Some Back-Stories Not Heard - Radio Derb Transcript

Here are some pertinent follow-up stories to big stories that were little publicized.

Radio Derb Transcript by John Derbyshire

Saturday, December 8th, 2012  long excerpt 

03 — Bring in the clowns.     I spoke there of a spark of hope that congressional Republicans might do the right thing, which would be, to go home and disconnect their telephones.

It is, of course, only the tiniest spark. The congresscritters, Democrats and Republicans alike, are just as addicted to spending as Obama is. It's not just Obama squeezing away at the teats of the taxpayer cow, it's him and Congress both, though they may differ somewhat in squeeze technique.

As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, federal spending in fiscal 2012 was 24.33 percent, higher than in any previous year since 1946, when it was 29.94 percent. Got that? Winding up World War Two and preparing to face down the Soviets: just short of thirty percent. Winding up a tiny colonial skirmish in West Asia and facing down a few hundred fanatics with boxcutters: 25 percent.

It's not just Obama, it's also Congress. Which means, at one slight remove, it's us. We want the goodies, but we don't want to pay for them. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, immoral. We hired the money; and if we don't pay for it, our children will have to. I love my kids; I want them to have good lives in a country that conducts its fiscal affairs with honor and good sense; I'll pay. But for goodness' sake, let's not ratchet up the spending even further on this president's stupid, bogus, quote, "investment in training, education, science, and research."

So what will actually happen with these fiscal cliff negotiations? Shall my spark of hope burst out into glorious flame?

Not likely. John Boehner is a spineless twerp, and few House Republicans are any better. Like Britain's high-tax, high-spending, open-borders, unnecessary-wars, multiculturalist, globalist Tory Party, the GOP has entered a death spiral. This recent election knocked them off their feet; but it was like knocking down a 95-year-old guy on a Zimmer frame.

Barack Obama will get the deal he wants, more or less, because his opposition doesn't have a full set of vertebrae between the lot of them.

Obama knows this, of course, and is openly mocking us. News report from the Weekly Standard blog, December 4th, quote:

President Barack Obama met with several MSNBC hosts this afternoon at the White House to discuss tax rates, according to Huffington Post reporter Jennifer Bendery. The reporter wondered if an "MSNBC love fest" was going on at the White House.

End quote. Named in the report as having been summoned by the President to offer their fiscal advice were Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Rev'm Al Sharpton.

In related news, John Boehner has been seeking advice on the nation's fiscal management from Snookie, Pee Wee Herman, and Pastor Terry Jones.

Listeners, shed a tear for our beautiful country, that has come to such a pass. Then, get ready to pay what you owe. A nation gets the government it deserves, and this is the one we got.

04 — Not cynical enough.     Cynicism does not get a good press in the U.S.A. There have been some great American cynics — H.L. Mencken, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain in his darker moments — but this is on the whole an optimistic, romantic nation. Our moving spirit is Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who taught that human nature is fundamentally good, and is only diverted into the evils of greed, selfishness, and a dozen bad words ending in "-ism" by the corrupting influences of bourgeois civilization.

The Old Adam keeps breaking through the smiley-face mask, though, and the daily diet of stories from the news media always contains a few items to make us cynics cackle with cynical glee. This week's news turned up a real doozy in that line.

The central characters here are, first, Lawrence DePrimo, a New York City cop, and second, Jeffrey Hillman, a street person, age 54.

On the cold night of November 14, Officer DePrimo was on foot patrol in Times Square. He saw Mr. Hillman sitting on the sidewalk propped against a wall, and noticed that Mr. Hillman's feet were bare. Officer DePrimo did the Good Samaritan thing: He went to a local store and, with his own money, purchased a pair of boots and a pair of socks, and went back out and put them on Mr. Hillman's feet.

A passing tourist caught the episode on her cameraphone and sent it to the New York Police Department. Her recording of the incident was unknown to Officer DePrimo at the time, and definitely unknown to Mr. Hillman, who appears comatose. The NYPD put the pictures online, and Officer DePrimo became a national hero. Pretty soon he was doing the talk show circuit. By last weekend he could have run for Mayor. In fact, given the menagerie of tinfoil-hat lefties who are running for Mayor, many of us wished he would.

It was a pretty little story; but to us cynics, it was surprising from a couple of angles.

For one, this was a cop doing this. There is hardly any profession where you'll find a higher concentration of cynicism than in police work. Cops don't read Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They don't need to. They have philosophy lessons every working day of the week. If you want to see human nature as cops see it, I recommend Connie Fletcher's book What Cops Know.

My surprise here was muted somewhat when I learned that Officer DePrimo is a rookie, only 25 years old. Still, even at that age, he can have been out patrolling the streets for two or three years, so the incident still bespeaks an exceptional innocence of heart.

For another thing, this was New York City, where the normal friendly greeting to a stranger is "HEY, JACKASS!" and you're either getting elbowed off the sidewalk or you're doing the elbowing. Anything you care to say about cynicism can be raised to the second, third, and fourth power in New York City.

Anyway, when I read the story, my inner cynic spoke up right away. Here's what he said. "Ha! As soon as that homeless guy sobers up enough to string two thoughts together, he'll sell those boots to buy more booze or crack."

Deplorable of me, I know. It turns out, though, that I wasn't cynical enough. Perhaps in today's world you can never be cynical enough.

Now, I don't actually know that Mr. Hillman sold his boots for booze money, but the circumstantial evidence is mighty strong — to quote from Henry David Thoreau, as when you find a fish in your milk.

I do know, because last Sunday's New York Times reported it, that Mr. Hillman is still wandering the New York streets, and is once again barefoot.

Tackled by the Times reporter, Mr. Hillman had this to say, quote: "Those shoes are hidden. They are worth a lot of money. I could lose my life." End quote. Mr. Hillman also had a grievance to air. Who doesn't, in our Republic of Resentment? Quote: "I was put on YouTube, I was put on everything without permission. What do I get? This went around the world, and I want a piece of the pie." End quote.

Leaving aside Mr. Hillman's grievance that all he got from the affair was a lousy hundred-dollar set of boots and socks, what does he mean by saying "I could lose my life"? I've been walking around New York City for forty years, often in pricey footwear, but I've never felt my life was in danger therefrom.

So perhaps Mr. Hillman's fears for his life refer to the denizens of the anarchic homeless shelter in which the poor fellow is obliged to spend his sleepless nights? Well, not likely. Here's where I wasn't cynical enough.

You see, it turns out Mr. Hillman is not actually homeless. New York's Channel 4 News reported on Tuesday that Veterans Affairs gave Mr. Hillman an apartment in the Bronx last year. City officials confirmed that he does actually live there. He pays his rent using, quote, "a lifetime voucher for homeless veterans, together with his Social Security income," end quote. They don't explain why Mr. Hillman's getting Social Security at age 54. Presumably this is SSI, Supplemental Security Income, which was created in 1974 to help people not old enough for Social Security but too disabled to work. SSI is now a vast scam feeding taxpayer cash to anyone who can persuade a doctor to sign a note, with unscrupulous attorneysskimming off the cream.

A friend who is a tad less cynical than myself suggested that perhaps panhandling in Times Square is just more profitable if you're barefoot, as indeed Officer DePrimo's actions would illustrate. So possibly Mr. Hillman just leaves his boots at home when doing his night job, I don't know.

Whatever the fate of those boots, the takeaway here is that our nation is planted thick from coast to coast with welfare programs like SSI, SSD (that's a different one), Veterans Affairs, SNAP, WIC, EBT, Medicaid, Section 8, school lunches, and the rest, all funded out of your taxes. Any time you feel like spending money to help some homeless person on the street, just stop a moment and remember that you already gave at the office. Which you surely did — at the IRS office, that is.