By Isaac Yetiv, Ph.D.
LA JOLLA, California — One of the characteristics of “one-man rule,” whether autocratic, theocratic, authoritarian, or totalitarian, is the absence of “mistakes, blunders and scandals” because the dictator answers to no one and to no law. In the Roman empire, “the Prince is exempt from the Laws,” (Princeps legibus solutus est.) The French king, Louis XIV, is famous for his exclamation, L’Etat, c’est moi (The state, it’s me) and also for his motto, “Car tel est notre bon plaisir” (For such is our good pleasure.)
Even in England after the Magna Carta, ” the King can do no wrong.”
But in modern democracies, the governance is fraught with “mistakes, blunders, and abuses” because the power and authority are diffused and ubiquitous among the “people” and its representatives, constantly watching each other and uncovering their faults, abuses ,and malfeasance, a feature absolutely irrelevant in dictatorial regimes.
There is a direct correlation between freedom and scandals. Human nature being as it is, the more a society is free and open, the more scandals are discovered. And no society is freer than the US of A. Hence, the scandals in modern days, from Nixon’s “Watergate” to Reagan’s “Iran-Contras” to Clinton’s impeachment,to Obama’s “Multigates” (Fast and Furious, IRS abuses, NSA spying on citizens, and the most egregious of all,in my opinion, Benghazigate, because of the murder of four Americans, the national security blunders and the lies of the coverup.)
All scandalous situations are not equal. I distinguish among three categories:
.- the inadvertent and inevitable “honest” mistake, usually tolerated and forgiven.
.-the malicious, intentional, malfeasance, usually driven by financial or political expected gains and usually aggravated by an attempt to cover up. That’s the stuff of the “gates” cited above.
.-the third category is made of factual situations which are not the result of premeditation, do not seem to profit anyone, and for which it is not easy to locate the person or group responsible.
They are nonetheless costly to the society and astonishing by their absurdity. And they endure because of the new scourge of our modern democracy, the “political correctness.”
I filed this third category under the title “Maboul” (pron. mah-bool). “Maboul” is an Arabic word of North-African origin (its equivalent in the Middle-East is “mejnoon”) that, thanks to French colonialism, has gained residence in the French lexicon. It is defined as “crazy.”
I have collected a great number of which I present a few here, dumb and dumber:
1) Waste of innocent blood and public money: Nidal Hassan, the military psychiatrist of Fort Hood massacre (in) fame, who killed 13 persons and wounded 35, continues to receive military payments that have today totaled $400,000 while still in detention four years after the crime. There was no doubt about his terrorist intentions, his communications with Al-Awlaki, his shouting of “Allahu Akbar” before the slaughter, his business card carrying the words “Soldier of Allah,” and his “grand rounds” speeches to his military colleagues on the Koranic teachings , jihad,and holy wars, and punishment of the unbelievers in Hell.
His military superiors did not fire him, or even reprimand him for fear of offending his religion and being accused of Islamophobia. That’s political correctness run amok, which is dumb enough. What is dumber is to delay his trial and continue to give him taxpayers’ money.
And what is unforgivable is for the government to continue the linguistic charade of classifying his mass murder as “workplace violence,” –thus allowing the payments– another stupid political twist of semantics like “man-caused disaster” instead of terror attack and “overseas contingency operation” instead of war on terror , which is taboo in the Obama government because it had already “decimated Al Qaeda.”
It was reported that Khalil Sheikh Mohamed, the mastermind of nine-eleven, is now allowed to communicate with the outside world and has sent propaganda material. No denial from the authorities.
2) Only money: gaming the system:
a) It was recently reported that the government had given free phones to some people that cost the taxpayer 2.2 billion dollars. Not all recipients were poor: 41% were certainly not; the others maybe.
The same government also paid the mortgages of some people, many of them not poor and many others having made good profits because of the appreciation of their property.
b) Inmates receiving unemployment benefits on top of room and board, entertainment and education.
And one convicted murderer demanded to have a sex-change operation at the expense of the taxpayers and, if refused, he threatened to sue –or has already sued–for “cruel and unusual punishment.” (!)
c) Promoting food stamps to illegal aliens: Operation “Cupones para alimentos:” USDA provided a flyer to the Mexican embassy telling them to inform their citizens, the illegal aliens, that ” [they] need not divulge information regarding [their] immigration status in seeking this benefit for [their] children.” (Imagine: a US federal agency advising a foreign country how to help its citizens, illegally living in the US, to game the system at the expense of the US taxpayers!)
d) In the same vein, same USDA hired a certain Dr Betances to teach “cultural sensitivity” to employers. Among the “scholarly” teachings: “Not to use the word “minorities” but “emerging majorities” instead, and to repeat like a mantra that ” the pilgrims were illegal aliens!”
e) The president’s trip to Africa cost 100 million dollars to the taxpayers(!), and his Hawaii vacation hundreds of thousands. The first lady decided to stay after he left, which added more hundreds of thousands for her extended vacation (Just one hour of flying costs $180,000). It takes 1.4 billion dollars to operate the White House, and the president often calls for “shared sacrifice” because the coffers are empty and the national debt humongous.
3) Just dumb, maboul:
a) One of the NSA officials explained the wholesale spying on American citizens (billions of phone calls and emails) by a policy of non-profiling and discriminating against certain ethnic or religious groups. The same reasoning about airport inspections that are random (every 5th or every tenth person standing in line) whether the lucky one is an 80 year old grandma , a 3-year old baby or a real terrorist, because they do not “discriminate” by profiling, God forbid.
b) Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader , was serious when she said ” We must first pass the Obamacare law so that we can see what’s in it.” Adieu Constitution! Adieu common sense! They passed the law and we saw what’s in it. It was designed to insure the non-insured, a laudable purpose. But it ended up un-insuring the insured. Only 21% of those “uninsured” signed up and need to be “subsidized” by the taxpayers. Millions of “insured” have been cancelled. The young and strong do not sign up. They do not want to subsidize the old and sick. The whole thing was ill-conceived, politically motivated, mismanaged,and is now moribund. In order to “help” the 15% — the other 85% were satisfied with their insurance–Obamacare destroyed the whole system, at a cost of hundreds of billions, to boot. This is a giant example of maboulism.
c) On a more serious tone: Joyce Lerner,a high-level official of the IRS, took the 5th at a congressional hearing. I can’t believe she has been allowed to get away with it. She, and all the other bureaucrats, are civil servants employed by We The Taxpayers. She has the obligation to tell what happened, the Truth. Imagine if all civil servants decide to follow suit. How can this republic be governed?
Also I , and many better experts, believe that taking the 5th is not an option in congressional hearings. I reread the fifth amendment: “Provisions concerning prosecution, trial,and punishment: … [ No one] shall be compelled in a criminal case (emphasis mine) to be a witness against himself…”
She is not in court, accused of a crime. As Victor Hanson wrote, ” the auditED [by the IRS] go to jail, but the auditORs do not;” they are immune, take the 5th, get promoted.
This list is by no means exhaustive. Anyone can add to it. For more information, I recommend Senator Tom Coburn’s excellent book, and painful to read, The Debt Bomb. Coburn is the only elected official I know who takes it personally and suffers greatly . He is quitting in disgust and ,I am sure, in despair …that this country is beyond repair.
And the maboulest of all is the national “debt bomb” of now $17.4 trillion and growing that, absent drastic and bold actions to stop its growing ,and start repaying on a firm schedule, will make Coburn’s dire predictions a dangerous reality.
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Isaac Yetiv is a freelance writer and lecturer based in La Jolla, California. He may be contacted via issac.yetiv@sdjewishworld.com