The Patriot Post® · Tender Hearts & Soft-Boiled Brains

We Americans like to think of ourselves as 320 million humanitarians. While it’s true that we tend to be charitable, even going so far as to help our enemies around the world when they’re hit by a natural disaster, sometimes our better nature flies in the face of commonsense.

For instance, in recent weeks, we have welcomed thousands of Central Americans into the U.S. and then transported them around the country even though we know that many of them suffer from chicken pox and tuberculosis. In the old days, when America actually had borders and a sense of self-preservation, even legal immigrants were turned away if they were found to have communicable diseases. In some cases, sick children were separated from their nuclear families and sent back to their relatives in Europe and Asia until they were healthy enough to return.

Now we go so far as to allow those suffering from Ebola to be brought back from West Africa. While it’s true that the doctor and the nurse in question are not only both Americans, but are heroic examples of humanity, having become infected while treating others who had the disease, it is sheer insanity that they were brought home to be treated. If they could treat others in Africa, there was no sensible reason they couldn’t have been treated there, rather than risk introducing the disease to North America.

Speaking of the Central American border-crashers, George Will has pointed out that there are 3,143 counties in the United States, and then used that number to suggest how easily we could accommodate the newcomers, as if the solution to the problem was to simply divide the 65,000 kids, dispersing, say 20 or so to each county. For my part, I think there is more than enough empty space between George’s ears where we could safely stash them.

What I would be willing to consider is dropping those kids off at the White House and at the homes of Hollywood and Manhattan liberals who are sobbing into their crying towels over their plight. That way these select few could adopt, feed, house and school, the kiddies on their own, without expecting the American taxpayer to pick up the tab for these mini-freeloaders.

Speaking of kids, I have come to the conclusion that the move over the past few decades to remove competition from sporting events involving youngsters, lest anyone come to regard himself as a winner or, worse yet, a loser, has infected our military. Whereas in the distant past, we waged wars with the idea of winning them and making our enemies say “Uncle!” we now play for ties, lest others think badly of us or are embarrassed for having lost.

Speaking of the military, I am in no way an isolationist, but I think before we enter into defense treaties with other nations, we require that they maintain the largest military they can possibly afford. If they’re going to keep relying on our military to protect them, thus treating us as mercenaries, we should send them a monthly invoice, payable on demand. At least that way, we could afford to restore the military force that our own gutless administration, using sequester as an excuse, has decimated.

One last word on the subject of children: I am getting sick and tired of seeing men on TV whining that their rights as fathers have been usurped by a system that favors mothers. The problem is that in most of these cases, the man never bothered marrying the child’s mother. Simply being the sperm donor doesn’t entitle you to any say in the matter, and I say that as a veteran of a custody battle. But it was a battle between a husband and a wife. It was lengthy, expensive and excruciating, but a marriage certificate entitled me to my day in court.

As I see it, planting a seed in a field you haven’t title to doesn’t make you anyone’s father. Not even a sharecropper. At most, it makes you a field hand.

Although I have on occasion taken the Catholic Church in general and Pope Francis in particular to task, I don’t harbor ill-feelings towards the Church. But I did think that a couple of comments by Catholic friends were worth sharing. One friend, Tony, at the height of the pedophile scandals, was being attacked by a mutual friend. I thought his response, “The Church is greater than the sum of its human parts,” made a great deal of sense. More recently, another friend, Steve, suggested that a lot of Catholics believe more in the confessional than they do in the Commandments.

Finally, while it may surprise some of you, I have yet another friend, Tom, who is a great lover of old movies and often, against my advice, uses one of Leonard Maltin’s various books as his viewing guide. It so happens I’ve met Mr. Maltin. On one occasion, I ran into him soon after I found that he had given a TV movie I had written just two stars out of a possible four, even though my script had won a Writers Guild award, been directed by multiple Emmy-winner Gil Cates, and starred Sharon Gless, Richard Thomas, Lillian Gish and Jack Warden.

I asked Maltin why he had scored it so low, and he explained he hadn’t even seen it, that it had been farmed out to one of his young subordinates. I offered to send him a video so he could judge it for himself. He begged off, saying that he would then have to second-guess every movie critique in the book. I pooh-poohed that fear, pointing out that he would only have to reconsider movies written by writers he had the misfortune of running into at parties. And besides, inasmuch as the guides all carried his name alone, he owed it to his own reputation.

In reporting all this to Tom, I concluded by saying that I considered Maltin something of an inspiration. He’s a person, I pointed out, without wit, above average intelligence or even, by my lights, character. Furthermore, he looks like something left out in the rain, and yet he managed to carve out a successful career both in print and on TV.

His value simply can’t be denied. In a world in which most of us aspire to be superior, and are foiled by our own limitations, Leonard Maltin, like Barack Obama, is an inspiration to mediocrities everywhere.

After all, if those two can succeed, surely there is hope for everyone.