House of Eratosthenes

Yahoo News reports that Matt Stone — one of the two “South Park” creators — says that marines guarding Saddam Hussein have forced him to watch their movie “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut,” which depicts Saddam in hell having a sexual relationship with Satan.
:
Let me add that I love the movie. And I’ve always assumed the Saddam watched the movie himself on his own in the days before we invaded.

But showing it to him now is just an attempt to annoy and humiliate him. We should be above that. [emphasis mine]

It’s not that I out-and-out disagree…but I am just so gawdawful tired of that threadbare cliche. This country really isn’t “above” nuthin’, and I’ve gotten a little bit jaundiced about the idea of supposing that we “should” be “above” such things.

There is something “humiliating” about being the only entity involved in a conflict of any kind among several disparate entities, who is called upon to follow certain rules the other parties are not being called upon to follow. Now, it is true that you can embrace a certain kind of nobility by lashing yourself to a shorter leash in some situations, and inspiring your counterparts to rise to your level. Some situatoins are like that. This one is not.

There are people who hate us. And if we follow certain rules of civility and decorum and non-humiliation…guess what? They’ll keep hating us. If we put on pink tutus, they’ll keep hating us. If we bring the prisoners at gitmo a nice chocolate cupcake for breakfast every day, they’ll keep hating us. If we change the Pledge of Allegiance to “One Nation Under Allah” they’ll keep hating us.

Get my drift? It don’t matter. So…what in the hell is the point?

Anytime you use the word “should,” you should be able to define what happens if the “should” isn’t done. That remains true for all “should” sentences, including the foregoing. So, let me just say, when you start “should”-ing people to death and “must”-ing people to death, you raise the question — what happens if we don’t do what you want? And in this exercise, Prof. Althouse fails to articulate what happens if we continue to humiliate Hussein (assuming we’re doing that).

And failing to articulate that, she’s denigrated herself into simply being an unthinking mouthpiece. A mouthpiece brilliant in other areas, maybe, but a mouthpiece nonetheless. We make Saddam Hussein watch a movie…or we don’t. As a practical matter, it makes no difference one way or t’other.

Dr. Melissa Clouthier, another female whose intellect I admire (yes, they’re out there), addresses this with a handy quote from one “Sam”:

Cripes. I can’t imagine a moral universe where law professors defend the imprisoned Saddam Hussein from teasing that pales in comparison to that routinely absorbed by fat twelve-year-olds.

Actually, having his dignity defended by sissy moralists must be as least as humililiating as a South Park episode. Stop it, Ann. Your motherly coddling of Saddam cruelly mocks his swarthy manliness. Have you no decency?

Eh, I say we cut Professor Althouse some slack here. She’s probably having an off-day. Other than that, I stand with Sam.

Teasing. For a mass-murderer. Who gives a rat’s ass.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

Must-Tards IXTuesday, August 29th, 2006

Must-Tards IX
Tuesday, August 29th, 2006