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Delingpole’s Weinstein Summation
Mr. Delingpole has written exactly what I have been thinking so let’s hear him speak:
One of the most basic principles of a fair and just society is that everyone – and most especially those at the top of the food chain – has to be equal before the law. If they are not, then what constraint is there on the lawmakers? What is to stop politicians passing ever more iniquitous or damaging laws if they know that they won’t actually have to obey them themselves?
Liberals like Harvey Weinstein think it’s acceptable to create a world where they get to be allowed to behave as debauchedly as Goering at one of his country lodges, while the little people – that’s you and me – have to have every last detail of our lives overseen by the political correctness Gestapo.
They do the raping, you take the rap. That’s liberalism. I think it sucks. Don’t you?
I think Mr. Delingpole has it exactly. All that I could add is something that is strictly personal. I am an American Orthodox Jew and have been a conservative Republican since 1980. For over 35 years I have struggled with my own community. I have tried innumerable times to reason with them to see how their beliefs have failed to help those they claim to help, have failed to provide a moral ground for the family, have failed to protect the world from merciless ideologies, and are undermining the State of Israel. Nothing seems to work. The liberal gravy train that Delingpole has so aptly described was just too tempting. More often than not I have only been a target for their hopeless strawman obsessed visions.
Jews feel a special transcendental kinship with each other whether the Rabbi pushes you to it or not. Weinstein is one of ours. However, my special transcendental kinship is stretched beyond what I can endure. I am not wealthy and the last 35 years have not been easy. I’m not complaining, but Harvey knew exactly what he was doing and he must pay the price. I’d like to think that this will make a difference. I may even try one more time to make the point. Yet, I’m not holding my breath. Liberalism is an addictive disease. Those who have gotten away with it so far will probably continue. Then again maybe there will be a few that can grasp the lesson that Weinstein crashing and burning should teach.
I’m not holding my breath.
Published in Entertainment
Well Sir, those would be the undecided observers. They may be there at the time you speak, or they may hear something of it later. They are neither evident nor inevitable, but they are possible.
Thank you for your thoughts. They give courage to others.
Not really on topic, but something I have always wondered: Whenever we see last names like his we usually know that they are Jews of recent German ancestry. Spielberg, anything with -stein etc. But aren’t they just German words? Wine-Stone, for example. Why is it we can listen to an atheist and know he is of German Jewish heritage based on a German last name, and not assume his people were Lutherans. Does this just have more to do with immigration settlement patterns?
I have an ancestor named Bleistein, and as he settled in western PA in the 1700s, I have no reason to believe he was Jewish.
I never make this assumption. Among other things, surnames that end in “berg” are more often than not Scandinavian.
Thanks for this gut-wrenching post, James.
Getting lefties to connect the dots between leftist ideology and debauched and immoral behavior is indeed as difficult as getting Jews to connect the dots between leftist ideology and anti-Semitism. Even when President Obama gave Iran the green light to carry out the next holocaust (nuclear this time; no slow and messy gas chambers), and then helped to finance it with hundreds of millions of dollars, American Jews continued to support him. I have long said that “Jews for Democrats” is like “turkeys for Thanksgiving.” It is a mystery.
I did want to comment on one other thing, though. Debauched and immoral behavior is not limited to sexual misconduct. Harvey Weinstein was famous for using his power to abuse and debase the people who worked for his company or who hoped to work for his company. In this he is hardly alone. The world is full of powerful people who treat the “unwashed masses” as nothing but a target for their abusive and degrading behavior, even if there is no sexual component at all. Unfortunately, without the sex angle, nobody seems to care. No cyber-mob forms. No NY Times expose gets published. No media feeding frenzy happens. I hope for the day when everyone condemns abusive and degrading behavior by people in power, with or without a sexual component. First on my list of potential targets is Hillary Clinton. The way she uses people is just as bad as Bill, even if she doesn’t seek BJ’s under her desk.
Larry,
Your sentiments are appreciated. I’ve been thinking about something that might help us all to focus. Everyone except the truly foolish ideologues knows what rape means. It is the violent forcing of sexuality. However, the term ‘sexual harassment’ is a nebulous term that may have caused more problems than it has solved. If the clumsy guy at work too profusely compliments a woman on her appearance that can be conflated into harassment. However, what the actual sexual harassment law is about is sexual extortion. The woman goes to her boss and wants to discuss getting a raise. He tells her to meet him at the Motel 6 at 8 pm and he’ll tell her whether she gets the raise or gets fired tomorrow morning. That’s sexual extortion.
The idea that government can be used to make annoying people less annoying to you is completely stupid. The idea that certain forms of behavior are wholly unacceptable and should be held as criminal is something that government can do and should do.
Regards,
Jim
Probably? Probably? You can be as sure as certainty that human nature, and the liberals’ unending urge to control and use and abuse others, will continue.
I’ve long been concerned with the extent to which the legal system creates this inequity. Even if we’re all equal under the law, we’re not all equal in the legal system. The fact is that a prudent person will keep abuses like those committed by Mr Weinstein to themselves unless they have irrefutable proof. Wealthy people, should they be inclined to do so, can use the legal system as a weapon against people of lesser means. Not the laws themselves, mind you, but the process. Coming forward with a credible, but unproven accusation can result in personal bankruptcy. Perhaps a person can rely on the headlines generated by a sex scandal or a mainstream public figure to level the playing field, but what if the injustice is of a type that doesn’t grab headlines? We’re all potential victims of the legal system, but as most of us never cross paths with a private citizen both powerful and motivated enough to use it against us we see it as a problem with the regulatory state. It is that, but it’s not just that.
Despite my long-running concern, I don’t know what to do about it. Every idea I’ve had or encountered creates as many problems as it solves. As obviously flawed as our legal system is, making sweeping improvements will be very difficult.
The wealthy and the powerful frequently live by their own rules, which is why so many questionable dolts run for public office. It separates them from the pack, but not by merit or personal accomplishment, generally – it’s the lowest possible bar to achieve some semblance of power, be it at the local school board level, or national office.
Not saying all people who run for office are like that; quite the opposite. But it does say something when we have Congress-duders sitting in those chairs for 40 years, dying slowly before us but still mustering up the energy to tell us how we’re all jerks, and to give them more of our money, so they can spend it correctly.
Which makes me want to drive to DC and beat those idiots from Fort America, but society frowns on that. And I have to go to work, so I can keep sending half my earnings to these idiots, earnings I don’t even see in my bank account.
They get paid before we do. Think about that, for a bit. You work, and someone else receives the benefit of that labor, before the laborer does.
If you were Bernie Sanders, you should be outraged by that. So why isn’t he?