Once upon a time there was a dream--that the children of slaveholders and the descendants of slaves, the forever divided admirers of Robert E. Lee and Martin Luther King, Jr., would link arms and march together on their common holiday. But now that a governor as reasonable and realistic as Asa Hutchinson has come out for separating the two holidays, that vision is as dead as the old King-Lee holiday itself, and the time has come to give it up and make our way to our own Appomattox . . .
The army of lawyers who tried to keep the Little Rock School District from being taken over by the state, collecting handsome fees for themselves while they were at it, face their own Appomattox now that the federal courts have caught on to them at last. We would extend our sympathies if we had any for them . . .
Small nuclear blasts are still popping off in the latest Kim's combination of police state and nationwide concentration camp, but how long now before one assumes the shape of a mushroom cloud big enough to please Dr. Strangelove? Time and again American administrations have agreed to deals that were supposed to end these tests in exchange for smiles, nods and food for North Korea's party elite. Time and again all those promises have proven as unreliable as they have before. Uncle Sucker, who will never learn, has just been suckered again . . .
A congressman from Hawaii has proposed that his state's delegation be allowed to show their Aloha spirit by wearing the island's colorful sports shirts. Oh, good. Then each state's congressional delegation can wear their own costume on their special days so that all of Congress will look like a particularly bad fashion show as formality is abandoned and what was once the exception becomes the gosh-awful rule. Our leaders have yet to learn that a uniform dress code automatically eliminates any sartorial or other invidious distinctions, the way academic robes do at high school graduations . . .
Once again Private Option health insurance has proven the most expensive because it's really being paid for by the public through Medicaid . . .
The state's politicians met to eat their 73rd straight coon supper at Gillett along with equally indigestible political speeches as all grinned and bore it . . .
That strange standoff in the middle of Texas went into its 16th year as a family refused to believe that all charges had been formally dropped against its patriarch. Which is just fine. Let it go on for another 15 years rather than risk another massacre like the one the Clinton administration (Janet Reno, attorney general) engineered at the notorious Branch Davidian compound outside Waco. The best counsel in such situations remains: wait 'em out. Even if it takes generations. When Asa Hutchinson was still U.S. attorney, he had his lawmen surround the stronghold of The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, that cult up in the hills of Northwest Arkansas, and just wait and wait. Better to wait than spill even not-so-innocent blood in the name of the law. What's the rush?As other strange militias pop up in Oregon and all over the country, Asa's remains an example worth following--if not to save others' lives, then to ease our own consciences . . .
The president's State of the Disunion address highlighted his own great accomplishments in office. It would be more concise to say that his domestic policy has been as successful as his foreign one, like all the progress he's made against the Islamic State, the mullahs in Tehran, containing Russia's latest tsar, and generally preserving world peace, a concept some of us still remember from the Eisenhower, Truman, and most pointedly of all, Reagan years . . .
Meanwhile, our new Iranian "friends" have fired off a few more rockets in the Strait of Hormuz to show us who's boss. Hint: it is not this administration . . .
Whatever the diplomats, foreign-policy magazines, and assorted other "experts" say, the Castros' ever restive subjects are taking no chances and continue to flee whenever they can to Miami or any other of freedom's remaining outposts . . .
A dentist in Conway has agreed to give up his orthodontic license and legal challenge to the state's medieval guild, aka the Dental Practices Act, and we all wonder why medical and dental costs keep soaring and the free market disappears. As it will continue to do as long as liberty is considered an offense rather than a natural right. For we forget not only how just but practical freedom can be . . .
And so it goes, from anarchy to dictatorship and back again as sure as the pendulum of History swings back and forth, as the ancient Greeks well knew and understood. But who studies history or any of the other liberal arts any more?
Editorial on 01/16/2016