Personal Aside: Can Hardly Wait for The Economist Subscription to End.

The Economist Subscription.

It’s been my observation that no matter how loony we get in cultural decadence, Britain usually tops us…and we move on to tie with it—and it runs ahead to be even more outrageous. Take rock music which we pioneered with Elvis Presley. No sooner had Presley become a success than Britain came out with a creature known as “Screaming Lord Sutch.” True, he never had a hit in either his country or ours…but he out-did us in outrageousness at the time. His early `60s singles were over the top. He was known for his horror-based stage shows.

A man generally recognized of possessing no talent, he was born David Edward Sutch on Nov. 10, 1940 but changed his artistic name to Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow of course with no relationship to the peerage. Then he got interested in English politics and formed the “Official Monster Raving Loony” party, running for parliament numerous times. We finally caught up with our own raving loony, Rod Blagojevich but when we did Lord Sutch had been long dead—having died by his own hand on June 16, 1999.

I begin with this case because like everything else, Britain outdistances us in decadence and loony tune ideas (with which we catch up sooner than later, unfortunately). I have referred earlier to the weird case of The Economist magazine (which the London-based publication continues to call a newspaper). Once considered a conservative publication with a specialty in economics, it has slowly been turning left…endorsing not just abortion but gay marriage…which caused me to end the subscription. But unfortunately the subscription has much time to run out. Thus every month there is deposited on my door stoop another issue which could be called the printed version of Screaming Lord Sutch.

Here in this country, every so-called mainstream newspaper except The Wall Street Journal and a few others, have gone to the Left and have hewn to that side with abysmal tendencies. They have adopted what was long ago decided as first-rank editorial policy by The Economist—misstatement of history, improbable juxtaposition of views, adoption of easily written headlines: “Whither Indonesia?” And the blatantly obvious: “Guiding Peugeot-Citroen through the recession will be hard. Philipe Varin must get along with the owners.”

That’s a hot one. “Varin must get along with the owners.” Who in hell would allege that he must NOT get along with his company’s owners? “Iraq--Its commanders say they can run the show on their own. Really?” YES, REALLY, jerks! It warns with the truism: “Overconfidence among soldiers can be as dangerous as timidity.” No, damn it: this is NOT true. Timidity in every case is fatal for soldiers in war. It enabled George W. Bush to overrule everyone—Rumsfeld, Gates—everyone and plump for The Surge. Guts and overconfidence…in place of timidity…caused Eisenhower to look at his watch on 6 June, 1944, overrule his weather experts, look at the boiling channel and say crisply, “OK, we go!” Grant to tell Lincoln, “Mr. President, I don’t care what anyone says. I intend to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer” (it took much longer).

Just read a little history, guys for crying-out-loud!

Now consider this. We have a culture here in America that is grievously decadent. Not only full editorial support for abortion and gay marriage but we’re showing clips on TV news and in so-called situation comedies that couldn’t make it at the old Rialto theatre when it was a disreputable palace for dirty-mouthed comics and tired, blonde 60ish dancers in the `40s. Just when you think we have caught up with the nation that produced Screaming Lord Sutch, the “paper” known as The Economist comes out with a cover headline that says: “America’s Unjust Sex Laws.”

America’s unjust sex laws. It made me put on my latex gloves and turn the pages to the “leaders” or editorials to find out how unjust our sex laws are. You know what they are? Get this: “America’s sex offender laws are the strictest of any rich democracy [sic]. Convicted rapists and child-molesters are given long prison sentences. When released, they are put on sex offender registries. In most states this means that their names, photographs and addresses are published online, so that fearful parents can check whether a child-molester lives nearby. Under the Adam Walsh Act of 2006, another law named after a murdered child, all states will soon be obliged to make their sex offender registries public.”

Now says what would assuredly be the favorite mag of the late Screaming Lord Sutch, “it is unfair to impose harsh penalties for small offenses.” Understand that our screamingly unfair sex laws began 15 years ago when a pedophile (the Screaming Lord Economist spells it snootily “paedophile”enticed seven year old Megan Kanka into his home in New Jersey by offering to show her a puppy. He raped her, killed her and dumped her body in a nearby park. The murderer had twice before been convicted to sexually assaulting a child. Reason for the law: Had people known he was a sex offender, they could have set up defenses (or as The Economist would spell it “defences.”

That was the source, the origin, of these insultingly, humiliatingly discriminatory laws. Instead of publishing the names and faces, Screaming Lord Sutch magazine says “states should assess each person individually and include only real threats. Instead of posting everything on the Internet, names could be held by the police who would share them only with those, such as a school, who need to know.” Gee, how compassionate: just another thing for the police to do—run to the schools and share the names. Would this program have spared Megan Kanka—no. Adam Walsh? Of course not.

That loony-ness has spurred me to write The Economist and tell them to run, not walk, to their subscription bank and cut me off now. ..TODAY! THIS INSTANT! I want no more of this nutcake stuff from England. But of course compassion for child molesters will soon, inevitably, take root here as we catch up to the Screaming Lord Sutch move to the Left. Where will I see the first tender shoot of leaves telling me that The New York Times has rethought it’s position and is calling for more compassion for child molesters. Will it begin with The Times? No, they’re bottom feeders over there.

Probably with the Sun-Times and Neil Steinberg. After all, he was hired to provoke.