House of Eratosthenes

“Fair Game” is the title of a movie coming out this year that, somehow, tells the story of Valerie Plame’s “blown cover” without a Richard Armitage. I probably won’t be seeing it, and I’ll not write about it here.

It’s also the name of a thoroughly mediocre flick that came out fifteen years ago, marking the beginning and end of Cindy Crawford’s acting career.

And a much more enjoyable, though by no means more believable, Australian exploitation-genre project from a decade before that. Starring John Denver’s ex-wife, it played for our amusement last night, mostly so we could make sure the VHS player was still working. Animal-loving, ecologically sound, vegetarian woman plays Wiley-Coyote-Road-Runner with three big-game-hunting, flesh-eating, truck-driving men. Meep meep.

It is the title of a Neal Boortz posting from yesterday. This is the “fair game” I want to discuss. Boortz is picking on a child, holding her innocent comments up to public ridicule. If, that is, you define “child” as a college senior who has taken it upon herself to put an article, with her name at the top of it, in her school newspaper. The article describes why she doesn’t want to shop at Wal Mart, and she doesn’t think anybody else should either. It proves in no uncertain terms that the young lady knows nothing of capitalism. In fact, I’ll go further than that: If you know nothing about capitalism, I mean a scientifically measurable, truly vacuous nothing, you’ll be able to figure capitalism out quicker than she will. Her knowledge is negative, and for reasons I’ll not attempt to inspect or to explain, she saw fit to advertise this to the world.

Neal summarizes the situation:

I know that college students are the future and all that, but face facts. These are people who, by and large, have lived in a protected environment where all of their needs are met by someone else for pretty much their entire lives. For the most part they have never had to worry about meeting basic survival needs in a way most working Americans have.
:
If you’re dumb as a bag of hammers, and you promise not to vote … I’ll leave you alone. If, on the other hand, you insist on taking your abysmal lack of common sense into the voting booth – resulting in dangerous atrocities such as Barack Obama — I will consider you to be a threat … and you can await the sting of my rapier-like wit. I hope it hurts like hell.

I disagree with Boortz slightly about this. His triggering-mechanism, if you will, is the act of voting. Promise not to vote and he’ll leave you alone. These college kids are voting and that makes them fair game. Well, what really got this situation underway was not the act of voting, it was the act of publishing.

Which is quite alright with me. Take a look at what was published:

Now, I don’t knock those who shop at Wal-Mart. Its goods are affordable, and they’re all in one place. The lower your income, the more attractive those prices are.

But it’s time for American consumers — you, me and a whole bunch of other people — to take strong, direct steps against huge, unfeeling corporations with such major impact on what we buy, where it’s produced and how much we pay.

You. Me. A whole bunch of other people. Now we come to the meat of it; this is the real crisis that is facing today’s college kids. Grab a banner, raise your voice, recruit some ruffians, lead the charge, come up with some slogans, shout ’em from the hilltops — and if anybody criticizes you, whine like a little bitch.

That is the crisis. Too many people want it both ways; they have a message they want to get out there, so they do the “brave” thing and stick it in some kind of forum with their name linked to it. Or they would like to…but they want what they cannot have. What they really want, is all of the benefit of a public communications channel, plus all the benefit of a private one. Anyone who isn’t sympathetic to the mini-revolution they’re trying to stir up, they want all those people to butt out. They really, really want those other people to butt out. They feel their rights are being violated if their messages are intercepted, let alone reproduced in another forum — exactly the claim they’d be able to make, if they were communicating on a private channel.

It’s a case of enjoying benefits without grappling with the responsibilities attached. That is what makes Crystal Villareal fair game.

And that is what I want to discuss here. The modern revolutionary who wants to foment “change”, by broadcasting his or her voice far and wide, over the hilltops and through the valleys. But in such a way that it is heard only by those who approve of it. Anyone who would not, should be butting out and letting things be…as if the effort to instigate the change, will not be affecting that person. But the whole point of it is that it should be affecting as many people as possible — that is the definition of success.

So what these modern revolutionaries really want, and they don’t even seem to directly comprehend it themselves, is a sort of closed network whose tendrils extend to the boundaries of the known universe. They want to coordinate a revolution that will turn the world upside-down, but covertly, safe from the scrutinizing eyes and ears of those who might not be pleased with the effort.

Let’s call it what it is. They want to coordinate an ambush.

I saw one of my Facebook friends become embroiled in a debate about Social Security with a hardcore lefty type who was playing the “What You Gonna Do” card. You know how this goes…you have to have a solution, otherwise you have nothing to say and no right to complain. She asked some kind of direct question, and I commented in three short paragraphs, answering her question directly. She made a joke out of it and started ridiculing the other guy. I thought this was a little strange, seeing as how she was given exactly the information she said she wanted and now she was derailing the conversation on purpose.

All you readers who keep piling on me for my lack of respect for Facebook, what I call “The Hello-Kitty of Blogging,” pay attention to what comes next. I made a point of saying nothing further, but checking back on the conversation to see what happened. After twenty-four hours, I think, something looked wrong. I hit the “see all comments” button and what to my wondering eyes should appear…she had said something between this and this, and there was no trace of it. And then I recalled another thing she said over there, and there was no trace of that. There was just an archive of me & this other guy, talking to ourselves, like one side of a phone conversation.

“Do I read this right?”, I entered. “Did [name] just pull all of her comments out of this thread, like picking up her marbles & putting ’em in a bag, and head home?” I received confirmation in the affirmative.

See, there it is again. That selfish, unrealistic desire to get a message out there where it can be seen by as many pairs-of-eyes as possible…but not too many. I want to foment a revolution. I want to be a leader. I want to be edgy and bold. But don’t you go picking on me. Stop reading my stuff! Eavesdropper!

And then there is Ed Darrell’s page…yup, it’s about the Mosque in Manhattan. That’s really the same situation, when you think about it. Which most people don’t do, because it is constantly portrayed in the media as an issue involving the “right to worship.” Liberals want it portrayed that way, and we accommodate them constantly for reasons we cannot explain. But it isn’t about the right to worship. It’s about a towering leviathan, constructed for the express purpose of putting a message out. Far and wide. Sea to shining sea. But, again, if you aren’t sympathetic to the message, the proponents of the mosque want you to just shut up and go away. Keep your opinion to yourself. After all, they just want some space in which to privately worship!

The three gotta-build-it people have been requested — politely — repeatedly — to stop misrepresenting those opposed to the Mosque, as engaged in religious bigotry or some attempt to banish Muslims from the country. Very nicely; PLEASE stop. They refuse to. They say, if you don’t want to be a burglar don’t steal stuff, and if you don’t want to be called a bigot then don’t do bigoted things.

But it has nothing to do with religious oppression. One side wants to get a message out, publicly enough that it will have a lasting effect on the lives of total strangers…but they want the message to be treated like a private conversation, with all the privileges and respect that would entail. The other side is saying, this would have an effect on me and I have something to say about it. They are exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. And, according to all the information that has come to see the light of day, coping responsibly with the burdens that arrive with that. They are the ones being oppressed, when you get down to it.

Yesterday, a very silly column appeared with Richard Cohen’s name on it. He was promptly torn to shreds by Michael C. Moynihan, writing in Reason, who laid out a sound, logical argument that Cohen’s column sucked in every way it possibly could. Cohen was comparing the Tea Party movement to the National Guard troops that fired on the Kent State students in 1970, because…well, I don’t know if I can state the connection properly. I’m still not sure I understand it fully, or if Cohen does. It’s quite a stretch.

The final smackdown of Moynihan’s piece was,

…Cohen doesn’t catch the irony: The dissent of Kent State protesters, he thinks, was met with deadly force because of rhetoric that “otherized them,” that turned them into a domestic enemy. Pretty much exactly what Richard Cohen is doing to the dissidents of the Tea Party movement. But he disagrees with those people, so…

Now if you do your research, even just the very lazy research that involves just looking it up in Wikipedia, you see the bullets were not discharged in Ohio because of rhetoric. That becomes a very unlikely and unworkable proposition, very quickly. No, the protesters initiated the violence. This is not subject to dispute, and shouldn’t be. It was a Viva La Revolucion dust-up for which that particular era is well known.

I know this comes off as insensitive and churlish, but let’s face it: The students threw rocks, repeatedly, at young men with loaded weapons who, it turns out, were under-disciplined and under-trained. The under-trained young men with guns quickly exhausted all their options, and the protesters took advantage of this to foment as much anarchy as they could. Stick it to the man! Way to go!

Classic Alinsky manuever: The enemy has all of the responsibility for maintaining order, and our side has none. Exploit this to the fullest. Do whatever you have to do, to win, and we’ll figure out what that means later.

Two of the four dead, it seems, had nothing to do with the protest and were just heading from one class to another. There’s a tragedy. Perhaps, and probably, the other two were protesting peacefully and had nothing to do with throwing the rocks. But this is the trouble with getting your message out as part of a group.

The protest was the wisdom-equivalent of leaping into the bear’s cage at the zoo to give the animal a big hug. You aren’t supposed to point that out because our media has used that magic word in connection with it, “tragedy.” But it’s true.

In Cohen’s world, it is an indictment against The System. Because the protesters sought to create problems for the Guardsmen, outside the scope of what the Guardsmen’s training prepared them to handle. The protesters succeeded at what they were trying to do. They wanted anarchy and they got it. They won, the Guardsmen lost; the latter labored under the mission of maintaining order. Now we’re supposed to have a decades-long debate about what bad people they are, and supposedly this goes up to Nixon and, it’s not difficult to imagine, every Republican who has succeeded him in that office.

So this has been going on awhile. Young people just coming of age, who think fewer guns and more free sex are all it takes to make the world perfect — with some new glut of government programs, and don’t for a minute think about scaling back the obsolete government programs the new ones are there to replace. A message of resistance and a protest to go with it. Modern-era broadsheets: Tall buildings, “worship centers,” articles in student newspapers, Facebook taunting, pictures of crucifixes dunked in urine, and Jesus Christ receiving oral sex from men. Anything to show how courageous and edgy we are. Because we have a right to dissent against the oppressive system!

But if you aren’t going to support us in this, ignore us and mind your own business. We have a right to our privacy.

The lesson we’re learning here is one we have been learning for a long time: Today’s revolutionary is tomorrow’s dictator. The heady thought we get to digest, as we scan all these situations to see what they have in common, is: Revoluionaries act quite dictatorial while they’re still in the early stages of their revolutions.

The privilege they demand, and can expect thanks to history but not reason, is the same privilege sought by tyrants. That is, the privilege of tinkering with the intricate and intimate lives of strangers, with an opaque veil of secrecy drawn upon the tinkering, so the strangers never know what’s about to hit them.

Our young people are being raised to expect this, and to demand it. Why should they not? What force do they have in their lives, to provide them with a different expectation? From where else, besides the strangers who don’t see all things the way they do, will they get their mid-course correction? How else will they learn that free people don’t like to be manipulated in this way, and that all of Creation is not just a big finger-puppet show for their amusement?

These are serious questions. We have an epidemic of people not learning this.

So HELL yes, they’re fair game.

Cross-posted at Washington Rebel.

[…] Cross-posted at House of Eratosthenes. […]
- Fair Game | Washington Rebel | 10/06/2010 @ 06:20
… to take strong, direct steps against huge, unfeeling corporations with such major impact on what we buy, where it’s produced and how much we pay.

Anyone who really thinks that about Wal-Mart should read Sam Walton’s autobiography. I had to as part of a business class I took as a senior in college.

It will open your eyes. Wal-Mart, then and now, is up to its eyeballs in charitable work and it cares a great deal where its goods are manufactured and under what conditions. The prices are low because A) it has thinner profit margins per-item than other retailers and B) it buys everything in enormous volume and therefore is able to cut discount deals with manufacturers and wholesalers. Whenever possible, the company buys goods made right here in the US under the full supervision of American labor laws.

I’m with Boortz. If you don’t know what you’re doing, stay the hell away from the ballot box. I’ve even gone so far as to suggest that those who voted for Obama in 2008 should have their suffrage revoked. In my opinion, those voters have amply demonstrated that they aren’t up to handing the privilege responsibly. Like driving, voting is a privilege, not a right. And like any privilege, society has an interest in suspending or revoking it from those who handle it irresponsibly.
- cylarz | 10/06/2010 @ 17:24
I’m joking about the revocation of suffrage, of course. Though I really do wish the uninformed would stay away from the voting booth. I have never been on-board for these nonpartisan get-out-the-vote campaigns, nor agreed with the opinion that “it doesn’t matter HOW you vote, just that you get out there and do it.” Wrong, wrong, wrong.
- cylarz | 10/06/2010 @ 21:11
Because the protesters sought to create problems for the Guardsmen, outside the scope of what the Guardsmen’s training prepared them to handle.

One thing I have never understood about this incident – did the municipality in which Kent State was located, not have access to riot police units in 1970? Why was the National Guard sent to restore order with guns and live ammunition, instead of a battalion of police armed with sticks, water cannons, tear gas, beanbag guns, rubber bullets, etc? And wasn’t all this a violation of the posse comitatus act? I’m not trying to be provocative; I’m really asking and a bit lazy on doing all the research on my own to find out.

Did those things not exist at the time? It seems kind of hard for my mind to grapple with this, seeing as how America had already been dealing with massive antiwar protests, for years before that happened. It’s not like the know-how and technology for putting down riots didn’t exist.
- cylarz | 10/06/2010 @ 21:17
This was an excellent foray into the subject of the loud revolutionary wannabe and his tactics.

Another exemplary post.

The Walmart thing, in particular, has always stuck in my craw.

As to the National Guard/Posse Comitaus act, the National Guard (there should be one in each state) is primarily under state control but can be called into service by the federal government.

From what I read in the Wiki article, it says it was primarily meant to restrain the Federal Government and there were several exclusions… the Coast Guard being one and the National Guard — when acting under the authority of the State (that is, in this case, the Ohio National Guard being directed by the State of Ohio) … being another.

Now, if the Ohio National Guard acted under Nixon’s authority here, then it would be a violation.

If it acted under the Governor of Ohio’s authority, it would not be.

Also, I thought I’d heard long ago (and I could be wrong) that they did use rubber bulletts, but that even they can be lethal if they hit the wrong place — and in this case, some were.
- philmon | 10/07/2010 @ 09:51

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Fair GameWednesday, October 6th, 2010

Fair Game
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010