Slavery: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property were just what Aristotle did not talk about. They are the conditions of happiness; but the essence of happiness, according to Aristotle, is virtue. So the moderns decided to deal with the conditions and to let happiness take care of itself.

Slavery: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

If slavery had never existed, the Democrats would have had to invent it. Come to think of it, it did exist and they did invent it. Then, even after it officially ended, there were many in the South who kept it around in the form of Jim Crow laws. But that was a long time ago.

Today, the only remnants of the bad old days to be found are among those blacks who use the past as a cudgel with which to garner bribes of one sort or another from vote-hungry Democrats and guilt-riddled white suckers.

Even though both Barack Obama and Joe Biden argued against reparations for the descendants of African slaves, that hasn’t stopped Kamala Harris from calling for them or prevented Elizabeth Warren from seeing Harris’s reparations and raising her by insisting they also be paid to American Indians and homosexuals.

To be honest with you, I used to oppose those blatant attempts to buy votes with other people’s money, but that was before I saw a way to cash in.

After all, I, too, am one of the oppressed. Not because I’m Jewish, for heaven’s sake, but because I’m short and bald. That is far more disadvantageous than being a member of some racial minority. After all, the NBA and the NFL are full of black millionaires, as are the TV, movie and music industries. But do you see any short, bald guys on the basketball courts or the football fields? Do you ever see anyone who looks like me collecting a Grammy? Of course not. That, my friends, can only be explained by bigotry.

This is the bigotry we should all be focusing on because it crosses all lines, be they racial, religious or even gender. While it’s true that a short woman may not suffer because of her height, so long as she’s not an actual dwarf, but let her be bald and she will surely suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as have I and Hamlet.

Come to think of it, the only real difference between the Prince of Denmark and me is that his uncle murdered Hamlet’s father in order to marry Hamlet’s mother and my uncles were all Communists. So, as usual, the short, bald guy had it worse.

The reason the Left so hates Brett Kavanaugh is because they’re concerned that the Supreme Court, thanks to the addition of Brett Kavanaugh, could soon reverse the Court’s perverse ruling on Roe v. Wade. That hardly excuses their sadistic campaign to destroy him and his family, but it does explain it.

But now we’ve all learned that even the alleged victims to Kavanaugh’s alleged crimes who admit they have no recollection of the alleged events have been threatened to improve their memory gaps…or else!

As despicable as liberals are, once it was discovered that Christine Blasey Ford, who had claimed to have been so traumatized by young Kavanaugh’s actions that she’d never again been able to board a plane, had in fact spent more time airborne in the intervening 35 years than Charles Lindbergh, Howard Hughes and John Glenn, put together, I assumed the lynch mob would realize the game was up, drop the noose and go home.

But liberals are not normal people. Where decent people have hearts, they have an agenda. Where intelligent people have brains, they have the unquenchable desire to control others.

They cannot be reasoned with. I fear that like those zombies in the movies who lurch across the landscape searching for victims, they can only be destroyed.

It was a lot of fun watching Corey Lewandowski sparring with a totally flummoxed Jerry Nadler. It really wasn’t a fair fight, though. Lewandowski had the advantage in height, weight and wit.

Unfortunately, what the New York pipsqueak had, thanks to addle-headed suburban housewives who gave control of the House to Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, was subpoena power and the right to cite Lewandowski with Contempt of Congress.

It left me wondering how Lewandowski or any other friend or supporter of President Trump faced with the same charge could plead anything but “Guilty”.

The votes are in. Once the list of everybody’s favorite movie was culled down to the top 10 vote getters, 57 of you weighed in. Frankly, I was surprised by the results. I fully expected that once the choices were narrowed down, “It’s a Wonderful Life” would take the top spot away from “The Godfather.” I wouldn’t say I was disappointed that it didn’t happen. Both movies, after all, are top-grade, even if I happened to like one of them much more than the other.

To me, the bigger surprise was the movie that tied “The Godfather” for top honors.

The final results: “The Godfather” tied with “Blazing Saddles” with 8 votes; in second place, with 7 votes each, were “Patton” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”; next came “Casablanca” and “The Quiet Man” with 6 votes. Rounding out the list: “The Best Years of Our Lives” (5), “Gone with the Wind” (4), “Shane” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” (3 each).

I have my own list, which, naturally, is not limited to just one movie or even 10. My game, my rules. But the fact is, I’ve seen many more movies than any of you. For one thing, I’m closing in on 80 years and my parents began taking me to the movies when I was four. For another, I spent nearly 13 years reviewing movies.

Before I name my favorites, I should confess that there are genres and even certain filmmakers I don’t care for. Among them are war movies, sci-fi, historical/religious epics, horror, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen (I’ve only liked two of his, which is two more than Brooks) and I don’t have a lot of tolerance for westerns (I’ve liked fewer than 10 in my entire life). I’m also not into “Harry Potter” or “Lord of the Rings,” although I do have a handful of fantasy movies on my list.

I understand that people who tend to agree about almost everything else will often part ways when it comes to movies and food. So, don’t get me started on cilantro, kale or arugala.

Even my late wife Yvonne and I rarely agreed when it came to movies. It was never a question of good taste or bad taste, but simply personal taste. Back when I was reviewing, I never trusted the critics who insisted they loved “Last Year at Marienbad,” “Blow-Up” or “Hiroshima, Mon Amour,” because the movies were insufferably boring and pretentious, but if someone said they liked “Jailhouse Rock” or, say, “Blazing Saddles,” I knew they were telling the truth and that they liked them for the same reason I liked mine: they found them entertaining.

I am sharing my favorites in the hopes they might either trigger a fond memory for those who saw them a long time ago or induce others to seek them out. I should first mention that when I like a movie, I will watch it more than once. Sometimes many more times. When I watch it once too often and find I can’t even sit through it again, I no longer feel I can honestly list it. On the other hand, if I hadn’t really liked it, I wouldn’t have sat through it so often. Just to let you know, that’s the reason that you won’t find, for example, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “Red River,” “Citizen Kane” or “Casablanca,” among the dozens of other titles. I loved them once, but now I would prefer undergoing root canal to sitting through any of them ever again.

It is also difficult to separate the movies into specific genres because there is overlap in many cases, such as “Stairway to Heaven,” which could be a drama, a romance or a fantasy. In those cases, I simply made an arbitrary decision. (The movies are listed in no particular order–not chronologically, alphabetically or by personal preference–simply as they came to mind.)

Westerns: “Shane,” “Quigley Down Under,” “High Noon,” “The Westerner,” “The Big Country,” “Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid,” “Support Your Local Sheriff” and “Destry Rides Again.”

Musicals: “My Fair Lady,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Chicago,” “Top Hat,” “Meet Me in St. Louis,” “Swingtime” and “7 Brides for 7 Brothers.”

Mysteries/Crime: “The Maltese Falcon,” “This Gun for Hire,” “Force of Evil,” “Dead Again,” “The Glass Key,” “Double Indemnity,” “Witness,” “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” “The Matador,” “The Untouchables,” “Charade,” “The Firm,” “The 39 Steps,” “Laura” and “L.A. Confidential.”

Action: “The Fugitive,” “Die Hard,” “Speed,” “36 Hours,” “The African Queen,” “Lethal Weapon,” “Midnight Run,” “Gunga Din” and “Taken.”

Drama: “The Best Years of Our Lives,” “The King’s Speech,” “Secrets & Lies,” “The Blind Side,” “Mumford,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “The Godfather,” “Falling Down,” “Field of Dreams,” “All About Eve,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “Sunset Blvd.,” “The Sweet Smell of Success,” “I Remember Mama,” “The Upside of Anger,” “The Pumpkin Eater,” “Secrets & Lies,” “On the Waterfront” and “Hoosiers.”

Comedy: “My Cousin Vinny,” “Groundhog Day,” “The Palm Beach Story,” “The Quiet Man,” “My Favorite Wife,” “Ladykillers,” “Apartment for Peggy,” “Some Like it Hot,” “School for Scoundrels,” “My Man Godfrey,” “The Heartbreak Kid,” “Divorce, American Style,” “The Man with Two Brains,” “The In-Laws,” “Naked Gun,” “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek,” “The Major & the Minor,” “Bachelor Mother,” “The Gold Rush,” “City Lights” “A Christmas Story,” “The Quiet Man,” “About a Boy,” “Tin Men,” Lost in America,“ "Defending Your Life,” “Broadway Danny Rose,” “The Tall Guy, "Swingers,” “Snatch,” “An Ideal Husband,” “Harvey,” “Bridesmaids,” “Swingers,” “Florence Foster Jenkins,” “The Lady Eve” and “Breaking Away.”

Romance: “Hannah & Her Sisters,” “The Shop Around the Corner,” “Love, Actually,” “Four Weddings & A Funeral,” “Sense & Sensibility,” “The Goodbye Girl,” “The More the Merrier,” “A Foreign Affair,” “Marty,” “Ball of Fire,” “Remains of the Day,” “House Calls,” “Crossing Delancey,” “People Will Talk,” “Moonstruck,” “Wild River” and “A New Leaf.”

Fantasy: “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Thief of Bagdad,” “Time After Time,” “Back to the Future,” “Galaxy Quest,” “Stairway to Heaven” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”

Animated: “Cinderella,” “Beauty & the Beast,” “Shrek,” “Toy Story” and “Rio.”

Political: “All the King’s Men,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Election,” the Bourne series, “The Great McGinty,” “The Farmer’s Daughter,” “Air Force One” and “Hail the Conquering Hero.”

Foreign Language: “Cinema Paradiso,” “The Lives of Strangers,” “Life is Beautiful,” “The Artist,” “Woman of the Dunes,” “Seven Samurai,” “Soldier of Orange,” “Divorce, Italian Style” and “Big Deal on Madonna Street.”

Th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks!