Sticks and Stones

 Indisputably, any citizen of the United States would want politicians that accurately represented them and worked for the benefit of the nation. That said, the qualifications for office are, at best, adequate. Most of the requirements are reasonable standards. Each potential Congress member must be an American citizen for at least nine years and be a resident of the State they represent. Senators must be at least 30 years of age and representatives at least 25. The President must be a natural-born citizen and 35. However these are the only formal qualifications a candidate must have. This is why I suggest the addition of one more requirement: a mandatory IQ test result of at least 120 for every candidate for a governmental office.

At this point you may wonder, why on earth have candidates take IQ tests? Haven’t they proven themselves intelligent and motivated already by running for office? My reasoning is based on the assumption that the majority of the American population is intelligent and capable and therefore would be represented best by intelligent and capable politicians. However the truth of the matter is that quite a few political candidates, past and present, for any office, have substandard intelligence and have slipped through the cracks formed by the scant requirements. Two examples: Former President George H. W. Bush and current President George W. Bush. Daddy Bush has an IQ of 98 and our very own Dubya has an IQ of 91 (Lovenstein Institute Presidential IQ Study). An IQ score of 100 is considered average, with most likely professions being truck drivers, machine operators, farmers and carpenters. Bush Sr. was a Texas representative in 1966 and 1968 before being vice president to Ronald Reagan and then President. Bush Jr. was also a Texas representative, and became Governor of Texas in 1994. Obviously, a mandatory IQ test prior to campaigning would have saved America from the collective bad decision-making of the two Bushes, as neither of them would have made it to Congress at all.

Sure, most political candidates are smart and do their jobs well. Granted, the current requirements are logical and serve the purpose of providing the nation with good lawmakers and civil servants. Nevertheless, the addition of intelligence testing to the existing qualifications would reinforce the standard of politicians and lead to improved decision-making for the people’s benefit. Congress would not be stunted by any stupidity and would work more efficiently. Smarter politicians would also raise the rock-bottom public opinion of the government, and give the multitude of foreign countries that currently hate us, a more realistic impression of the American people. We can only benefit from such an addition, and although intelligence testing may not affect the majority of political candidates, it certainly would minimize the chances of ending up with a president who can’t pronounce the word nuclear.

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This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father’s died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!”

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi - from every mountainside.

Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring - when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics - will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

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Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based international non-governmental organization which advocates freedom of the press, has today launched a one-day protest against Internet censorship in the nine worst offending nations. While they include obvious ones like China and Cuba, RSF also shines a light on the offenses of Turkmenistan and Eritrea, both nations which cripple Internet access as a means of controlling what the public knows, thinks, and understands of their government and global events.

The protests are very easy to join; you click on a country - perhaps the one that offends you most, or as I did, the one with the fewest protesters - and fill out 4 text fields; name, surname, city, and country. Then you pick the slogan you wish to hoist above your virtual head and join in with thousands of others who right now are protesting in virtual representations of famous plazas around the world, including the infamous Tienanmen Square in Beijing.

Join in (French)
Join in (English)

The graphic above, from the Wikimedia Foundation, is the Reporters Without Borders 2006 press freedom ranking map, showing from blue to red the severity of Internet restraints across the world.

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Some Palestinian “journalists” have responded to the recent murders in Jerusalem with something less than condemnation. One article in particular, by “Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem”, left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. The title, which fairly sums up the piece, reads “Soldiers (not innocent students) killed at settler center”.

It seems that the writer wishes to enter a discussion as to who is a civilian. According to his logic – that all Israeli citizens are legitimate targets due to compulsory military service – a citizen of any society that has conscription is a viable military target. Such as, say, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan and Tunisia. We’ll bear that in mind next time we’re engaged in hostilities with those nations, Khalid.

But let us not forget that this yeshiva was (apparently) the headquarters of the Jewish settlement movement. Aha! They therefore deserved to die. That clears that one up. Except civilised people do not condone acts of violence – or, in this case, murder – in response to political beliefs. If we did then, presumably, retribution against the Palestinians who, in a 77% voter turnout, elected Hamas to 76 out of 132 parliamentary seats, would be equally justified. Or who were seen dancing in the streets, cheering and distributing bon-bons (yes, bon-bons), in celebration of cold-blooded murder.

Amaryeh, in the interests of journalism, moreover seems to deem it relevant that “Yitzhak Rabin’s killer, Yigal Amir, is reportedly to have studied at the Merkaz Ha’rav”. One wonders: is he sure he wants to go down that route? Unsurprisingly, he does not pursue this line of thought.

Of course, as was to be expected, the “Zionist-influenced or Zionist-controlled American media” did not stray from the official Zionist “propaganda”, shallowly portraying the innocent civilian victims as…well, as innocent civilians. But our mate Khalid knows better. They were, as “paramilitaries” (though not engaged in hostilities), anything but innocent. But, if that applies, then how much more was the assassination of Imad Mugniyah justified? And if we take this to its logical conclusion, then the attack, which was “probably to avenge [his] murder”, was in fact unjustified, as the original killing was justified. No?

Amaryeh also dismisses the claim that the IDF “doesn’t murder Palestinian civilians deliberately”, forgetting to note the fact that while the Israeli Army, in the interests of clarity, wears full military uniform when engaged in hostility (I hardly need mention that neither the victims of the shooting, nor the shooter himself, was wearing any such thing) – militants, if they are in an obliging mood, may deign to wear towels on their heads. But let us not forget that the murderer was a civilian himself until he decided to pick up a rifle and kill other civilians. This episode, if anything, perfectly demonstrates the dilemma facing Israel in terms of knowing who the enemy is.

After the horrific Baruch Goldstein massacre of almost exactly 14 years ago, Rabin described it as a “loathsome, criminal act of murder”, and the Israeli media unanimously condemned it in similar terms. Hamas have taken a slightly different approach, being so proud of the attack that they even claimed responsibility for it. In my view, that pretty much tells you all you need to know.

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In Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem, a religious school for Torah study, a group of terrorists opened fire with an automatic weapon, murdering in cold blood 8 civilians and injuring many more besides, before thankfully being killed by an Israeli paratrooper on the scene.

Rabbi David Simchon, director of the yeshiva, bravely declared that “No terrorist will succeed in stopping our faith, our values, the justice of our cause or what we teach here at the yeshiva.” Whilst the moderate Mahmoud Abbas rightly condemned the attack due to its targetting of innocent civilians, in Gaza, Hamas asserted that they “bless the operation. It will not be the last.”

Hamas ask the world to give them financial aid. They ask to be considered at the negotiation table for a future peace settlement. They demand that they are taken to be serious political players due to their democratic mandate. Yet they practice the mantras of their charter; their unwillingness to recognise Israel’s right to exist and in so doing support the most heinous of crimes against the most innocent of young religious Jewish men who have dedicated their life to Torah study. They are terrorists since the only bargaining chip they use is the tool of coercion, through which innocent lives are needlessly lost.

If Hamas want peace, if they want a Palestinian state, if they want to be taken seriously as politicians and not criminals, and above all, if they want to continue to exist they must rapidly change. Terrorism will only cause more deaths, not least their own. I guess we can hope.

Editor: The world continues to be full of ignorant prejudice, and unjust hatred. Sticks and Stones does not lay claim to educating the world on all that must be highlighted, but we endeavour to shine our spotlight on what we can. Today marks 100 posts at Sticks and Stones but we will not be celebrating, because we are in mourning. 8 innocent people died today.

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