Remember the Smithsonian's exhibit on the bombing of Hiroshima? They didn't even mention that Japan and the US were at war. It was mainly a US-bashing anti-A-bomb exhibit. During the 1930's and 1940's (during World War II, and the period before), Japan killed over ten million civilians. They performed medical experiments on people (without their consent), surgery without anesthesia, and in general committed the same types of atrocities as the Nazis did. The media has been silent on this issue. Instead, they acted as though U.S. veterans of World War Two simply couldn't be objective. Could you imagine a Smithsonian exhibit on the bombing of Dresden, without any mention of Nazi concentration camps? To get a more balanced view, go to the website maintained by survivors of the Battle of Bataan. This was one of the worst battles in the Pacific, in World War II; the treatment of the Allied prisoners by the Japanese was certainly one of the worst.
Remember the Rodney King case? Virtually every TV station in the country ran the video showing the cops beating King, and condemned the not guilty verdict. What they didn’t say was
- King attacked the cops when he came out of his car;
- After the cops beat him down and stepped back, he got up and attacked AGAIN;
- The cops were charged with criminal assault – to be convicted of that, the jury would need to believe the cops INTENDED to beat up King when he left his vehicle. Since he attacked first, that became virtually impossible to prove. Excessive force, however, was easy to prove (the videotape essentially proved it).
Any first-year law student should know the difference between excessive force and criminal assault. But apparently the L.A. prosecutors office did not. Or they ignored the difference, and hoped they could win their case anyway.
After the L.A. riots (which started due to the acquittal of the cops in the Rodney King case), the Christopher commission investigated the L.A. police. The commission produced a list of several dozen cops that had a number of excessive force and other complaints against them, who shouldn't have been on the force. One of the names you will recognize – Mark Furman. He shouldn't have been near the Simpson crime scene, but he was one of the prime witnesses in the case. And most observers feel problems with Furman's testimony were the primary cause of Simpson's acquittal.
Many media outlets criticized the jury's decision, in effect asking "what were they thinking?" But I didn't see much coverage of the "evidence tampering" argument. The bloody sock, and the blood on the gate, had not been discovered until several days after the initial investigation. It was natural to ask why the police hadn't spotted them earlier. So the defense had the blood from both sources tested, and found blood preservative – the same preservative used when the police collected blood. The defense thus had what appeared to be solid proof that evidence had been planted. The prosecution spent hours, if not days, trying – without success – to discredit this. They claimed the preservative (EDTA, which also appears in salad dressing) – was in Simpson's blood naturally. Unfortunately, the level in the blood samples was about a thousand times what it would be naturally – more than enough to kill a person. I don't remember any newspaper coverage of this. And no televison outlets, on their nightly news, covered it. The only way I became aware of it was watching the televised trial, in detail. Prior to this I had leaned against televising trials; now I lean the other way.
Remember when Jesse Jackson stated that racism was not the biggest threat to blacks, but black-on-black violence was? He noted that more blacks die, in one year, murdered by other blacks, than have died at the hands of white lynch mobs in this country's entire history. This remark seems to have been quickly forgotten – after, of course, Reverend Jackson was duly vilified for making it.
Richard Lamm, former governor of Colorado, has frequently come under criticism from the politically correct crowd. Several years ago, discussing the difficult choices insurance companies or the government must make in rationing health care, he stated that the terminally ill "have a duty to die and get out of the way." The media claimed he had said that about the elderly. Years later, the Denver Post finally admitted it had misquoted him.
Mr. Lamm has also noted that Jews and Orientals are the most successful ethnic groups in the U.S., despite discrimination and racism against them. He has asked why blacks and Hispanics cannot seem to do better. As you might guess, he has been severely criticized by the PC crowd for his remarks.
Lamm has also criticized the effect that illegal immigration has on this country – in job losses, contributing to poverty and overcrowding and demand for government services, and driving down wages. He's been condemned as racist for these remarks.
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