The legitimate object of government is "to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves." There are many such things—some of them exist independently of the injustice in the world. Making and maintaining roads, bridges, and the like; providing for the helpless young and afflicted; common schools; and disposing of deceased men's property, are instances.
But a far larger class of objects springs from the injustice of men. If one people will make war upon another, it is a necessity with that other to unite and coöperate for defense. Hence the military department. If some men will kill, or beat, or constrain others, or despoil them of property, by force, fraud, or non-compliance with contracts, it is a common object with peaceful and just men to prevent it. Hence the criminal and civil departments.
• • • • •
The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.
I'd call that a difference that makes a difference. Of course, Lincoln's actual remarks probably wouldn't have gone down quite so well in a House chamber half-full of sullen drown-the-government-in-a-bathtub Republicans.
Hat-tip to Steve Novick, who spotted this immediately and who's been pointing it out to everyone who'll listen since Tuesday night.
(Update: Second link in the "Tom the Dancing Bug" item, below, is now fixed.)
Item: In one of the slickest operational ploys since the Greeks built that big wooden horse, this week President Obama gave a speech to both houses of Congress, the Joint Chiefs, the Supreme Court, and the Cabinet -- simply to create a diversion while Navy SEALs rescued hostages from Somali pirates.
Item: Mitt Romney released two years' worth of tax returns, which generated so much bad press for him that most people now assum that whatever's in the prior years' returns, the ones he refuses to disclose, must be politically horrendous.
Item: After 68 years of faithfulness to planet Earth, Newt Gingrich has announced that he wants permission to start seeing the Moon on the side.
Today's selections have been selected by unnamed multimillion-dollar political donors from week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:
Ann Telnaes captures Newt just being Newt. Is that supposed to be his fault?
Mark Fiore looks at the SOTU and sees the same old socialist claptrap. (See how far into it you get into it before you figure out what's going on. It's choice.)
Taiwan's Next Media Animation gives you a crash course in the history of game consoles, and it all leads up to the Wii U, which a lot of people thought was an Abbot and Costello routine at first.
The Oregon Cartoon Institute is holding a public meeting at the 5th Avenue Cinemas on Sunday, February 12th. Topics include an update on the Mel Blanc Project.
The John Carter movie that never was: The story is told by animator Bob Clampett, whose shameless self-promotion was legendary. (He openly credited himself with creating Bugs Bunny while at Warner Bros., although it was a team effort in which Tex Avery probably stood as first among equals. Clampett actually got his name and animated face into the opening theme for the Beany and Cecil Show. And notice his remark about Donald Duck in the clip below.)
Nevertheless, there's pretty good evidence behind his story that, with Edgar Rice Burroughs' support, Clampett pitched the idea of a feature-length “John Carter of Mars” animated film to MGM in 1936. MGM liked the idea at first, but pulled the plug when they decided it might be too weird for American audiences. All that survived are some fascinating bits of animated test footage used to make the MGM pitch. That's Bob Clampett narrating, by the way.
The Simpsons? And fine art? Together? Actually, yes.
Tom Tomorrow reminds readers that the East Haven (CT) police department, four members of which were taken down by the FBI last week for racial profiling and worse, didn't just get into the “bad actor” thing recently. There's a long, ugly history.
Tom the Dancing Bug brings us the latest adventures of Lucky Duck, the poor little duck who's rich in luck. (Readers who may not remember the source of the “Lucky Duck” meme should go here.)
Comic Riffs has the story: DC is launching a “two-year, multi-platform, multimillion-dollar campaign” to promote awareness and relief for the hunger crises in the Horn of Africa, dubbed We Can Be Heros. The campaign, featuring the full cast of Justice Leaguers, will work with the International Rescue Committee, Save the Children, and p3 favorite Mercy Corps.
Hard to believe he wouldn't have swabbed the deck with Jeff Tweedy: But I suppose that when you pay for your own video, you get to make up your own rules. Just for grins and giggles, here's Wilco's “Dawned on Me” (2012), featuring cameos by Popeye, Bluto, Olive Oyl, J. Wellington Wimpy, and Swee' Pea, directed by Darren Romanelli. It's the first hand-drawn Popeye toon in 30 years. The plot features a romantic four-way (take that, Newt!) in which Popeye and Bluto compete with the Wilco frontman for Olive's always-erratic attention.
If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.
The p3 Big Oregon Toon Block:
Jack Ohman chronicles the latest painfully unsuccessful attempt by Mitt Romney to demonstrate that he gets it.
Honoring the likely victory on Tuesday of the SuperPAC not coordinating with Mitt Romney's campaign over the SuperPAC not coordinating with Newt “Angry Little Attack Muffin” Gingrich's campaign in the Florida GOP primary, here's the Act II show-stopper from the multple-Tony Award-winning “The Book of Mormon.”
If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.
Make no mistake: Without all the hell-raising, and all the shouting at the right buildings, and all the drum circles, we would have heard a very different State of the Union speech last night.
The bill in question prohibits “the manufacture or sale of food or products which use aborted human fetuses.”
You may or may not be surprised by the following:
(1) This happened in Oklahoma.
(2) The fellow who authored this law, State Sen. Ralph Shortey, cannot point to any evidence of any company in Oklahoma manufacturing or selling food products containing aborted human fetuses. Apparently he's just making sure.
So I must return to a question I've asked before (usually in connection with the oft-repeated claim that legalizing man-on-dog sex would be the inevitable consequence of legalizing same-sex marriage):
Can you really be this worried about stopping something that you haven't already been thinking about -- a lot?
However virtuous these people pretend to be, this sort of thing reeks of an unclean mind.
This, again, brings us back around to the larger subject of this Occupy Wall Street, this astroturf movement that's been funded from [George] Soros down and from every other angle, taking a bunch of over-educated, over-indulged white youth and attempting to force change ... So we shouldn't be surprised that this group, this Occupy Wall Street movement, which has been endorsed by the Messiah himself, President Barack Obama, that they are now trying to infiltrate the schools and corrupt the minds of children.
I think the Occupy Wall Street movement, the larger movement, is anathema to the idea of American Exceptionalism. In fact, I would go so far as to say that many of those involved in this movement hate America as it was originally formed and founded as a free market country rooted in the Judeo-Christian ethic.
Now Digby's point is that talk like this works by taking memes from the opposition, or conventional wisdom, and turning it wrong-side out. It exemplifies a point many critics on the left have been making for years: A lot of right-wing talk comes down to “I know you are, but what am I?”-style projection of their motives onto their enemies. (A corollary of this principle is that, if Republicans accuse Democrats of doing something, it's almost certainly something that the Republicans have already done themselves.) I agree with the Big D's point, and that passage is certainly a textbook example of the rhetorical move in question.
But that passage is more than simply a manifestation of the uncommonly angry minds populating the right end of the dial in America for the last twenty years -- it's much more.
With only minor continuity edits that don't affect the content, it's the basis for a fabulous party game: Right-Wing Mad Libs!
Rules: This is a game for multiple players. One player asks each of the other players, in turn, to select a word as specified on the numbered list below. Following this, the completed passage is read aloud with the selected words filling in the blanks.
If multiple teams compete, the creators of the best version are eligible for positions on a high-profile group blog funded by a right-wing think-tank.
Before the passage is read aloud, players must select:
1. An organization or movement.
2. A person.
3. An adjective.
4. An adjective.
5. An adjective.
6. A person.
7. A verb.
8. A plural noun.
9. A verb.
10. A plural noun.
11. An adjective.
12. An adjective.
13. An adjective.
Try it and see! Before you know it, you and your friends will be hooting and howling at the moon like Rand-quoting, hippie-punching, government-hating Tea Partiers!
This, again, brings us back around to the larger subject of this _____1_____, this astroturf movement that's been funded from _____2_____ down and from every other angle, taking a bunch of over-_____3_____, over-_____4_____ _____5_____ youth and attempting to force change ... So we shouldn't be surprised that this group, this movement, which has been endorsed by the Messiah himself/herself, _____6_____, that they are now trying to _____7_____ the _____8_____ and _____9_____ the _____10_____ of children.
I think the movement, the larger movement, is anathema to the idea of American _____11_____-ism. In fact, I would go so far as to say that many of those involved in this movement hate America as it was originally formed and founded as a/an _____12____ country rooted in the _____13____ ethic.
It's a sure-fire hit at parties, and an easy way to prove that, thanks to your enemies, America is going to __________ in a __________.
If the GOP were willing to sacrifice the White House in 2012 in order to guarantee they captured the Senate, could they find a candidate much better suited to the job than Newt Gingrich?
Sure, Mitt's rich, he knows how to fight dirty (or at least he has advisers who certainly do), he's got a SuperPAC to disguise his allies and misdirect critics, and he bused in Mormon cheerleaders to pad out the crowd at his final South Carolina rallies. But to connect with the voters in the state that has a has played Mordred to America's King Arthur every day since 1776, you have to be prepared to attack a black debate moderator for asking a fair question on Martin Luthor Luther** King Day.
You have to be Newt. The man was born to connect with the GOP lizard-brain; he's named after a garden reptile.
A lot of the toons about the SC primary are behind the curve, still expecting a Romney Victory of Inevitability in the Palmetto State, so the pickings may be a teeny bit slim today. Also, I'm not sure what to make of the fact that the picking seem pretty slim regarding the defeat of SOPA/PIPA; political toonists are another group worried about losing control of their intellectual property rights, but I expected more coverage. And the absence of any reference to Stephen Colbert's South Carolina work makes me wonder just how much anyone gets his spot-on attack on Citizens United and SuperPACS.
Well, we'll see where these topics are on the great radar screen of toony goodness next week.
*Having lost South Carolina to Newt is the only sense in which Romney can plausibly be called “poor,” of course.
**Sorry about confusing the slain civil-rights leader with Clark Kent's boyhood friend (and Superman's nemesis). Thanks, Ryan.
Today's selections were chosen in a flurry of last-minute ballot box-stuffing from among the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:
The Joy of Mashups, Part 1: In a seldom-seen collaboration between “Peanuts” creator Charles Shultz and Marvel Comics artist John Romita -- no, seriously -- Charlie Brown finally achieves his dream, with a little help.
The Joy of Mashups, Part 2: This gem, from Atomic Laundromat, goes out to p3's snow-encumbered readers who are fans of The Avengers and Calvin & Hobbes
And speaking of Calvin and Hobbes snowmen, here's a little treat for you:
If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.
Tom Tomorrow's take on the Romdroid One may have uncovered the deadly secret of the South Carolina primary results.
Comic Riffs tells the back-story of ”Haiti's Scapegoats,” a short video by Cartoon Movement on the treatment of Haiti's LGBT community following the devastating earthquake two years ago. (Click the CC button on the YouTube viewer for English subtitles.) The video is co-produced by Portland-based political cartoonist Matt Bors, who's also co-founder of Cartoon Movement, about which you'll be reading more in the p3 toon reviews to come.
Ah just cain't abide that word! Commemorating Newt Gingrich's win in the South Carolina GOP presidential primary, here's a quick historical tutorial, featuring Rocky, Bullwinkle, Boris, Natasha -- and Colonel Beauregard of the League of Confederate Correctors. The 12-episode “Wossamata U” story was broadcast during R&B's fifth season (1963-64). Voice work by Bill Scott, June Foray, Paul Frees, and Daws Butler. (If you need the back-story for this clip it may not help, but here it is: Bullwinkle, by dint of his mighty hurling ability, becomes the passer for Wossamatta U's football team, bringing them an undefeated season -- and the nefarious notice of Boris and Natasha, who bet heavily against WU in the game against the school's traditional rivals, Tick Tock Tech. B&N then attempt to rig the game by stealing WU's playbook and substituting battle plans from . . . well, you'll see.
If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.
"A good cause is often injured more by ill-timed efforts of its friends than by the arguments of its enemies. Persuasion, perseverance, and patience are the best advocates on questions depending on the will of others." -Thomas Jefferson (1826)
What President Obama said Abraham Lincoln said:
Actual headline from NPR's actual web site this week:
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