The Unexpected Virtue of Punishment

I hope Trump fails.

I know it's the popular, banal wisdom of the masses to say that they hope, despite everything, that he turns out to be a good President.

Some of these people say that it's too early to tell and we should just give him a chance, that maybe he'll surprise us.

Some of these people say that they don't want the ills of a failed presidency to be borne by the people.

Some of these people say that it's for patriotic reasons, that they don't want to root against America, regardless of who her leader is.

Most of these people are inclined to regurgitate any weak-hearted, feeble-minded ecumenical bullshit that neatly dodges any responsibility, accountability, or critical thought.

Not I.

First, let's be perfectly clear. Donald Trump is not going to be a good President. The people who elected Donald Trump do not want a good President. Nothing Donald Trump has said or done has given the slightest indication to the contrary. If your plan is to just give him a chance and hope for the best, instead of getting a passport and moving your investments overseas, then you're well behind the curve already and his administration is going to hit you like a gold-plated slab of marble.

These low expectations are, in large part, what propelled Trump to the forefront of the GOP ticket in 2016. Every other candidate from both major parties was compared against a Presidential standard. If Trump, however, could make it an hour without using a racial slur or literally throwing his feces at his opponents, he was considered to have "done well" in the debates.

And that's the problem, here.



Nobody expects Donald Trump to be a good President. Nobody voted for him because he is Presidential. They voted for him, to borrow a metaphor, as a Molotov cocktail thrown through the window of the establishment. He will not surprise anyone except by virtue of the increasing obscenity of each successive scandal.

Because Donald Trump is a punishment, his administration is not going to be held up to a standard fitting the leadership of one of the world's most powerful and influential nations. The standard for a "successful" Donald Trump presidency is much, much lower: If there is still a country in four years, the conservative idiots on Breitbart and company will decry "liberal doomsaying" as "overblown", and we can fully expect Americans to shrug and pull the lever for four more years.

Anything better than an absolute disaster is not a success. Yet this is the handicap Donald Trump plays with.

Trump's policies are going to gut our industry, the dollar, our education, our health, our foreign standing, and our alliances, and he is guaranteed two years in which to work basically unobstructed. If this plan is fully enacted, America will lose her superpower status by the end and, given what the state of our workers and our education will be, it may be generations before we can dream of recovering it. NATO, the EU and possibly even the UN will be on their way to joining the League of Nations in the history books. America's enemies will be strengthened and emboldened by the decline of American and western power. We will be baited, by virtue of our thin-skinned and short-tempered and myopic Commander in Chief into unwinnable and unpopular conflicts across the globe. Trump and his cronies will walk away richer, the office of President will be forever disgraced, and the people of America will be greatly impoverished in nearly every way.

The real kicker is that these policies are going to hurt worst those people in the areas that voted overwhelmingly for Trump - which is to say, that there is only justice in the world if Trump does what any thinking person expects him to attempt.

This is the essential accountability to which the American voter must be held. As the rural south and the blue collar rust belt suffer disproportionately to the modest discomforts experienced by the liberal urban strongholds, the mantra must be "You asked for this. You wanted punishment." This must be internalized by the voters because it was the apathy of the voters that led to the failure of our institutions which installed this incompetent, unqualified, puppet of a leader. If we are to impress upon Americans the importance of voting and voting well, it is essential that Americans feel the full impact of their decision to vote out of spite, or out of ignorance, or with their gut, or to not vote at all.

The Constitution, the Electoral College, and the Congress which all contain measures to prevent people like Trump from achieving office failed, and these are deep flaws which must be corrected. They would not have had the opportunity to fail, however, had the voters themselves not failed in their civic duties.

Simply put, if you are throwing support behind Trump in the name of "unity" and "patriotism" you are mistaken. You cannot be both for the strength, security and welfare of this nation and your fellow citizens, and be for what Trump advances. There is no patriotism in hoping for a Trump success.

And so, in order to avoid eight years of the incredible and possibly irreversible damage even partial success will create, America needs a wake-up call. She needs the worst two years in living memory to get voters to remove the GOP from the legislature and thereby muzzle Trump. Given the high likelihood of outright, flagrant criminal activity from this administration, we must be prepared for the anguish of an impeachment.

Trump must fail. It is not unpatriotic to root against him, it is not unjust to expect the people to bear the weight of this failure, and it is not unrealistic to expect that he will fail though he has been President less than a day.

Trump's failure is the penance that must be paid to preserve this nation and her place in the world.

Spy Games

If you asked me what the most myopic thing in the news today is, I'd give the outrage over this as an answer:

US coping with furious allies as NSA spying revelations grow
US should accept limits on spying on allies
Spying on Allies Fits President Obama's Standoffish Profile

The majority of news sources are treating the "revelations" that the US spies on its allies as some sort of bombshell, as though international relations were conducted between preteens who still get shocked when they find out their friends talk about them behind their backs.

And so, in this "Hollywood Tonite" approach to International Relations, we are treated to surprise when it is revealed that Germany is still talking to us and has a delegation of intelligence professionals en route to the US.

They speculate, in their ignorance, that it is to discuss getting the US to knock it the hell off.

That is total bullshit, and I think any reasonable adult who steps outside, gets a breath of fresh air, and forgets the hype, can understand why.

NPR gets it:
4 Things To Know About Spying On Allies

Everyone spies on everyone. It's an accepted and expected aspect of international relations. Society is a bit weird, though, and holds a bit of a double standard. So while Barack Obama and Angela Merkel may have assumed (or even explicitly known) that they were being spied on, there has to be a bit of a public shit-show for the plebes when "embarrassing" revelations are made.

Chancellor Merkel shakes a finger at President Obama, and in a few weeks, everything quiets down and the world moves on.

At least, that would be the case if it wasn't for some very REAL embarrassments that didn't change the situation slightly.

Embarrassments like these assholes:

The US spying on allied countries is no big deal until the very instant the US starts having problems containing its classified information, because information taken by spies tends to be of a classified nature - that is, it's not just American secrets that are at risk.

So this hubbub over American indiscretion is not entirely disingenuous. There IS a big problem with the US spying on our allies. But it has nothing to do with Chancellor Merkel feeling invaded. It has to do with feeling exposed.

My guess is that the German intelligence envoy is not going to spend most of their time discussing how much less spying the US can do on Germany - though in a grand scheme of things it would be advantageous to do so - but rather inspecting US security protocols to ensure that German secrets are adequately protected.

They will also likely take some time to work out what German secrets have already been compromised so that the German government can get a head start on some PR and damage control. The French, and any other allies, would be smart to make similar assurances for themselves. Given the close-knit nature of Europe, they may be piggy-backing on the German mission. It would be more prudent for them to see to their own business, though, and I expect visits from our NATO partners will be coming soon. Once everybody's asses are sufficiently covered, this little debacle will simply fade from public consciousness.

"This Man's Army"

There are an unbelievable number of preventable, serious breaches of honor and integrity occurring in the military.

Snowden worked at NSA for less than a year and took the job with the intention of leaking information.

In the entire clearance process, not ONE person managed to make him as a fraud.

Manning showed countless signs of being unhinged. Not one person in his chain of command did what was necessary to stop him before it was too late. Not one person who in-processed him made him as a confused and tormented individual. Instead, we handed him a clearance.

The Army is going to try and make this about individuals, but there are critical failures within the Army itself that are going unaddressed. As we speak, there are half a thousand students going through AIT to become Intelligence Analysts. By the end of the year, the majority of them will be handling sensitive information. Nowhere near that proportion of them is actually mentally and/or psychologically qualified to do that job with the attention to detail and gravitas it requires. They are being permitted to do things which they ought not to be because the Army is willing to cut corners to fill the demands of a war that is all-but over.

Manning, Snowden, and Hassan are guilty and deserve punishment. None of what I've said is intended to exonerate them. But let's not forget that the blame for the damage they have done does not rest solely with them.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/this_man_army_jwvZnsKtD2t4M19soRtIXJ

The Difference Between Retreat and Tactical Withdrawal

In a disappointing turn of events today, Brad Manning was acquitted of what was arguably the most important charge leveled against him: Aiding and Abetting the Enemy.

This means that he has dodged a minimum mandatory life sentence, though this could (and arguably, should) be a matter of semantics. The full weight of the crimes for which he has been found guilty carry a combined sentence of well over a hundred years.

This is assuming that the sentences are not served concurrently.

As my opening statement made abundantly clear, I have no love or respect for Manning. I remain hopeful that he spends the rest of his life behind bars. Furthermore, I am hopeful that his acquittal on the charge of primary importance was politically motivated to create advantages for the preservation of Information Security.

Edward Snowden is currently seeking, and has received a limited version of, political asylum. The Russians, who currently hold his fate in their hands, have so far protected him on two grounds: First, that they feel the United States have been unduly harsh on perceived whistleblowers (no doubt a reference to the trial of Manning). Second, that they have no extradition treaty with the United States. While this second point will require some considerable political maneuvering, the first provides the crux of whether or not Snowden will receive asylum.

By acquitting Manning, the issue of leaks has been depoliticized. Manning and Snowden are now simply at risk of punishment for crimes which the whole world, themselves included, admit committing. Intelligence is a sacred lifeline for all nations, and no self-respecting government can brook a threat to the security of their secrets.

This is surely not lost on the Russians, whose protection of Snowden has no end other than the pique of the United States. However, all nations have a public face to present, and so in order to be the guardians of order and righteousness which they proclaimed in their issuance of partial protection to Snowden, they will be put in a tough spot by the news that Manning is officially not a traitor. If they do not return Snowden, the grounds for asylum are also now clearly not present, and Snowden may have to find himself in places where less political power can be brought to bear in his defense.

A similar case may also be found in Julian Assange, who has managed to hide himself away in an embassy in London lest he face extradition. The whole of Europe, who fretted over the injustice of his possible fate as a spy in the United States, now has no reason to worry and therefore no reason to sour relations with the United States over a single muckraker, hacker, and thief.

All told, I am hopeful that my disappointment will turn into a greater overall victory as we are able to thoroughly and without hindrance persecute and prosecute these traitors and spies who proclaim "anti-secrecy" and once again establish the rule of law and order in our Intelligence communities.

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are."
-William Tecumseh Sherman

Men of their Word

Collected from my exploits on the internet: This was taken from a discussion of George Carlin's suggestion that if soldiers were to stop "showing up" to wars, then war would end. The discussion turned to the oath that every soldier takes to obey his orders, and whether or not a person should be reasonably expected to live up to that oath.

One more point of context, else some of my arguments will likely make no sense: This discussion was taking place in a Libertarian group.

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"You need to be more specific , as I think an oath to an institution that theoretically exists to protect a collective abstraction is questionable"

What about non-competition or non-disclosure agreements? What about being contracted in any manner? Your signature on a contract is an oath to be bound by the terms of that contract. You ARE honor bound, as well as legally bound to abide by the terms of that contract.

Even if the other party in that contract is some Corporation or Organization or Government or any other "collective abstraction".

If I suddenly "Don't feel like" finishing paving your driveway, for instance, am I justified in leaving? Or are you justified in holding me responsible for *what I said I would do*? At the end of the day, what will a jury say? That a man who doesn't "feel like" being "forced" to be as good as his word should be allowed to just up and walk out; or will they determine that I am somehow responsible for the completion of the work, whether I do it myself or end up paying for someone more responsible than I to do it for me?

Or consider it in terms of something a goodly number of people here are likely familiar with:

"I, [your name here], do hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals."

Many people here doubtless signed their names to this pledge. Some of them even did so in sound mind and with witnesses. Such an oath is meaningless if people can say:

"Today, I don't feel like abiding by the non-aggression principle. Tomorrow maybe, but today it is inconvenient and perhaps I may even articulate that it is inherently immoral for me to swear such a thing or even for someone to claim that I be even remotely expected to abide by its language"

You simply CAN'T have a civilized culture without people being expected to maintain their oaths. Unless you're one of those "state's rights" folk who considers slavery "civilized". The Responsibility side of "Freedom and Responsibility" comes in many forms: one of those forms is being able to honor a promise, a contract, or an oath.

The Mad Jack Takes On Michael Shanklin

Collected from elsewhere on the internet, these were my comments to Mr. Shanklin regarding his naïve anarchistic beliefs. All anarchism is unrealistic, but his ideas regarding every person being subject to no law other than that which they choose for themselves was especially appalling in its sheer, blind idiocy.

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"So what you are saying is that you are someone who would gladly force your will on others, murder for profit, and ensure that NO ONE is free just as long as you are getting something in return?" etc, etc, ad nauseam ...
I love how good you anarchists are at making stuff up. It must be wonderful to have such active imaginations and such a detailed fantasy world to live in.
In fact, I believe quite the opposite. Which is why I am no anarchist and I do not support a stateless society. Anarchy and Statelessness are only possible in a world filled with a type of person that is actually so rare in reality that it is almost fair to say that the advocates of such "systems" are experiencing an almost total disconnect from reality. The truly amusing thing is that for everyone to be "free" absent a state, all ambition, striving and competition will have to be somehow culled from the race: in reality, an anarchist or stateless society would collapse as soon as the first punch is thrown.
That is, anarchy is more dependent on "sheeple" for "success" (for what success is there to be had without striving and ambition?) than any other government concept in the history of man.
Until sociopathy is cured, until there are no jerks left in the world, until a way of imbuing each generation with a total and homogenous sense of morality is accomplished, anarchy and/or statelessness is impossible. And as the proud and rather arrogant owner of certain qualities, such as ambition and a general disregard for useless people; it makes me happy to say that there will be no anarchy or statelessness within my lifetime.
"Once people take the time to research dispute resolution organizations and competing law, they will realize how it is the future ..."
A person who attends Berkeley is more likely to have liberal ideas, a person who attends Georgetown more likely to have conservative ideas. I suppose if you spend all your time reading fantasies, you're more likely to be an anarchist.
Your arguments aren't arguments at all, Shanklin. Simply declarations. "It will NOT be as you say! It will be GLORIOUS!" and waiting for your choir to shout "Amen! Preach it Brother!" behind you. Which I suppose might be construed as an argument to popularity, but I'll grant the benefit of the doubt and not invent things whole cloth the way your friends, such as Mr. Mathewson, have been doing.
You say we need education? Educate us. But I don't believe your system has what it takes to suffer dissent and come out ahead. It takes a society full of anarchists to make an anarchist society, and that sounds like the very antithesis of freedom of thought to me.
Especially given what I've seen of anarchists and their intolerance and hysterical decrial of anything that's NOT anarchy ...since I support some form of a state, I must constitute a threat to your freedom, no? Does that or does that not make me a target for any "freedom fighter" out there who wishes to silence my voice? If it does not, what law will avenge me when cooler heads do not prevail?
If I and people like me are allowed to live, your statelessness will collapse. If we are murdered for the sake of your precious homogeny of thought, then statelessness never was.

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The following was my next post in the discussion.

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"Murderers would be sought much harder in a free society"
By what law or right? You simply declare it to be so when in fact you have no support for your declaration. They may be pursued harder, but will they be pursued fairly? Who is to guarantee that the right person is pursued? Who is to prevent the phrase "Dead or Alive" (or simply "Dead") from preventing a person seeing trial?
What happens when Posse X, hired by Grieving Widow A, encounters Posse Y, hired to protect Suspect B? With no law, there is nothing illegal about it. It might be immoral, but that hasn't stopped anyone's dollars from buying force, violence, and coercion, which will be valuable and highly sought commodities on an open market. What happens when Posse X is a group of folks who hunt as their day job and take bounties for the general welfare; but Posse Y is a company by the name of Blackwater? After the shootout, has justice been served?
By what law or right does the killing finally stop?
I'm a fan of Westerns, too, but I understand why the people of Texas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah, etc, were glad to have real law come about at the turn of the century.
"Government is coercion, and unneeded."
More declarations. I've got one of my own:
Any reasonable study of human history and nature will reveal that total freedom and lawlessness are unsupportable systems. What then arises is the pragmatic issue of What and How Much freedom it is necessary to sacrifice in order for everyone to maximize the amount enjoyed by the largest number of people.

We Reserve The Right to Refuse Service to Anyone (and TSA Agents)

Collected from my exploits elsewhere on the internet. The following comments are in reply to the support a certain establishment had garnered with its refusal to serve TSA Agents.

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"If policy told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?"

Granted, my condition is quite a bit different than that of a TSA agent, but as a soldier, the answer is "Yes". You can't refuse a dangerous order or a lawful order, and the kicker... is that the definition of "lawful" is up to a military tribunal. I repeat, it's a different situation, but it does render your argument somewhat invalid.

"no one is forcing the tsa agent to grope me before i get on an airplane"

Yes they are. It's their job vs. your comfort. In the same situation, I know what I'd pick. Similarly, do you have any idea what would happen to the TSA agent who lets a bomb through because s/he was squeamish about a pat down? The public, once so adamantly against the screenings, would then be calling for strict enforcement of the rule and the immediate, severe and preferably public castigation of the negligent agent. It's a Catch-22, and one that puts severe pressure on the agents. You act as though they have a choice, when really, they do not.

"harming people even though you know its unethical for a paycheck"

"Harming" is hyperbole and you know it. As for the paycheck, you are certainly aware that there is a recession on. It's not just that "this job is as good as any other", it's that if they don't have this job, it is extremely likely that they won't have ANY. In case you ain't noticed, we're not talking about highly trained and educated people when we talk about TSA. And when I walk into a Waffle House and get served by a waitress trainee who used to be a realtor, as I did this last December in Tucson, you begin to realize that when it comes to a roof over your head and food in your stomach, and the same for your family, you don't get to be choosy about your employment anymore. These folks are NOT going to put their jobs at risk for some mouthy stranger who knew what was likely to happen and decided to fly anyway. Especially when it won't accomplish anything, since the instant they walk out the door there will be ten people clamoring to replace them. Ten people who will either do their jobs or likewise get canned until TSA finds someone who will.

So is it really such a pain to get a little felt up? Ask yourself honestly. TSA's job is certainly important, if a little overinflated, and the "groping" is less invasive as a rule than a trip to the doctor, the locker room at the gym, or one of those men's restrooms with a trough urinal. The same search is performed by police officers regularly and people take it as a matter of course.

Consider it from another viewpoint: Let's say you have a job towing cars. Your bread and butter is impounding cars parked by red curbs, across two parking spaces, or in private lots. It's not a pleasant job, because every single time you take a car in, it means you probably have to deal with that car's owner later on. An owner which, by the way, is now having a bad day thanks in no small part to people like you.

You do your job because it's a paycheck. You went to school to learn acupuncture, but in this economy there's no work because people don't have money to waste on medicine that doesn't work. But you do your job honestly, by the book, and you try to make the process as painless for everyone involved as you can, because you understand: getting your car towed sucks. But its a part of life, and you don't make the laws.

At the end of one day you walk into a bar, still wearing your coveralls, and the barkeep has you shown out. "We don't serve your kind here," the bouncer sneers, "We don't appreciate what you do." You try to protest, but they'll hear none of it. "You didn't have to take that job, and you don't have to do that work. You're just as evil as the gummint that says I can't double park across the handicapped spaces. And I'll hear none of that Nazi talk about orders" he concludes as the door slams coldly in your face.

The barkeep doesn't know about your mortgage, your car payment, and your three kids. Apparently he doesn't understand that if your boss didn't send you out on these City jobs he wouldn't have enough revenue to run the business. More than that, he and his bouncer simply don't care. You slink away across the cold, dark parking lot and drive home, rejected, ostracised, alone, and dead sober.

From what you know about human nature, how do you think you would react when, early the next week, you respond to a call requesting that you tow a car carelessly sprawled between a red curb and an expired parking meter. As you are filling out some forms, preparing to leave, a flustered looking man comes running out, yelling the usual obscentities you almost always hear from the owners of towed vehicles coming across you in the commission of your duties. As the red-faced man's visage resolves, you slowly recognize him as the bartender. That mean bartender who cares not a jot or tittle for you as a human because you took a job he doesn't like. That jerk who doesn't understand the demands of having a house and a family, who doesn't even care to understand what it is to be bound to something beyond yourself. Look at him, screaming and flailing his arms, knowing full well what conversations will ensue, here, and later at the impound lot, and ask yourself, "Do I have any sympathy and mercy for this man? I know that my job visits unpleasantness upon people, but does this man deserve my cooperation and professional insight and aid? Will I, perhaps, cut him a deal so he can get his car home just a little faster or cheaper, at a detriment to my boss but at a benefit to overall goodwill? Or will I make his life just a little more difficult in kind?"

THAT'S why refusing to serve TSA agents is a bad idea.

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The following comment was made later in the conversation.

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"i also cant agree with the economic argument. so if the economy is... strong and opportunity is rampant, than its ok to oppose unethical behavior in the name of a paycheck?"

That's not the argument we're making. It's that things aren't all... black and white, and sometimes you actually DO have to weigh one evil against another. When the choice comes down to the wellbeing of my family and the comfort of strangers, then you can't really hold it against people for making certain decisions. When the economy improves and people are again able to choose their employment, then the paradigm will have changed.

In any case, I'm glad most of us are agreed that punishing the workers is not the way to be creating the changes we want. If anything, we should be finding ways to get TSA agents on our side.

It reminds me of my experience at MEPS (er ...don't know how many vets are here. That's "Military Entrance Processing Station") which is a generally unpleasant experience for everyone involved. I felt especially sorry for the doctors there, whose jobs, despite a decade of medical school, consisted of checking an endless parade of men for hernias and hemorhoids. I figure that the folks at TSA aren't (as a rule) much happier about having to look at the Backscatter Images or feel people up. Especially when you think back on all the times you've flown and the truly, um, "aesthetically unfortunate" people that are on every flight. I think that a sympathetic rather than hostile approach would be more fruitful.

Jury Duty

Collected from my online exploits.

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Jury duty's certainly a pain in the ass (I get called every year. No exceptions. And I usually spend the whole day there) but if we accept the premises that:

1) Some form and quantity of government exceeding zero is necessary to maximizing liberty;
2) One of governments legitimate functions is adjudication of disputes and the enforcement of law;
3) A government may take what measures are necessary to effectively fulfill its obligations and perform its functions;
4) A public trial before our peers is at least sometimes a desireable method of conducting such adjudication; and
5) People hate listening to other people talk about their problems;

Then the case becomes easy to make that jury duty is no misnomer and while we need not be happy to have to deal with the inconvenience, we are better off overall for it.

Jurors and Law Enforcement

Another short essay collected from my exploits on the World Wide Web, this time on the topic of whether or not the Police should be given the same powers of nullification granted to jurors.

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I think that denying the police such license, which by corollary binds them to strict enforcement of the law, is in fact a desireable thing.

Our current legal system is constructed in such a way that we enjoy a number of very important boons.

First, there exist limits placed on the exercise of government. Namely, that all government, from the Fed all the way down to Buttsex, Kansas City Council are bound to conduct themselves in a constitutional manner. (Nevermind whether it actually happens 100% of the time, that's a different discussion)

Second, what laws are passed that are not delineated in the constitution are passed either by the citizens or their proxies; hence the designation of the United States as a Republic, as we all remember (or at least, ought to remember) from our civics classes.

Third, there are limits that apply to the powers held by the citizens and their proxies; these limits prevent mob rule from overriding basic rights or in certain cases using the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law. As Justice Walker opined in his ruling on California's Proposition 8 last August:

"The considered views and opinions of even the most highly qualified scholars and experts seldom outweigh the determinations of the voters. When challenged, however, the voters’ determinations must find at least some support in evidence. This is especially so when those determinations enact into law classifications of persons. Conjecture, speculation and fears are not enough. Still less will the moral disapprobation of a group or class of citizens suffice, no matter how large the majority that shares that view. The evidence demonstrated beyond serious reckoning that Proposition 8 finds support only in such disapproval. As such, Proposition 8 is beyond the constitutional reach of the voters or their representatives." It is within this construction that I frame my arguments. Less enlightened or fair systems suffer their own flaws which do not necessarily find their solutions in my argument, yada yada keep it in context =)

Our legal system is not perfect and has, at various times, been unfair to various peoples for various reasons. What it does offer, however, is a methodology whereby both the power-hunger of the leaders and the fanatical fear/greed of the populace are held in check. If we hold that such irrational or frankly malicious desires being held in check is a good thing, then it follows that nullification should not be the purview of police officers.

I will further argue that even if nullification is not granted, then to an extent it still is granted, nonetheless. This isn't a contradiction, it is just a juxtaposition of the legal/pragmatic reality vs. the real-reality, if that makes any sense. I'm getting ahead of myself, more on that later.

The idea of the police having powers of nullification is demonstrably different from jurors having that same ability. A police officer is one man; a jury is twelve. A crime is an act in progress, a constantly evolving scenario; a trial is a presentation of evidence on the past - understood to be immutable; a police officer is charged with the enforcement of the law; a jury is charged with its interpretation. From these differences, we derive that a jury nullification is built from a consensus of the citizenry, who are themselves a sort of representation of that same citizenry in much the same manner as a legislator. They are hearing facts and evidence and weighing the merits of a person, of a case, of a law and of a sentence and as such their opinion is neither the subject of whim nor of subjectivity.

Further, the decision of the jury is subject to review by additional courts and, often, additional juries. Appeal is a luxury of the courts that an officer does not have.

When such broad powers are granted to lone individuals, as police officers are, subjectivity once again becomes a factor. The case for nullification is easy to make when the law in question is possesion of a dime bag of marijuana. But that sword cuts both ways: what about the officer who opposes CA Prop 215 (which are plethora in my home county), or the officer who opposes the Civil Rights Act or any number of other liberty granting legislation?

What about laws regarding what weapons it is appropriate for an officer to carry; or when it is appropriate for an officer to use them?

By handing the power of nullification to single people, as you would be doing with police officers, you would, in reality, create tiny little dictatorships along every beat subject to whatever the whims and fancies of your local officer on that shift might be. And while some of us would be blessed enough to have our own local Tony Ryan, at least as many would be under the whip of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

If the power of nullification extends to individual precincts or departments, but not to individual officers, then you have simply created - or if not created, certainly augmented - a special interest group whose interests and powers would readily exceed those of the citizenry who are supposed to constitute their charges and employers. Bills that would increase or decrease their workloads (e.g. criminalizing or decriminalizing various activities) would be subject to their approval; as would budgeting and hiring.

It is in our best interests to have the officers bound to the laws as we, the citizenry, pass and interpret them. In such a manner, we have power over the exercise of force used in enforcing them.

I mentioned in my brief digression above that nullification would exist anyway, and here is what I mean: As it stands, many officers will overlook certain crimes in favor of enforcing more important ones anyway. Few officers will harrass a couple of teenagers breaking curfew when a bar brawl breaks out. This sort of prioritizing is a matter of course with police; the upside is that, should an officer take undue liberties with his judgement there is recourse for any negligence.

Rights and Right

In the days leading up to this most inauspicious of anniversaries there was a significant brouhaha over a Florida preacher's declaration of his congregation's intention to make of today the first annual "Burn a Quran Day" and to celebrate accordingly. Fortunately, just a few days ago he changed his mind, albeit in a rather snide and insincere manner by simultaneously demanding that the so-called "Ground-Zero Mosque" be moved to a new location. The Ground-Zero Mosque (which is neither at Ground Zero nor a mosque) and the idiocy surrounding it may warrant discussion another time, but they are not within the scope of todays article.


In a discussion of the planned Quran-burning activities I encountered a meme which I had encountered before. A person in the discussion declared that the church in question was right to burn the Quran, citing the First Amendment as his argument.


Now, I would like to be perfectly clear: there was not a difficulty in his syntax. He was not saying that the people have the right to protest and even to burn something like a book or a flag or an effigy; but rather that these people were granted either moral or factual rectitude by certain Constitutional doctrines.





The First Amendment only secures for people the Right to speak, to write, to gather, and to protest as they will and it only secures people from oppression by the government. It offers no protection from the natural consequences of your actions. Individuals are perfectly and legally capable of shunning and shaming a person who makes idiotic or dangerous statements. To find oneself unable to do business in a town, culturally and socially isolated and ostracized is not an infraction upon or a violation of one's rights. It is the natural consequence of being an ass and is a form of evil bringing about its own punishment.


I'm not sure where the idea that having a Right is equal to being right originated, but I've a sneaking suspicion it's due in large part to the failure of Civics instructors to actually impart an understanding of what a "right" is, what separates it from a "privilege", and what duties and responsibilities come hand in hand with such rights. But I digress. The point is that this idea is factually, semantically, basically, and totally wrong to a degree approaching, including, and probably exceeding absurdity.





And so, to recount for the benefit of those who never learned the full meaning and implications of the word "Citizen", I will offer this declaration: To have a Right is to be permitted to do a thing, no matter what abuses you inflict upon the good graces of the authority granting you this permission in the course of excercising it. It has nothing to do with factual correctness or with moral rectitude. Just because you CAN do something in no way means that you SHOULD, and that is the critical difference.


By way of example, the outrage surrounding our much-too-silly friends in Florida stemmed not so much from a belief that they had no permission to do such a deed, but that such a deed was offensive and could incite retribution and vengeance. The deed expressed ignorance and utter disregard for human thought (as that is what a book burning sybolically destroys, is human thought; as burning a flag symbolically destroys a nation and burning an effigy destroys a person) and there was no concievable benefit to be gleaned from such an act. In short, the act would have been immoral in almost every system of mores and ethics prevalent in the world today, excepting certain fanatical dogmas (which as I have argued before, are immoral in and of themselves anyway).


To put it in terms not so heavily vested with the emotional tinge of recentism, we could stipulate that Freedom of Speech was protected to such a degree that yelling "Fire!" in a crowded building or "Bomb!" in an airport were not illegal, it would be the height of negligence and recklessness, if not outright immorality (which it would be if done with malice) to do so. Once the proverbial smoke cleared, the performer of such an action would doubtless be ridden out of town on a rail, literally or figuratively. If the ensuing stampede had caused death or grievous injury, such a person might rightly be put to death or imprisoned indefinitely. This course of action would surely not constitute a breach of Constitutional Rights, but rather would be the natural and just consequence of that persons careless, thoughtless, and dangerous actions. That people are thoughtless in such a manner with such frequency that these actions are explicitly illegal is a testament to the enduring and pervasive stupidity which informs such actions.


Still, I must give credit where credit is due, to the Pastor who heard reason (sort of) and called off his plans and encouraged others to follow his lead in abandoning their hateful actions; and to the great majority of Americans who not only refused to engage in Quran burning but openly expressed their disapproval of such abuses of the Rights we all enjoy.

Against Compulsory Federal Service

The following was originally posted as a reply to a friend of mine who had just heard of Rep. Charles Rangel's (asshole) bill, H.R. 5741, which would create compulsory Federal service for everyone.

This is the same Rep. Charles Rangel who was recently arrested for "ethics violations". You know it's bad when Congress has a problem with your ethics.

But on with the show.

---

While I am a fan of the concept of service as a requirement for suffrage (a la Heinlein's Starship Troopers, and for many of the same reasons) such service would be meaningless if it were not voluntary (a point which I believe Heinlein also addresses in that novel). Such is a different conversation.

In a more immediate sense, compulsory service is a really bad idea, especially when it becomes understood that the traditional name for such service is a Draft. I have seen the bill, and it is definitely military in focus, the service in "homeland security" being a catch-all for those who are inadmissible for military service.

Why? Take it from a pragmatic standpoint. Today's military is an advanced professional military that uses some rather complicated equipment and tactics and therefore needs people who are capable of using them and motivated to do so. The military needs to be able to refuse people who are not only physically incapable of the demands that would be placed upon them, but also to refuse the mentally and psychologically incapable.

There has also been a cultural shift in our military over the last 20 years to change the image of the military from a bunch of rednecks, dropouts and delinquents to an organization of professionals worthy of respect. Not too long ago, young criminals were often given military service in lieu of jail time. During this same period, the public image of the military was of a group of thugs, a place for people who couldn't get their shit together any other way and who only needed to be smart enough to follow orders and shoot a gun. This is no longer the case.

Military service is now career focused. The vast majority of MOS' are support roles that simultaneously give a soldier real-world skills; and even the lowliest infantry have access to a rather generous college program. On one side of things, more and more soldiers are required to learn various computer and telecommunications-based skills, while on the other squad-based tactics have taught leadership skills to everyone. Unlike 20 years ago, a soldier leaving todays military is a respected member of society. People don't look at their resume and wonder what they did that made them need to join up. In many fields, military training is an advantage and a boon and many employers actively seek out veterans.

By making service mandatory - even if not ALL government service is military, just some of it! - the military loses all these gainss it has worked very hard to achieve over the last two decades. It becomes just another branch of the public school system.

My final point that relates strictly to the military (I will address government service in a broader sense shortly. Whether you take that as a promise or a threat is up to you) is that no soldier in a volunteer army wants a draftee watching his back. Today's military enjoys an unheard of esprit de corps. Unit cohesion is keeping combat casualties at an all time low in general and friendly fire is practically unheard of. Every person in combat today is there because they volunteered for military service AND they took a combat MOS. If you start throwing draftees into the mix, morale goes down, discipline problems rise, desertion becomes a major issue, and friendly fire casualties stop being accidents. I have a lot of friends in the military (including a Captain in the Army) and every single one of them speaks with horror and disdain at the prospect of fighting alongside a draftee. I, for one, will not dishonor our troops by inflicting such horror upon them.

They have enough to deal with.

As for government service being compulsory in general, well, it remains a bad idea. First up are the economics of the idea: Somebody has to pay these people. Now in the rest of the market, a business provides a service or product, people spend money on that product, the business makes more, etc. In this system, things are being produced, wealth is being generated. If enough people want to spend money on a product, the business can pay people to help it create and sell the product. If it hires too many, it can't afford to pay them, and has to fire some. The number of employees a business can have is contingent on the value of the service or products it generates. That value is determined by how much people are willing to spend on it.

Government work, on the other hand, is make-work. The vast majority of government employees are engaged in paperwork and redundant functions. They produce no product or service. If we pour more people into this already bloated system, we alleviate nothing. We would have to pay them, but with what? We can either cut a government program to "free up" funds, which would accomplish nothing because those funds are simply being shifted to another government program. (As Robert Anton Wilson once noted, "Bureaucracies never die, they just change names) The other option is to print more money, but since money is a representation of value, and no additional value is being produced, this simply inflates an already excessively inflated economy. The end result, economically, is either 1990's Russia or 1920's Germany.

Second is the idea of entitlement. We already have enough of a problem with it in this country, and handing people a job doesn't make it any better. A person is generally granted a job based on their own merits. Usually, this job is given to them over several other applicants. Nobody was entitled to a job, they had to work to get it and they have to work to keep it. Being a high school student might qualify someone to work at McDonald's, but telling the manager that they have to hire you is a sure way to remain jobless. The most important thing for people, especially young people, to learn - what working in a place like the grocery store or a burger joing is supposed to teach a person - is a work ethic. The understanding that work sucks, but you still have to do a good job; that at the end of the week your paycheck MEANS something, that you EARNED it, is of paramount importance.

This is not accomplished by handing out do-nothing government work to any schmuck who happens to be over 18 in America. In this compulsory service system, a person IS entitled to a job. Not only can they get the work through no virtue of their own, but they can do a piss-poor job and the government has to keep them. Two years later, these people go to get their first real job, having been "prepared", and find that this "experience" doesn't make it any easier for them to find work. Why? Because EVERYONE ELSE has the exact same experience. Which means that the professional jobs which these people are suppsed to be qualified for (having been working in an office environment for two years) aren't available. They now have to go get that same post-high-school burger flipping job. That same job that barely pays minimum wage, doesn't have a union, and enjoys such high turnover that they can - and will - gladly fire any slacker they catch taking an unauthorized smoke break. Employers, on the other hand, undoubtedly start to notice that a lot of these so-called "experienced" employees don't actually know how to work. They want vacation benefits right away. They call in sick all the damn time. They complain about working overtime. All because they never actually had to work to work before. Sure, some people will excel, get promotions, move on to better jobs, but these are the SAME people who would have done that anyway, the people who know what a work ethic is, and all that has happened in their cases is they wasted two years of their lives in government service rather than getting started on their careers.

The argument that this would create a paradigm of civic duty is also bunk. There is a large amount of evidence that the exact opposite effect would actually be created. Of note is a famous study of day care centers by two economists in the 1990's. The day care centers had a policy that the children had to be picked up by a certain time. As can be expected, some parents would usually be late each day. In a controlled experiment, some of the centers imposed a fine for parents who arrived over 10 minutes late. The result was that late pickups at the centers with the fine SKYROCKETED. The reason for this result is that before the fine, the parents were bound by a sense of duty and respect to the teachers. Those who were late were only a little late. What the fine did was allow the parents to buy off their duty. For a small fee each day, they could no longer feel guilty about being late, because they had already compensated the teachers for that inconvenience. The situation in mandating service cheapens the sense of civic duty in the same way. By making it mandatory for people to serve, we actually DECREASE the likelihood of future public service because, in the minds of these people being enlisted, they have already done their time or met their quota. What is interesting about the study is that it took place in Israel, a country that already has a service requirement. If such mandatory service did indeed create the effect of amplifying a person's sense of civic duty, we would very likely have seen completely different results.

Finally, service is meaningless if it's not voluntary. You cannot imbue someone with a sense of civic duty by forcing them into it. All that creates is resentment. Besides we already have a word for mandatory or involuntary service. That word is slavery, which was, by the way, made illegal and unConstitutional in the United States by the 13th Amendment.

"Setsuninto - Katsujinken" by Ellis Amdur

" ...He deserves death!

"Deserves it! I dare say he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all the ends...."

--J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring


"Every minute my joy increased... because I found myself in an extraordinary state of the most complete invulnerability, such as I had never before experienced. Nothing at all could confuse me, annoy me or tire me. Whatever was being thought of by those men, conversing animatedly in another corner of the room, I would regard them calmly, from a distance they could not cross."

--Vera Zasulick, after her assassination of General Trepov, governor of St. Petersburg

The Sword That Takes Life, The Sword That Gives Life

The Japanese sword was never a mere ribbon of polished and sharpened steel. In the juxtaposition of blade and scabbard, there exists an emblem of the dynamic interplay of male and female, penetration and containment, power dependent as much upon its reserve as its expression. The sword itself was the embodiment of the principle of law founded upon hierarchy, the ruling warriors' power rooted in their submission to a web of obligations and loyalties to superiors, their weapons instruments of service rather than of freedom. In religious iconography, the Taoist sword cuts through undifferentiated chaos, introducing delineation into the universe, creating darkness and light, yin and yang, positive and negative and from this duality, the birth of the myriad forms of the universe. The Buddhist sword is the sword that cuts through illusion, the bright cold edge of mindful consciousness which requires one to face reality with open eyes and courageous heart.

Setsuninto (the sword that takes life) and katsujinken (the sword that gives life) are concepts which attempt to differentiate between the use of the sword for murderous ends as opposed to its use to protect people or to preserve the order of society.

These two phrases give rise to a variety of interpretations. At its most naive is the idea that, having power, one can choose to use it either to hurt others or lead them from evil paths. This is sometimes a fantasy of aikido devotees: that when attacked, the skillful practitioner, who could easily annihilate his or her attacker, moves in such a way that not only is the attack neutralized, but the attacker realizes the error of his ways and turns from violence. I call this naive because, even though it is sometimes possible, it presupposes that one's attacker will always be far inferior in skill, and even more unlikely, that being humbled and even shamed by one far superior, an attacker is likely to undergo a profound change of personality.

A second concept is that of surgical violence, one particularly common among the Japanese right wing,whose ideology, in many ways, is closest to those of the warrior class in pre-modern Japan. This is best shown in the phrase, "One life to save a thousand," which is used to explain various political assassinations. In this concept, not only murder, but also inaction which allows war or other disaster to develop, would be setsuninto. Katsujinken would be to "cut the head off the snake" so the war could not start.

Some pseudo-Buddhist scholars of the sword imagine that there is a state of fluid perfection, called "enlightenment," in which one can act at each and every moment without reflection or doubt, the spontaneous act being the only one suitable to that particular moment. The enlightened one, then, could cut down an individual without murderous intention, in their intuitive all-encompassing understanding that the interpenetrating web of universe is best served that this individual die. The slaughtered one's life is culminated and, in fact, "demands" death at this moment to be properly fulfilled.

Whose life is preserved in katusjinken? One's own? The enemy's? Bystanders'? Whose life is taken in setsuninto? Is this a problem only of the moment, of the two individuals in conflict, or does it encompass all whose lives are touched by violence, by apparent evil? Is this a problem only of the present, or does it extend into the past and future? Are the reasons an enemy resorts to violence relevant to how you will resolve it? Are the potential results of alternative ways of resolving violence relevant to considerations of how one must act?

Sometimes I think I know the answers to these questions. At other times, I know that I have no idea.

---

There are houses, in the state of Washington, called Crisis Respite Centers. They are staffed by paraprofessionals skilled in dealing with troubled and aggressive youth. Children, usually teenagers, who are wards of the state and unplaceable in a foster home, are placed in these houses. The Crisis Respite Centers have a no-turn-down policy.

They also have unlocked doors. The six beds might be filled with three violent 16-year-old gang-involved youths from rival "sets," along with a "sexually reactive" developmentally-delayed girl, a chronic runaway 13-year-old, and an enormously irritating chubby 12-year-old boy who taunts the gangbangers and then runs to hide behind a staff member when one of them chases after him to squash him like a mosquito. The demands upon the staff, who have to ensure everyone's safety, are enormous.

I received a phone call early one morning from the director of a Crisis Respite Center. "Ellis, we have this kid here and we don't know what to do with him. He is threatening to staff and has a violent temper. He spent several years in Allister House (a facility for mentally disturbed kids), and it came out that he had been systematically raping the younger children, terrifying them so badly that it is sure that many have never told. He's in the foster-care system. He can't return home to his family, that's impossible; he was horribly abused there when he was young. We're concerned about him being here, and also, what kind of treatment he needs. He is a pretty scary kid, and it's hard to figure out what is intimidation and what is really dangerous. Would you come out and assess him?"

Much has been written over the millennia about the nature of evil. When does a man or woman step over a line, if such a line exists, where we are justified in no longer merely condemning their acts, but the person as well? When, if ever, is an evil act the manifestation of a corrupt soul, a voluntary embrace with evil?

I have met many violent young men and women over the years. They are often lazy. One boy said to me: "Crime is the easiest job there is." They often crave pack acceptance so much that whatever their friends are doing, they will also do, despite misgivings. They often have impaired judgment. They use drugs or alcohol, and their emotions are fueled, then, as much by chemicals as by anything innate to them. They often are people with a low tolerance for any sort of frustration. There is seemingly no space between desire and the act. There is a sense of entitlement: if I want it, then I deserve it. All of these traits, however, are merely an accentuation of one or another of the more venal characteristics of all humanity. Such a person is not someone to trust, or even to like, but they are not incomprehensible. They are of the same breed as we are.

There are some, however, who seem to have set as their life task to extinguish the painful demands of conscience. At the same time, some of these people take sadistic delight in the pain of others. There is some research that suggests a capacity to distance oneself from the trauma of violence, particularly the trauma incurred when inflicting violence, is, in part, hard-wired genetics. There are people born to be comfortable with violence.

There is also research that indicates that severe trauma, particularly early in childhood, leads to unpredictable neurological changes--some children develop into timid and fearful adults, others are resilient and compassionate. Yet others are exploitative, manipulative or even further--feral conscienceless beings who have seemingly disappeared from the community of men and women. For them, other people are objects of use that move in and out of their field of perception. Their capacity to form attachments to others is minimal or even absent. When contact with another human being engenders a feeling of sensitivity or vulnerability, their reaction is often a deep and profound pain, the pain felt by the exile upon tasting the scent of home on the wind, a pain so deep that they may respond by trying to extinguish that which causes the feeling, which is usually the capacity for sensitivity, or even, in the most extreme cases, the human being who evokes the response.

No one really knows how or why some people migrate to that dark star, leaving the world of love and conscience behind. Most criminals have a capacity, to some degree, to turn compassion and empathy on and off. Others can feel it to a limited degree, but only for people within their circle. In the course of a wide-ranging conversation, I once told a young man in jail about the sense of violation I felt in having my house robbed. His brow wrinkled in sympathy, and he said, spontaneously, "Yeah, it's like someone rapes you or something." He was, as best as I could tell, outraged for me--and he was a burglar!

There are, then, a few people, who have schooled themselves to have no openings, no vulnerabilities whatsoever, to respond with detachment to what they feel they have to do or want to do. If that sounds dangerously close to the image we have of the warrior, good! It's food for thought isn't it?

---

I was already sitting in the room, waiting for him when he came in. He was a boy of wire and bone, narrow features with startlingly full, sensual lips and dirty-blonde hair. The moment he saw me, he started whirling and kicking in self-made karate, kicks of surprising precision lashing out towards me. I don't know if this was merely an attempt to show that he was tough and I'd better keep my distance, or if, in the incredible intuition of the feral and predatory, he somehow "knew" that I was trained in martial arts. Predators often have intimate access to their fear as well as their rage and perhaps, in this manner, he intended to frighten me in return, thereby letting us start on "equal" terms.

I didn't move from my chair as his feet cut the air--he was careful not to kick too close. After a minute or two, I gestured towards a sofa, saying, "Why don't you sit down, Jared?"

He threw himself in a chair, slumped down, and said, "I've been training karate for seven years! One of these days, I'm going to tear someone up. Maybe one of these staff bitches," and as if jerked by an electric prod, leapt back to his feet, and shadow-boxed and kicked in the center of the room again. He looked at me with a kind of wired glee, prancing like an imp in the coals of a fire. At my request, he sat down again and slumped, torpid as a lizard on a rock. It was as if his immobility was as much an act of will as his movement--he never could be said to be relaxed.

We talked about the place he was staying, which he did not like, and his family, whom he idealized, despite their abuse and abandonment of him. He told me how tough he was, and how, despite our difference in size, how he was sure he could take me if he wanted to. He was like quicksilver--he never responded to my questions directly, skittering off in one tangent or another, attempting to keep me off balance with threats, complaints and silliness. He didn't care if I liked him or hated him or even if I remained alive for one more minute. I was just this "thing" he had to talk to.

I asked him about the well-substantiated reports of his rapes, and he smirked, and said, "Yeah, I did do that. But I'd never do it again."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because it's wrong," he said, making not even the slightest effort to place a tone of sincerity in his voice.

"I feel sorry for you, then," I said. This evoked a reaction--a flare of emotion emerging from behind the flat screen of his eyes; a fire banked.

"Why's that?" he asked.

I then said something that is not necessarily true, because sexual deviancy is far more complex, but I wished to find out who he was and hopefully, to evoke some truth from him. "Well, everybody knows that guys who like sex with little children can't have sex with people their own age. They just can't do it. So, if you aren't going to rape kids anymore, I guess you won't ever have sex with anyone your whole life. I feel sorry for you." At the last, my voice softened with compassion, which was real; despite my hatred of what he had done, he was still little more than a child, and I could feel sorry for him the same way I could for a brutalized pit bull, frightening and dangerous though it may be.

He rounded on me, angry. "I can too have sex with people my own age!" He said a few more sentences to "substantiate" this, but as he was talking, he picked up a teddy bear that was lying on the couch of the room, and unconsciously, with almost no visible effort, ripped its arms off. He noticed my eyes drop to his hands, and he looked down and saw what he had done.

He smiled at me, and his voice a lilting tone, said, "Aw, it's broke now." Then, placing the arms back to the body, "All fixed now!" Pulling them away, "Broke again." Back together. "Fixed again. Broke again. Fixed again. Brokeagainfixedagainbrokeagain. . . ." He stopped, and continued to smile as he unconcernedly cast the doll, arms and all, away from him onto the floor.

Our interview concluded soon afterwards. I had touched the core of pain from which he was trying so hard to distance himself. The result. Rage. I was sure that if he could have done so, he would have dismembered me just like the doll.

My recommendation was that he needed to start over somehow--to learn from the beginning how to act as a human being, to be placed in a dependent situation so that he would have to bond to caregivers like a small child. He would have to somehow be placed in a restricted 24-hour setting which would, at least, teach him that his own best interests lay in "acting" like other people. A few such programs exist, and based on this recommendation, he was placed in one.

He lasted six months. As intensive a procedure as it sounds, the person has to have a fundamental desire to return to humanity, in the same way that an addict must have a bone-aching desire to stop using drugs if treatment is to have any effect. "Returning" means to experience all the pain that one shut down in becoming a conscienceless being. Jared did not have the courage for this anymore. He had already embraced the cold reptilian safety of solitary hatred and pure self-interest. He physically assaulted staff and other youth, and was expelled. His parting words were, "I was born to rape, and there's nothing anyone can do about it."

Because of the way the laws are written, by destroying his placement in this secure facility, he was returned to the care of the foster-care system--his "parents," who were not mandated to lock him up. Once again, he went back to the same Crisis Respite Center.

He was there only a week or so when he exploded with rage towards the staff at being required to pick up some clothes. He kicked a hole in the wall, and trashed the furniture. As they called the police, Jared ran out the door with two women staff in hot pursuit. Young and lithe, he left them behind, and entered a school ground, coming upon two young 12-year-old girls. He dove upon one of them, and in broad daylight, in the middle of a sidewalk, began to rape her. Only a few moments later, the staff found him and managed to pull him off.

Aged 16, he was tried as an adult, and will be doing, I believe, 15 years in prison.

Several months later, before his sentencing, I saw him in detention from a distance. Although in the open recreation hall, he was isolated from the other boys, not because of his crime, but due to his demeanor, coiled within himself in bands of hatred. After years in the gladiator schools of our modern penal system, God help us all when he gets out.

The philosopher Derrida refers to the "community of the question." All of us who live in the martial world, either through our profession or through our avocation in combative arts, face similar questions when it comes to the responsibility we incur through our acquisition of power. So I ask the following question, not to get any answers from you, but perhaps to evoke the question within you:

Am I a moral failure in that I did not kill him?

When I interviewed that boy, I knew what he was capable of doing. I had no expectation that treatment would help him, but that was the best suggestion I could come up with. I knew he would, sooner or later, do something horrible to some poor child.

Is it my responsibility merely to offer therapy to those I can, teach as many people as I can how to protect themselves from violence, saving myself to raise my sons, saving myself, therefore, from the consequences of what I knew was going to happen?

I could have saved the child he raped an unimaginable world of pain, and probably other children, too, when he finally gets out of prison. Were you to hear that I had killed him, solely based on my intuition and assessment, what would be your reaction?

My own answer to this question is the choice I made, but I will be haunted until my death at the thought of that child, her flesh ground into a sidewalk, the sun beating down upon her pain, indifferent as the flat, shark eyes of her rapist.

What, then, is the sword that gives life?

---

Copyright ©2000 Ellis Amdur. All rights reserved.

Whatsoever a Man Soweth, That Shall He Also Reap

Evil is easy.

It is easier to steal than to earn, to force than to convince, to rape than to seduce. It is easier to look the other way when you see these things happening. It is hard to stay honest, truthful, and moral. It is hard to have empathy for strangers, a sense of duty to self and society, and integrity in the face of temptation. It is hard to turn and face evil and stop it.

Evil is the path of least resistance, the low road, a gently downward sloping path. Evil does not need proponents, advocates, supporters or proselytizers to thrive. All evil needs is for people to do nothing. Do nothing, and a serial killer can terrorize a neighborhood until he dies of old age. Do nothing, and gangs control whole cities. Do nothing, and corruption consumes the police. Do nothing, and we have Ayatollahs, Pinochets, Pol Pots, Kim Il Sungs, Idi Amins, and Hitlers taking power.

Good requires active dedication. Every day, good is presented challenges and temptations. To be good demands that we choose, consciously, every minute and every second, to do the right thing. It is more than choosing not to do the wrong thing. The right choice is often difficult, unpleasant, and unpopular.

And so, there will always be evil in this world.

Always.

It is necessary, then, to be prepared to deal with evil. A good person will not initiate force against people, but that means nothing to an evil person. It is said that "War is the result of failed diplomacy," and the axiom scales to a personal level, too. What can peaceful measures accomplish when peace is the last thing in your opponents mind? When evil people attempt to threaten us with force to their whims, the only appropriate response is the threat of force. When force is applied, the only appropriate responce is force. When that force is violence, the only appropriate response is violence. When that force is deadly, the only appropriate response is death.

It is necessary, then, to be prepared for violence. A good person will not initiate force against people, but it is a duty of all people to stop force and avoid escalation Violence must be employed to stop violence until the desire to act evilly and violently has been destroyed and not one iota longer. We meet force with force so long as the will to fight exists in our enemies. In this way, evil acts are met immediately with retribution. In this way does evil beget its own punishment.

This is no mean excercise, no abstract experiment. If you are approached by a mugger, surrendering your wallet is only certain of encouraging the activity further. That mugger will rob again. Surrendering your wallet does not even guarantee your safety. This is how inaction permits evil to thrive.

Rather, suppose you met the threat with appropriate force. At the production of whatever weapon accompanies his demand for your wallet, you instead reach for a pistol*. If the mugger's hands go up, call the police. No further violence is needed. If not, the mugger's life is forfeit. The right thing to do is to continue shooting until the mugger no longer has the will or ability to fight - whichever comes first**. It is paramount that you stop shooting once the threat is neutralized: to kill a wounded person in the heat of passion is no more excusable than to steal at gunpoint. On the other hand, at no point should you take dangerous cautions to preserve that criminal's life. If the situation appears at any point that, of the two of you, one will likely die, it is imperative that every effort be made that it is not your life given up.

And what of stumbling across the commission of a crime? We exist in a society, nothing happens in a vacuum. Evil anywhere is a threat everywhere, and it is therefore our duty to address and meet the evil of others, whether by police or vigilante action, where ever it is encountered. Some months ago I wrote of a series of violent episodes wherein I proponed the idea that we must all take a stand to improve the society in which we live. The same is true of evil and violence as it is of ill mannered people: their behavior is only rewarding if it is permitted, and it is permitted so long as nothing is done to stop it. We have a duty to confront evil. The morality of the victim is irrelevant: the commission of violence must be met with instant retribution whenever possible.

Further, there are instances, as I've also said before, of people who are irrevocably evil. Such people constitute a constant and looming threat, even when they are not actively engaged in their predations. Serial killers and rapists, child molesters and pedophiles - who, oddly enough, seem to have considerable overlap within their fields - constitute individuals who can be said to always be a danger. These individuals have no claim to the rights of life, liberty, or happiness: Their actions are a threat, their lives are forfeit. Their presence in society is a bane, they deserve no libety. Their proclivities are anathema to all that is good - their happiness is misery, violence and death. Should they be caught in the commission of one of their acts, summary death is appropriate. Should they be proved guilty of these acts, life imprisonment is the only mercy they should be granted.

Evil and violence will always be a part of the world. It is a foolhardy and dangerous naivete that informs pacifistic approaches to these problems. It is essential that good people are prepared, not only to deal with the personal consequences of their chosen life, but to deal with the darkness to which they have become opposed.

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*While we are talking in hypotheticals, I feel it is necessary to express that life and death situations should be left to as little chance as possible. Therefore, I provide some small tactical advice, firstly: A pistol should be kept concealed in a location easily mistaken with a place you might keep a wallet whenever possible. To this end, Seecamp provides some excellent concealed carry options.

**It should go without saying that, in the event your opponent is also using a firearm, offering an opportunity to surrender is a foolhardy move almost certain to result in your own injury or death. Shoot first and shoot often.

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: