Historically hip dude, Ben Franklin -- not to be confused with Osama Ben Franklin Roosevelt Greer Garson Kanin Abel -- is credited with devising a system, an hermeneutic, a rule of thumb whereby one might adjudge the costs and benefits of possible future actions. You simply draw a line down a page and put the plusses on one side and the minuses on the other. Should one side greatly outweigh the other...you've got your answer. A pretty good, but not failsafe system.
I'd like to propose another system. Call it the Mirror Test or the Mirror Test...if you are Italian. In this system, one simply reverses the players, as in politics, and then weighs the fairness...or whatever criteria you might be looking for. Dixize perexaump.
Take, for example, the more controversial assertions that the Bushitler Admenstruation, Flush Sinbaud, Faux News, Phat Robertson and other knuckleheads and slabberdegullions who have a sort of bundle or fasces of beliefs...extract those beliefs...and foist them upon, say, the glowing Clinton Administration. A mirror test. You know.
How, for example, would the Bushies take to Janet Reno's rearranging of the laws in order to better spy on them? Would they champion the so-called Patriot Act? If so, I'd suggest it was simply because it had the name "patriot" in it. Oh yes. They would also have had Clinton impeached for having the nerve to use a Republican word.
If Bush had won the Popular Vote, but Gore had family and work partners in the Supreme Court, and Clinton's Court took charge of deciding who would be president, and went on to, of course, pick Gore...would you have accepted it? Would you have thought it best to simply crawl back into a hole and pretend it didn't happen? Or would you consider Gore illegitimate, and having a strong memory...remember that fact? Maybe even be a little perturbed, and wondering if this is not a bad precedent (and President) for a nation with such high ideals and standards as the United States of America?
The problem with the Mirror Test is that one would have to at least affect an air of impartiality; disinterest. And many of those whom I think would best benefit from taking such a test...are actually and certifiably...interested. They will make money off the deal. To these people I can only suggest that you read Eckhart and Jahaezus.
I would like to challenge any reader who should happen along to try and apply the Mirror Test to whatever agenda they may be pushing. Applying Kant's Categorical Imperative might not hurt either. Kant would never go along with Bush's policy of preemption, and he would have a difficult time with our own storehouses of weapons of mass destruction. Some day the war machine will have to be forever put to rest, and just as with the chariot-makers of old...they are going to have to get a different job. Time to retrain these hawks and profiteers. Let them become History Teachers.
On second thought...
So...the job for ye Bush apologists, should you light here, is to hold up that mirror.
There really is a reason why most of the world despises The Occupant. Open your third eye and see...
And speaking of which...did anyone see Andrew Sullivan on ABC's George on Sunday?
Surely, after that, he must realize that he is fighting for his foe. Will he now come to his senses?
What a great show that is! Best on Sunday morning! A class act!
