"What if they gave a war and nobody came?
Why, then, the war would come to you!
He who stays home when the fight begins
And lets another fight for his cause
Should take care:
He who does not take part
In the battle will share in the defeat.
Even avoiding battle will not avoid battle.
Since not to fight for your own cause
Really means
Fighting on behalf of your enemy's cause."

I tried to put myself in the place of the police commissioners. I said to myself these are not bad men. They are misguided. They have fine reputations in the community. In their dealings with white people they are respectful and gentlemanly. They probably think they are right in their methods of dealing with Negroes. They say the things they say about us and treat us as they do because they have been taught these things. From the cradle to the grave, it is instilled in them that the Negro is inferior. Their parents probably taught them that; the schools they attended taught them that; the books they read, even their churches and ministers, often taught them that; and above all the very concept of segregation teaches them that. The whole cultural traditional under which they have grown--a tradition blighted with more than 250 years of slavery and more than 90 years of segregation--teaches them that Negroes do not deserve certain things. So these men are merely the children of their culture. When they seek to preserve segregation they are seeking to preserve only what their local folkways have taught them was right.

Judges grant rights based on emotions all the time.

What's a restraining order? What's a court award based on actual damages and emotional suffering? What's an appeal to the judge to show mercy, a character witness, a pardon based on difficult circumstances?

The arguments for ending slavery were highly emotional.

The arguments for allowing gay marriage are highly emotional.

Should these emotional arguments not be allowed in a courtroom? Should plaintiffs have to fax in their briefs so as not to be caught up in emotion?

The Constitution is not ahuman, intended for robots. Courts of law are in front of live humans, a jury of peers, to allow emotion, common sense, human reasoning.

Without the willful, logical, emotional, physical participation of the populace, the Constitution is nothing.

Emotion of course is only one part of our being, and reliance on it and it alone is folly. But emotion and our hearts often lead the way when our heads get overwhelmed by brittle facts.

If the law were just a flow chart, we could have monkeys administer the law. If politics were just about reason, most politicians would be unqualified. We're a nation of passionate people and our laws both follow and guide our passion. The Supreme Court in particular follows the whims and precedents of the populace carefully, and only in rare occurrences jumps past the accepted social norms that we hold sacred over right and wrong.

That's our system. It's careful to the extreme, which is how slavery lasted 80 years, how Civil Rights got derailed another 100, how women were late getting the vote and property rights, how a variety of antiquated practices survive. And when they go, it's usually due to a rise in passion and emotion and fed-uppedness rather than any great new insight of reason.

Either she's a prejudiced bigot or she has a right to her point of view after a tragic event.

Kind of like everyone else. Except she's a victim, and I'm not, so I pay more attention to her opinion. I'm funny like that.

Build Your Mosque Somewhere Else.

Perhaps this well-written letter could finish off the idea that being against a mosque/community center in this sensitive location brands you an irrational racist.

But it probably won't. It looks like the builders of this center are well-meaning, have very ethical community-focused views, but are a bit naïve. But then naïve people are used by the more devious all the time.

In theory this center could work. In practice it probably won't.

In fact, it already isn't.

Hoover, a trained engineer, deeply believed in the Efficiency Movement, which held that government and the economy were riddled with inefficiency and waste, and could be improved by experts who could identify the problems and solve them. When the Wall Street Crash of 1929 struck less than eight months after he took office, Hoover tried to combat the ensuing Great Depression with volunteer efforts, none of which produced economic recovery during his term. The consensus among historians is that Hoover's defeat in the 1932 election was caused primarily by failure to end the downward economic spiral. As a result of these factors, Hoover is ranked somewhat poorly among former US Presidents
........

Hoover entered office with a plan to reform the nation's regulatory system, believing that a federal bureaucracy should have limited regulation over a country's economic system.[27] A self-described Progressive and Reformer, Hoover saw the presidency as a vehicle for improving the conditions of all Americans by regulation and by encouraging volunteerism. Long before entering politics, he had denounced laissez-faire thinking.[28] As Commerce Secretary, he had taken an active pro-regulation stance. As President, he helped push tariff and farm subsidy bills through Congress.

Hoover expanded civil service coverage of Federal positions, canceled private oil leases on government lands, and by instructing the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service to pursue gangsters for tax evasion, he enabled the prosecution of Al Capone. He appointed a commission that set aside 3 million acres (12,000 km²) of national parks and 2.3 million acres (9,000 km²) of national forests; advocated tax reduction for low-income Americans (not enacted); closed certain tax loopholes for the wealthy; doubled the number of veterans' hospital facilities; negotiated a treaty on St. Lawrence Seaway (which failed in the U.S. Senate); wrote a Children's Charter that advocated protection of every child regardless of race or gender; created an antitrust division in the Justice Department; required air mail carriers to adopt stricter safety measures and improve service; proposed federal loans for urban slum clearances (not enacted); organized the Federal Bureau of Prisons; reorganized the Bureau of Indian Affairs; instituted prison reform; proposed a federal Department of Education (not enacted); advocated $50-per-month pensions for Americans over 65 (not enacted); chaired White House conferences on child health, protection, homebuilding and homeownership; began construction of the Boulder Dam (later renamed Hoover Dam); and signed the Norris-La Guardia Act that limited judicial intervention in labor disputes.

On November 19, 1928, Hoover embarked on a seven-week goodwill tour of several Latin American nations to outline his economic and trade policies to other nations in the Western Hemisphere.

To gain Republican votes in Southern states, Hoover pioneered an electoral tactic later known as the "Southern Strategy". Hoover ousted many African American leaders in the Republican party, and replaced them with Whites. Hoover's appeal to White voters yielded substantial results, including Republican victories in Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, and Texas. It marked the first time a Republican candidate for president carried Texas. This outraged the Black leadership, which largely broke from the Republican Party, and began seeking candidates who supported civil rights within the Democratic Party.[21]

Calls for greater government assistance increased as the US economy continued to decline. Hoover rejected direct federal relief payments to individuals, as he believed that a dole would be addictive, and reduce the incentive to work. He was also a firm believer in balanced budgets, and was unwilling to run a budget deficit to fund welfare programs.[40] However, Hoover did pursue many policies in an attempt to pull the country out of depression. In 1929, Hoover authorized the Mexican Repatriation program to combat rampant unemployment, the burden on municipal aid services, and remove people seen as usurpers of American jobs. The program was largely a forced migration of approximately 500,000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans to Mexico, and continued through to 1937.

Hoover in 1931 urged the major banks in the country to form a consortium known as the National Credit Corporation (NCC).[44] The NCC was an example of Hoover's belief in volunteerism as a mechanism in aiding the economy. Hoover encouraged NCC member banks to provide loans to smaller banks to prevent them from collapsing. The banks within the NCC were often reluctant to provide loans, usually requiring banks to provide their largest assets as collateral. It quickly became apparent that the NCC would be incapable of fixing the problems it was designed to solve, and it was replaced by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

To pay for these and other government programs and to make up for revenue lost due to the Depression, Hoover agreed to roll back previous tax cuts his Administration had effected on upper incomes. In one of the largest tax increases in American history, the Revenue Act of 1932 raised income tax on the highest incomes from 25% to 63%. The estate tax was doubled and corporate taxes were raised by almost 15%. Also, a "check tax" was included that placed a 2-cent tax (over 30 cents in today's dollars) on all bank checks. Economists William D. Lastrapes and George Selgin,[47] conclude that the check tax was "an important contributing factor to that period's severe monetary contraction." Hoover also encouraged Congress to investigate the New York Stock Exchange, and this pressure resulted in various reforms.

Revealing the split between the Pentagon and the White House might be bigger than the chasm between Obama and progressives, military officials seemed to revel in details of just how little $10 million is ("that's the dry cleaning bill for the White House Lawn Military Band", read one flipchart, while another simply showed the famed $10 million military toilet seat  - decked out in gold oak leaves - next to the union one full of soggy cash.

.
Ignoring the several million dollars flushed down the toilet in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey, the White House anonymous leaker tried to put on a brave face by comparing unions' illogical outburst of democratic campaign financing with BP's failed "junk shot" whereby the British oil giant attempted to clog the still spewing tube in the sea with a huge "load" estimated at a fantastically large sum of bills worth 1/10,000th its daily US profits. 

Nevertheless, the recent Supreme Court ruling affirming that "companies are people too" seems to have invited a new round of largesse from special corporate interests hoping to influence the political process, even, curiously enough, ones that represent people. (On a stranger side note, producers for the Jerry Springer Show have noted turning down offers of several companies quoting the ruling as reason to be on the show, while Sasha "Borat" Cohen's next movie apparently has him adopting an out-of-work multinational conglomerate).

But for the most part, the Pentagon has largely stayed above the fray, dismissing charges that David Petraeus was running for office as "idle chit-chat from the nattering nabobs of negativity" and noting that they were focused "whole heartedly and mindedly" on the bipartisan surge, which would likely carry them through the next 3-4 campaign cycles anyway. With special supplementals funding the 2 wars running at roughly $15 million per hour, America's warriors could afford to be bemused at the White House's sudden flirtation with frugality. "Yeah, they tried to withhold our last $60 billion, but like a crackhead with pipe shoved against his lips, that lasted all of a New York second" said one retired General famous for speaking at the UN who refused to be named, as he toured this reporter around Washington in one of his fancier red convertibles.

Curiously another politician was lamenting "money flushed down the toilet" this week as former President Bill Clinton found the same candidate he'd helped campaign to victory in Arkansas this past week voting down environmental global warming legislation that his non-profit had championed worldwide in recent years. Presumably with her newly improved standing with the beleaguered oil giant BP and the erstwhile giants of Wall Street who've been the biggest recipients of "money flushed down the toilet" the last two years, the primary victor Blanche Lincoln stands to be in a position to return Mr. Clinton's help in other tangible ways. But whether that happens remains a question - as the song goes, "Nobody knows you when you're flushed down and out".

Several hours of fighting followed, with the ship's passengers spraying fuel oil and throwing smoke bombs, life rafts and whatever else came to hand, down on the British sailors trying to board, The Times reported at the time. Soon the British opened fire. Two immigrants and a crewman on the Exodus were killed; scores more were wounded, many seriously. The ship was towed to Haifa, and from there its passengers were deported, first to France and eventually to Germany, where they were placed in camps near Lübeck.