A Fine Place Worth the Fighting For

A couple of months ago I had a rather violent series of episodes in close succession. None of these crossed the threshhold to actual physical confrontations, but each of them walked right up to the line and stood there, daring someone to tempt it over the edge.

It began at a screening of Transformers. We found ourselves sitting in front of a guy and his date who were talking in an extremely irritating manner. I turned around in my seat and confronted him. "Are we going to have to listen to you idiots through the entire movie?". His response was surprisingly intense. He became irate, expressing to me a sentiment akin to "How DARE you challenge my behavior!" As I negotiated my way through his temper I became aware of my tactical disadvantage, in that should I disengage the back of my head would be turned to him, and I had been given the impression that he could not be trusted. His date began to get whiny, begging me to stop, begging him to stop, in a manner that suggested abuse. I simply held position and stared, unbeknownst to him for my own defense, and as he got continually more agitated I only replied to his accusations and threats in as non-escalating of a manner as I could manage. Finally, instead of taking a swing at me, he stormed out of the theatre.

A few weeks later I walked into a gun store to purchase a rifle. At the counter, filling out papers for what I would later learn was a shotgun, was a man about 45 years old loudly complaining about the questions being asked on the DROS Form. As I attracted the dealer's attention to begin filling out the form myself, I heard a series of comments issuing from him that not only bothered me, but were causing visible discomfort in some of the other customers:

" 'Have you ever renounced your American citizenship' Hell I renounce it every goddamn day! This damn country is going straight to hell"
"Dammit if I was a Mexican I wouldn't have to go through all of this"
"Fucking government just hands guns over to spics and niggers while I gotta go through a waiting period"

And so forth. As the clerk went over his form, he informed this bigot that there were a couple of errors that needed correction, to which he replied "Why can't they figure that out themselves? Goddam liberal faggot state." I had been quietly biting my tongue to that point, but at this last comment he had finally managed to express every form of bigotry available. I turned from my paperwork and simply stated

"You need to shut up."

And returned to my paperwork. The clerk looked relieved. The man muttered something about as intelligent as "I say what I want" but didn't say any more. The clerk eventually found grounds to refuse the sale, and everybody won. Except for the asshole, which is fairly important to the point I will be making later.

The last incident was only a week later. I was at the Pickathon Music Festival in Oregon with my girlfriend. On the second night of the festival, we were kept from sleep until 4 in the morning by various assorted drunks singing songs, shouting, playing music, and other drunken revelries. Most of these people quieted down when we approached them with certain vital information - namely, that it was extremely late, they were in a public space, and many people had small children - save, of course, for one special person named Ronnie.

After figuring that the desires of the sleepy were being respected, my girlfriend and I had nearly drifted off into unconsciousness when we were jarred by the clumsy crashing through the woods of a boistrous drunk who loudly informed his travelling partner at one point that he had lost his sandal. My girlfriend sat up in the tent and shouted out to the forest "It's four in the god-damned morning!", tired of handling the issue diplomatically. The drunk in the forest yelled back "Fuck you, bitch!" and I had to get involved. Hoping a threat would suffice, I yelled "Do I have to come out there and kick your ass?", I recieved the reply "You'd have to find me first!"

At this point I was in no mood to let anything slide. I pulled on some pants, tossed a knife in my pocket, grabbed a high-powered flashlight and set out on the trail, following the giggling and crunching noises of our disrespectful neighbor. It was less than a minute before I spotted him, and upon that event, I spotlighted his face and ran up to his position with such alacrity that he fell over. I spent the next five minutes berating him and returned to my tent. We didn't get any more trouble.

These encounters all have a few things in common:
1. I was the aggressor
2. I was provoked by some remarkable examples of poor social judgement and a marked lack of concern for those in the vicinity - in a word, rudeness
3. None of them degraded to physical violence, even though the threat of it was omnipresent
4. There was an immediate improvement in the demeanor of the subject or the tension in the situation.

I am not one of those alarmists who will say that the death of our culture is imminent, that the Day of Judgement is at hand because "kids these days have no respect", but I will put rudeness forward as a social problem of no small concern. My ideas as to its source, or the cause of its apparent increase, or even whether or not it is increasing, are fodder for other posts. The point of this post is to advocate an active approach to, ah, hm, shall we call it attitude correction?

What seems to me the most telling of the constants is the immediate improvement. Obviously, it wasn't all handshakes and "Good day to you, Sirs", but in all cases the subjects did not fail to immediately cease their offensive activity. It may have been accompanied by brooding, mumbled threats, and glowering, but there was no escalation or later revenge. The body language, coupled with this immediate reaction, expresses to me a knowledge that these people knew, on some level, that what they were doing was not appropriate. This further means that there was, at some level, an intention to be offensive.

To skip several premises and get to the conclusion, these people were out to see what they could get away with.

This leads us directly to the root of the problem. It is not necessarily that there are people who willfully and belligerently approach the bounds of what is socially acceptable. In some ways, some contexts, to some degrees, this serves many valuable functions. It forces the rest of us to keep a little perspective on the world around us - a polite way of saying it stops us from being too damn thin-skinned - and it is the essence of social expansion, exploration, and experimentation. But there are times when the object is clearly not growth oriented, but malicious and destructive.

It is in these cases that so often the rest of us find ourselves looking uncomfortably around at eachother, grimacing and shrugging that "Someone" should take care of that. The root problem to which I alluded is that increasingly few people are willing to take up the cause of enforcing good manners. It is obvious why: What could be more rude than calling out a complete stranger on their behavior, in public? This violates several taboos. It is invasive, it causes them to lose face, it creates a scene, and it risks violence. Breaking taboos often increases the discomfort for those around you before it alleviates it.

For these reasons, people are afraid to pursue their own comfort. And for these reasons, people without empathy, restraint, or class are welcome to take control of everyone's quality of life. I'd bet good money that these are generally the same people who draw penises in bathroom stalls, like the Raiders, don't let people change lanes in front of them on the freeway, and think unlicensed Calvin window stickers are clever. But for now that's just a theory.

If I will be bound to stating outright what my point is, it is this: Sometimes you gotta bitch-slap a motherfucker. It does absolutely no good to passively accept discomfort, only to complain about it later in hushed tones. There are three solutions to all problems, and in those instances where they cannot be ignored or avoided, ask yourself, "Should someone do something about this?" and remember that someone includes you. It's everyone's public - that means that it's not just you in it, as well. If we all contribute to maintaining the standards of a polite society, it's concievable that we might actually have one.

Until then, I leave you with (and we abondon eachother to) this:

Subjectivism, Judgement, and You

In a discussion the other night revolving around an unsavory character of mutual acquaintance, a couple of my fellow conversants attempted to make an argument on the characters behalf rooted in subjectivism. Namely, that it is impossible to ethically, accurately, and surely pass judgement on anyone because "you don't know everything about everyone, so how can you judge? Everyone's different." I can not think of a more ridiculous conclusion. Surely the premises that we do not know "everything" about any individual, and that each individual is different, will stand to reason. But the conclusion rests on some rather more dubious unstated premises: namely that a judgement must be ideal, that it is unjust to make an assumption on imperfect information, and that because there are exceptions (to borrow from a colloquial expression on the nature of absolutism), we must disregard the rule. It is these premises which are faulty.

It is in our best interest to make judgement of people on the available information. While it should not be necessary, I will state that we do not live in a perfect world, and there is no perfect information, and even if there were, it is not available to anyone. Therefore, we must make these judgments on incomplete information, even to make assumptions on little more than gut feelings. In the least extreme cases, it saves time by employing what are called heuristics. In the most, these assumptions can save your life. We do it every day in situations that are less likely to raise a hyper-sensitive eyebrow - on the freeway, as you watch someone come speeding up, weaving through traffic, it is reasonable to assume that this person will not think twice to cut you off. Or with even less warning: A car that seems to sidle over to the edge of the lane, no blinker on - any astute driver can read another's "body language" and predict a person who will change lanes without signalling. Some can even determine the second that the decision is made. Martial artists are trained to recognize these shifts in people, to know when the decision to strike has been made and how it will be thrown. They are not reacting to the movement of a fist - they already know the fist is coming.

But what do we base these decisions on? The information is hardly perfect. It comes from experience, observations which inform rules of thumb that guide us. We do not cater to the exception UNLESS caution demands it - where there is a small, but significant, probability of danger that must be acknowledged. And even that exception is a rule of thumb employed to make decisions based on the most of imperfect information. We do not know, with ANY certainty, that the spiky-haired teen in the lifted pickup truck speeding through traffic will ride your bumper, shine his brights in your mirror, pass you on the right and cut you off - but we assume he will, not just because you just watched him do it to 50 other people, but because you've seen it before.

We don't know everything, we don't know him, he is a different person from every other, and maybe, just maybe, he will suddenly have a moment of clarity and start driving responsibly. None of us, however will stake our lives, or our cars, on such a happenstance, though, will we?

Let us examine another example. You are alone and unarmed in a less-reputable area of a big city at night when this person steps into your path and asks if you can spare a cigarette or a light, or some change, or help him with something:

No need to tell me what you'd do. I know you wouldn't. Nobody with any sense would take a risk like that, because it IS a risk, one with horrifying ramifications. We don't know anything about this person, save that they claim to be in need of something. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that they honestly want a cigarette, or that sofa really isn't going to move itself. But it is easier to maintain your safety, and so extend your life, by understanding that such actions will distract your attention, move your hands away and occupy them, and otherwise make you weaker and easier to victimize.

There is a growing idea in this country that such judgements constitute an unjust "prejudice" and should be avoided. We should look for, expect, and assume, the best in people. The advocates of this idea lay guilt upon those who act on their own instincts, instincts which exist for a reason, instincts that have been carefully honed over the millenia to alert us to danger. There are near universal reactions to certain crimes - cold-blooded murder, crimes against children, sexual predation - that are similar in that they make complete sense when viewed in an evolutionary light. There is nothing more deplorable to us than that which threatens our lives, and the future of our pack and species. Why would it make any sense to act counter to these instincts?

So at this juncture we can return to our unsavory associate. This is a person who was convicted some years ago of a heinous crime, but recieved remarkable leniency on a plea bargain and has not, so far as we know, re-offended. However, the disposition of the crime is such that it is inherent in his nature - there is no amount of punishment, repentance, rehabilitation, or treatment that will purge the will to commit the crime - it can only be deterred. While available information indicates that he has not re-offended, it is extreme foolishness to act on the assumption that he is no longer dangerous. While it is entirely possible that he has gained the discipline and remorse necessary to avoid indulgence, or even achieved a miraculous cure, there is absolutely nothing to gain by taking that risk, and an immeasurable harm if mercy and compassion should prove unwarranted, and at some level we all understand and implement this measure of self-preservation. Trust must be earned, mercy must be deserved, and altruism must be undertaken with careful calculation, lest we let ourselves be destroyed in an attempt to appease a monster.

On Pedophilia and Redemption

There are some types of evil in this world for which there is no redemption.

What I mean by this is the following: Some crimes, some misfortunes, some evils, are not inherent. A person can commit a crime without forethought, perhaps in the heat of passion, that is not inherent in the persons nature. A bar fight, a mugging, even most murders, can happen without forethought, even without malice. For these crimes, a person will serve their punishment and be truly remorseful.

Some crimes are not as justifiable.

There is, on occasion, a crime committed because such malevolence is inherent in a persons character. Sometimes, a person is simply morally wrong. Permanently.

Take for example, the crime of murder. We will take as granted at this time, that murder, defined as the unjustified taking of a life, is wrong. It is fairly common that a person commits a murder in the heat of the moment. There are many inspirations to such an act - witnessing your partner in the act of adultery is common, being cut off on the freeway another - but oftentimes it happens that a person is driven to an irrational rage that culminates in their taking of a life. It also often happens that this person soon regrets their actions, that they are so burdened with guilt that we can safely expect that they will check their behavior and that they will never commit such an act again.

There are those for whom such expectations, such leniency, is unmerited.

If we were to continue with our example of murder with an act outside of a crime of passsion, if we were to consider a compulsive killer, then we would have a different case. I am referring, specifically, to serial killers. These are individuals who have no control over their actions at any point in time. These are individuals who we can expect to commit murder over and over and over again, until the situation becomes such that they can murder no more. Would such a person ever truly repent? Even if they did, would such a person be trustworthy in society? COULD you trust such a person to never murder again after having "served their time"?

There is a similar case when we consider the sexual criminal. Surely, there are sex crimes of passion, wherein a person rapes in the heat of the moment, but much more common is the habitual offender, the serial rapist, or more commonly (as an inquiry to your local Megan's Law webpage will show), the child molester.

Pedophilia is not treatable. The assumption that one can be cured of pedophilia is exactly as ludicrous as the idea that one can be cured of homosexuality or of their race. It is inherent in that persons nature to be sexually attracted to children, as it is for the homosexual to be attracted to those of their own sex or for the masochist to derive pleasure from pain. It is the very definition of the condition. There is no "cure".

Where pedophilia differs from, say, homosexuality, is in the nature of the relationship. Sexual relationships, no matter how enlightened we attempt to be in our approaches thereto, always have an aspect of territorialism to them. A pedophile cannot help but be sexually attracted to those who have, by definition, no concept of the ramifications of a sexual relationship. They are not even remotely intellectually capable of giving consent to a sexual relationship. Therefore, there is no possible way in which a pedophile could engage in their preffered relationship without victimization. The child does not understand what is happening, and cannot say yes or no. Most often the child is AFRAID to say no.

This is why pedophilia is wrong. Where a sadist can engage in a relationship with a masochist, or homosexuals or heterosexuals can find their gender of choice, a pedophile has no option but to convince a person incapable of making such decisions to engage in a sexual relationship.

I will digress, at this point, to discuss the ancient Greeks, who will no doubt constitute a great portion of the debate.

It was considered ordinary for a boy and an older man to engage in a sexual relationship in that culture. What many people fail to recognize is that the ramifications of the relationship were made clear to the boy, and to the man, before it even began - before either was even prepared to initiate the relationship. It is further worth noting that the sexual relationship was secondary to the true purpose at hand. The older man was to serve as a mentor to the boy, to teach him the meaning of what it was to be a citizen and an adult. I will not pass judgement on the psychological health of such an institution. I do not believe it was entirely healthy as an institution, but a society develops ways in which to perpetuate itself, and such was the method of the Greeks. The relevant points are as follows: The relationship was primarily that of Teacher and Student; AND the ramifications and expectations of such a relationship were made clear to both parties well ahead of time. Further, there is little to be said of pederasty as an ORIENTATION in ancient Greece as opposed to it being an INSTITUTION.

This is NOT the case in the modern era.

The modern pederast is a predator. We take care in our modern society to educate our youth through different means. We create safe avenues for exploration. We do not place the stress of sexual relationships on our children. They are dangerous things. You would not teach a child to operate a firearm before you were certain of their maturity - as such do we appreciate the psychogical implications of sex.

A pedophile breaks these rules. A pedophile subjugates children to whims that they do not understand. A pedophile uses their superior knowledge of society to pressure children. A pedophile IS a predator, just as much as a serial killer is, above all else, a chronic taker of life.

We have created avenues in our society in which to discourage these acts, but it is my opinion they are not harsh enough. There are tendencies which surface occasionally in the human psyche which are undesirable, even detrimental, to the continuation of our species and culture. Had I my druthers, such persons would be executed publicly, without opportunity of appeal.

The American justice system, at least, is more lenient than I.

However, the American justice system and I agree on one point. There are certain types of danger which never fade, for which there is no repentance, redemption, or rehabilitation. The system would not, in theory, release Jeffrey Dahmer without informing those nearby that a person with such proclivities was nearby. Such is the justification for Megan's Law, which makes available to the public the image, address, and crime of those who have committed acts of sexual predation. These are individuals who are dangerous, and it behooves those aware of them to warn those at risk.

That such individuals are given the opportunity to squelch their abominable appetites and to reintegrate with society, I suppose, is the mark of a liberal and forward thinking society. That they are given leave to pursue ambition, free reign of their environments, to exercise their perverse desire for power ...such trust is beyond me. To trust such, knowing their nature is to victimize, galls me. The system says one is innocent until proven guilty, and these people have been proven guilty of such massive defects that any sort of freedom, even that of life, seems a mercy most undeserved.

Responsibility and Restraint - The Good Way

In the news recently, Obama's health care nightmare has cleared a major hurdle by gaining a Republican supporter. With this collapse into the whims and fancy of that ludicrousness called "bipartisanism" we face what empiricism and experience tell us is a juggernaut: this bill, having broke loose of the bonds of petty squabbling, will snowball it's way down a mountain of bureaucracy, tossing aside obstacles with increasing ease as it accumulates its porky momentum. Then it will meander up the White House lawn to the waiting rubber stamp of the so-called President, and the keening, squawking, unwashed masses will finally have their white elephant - a morbid karmic reward for kissing a black ass.

On the upside of things, California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made a good show of being an executive yesterday by taking a red pen to 229 bills that the over-zealous California legislature felt necessary to print up, pile up, and ship over to his desk, no doubt expensed to their already critically over-burdened budget. Through the excercise of a little reason and business sense he was undoubtedly able to prevent the expenditure of further billions of dollars, taken in loan with the future incomes of the next generation as collateral, and keep the fools on their capitol hill doing little more harm than wasting printer paper and toner.

Exercising excessive executive exuberance, Governor Schwarzenegger was alert and sensible enough to further sign into law two extremely important measures, which are the true purpose to today's entry. But before I discuss them, I would like to mention that this is the proof of his attention to the duties of his office. Unlike some officials, who are prone to veto or approve everything that comes across their desks, California's Governor took time to review and consider almost 250 bills, no small feat in and of itself, and accomplished several acceptable goals:

1 - He prevented, as mentioned, a great deal of inevitable government spending in a state that sorely needs to show some financial restraint and responsibility

2 - He demonstrated understanding that the role of the executive in our structure of government is to understand and pass Final Judgement on a law, not to serve as a proofreader and stamp

3 - He stood up for Freedom in the face of a noisy and powerful interest group.

Among the bills signed were a provision to recognize same-sex marriages from outside of the State, even though such marriages are not legal to be performed within the State; and the creation of Harvey Milk Appreciation Day, which further recommends that educators take time to educate students about Harvey Milk's, and by proxy, the entire Gay Rights Movement's, life and struggle.

Governor Schwarzenegger has previously expressed his favor for Gay Rights and his objections to the passage of 2008's Proposition 8, which amended that State's constitution to recognize only heterosexual marriages. However, due to the American system of checks and balances, and the cowardice of certain judges and executives, this abominable measure was foolishly left to the mob-rule of a majority vote, and, as the mob is the manifestation of the Lowest Common Denominator, the mob chose to ostracize, dehumanize, and disenfranchise a section of our population for no good reason at all. But I digress. Here, finally, we have before us an example of an executive recognizing an opportunity to weaken the hold of the mob on the freedoms of others and he, in a manner unbefitting a politician of late, took it; and with a simple stroke of a pen simultaneously bit his thumb at some of this countries most powerful, most vocal, and most wealthy enemies of freedom.

So let us compare and contrast for a moment. In California yesterday we witnessed a rare example of the responsible wielding of power. Freedoms were preserved, monies were saved (and therefore, as Benjamin Franklin once observed, earned), and integrity of character was shown. In Washington D.C., we are as always privy to a neverending series of errors that would be comedic if it were anywhere but real life, but are now engaged to a special treat, wherein over (what will likely only be) the next several months we will be permitted to witness a stupendous display of corruption, inanity and insanity; an orgy to suckle the pig-teat of money and power that will culminate in the most corpulent boondoggle imaginable: Universal Healthcare.

And here we reach the final nail in this soapbox. Our national leaders are still the filthy, consumptive, gonorrheaic whores that they have ever been, but locally we have seen the freshness of true Statesmanship, not just in Schwarzenegger, but in others too, that embodies the change we need, if not the Change "we" want.

And if we decide we don't like it, well hey, with a little irresponsibility we can have gonorrhea again.