On Our Knees*

UPDATED

It’s one of Robert’s Rules, and one of the saddest, that Facts Pursue Narratives - Narratives Flee From Facts. Perhaps it has always been this way, but we see the Rule writ especially large in an era of 24-hour, multi-channel blather, where every agenda has its ardent proponents, all of whom are far more quick and ready to push their party line than the reporters in the field are quick and able to dig up and disseminate actual information. So literally before the bodies in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church had begun to cool, you could find commentators, politicians and shills of every stripe using those murdered believers as a fulcrum to raise this or that particular agenda just that bit higher.

The coming hours and days will doubtless produce more facts, and they’ll doubtless be slipped into and hammered onto and wedged under the narratives we all have come to expect -- however fast those narratives flee from facts that don't suit. But instead of speculating on what those facts may prove to be, I want to talk about what we knew before that first shot was fired yesterday, what is true in the harsh light of morning, and what will be true no matter what facts we learn in days to come.

+ + +

Before the first shot we knew that Emanuel AME was some variety of persistent miracle. To begin, the church was founded in 1816. Let that date sit with you a moment, because that’s 47 years before a presidential order that finally said that black human beings like those who founded that church could no longer be owned by other human beings. In the two tempestuous centuries since its founding, Emanuel AME has survived upheaval, violence, persecution, prejudice and even –  in South Carolina? –  an earthquake. A man named Denmark Vesey, was – just six years after helping to found the church – tried in secret by a kangaroo court and hanged for his role in a planned revolt of human beings who wished no longer to be owned by other human beings.

Thus we knew Wednesday that the believers of Emanuel AME had survived great horrors before and had prospered and grown and loved their church to the glory of God even so. After the last echo of the last shot has passed, I think we know that they will do the same. We know that with the prayers and love and shared tears of believers and people of good will, Emanuel AME will persevere as it has persevered. We know that if this killer thought to strike down this church –  let alone the Church – he has already failed, as even worse men have failed, as even the Gates of Hell must fail.

I knew Wednesday, and I know today, and nothing to come will make me doubt that God does not abandon His people. I knew Wednesday, and I know today, that only He can lift and comfort those who mourn. I knew Wednesday, and I know today, that people of Emanuel AME are my brothers and sisters in Christ and that He hears my prayers for them.

+ + +

But there's something else I knew Wednesday, and still know today.

Before the first shot, I knew that the black folks I talk to were feeling more insecure than at any time since we all became adults. And let’s be clear, the black folks I talk to are mostly people of means and position – even of power. They own and run businesses and law firms; they direct the doings of governments; they carry badges and stethoscopes and resumes filled with degrees. But I knew Wednesday that despite all these friends have accomplished; despite all the influence, recognition and prosperity they have earned; despite – not for nothing – the presence of a black man in the White House, they are troubled and angry and, yes, afraid, like I have not seen before. I know that today those doubts and fears can only be worse.

What I did not know Wednesday and do not know today is how definitively to fix that. But I refuse to be paralyzed by that, to let the absence of the perfect be the death of the good.  I did and do know that, at the very least, we have to talk to each other. We have to talk in frankest possible terms, about the most difficult things, in fearlessness and love. We have to be robust. We have to be slow to take offense and quick to forgive the inadvertent slight. We have to examine ourselves and let our hearts of hearts be examined. 

Two hundred years after those brave believers founded Emanuel AME, human beings are dying in America because of the color of their skin. I don't know if the nine at Emanuel AME were among them –  that seems likely, but we don't know yet. [# Update below] (Perhaps they died because they were Christians. Thousands do nowadays, despite the echoing media silence about that.) But even if, by some chance, these nine didn't die because of their color, too many of our countrymen, of our fellow human beings, do. And –  God forgive us –  200 years from now, unless we now take on that fact with brutal honesty and powerful love, that will still be so.

+ + +

And, despite the thundering din of the Narratives fleeing the facts as fast as they can, there's something else we knew on Wednesday, that hasn't changed this morning –   however efficiently America’s great cynical hoplophobic industrial complex churns out its lies, slickly tailored to capitalize on the deaths of people about whom it cares not one jot.

Before the first shot, we knew – if we were honest with ourselves – that there exists no piece of gun legislation we can craft that would matter to or deter a man who is otherwise willing to take the lives of nine or dozen a other human beings. Before the first shot, we knew that when men so inclined decide to match action to inclination, they almost always seek a place where they know their intended victims will be unarmed.** I knew Wednesday – as did many of my co-coreligionists – that if the flock is going to be protected on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday evening, then some of the shepherds, and some sheepdogs, have to stand ready to put down the wolves. 

  

* Note that you get on your knees only to pray – or possibly for gardening. Roberts Rules for Armed Robbery and Hostage Taking are explicit:

• Never let them put you on your knees.
• Never let them put you in another room.
• Never let them put you in a car.

Long and bitter experience has proven that each of these is a prelude to murder. At that point, whatever the odds, fight like one already dead.

** Among other things, the shootings in Aurora, Fort Hood and Sandy Hook all had this in common.

# UPDATED: Given the reported words of the killer -- whose name will gain no fame here -- and given what has been learned about him in the past 24 hours, there now seems to be no doubt that he was acting out of racial hatred.

Sommes-nous Charlie?

In the wake of global jihad’s sudden realization that there are safer places to take up the cause than a Texas art show, there has been a wave of hand wringing, sympathizing and second guessing all around the notion that Pam Geller and those in attendance at her event – while not exactly “asking for it” – were imprudently courting the sort of violent response the two erstwhile terrorists hoped to mete out. If you suspect someone may react violently to your speech, the "reasoning" goes, then the onus is on your to refrain from such speech so as to prevent the violence.

This call has come from some surprising places.* For example, in the view of two Charlie Hebdo editors, while the slaughter of their coworkers for drawing cartoons of Mohammed were appalling, it turns out threats of violence to others who draw cartoons are very different, however much the same they appear to those of us in the non-cartooning hoi polloi. It’s not clear if the distinction rests on the quality of the cartoons.** But the upshot was: For-profit French cartoons of the Prophet are OK; non-profit American cartoons of the Prophet, are not OK.

And here I naively thought je suis Charlie.

Mind you, those folks at Charlie Hebdo had better be careful not to get too comfy in the saddle of their high horse. Yet another cartoonist, who has made a living for 45 years by giving offense, seemed to think the fellows at Charlie Hebdo – while not exactly “asking for it” – were out of line, too, and should well have expected what they got.

Now, I have written before about how nuanced the world is, how much is grey, how little absolute. But I've also always maintained my Whitman Contradiction License.  So let me go ahead and lay down an absolute Robert's Rule: Speech is speech. Violence is violence. 

Even the most offensive speech you can imagine -- that Westboro gang's hateful three word signs at soldiers' funerals, dunking crucifixes in urinals, 90% of all the anonymous comments everywhere on the internet -- does not justify even the least violence you can imagine. The only acceptable response to speech, presuming you don't simply ignore it, is more speech. Orations, blogs, stage plays, anthems, epic poems, sky writing, sculpture, tracts, pamphlets, bumper stickers -- all are good to go. You can employ condemnation, vilification, expressions of loathing, mockery, satire, sneering contempt and the thumbing of your own nose. Have at it.***

But you do not get to raise a finger against the speaker, and an inquiry into his motives -- which are damned tricky to divine, even if Juan Williams seems to believe he can -- cannot amend the Rule.

Here's a diagnostic you can run on yourself. If you think a speaker is "provoking violence" by speaking, then you utterly fail to understand the difference between speech and violence. Violence can often justifiably provoke violence -- assault someone and he has the right to defend himself; assault him with deadly force and he has the right to end your life. But speech cannot justifiably provoke even a slap in the face. This is the law. But more than that, it is a founding principle of this nation. 

The wonderful thing about speech, even of the vilest sort, is that it leaves everyone free to engage in more speech. Violence, on the other hand, leaves only the winners free to engage in more violence. And as a recent pair of would be jihadis learned the hard way, that violence thing doesn't always work out quite like you're expecting it to.

* I'm not being sarcastic here. I was honestly surprised, although I know I shouldn't be.

** The Geller event was no Armory Show, but I sure hope that's not the key criterion. I drew the picture above on MS Paint and it is not a very good drawing at all.

*** Certainly lots of folks have done just that with the tirelessly self-promoting Ms. Geller,

Construction

Let's establish at the outset that I am no fan of Ted Cruz. I think he's a buffoon and, as a key player on Team R, instrumental in the most dangerous intramural scrimmage ever played. But it turns out I am even less of a fan of sanctimony and race-baiting and the tyranny of orthodoxy -- equally so the left-handed variety as the right.

Race, certainly, and even ethnicity are, to a large degree, just social constructs. If you tell 50 people in a room to stand up and arrange themselves from darkest to lightest, you'll get some pretty funny looks* but you also get to observe an interesting phenomenon: Reduce someone's literal place to the single signifier of his skin color, and the light begins to dawn about how much more complex the concept of race really is. Just as interesting -- especially in the United States -- is to ask someone about his ethnicity and listen to the second order algebraic equation that follows. 

There's nothing wrong with this, so long as you let people do it for themselves. Our own idea of our race and ethnicity helps us to fix ourselves in the great, centuries-long parade of human kind. It gives us a context and place from which to view the world. It gives a list of foods we really like. 

Now, I cannot speak in detail to the race or ethnicity of Amy Louise Bardach, who recently posited that Ted Cruz doesn't get to call himself Hispanic because of his politics. But Bardach doesn't sound** especially Latino, and neither -- if that happens to be a married name -- does Amy Louise.*** So I am left to wonder: Where does she get the nerve?

This kind of reductive, aggressive, third-party imposition of identity is beyond offensive. It is the worst variety of the Theory of Ubiquitous Polarity. It is just another stripe of telling people what they are allowed to believe and, in the hands of a powerful institution like The New York Times, or the federal government, or the Central Committee, or the Gestapo****, or any other tyrant, it's damned dangerous.

My wife is white (well, really this kind of amazing cafe con leche color) but clearly Latina. ("Latino" versus "Hispanic" is another discussion.) My boys are white (well, one's sort of tanish-white and the other is a little more beige) and medio-latino. I'm white (well, OK, sorta ruddy, blotchy, freckly white) and half Irish, half German (albeit I was raised in an entirely Czech family, and so identify there as well). None of that changes depending on how any of us vote, anymore than it does if one of my sons suddenly decided he didn't like beans and rice.***** And no editorial writer gets to tell us - or Ted Cruz, for that matter - otherwise.

Doubt me? Here's a simple exercise. Imagine a Wall Street Journal editorial positing that Barack Obama is not really black.

But maybe, before you try that thought experiment, you'd better put on a hard hat.

* I know because I have done exactly that, rather to make this very point to a classroom full of folks who were -- because of another social construct -- largely inclined to do as I asked.

** Como el único gringo en una familia de 150 cubanos, y como residente de 25 años de una de las ciudades más latino en los Estados Unidos, me siento que puedo hablar con experiencia, si no con la autoridad perfecta, sobre el tema. Pero cualquiera que sea mi conjeturo, yo soy de ninguna manera que sugieren que podría o debería imponer una etnia a la Sra Bardach, ni privarlo de su derecho a reclamar lo que uno - o los - ella afirma . De esa manera, somos muy diferentes.

*** And in any event, if it seems offensive to you that I'd speculate at all about her ethnicity, maybe go ahead and check your irony meter for full function.

**** What good is to have Godwin's Law if we cannot break it from time to time?

***** Consider it an argument ad absurdim.

Long walk ended

I am sorry to have to inform you, but the world is a complex place, full of contradiction and nuance, populated by human beings who are the corporeal embodiment of that complexity

Those vilifying Nelson Mandela in these days following his death – and there are plenty of them – ignore certain essential facts about his later life, of which I will mention only a salient two: He more or less singlehandedly averted a national convulsion of bloodletting and racial war by embracing the notion that even those who participated in decades of brutal oppression ought to have a place and a voice in South Africa, and that even those who opposed that oppression ought to answer in truth for their own crimes. And – in the public act for which he ought to be most highly praised – having attained more or less complete power, and being positioned to keep and wield it so long as ever he wished, Mandela instead relinquished it – soon, peaceably and willingly. Compare that to nearly any other post-colonial revolutionary leader on that continent.

Those lionizing Mandela – and there are many more of them – do no better. He was in younger years a proponent of systemic violence, and when he was arrested his house was filled with tens of thousands of weapons designed to wield that violence in the most indiscriminate fashion. To ignore that is to ignore conduct that he himself later repudiated, not only in others, but in himself. And while he may not have chosen himself to become a dictator, he supported and embraced brutal dictators – quite literally so – along with leftist policies that almost no American of any political stripe would endorse upon close examination.

This duality – plurality, really – in a single man is the furthest thing from being unique. It is our essential nature. Whitman said it best: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Mandela the man contained just these multitudes. The evolving legacy of a post-apartheid South Africa is more complex still. (And, by all present indications, not headed toward a future Mandela would have wanted to see.) It is easier and more comfortable to feed our confirmation bias and assuage our cognitive dissonance by imagining that he or it was or is all one thing or all another. Easier, more comfortable, but false.

The Boston narrative

A good and intelligent friend, a person with a fine education, good judgment and a kind heart, sent me this article in the wake of the Boston bombings this week. The tl;dr for the article is that we are predisposed to view and process terroristic acts committed by white folks differently from the way we view and process such acts when committed by people of color. It's a good article that makes a fair point.*

Author Tim Wise supported his article with a long list of white terrorists, illustrating his position that any narrative that paints such folks as anomalies is flawed. But Mr. Wise, it would appear, isn't entirely immune from the power of narrative himself. Because Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Howie Macthinger, Ted Klonsky, Terry Robbins, Karen Ashley, John Jacobs, David Gilbert, Ted Gold, etc etc etc are conspicuously absent from his “pantheon of white people who engage in (or have plotted) politically motivated violence meant to terrorize and kill." **

Perhaps these left-wing*** violent radicals aren't on the list because they don't quite fit another narrative – I might better call it a slander – presently so popular in the press.  “We should not, must not, cannot speculate,” the sanctimonious pundit always begins. “But it sure seems possible (or reasonable or likely or evident) that this vile act was committed by someone opposed to the current gun control proposals." Who knew that so many television and radio talking heads were so fit and nimble, so able to leap to far distant conclusions at a single bound? And yet, in the past two days I have heard those words, or similar ones, on NPR, CNN, ABC and NBC with my own ears. 

Now, we all understand that we cannot suggest Islam is inherently dangerous or evil despite the fact that radical Islamists have – motivated by their religion – committed serial acts of terror.  We all, I trust, know that we cannot lump all Muslims together and blame or fear them as a group or individually, simply because they are Muslims and so were those who bombed  the USS Cole, the World Trade Center, embassies in Africa, the Khobar Towers, the London Underground, the Spanish trains and the Bali nightclub, and perpetrated the 9-11 attacks. Even though we know that these attacks were carried out in the name of Islam, we do not hold Muslims collectively responsible for the acts of their misguided or deranged or simply evil coreligionists.

We should not, must not, cannot do this not only because it is wrong – I might better call it a sin – but also because it is not useful. It does us no good. It provides no basis for a policy. It cannot usefully guide our future behavior. It cannot make us safer. So why is it I feel certain that if the Boston bomber does turns out to have ties to any current, so-called "right wing" issue, that same understanding won't apply?

Maybe it’s because the Rahm Emanuel Doctrine ("You never want to let a serious crisis go to waste.")  has been so thoroughly embraced in this country, from the president on down, from MSNBC to Fox News, from the Democrats to the GOP. Maybe it’s because the blood on the streets of Boston had not dried – and I mean that literally – before that act of terror was being hammered into shape so that it would fit into this agenda or that one. No one, it seems, has the least interest in finding out actual facts and then rationally assessing how they might actually inform us.****

It is a shitty, stupid – and ultimately doomed – way to run a society.

* The point isn't a theoretical one – early reporting on the bombing stated that a “Saudi national” was in custody – and although the hapless fellow proved to have nothing to do with the bombing, that story certainly fit comfortably into a lot of preconceived notions and was widely repeated. (The grinning Facebook photo with the golden gun may not have helped.) 

** As Wise proudly notes, Cornell West has described Wise as a “vanilla brother in the tradition of John Brown.” John Brown – considered by plenty of folks to have been a terrorist, however righteous his cause – was also absent from Wise’s list.

*** Interesting, too that, that Ted Kacynski is always included in a list of right wing domestic terrorists – merely because he was white? – when he was actually part of the pantheon of left wing "white people who engage in (or have plotted) politically motivated violence meant to terrorize and kill."

**** For what it is worth, I’ll take the opportunity to point out that everywhere I go, I have a blowout kit with me in the bag I carry and I know how to use everything in it. Traumatic injuries cannot be predicted, but what you do in the first few minutes – particularly with respect to controlling blood loss – can make a real difference even in the most devastating events. People who otherwise would have died this week survived because others on the scene – paramedics and just plain folks – knew how to stop their bleeding. These folks sell an excellent kit, or you can assemble one that meets your particular needs.

Can we talk?

We can be assured that it won’t be forgotten, when America’s first black president takes the oath to begin his second term, that not quite 50 years will have passed since Martin Luther King Jr. stood not far away and described a dream world in which a man might be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin. Every television talking head with a minute of airtime to fill can be counted on to relate one man and moment to the other.

For me, those 50 years are more or less all my life. I was three when King gave his speech, and accordingly unaware of it. But I was old enough by the time he was gunned down five years later to perceive not only the shocking crime, but to have an inkling of what King’s death might mean. I was old enough, a month later, to try to reconcile some context when Bobby Kennedy fell to another assassin’s hand. Not yet nine years old, it seemed to me that chaos reigned, that our nation was in jeopardy, that social studies class had it all terribly wrong. That was an impression only reinforced by what I saw at home.

At 14, my sister was radicalized beyond anything sensible for her age. She was enraptured and enthralled by what seemed to be the romance and thrill of a counter-culture offering not only the promise of a world to change but – vastly more important – the opportunity to shock and anger our parents. Every evening newscast, every muddy image of helicopter gunships, every campus conflagration had its echo in our home: in my sister’s angry denunciations, in my parents’ comminatory pronouncements, and in doors slammed by all parties. Two years later, when national guardsmen killed four Americans and wounded nine others on a college campus not 30 minutes from our house, those shots ricocheted around our kitchen table, leaving casualties of our own. Those wounds never healed.

There could be no resolution because my parents and my sister had no common language in which to reach one, no means to discuss the seething national conflicts that reflected and recapitulated their own. Every angry exchange about Nixon or Vietnam or hippies or civil rights was really a proxy for something else, something more prosaic, personal and small, and therefore infinitely more powerful. I came eventually to understand that it was a conflict they never wished to resolve. They had no common cause. At bottom, their mutual disdain was the only understanding they had, or wanted to have, of one another.

As for the nation, it is true that we find ourselves, 50 years on, having twice made president a man who, the summer King shared his dream, could not have shared a water fountain or a lunch counter with many of his countrymen. That would seem to be progress, and so I suppose it is. But if the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners now play together, no one can claim this is a nation unified. Our divisions are as deep as they ever were. What is worse, division has become our default, our reflex, the entire contour of our relationship with one another.

Our discourse no longer comprises intercourse, because our different opinions never get close enough even to contest with one another. Instead we pick our side of an issue, then plow broadening swathes of parallel rhetoric across from each other, like ever-expanding twin superhighways highways on either bank of a deeply run river, with never a single lane of bridge to link them. Should a fact inconveniently interpose itself, and by any means threaten to detour one course of conviction even a few degrees toward the opposing course, that fact is hastily dynamited or buried so that there will be no turning. One is not judged by the content of one's character, rather one is condemned by the color of one's beliefs or, indeed, by any single belief. 

That sound you hear? That din? It's not the debate of men of good will. It’s all slamming doors. Or maybe it’s thunder. But no matter. Because no one’s listening anyway.

There she is

I’m no expert when it comes to beauty pageants, so I might have this wrong. But it appears that the title of "Miss Alabama" – and perhaps those of the supreme unmarried females of other states – is conferred in secret upon unwitting young women, without their knowledge, participation or consent. I think this stealthy distinction must be awarded entirely on grounds of intellect . . . or perhaps the ability to weld different metals . . .  or maybe to lift very heavy things . . . or randomly. Honestly, I don’t know. But, whatever the standards, this honor is meant to be a very private one and is clearly not bestowed with any regard whatsoever to the recipient's physical appearance.

As I said, I’m no expert. I know even less about Miss Alabama and how she got to be that way than I know about how Justin Bieber got to be Justin Bieber.  But I’m able to conclude all the foregoing based on something I learned this week: pointing out the presence of Ms. Alabama at a University of Alabama football game, and then commenting that she is “lovely,” is an unspeakable invasion of her privacy and a profound affront to her dignity. If you can bear to watch so gross a violation of decent, there is video evidence of Brent Musberger's heinous assault. Be warned, though. It's pretty awful.

Now do not be fooled by the fact that the young woman in question claims not only not to have taken offense, but to have been both flattered and thrilled by the attention, from which she plans to profit. Clearly the young woman is suffering from some kind of post traumatic disruption of her faculties.* Those who know better than she what is good for her wasted no time in taking up her cause and defending her – whether she wished them to or not.

Perhaps the most fearless guardian of good was the one who pointed out that the offending sportscaster’s comment was not only “creepy,” but – gasp – heteronormative. I didn't know Mrs. Grundy had gone back to school for a post-graduate degree in gender liberation studies, but I, for one, am glad she did.

But even in so noble a cause as the crusade to protect beauty queens from public outrage, there must be limits. I understand that the offenderati have to keep their outrage at a simmer all the time, so they’re ready to boil over whenever there’s a buck to be made doing so.** I get that those championing Brent Musberger's public flogging, and debating whether the ESPN apology was sufficiently abject, just aren't wired in a way that would let them consider how their own age bias plays into their descriptions of Musberger as “creepy.”

But I have to draw the line at the comments of one particularly ringing condemnation from the moral carillon.

Sue Baker, a Michigan State journalism professor, impervious to the irony of her comments when made in reference to a young woman who has staked her fortune on a series of contests in which women are evaluated on their looks, said this:

It’s extraordinarily inappropriate to focus on an individual’s looks. In this instance, the appearance of the quarterback’s girlfriend had no bearing on the outcome of the game. It’s a major personal violation, and it’s so retrograde that it’s embarrassing. I think there’s a generational issue, but it’s incumbent on people practicing in these eras to keep up and this is not a norm.

Just so I’m clear, Susy, you’re suggesting Musberger should have spent every minute of four hours Monday night talking only about subjects that had a “bearing on the outcome" of that 42-14 simulation of a football game?  I know Michigan State finished unranked this year, but do you really think it's fair to take out your disappointment on all the rest of us football fans?

* Among other ill effects, Miss Alabama has hired a publicist and -- poor child -- her Twitter account has “blown up,” which I take to be a bad thing. 

** And yes. I am aware that I'm skirting perilously close to pot-and-kettle reciprocity with that comment. But I prefer to think of myself as less perpetually offended and more of an astute, sardonic and incisive social commentator and an enemy of hypocrisy. (And if there's a way to make any money from this thing, I'm damned if I've found it.)

Drift

I understand that facts, even of the most fundamental variety, don’t matter now. We’re past reasoning, so facts are worse than useless now that they have become a drag on our race to throw ourselves onto an emotional pyre in some public policy version of suttee.  Indeed, you can be certain reason has been taken off the table when we reach the point where we are being lectured about firearms by a Brit,* which is the logical equivalent of letting the North Korean Minister of Agriculture set your food policy.  

But even in an environment where all facts have been scraped away and an appeal to reason is viewed as foul calumny, I suppose my common sense isn't quite so scabbed over that I cannot still work up a touch of outrage over the notion of banning something that doesn't exist.

The original meaning** of “loophole” has long since been subsumed by the metaphor – a gap, omission or ambiguity in a law or agreement, used to subvert that law or contract’s purpose or spirit. Nothing wrong with that, for that is the very nature of language. Words morph and move through the lexicon, becoming something that they weren't before.  As meanings change and flow, old words are shaped to serve new needs. For those who are after the “Gun Show Loophole,” there is certainly such a need. After all, if they framed their goal as “the elimination of one free citizen’s right to sell his property to another free citizen,” it might be hard to get folks to go along, what with the notion of private property being a foundation for the very concept of human liberty.*** Even in today’s America, when you want to erode the foundations of the very concept of human liberty, you do well to call your law something else. (Like, say, the USA PATRIOT Act.)

Such semantic obfuscation is nothing new – ask the fellows at the Ministry of Love. But you have to admire the audacity of the “gun show loophole” crowd. It has to be at least audacity; it cannot be that they misunderstand the law, as it’s too simple for that.**** So if the invocation of the “gun show loophole” isn't the result of ignorance, what does Hanlon's Razor tell us is left?

They've got a way with language in the South, as I quickly learned as an Ohio Yankee reporter displaced to lower Alabama. Folks down South know that you can say a thing, or you can say a thing. (If a Southern Baptist lady has ever told you “bless your heart,” you might know what I mean.) I learned  that if I wanted to do my job I’d better be able to suck boiled peanuts with the boys at the firehouse, sip sweet tea with the ladies at the DAR (to say nothing of the UDC), and listen for those telling turns of phrase that landed soft as down on the ear, but were weighted with meaning. Folks there had a little saying that managed to be polite and vulgar and wise all at the same time, with room left over for just the tiniest genteel threat. It couldn't be more perfect for those craven hoplophobes now so intent on reducing all men to the same helpless state where they choose to abide.

“Y’all go ahead,” even the prettiest belle might say. “Y’all go ahead and piss down my leg. Just don’t try to tell me that it’s raining.”

* And not just any Brit, but a Brit whose ethics weren't up to the dubious standards required to keep a job at a tabloid newspaper there. 

** A loophole was a small aperture either designed or hastily made in a defensive wall or barricade to allow those inside to direct fire onto attackers. If you are a fan, as I am, of movies in which imperial English soldiers succumb to colonial uprisings, then you have seen this field expedient version depicted as Redcoats gouged holes into the walls of the the farmhouse at Rorke’s Drift.

***"He who is permitted by law to have no property of his own can with difficulty conceive that property is founded in anything but force." Thomas Jefferson to Edward Bancroft, 1788

**** If you make your living as a gun dealer, you need a Federal Firearm License (a creature of the Federal Firearms Act of 1938). When an FFL dealer sells a gun, he has to collect certain paperwork from the buyer, and conduct a federal background check. He has to do this whether he’s selling the gun at his shop or a gun show or anywhere else. If you do not make your living as a gun dealer, and your buddy wants to buy your old shotgun, you can sell it to him without a background check – in your kitchen or at the gun show or anywhere else – so long as your buddy is a resident of the same state as you. If you want to send a gun to buyer in another state, you have to get an FFL involved and he has to do a background check. None of the rules for gun sales by anyone change depending on the existence of a gun show. None.

  

Ever notice how antiseptics sting?

The less you know, the more you think you know. You needn't trust Robert's Rules for this maxim. King Mongkut of Siam knew it.* Chris Rock pointed out that "people love to not know."** And two psychologists named Dunning and Kruger made it official science.

Dunning and Kruger found not only that the more ignorant people were, the less able they were to recognize and correct their own mistakes. No surprise there. But it also occurred that the less competent people are, the more competent they perceived themselves to be. In a surprising corollary, they also found that the more competent and knowledgeable a person was, the less likely he was to think of himself as an expert -- since he was more likely to know what he didn't know.

So with that Rule/song lyric/stand-up bit/effect in place, let me say at the outset that I'm anything but an expert on military doctrine. And I know it. But in five years as a reporter in the heart of the largest military aviation community in the free world, even I couldn't avoid learning a thing two -- including from some of the guys who put the "no" in the last big "no fly zone" mounted by the United States.

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who knows less, and knows less about what he doesn't know, than just about anyone on cable news. These days, when they are not busy pretending to be experts about nuclear power generation, the hawkish talking news heads, comfortably ensconced in their studios and enrobed in their agendas, invoke the words "no fly zone" as if they were a magical incantation or a mystic's mantra. Who can blame them. Say it with me -- No. Fly. Zone. It sounds so pure, so antiseptic.

Here's the simple truth of it:

Instituting a no fly zone in Libya means killing lots Libyans on the ground at the outset. We are not -- I pray -- planning to sacrifice NATO or US pilots to Libya's reasonably sophisticated air defenses, so we're going to have to neutralize scores of SAM*** sites and "decapitate their command and control apparatus." In other words, were going to smart bomb, cruise missile and HARM**** installations full of human beings who are going to die.

Maintaining a no fly zone means killing Libyans in the air thereafter. Are we only shooting down fighter planes? That's good for one or two humans per plane. What about attack helicopters? Same score. Troop-carrying helicopters? That's good for a dozen. Troop-carrying fixed wing planes? Now you're talking real numbers.

Patrolling a no fly zone means putting pilots (American pilots? British? French?) at real risk of death or capture every day. Engines fail. Ground troops get off lucky shots with shoulder-fired SAMs. Mr. Murphy is an ever-malevolent presence.

So "establishing a no fly zone" is "going to war," whatever else you call it.

Should we go to war with Libya? I'm not here to say yes or no. As any reader of this blog knows, I'm hardly a pacifist. There are things worth killing for, worth dying for. Maybe Libya is one of them.

But let's for goodness' sake be honest with ourselves about the choice we're making. Ya know?





*
And it puzzle me to learn
That tho' a man may be in doubt of what he know,
Very quickly he will fight...
He'll fight to prove that what he does not know is so!

"A Puzzlement," lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein.



** Yes, I know that's a paraphrase, but come on. I'm not PC -- but I'm also not Chris Rock.

*** Surface to air missiles. The Lybians have sophisticated air defense systems, including S300 missiles purchased during the post Soviet fire sale.


**** High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles track the radar that SAMs use, riding down the signal to take out the SAM site.

Internet, heal thyself.

I’ve mentioned here before that the name given to a law can always be counted on to tell you a lot about the law – albeit too often because the law is intended to accomplish precisely the opposite of what the name implies.

So I invite you to consider the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, now being pressed. It is called this because its proponents, while they may well be statist thugs and freedom-hating scoundrels, are not complete idiots. They know that a law called The Screw Free Speech, We'll Shut Your Fucking Mouths For You Whenever We Damn Please Act would be more difficult -- but, sadly, I'm guessing not impossible -- to pass. The law would grant sweeping powers to the executive to flip a “kill-switch,” shutting down the Internet. It does not allow for judicial review. Take heart though: Such a shutdown could only last for four months before it would have to be authorized again.

I invite you, also, to choose your particular outrage. Here are just two:

Demonstrating that some people are immune to irony, the sponsors are pushing the law immediately after the President’s rightful criticism of the Egyptian government’s use of precisely the same technology in an attempt to squelch organized dissent there. (Here’s a Google search result with lots of hits pointing that out. You will note that, while the Suburban Sheepdog values reasonable discourse, not everyone does.)

And then there’s my personal favorite, Joe Lieberman, who clearly just cannot help himself. China’s got a kill switch he tells CNN, so why don’t we? Yes, Joe, good plan. Let’s try our best to emulate a nation which has recently used its control over the Internet to keep its own people from learning that a jailed government opponent there won the Noble Peace Prize.*

So be sure to link today's blog post to your friends, and to learn more about the bill, and to e-mail your representatives, and to fire up this issue on Facebook and Twitter -- while you still can.





* Lest you think my contempt is reserved for Democrats who tout limits on free speech: First, note that my contempt for Joe Lieberman is multifarious and longstanding. Second, note that the Act has Republican support as well. And finally, ask my poor, long-suffering wife, what it was like trying to have a conversation with me about anything else for several days after George Bush's Press secretary Air Fleischer warned that, post 9-11, Americans "need to watch what they say."

Mr. Hammer, meet Mr. Nailhead

My friend, Miggy, wields the hammer over at Gun Free Zone.

No offense.

The first Christmas after we were married, my wife and I invited my parents to come visit, promising better-than-Cleveland weather, the opportunity to meet several score of new in-laws, and the chance to experience Noche Buena. My adoptive mother's response: "Oh. I don't know if I can eat all that hot, spicy food." Whereupon I spent the next few minutes setting out the cultural and culinary distinctions between Mexicans (one of which my bride is not) and Cubans (one of which she decidedly is). Having analogized yuca to the more familiar potato, having drawn a distinction between jalepenos and comino, and roast pork being no stranger to Mom's table as both child and adult, all fears were soon eased.

I couldn't blame her for her ignorance. Before moving to Miami, I was hardly better informed. Little did I -- the Cleveland-raised Irish/German child of Czech adoptive parents -- realize that what had seemed from a distance to be a great Latino monolith was, on closer viewing, a mosaic of discrete cultures. I quickly learned that if the distinctions between, say, an Argentinian and a Venezuelan, or a Cuban and a Puerto Rican, were then too obscure for me to discern, the members of those groups had no such trouble.*

Since then, in part because of my status as el unico gringo in a very large Cuban family, and in larger part because I have done all I can to reach into the multifarious life of this unique city, I have sat at many a noisy and cheerful table while folk from every Caribbean, Central and South American land held forth in goodhearted passion on such weighty topics as arroz con gandules** versus gallo pinto,*** or the inherently superior qualities of each one's native rums, newspapers, governments, soccer teams, mountains, beaches and women.  I've shared a table with a Haitian buddy and a Dominican one -- not for nothing, their peoples share an entire island -- and found that all anyone could manage to agree on is that we ought to order another Mexican beer.

Decidedly, the cultural fault lines, while narrow, can run deep and so warrant close attention. Even a common language can be a minefield. I suggest you do not ask the Cuban lady at the fruit stand if her papaya is ripe,**** nor should you ask your Mexican dinner guest if he is lleno,***** nor ought you yell to your Honduran soccer teammate to ¡coger lo!****** if the ball is headed out of bounds. But, with just a little bit of good will, all of us gringos, Boriquas, Catrachos, Trinis, Ticos,  Guanacos and the rest manage to get along well enough most days.

Sadly, however, good will is sometimes in as short a supply as common sense. And so we have Robert's Rule, which clearly states that "If you look carefully enough for an insult, you will always find one."  For a perfect demonstration of this principle -- and a counter-example to the corollary, which holds that "The sufficiently robust cannot be effectively insulted." -- consider this "news story" out of a South Florida classroom today. For extra credit, be sure to read the comments.



* Joke told to me by Argentinian shooting buddy: How do you kill a Venezuelan? Push him off of his own ego.
   Joke told to me by Venezuelan shooting buddy: How do you kill an Argentinian? Push him off of his own ego.

** Rice and beans.

*** Beans and rice.

**** Unless you are seeking a date, or a slapped face, inquire, instead, about the state of the fruita bomba.

*****  "Full" to most Spanish speakers; slang for "drunk" in Mexico.

****** "Get it!" to most Spanish speakers; something decidedly more intimate in Honduras.

I believe.

As of this morning, I have now been called both a “die hard liberal” and a reactionary in the same week. I confess that, on a certain level where my inner Mencken dwells, this rather pleases me.

But I also recognize that it is a signifier of a core weakness in the current public discourse – the widely held notion that by knowing any single belief a person holds, you can accurately predict his position on every other possible issue of human consideration. I call it “The Theory of Ubiquitous Polarity,” a system under which an observer believes that all beliefs must necessarily be aligned in whatever manner the observer himself aligns them.

Now, Ubiquitous Polarity is about as valid and useful a construct as phlogiston, but its proponents are equally as committed to it as any alchemist was to his own world view. So an intellectual conflict -- sort of a second hand cognitive dissonance -- arises in the breast of an adherent of Ubiquitous Polarity when he encounters someone who holds a belief with which the observer concurs and, simultaneously, a belief with which the observer disagrees. What follows is usually a resort to ad hominem attacks in which the person with "inconsistent" views is denounced as “a politician,” or one who seeks "to please everyone” or “to be all things to all people.” This exercise not only relieves the observer's cognitive dissonance, it spares him the exertion of actually considering another's opinions, or of even examining his own beliefs one at a time.

So, with a mischievous eye toward increasing such dissonance, without offering here the underpinnings of any of these contentions, and in the spirit of Walt Whitman,* let me set forth the following non-exhaustive list:

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate; God born fully a man to live a perfect life and die an atoning death, that sinful man might be reconciled to righteous God, and that this reconciliation occurs in each person by Grace alone through Faith alone in Christ alone.

I believe this faith is no accomplishment of mine, nothing for which I deserve credit, but rather a gift of a gracious God.

I believe there is nothing wrong with an occasional drink of whiskey, or an occasional cigar.

I believe there is no essential or meaningful difference between Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann.

I believe that human life begins at conception.

I believe the Earth is several billion years old and that the evolutionary process was pleasing to God, the creator of the universe.

I believe that enterprise, innovation, useful risk and hard work should be rewarded – for their own sake and because they are good for society as a whole – and that a free market economy is the best system for ensuring such rewards.

I believe that no one has the right – in pursuing such rewards – to jeopardize the health or well being of another, or to spoil the environment shared by all.

I believe that a civilized society can afford and ought to provide health care, education through high school, food security, and basic housing to every one of its members, as a human right.

I believe, with Thomas Paine, that that government is best which governs least.

I believe that, while taxes are not theft, the imposition of a dollar more than is necessary, or the waste or misdirection of a penny, is a crime against the people.

I believe that if you like your steak well-done and your coffee decaffeinated, you don't really like steak or coffee.

I believe the rights to life, to liberty and to pursue happiness and dignity come from God and belong to each individual who,  accordingly, has the right to defend those rights – even by force of arms – against anyone – any criminal, any institution, and even any government – that proposes to take them.

I believe the curve where a woman’s bottom meets her thigh is the most beautiful structure in nature.

I believe, with Robert Heinlein, that kids should be kept long on hugs and short on pocket money.

I believe our adversarial system of justice – while it can be brutal, flawed, indifferent and dangerous – works awfully well when the men and women engaged in it operate in good faith.

I believe in condign punishment for the guilty and that some crimes deserve death.

I believe it is better for a guilty man to go free than for the state to take the liberty of an innocent man.

I believe that “Casablanca” is a nearly perfect movie.

I believe in marriage, and that the fifth chapter of the Book of Ephesians offers a good manual for a successful one.

I believe God is perfectly sovereign, but that I am responsible for all my actions, and thus in desperate need of Grace.

I believe, with the ad writers, that life is too short to drink cheap beer.

I believe the best immigration policy is “high fences and wide gates,” wherein we vigorously protect our borders and sovereignty, but in which legal immigration – that brought everyone in my family here – is easy and attainable.

I believe that sometimes war is the answer, as it certainly was when my Dad went, and the question on the table was: “World slavery, yes or no?”

I believe we were right to go to war in Afghanistan and that we were wrong to go to war in Iraq.

I believe that has nothing whatsoever to do with the honor of the Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen and Coast Guardsmen who have fought there.

I believe, with Samuel Johnson, that every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.

I believe the designated hitter is bad for baseball, and that what’s bad for baseball is bad for America.


*     Do I contradict myself?
       Very well then I contradict myself,
       (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
 
                           Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

Sticks and stones.

Just a quick note to advise all of you engaged in the great exercise of political discourse that you may, evidently, feel free to go back to scurrilous ad hominem attacks, and to questioning the good will, patriotism and sanity of all those with whom you disagree.

It appears the whole more measured, reasonable tone thing is over. It was a sweet two-and-a-half weeks, though, wasn't it?

In post-Tscon discussions about gun control issues (I tend to be opposed, as you will be unsurprised to learn) I have been invited, none too politely, to find another country to call home. The sufficiency of my – how do I put this? – endowment has been called into question. I have been blamed for all three Bush presidencies. (I voted for Dukakis (Lord help me), Gore (not like it counted) and Kerry (yeesh)).

I have been called a pinhead.

I have been called creepy.

I have been called “a stupid, deity-worshipping ape.”

I have been unfriended.

I’ve been instructed to “read the fucking Constitution once in [my] useless life.” It has been suggested that I go “iron my sheet” by someone who – I am just guessing – was not referring to work I did as journalist to expose hate group activity in North Florida.

But my favorite, by far, was when someone called me a reactionary. Very few are the lifetime Democrats who are ever privileged to be called a reactionary. In fact, I’m not sure anyone has called anyone else a reactionary since my sister called my dad one in 1971 – which probably got her spanked, so maybe she was on to something.

Remember remember.

One day after Florida passed, by a large majority, a constitutional  amendment designed to put some rational limits on gerrymandering, two Republican congressmen sued to have it overturned. The next day we learned that the county mayor who was instrumental in securing what amounts to a $350 million gift to an already profitable baseball teams and a 13% raise for county lawmen -- both in a county struggling to keep the lights on -- received $50,000 each from the team and the police union to help him fight off a recall. So today is a fitting day to remember the last person to enter parliament with honest intentions, and to note that that was 405 years ago.

A proponent of the school of politics that holds that there is no problem which cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives, after the authorities encouraged his confession, Guy was supposed to be hanged until not quite dead, then drawn and quartered. But he thwarted the plan by jumping from the gallows and breaking his neck.

You rarely see that level of commitment anymore. Hell, only about 40% of us bothered to vote this week.

And so:

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot ;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
'Twas his intent.
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below.
Poor old England to overthrow.
By God's providence he was catch'd,
With a dark lantern and burning match

Holloa boys, Holloa boys, let the bells ring
Holloa boys, Holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip Hoorah !
Hip hip Hoorah !

A penny loaf to feed ol'Pope,*
A farthing cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down,
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
 
Burn him in a tub of tar,'
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head,
Then we'll say: ol'Pope is dead.

*Despite the desire of later commentators to attribute Fawkes' actions to pure civic-mindedness, the best evidence is that Fawkes, a member of the repressed English provincial Catholic minority,actually attacked in support of -- and perhaps at the direction of -- Catholic Spain, for whom he had once enlisted against the Dutch. (Although some have suggested this was a false flag attack, arranged to steel English determination.) Sadly, this makes it harder to use him as a simple symbol of fierce resistance, and ranks him more reasonably in the company of religious terrorists. So it has always been in public discourse -- no perfect men.