Nowadays, Islamic societies in the Middle East are relatively conservative and not at the forefront of technology. But medieval Islam in the same region was technologically advanced and open to innovation. It achieved far higher literacy rates than contemporary Europe; it assimilated the legacy of classical Greek civilization to such a degree that many classical Greek books are now known to us only through Arabic copies; it invented or elaborated windmills, tidal mills, trigonometry, and lateen sails; it made major advances in metallurgy, mechanical and chemical engineering, and irrigation methods; and it adopted paper and gun powder from China and transmitted them to Europe. In the Middle Ages the flow of technology was overwhelmingly from Islam to Europe, rather that from Europe to Islam as it is today. Only after around A.D. 1500 did the net direction of flow begin to reverse.
-Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel
I do hate this stuff. How can people post about politics every day and not go out of their minds? I have a lot of respect for people that do, but I worry about them. After a while it will overwhelm you. It's more rage and depression. You can expect it from those in the middle of the conflict. But folks like Misha are "a pathetic disgrace."
Wading through some of that I came to a link to this essay. Without a single citation it attacks faceless, nameless foes. It engages in a host of logical fallacies and yet is drooled over shamelessly. The main point is quite reasonable, but the road is riddled with logical potholes. Shall we [dance]?
The left hates us. We are harder to attack than the racist, homophobic, misogynists that they formerly could comfortably lambaste as right-wingers. (And they deserved to be lambasted, by the way – and I'm not even sure what lambasting is, but it does sound nasty and severe.) [The left hates a challenge? What should be scolded shall be scolded. You are not hated for it by "the left." Get over yourself.]
The point is this: labels don't really work. As one of my readers brilliantly pointed out in my comments section, it's not like the vast sensible middle of the nation is divided into Red and Blue camps, Republicans vs. Democrats, Liberals vs. Conservatives, Left vs. Right. Today's politics are more like a Rubik's cube, where someone you may stand shoulder-to-shoulder with on one subject, can become, with a simple twist of the issues, a bitter opponent in some other fight. ["Today's politics?" Try always. An individual's capacity for varied political preferences has not changed.]
I contend that there is a single litmus that does indeed separate the nation and the world into two opposing camps, and that when you examine where people will fall on the countless issues that affect our society, this alone is the indicator that will tell you how they will respond.
The indicator is Responsibility. [I contend this is an oversimplification fallacy and that dividing "world into two opposing camps" is a bifurcation fallacy.]
Political Correctness, Deconstructionism, Trans-National Progressivism, Liability mania, Crime and Punishment, Terrorism, Welfare, Gun Control, Media Bias, Affirmative Action, Abortion, Education Reform, Social Engineering – all of it – will divide people according to their idea of Responsibility. [Nice laundry list! Affirmative action is a matter of making society responsible for years of slavery and continued racism. It is the only known counter to the affirmative action of the wealthy, especially in college.
Abortion is not solely about responsibility. Religion and science are mixed in it. I see life as a continuous process that started billions of years ago. I don't like the idea of abortion, but if a fetus can't survive outside of the body, then it's a part of that body and therefore under the control of the woman. Whether science can raise a fetus outside of this is beside the point. Anyway, I just want to point out a few problems with this list.]I suspect that there are really only two schools of political thought, and these are based on competing theories of how the human creature is constructed. [false dilemma fallacy]
Again, a caveat about the ever-changing quicksand about labels. But with that said, it appears that people we generally group as 'the left' are convinced that society is responsible for pretty much everything that happens in our lives, that group responsibility trumps individual responsibility because they see the forces of the group – culture, history, economic background – as overwhelming determinants to individual outcome. [And so begins the great straw man construction project.]
Those on the other side see individual responsibility as the final arbiter of human behavior. The United States of America is, without question, the most individual-centric nation in the history of the world....[Without question? Get out much? You really think every nation outside of the US is filled with sheep? It's in doubt now, let alone over the course of all world history.]
B.F. Skinner is perhaps the most famous of the Behavioralists. He did brilliant and groundbreaking work showing how much of behavior is based on conditioning. These experiments were highly predictive – when applied to rats. Somewhat less so, although still very compelling, when applied to monkeys. Erich Fromm makes a convincing argument that much of human behavior is based on avoidance of responsibility in his classic Escape from Freedom. [It makes sense that he brings up Skinner the reductionist. Though he avoids the inevitable digression to follow his forth sentence, that when applied to humans it's much less compelling. He brings up Fromm who was influenced by Freud and Marx. Either way what we get is an appeal to authority.]
But to understand whether or not these experiments – and this theory of humanity –accurately reflects how we are built, we have to get to one of the thorniest philosophical issues since the dawn of human history: namely, is there indeed such a thing as free will?[You can see how screwed this essay is in a little bit.]
It has been our long, bloody and noble history to rise to this idea of individual responsibility; because if it is indeed correct, then it – alone – is the liberator of ourselves as a species. Individual responsibility frees us from our past, from the fate of our birth, from the millennia of class and caste and of failed ideas that have kept so many in bondage for so long. If we indeed do have the ability to control our own selves, then we can free our own minds from the river of history and experience. [BEHOLD the power of positive thinking!]
Those on one side see individuals as rafts on that river of culture, swept along inexorably downstream, perhaps capable of a weak paddling, displacing our paths a few feet from side to side. I on the other hand, and others like me, see human potential as a powerboat, a nuclear-powered hydrofoil, one capable of cruising side to side at will, as easily able to race against the current as with it. I don't believe people are rafts adrift in the destiny of their culture. I think all people have propellers, whether they use them or not, and rudders too. And rather than commiserating with people about the rapids that they endure and the battering that is their lot in life, we should be teaching them how to start those engines, take the wheel of their own futures, and steer themselves wherever they damn well please. [I see myself in a ultra-light flying above this bifurcation.]
This issue of free will has been debated since we've had language. It's not going to be resolved on the pages of this humble weblog.[I told you how screwed up this essay was! But hey, he goes on. What a trooper!]
So which view to adhere to: individual responsibility, or the predominance of culture? I say there are vast sets of evidence to prove that both are correct. So here's what I believe. I agree with the left on this: I do think we are indeed the products of the doctrines that have been fed us since birth. How else to explain the wild differences in human culture from a single species with no detectable biological propensities for intelligence, cunning, hard work or success? [Well, if you read Guns, Germs, and Steel you would find that the answer cannot be reduced in such a manner as you have done.]
How much damage has been done, so far? Consider this passage from Prairie Justice, by Will Bittle: [Go read it. Funny shit! "We are movin' ta France, God-damnit!" Yeah! WOOT!]
And even more importantly, Frontier Justice did not punish the victim. It was crystal clear and steely-eyed in this one essential element, the only one that really matters: it understood who was responsible. [Yes that was sarcasm I used back there. Since we are using FICTION to make historical points about frontier justice I will now invoke Bill Hicks:
I'm so sick of arming the world and then sending troops over to destroy the fucking arms, you know what I mean? We keep arming these little countries then we go and blow the shit out of em. We're like the bullies of the world, you know. We're like Jack Palance in the movie Shane... Throwing the pistol at the sheep herder's feet:"Pick it up."
"I don't wanna pick it up mister, you'll shoot me."
"Pick up the gun".
"Mister, I don't want no trouble huh. I just came down town here to get some hard rock candy for my kids, some gingham for my wife. I don't even know what gingham is, but she goes through about 10 rolls a week of that stuff. I ain't looking for no trouble mister."
"Pick up the gun."
Boom boom
"You all saw him. He had a gun."
Yeah, frontier justice understood all the way!]
Now if Freedom is the credit card, and Responsibility is the monthly payment, it should not come as a surprise to us to realize that human nature says we want the spending spree, but not put in the overtime to pay for it. And if this were just happening on a one-on-one basis, there would not be too much to worry about. [I skipped mentioning this analogy when he first brought it up. It's not a false analogy, but it avoids entering in the usurious interest rate that society tacks on. OOPS!]
And so we have group identity advocates. Because if you can convince someone that they are not responsible for their failures and shortcomings, and that someone else is – not a hard sell if you think about it – then they will be willing to subsume their responsibility into that of the group – and with their responsibility goes their political power. Then all the responsibility of the group – and all their power – is concentrated in the hands of the very few who have led them to this position.
People like Jesse Jackson. Or Pat Robertson. Take your pick. [All I have to say is that sometimes Jesse is right in the case of race. Not always, but the situation has occured.]
Who controls a nation of free individuals? No one. That is deeply unsettling to people who crave political control the way a heroin addict needs his fix. What would Bill Clinton have been without politics? A wildly successful, Little Rock car dealer – that's what I think. And his wife? What of her? Who would have heard of this obscure partner in some backwater law firm? [I think he would have been a sax player and Hillary would have been running a village somewhere.]
What do you think drives such people? Power. Control. [I'm thinking that applied respectively for the Clinton's, "power" would be a word proceeding "penis" and "control" would have "pussy" in front of it. I'm sure Prince could write in a sax for it.]
[Note: large portions remain left without comment. This essay meanders off the point a lot. It repeats itself a lot. I know all about that. To do is to know.]
I read recently of a woman who sued a car dealership. It seems her son had stolen a car from said dealership, gone on a joy ride – drunk, of course – and gotten himself killed. The woman claimed that if the dealership had maintained adequate security, her son would not have been able to steal the car and he'd be alive today.
This is madness. [It's stupid. It's greedy. There has been plenty of that to go around. Yes, we need judicial reform. I'd like to know where this example came from and how the case was concluded. Could it be that it was dismissed? Frivolous lawsuits like the one against Al Franken pop up all the time and it's a matter of the competence of individual judges to throw them out. Because this essay fails to cite any of the claims it makes, I don't feel like I have to pull up the judicial statistics on how often stupid lawsuits like this actually succeed. His point was never proven to begin with.]
To be Politically Correct these days, you must accept the collectivist belief that words are like weapons, endowed with their own internal, innate power, and this power, like that of a chambered bullet, cannot be trusted to be used responsibly and so must be outlawed and banished from the community. [Collectivist belief? Words, in the respect that they carry certain thoughts that, can be dangerous to some institutions. Of course, the straw man construction project wants to say that PC folks are those that wish to criminalize free speech when if fact they merely want to discourage hateful speech by lambasting. I don't give much thought to the PC movement these days. It's so 1990, but you'd think by the way he goes on that it's a major force. It's openly mocked all the time! Bill Maher deserves some credit for this.]
If you have not read 1984 by George Orwell, you have deprived yourself of an entire education right there. There lies the eternal dictatorship, the ultimate all-pervasive Superstate. And how did such a monstrosity come into being? By controlling language. Not only controlling what could be said, but by so simplifying and infantilizing language that entire concepts become literally unthinkable because there were no words for them. Here we sit talking about Freedom, Liberty, Responsibility and all the rest. What if the act of speaking one's mind was described only as "ungood." What if the only adjectives applied to a life of subjection and servility were "double plus good," the very words subjection, slavery, servility, submission banished generations ago? [This is right in the middle of his PC rant, but when the government and the millitary put the spin on things it's propaganda. "Collateral Damage" and its buddies are not about protecting people from hate speech, but from the ugly truth of "civilian casualties," etc.]
To those who want to limit speech they see as hateful, I can only utter these simple words of protest: Go straight to fucking hell you miserable authoritarian cocksuckers!
Forgive me, I know that offended some of you. But remember this: words are words. They are encapsulated ideas, and the only harm they can do us is the harm we ourselves allow them to do us. [OK, so if you believe the words, "Go straight to fucking hell..." and wish to help them along with your trusty rifle, then you can't blame the speaker. Just like you can't blame Alec for asking people to stone Henry Hyde. What about if he said, "Shoot the president!" ?]
And how does responsibility weigh on the issue of Media Bias?
Way back in ancient times -- before, say, 1974 -- the goal of a reporter was not to single-handedly bring down the government and become an international celebrity, but rather to report the facts as fairly and evenly as possible and provide the essential information that we use to direct ourselves as a republic. They had enough respect for the intelligence and decency of the American Public to allow them to make their own decisions.
They also knew that in times of war some things would have to go unreported for a while, so that the country and the free press could survive to read about it later. [Once again we are required to take his version of history as true. No evidence is brought in to support any statement presented here.]
As a single [uncited] example, CNN purposely withheld a number of Saddam's examples of bestial behavior, torture and repression, ostensibly to maintain "access." In fact, the elite determining what passes for news at CNN was opposed to the war, and decided on their own and without disclosing this monumental decision to present the war in the worst possible light. But if the price of "access" is the rote delivery of policy statements dictated by a mass-murderer – as claimed by a few CNN reporters struggling to hold on to some shreds of integrity – then what point is there to such "access" if all they do is mouth the party line of a dictatorship at odds with a nation of 290 million free people? We expect that from puppets like Comical Ali – from an American news source, it is a disgraceful and shocking indictment of how elitist, arrogant and egomaniacal the news media has largely become. It is the willful destruction of the main pillar that supports our Republic. Such an act is a basic violation of a sacred trust, and I think such willing distortion ought to be legally actionable, tantamount nearly to treason or sedition. It is profoundly, poisonously anti-democratic. [Of course, I know that CNN did this, but you get the point. Also bear in mind that if the press is willing to leave things out to maintain access in Iraq, what is to stop them from doing the same thing with our government? Lying by omission, in any case.]
What we decidedly do not need is some arrogant man or woman deciding, consciously or unconsciously, that they will present information in such a way as to influence people according to their own inner ideologies. Sorry, but this is not acceptable...
Note to Dan, Peter, Tom, Wolff and Aaron: trust us. We can handle it.
That's not a plea, by the way. That is a threat.
Trust us, or we will find someone who will. [HAHAHAH! Oh yeah, Glen has no agenda! SURE!]
Deconstructionism. If ever there was an intellectual movement specifically tailored for a certain type of mental illness, this must surely be it.
Deconstructionists believe in collective responsibility and the dominance of culture over individuality to such a degree that they maintain that one of the most striking examples of free will – the ability to write down what one thinks about something – is so colored by culture that the author himself has no real idea what he is saying. [So begins a very personal vendetta against a technique of criticism. The fallacy du jour here is the failure to eluciate.]
Who, then, can truly know what Lincoln, or Shakespeare, or Hemingway was trying to say? Well, you can't simply read what they say and take it at face value. Any common idiot can do that, apparently. What the hell fun is it being better than everyone else if everyone else can get the same information that you can?
No, to understand the true meaning, you have to take several college courses where some obscure and petty failed writer – a man with a bust of Salieri on his mantelpiece – will deconstruct the cultural and environmental factors and tell you what a real author was actually saying.
This level of arrogance is beyond my ability to parody, frankly. [The author seems to have had a professor he didn't like on a topic he didn't fully grasp. After all, decontructionists are not about the"true meaning." He must have failed the class and now goes forth with personal attacks on deconstructionists.]
This is not coercion of responsibility; this is highway robbery. The idea that a band of nitwits with too much free time on their angry and sweaty little hands, can sit in a small sub-basement classroom at Mediocrity U. and tell Shakespeare what he was really trying to say is simply the most vile and reprehensible hijacking of responsibility and authority it has ever been my unpleasant experience to see.
That is why, when I deconstruct Deconstructionism, all I see is a group of pathetic, talent-free, self-hating fourth-raters secretly sending out a message for someone with some common sense to ride into town and hang them all. [Jacques Derrida is seen as one of the major forces behind deconstruction. Since the author of this essay is so biased, I'll try and expand on the definition as found in my Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (forth edition) published by Penguin. It included a quote by Barbara Johnson from The Critical Difference, which says:
Deconstruction is not synonymous with 'destruction', however. It is in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word 'analysis' itself, which etymologically means 'to undo' - a virtual synonym for 'to de-construct'. The deconstruction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion, but by careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text itself [{Penguin book editor's} italics]. If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another. A deconstructive reading is a reading which analyses the specificity of a text's critical difference from itself.The rest of the entry goes on to say that "A deconstructive criticism of a text reveals that there is nothing except the text." Therefore, you must disregard anything outside of the text and that the language of the text can be read as its own language. This is a regression of meaning and therefore "a text may possess so many different meanings that it cannot have A MEANING." Thus, it picks at the stability of literary criticism just as moral relativism picks at the core of ethics. This really bothers some people. People that want to know objective truth are especially uneasy with this. Uneasy enough to call for them to be hung it appears.]
[The next venting is welfare. He fails to cite anything to support his claims once again.]
I can truthfully state that I do not know the numbers, or proportions, of people on welfare who have no business being there, but they certainly appear to be significant. [OK, we just have to trust you then?]
If we are to speak frankly and intelligently about this issue, we must recognize that there are two sides of this coin of responsibility. [Silly me! I thought it would help to have some facts on the current state of welfare. Let's just fast forward to the next logical fallacy.]
Let's take a relative compassion test, shall we? Who is more compassionate: those that want to extend a helping hand in order to allow someone to get back on their feet, gain an education, recover their self-esteem, manifest their self-worth, and lift themselves from the crippling depths of poverty, or someone who wants to hand them an endless supply of meager checks, just enough to destroy their self-respect, hobble their motivation, and sentence them, and their children, and their grandchildren, and their children, to squalid and wasted lives? [Hello False dilemma!]
I oppose the creation and maintenance of a class of people perpetually on the dole because we simply can not afford it. And I'm not talking financially – we have the money to do that until the end of time. [Who doesn't and how have you proven that we are creating this burdensome class of people?] We cannot afford the human cost. We cannot afford to squander entire generations of Einsteins and Sagans and Mozarts and DaVincis by condemning them to a life that consists solely of pushing a lever and getting a food pellet. [Right! Fund education! Raise minimum wage! Now you are talking!]
We have thrown a lot of money at this problem, for nearly half a century now, with no noticeable improvement. Maybe the answer is not to throw just money, but to throw attitudes. It seems worth a try. I don't see how we could do much worse. [Funny. You don't notice an improvement in a situation you barely cover. Not one example exists in this section of the essay. Yet you speak which such certainly. Asshole who?]
I got started thinking along these lines over the huffing and puffing done by the Perpetually Outraged regarding the death of Uday and Qusay Hussein. We were told they had been "assassinated," that the US had "murdered Saddam's children." We, of course, were the ones to blame. We were the criminals. We were responsible. [Not one soul cited. Fucking brilliant! Why didn't I think of this? I can rant away about bad, stupid people without pointing to anyone and still have a comment section loaded with sycophants blowing smoke up my ass. ]
So let's gather up our wits and screw our courage to the sticking post, and delve into the depths of the only true quagmire to result from the War in Iraq – that being the quagmire of insanity and arrogance and willful ignorance expressed in the mindset of the far left. [or right—right? Or is partisan intolerance of ignorance the name of the game with you? Here's a "leftist" take on what happened. Sounds thoughtful to me even though I disagree with it.]
First of all, a brief review of the facts will show that an offer was made for them to surrender – multiple times. I do not recall Lee Harvey Oswald shouting down to the Kennedy motorcade advising the President to get out of the limousine before someone got hurt, nor does history record anything of John Wilkes Booth slipping a note to Lincoln warning him that if he came back for the second act then grave consequences would result. [This goes on for another twelve sanctimonious paragraphs. Who is this for? Who is he ranting about? WHO! WHO!?!?! Rather than quote that I will go back to what Bill Hicks had to say about the Kennedy assassination.
I love talking about Kennedy. I was just down in Dallas, Texas. You know you can go down there and, er, to Dealey Plaza where Kennedy was assassinated. And you can actually go to the sixth floor of the Schoolbook Depository. It's a museum called... 'The Assassination Museum'. I think they named that after the assassination. I can't be too sure of the chronology here but... Anyway they have the window set up to look exactly like it did on that day. And it's really accurate, you know, cos Oswald's not in it."Yeah, yeah so wow that's cool." Painstaking accuracy, you know. It's true, it's called the 'Sniper's Nest'. It's glassed in, it's got he boxes sitting there. You can't actually get to the window as such but the reason they did that of course, they didn't want thousands of American tourists getting there each year going [Mimes looking out of window]
"No fucking way!
I can't even see the road.
Shit they're lying to us.
Fuck!
Where are they?
There's no fucking way.
Not unless Oswald was hanging by his toes, upside down from the ledge. Either that or some pigeons grabbed onto him, flew him over the motorcade... Surely someone would have seen that. You know there was rumours of anti-Castro pigeons seen drinking in bars... Someone overhead them saying 'coup, coup'
Coo.
Unbelievable. And you know what's wild, people's, er, attitudes in the States about it. Talking about Kennedy, people come up to me:
"Bill, quit talking about Kennedy, man. Let it go. It's a long time ago - just forget about it."
And I'm like alright, then don't bring up Jesus to me.
As long as we're talking shelf life here.
"Bill, you know Jesus died for you."
Yeah, well it was a long time ago. Forget about it!
OK, I had to bring in Jesus too.]
Justice.
That those who did these evil things, that laughed while lives were destroyed by their own hand, face the fucking responsibility for their actions. Not to live life comfortably after the massacre of hundreds of thousands, like that cannibal monstrosity Idi Amin, who lived like a sultan for thirty years after his abominations, courtesy of our good friends the Saudis. [Did I say only twelve paragraphs? I suppose I should be aligned against justice now too. Geesh. No really, I'm for justice. The kind that sees Rumsfeld tried for treason for his deals with Iraq well before the war. Cite proof? Hahahah!]
If we accept responsibility for our own actions, we are indeed worthy of our freedom. [You're too kind!]
This idea of individual responsibility is a new one. [New to you maybe.] It works. [For whom?] It needs to be defended. If only a small portion of the mass of humanity can see clearly that this is the key to escape the bondage of history, class, race, sex and economic status, then that is simply a message we need to preach to anyone who will listen. [without all your faulty logic, hopefully.]
I promised I would tell you who is responsible for the mess we find ourselves in.
Proceed into your bathroom and take a long, hard look in the mirror.
I also promised to tell you who can get us out of this fix. Well, keep looking. While you're looking, make a decision.
That's right. This is really the blog of Michael Jackson.
I have to admit that this didn't end up being a total refutation of the essay. I just thought that it was interesting how flawed it was compared to how much the readers of the site drooled over the thing. I know not all of them did, but my point is that when he says, "As for me, I don't give a flying damn about being in the side with the most adherents. I want to be on the side that is correct," I should feel damn proud to be so damn correct without hardly a comment. As I've quoted Aylett before and will paraphrase here: The great thing about being ignored is that you can speak the truth with impunity.
If you want a great debate, go here. If you want to read my current thoughts on free will go here. If you want to read one scary thread, go here. This is the part that gets to me.
Isn't it true that employers will check for a criminal record? Many ex-cons lack basic skills such as literacy and if they are denied entry into even the most menial of jobs, what other realistic option is there except crime?
Absolutely. I was a probation officer for a while (less than a year, as I got too fed up with the privatization of probation going on in Oregon), and it amazed me how off-base my ideas about "recidivism" were before-hand. Most (I'm speaking antecdotally, but an overwhelming majority of my clients fit this) people who go back to prison don't go because they repeat their previous crime. Their re-offense is almost always a probation violation which would not normally be a crime, like drinking alcohol, missing an appointment with someone, or having had smoked weed (even if they were originally in for domestic violence or something else not directly related to drugs).
My googling is not so productive right now, but I recall seeing a list of different private-sector prisons a year ago. Wackenhut is the biggest player on the admin. side, and Intel is the biggest corporate "customer" of slave prison labor. This message is being brought to you by prison=labor microprocessors. This is nasty, IMHO, but nowhere near as screwed-up as privatizing probation (which is basically a social service program).
In very simple terms:
In a privatized probation program, the offender is required to pay a weekly fee (between $100 and $300) for his "services." This is not waived if they don't have a job, and they are forbidden from the undocumented day-labor jobs on which ex-cons often depend. The only clients I had who payed regularly with no problems were the clients who were originally setenced for selling drugs (hmm...). I quit the day that I sent my 20th person to prison for not paying my company hundreds of dollars. This, combined with my employer's plan (now in effect, I believe) to actually use a commission-based model for paying case managers, killed any sense that I was helping people to sort out their lives or helping society to re-accept past offenders. The only thing more disheartening than that was the fact that these programs are spreading to all 50 states.It's an easy sell to taxpayers, as the cost to the city is zilch. It's easy to set up a sweetheart deal with a client-referring judge who wants to avoid all those pesky questions that "real" POs ask.
My apologies for the long post, and the falsely co-opted "air of authority." I hope that someone out there has a compelling social argument in support of private-sector law enforcement (aside from the fact that it is cheaper to pay untrained assholes like to me to administer probation-service delivery than it is to properly train union law-enforcement officials).
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 1:12 PM PST on August 18
When you take that and the story of Seth Ferranti, it's enough to ruin whatever confidence you had in justice. I'm so glad we are exporting to the people of Iraq what we barely seem to manage here.
I had a dream a few nights ago. This is what I wrote that morning:
I was in my car heading down city streets in a rush. I came behind a funeral procession. It was on foot and took up the whole street. I began to get frustrated. I had to get somewhere and I was going to be late if I stayed behind the procession.
At the next intersection I turned left. There were some police officers that bellowed after me, "Have some respect. Do not leave the procession. Stay with the one you were following." And just as those last words came to me I had reached the end of the block and noticed another funeral procession going in the same direction on the next street. I thought, all streets are like this.
I was at a dead stop. I heard a shot. In my rear view mirror I saw a man lying on the street. There was a lot of blood. His left leg was severed at the thigh. A crowd gathered and several men helped him up and began carrying him the opposite way down the street I had originally been on. I assumed it was to a hospital, but the man died after a short while.
By then I had turned around and I was following this new funeral procession.
