{"id":1162,"date":"2001-10-05T09:35:11","date_gmt":"2001-10-05T14:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2001-10-05T09:35:11","modified_gmt":"2001-10-05T14:35:11","slug":"the_beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/05\/the_beast.html","title":{"rendered":"The Beast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ulro, Jr., waxing philosophical as is his wont, has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.haidi.org\/ulrojr\/01.10.html#04\">this<\/a> to say about America, the Land Founded on Rational Politics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"block\">And yet, how far have those principles penetrated, in two hundred years? Well, far enough that a nation composed largely of enthusiastic believers in psychic hotlines, horoscopes, UFOs and the literal truth of the King James Bible\u2014a nuclear superpower of three hundred million that trumpets itself as being &#8220;at war&#8221; with a gang of about fifty knife-wielding thugs\u2014still officially tolerates internal dissent. That&#8217;s something; really it is. The rational political structure created by a motley assembly of 18th century sons of Enlightenment continues to hold in key places, though the beast growls and rattles the bars of the cage.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s something of a comfort indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ulro, Jr., waxing philosophical as is his wont, has this to say about America, the Land Founded on Rational Politics. And yet, how far have those principles penetrated, in two&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11260,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/10\/08\/rocket_robin_hood.html","url_meta":{"origin":1162,"position":0},"title":"Rocket Robin Hood!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 8-Oct-07 7:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"After waxing eloquently nostalgic\u00a0over Rocket Robin Hood over at Steve's site, imagine my ... gah! ... amazement over the announcement of RRH coming to DVD! In! .... Canada! *sigh* Though...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Animation \/ Cartoons&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Animation \/ Cartoons","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-cartoons"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5351,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/04\/01\/wonderfalls.html","url_meta":{"origin":1162,"position":1},"title":"Wonderfalls","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 1-Apr-04 8:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Doyce has been waxing lyrical over Wonderfalls. Watching the ep tonight ... ... well, it's funny, disturbing, disturbingly funny, and funnily ... er, disturbing. And, y'know, offbeat, and all that....","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Media &amp; Culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Media &amp; Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48886,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/12\/playing-politics-with-the-purse.html","url_meta":{"origin":1162,"position":2},"title":"Playing Politics with the Purse","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 12-Dec-14 7:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"It seems to me that if there are specific activities that the GOP in Congress dislike about certain regulatory agencies -- the IRS, the EPA -- that the rational and straightforward thing to do about them is change the laws that allow such activities. Don't like employee bonuses? Make them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51174,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/17\/the-law-can-be-respected-or-feared.html","url_meta":{"origin":1162,"position":3},"title":"The law can be respected or feared","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 17-May-15 5:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And the way people behave toward it in each case will differ. In the former, people strive to uphold the law because it's the accepted and right and good thing to do. In the latter, people take their fear into account in the behavioral calculus they perform regarding the law\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12280,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/06\/09\/old_school_new_style.html","url_meta":{"origin":1162,"position":4},"title":"Old School, New Style","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Jun-08 6:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Doyce has been waxing lyrical about D&D 4.0 over on his gaming blog. Which is cool, because I'm thinking something crunchy would be fun times, too, and everything he talks...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Gaming&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41673,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/10\/the-lure-of-lascivious-self-righteousness.html","url_meta":{"origin":1162,"position":5},"title":"The Lure of Lascivious Self-Righteousness","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 10-Apr-14 7:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Words fail me,\" was Margie's comment.But, heck, Hannity's all about entertainment. It's entertaining waxing lyrical about your own trips to Spring Break on the Gulf Coast. It's entertaining to have your panel demonstrate how to drink beer from a hole in the can. It's entertaining to show endless clips of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}