No limits

A number of readers have written in to point out that yesterday's post about the Statue of Liberty wasn't exactly right.

Seems a number of right-wing wackaloons have in fact been agitating to return the Great Lady to the French.

One writes in to inform me that the topic has been a favorite of the Howie Carr show in Boston, on WRKO from 4-7 p.m. Reportedly, there were repeated calls last week.

Then there's this little site:

GiveItBack.org

There was a story about this site on a Pittsburgh TV station awhile back. However, what's clear is that this is more in the vein of yet another way to scam conservative half-wits out of their money and wasting it on a futile gesture.

Notably, it includes a link for "those who want to send a protest to France but do not want to send 'Lady Liberty' back', taking them to a page describing how "GIVEITBACK.ORG has recently legally acquired an authentic piece of the Statue of Liberty, which was removed during her renovations in 1982-1992! We plan on sending this symbolic piece back to France in protest." This by way of alternative. Such a gesture would certainly devastate the French.

In any case, another reader informs me that "it later turned out that the entire purpose of the site was to raise the domain name's profile so the owner could flog it on eBay (it turned into an ad for the name after a few weeks)...which he did. I think he made a sizable profit. Which just goes to show again that it all goes back to the money."

Fools and their money are soon parted, as are jingoes and democratic institutions.

In any case, it appears I was wrong: There are no limits to the small-minded idiocy of jingoes.