Je ne suis toujours pas Charlie

Of course, I entirely defend the right of these cheese-eating surrender monkeys to publish this cover or, indeed, any damned thing they wish. For those who, eschewing a study of French, have wisely dedicated themselves to learning the language of a relevant world power, it reads: "God Exists! He Drowned All the Neo-Nazis of Texas."

I'm not angry or disappointed because, I confess, my expectations are low. We've already discussed here the lack of moral consistency by the Gauloise-sucking "journalists" at Charlie Hebdo. And let's be honest, the Germans may have invented the word schadenfreude, but nobody does it better than the French. And I know, too, that Nazis are a bit of an uncomfortable subject for the French, given their legacy of well-earned national shame. Gazing upon this cover, they must have to wonder if a timely flood would have somehow stopped them handing over Jewish schoolchildren for annihilation in exchange for the Germans not burning down some museums. (Not that the French didn't then mount a fine resistance. Courageous cafe owners frequently over-charged German officers for espresso.* And many French housewives valiantly gave German soldiers painful venereal diseases in exchange for stockings and cabbages.)

But . . . here's the thing. You would think that if anyone would not want to rob the swastika of all of its meaning, it would be people who lived under the brutal occupation of actual Nazis. Calling all the victims in Houston -- a city that, for one thing, overwhelmingly votes Democrat -- "Nazis" would seem to me to do just that. And it's a glaring example of what's wrong with our own discourse here in recent months.

You see, people who don't believe that the military should enlist transgender service members aren't Nazis. They might be right. They might be wrong. They might be motivated by hate, or fear, or merely a concern for the marginal costs of issuing all those new nametags. But they aren't Nazis -- well at least they aren't Nazis just because they disagree with you about the intersection of gender identity and the armed forces. That guy who favors immigration amnesty for "dreamers?" I guess he might be a socialist, but his stance on that single issue offers you insufficient data to reach any such conclusion. And the small-town florist who doesn't want her great-great-granddaddy's statue ripped out of the courthouse square? It's not likely she's an actual fascist however troublesome you find that bronze fellow on the horse. But when you bandy about a word like "Nazi," even though it has the effect of rendering your opponents less than human -- always handy when you want to douse them with jars of your own urine or peacefully beat them into silence -- it also has the effect of sucking all the meaning from the word. And that's not good for anyone. (I mean, if nothing else, don't the folks who called George W. Bush a Nazi now wish they'd kept that epithet in reserve?)

More than six years ago, I wrote in this space about the Theory of Ubiquitous Polarity.** I wrote then from a place of personal frustration, calling for nuance. These days I see it underlying something far more dangerous. Because if you render every disagreement on any policy and procedure into a definitive identity for the person with whom you disagree, if you view everyone on the other side of anything as being a member of a class of the fundamentally evil, you leave yourself with nothing to do but go to war. That's what you do with actual Nazis. And by the looks of recent events, war is more or less where we're going.

* Thank you Trevanian.

** "A system under which an observer believes that all beliefs must necessarily be aligned in whatever manner the observer himself aligns them."

In the ghetto

In an age where degeneracy is a television programming strategy, and the gifts of God – things like life and liberty – are largely considered disposable, it doesn't pay to be easily shocked. Shock clouds the thinking, slows the hand, blunts the will. But every now and then, however callused or inured to the base state of the world one may imagine oneself to be, one finds that shock is still possible.

So I was, I confess, shocked when I read Alex Seitz-Wald’s piece in today’s Salon Magazine. Purporting to take on the historical inaccuracy of those who would compare modern gun control efforts to those in the middle of the last century in Germany, Seitz-Wald sets out an analysis in which he submits that Adolf Hitler’s regime actually loosened gun laws for most Germans – excepting only those who were also objects of the Final Solution. Thus, Seitz-Wald argues Hitler's targeted gun ban just isn't an apposite argument for  gun rights advocates.

"The law did prohibit Jews and other persecuted classes from owning guns, but this should not be an indictment of gun control in general. Does the fact that Nazis forced Jews into horrendous ghettos indict urban planning?*"

If that were all Seitz-Wald had said, I’d just have considered him a sarcastic, silly, intellectually dishonest hack. Nothing shocking in that. But that’s not all he said. It’s what followed that left me gasping, angry, sad. Seitz-Wald went on to argue that, as it happened, guns wouldn't have done Jews much good anyway, what with the efficiency of the German war machine and the depth of the Nazi’s commitment to genocide, so what matter if Jews were -- or, presumably, you are -- prohibited from having them.  In support, he suggests we consider the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, where some Jews did manage to get a hold of firearms and used them to contend for their lives. The math there was pretty simple, Seitz-Wald points out:

"In reality, only about 20 Germans were killed, while some 13,000 Jews were massacred. The remaining 50,000 who survived were promptly sent off to concentration camps."

Thus Seitz-Wald’s core premise is that there is no difference between, on the one hand, passively and helplessly submitting to the extermination of yourself and your entire people, and, on the other, dying while resisting that extermination. I cannot recall reading a more degenerate, dehumanizing and tragic statement anywhere, ever. 

That it should come to this, that an American who rises and sleeps under the veil of liberty** for which millions have sacrificed their lives, could entertain such a sentiment – or could put it in writing – or could see it published – inclines me toward despair for this nation and its people.

Many of Robert’s Rules shouldn't really need stating at all. I’d have thought that “Morals Matter More Than Math,” would have been among those.

One moral choice a human being is sometimes afforded, one moment that matters a lot, is how one dies. Not that we all are given the opportunity to die well: circumstances or evil men can render our death humiliating, or irrelevant, or random, or ironic, or even comic. Not that all those given such an opportunity do the best with it: courage fails, will weakens; we disgrace ourselves. But man is the only animal who knows that he will die, who can grasp at all what dying means. Thus every man who wishes to hold himself even a bit above the animals knows that it matters how he dies.

Or so I would have thought.

A Prime Minister of Israel once told me: "Do you know what it means that there is an Israel? It means this: It means that if there had been an Israel in 1942, and if Israel had an air force, and if the air force of the state of Israel consisted of one rickety biplane, the pilot of that biplane would have died bombing the railroad track to Auschwitz. That's what the state of Israel means -- and end to powerlessness."

I don't think this man suffered from an inability to figure arithmetic, or was ignorant of effective military tactics. I would have liked for Seitz-Wald to have spoken to that man.

But I have a feeling it wouldn't have done much good.

* The italics are Seitz-Wald's. I tend to read that sentence as "[Well OK-- sure  -- whatever -- if you want to be technical about it -- yeah] the law did prohibit to Jews. . . "

** Due credit to Col. Nathan R. Jessup.

  

Why we fight

It was suggested to me recently that, as a professing Christian, I ought not to own guns, nor be willing, under any circumstances, to employ them in earnest. "Didn't Jesus," sneered the fellow, "tell you guys to turn the other cheek."

I suspect he didn't realize just how much Christian charity it took in that moment not to smack the smug little grin off his cheeks. Judging from his look and attitude he seemed to believe he had scored a major point in a game I hadn't realized were were playing. Perhaps he expected me, blinded by the flash of his rhetorical brilliance, either spontaneously to renounce my faith or to surrender my side arm.

It has wisely been said that there's no percentage in arguing with an idiot, because he'll drag you down to his level, then beat you with experience. The same holds true for those insincere sorts who aren't really interested in an answer to their loaded question. So I distracted the fellow with some version of "Look! Over there. Shiny." And I went on with my day.

The fact is, though, that if sincerely asked, it is a fair question.

I could direct you to Hugo Grotius, and that might help. Grotius' life spanned the end of the Sixteenth Century and the beginning of the Seventeenth – a time of constant, practically universal war. Nations all across Europe were sending their finest sons ahead of columns of their peasants, augmented by cadres of mercenaries, to kill the fine sons, peasants and mercenaries of their neighbors. The Portuguese were killing and being killed by the Spanish. The English were (as always) killing their Irish neighbors, along with any Spaniards they could find. The Russians were killing the Swedes. Nearly everyone in Europe was killing Turks. There were various wars of succession and countless revolts, uprisings and rebellions. Most notably, the last 27 years of Grotius' life were the first 27 years of the Thirty Years War.

Essentially beginning as a religious war that pitted most of the Roman Catholic nations of Europe against most of the Protestant ones, then devolving into a continental melee where more or less everyone was seeking to seize power and territory from more or less everyone else, the Thirty Years War is unparalleled in history for its savagery. The war killed 8 million people at a time when the population of Europe probably didn't much exceed 50 million. Civilian populations were targeted for extermination. Plague, pillage and rape were common to the orders of battle.

And it was against this backdrop of chaos and misery (and while he was himself fleeing across Europe to avoid religious persecutors who had jailed him and threatened worse) that Grotius produced De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace). You can read it here in English, or buy it in Latin to get the full flavor of the work.  Grotius was a Christian. And when he wasn't trying to set down a rational rule book for how men might conduct war righteously, he was writing one the first widely published systemic defenses of Protestant Christianity. You can read De veritate religionis Christianae for free online, if you have the Latin and the inclination.

So, yes, I could direct you to Grotius, who knew what I know: that the command that a Christ follower should "turn the other cheek," did not mean that a Christian ought to stand by while the greatest gift besides salvation, the very gift of life, is threatened by evil. Grotius knew that Jesus' proscription was against seeking revenge or taking offense, not against self-defense. Like everything He said, it was said in context and He finished by directing us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us -- presumably to include defending one another from evil.*

Yes, I could send you to Grotius, but let's not fool about with one another: You've got neither the Latin nor the inclination. (Neither, I'll confess have I.) So let me direct you, instead, to Fx Hummel, shooter, troubadour, theology scholar, philosopher and -- best of all -- songwriter.

 
* Luke quotes Jesus this way in Chapter 6, verses 27 - 31:

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you."

Neener neener neener.

Update below.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been the fat kid. Maybe I simply lack the requisite zero-tolerance school administrator sensibility that somehow must rationalize the winner of any fight into the bad guy. Maybe I'm a creature of another, simpler age. But I am damned if I can see how Casey Heynes did a thing wrong.

You probably have seen the video by now, despite the fact YouTube keeps taking it down. Casey Heynes, a 16-year-old high school student in Australia, is being tormented by a gang of nasty little bullies. They are taunting him for his weight while the lead cur in the pack steps in and punches Heynes in the face. He capers around Heynes, laughing and trying to hit him again, while Heynes fends off the blows. Then Heynes has had enough. As I have described here before, Heynes reacts violently enough to end the threat.

As it stands, both students are suspended from Chifley College where, the school says, they provide “a safe, supportive and productive learning environment to promote individual achievement and self-responsibility.” An official there has stated that  both boys will face consequences because the school "does not tolerate any violence.” But that is clearly a lie.

The only explanation for these events is that violence has been tolerated there for quite some time. How else to explain the fact that the vicious little snot who gets his comeuppance 41 seconds into the video clearly believed he could attack Casey Heynes with impunity? If similar assaults hadn’t happened before this – and often – how to explain that anyone that size thought he could hit someone Heynes’ size and get away with it? And how else to explain that the vicious, tech-savvy tormentors were ready to record Heynes latest humiliation?

I don’t know what’s going to become of Heynes and his academic career. I hope all this publicity will end up being good for him, but I have to doubt it will. I'm not sure if Australian authorities and parents have more sense than American ones, who -- if the events occurred here and now -- certainly would expel Heynes, then arrest him for assault and try him as an adult, while the scrawny little "victim's" family sued in civil court.

Happily, 35 years ago, when I was the fat kid and a freshman at St. Ignatius High School, similar events only earned me six weeks of Saturday detention,* awarded by an assistant principal who privately gave me a pat on the back for standing up for myself. Most importantly, they earned me a subsequently peaceful three and half years of high school, free from further taunts or bullying of any sort. (Whack a guy in the belly with a locker room stool, then kick him while he writhes on the ground, and word tends to get around.)

Unless the miserable little weasel Heynes put on the ground is stupid, as well as cruel, I suspect Heynes' actions will have at least that same effect.




* Despite having copied out all of the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" several times over those Saturdays, I find I remember almost none of it, except that it contained a recipe for albatross. Truth to tell, I still have a lingering grudge against Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 


UPDATE: When the school says it does not tolerate "any violence," I wonder if they know what the words "any" and "violence" mean exactly. Consider this incident at the same school from about a year ago.

Credit where credit is due.

Up in New Hampshire, they are cleaning up the snow and girding themselves for the start of the 2012 presidential campaign -- the former lingers long there, while the latter comes all too early. But the state legislature still has found time to consider giving those heroic homeland heroes at the TSA the recognition they richly deserve.

As explained at aviation attorney Tim Ravich's excellent Aviation and Aerospace Blawg,* if proposed legislation is approved, those grope happy pornographers at the TSA will find themselves on the state's sexual offender's registry.

Even in a state with the motto "Live Free or Die," will such a provision make it into law? Probably not. But bless their revolution-loving hearts for giving it a try.




* A "blawg" is blog dedicated to matters legal, judicial and jurisprudential. Tim's is; the Sheepdog's decidedly isn't.

Eye spy.

Thirty years. Thirty years is a career. Thirty years is a man in his prime. Thirty years is the age past which Baby Boomers vowed no one would be trusted. Thirty years is a storied marriage. Thirty Years is how long it took 17th Century Catholics and Protestants to kill 12 million of one another in the eponymous war. Thirty years is longer than half the population of the United States has been alive.

Thirty years is how long Cornelius Dupree Jr. spent confined in the Texas prison system for a crime he did not commit.

Consider the exquisite horror of that. Spend an hour thinking about it. Mr. Dupree had more than a quarter million hours in which to do so after he was wrongly convicted for a 1979 abduction, robbery and rape. Or, if you prefer, think of the worst day in your life. Consider how that day stacks up against a day in a prison system widely recognized as among the nation’s most vile. Mr. Dupree had just about 11,000 days of that.

Mr. Dupree is just a year older than I. When he went to prison, I was blasting through my sophomore year at college, skipping classes, chasing girls, drinking beer and gallivanting through wild Kentucky caves. During the time Mr. Dupree has been fighting for his freedom and, one presumes, fighting merely to survive, I have had two marriages, fathered two sons, come to Jesus, enjoyed success in two careers and, more to the immediate point, gone where I damn well pleased, when I damn well pleased.

In what must be the most gracious and galactic understatement ever recorded, Mr. Dupree said “it’s a joy to be free again” when a Texas judge sent him home after DNA evidence established that he did not commit the crime.*

How had he landed in prison? So far as I can tell, unlike some of the more than 250 defendants who have so far been exonerated by just the Innocence Project alone, there are no allegations of knowing misconduct by police or prosecutors. Instead, as happens more often than folks outside the justice system realize, Mr. Dupree lost more than half his life simply because the crime victim misidentified him. This phenomenon is but a reflection of the larger problem of “eyewitness testimony,” where the sometimes fatal danger lies in the gulf between how reliable such testimony really is and how reliable jurors think it is. (I leave it for you to consider the implications of prosecutors who know the weaknesses of eyewitnesses, yet advocate it as the sine qua non of evidence before jurors and fight to exclude experts on the topic.)

Of course, it is not only the Mr. Duprees of the world who suffer for this, although their suffering is most obvious and acute. The victims whose assailants have gone free, the families of the wrongly convicted, the subsequent victims of those assailants who go unpursued as other pay for their crimes, even the witnesses who learn their flawed testimony sent a man to prison for decades** suffer as well. The universal victim is the honor, trust and dignity of our entire justice system.




* He’s been out of prison on parole since July, but the hearing this week released him from any obligation to the corrections system.


** Please learn about the amazing, tragic and – at last – redemptive story of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton. She identified him as her rapist and he went to prison for eleven years before DNA evidence proved she was wrong. Cotton managed to forgive Thompson and Thompson managed to forgive herself. Together they have become a single, powerful voice of reason, appearing and writing together about these issues.