Color me nit-picky…
An otherwise perfectly good article by Alan Sears about how the ACLU has not deserted its communist roots is marred by its lede:
“Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, nor a zebra its stripes… ”
Waat Sears ought to do is either cite the actual literary quote that contains “leopard” and “spots” or move to a different (innacurate, but perhaps more fitting) quote and enrich the meme.
But of course Sears is too infected by the PC restraints of today’s society (or, worse, ignorant of the citation) to cite the actual literary quote:
Jeremiah 13:23: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? [then] may you also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.”
Better, IMO would have been to cite a different meme entirely, if Sears were unable to cite the real literary meme on leopards and spots would have been to cite the corruption of it that renders “leopard” as “leper” because the meme touches on a physical corruption that would reflect on the moral and ethical and spiritual corruption that is evident in the ACLU from its founding consistently through to this very day.
For truly, can a leper change his spots any more than an Ethiopian his skin or a leopard his spots? And yet, neither the Ethiopian’s nor the leopard’s distinctive skins in any way reflect anything negative about their physical being, while leoprosy does definitely show forth a sickness of body that can be taken, when applied to the moral, ethical and spiritual nature of the ACLU, to mean a corruption.
In any case, Sears ought either to unapologetically use the full original literary citation–which does carry a sense of indicting a corrupt nature, or make some other allusion, even the flawed, mis-stated allusion of a “leper’s spots”. Leopards and zebras standing alone are a whimpy literary device.
BTW, the statement recorded in Jeremiah 13:23 was a snippet from a long, uhm, Jeremiad levied by (of course) Jeremiah at the behest of God, against the Jews–“God’s own people”. Keep that in mind the next time you start feeling that America is elect, particularly blessed and “special”–only so long as we “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with [our] God”… we hope.
Perhaps that ought to be tattoed (in mirror fashion) on the forehead of every public servant, so that they might at least have some sort of reminder that justice and mercy are inextricably bound together by humility, since so few of them show any of those qualities. Hmmm, perhaps I ought to write a small screed explaining how none of those three can truly exist without the other two in equal measure… Nah. Waste of time. Those of y’all who already understand that don’t need to read it, and those of y’all who do not already understand it… won’t.
(BTW, I would have commented at the Townhall site where the article is posted, but the idjits just want folks to jump through too many hurdles, and I’ll almost never be that desperate to talk back to a columnist.)
Trackposted to The Right Nation, The Virtuous Republic, Webloggin, The Pink Flamingo, The Florida Masochist, Right Celebrity, Stageleft, and Jo’s Cafe, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.