House of Eratosthenes

If I were a perfesser — don’t worry, not gonna happen anytime soon — I would ask my class a single question with the opening of every semester. Maybe again at the close.

It would be a very dangerous question.

I’m looking at Boumediene, and I’m looking at Burge. I’m looking at one of the Things I Know About People Minus What I Was Told When I Was A Child…

27. People who make a conscious decision not to offer help or defense to someone who needs it, don’t want anyone else to help or defend that person either.

…and I’m looking at what I had to say about Gerard’s essay a couple of weeks ago:

Twenty-first century American liberalism in a nutshell: That which builds or preserves must, at all costs, be destroyed; that which destroys must, at all costs, be preserved.

I’m looking at things that need defending, that I’m told don’t need defending, and I’m looking at other things I’m told do need defending and there’s something reprehensible and atrocious taking place if those other things aren’t defended.

I’m looking at the defense that is provided to people who are convicted of killing other people. I’m looking at the “defense,” if you can call it that, of those people who have already been killed, and who cry out for justice from beyond the grave. The defense provided to the ones who did the butchering, always seems to be more energized. There’s a steep differential there, and it seems the people in authority — those who were provided this privileged “education” a generation or two ago — are the ones who say we should keep that steep differential in place. Without coming out and saying so. Without even admitting it to themselves.

Funny. I’d have presumed when you’ve been afforded the benefits of an expensive education, the very first thing you would’ve learned is the meaning of the words coming out of your mouth.

I see how politicians pledge to fight terrorists, and I see how they pledge to fight each other. They’ve prevailed over each other many times, they’ll prevail over each other many times later on — yet they have not yet prevailed over the terrorists. But the battle to prevail one more time over each other, always seems to be worthy of the greater expense of energy and effort. Battling the terrorists, taking no prisoners, never saying surrender and never saying die…well, these same politicians seem to be caught in an endless-loop of telling me it can’t be done.

So my dangerous question for our Leaders of Tomorrow, that I’d ask, if I could…and I can’t…would be…

What things, in your mind, are worthy of a costly defense? A defense that can be provided only at the expense of something precious. Safety…treasure…limbs…lives.

Not necessarily yours.

But I want specifics. “The Constitution” is too vague. Even “Freedom of Speech” is too vague. Don’t hide behind “the environment” because that’s too vague, too. “Civil liberties?” Try again. That is a cliche that was built to be vague. I want specific items, I want stated consequences, I want well-thought-out cause & effect. Now, tell me what things are worth a real, not merely lip-service, defense.

What, in our society, is so sacred that it justifies a defense involving overwhelming, disproportionate force?

What justifies an exorbitant defense?

What justifies an unreasonable defense?

What justifies a devastating defense? A deadly defense? A defense involving entirely innocent collateral damage?

What justifies a defense that goes beyond mere lip service?

Because I’m looking around, and I see everything our “hip & with-it” leaders want defended and preserved…each thing that they think is worth the sacrifice of something else…each and every one of those things…is something that destroys. Or, it’s something that defends something else that destroys. Or — something that defends something that defends something that, in turn, destroys. The last link in the chain, it seems, is always a destructive agent — if it isn’t, they’re just not that into defending it.

Halfway through Atlas Shrugged there’s an ugly scene in which James Taggart, who’s verbally abusive to his new wife Cherryl on a constant basis, hops over the fence and beats her for the first time. The last thing she said before he struck her with his hand, was the one thing he dedicated his entire life to keeping concealed from everyone, even from himself. He went about the entire thousand pages of the novel, without ever acknowledging this purpose he had to his life. This primary, central purpose — this purpose that took a back seat to none other, even though he couldn’t admit the purpose was there.

The words she said to him, just before being sent sailing across the room by his hand to her chin, were…

Then the headlight she had felt rushing upon her, hit its goal — and she screamed in the bright explosion of the impact — she screamed in physical terror, backing away from him.

“What’s the matter with you?” he cried, shaking, not daring to see in her eyes the thing she had seen.

She moved her hands in groping gestures, half-waving it away, half-trying to grasp it; when she answered, her words did not quite name it, but they were the only words she could find:

You…you’re a killer…for the sake of killing…

It was too close to the unnamed; shaking with terror, he swung out blindly and struck her in the face. [emphasis mine]

And that’s why he had to give her a beat-down. He couldn’t admit this to himself. In fact, at the end of the book when he finally said it out loud himself, (SPOILER: Highlight To Read) his brain melted down and he became a vegetable.

Maybe we’re there. Maybe our leaders of today and tomorrow are destroyers, who do their destroying by carefully avoiding any admittance that this is what they are. The trend, so far as I can see it, holds up: They defend only that which destroys other things. Any other kind of defense is, in Gerard’s parlance, uncool.

We can be such deliberate destroyers without being James Taggarts. Let’s just admit what we are. Much better for your mental health that way.

Morgan, it suggests that the things we hold worthy of a costly defense (mine? My wife, my kids, some friends) are in severe peril from the Burges of the world. I wonder — does the cost in “costly defense” include going to prison?

Because if it does (and surely prison isn’t as much of a cost as death) and even a few people agree, it seems it could go a long way toward solving the problem.

And yet I reject the idea that we should treat foolish judges the same way we treat armed attackers in a dark alley. So you tell me — what’s wrong with my reasoning above?
- lensmanx | 06/14/2008 @ 22:44
Nothing so long as you don’t act on it. To do so would diminish you to Burge’s level, in fact, down to a lower one. In effect, the two of you would be nothing more than a pair of physical combatants, with one of you holding the authority to declare his opinion law. Therefore, you’d lose.

I have a better way in mind. The foundation by which American judicial officers get this authority in the first place, is Marbury vs. Madison. In that decision, the Supreme Court formed the opinion that two laws directly conflicted with each other. The logical error committed by Burge, is to presume all judicial opinions are essentially the same. But the opinion he’s brandishing here is one of personal sensibility. “I think that is just awful.” That’s not the same kind of opinion as an interpretation of law…”I think you can’t enforce this law over here, without violating that one over there.”
- mkfreeberg | 06/15/2008 @ 00:31

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Saturday, June 14th, 2008