the assumption that if you are a parent, you wish for your child every advantage and opportunity. From the ergonomic high chair to that all-important first sushi experience and beyond, life should be as golden for your little one as it is for, say, Pax Jolie-Pitt.

But inevitably the moment arrives when all your doting and care come back on you in the form of a precocious little barb that reminds you in no uncertain terms of . . . you. It might be that his friend Jake’s eighth-birthday party was “unbelievably lame” or that “it’s weird that Brandon’s family flies first-class and we don’t,” or maybe it’s simply that “these taquitos taste like turd.”

It’s then that you must reckon with the real possibility that your drive to make little Johnny better, smarter, and hipper has merely turned him into a douchebag.

Now Mr. Hochman focuses on the evils of the Liberal urban elites, which is not entirely fair since the problem and problematic end results are endemic across many socio-economic strata of Western society, though the motives of the parents are likely to differ based upon economics, race, and culture. Yet it’s not particularly unfair either since these Liberal urban elites are set up as something akin to role models by the media and have the power to affect laws and policies in ways that make any form of parental discipline impossible or risky.

Now don’t get me wrong, with the surprisingly success of Reality TV, there’s obviously going to be a continuing job market for douchebags, but is raising your progeny to be fit for only that one job such a good idea, especially at the cost of the rest of us having to either put up with them or put them down?

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Perhaps it’s just me and the odd way my mind works, but the dichotomy in both legal and societal reaction to blackmail and “investigative journalism” seems quite odd to me. The difference between how we as a society view the two enterprises doesn’t seem to have any real, fact-based reasoning.

Why is Blackmail a crime, a felony in most or all cases, and “investigative journalism,” which is often better described as “muckraking” and does greater perceived harm to the victim an oft-lauded and protected activity?

The Shamed – Might They Have Preferred Blackmail?

Both blackmail and “investigative journalism” are based upon finding damaging and/or embarrassing details about a victim. The only difference is that a blackmailer gives the victim an alternative to being exposed.

So why is the blackmailer vilified and the reporter oft-times lauded?

It can’t be because blackmail causes greater harm to the victim than the muckraker does. Simple economics require that the price asked of the the victim by the blackmailer be less painful than exposure would be. Blackmail, after all, is a consumer driven industry where the victim sets the price based upon his or perceived pain points.

It can’t be because the blackmailer profits from his activities. Journalists, paparazzi, and random individuals with access to “sensitive” information regularly profit from exposing influential or famous people’s various faults, flaws, failings, and peccadilloes.

Nor can I see where or how it could be that blackmail is a crime against the People or State as opposed to being a crime against a Person. Not all, or even most cases of blackmail have involved politicians or businessmen in the context of their jobs and few of those that we know of have involved extorting them to act in certain manners. In point of fact, the exposées much touted by the media have seemingly had far more impact upon corporations and politics, yet they are legal and societally approved of.

It just doesn’t some to make any logical sense, yet I and all who I know are firm in our convictions that blackmail is wrong and must be a crime, whereas “investigative journalism” – or even “tell all,” unapproved biographies – are to be protected as basic rights necessary to our society.

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