Embargo On Ideas

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Is it the reopening of Alcatraz or the insistence on tariffs for movies made outside the United States?

These ideas were, in my opinion, given free reign last week in order to obscure that moment when the felon currently occupying the White House was asked if it was his job to defend and protect the Constitution. 

"I don't know," was his answer. Alas, Mister Hand was not there to take this feeble excuse for a student to task. Maybe you have somehow missed out on the educational magnificence of Ray Walston in Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Let's put it this way: I believe that Sean Penn's worldview was forever changed by his time in Mister Hand's class. 

Still, I don't believe that even Mister Hand could get through that thick orange skull all the important details of our system of governance. "Because I said so," is not the basis for a system of government. Just as the constitutional peasants of The Holy Grail remind us that "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government." And furthermore, "Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses."

You didn't miss that one too, did you?

Maybe you were caught up in the furor over the reopening of one of the most notorious prisons in our country's history. It was closed because of its location. Situated in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, it was more expensive to run than any other maximum security facility that was accessible by land. But to hear the convicted felon, who may have shopped around a bit when it appeared that he might actually do some time in jail, you would believe that this relic of a bygone age was the answer to all our correctional facilities. "No one ever escaped," he prattled on when he could have been making excuses for ignoring his Oath of Office. 

As far as the movie tariff malarkey goes, he may be targeting Monty Python with that one. Mister Hand, however, is a product of the good ol' US of A. Ridgemont High certainly shows its age, but then again, so does the United States Constitution. Which doesn't mean that the ideas expressed by filth-gathering peasants are any less vital and alive than those expressed by a guy whose cameo in Home Alone 2 is only seven seconds long, but director Chris Columbus wishes it were gone. However, he lives in the Second Trumpreich, with all its fear and loathing: “If I cut it, I’ll probably be sent out of the country. I’ll be considered sort of not fit to live in the United States, so I’ll have to go back to Italy or something.”

Just because some moistened bink lobbed a scimitar is no reason for a dictatorship. Just ask Mister Hand.