George Rebane
Free speech again on the progressives’ chopping block. The Left is ever busy to squelch the First Amendment in America since they have no counterarguments against liberty, constitutionalism, fiscal prudency, constitutionalism, etc that can stand in a forum of the even mildly read voter. Their solution du jour is to start branding anti-Left political speech as “hurtful”, and then seek to broaden legal remedies they have already emplaced to stop such speech under the categories of ‘hurtful racism’, ‘hurtful homophobia’, and so on. As John O’Sullivan points out (here), the new category will claim that ‘offensive’ speech will also be deemed ‘hurtful’, and banned accordingly. People promoting this are not stupid, but evil? Yes! Another paean to the Great Divide.
Quarantining has a long and successful history in the US. Peggy Noonan reminds us of that (here) as she recounts her great-aunt’s Atlantic crossing to Ellis Island –
On a bookshelf in my home in a glass-and-brass frame I keep my great-aunt’s Ellis Island health card. It’s cardboard, about as big as your hand. She wore it on her coat during her nine-day journey from Ireland. Every day the ship’s surgeon (possibly brusquely, probably officiously) examined her for signs of acute or long-term illness. The card noted her details—immigrant, steerage, age about 20—and other facts. SS California out of Londonderry, 1909, Mary Jane Byrne, last residence Glenties. On the back it says, “Keep this Card to avoid detention at Quarantine and in Railroads in the United States.” If she failed the physicals she would be held at Ellis Island or sent back. There’s a little notch to mark each day the doctor found her healthy. In the end there were nine.
By the time of the great post-WW2 migrations the US government got much smarter when ‘screening’ and quarantining immigrants. As I recount in a couple of ‘My Story’ pieces (here and here), the screening of immigrants during 1949-51 involved a quarantine in Germany where we were kept locked up for weeks at former German military bases behind barbed wire while being examined daily for anything bad that might have been cooking in our bodies. The process was unquestionably a wise one given the untreatable infectious diseases of the time. And it continues to be a wise policy today, albeit still rejected by the ruling regime on political grounds, given the infectious diseases that we can’t successfully treat today.
[2nov14 update] Our 'NO on S' was stolen on Friday from Cement Hill Road. It seems the election sign stealing scumbags are particularly busy on the medical marijuana issue. We put up a new one yesterday. Russ Steele has more on this here.
[3nov14 update] The meteorological mavens at the NOAA's National Weather Service reported on NPR this morning that California's chances for above normal rainfall in November were a bit over 30%. Then with equal confidence in their voice the meteorologist went on to say that the chances for near normal rainfall were around 33%. And no one cracked a smile or recognized that the weather guys don't have a clue about rainfall in November. They just described a flat probability distribution which is the probabilistic definition of total ignorance. But hey, no one does numbers any more. It's the authoritative sound that counts to keep us sheeple content that they are cared for by another government agency. Now, you wanna talk about climate change?
rebanesruminations.com 
Leave a comment