I just finished reading a thought-provoking essay on Jacksonian influences on American culture and politics, via a link found on Steven Den Beste's site. The entire article is rather long, but worth it, to me anyway. Of course, I've always thought that Jackson was one of the greatest presidents, and not given his props these days. :-)

A sample quote to pique your interest: "Jacksonians are instinctively democratic and populist. Hamiltonians mistrust democracy; Wilsonians don’t approve of the political rough and tumble. And while Jeffersonians support democracy in principle, they remain concerned that tyrannical majorities can overrule minority rights. Jacksonians believe that the political and moral instincts of the American people are sound and can be trusted, and that the simpler and more direct the process of government is, the better will be the results. In general, while the other schools welcome the representative character of our democracy, Jacksonians tend to see representative rather than direct institutions as necessary evils, and to believe that governments breed corruption and inefficiency the way picnics breed ants. Every administration will be corrupt; every Congress and legislature will be, to some extent, the plaything of lobbyists. Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it’s probably a fly. Jacksonians see corruption as human nature and, within certain ill-defined boundaries of reason and moderation, an inevitable by-product of government.

Disclaimer: once again, it's long, and prolly of more interest to political science junkies more than anyone else. But if you're a European that doesn't quite understand why things like the ICC smell bad to the citizenry here, or why we seem to be marching unilaterally off to war in the streets of Baghdad, this article will go a long way towards helping you understand these positions, even though it may not persuade you of their ultimate validity.

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I've mentioned before that I don't have a high opinion of our legal system. One of the major problems with it is corrupt law enforcement officers, willing to fabricate testimony to put folks in jail, and DA's more concerned about their conviction rates than punishing the guilty and releasing the innocent. This story is an excellent example.

One redneck cop "investigated," charged, and testified against 46 people in one small Texas town on drug charges. None of the arrested were in possession of any drugs. He never recorded any of the alleged drug deals. The only evidence ever offered was his word. In several instances, defendants were able to prove that the cop involved was lying. Most of the charged were black. The cop was proven to be a racist, incompetent, and a thief. Still, the local DA defends the convictions as sound.

The governor of Texas should immediately pardon anyone convicted by this man's testimony. He should be charged with perjury, abuse of office, and if found guilty, should be put in jail for the rest of life.

If only this was an isolated incident. It is not. Spurred by federal task force funds that tie the amount of the grant to the number of convictions, and seizure laws that let law enforcement agencies retain the lion's share of any assets seized, the drug cops focus on the easy street level user busts, rarely if ever arresting anyone farther up the supply chain. The arrested rarely have any money for an attorney, and take plea bargains to avoid longer sentences.

The War on Drugs has been a miserable failure. It is time to call an end to it.

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Reuters reports from Cairo...

An Egyptian court has jailed a man and his wife for six months for posting pornographic photos and films of themselves on the Internet, security sources said on Thursday.

The man, an engineer in his 40s, and his wife, in her 20s, were arrested after a special police vice squad traced the site on the Internet, the source said.

I'm sure this comes as no surprise to anyone with an IQ that exceeds their hat size, but it makes me look forward to the dances of joy I'll do when the US can quit having to spend billion of dollars a year on aid to culturally repressive regimes.

We started bribing the Egyptians to keep them from sleeping with the Soviets. Now, we pay them off to leave the Israelis alone, as they are really the only country in the area with the population to be a possible military threat.

But soon, oh so very soon, we will be able to make the alms we hand them contingent purely on their willingness to allow personal freedom of expression, and all those other civil rights we take for granted, in their nations. This will, of course, happen shortly after Saddam's Last Dance.

In doing so, we will be doing no more, even less, than the US federal government does to it's own citizens. Want that tax money for the highways we collected out of your state for the highways? Better dance to our tune then, buddy, and drop those speed linits, clean up that air. The only difference is that we will be dangling wads of cash that did not come from them originally, but from US taxpayers, making this "tyranny" even more benign.

A few generations from now, our children may look upon the events of 9/11 to be the catalyst that allowed the last great wave of political enlightenment to sweep across the globe. This, the Pax Americana, will ultimately prove to be the most fitting memorial to those that died that day, not whatever it is they finally decide to do down at Ground Zero. Of course, I have an opinon on that.

Still, the NYT wonders if it will be worth the cost. How utterly predictable. How easily refutable.

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