Posted on 10/05/2007 9:16:30 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
As often as possible, I share time well-spent with America’s greatest humorists and philosophers. This week it is Mark Twain and Thomas Sowell. That combination is not as odd as it first seems.
Philosophers dig down to basics, to find and state the truth. Think about it, humorists do the same, but faster. Humor is truth by surprise.
Mark Twain wrote: “When I arrived in Virginia City, there were eleven saloons, five jails, and some talk of building a church. It was no place to be a Presbyterian, and I did not remain one long.” In those two sentences, he tells three different stories.
One is the truth about the wild West. There was nonstop drinking, gambling, fighting, and running around with loose women in the mining camps of the American West. All that is referenced briefly but effectively. The second story is the somewhat priggish nature of the Protestant churches of his day. He wasn’t picking on just the Presbyterians. The third, and most interesting point is that Twain was not entirely displeased with the rough and ready life he found in that frontier town.
Right now, I’m reading Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions.” I recommend it highly to everyone. The book is about differences in conclusions about society, based on people’s assumptions about human nature.
The subject sounds incredibly dry, but Dr. Sowell’s hands, no subject is dry. He writes about the most complex subjects with a breathtaking simplicity and clarity. Reading his work is like looking through a cold mountain stream at the bright pebbles at the bottom.
The connection between Twain and Sowell is here: Late in his life, tragic events turned Twain to a darker vision, and more sardonic remarks. He wrote, “Let me write a nation’s customs, and I care not who writes its laws.”
Twain states here a basic truth about both human nature and politics, with which Sowell fully agrees. Laws which run against the customs of a nation will always fail. The question is only how soon and how badly. Prohibition is the classic example. In a moralistic uprising, we wrote Prohibition into the Constitution. More than two decades later, filled with speakeasies, bathtub gin, gangsters and public corruption, we threw Prohibition out.
Consider the politically correct speech codes sanctimoniously established by entirely too many universities. Among the activities prohibited are jokes about various groups. I’ll cut to the chase, The groups in society that you can still make fun of are whites, males, and lawyers. So, feel free to fire away at me.
Stern pronouncements of professors will not stamp out jokes. It will only make the professors into jokes themselves. But then, if academic prigs could understand jokes, they would not be prigs in the first place. Since the supply of politically incorrect humor does not need to be imported by bootleggers, every college dormitory on such a campus is automatically a speakeasy.
Here’s a general rule I recommend to all. “Don’t trust anyone who can’t take a joke.” That’s especially true of jokes about ourselves and our own views. People who cannot laugh at themselves lack perspective to understand the views and beliefs of other people.
As Dr. Sowell writes so eloquently, advanced societies develop a collective wisdom over the centuries. Twain recognized that in his quip about customs.
Given the title and the subject, you probably thought I was going to comment on Larry (“Wide Stance”) Craig, soon to be the former Senator from Idaho. I could have written at length that I used to respect him. That he has demonstrated boundless hypocrisy, dishonesty, and egotism. That he has been surrounded so long by so many staff who tell him he can walk on water he thinks he can get away with anything, any time.
My wife says simply. “Larry Craig sends his shirts out to be stuffed.”
That makes the final point about humor. As Twain wrote in “The Mysterious Stranger,” only humor has the capacity “to destroy a public humbug at a single blast.” Boss Tweed of New York City was immune to prosecution because he controlled the judges. The cartoons of Thomas Nast made a joke of Boss Tweed and eventually brought him down.
Perhaps in this era when absurdity is all around us, we need more humor and less philosophy to fight the public rot. As the best of both humorists and philosophers will agree, humor is just philosophy without the long words and pages of explanation.
As I was about to publish this, Larry Craig lost his vain effort to withdraw his guilty plea, and then violated his own pledge and said he intended to stay in the Senate. It is time for an intervention.
When Justice William O. Douglas was getting senile at the end of his long service on the Supreme Court, a delegation of his three closest and longest colleagues came to him and made it clear he should step down. It is time for a handful of Republican Senators to do the same to, and for, Larry Craig.
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About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu He lives in the 11th District of North Carolina.
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John / Billybob
—as usual, a good one , Congressman Billybob—
Thanks for the book recommendation. Thanks also for stating the obvious about Sen. Craig; it needed to be said.
Good article, CBB and you’re right on the mark about Craig.
Would be nice. Who knows? Maybe they have, but Sen. Craig is so full of himself, he doesn't think he should.
I actually think he should stick around and even run for re-election. The charges were spurious and all the claims of being gay were confined to aparachiks of the homosexual mafia who had been after him because of his unwavering stance against homosexuality. He has been a solid conservative and deserved a little more consideration than to be forced out over a stupid sex sting that involved not one bit of sex or even inappropriate behavior.
Notice not one person came forward during the debacle to publicly excoriate the Senator with confirmation of the claims. That suggests to me that there was nothing to the claims in the first place. Republicans need to learn to start fighting back and stop indulging the media by throwing their own under the bus. I suppose if the highest standard were adhered to Craig should resign to keep his word but so should Viter the pretty boy from LA(Louisiana) who was cavorting with a Prostitute and admitted as much. I for one believe people including Senators can change their minds. I’m sure he was willing to say anything at the time to deflect the relentless criticism at the time so I can find mercy in my heart for the Senator.
I’m tiring of the one dimensional thinkers who dance to the conventional wisdom which is not conventional at all. Craig would easily go on to re-Election if he runs which he has said he will not. Idaho is not going to elect a Democrat Senator. So the hand wringing is not only misplaced but better reserved for for the stages that we call newsrooms today. Republicans are always going to be at risk if they automatically cave based on allegations alone. Craig did make stupid mistakes like pleading guilt but if making mistakes even ones involving a misdemeanor were a disqualifier from public service then very few including our President would be fit for office.
A man may not deserve special consideration because they hold a public office but they most certainly deserve the same consideration as we would give any person. Trying to appear as high and mighty over small things does not improve the standing of the Republican party but will condemn it to obscurity.
If his stance had been unwavering he wouldn't have this problem ... :)
I agree with you. Craig was stupid, not criminal. If stupid disqualified you from public life, we could be rid of most of the Democrats and a good part of the Republicans. I for one am really tired of getting rid of Republicans while the Democrats rally 'round even their criminal members like Jefferson of Louisiana, Kennedy(both), ad nauseum.
I'd rather get rid of him via the ballot box because he's a RINO, but I'd prefer to elect a conservative in his place. Until such time, most any Republican is better than a Democrat subservient to Dingy Harry.
Which explains the white-hot hatred of the Left for Rush Limbaugh. If they did not hold the MSM's bosses in an unbreakable headlock, every one of their humbugs would have been swept from the public stage years ago by Rush's jibes. ;)
I like that so much I'm swiping it for a tagline...
And I agree in advance to the point you will make that there's a double standard here. Republicans have to dump their garbage. Democrats defend and reelect their garbage. That's just the way it is when you try to live by standards of honesty in an often dishonest world.
Congressman Billybob
Heads up -- my announcement of running for Congress in 2008 will appear here, Monday afternoon.
John / Billybob
Were they dressed in gray? (/quidam)
What I do care passionately about is the fact that the man has very poor judgment, can't make a decision and stick with it, and has no (zero, none, nada) business making laws by which the rest of us must abide.
Oh, and good article too.
John / Billybob
It strikes me that this is as good a summary of the Parable of the Dishonest Manager as I have ever seen.....
John / Billybob
You write as if the quality of his judgment in private matters is separate and distinct from his judgment in public matters.
I think there's a very strong connection between the two. If you can't trust a fellow to keep his private promises, why would you expect his public ones to be any more sacred? If his behavior in private is egregious, what makes you think his public actions will be any more trustworthy?
I don’t disagree. The only point I was trying to make is that the guy has demonstrable bad character and does not belong in a position to decide how our country will move forward, other than in the capacity of a citizen with a voice and a vote. If you apply that standard, you needn’t get into whether or not he conducted his private life according to my standards.
On the other hand, we are talking about a United States Senator, and that changes the paradigm.
Giving any sort of succor to that behavior is of zero value. That “behavior” being his retraction of his resignation from the Senate.
You can invoke the rectal cranial inversion position if you like, but as for me, Craig should have been gone as soon as this business became known. He is a hypocrite, and enabling that person is an exercise in foolishness.
The man simply has to go.
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