Mere Parchment

In the Golem’s pie-hole

According to legend, the Golem was a mindless lump of clay that could be animated and sent stomping into the world by:

"...writing a specific incantation in the owner's blood on calfskin parchment, and placing it in the mouth. Removing the parchment will deactivate the golem."

With that in mind, take a look at all this righteous prose and see if you can match the sentiment with the topic...

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"This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law.

“Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth.” (1)

''To sin by silence makes cowards of all men. It is time for our leaders to worry less about politics and more about the country, less about what is right for our party and more about teaching our kids what's right and what's wrong.'' (2)

''We were promised 'the most ethical Administration in history'. Look what we've got.'' (3)

''If he did not do this, he can explain it all to us, and it's over. But if he did do this, he has destroyed the basic trust between the American people and their President.'' (4)

”You know, there's one term, I think, that is common to both this House and to our military, and that term is duty. We refer to it often, and it's clear now that our uniformed people are carrying out their duty in difficult circumstances to defend the liberties and the security of this country. They're doing that so that we can perform our duty. And our duty is to carry out the Constitution. “(5)

“And we all share in the emotional trauma getting back to our subject of this constitutional crisis in which we are ensnared. But this cup cannot pass us by, we can't avoid it, we took an oath of office…to uphold the Constitution under our democratic system of government, separation of powers, and checks and balances. “(6)

But freedom ...depends upon something. The rule of law. And that's why this solemn occasion is so important. For today we are here to defend the rule of law.
...
"...a nation of laws cannot be ruled by a person who breaks the law. Otherwise, it would be as if we had one set of rules for the leaders and another for the governed. We would have one standard for the powerful, the popular and the wealthy, and another for everyone else.

"This would belie our ideal that we have equal justice under the law. That would weaken the rule of law and leave our children and grandchildren with a very poor legacy..." (7)

"The office of the president is such that it calls for a higher level of conduct than the average citizen in the United States." (8)

"… the critical question is this: Do we move on under the Constitution, or do we move on by turning aside from the Constitution? Do we move on in faithfulness to our own oath to support and defend the Constitution, or do we go outside the Constitution because it seems more convenient and expedient?
...

"A constitution is often a most inconvenient thing. A constitution limits us when we would not be limited. It compels us to act when we would not act. But our Constitution, as all of us in this room acknowledge, is the heart and soul of the American experiment.

...
"We would all be spared embarrassment, indignity and discomfort. But there would be a high cost if we followed that course of action. Something would be lost. Respect for the law would be subverted, and the foundation of our Constitution would be eroded..." (9)

"I am here because it is my constitutional duty, as it is the constitutional duty of every member of this committee, to follow the truth wherever it may lead. Our Founding Fathers established this nation on a fundamental yet at the time untested idea that a nation should be governed not by the whims of any man but by the rule of law. Implicit in that idea is the principle that no one is above the law, including the chief executive.
...

"...we must ask ourselves what our failure to uphold the rule of law will say to the nation, and most especially to our children, who must trust us to leave them a civilized nation where justice is respected." (10)

"...those are things that the founders also took seriously. Yet every time I reflect upon the wisdom of the founding fathers, I think their wisdom was truly amazing. They pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to escape the tyranny of a king. They understood the nature of the human heart struggles between good and evil.

So the founders created a system of checks and balances and accountability."(11)

“The fate of no president, no political party, and no member of Congress merits a slow unraveling of the fabric of our constitutional structure. As John Adams said, we are a nation of laws, not of men.

“Our nation has survived the failings of its leaders before, but it cannot survive exceptions to the rule of law in our system of equal justice for all…” (12)

"Now, 'equal protection of the law.' That's what worries me about this whole thing. Any of you who have been victimized by injustice -- and you haven't lived till you have been sued by somebody and pushed to the wall, and turned to the government and the government's on the wrong side -- justice is so important to the most humble among us.

"Equal justice under the law, that's what we're fighting for, and when the chief law enforcement officer trivializes, ignores, shreds, minimizes the sanctity of the oath, then justice is wounded, and you're wounded, and your children are wounded.

"Follow your conscience, and you'll serve the country..."(13)

"The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door. It challenges abuse of authority. It's a shame "Darkness at Noon" is forgotten, or "The Gulag Archipelago," but there is such a thing lurking out in the world called abuse of authority, and the rule of law is what protects you from it..."(14)

"President Caligula." (15)

“I think one of the great problems we have in the...Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. “ (16)

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Yeah, I know; you figured it out before you were through the first paragraph.

You’re so clever.

These were a tiny sampling from the irrational exuberance of the Great Wingtard Prose Bubble of the 1990s. Back when the entire Republican Party was propped up by endless, frantic, terrorist-grade-teevee-smashing rage over Bill Clinton’s bad land deal, Christmas card list and penis.

In their tireless, hysterical stabs at a coup d'état, the Right left scattered behind them the now-discarded fruits of a thousand staffers banging away on a thousand computers burning through a thousand thesauruses as they looked for just that right alchemical mixture of faux-indignant and maudlin self-righteousness that would get their bosses into the morning paper and on the evening news.

And the minute George W. Bush took the oath of office, every trace of that roaring, weeping, podium-pounding concern over the fate of the United States Constitution evaporated completely.

Boom. Gone. Just like that.

Because they never meant a word of it.

Not a Single. Fucking. Word.

Their eight years of “founding Fathers, “duty” and “rule of Law” maundering was nothing but incantory flapdoodle, scribbled onto RNC cocktail napkins and stuffed into the skulls of the Base to send them stomping into the world in their millions bleating over and over again that even the smallest hint of an infraction against the Constitution by any President under any circumstances needed to be smote with a Holy Patriotic Fire, screw the cost and fuck the consequences.

And so it was, in Age of Bush, that of the suddenly-inconvenient "Smash Authority" software was all wiped clean away, and the mindless lumps of clay were effortlessly reprogrammed again and again to hate whatever new thing their Dear Leaders wanted them to hate.

So now, after eight years of yawning, complicit silence by these very same people in the face of genuine treason, actual presidentially-sanctioned torture and murder, faked up wars and dozens real “high crimes” by their Dear Leader...how best to deal with them?

Well, to borrow Charlie Brooker’s prophylactic techniques for dealing with “city boys”:

Look at them. Listen to them. Consider the carnage of the past 10 years. What the hell were these idiots thinking? Even now they're still at it. In any sane world they'd all be herded into a shed and blasted with hoses until they promised to stop. Everything they say, think, do, watch, read and fill up their iPods with is awful. Even their girlfriends are awful.

As I save said before, the greatest gift the Republican Party ever bequeathed to the Dirty Fucking Hippies was their all-consuming Ahabesque obsession with and persecution of President William Jefferson Clinton.

Because in their manic quest they left us their words, which now just sit there ticking away like so many abandoned ammunition dumps they hope everyone will obligingly forget.

But we are not their Golem.

We do not forget.

UPDATE: As usual, Darkblack has paired a masterful visual treatment of the subject with moving prose is his post "Forsaken on Earth, and in Heaven".

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(1) Tom DeLay, former Republican Speaker of the House, thug, extortionist, liar, cheerful supporter of slavery and foreign tyrants (as long as the checks clear), and soon-to-be federal convict. Also Very Loudly loves sweet baby Jebus more than anyone else in the whole, wide world.


(2) John Ashcroft former Attorney General

And America’s greatest musical hero.


(3) Steve Forbes. King of Flattaxington.

(4) William J. Bennett, Reagan Education Secretary, author of the "Book of Virtues", gambling addict and professional scold.

(5) Rep. Duncan Hunter, (R – Ca)

(6) Rep. Marge Roukema (R-N.J.)

(7) Rep. Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) and Dark Prince of Bankster Decriminalization.

(8) Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex)

(9) Rep. Charles Canady (R-Fla.)

(10) Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.)

(11) Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.)

(12) Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.)

(13) Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.)

(14) Henry Hyde again

(15) Oliver L. North, national security aide in the Reagan Administration, Iran/Contra war criminal, popular Conservative talk show host and Fox News contributor.

(16) Newt Gingrich.